The Nuanced Life: Conflict in Romantic Relationships

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Managing Different Approaches to Parenting

  • Conflict in Romantic Relationships with Meredith Goldstein of Love Letters

Thank you for being a part of our community! We couldn't do it without you. To support the show, please subscribe to our Premium content on our Patreon page or Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, or share the word about our work in your circles. Sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Instagram to keep up with everything happening in the world of Pantsuit Politics. You can find information and links for all our sponsors on our website.

EPISODE RESOURCES

This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth Silvers [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:00:10] You're listening to The Nuanced Life, a Pantsuit Politics production.  

Beth Silvers [00:00:13] We're bringing back this beloved show for a limited run to answer your questions and commemorate your milestones.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:00:19] Join us on Fridays this summer as we talk work, family, faith, and more.  

[00:00:23] Music Interlude.  

Beth Silvers [00:00:29] Thank you so much for joining us today. We're so happy to share another episode of our limited run return of The Nuanced Life. One of the most frequent questions we get from you is how to handle conflict in relationships of any sort, but especially in our romantic partnerships. These are some of the most intimate relationships in our lives, and so conflict can feel especially tender and important to handle with care. And so, today, that is what we're tackling. As part of that discussion, we're excited to be joined by Meredith Goldstein of The Boston Globe, who's been writing their Love Letters column since 2009. Meredith also receives all kinds of questions about conflict and relationships. So, we came together to compare notes and talk specifically about how to handle it when that conflict gets political.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:01:12] Before we dive in, we wanted to remind you of two exciting things we have coming next week. First, next week is the third installment of our slow read along of Alexis de Tocqueville's classic, Democracy in America. We've been reading all year along with our premium community, and our next discussion will air a week from today. There's so much to learn from this text that applies to modern America. We have been loving these conversations. And know our premium community is to even those who just listen and don't actually read along. That's fine. It's totally allowed. You can get that content by becoming a premium member through Patreon or Apple Podcasts subscriptions through the link in our show notes.  

Beth Silvers [00:01:46] Next week is the first presidential debate of the year. We'll be releasing our episode next Friday late in the day, so we're going to take a little break from The Nuanced Life on Fridays to cover the presidential debate. That conversation will be different than what you have heard the last two Fridays, and it will be later than normal, but we are going to respond as quickly as possible to what happens on Thursday evening. If you don't want to wait at all for our reactions, you can hang out with us live. Sarah is going to be on Substack on the chat, and I'll be on Patreon. We would prefer to be together, but we're just working with the technology as it comes and we hope this will be a really fun way to be with us in real time while we watch the debate. We'll put information on how to join both of those chats or either of those chats however you'd like to roll in the show notes of this episode. Next up, we're going to talk about conflict in our romantic relationships.  

[00:02:32] Music Interlude.  

[00:02:42] Sarah, before we share our chat with Meredith, we wanted to talk about a question that Amy is having. Amy is struggling with a difference of opinion between herself and her husband about how to handle their teenage daughters’ emotions. This sounds very familiar to me. I don't know if you've ever experienced any difference of opinion like this. So, here's what Amy said, she'd like some advice about getting through the teenage years with two girls, with her marriage intact, because she feels like she and her husband are never on the same page, and Amy knows that she is not 100% right. She does have some notes for her husband about his empathy and humility. She thinks the home should be a safe space for kids to vent what's going on with friends or at school. It's okay for her to complain, but for some reason, her husband believes that that kind of release from their teenager is her teenager being an asshole. And he will shout some unhelpful feedback in Amy's view from another room when he isn't even involved in the conversation, and this is causing some strain between them.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:03:46] So, I know that we did not set this up as a political conflict, but I actually think it sort of is. We had Richard Reeves on the show last year and we talked about this. We talked about the idea that all parenting has become mothering. That the only proper approach to parenting is to mother, to be caring, to be nurturing, to be supportive, to be empathetic. And I think that is something we need to talk about as a culture, because I believe coming off Father’s Day, that fathers bring something unique and different and important to parenting. And I think it's really easy to decide that the way women approach parenting is the correct way to parent, and the way men approach parenting is the incorrect way to parent. And the truth is, neither are correct all the time. That the abundance of approaches from both mothers, fathers, grandparents-- I always tell people we used to have this teacher in Paducah called the Swim Nazi. She taught swim lessons. She would tell them-- and I mean, they were little. Griffin was like two or three when we took swim lessons with her. That if they didn't do what she told them to do, she would snap the head off their trophies at the end of the thing... 

