Division of Labor

Published Oct 21, 2019, 4:00 AM

Jana and Mike discuss what’s fair when splitting up chores in a marriage. It’s a tough issue that many couples deal with, so they call in an expert, Eve Rodsky, to try and make some sense of it. 

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Fine down with Janet Kramer and Michael Cosson and I heard radio and People's Choice Awards nominated podcast. Is that like a full moon or something or did it just happen? It just happened. Oh, that's right, because we were looking at it and I was saying, moon up sundown. That's what our daughter says, moon up sundown. It's nighttime. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm trying to bring a little personality here, but go ahead, Mike. Sorry where that was going. I was just saying, because that we're having we're having technical difficulties, you know, I just speaking of moons um And I felt really stupid about this. But it was until I had kids that I realized that the moon and the moon does its own thing. Like when I always thought the sun gets up in the daytime, moon's up at night. But then my kids were like, why is the moon out is three in the afternoon. I don't know. I'm gonna look into this, and the moon just does its own thing. It goes up and now whenever it feels like I'm going up, and now I know, And that's always what I was kind of telling Jolie too. I was like, well, technically, the moon's always up, but it's her way of saying it's night time. Yeah, saying it's a nighttime, but she doesn't realize that's up during the day. So I feel like when she does see it, she's gonna be like, wait, what during the day if she ever sees like I'm trying to like point it out to her so that she can realize, like, technically, there's stars in the moon are both out, and we're going to have to answer those questions. Yeah, I can't believe it took me to age thirty eight to know that about the moon. That seems like basic information. Don't say your thirty eight Mark, come on? Was when I found out? All right, Michael, since since Mark and I don't have very interesting conversation, what would you like to talk about it? Just it just took me for a surprise. That's A'll let you. That's great. I'm excited for our guest today. Yeah, I am, because I want to talk about you know, Busy Filiters came out with an article recently about her considering divorcing her husband because she felt like she did everything. You and I have had discussions about this on podcast and you know live podcast shows that we've done when we're toward We've talked about ourselves on divving up home responsibilities and feeling like we either do less or more or whatever it is. Yeah, I feel like it's so we've talked it out though, But she's written a book about it. She's specialist about this and has a whole kind of scientific process behind it. Well, then I'm interested to hear the scientific part of it because so many people, even after we've talked about it, they're like, Jan's whiney, Like, of course moms do the laundry. But it doesn't have to be that stereotype. Oh says the man that's like, well that's what women do. When did I ever say that with the kids stuff. I'm just saying, you guys just take charge on some things. Yeah, it's because, okay, because it would be such a mess if it wasn't. But well, again, we've talked about this at least five times on the podcast already. But this is great because she's the Marie Condo, they say, of marital responsibility. She can fix these problems. But there is a chicken and egg element of it, like does the wife do everything because the husband's lazy? Or does the wife do everything because she needs it done a certain way and he's only going to screw it up. I think it's both, Yeah, I truly do, because I don't think they care enough to do it the right way and they don't think they ca Yeah, I think I don't think you care, or you're lazy and you don't care enough. It's kind of both. That's kind of harsh. I mean, I think a lot of wives would agree with me. It's really aggressive. I'm sorry, lazy and we don't care. No, I'm saying, like, I think that's how your persona comes off with it. That's y'all's perception. Maybe okay, But again, so because we don't do it the way you want, it's again, no, it's not that's the right way. It's just like you guys would let the laundry fill up to like the top and then still not do the kids laundry or put it away the right or put it away at all, and just like let it just kind of sit on the dresser until it goes back down to the bottom, like like the top of the dresser, not actually in the dresser. It's like, you know, you actually can put the clothes, like you're laying it on the dresser. You don't, you know. So it's just I just I think there's a combination of both. But again, we don't care about the garage. But again I don't know, So that's kind of I guess that where it goes stereotype there because we don't we could give two craps about the garage. You know you care about the garage, Well, I do, because it's still a mess and I want to clean it up. But I'm like, no, it's your domain. Like I want to go and organize the thing that you said was going to organize our garage and it still looks like a mess, right, And it's one of those things that's it's on the list, But it's how many other things do we have that's on the on the priority list? Where if I was out there doing that, you'd be like, why are you doing this right now when you should be doing this doing whatever something else. I feel like you're you guys would find something else that's more important to maybe you to take away from what we're doing. I just again, I think it's just like priorities, you know, But it's well, I'm very interested to now talk to her since she has a hopefully a method to the madness. Is she Is she there yet? Mark? She is um before we bring her in. How are you guys doing? Yeah, we're great. We maybe get a little update on how life spent for you too. Well, I'm not. I was out on the boat last week, so I think you know, if he wants to say anything, he can say any thing. But I was like last week and then I just got a few So if you want to say something, you totally can. When you said something the other day that that maybe a point when you said something it kind of triggered me into getting quiet. Do you remember what it was? Yeah? The second that I told you about the articles is when you completely shut down. That's right, because yeah, I get like that sometimes when I feel like that is being used against me, like what people are saying that bothers me, that triggers me. But you know, still, I didn't handle it the best last week, and I was angry and I was bitter, and I just kind of let everything get under my skin, which usually I don't when it comes to outside uh information or people or tabloids or whatever that don't matter in a relationship. Um, but ultimately, you know, I'm sorry for how I handled the situation. I'm sorry that Jannah had to feel what she had to feel and that it was so triggering, and you know, it's one of those things that it just you know, I handled it poorly, and it sucks that something that seems so simple was so difficult to do. But Jane and I are in a much better place now and continue to process it and handle it. But yeah, we're doing way better. You know why we're also doing way better is because we're sleeping really nice. And why's that, honey? With our Brooklyn and sheets. Uh, the other day I was doing laundry, of course, and I was separating the laundry, and I was making sure that I separated because somehow the Brooklyn and sheets got on the guest bed sheets. And the other day You're like, why are the Brooklyn sheets down? I'm like, well, I think they're in the guest room. So when our guests left, I made sure I did the laundry and then separated them to make sure that our sheets were then swapped out with those sheets, because I think of those things. Um, Brooklyn and Sheets are awesome. They were the winner of the best of online betting by Good Housekeeping magazine and they have over thirty five five star reviews UM, more than any other online betting company. So their mission is to make comfortable luxury sheets, towels, betting and more without the luxury markup. Again, these are our favorite sheets, honest hand to god. UM, we love them. Most. Betting, by the way, is marked up by UM for as much as so not Brooklyn and they were the first directed consumer betting company, meaning they worked directly with manufacturers and directly with customers. UM. So yeah, we love our Brooklyn and sheets and for our listeners, you get teen percent off and free shipping when you use promo code Jana at Brooklyn dot com. They're also so competent in their product that all their sheets, comforters, towels come with a lifetime warranty. So the only way to get tempercent off and free shipping is to use promo code Jana at Brooklyn and dot com. That's Brooklyn and b R Okay, l I N E N dot Com promo co Jan and Brooklyn and these really truly are the best sheets ever. Okay, super excited. UM, Mike and I both are very excited about this. We have eve Rod Sky and Studio. How are you right? I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to have you. Can we just just go right into it because it's kind of been the Great Age debate, great Old age debate for all generations. Um, first off, though, are you married? I'm married with three children ag eight and three. Okay? Perfect? So that like right there kind of seals your authent your your authenticity on it because I'm like, okay, if she's not married, yeah, this girl, like I don't know, like like because of teen years in marriage, three children, hopping on the side of the road over text my husband sent me that just said I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries. So I've been in it perfect. So start from the beginning. You know, why did you write this book? Um? What was your like, what was your reasoning behind it? Was just too not like other wive seal alone? Or is it just kind of the scientific part behind a bit? Both both? Um, But it really did start with my own personal story of getting a text after my second son, Ben was born seven years ago, eight years ago that said, I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries, and you can picture the scene. I had a breast pump and a diaper bag on my passenger seat. I had gifts for to return from a new baby because stores give you like one day return policy. Um. In the back seat, I have a client contract on my lap with like a pen sort of poking me in the vagina as I'm trying to right mark up a contract at every red traffic lightstop the way to pick up my second son, who's two years and eight months at his toddler transition program, which in America lasts like again ten minutes because people we really value working parents here in America, and so um, even though I was gonna be late to pick up Zach when the text came in, I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries. I just pulled over to the side of the road and I started sobbing, and I was thinking, well, but I was really thinking was ship. If my marriage is going to end, it should be over something way more dramatic now, like you know, maybe like an affair with an NFL player or something better for me. But um, what I was really thinking was how did I become the default for every single household and childcare tasks women do? Two thirds two thirds of what it takes to run a home and family, regardless of whether we work outside the home, a statistic that I was living at the time but didn't even know about. YEA interesting. I hear you and I share all that weight. I feel like that's every day for jama Oh I know I and truly and I was like, yeah, it's like and he he kind of mocks me sometimes he's like, you're carrying ten things, got a kid, You're on the phone doing a business call, you're you