Beth Silvers [00:05:09] That's really intense.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:05:09] That is really intense. Hey, listen, I don't think you should parent that way all the time, but do I think a sprinkle of that approach every once in a while is terrible? I do not. I think children benefit from a wide variety of approaches, including some adults, that they're like that lady is wild. I don't want to be like that when I grow up. But you know what she did? She taught those kids to swim really, really well and effectively and quickly. And so, you know what I mean? You just have to give some grace and understand that we're all humans, and your child is going to benefit from a lot of different humans in their life. This is a diversification of portfolio situation. We don't want everyone to treat our kids the way we would treat our kids. That would not be good for our kids. We want our kids to be treated by a wide array of humans. It takes a village. I heard somebody say once. And I think you just have to trust the process.  

Beth Silvers [00:06:16] So I hired a parenting coach because of a real similar vibe that I was feeling. And I wanted advice both about conflict between my two kids because I didn't have a sibling and their sibling fighting really confuses me, and I haven't had a model of how you navigate sibling fights. And I wanted some information about that. And also, because Chad and I were taking pretty different approaches to that. And on one of our first calls, I said to my coach-- Mary Van Geffen, who was absolutely great for me, so super helpful.  

[00:06:53] Here's what happened, Jane pops off. It makes Chad mad. He pops back off. They're arguing. They're escalating each other. And I'm sitting in the room, lost in my head about how to respond to this because I don't want to take the side of either. I love them both. I don't want Chad to feel undermined. I don't want Jane to feel attacked. I don't want either of them to think that I haven't been supportive of them. I know they need to have their own relationship that sometimes doesn't involve me, and I can't micromanage that relationship. But also, does it seem like I'm skirting my responsibilities if I don't weigh in here?  

[00:07:27] And so, I announce this internal monologue to Mary, and she just lovingly looks through the screen at me and says, "That all sounds right to me. Sounds like you're thinking about the right things." And I said, "Yeah, but I said nothing." And she goes, "That sounds right to me too." And I really learned a lot from workshopping this with her. That what I need to do is have a great relationship with him and a great relationship with her, and then they can both have their own relationship. But their relationship will be improved by me having a great relationship with him and a great relationship with her. Not trying to manage their relationship, but just continuing to love both of them with as much earnestness and enthusiasm as I possibly can.  

[00:08:19] And so, kind of conscientiously pivoting to Chad as my husband and my boyfriend. I think of him a lot as my boyfriend. It really helps me keep that relationship spinning in a different way than when I just look at him as my husband and co-parent. So, I think of him as my husband and my boyfriend, and I think of Jane as my daughter, and I feel like he and I, without having a bunch of arguments about how to parent, are so much more on the same page with me just deciding I'm not going to manage their dynamic. I think it has helped tremendously.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:08:56] Yeah, and because I don't feel obligated to be on the same page. Now, this has been a conflict in my marriage where I'm like, if I think Nicholas is being mean, I'll say, "I think you're being mean," in front of the kids because he's an adult and he can take criticism. I think there's a sense of like kids are some sort of opposing army, and so if you divide, they can conquer you. It's not been my experience because we're still adults and they're still kids. So, I feel like there are times when I let my kids feel sort of different approaches from their father and from lots of different people. And there are times when I step in. Like, if the swim Nazi was letting my child drown, I'd have stepped in. But that's not what was happening. I stepped in at school where I felt like teachers were being very unfair. Pretty rare for me, but very unfair.  

[00:09:47] Amos broke his wrist. He was at the hospital with Nicholas. And I said, "Are you doing anything? You let him watch anything? He's probably in a lot of pain." No. And I just couldn't. I flew into mama mode, showed up with a cupcake and an iPad and he was like, well, I'm going to go. And it was a source of conflict that led to a really bad fight because he was like, "You came and rescued him for me." And I was like, "Well, yeah, I did, because I know you weren't doing anything. And he was just sitting there in pain. And I feel that differently than you do." And that's okay too. You know what I mean? Like, in the same way I have to say sometimes I don't agree, he's going to say that to me. And it's just going to be like, well, yeah, I'm going to push my position across the finish line. And sometimes you're going to push your position across the finish line, and we're not going to be on the same page.  

[00:10:33] And I think that is also a benefit to the kids, to see that there are different approaches and one time one is going to work and one time another is going to work. Happens a lot when we travel. Sometimes Nicholas's overabundance of worry pays off. Sometimes my overabundance of joie de vivre pays off. You know what I'm saying? So, I just think, like, you got to let him see that. I think there's a sense of, like, we have to create a story and like a play, almost, for the kids. And I'm like, no, no, no, we're just living together. There's no play here. There's no performance. This is not a production. This is this is real life. Not like the real world on MTV, like real life. And so, sometimes we fight in front of our kids. We also apologize and talk about it after the fight is over. To say this is what happened, we're sorry. We still love each other. We still love you, but sometimes we're going to fight. I don't feel obligated to create a certain experience for them inside this family that is anything but the lived experience of being in this family.  

Beth Silvers [00:11:34] Yeah. I'll say for me, this was the difference between actually working with a parenting coach versus watching parenting coach content on Instagram, which I do some of from a variety of people. And I think that it is easy when you're trying to learn through reels and Instagram posts. As quality as some of that is, I think that you can start to feel that my job is to curate my own emotions so that my child always has a good experience of me, and my job is to curate everything else happening in my house so that their experience of home is always positive.  

[00:12:15] And that will make you absolutely lose it. That's just too much pressure and it's false. The most important thing for me is that my kids know that we have an honest house, that what they get here is what's real. And so, sometimes that is going to mean that somebody pops off. Just the other day, Chad was fired up about something. And in the midst of that I was kind of comforting Ellen, and he goes, "Don't coddle her." And I didn't love that. And he knew I didn't have that.  

[00:12:50] But I also feel like because I have invested and he has too in our relationship as a couple, we can let some of that go. We don't have an expectation that we aren't going to have moments like that. We are. And we didn't even need to talk about it later because sometimes that happens and you just got to let it and move on. And like you said, I do think it's really important for our kids to see that sometimes somebody acts ugly. And sometimes you act ugly. Sometimes you aren't the best version of yourself. And we can all survive that. I said to Ellen the other day we were having kind of a hard talk about a situation, and she was like, "I'm just so mad at myself.".  

[00:13:30] And I said, "Well, that's the first thing you've got to work on, because if you can't forgive you, then you won't ever genuinely be able to forgive anybody else." And that's just been my life's experience. That's the greatest lesson to me. I have to be okay with as a mom sometimes losing my cool, and doing whatever I need to do after that, which is sometimes nothing, and sometimes is the repair discussed in lots of Instagram Reels. But the pressure to manage just me as a mom, if I extend that to my husband, I think that's bad news for everybody.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:14:06] But let me ask you a question. How do you feel about the fact that you're getting parenting coaches and you're watching the reels, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, Chad isn't?  

Beth Silvers [00:14:13] That's correct. That's exactly where I wanted to go with this, because I have a feeling that that's a lot of what's in Amy's message too. I'm trying to learn about them and he's not. So, I think, number one, there is a bit of a gender bias in that. I don't know all the ways in which Chad is learning about how he wants to be a dad. He reads an awful lot of books. They aren't parenting books, but you sure can learn a lot about different parenting dynamics from reading fiction. I don't want to assume that I have the correct way of educating myself about their developmental level. He also interacts with kids a lot. He coaches a team.  