know, cleaning up whatever. And then it's like, you know, he's still working on that one task, right, That's that. That is where I was, and I will say that, um, blueberries guy is the most amazing man. Now he's holding all of the cards. That's the fair Play metaphor. While I've been on this book tour and our relationship is completely transformed. But it was this is not a memoir. I wrote fair Play Now as a memoir. Once that happened, when I was sobbing on the side of the road, I decided to go on a quest to find a solution for domestic rebalance. And the good news is is I've read every single article in book on this topic of what's called second shift, emotional labor, mental load, invisible work. And not only that, I went out and interviewed five men and women that mirrored mirror the U. S Census in terms of socio economic status and ethnicity. And the good news for fair Play and the bad news for societies. It's happening to women everywhere, couples everywhere. Is it unbalanced because we do it to ourselves? It's a great question. I think that what I found, my biggest finding was that the smallest details were causing the biggest problems. And so even though fair Play sort of started as my love letter to women, ended up as my love letter to men. I had men all over the country telling me things like they were locked out of their home over a glue stick. I had a man in white planes literally telling me that he was deciding does he drive into New York City and get a hotel room, is his wife going to calm down? Does he get let back in his home? And from her perspective, I found out later she had been working for three weeks on a Homer project besides working full time, and all she needed was to glue the Albert Einstein photos on the poster board and her husband couldn't even bring home a glue stick. But that Sam's just disrespectful. Well, I actually look at it from the male perspective because what I call in the book, I call that a rat F. I don't know if I'm a sakers here, but the rat f, the rat four letter word F is the random assignment of a task. And so all over this country, men were getting screwed with rats. Pick up the glue stick, go to the store for me, go um, go, take the kid to the birthday party, and not having any address. An assistant New York Times came out with an article said that the only way to get men to do more is to train them, and I had a man say, I'm not a dog, right. So this has became my love letter to men because I realized that this is not working for either of us. It's not working for me to be sobbing on the side of the road and feeling overwhelmed, but it was also not working for men. They wanted to know their role in the home, and so that's that's where it came from. And it's interesting too, because I feel like when it's something like the example you used to even about the glue stick. It's maybe in our perspective, like I can understand how that would be so impactful if that's all they asked for. Maybe you know, some women don't ask a lot of their husbands, and the one thing they asked them to do they can't do. I get the importance of that, but also being on the receiving side of it, sometimes I would feel unfair because then it puts all this weight into this singular, seemingly insignificant task. That's like, oh wait, what, how do you now all of a sudden, I don't love you, I don't care about you. I disrespect you because I didn't get a glue stick. I think that's so beautiful the way you just articulated that, because that's what I was hearing from men everywhere. So I'll give you really the core of the fair play system, right, the core of the fair play system. What I found is if we treat our home like an organization with some respect and rigor the way we treat our workplace, everything changes. So I'll give you an example, Mustard, back to what you were saying about the glue stick, Mustard, somebody needs to know in your household, that your second son Johnny, only eats protein when he dips it in French as yellow mustard. That's what I call conception. Then somebody writes it down on a list when it looks going low and the refrigerator along with the other groceries for the week. That's planning. Then somebody gets their butt to the store, has to get to the butt to the store to actually purchase the yellow mustard. That's execution. And all over the country, what I found is that's when men are stepping in. And that's a serious problem. Because you always bring home spicy dijon, you just do, and I asked you for yellow mustard. And so men all over the country were saying things to me like, well, I'm not going to go back to the store because I can't do anything right. Whereas women were saying to me, you're asking me eve to trust them with my living will my partner with my living Well, he can't even bring home the right type of mustard. So as a mediator, I like to say, the presenting problem is never the real problem. This is not about mustard or sticks. It's about trust and ownership and expectations. So what happens when you handle the full mustard situation from conception to planning to execution, then you know what mustard to get. And so my entire book fair Play is all about the fact that fifty fifty is the wrong equation. When we can move to an understanding that it's not about fifty because that's scorekeeping, but it's about ownership, own the full mustard situation, and things start to change really quickly. What else have you seen from a um scientifical background part of it, Like, is there anything that's to be said about you know that men truly can only do one thing at once, or they have to have their one task kind of like my husband says, he's like, you know, he focuses on one thing and one thing only. Okay, great, I love that you asked about the science. So the biggest finding that I found, the biggest finding, which is the core of the whole fair Play system, is an expectation and understanding from my research. And