[00:14:49] He is doing a version of this work. It's just not the version that I've been doing. And honestly, I don't exclusively learn about parenting through parenting books and parenting coaching, so I'm trying to value his way. And that's the best I can do. If I'm mad about that all the time, I'm just going to be mad forever. I don't want to say to him, "For our marriage to work, I need you to read these three titles." That just doesn't feel loving to me. It wouldn't feel loving to me if he came to me and said, I think you are deficient in this category and you need to raise your knowledge about it through the channels that I have deemed fitting. It just wouldn't feel loving.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:15:34] I mean, I live in perpetual fear Nicholas will do that with cooking, that he'll just come to me and say, "Listen, I have all the knowledge here, you have none and you need to improve." And I don't want to. I don't want to learn to cook. I don't want to learn to be better in that area of our household management. Would it be fair and right and just? Probably, but I don't want to. You see what I'm saying? Like, I don't want to. And so, I try to keep that in mind. I still think about Jennifer Senior. I still think about all joy, no fun. And where she talks about the truth is, most of women's parenting would be improved by pumping the brakes on all that content and pressure it creates, and channeling a little bit more of the male/fathering energy of like, they'll be fine. They'll dust it off, they'll be fine.  

[00:16:22] Because that's the conflict is a lot of times with me and Nicholas. Because he's like, they're fine. I'm like, they're not fine. But most of time he's like, they're fine. Like, that's fine. I live with four males. Okay. It's fine is the default. I'm fine. It's fine. It's not going to be a big deal. And I need some of that balance a fair amount of the time. I do need that diversification of perspective because I love every single woman in my life, particularly my girlfriends. When I go to them with a problem, is their energy "it's fine?" No, but I have two male friends who are. That's their energy. I love to go to them because they're like, that's super interesting. What else is going on?  

[00:17:09] Because their perspective is different and I think that that's valuable. I really think that we have got to continue to have this very important conversation of the value that men bring, because it has become that they are a liability and nothing else. And that is actually toxic masculinity. I think that's the actual toxicity right now, is that they're nothing but a liability. They make everything worse. What a terrible, terrible message to send to boys, to send to men, to send to fathers, that they're nothing but deficient. And any way that I can balance that out in my own household, in my own parenting, in my own marriage, I'm here to say that, no, they're not just deficient. They're not just less good at life than women. That's such a messed-up way to think about half the world's population.  

Beth Silvers [00:18:07] And it also doesn't mean that there's no room for improvement. It doesn't mean that there aren't moments when, yeah, the dad escalates and it's totally unhelpful and it's super frustrating. I just have relieved myself of responsibility for deciding that I'm in charge of dealing with that. Because I don't want him to be in charge of dealing with me when I have parenting badly, which I do. To me, the mantra is I pour into my relationship with him and I pour into my relationship with her, and I hope that I have contributed something to them having their own very good relationship. There's one more layer of Amy's message that I want to ask you about, Sarah. Amy said that another dynamic here is that the older daughter has a physical disability and so doesn't always present like a typical teenager. And the younger daughter does not have a physical disability. And so, Amy's perception is that the younger daughter gets a lot more criticism and judgment because of that difference between the two of them. And I was curious about your perspective on that.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:19:22] My perspective on all sort of sibling differences is very unique because I don't have any siblings. I have half siblings that I didn't grow up with. They lived across the country. But I was saying to Griffin the other day, I was like, "Can you imagine what your confidence would be like if there was someone two years older than you, constantly telling you weren't quite up to snuff, which is what you do to Amos?" There's this constant thing of like, that joke is lame. That's not right. Don't tell a story that way. Like, just perpetual. Whereas, that eldest child energy is different. It's just different. And I told Nicholas this weekend-- Griffin was getting a lot of praise at camp, and I'm like, I have learned enough now to know not to get cocky based on the outcome of the eldest child, because they are just a different, different creature.  