then I'll tell you about the actual science, you know, the real UM time you know, time journal psychology, and sociology. But what I found was that men women in society view men's time as finite, like diamonds, and women's time is infinite like sand. Now I just said men women in society, so we can understand. Okay, men all over we're saying things to me like I don't have time. I don't have time, but my wife has time. So yes, we can understand for men. But the biggest problem that I found was that women also don't value their time. So women all over the country were saying things to me like, oh, of course I should go get the mustard, pick up the extra slack, pick up my kids from school because my husband makes more money than me. Not true. Other women were saying to me, I do this because I'm a better multitasker. I'm wired differently, and my husband can or my partner can only handle one thing at a time. I went to the top neuroscientists in this country. There is no science that has ever proven that women are better multitaskers or are wired differently. Actually, one said to me off the record, which I'm gonna use here, but I can't quote him. He said to me, imagine, you can convince half the population that they're wired better to wipe asses and do dishes. You can convince them that they're better at wiping asses and doing dishes. Well, guess what, maybe we'll end up with a Forbes list that just came out last month that has a hundred CEOs on it and n of them are men. So no science to prove that we're wired differently than men. Can only focus on one task at the time. Um, and then other women were saying to me, in the time it takes me to tell him what to do, I might as well do it myself. I think. I went to which which I which I understand. But where I know Jane and I come into run into like obstacles with that is, well, don't hold it against me or you know, as as speaking from almen, don't hold it against us. If it's something that you just said, you just rather do absolutely. And I went to the top behavioral economists in this country. His name is Dan Arielli. He's a best selling author. And I said to him, does that make sense? He said, if you look in the long term, the long term makes no sense to say that, because that's short term thinking. Long term you actually do tell the other person with some context how to do something or how you want to invite them to the table, because when it saves you hours and hours in the future, but women weren't thinking that way. My favorite was when women said to me, um, yeah, we're both colorectal surgeons, we're both shipping supervisors. But my husband's busy and I can find the time. We'll see, and that's the time thing. Is what I kind of wanted to bring up because I feel like that's where we have some of our biggest struggle. Even just when we were first talking on the podcast today, it was like, He's like, well, when when do we have time? And in my head, I'm like, there's there's so much time to do a lot of things. It's about prioritizing that and it's not like and so I think that's like where my frustration comes in as a wife in this relationship is just like you, you don't you can make the time for anything, correct, and women do. But what women were saying where that they can find time and men couldn't. So the problem is we have to value our own time. We have to believe society has to believe that women get as much choice over how they use their time as men do. Men. According to Professor Darby Saxby, Um, a psychologist out of USC that helped me with um consulting for the book shows that in her leisure time studies, men take twice as much leisure time than women. Well that's also it was Anna say too. It's not I don't know if a like I get the leisure, but I also like when my husband and this is no fault because he wants to do the most research, but it's like it takes so much longer to get to the result that I'm like, I could have told you that thirty minutes ago, but you're like skimming. I'm like, just so it's like it takes a longer, like they really want to like look, and it's funny because like he'll make fun of his you know, dad for instructions, like, but you're doing the exact same thing that your father is doing, and I'm articulous and I think, but that that again, it's like, then we're faulted just because we don't fault the way that maybe you do it. We're not faulting you, but we also know that there's still so much more to do and you're taking your time longer on something when it's like it's right in front of you. But the truth is because back to the wiping acids and doing dishes. Um, we we're not better at it, we're not better multitaskers, but we have had more experience doing it for whatever reason. Right the hundred years of whatever you want to call the stuff that's you know, jark, whatever we're gonna call it. I like to focus on solutions and say I'm happy you're being thorough and taking your time to do that as long as we're negotiating understanding what we have ownership over. But the problem with women and not seeing the problem. But I'm definitely not shaming women. I love women. This fair play is my love letter to women. But what I found again in my research was that women love to give feedback in the moment, which is very unhelpful in terms of, um for a long term thinking in the house, So don't do it that way, or why are you taking so long to do this or figure it out right? Women also were saying things to me like I can't sit down to have a twenty minute conversation about the home. I don't have the time. So they were almost saying that I don't want to explain this right in the time it takes me to tell him he should be able to figure it out. But the problem with that is that also doesn't work too And so what ends up happening is we don't communicate, or we end up sobbing over blueberries, or we lock our husbands out over glue sticks, and or women say to me, I don't want to talk about these things. One woman said that to me, I don't want to talk about these things. But the funny thing is, twenty minutes later in our interview, she says to me, Oh, when my husband forgets to put the boundary in the dryer, I dump it on his pillow. Another woman literally said to me, I don't have conversations about domestic life. But then I found out she has an Instagram account called the ship my Husband Doesn't pick Up. Um, I don't think people would believe me. But a good news is BuzzFeed just came out with the Japanese version. I guess a woman in Japan started the ship my Husband Doesn't pick Up and she has now five thousand followers. So are we should we publicly shame our our partners? Should we be dumping stuff on their pillows locking them out of the house and Mike Mike made a great point to the other day. Is like, there's certain things too that I overlook because I don't think they're important. Correct. So it's so I don't think, Yeah, but it's about values, right, it's about values. But when we're communicate eating in the moment, when we're when emotion is high, cognition is low. That's what I say as a mediator, where a lot of times we're communicating when emotion is high. So I'm asking people to change their habits, to sit down once a week and actually talk about things when you're calm. And that's really what fair play is all about. It gives you the tools to have these conversations over the home. But then I make it fun because I give you a card game. So I have my book here for you. Can you give us an example of something that you would do to to be able for us to communicate. Okay, so I'll give you an example. Um. When I first started the fair Play system, I's it's based on a hundred card card game that represents every single thing you have to do in your home. And it started with a foray into every other book, an article I told you about that I read on the subject, and the most helpful The most unhelpful were things like divorce is the only solution to this problem or strike, but the more helpful things that make a list. So I made the best lit of anybody in the whole world, because I'm an organizational management specialists. That ended up with nine tabs and twenty subtabs of invisible work over a thousand items of invisible work, such things like medical and healthy living, where I had friends say you forgot sunscreen and I'd say, nope, that's under tab number seventy two. You obviously don't know how to use Excel. Scroll to the right. It had things like, oh, you forgot allowance, and I say, nope, it's under It's there under tab fifty five, under family values and Traditions. The craziest spreadsheet you've ever seen. I name it the Shit I Do Spreadsheet. It goes viral amongst groups of women. Realizing at the time that's list alone don't work. So from that I derived a card game out of that list. Over three year period, I tested a card game that's working, and I'll give you an example. One of the cards is garbage. And like I said before, it's about ownership. So I said to my husband You're gonna be the conceiver, planner, and executor of garbage, which means liners go back in, they go out before trash day, the full conception planning. So I'd never have to remind you ever again about garbage. Well, the problem was I couldn't let go. So I was talking him and sort of walking around the house seeing if he was going to take out the garbage. I would put garbage liners on top of the think. Sometimes I would even open up the drawer, you know the door underneath thinks, so he would fall over the door, opened door and not see it because I wanted to make sure he remember the garbage liners were under there. And so we took a step back, and I said, you know what, this is not just about handing out responsibilities. Let me go back to my ten years of mediation experience and ask about values. So this book fair Play is about having a values conversation over garbage. And what I mean by that is, I said to Seth, I grew up in a single mom household. We didn't have a garbage can. We had one of those plastic bags that sat on a knob and garbage would spill out onto the floor. Are and I was a dehydrated child because I was afraid to go into the kitchen at night because in the lower reastide of New York City we have a big water bug and cockroach problem. And when you have garbage out, you turn on that light, you're gonna see hundreds of cockroaches and water bugs. So I'm triggered by garbage. And my husband said to me, well, I lived in fraternity and my pizza, a Domino's pizza box, was my pillow. You know I lived. I slept on a Domino's pizza box. I don't really care about garbage the way you do. So what happens right when you're at such different points. Well, then I asked you to bring in what works for the legal system, the medical system, a trillion dollar towards system in our country. What's reasonable? What is your minimum standard of care? And so we had a whole conversation where he said, I get that you care about garbage. I want to hold the garbage card, but what's reasonable as it goes out once a day and you don't stalk me over it, and it'll go out at seven pm, I'll put it in my calendar like a work appointment, as long as you never mentioned the word garbage ever again. And since then, garbage has been going out in my household at seven pm every single night. But it took a values conversation over garbage. We don't communicate like that, But what if we did? What if I had you sit down and play the game, and have you have got values conversations over garbage? I promise you all learn more about your household and how you discuss garbage, and I will for any other esoteric relationship question I can ask you. And so when you do that card game, is that something where okay, the garbage card, this one represents garbage? Do does he hold that forever? Is this something that you do? Or every month we just do the card game again? We might have different tasks or how does