[00:20:07] And it sounds like it's sort of interesting because with the physical disability, it's almost like you're getting a little bit like an eldest child. You're getting to encounter these things for the first time. And I think it would be hard if you were encountering these for the first time, but it didn't feel like it. And I think that's really hard. And I just have to tell myself constantly that they are different individuals. And I think that's the sibling situation is the trap of this parenting narrative, that there's one right way to do it, that there's one thing you can learn that will crack it open, that once you understand developmentally what's going on, then you can do it the right way. Yeah, maybe for one kid. I think all parenting books are probably written for eldest children and only children. I don't think they offer a lot for middles and babies in my personal experience, but that might be my kid’s personalities.  

[00:21:03] It just feels like you have to relearn everything for every kid. Like, they're all so different. Griffin is just like me. And I think there's a narrative that parenting the one that is like you is harder. I don't find that to be true. I know how to speak to him because I know how to speak to myself. I've had a lot of practice. But Amos, who is very, very, very different from me, I find really perplexing and a real struggle to kind of get in his head and try to figure out what will work. And maybe I never will. Maybe this standard I've set for myself that as his mother I should understand him-- because that is something I had to let go with Felix because of his disability. I cannot know him the way that I would like to because I do not have that experience. It is not my disability, it is his. And I think as the parents of disabled children, we can adopt that identity in a way that's very unhealthy and can harm the relationship with the child.  

[00:21:54] I really, really love the book Far From the Tree, because it goes through all these horizontal identities that parents don't share with their children, which I think is a really, really intense parenting experience. And I would think some of that coming along with the second child could be an exercise of that anxiety, right? You're trying to get out the sense that I missed it or I didn't understand it, or it wasn't the experience I wanted because of the physical disability with the first child. Like, I just think there's just so much buried underneath how we react in parenting situations. And we tell ourselves it's because of knowledge. We want to intellectualize parenting, which just feels like a fool's errand most of the time because there's just so much buried underneath.  

Beth Silvers [00:22:40] I have one sister and she's 12 years younger than I am. And so, when I went to college, she went to kindergarten, which means we really had different parents. My parents were in a totally different phase of life when she was little than when I was little. So, we're really different people, but they were really different people too. And I try to remember that when I am thinking about am I treating my girls with consistency? No, of course I'm not, because they are different people and we're different people than we were at those ages for Jane. Even though they're much closer in age, you learn a lot in four years. I tell Ellen all the time, well, this isn't my first time with third grade. I know a little bit more than I knew with Jane.  

[00:23:23] And sometimes I'll say to Jane, "You know what, Jane? I'm really sorry. I didn't know this when you were in third grade. It would have been so helpful." And if we had a third child, I would know third grade even better, because I would've done it before, right? So, I just try to announce to them the grace that I am giving myself in these moments, because I think that that will shape them more than any system or technique that I could put into place. The result of parent coaching for me was realizing that whenever I have a question, it is less about the management of the kids and more about the story I'm telling myself about what's going on in my house. And so, the best thing that I can do sometimes is let go of that story. I think your description of it as a play is so good, Sarah, because it is often that I'm kind of robbing the people around me off their own humanity when I decide how everything should go.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:24:23] Yeah.  

Beth Silvers [00:24:24] When I take on that kind of responsibility, I'm actually taking something away from them. I'm making them character actors in the play that's about me and who I am as a mom. And so, I'm really trying to just say, yeah, we treat you differently because you are different people and we're different people. And that's going to happen in life absolutely everywhere. And I think that's okay.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:24:47] Yes, I absolutely struggle with that, with not giving the people I love most in my life that sense of personhood and humanity and independence from this narrative I have inside my own head. I think it's really difficult with our kids because the stakes feel so high and you do want to move them around like you did your Barbies back in the day in Barbie's dream house. Put them everywhere they're supposed to go, and then they'll stay there. And it is really, really hard to let go of that control. And in some ways, having a child with a disability has taught me that, that there is just a sense of lack of control, letting go of that narrative of what you deserve, what you're entitled to, what should be happening when you have little kids and you're married and you've done the things. That sort of simmering resentment of I'm trying so hard, why isn't everybody trying so hard. But that's the constant work of being a parent, of being a woman, of being a human. And that's why we love The Nuanced Life. That's why we love being here, having these conversations. It's very helpful. It's very helpful to me, Beth.  