that work? Every week? Every week? Every week? Just like your workplace, you treat your home like your most important organization. We have feedback everywhere else. We have clear expectations everywhere else, even my aunt Marian's Magen group. You don't bring snack twice, you're kicked out. We have no expectations of each other. In the home. You play every week, you sit down for your check in every week and as my favorite behavioral economists back Dan ari Ellie. He says, you do it with short term reward substitution. Do it over, Margarita's do it over watching your favorite Netflix show where you say we're not going to start watching together until we do our check it. Eventually, after about a month, it becomes a Habit takes about a month to develop a habit. And then you get into these conversations where you say things like, oh, I want to redeal the school forms card this week because I'm out of town and you can and you or you say things like I said to my husband, a rat coming your way, can you please pick up cash for me? But at least he can laugh about it now, because before all I did was give him the random assignment of a task for every single thing. But when you bring ownership in, when you have values conversations over things like garbage or dishes or transporting your kids to school, see things change. And that's what I got to see in my beta testers all over the country. Right now, let me ask you this, let me take it a step deeper. If okay, so you do that right? We we distribute the cards every week, but I I so I get a task that maybe Janna has typically usually done in the past, but I choose to do it differently because it's how I would like to execute it. Well, now, what if that that comes becomes an issue where Jana is like, why would you put the kids clothes like this? Why would you do it like that? Can I just intercept really fast? So, um, we have, um a nanny that helps with their kids and the way that she folds because I primarily do the kids laundry nine nine percent the time, but sometimes she'll do it. And the way that she folds my son's t shirts drives me crazy because that's not the way that I fold him. So I just had a conversation. I was like, hey, do you mind you know, not folding the shirts like that? Um, I know you were trying to reorganize it, but it just doesn't work for me. Well I go back in and she said, oh my gosh, absolutely. But then I go back and I love you, Kylie, You're amazing, but like they're like that again. So I feel like I have to have another conversation. And in my mind, I'm like, well, I just would rather do it, but I think it's I don't know what you were going to say to his question. But I feel like if I said what I said to our nanny at first, being like, hey, just so you know, like I love it when like, for example, I hate the way that he folds towels that you're never going to give him the laundry card. But guess the good news is there's other cards in the in the system where you can give it to him. If something is a real trigger for you, again, you can tell me I'm not like emotionally triggered. It's just more of like an annoyance, you know what I mean, Because I'm like, I can't see the T shirts like how and the way that he folds the towels doesn't go in our baskets, Like but back to your why, right, Even if you're communicating to your nanny about that, it's when you can give the y behind it, it's much better, Like, hey, you know, it's hard when we have a lot of T shirts here, and so when we fold this way, there's actually more maximum capacity in this drawer, and so it allows our kids to be able to see what they want to wear, and trying to teach them to choose their own clothes. You go back to your why when you communicate, because if you just say I like things this way, because that's why it doesn't work for other human beings, which is which is what I think a lot of. For you, it is what it's your why might be because that's how you like things. It doesn't want to the towels know because the way that it's folded, it doesn't fit into the um which MCA, what's that called the linen closet. So that's why I don't like them, because they like hangover. Right. But that but again, but that's a valid thing right to say, I'd like my my closet to close, and this is why I do things this way. Right, But we don't have those types of conversations. But the good news is, for example, I love what I call the card the V I P gifts very important people gifts like gifts I gifts to friends and into colleagues. And so I'll probably always hold that card because I have a certain way I love to give gifts. And but again, it's about looking at your deck together. You build it together, you what matters to you together. But all I'll say to you is the more time you spend stressing over how something is folded. The less time you have to spend on your self care, your adult friendships, your time to devote to your career, your time to devote to your children, to meaningful connections with other people. And so I do think that it's great to step back and say what do we really value? But I know you were talking about the the um, the trash, But so if he wasn't doing the cards, then what's the conversation there, because then that would be frustrating. Well, there's a trust issue, right, This is about the presenting problem, is not the real problem. So it's not really about the garbage. Was For me, it was about my trust and my husband is he going to do it? And I don't do it? You know exactly. So women ask me that all of the time. And this is back to my love letter to men. I don't find that they don't do it. I find that they don't bring home glue sticks because they have no context for those requests. But when you give men full ownership, which is how we do things in our organizations Netflix, for example, they have something called the rare responsible person. You don't wait to be told what to do, but you're also given contexts not control. When