Beth Silvers [00:25:55] It's helpful to me too. And I will say to Amy what Mary said to me. It sounds, Amy, like you are asking really good questions from a place of a lot of love. And I hope that that can be sort of the gift to you, that it was to me, that just asking those questions is the loving act, and we don't really need to be able to answer them. Up next, we are going to continue to talk about conflict in relationships with Meredith Goldstein, who writes Love Letters for The Boston Globe.  

[00:26:23] Music Interlude.  

[00:26:33] Meredith, thank you so much for joining us.  

Meredith Goldstein [00:26:35] Thank you for having me.  

Beth Silvers [00:26:36] We are delighted to talk with you. Tell us a little bit about Love Letters, and specifically about the political love letters that you receive.  

Meredith Goldstein [00:26:44] So, I've been writing the Love Letters advice column for 15 years now. That's like a really long time. So, we get letters about everything from breakups, to dating fatigue, to divorces, to in-laws. And, of course, we wind up also getting political letters. And we also have translated this over into a podcast where people tell longer stories about their problems and solutions. And we have mostly shied away from politics on the podcast, preferring to stick with break ups, etc. But in the letters and the advice column, it comes up. And everything is politics a little bit, so what I get when I receive political letters, usually there's a gender divide. Meaning that it's not same sex couple. Usually, it is he likes this and believes this, and I believe that.  

[00:27:34] I mean, I hate to generalize, but that's what it's been. And I look back, there was a letter that I think is actually adorable now about a pre-trump local election. Coakley and Scott Brown for Senator. Somebody wrote in and was, like, he like Scott Brown, I like Coakley. And in Massachusetts, at the time I was like this is really difficult. Not long after that I'd be, like, oh, how quaint. So, I got a lot of letters during 2016, and I actually picked them here and there because everybody was feeling it. And now it's different because we've been with this for a long time. There was a shock at that time about how could I not know this about my partner. That was really complicated.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:28:19] So more importantly, when you get them, what do you say? What do you tell people who are on different sides of the political spectrum with their partners?  

Meredith Goldstein [00:28:28] Well, they're all super nuanced. So, it's not as simple as if you disagree that's it. Of course not. I think what I've been trying to do over the years is have people look at the micro, small issue level. I was just listening to a talk by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and she was talking about, well, most of the people in the country feel the same way about guns. Or most of the people in the country feel the same way about abortion. She was trying to make a crowd of people feel better about what if we never get along? And sometimes with couples, I'm like, well, there probably a lot of things you do agree about, and it's much more than a sign here and a sign there.  

[00:29:05] I think these conversations have to be super granular, but when there is no middle ground and there is no respect about the lack of middle ground, I kind of say to people, "Some of you have to break up, some of you probably should break up, but a lot of you also probably do have a middle ground." And I'm seeing that now with a whole different group of people thinking about Gaza and the Middle East. This is how do you talk about this in a way that's more than just a sign.  

Beth Silvers [00:29:37] I wonder how you think about political disagreements in relationships versus other types of disagreements. Is there a category difference for you, or does this connect to the kind of fundamental issues that you see when people disagree about how they parent, or how they interact with in-laws, or money, or other kinds of disputes that come up in relationships.  

Meredith Goldstein [00:29:58] It's almost like branding to some extent. And I think it depends on what the difference is. If you're talking about reproductive rights, this could be just what it is. A deal breaker right off the bat. But when you get into how somebody feels about a candidate and how they make you feel, it can sometimes seem bigger than it is. Whereas, all of our other problems most of the time are about being seen on a daily level, how you're treated. It's really interesting. You can meet somebody who shares your exact politics and has all the right buttons. And when I say that, I mean buttons on a backpack, right? Pins. And they can treat you terribly.  

[00:30:34] I remember years ago knowing someone who had a partner who was volunteering and, and always worried about the world and talking about green energy before anybody else was. And he was a pretty terrible boyfriend. So, we have to think about our other problems are often how do you treat me in our home? How are you listening? How do you hear me? How do you see me? Are we having fun? And yet, when we get into politics, it absolutely connects with how we behave in our home. But sometimes those things don't match.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:31:06] I have to believe that got supercharged during Covid. That's what we experienced too. That that's that was the ground zero for my political beliefs, match up with my daily behaviors, match up with how I'm interacting with other people. And so, it was just fertile ground for so many conflicts and families and churches and workplaces, and I'm sure inside relationships.  

Meredith Goldstein [00:31:28] We had like a year and a half of so many Covid letters. And we still get them sometimes. But I think some of them were more political than they knew. Most people were, like, this rule doesn't work for me. And I wound up talking to a lot of people who were sex therapists about boundaries because, weirdly, they were in a similar space. About this makes me feel safe, this doesn't make me feel safe, and we have to share this space together. So, you can't have your friend over who goes into grocery stores unmasked. And the masking was political. And it also brought up a lot about ableism I think for a lot of people.  

[00:32:07] Where people who were caregiving and people who were thinking about others were saying, "Okay, wait, just because we don't have to mask for ourselves, who are we masking for?" And to be honest, we were all really led in many different directions about this. So, I have a lot of empathy for people who are, like, we don't know what to do. And I find myself really inconsistent, and I have high risk people in my life and my Covid rules are my Covid rules, and they will change at any second, and I'll get mad about them with everybody. And I think we all experienced that a little bit. So, yeah, so many letters from people about, oh well, my significant other is best friend won't get vaccinated. I don't want them to come over. Yeah, it brought up a lot of issues about consent and sharing space.  

Beth Silvers [00:32:56] I wonder how often we're using politics to work out things underneath the politics. Like, do you think that when people write to you, it usually is really about the politics or that it's about something more like respect in the relationship or just being hurt or feeling dismissed?  

Meredith Goldstein [00:33:12] I think a lot of times, for me, I'm hearing about personal issues and feeling dismissed, and what are the rules of the home and I'm I seeing? But I think there's the separate thing that happens with politics, which is I brought up the word brand that I feel gross using it. But there is like the branding of a person. What do they say they believe versus how do they behave in the world and how far does it go? I mean, I think about my neighborhood a lot, which I love, and it's a very progressive place. That is also deeply gentrified and now unaffordable for a lot of people.  

[00:33:48] And so, you have a lot of people around who want to do right by the world and yet are part of a greater issue in real estate and the movement of cities. And people far smarter than me can talk about this. But it's like we all have a preference for how we engage with the world and try to make it better, in a way that we think makes it better. And our partners do, too. It's like, are we comfortable with their priority list? And that's really difficult because it might have nothing to do with how they treat you when they're home and watching TV.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:34:25] Actually, that touches on something that I wonder as an advice writer. We've done advice on and off throughout the podcast, and I always struggle when someone asks us for advice because I think, I need to know a million more things about this situation. And you kind of touched on that. You kind of asked some questions about what's going on. How do you deal with that? How do you feel, like, how can I offer good advice to this person when there's so much information I'm missing?  

Meredith Goldstein [00:34:52] I mean, if I were an actual mental health professional and not a journalist turned advice columnist, I would not be telling people what to do. That's not how it works, right? So, a lot of the time I'm just like, you know what would be good? Taking another step and finding an actual mental health professional. But what I found is that the act of writing a letter is really helpful. You get it down on paper. You prioritize the information. Someone can send me a letter saying, "Here are all the reasons this is not going to work politically with my partner, but also they're really sweet." Or they can give me 800 words about how sweet they are, and one line about the politics. And they're telling their own story. They're prioritizing their own information there.  

[00:35:29] So some of it is I can make an educated guess based on what they've chosen to share. The other thing is that sometimes I'm just straight up wrong. And the good news about that is that people will email me and say, like, you told me this and it made it clear that it was really that. So, I always say, listen, this is your life; figure it out on your own. I don't know all the information. But sometimes I'll say, it sounds like it's the end of your relationship. And somebody will write back and say, you know what? It turned out it wasn't. And hearing that from you clarified what I hadn't shared. So, I think sometimes it's helpful to be wrong. And I love it when I'm wrong in a way that means somebody else gets to be more happy.  