you Apple coined a term called directly responsible individual, where someone is responsible in their workplace for the conception, to planning to the execution. That's how our workplaces are most successful workplaces are operating. So when you bring that context in and the ownership, and when men understand that there is conception and planning behind getting the mustard, things start to change, just like they do in the workplace. And what I find is that men don't forget when they have ownership. They actually take pride in their cards. Back to my love letter to men, my husband doesn't forget. He doesn't forget now. But it takes time, It takes the check ins. And the most important piece of feedback for women is no feedback in the moment. So if your spouse didn't fold the towels right, and you did give him the laundry card, if you're gonna say, Jesus, you didn't fold the towels right, I knew it. Nothing will change in your habits in your home. If you wait for that check in like you were asking me before your your your weekly check in, and you sit down and you say, this is what was great this week, and this is what sort of was, you know, a little tricky for me. Men are much more willing to hear it because when emotion is low, cognition is high, and we can have really constructive conversations over Margarita's as opposed to in the moment. But I would say that was probably the hardest thing for my beta testers, for women to say, I can hold my feedback, but it is not constructive. It actually was twenty pages of my book. My editor kept making me cut it down because she said, you can't spend twenty pages trying to convince women not to give feedback in the moment. I'll give you five pages to make your case. So I do it through psychology, through behavioral economix, and through my lens, which is legal and mediation. And that's I think that's a fantastic point for people to take with them because I've said this to Jana numerous times, where anytime she would make a comment after I did something like I didn't grab this so I forgot that. It makes me feel like she's focused on what I'm not doing as opposed to what I am doing. Like I've said that until us I've been blew in the face to her. But but I just think it's a great point, not just for women, but I think for men to just a testament to kind of your science behind it. Eve, is like that. I know for me, that's how I would receive it better because I won't go into my like I'm not doing a good job, I'm not good enough and I can't even do this right, and it's like what else? Now, it's really hard. It's a really hard communication tool to learn. Um, But when you can get it down, so I'm I'm telling people not to eat sugar, I'm giving them the South Beach giant. Um. It's a little different, right, It's it's not the way we normally do things. But again it's also because I don't think we treat our home with any respect. Well, I'm going on Amazon right now and I'm going to order a fair Play. It's a game changing solution than you have too much to do and more life to live. Eve, thank you so much for coming on the show and chatting with us about your amazing book. I'm excited to read it because I think it can be even more helpful in our communication. Even though I feel like we do a great job, um, I think we could definitely use the deck a little bit better for sure. Read it together, Read it together. It's actually been really fun. And the last thing I'll just say to you is that I have over three emails just since the book has been released ten days ago at Infohity rod Sky. And the crazy thing about it is that it's seventy men, seventy percent of men. And so again, this fair Play started as my love letter to women, including dedicated to my single mother who had to hold all the cards, but it ended up as a love letter of men because they're they're responding, and they want to know their role, and they want to make their deep connections with their children and have a place in the home, and so I want to invite them into their full power in the home so that women can step into a full power in the world. That's what this is about. Absolutely, And even where else can our listeners find you, they can find me at Instagram at at fair Play Life amazing. Thank you, eat so much, thank you, so much, thank you. Halloween is on the way, which means it's time to break out the rubber spiders, fake cobwebs, and jackal interns. But if you've got a family, you might be dealing with something a little scarier right now, shopping for life insurance. Honestly, even talking about life insurance scares me. It's just like Halloween. Mike's NFL insurance just right out. So it's been kind of a scary topic in the household talking about all the insurance life insurance, health insurance UM and we've been trying to compare quotes, which is exciting. It's exciting but scary because we still feel young, and it's like, do we really need to talk about this, but we do. We do, and that's why we're so happy that we have Policy Genius. And Policy Genius is great too because it's not just about life insurance. They also do auto insurance and disability insurance. Policy Genius is the easy way to shop for life insurance online in minutes, and you can compare quotes from top insurers to find your best price. Once you apply, the Policy Genius team will handle all paperwork and red tape. And Policy Genius doesn't just make life insurance easy, they can also help you find the right home insurance UM. Like I said, auto and disability this October, take the scariness out of buying life insurance with policy Genius. Go to policy genius dot com get quotes and applying minutes. You can do the whole thing on your phone right now. Policy Genius the easy way to compare and buy life insurance. Hey Mark, we got an emails. Yeah, let me just summarize this. When her name is v she's a male lady and she listens to wind down as she walks around delivering the mail, which is