Beth Silvers [00:36:13] I'm stuck on your use of the word brand about politics. So, I want to dig into that a little bit more and ask you how often you feel like you're hearing, "I am personally uncomfortable with where my spouse is." Or something more like, "I'm worried about how other people will perceive us because of this difference. Maybe I'm embarrassed about where my spouse is."  

Meredith Goldstein [00:36:35] Yeah, and it's also the language, right? We got to make sure we're also saying the phrases that claim we are what we want to be. So, I think it's a little of both. I think it is about embarrassment, and then it's also about betrayal. I think I thought you understood my role in the world as a woman, and now you're telling me you don't because you support this candidate or you don't support this issue. I thought you saw me, and now I'm not thinking you do. So, I do think it's both. I think it's please don't embarrass me at a party. Please don't show people that you don't get it. But then it's also weight. Do you understand my experience in the world?  

Beth Silvers [00:37:13] I think the hardest thing about that, as I listen to it, is that I find my marriage to be a really useful place, not to debate the politics of something, but to figure out what I know and don't know and what's important to me. I feel like I have more freedom in my relationship to change my mind than I do maybe elsewhere in the world. I wonder if that dynamic is unusual for me, or if you think that that exists in many relationships?  

Meredith Goldstein [00:37:42] I think it depends on the partnership. But I do think there is this, like behind closed doors, "Wait, I don't really get that. Can we look into that together?" Or like, "Can you tell me your experience?" I have a significant other who is a nice man, who is a white dude, who is really comfortable asking questions. And actually, when everything started months ago with things happening in the Middle East, he was like, "So you're Jewish, right?" And I was like, yeah. And then it's like having a conversation. Well, here's what I know. Here's what I don't know. And I was like, here's what I don't know. Which is a lot. And this assumption that everybody knows the things that they know. But it felt safe to have a conversation because the first thing we admitted was all that we don't know.  

[00:38:32] So some in some relationships that's not going to happen, and others it will. And others it will about one thing. And I have to get better about not jumping into the you're doing it wrong space, which I think falls to my assumptions about gender a little bit. But it's all political, right? He's watching the criterion collections top 100 films or something like that. And I was, like, I bet all the critics are male. How many women directors? Right. Probably maybe I'm right. I don't even know. But the point is, I don't know if I'm right. I don't know yet and I'm already ticked off. So, it's figuring that out too. Like, I don't know, let's take a look at the list. Let's see what might be absent and why.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:39:17] Well, and it just occurs to me that politics is often the manifestation of whether or not you are assuming you already know everything about your partner, or if it's an entry point into learning more about your partner and distinguishing whether someone decides that they already know everything they need to know about you, or that you are something they're always interested in learning more about. It's really about the relationship, not about politics. Which is true in a lot of things.  

[00:39:44] I mean, we've said that before about all political conversations, that they should be an entry point and a place of curiosity instead of a way to judge or conclude things about each other. But I applaud you. I think doing advice is tough. I struggle with it every time it comes up on our podcast, and especially any relationship questions about relationship questions that involve politics, I think are even more intense. So, thanks for helping people and listening to people. I think you're right; I love your insight that sometimes getting it wrong is the most helpful thing you can do for someone.  

Meredith Goldstein [00:40:18] Yeah, it's great to get it wrong.  

[00:40:20] Music Interlude.  

Beth Silvers [00:40:30] Thank you for being here with us today. Thank you to Meredith for joining us as well. We'll be back with you on Tuesday to talk about housing policy with the phenomenal Jerusalem Demsas. And then on Friday, we'll be back to talk about the first presidential debate of the 2024 election. Don't forget, if you'd like to join us live on debate night, we will be on Patreon and Substack in the chat. So, there's information about how to do that in our show notes. Until then, everybody have the best weekend available to you.  

[00:40:56] Music Interlude.  

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Beth: Alise Napp is our Managing Director. Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.  

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.  

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Emily Helen Olson. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. Genny Francis. Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen. The Munene Family.  

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

Alise NappComment