very I love that thought that she's walking around with her um. She has gotten separated from husband, and the reason wasn't cheating, although he has cheated before. It's because she found out he was still smoking. She lost her father to lung cancer, and so when she started having kids, they both agreed we are going to stop smoking. She said, I'm never going to do that because I feel like my father left me early because he couldn't stop smoking. She calls him selfish, and so the fact that my husband was still doing that it kills me. But am I wrong for feeling this way? I've given him so many chances, But when is it time to say no more chances. I've been happier since I've been single, but we do still live together because I can't afford to live on my own. M hm. So what's your question? Is she out of line for for leaving or separating because he won't stop smoking and was hiding the smoking from her. I think there's a little bit of that, Um, the discovery that we've talked about over the past few weeks when she discovered and in the past she discovered him cheating. This time she discovered he was hiding smoking. I think it's kind of all tied together. The thing is, you know, nobody can uh discredit or or devalue what how something affects somebody else, right, So for this woman, for smoking, she clearly has a definitely legitimate reason to be attached to it in the way that she is. So for her, that's way more impactful than it would it be for maybe the next person. So we can't say if it's you know, crossing the line or not, but if it's something that someone is that passionate about, I don't see anything wrong with it. Yeah. I mean, you ever said that TV show with a uh was it? Um, Jennifer Anderston, He's just not that into you and she breaks up. She ends up breaking up with her husband because he didn't want it. He didn't believe in married marriage. Well he was hiding cigarettes Andrettes No, it's the same movie, right, But he's just nothing into you. So I I can't think of her name, Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer conn so, but there was that movie where you know she's hiding cigarettes. So it's I mean, I would I totally get it. I mean, if you're that triggered by something, I mean, that's I remember I was dating someone guy just don't like drugs, and I want to be with someone that does drugs, and I found someone doing drugs. I called it off, you know, because I don't want that. Everybody's got a different deal breaks. As long as you're clear about it, then I think you're totally justified. And I'm sorry that they didn't respect that and that you are in that situation. That sucks. Brianna wants another baby. They've been together with she's with her fiance for six years. He's eleven years old. Or They have a four year old daughter, and he has a couple of sons from previous relationship. She wants more kids. He doesn't, and that's she thinks that's unfair that he's denying her The many kids that she wants to have. It's put a huge damper on their sex life. She doesn't want to have sex with him anymore. She feels like her body is different and she could literally go the rest of her life without it. But since I want to have sex with him and he or he sees that, I'm just not enjoying it. He accused me of cheating, which I would never do. I love him, but not having another baby's a really big deal to me, and I don't know how to get over that. I think it's one of those things if if it's that much of a deal breaker, you have to you don't want to resent him for the rest of your life. So if you feel like you're going to resent him for the rest of your life and withhold certain things because that's what you want, then that's not healthy for either one of you. And if you my opinion, I'm like, if I really want another baby and that's something that I just couldn't get over, well, then that would be something that I would have to decide whether or not I would want to lose the marriage or not. Yeah, And also on the other side of it, you can't I don't know if we could fully blame him because we don't know what kind of conversations they had around kids or family going into their marriage, into their relationship. You know, maybe he told her it's like and she expected him to change, but he didn't. So I mean, it's kind of the same thing my brother was semi going through. Don't want to get into all of his stuff, but it's same thing where it's like, you know, he has a vasectomy and his girlfriend, who we all love, wants a baby, and I get why she would break up with him because she wants a kid. And I'm like, well, and you know, my brother was so distraught, so depressed, and I'm like, but Steve, you don't want another kid. I can't blame her for leaving you. And I'm like, I love you, but like, I can't, I can't blame her. Who can blame her? She wants to have children. You already have two grown ones and you don't want anymore. I'm getting into it clearly, Sorry, Steve, but I just think to like to the point it's like, so I told my brother, I go, if you're willing to lose her, how much do you love her? Like would you you know, do you love her enough? To give her a child that you necessarily He's like, I know I love the kid once I had it. I just don't know if I want another kid. But it's like, but what are you willing to lose? They had to do some compromising. I understand that, but like still, it's to that point where it's like, what are you willing if you're If they're willing to lose the other person, that says a lot about their feeling because I wouldn't, yeah, because I'm like, if I really love someone, I might do something because I love them so much. So it's interesting topic. Um, all right, we have to go to a fall festival, so I love you guys. Thanks Gussie. Next week

Whine Down with Jana Kramer

At the end of a long day, nothing is better than winding down and decompressing with a good friend,  
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