ON FINDING THE ONE… With Miranda Hart, Celeste Barber and Glennon Doyle

0:00This super special episode is brought to you by Bumble. Now we're brought up to believe very often that finding a life partner, the person that you want to walk through experiences with, your lobster if you will, is something that should happen quickly and when you first set eyes on each other, fireworks go off in the background and you get married by your house, have lots of kids together and live happily ever after in heteronormative bliss. But life has taught me that it's not like that for everyone. It definitely wasn't like that for me. In fact, it very rarely plays out like that, and that's okay.

0:34Today, we look back at three How to Fail guests who found their partner at different times in life. First up, you'll hear from the brilliant and hilarious Miranda Hart, who got married when she was 51. She talks through her first date with her now husband. Then Australian comedian Celeste Barber talks about meeting her husband young and quickly becoming a stepmother to two children. Finally, American author Glennon Doyle talks about leaving her marriage for the love of her life, Abby, and co-parenting her three children with her ex-husband in a blended family. I hope this episode brings you as much laughter, reassurance and warmth as each of those guests have brought me.

1:15and hopefully it inspires you to refresh your Bumble profile or download Bumble now.

1:24We've come on to the boy, Aka, your husband. We dance together, can I just say? Yes, and he's a drummer, you said. He's a drummer, so I'm very envious of his musicianship. But there was something about, and I'm not going to give away how you met because it's the most amazing story and the most incredible payoff for the book. But there was something about the first date that you had with him that was so important in terms of acceptance. Will you tell us that story? Yeah, well, it's very, very, it's very silly. But because I was, I met him sort of halfway through the story of the book. So it was at the point where I was like, okay, I'm this, unexpectedly to me, this story is, and this discovery of this time is learning to be honestly who I am and who I inherently am and how to be a kind, loving version of me.

2:18Because I think that's basically our purpose is to love and to be kind. We all do that in our unique different ways. So I was like, okay, I'm not going to say sorry unless I've made, you know, really need to. I'm going to be me. I'm not going to rein myself in. Okay. So I had the opportunity to go on this date And I thought, the reason I'm nervous is because I've made a little vow to myself to be honestly myself. And so we were chatting all very easy, very fun from the off. And then we get a pizza delivery. And the pizza comes and I haven't shied away from saying how excited I am about my pizza because I think pizza is very exciting.

2:59And he found that, I'm pleased to say, charming. And he was like, yeah, I'm excited about pizza too. but my pizza arrived and it had done that thing of shunting towards that one end the mozzarella was leaking everywhere that end of the car but it sort of flipped a bit so it looked a bit like a calzone but i don't like calzonis don't know why they're just pizzas halved aren't they i don't know too much dough it just don't know what's going on there so i in the spirit of just being authentically me i go off on one i get full on teenage grumpy i'm like i am so disappointed by this piece. Look, look, look, yours is really nice.

3:36Look at mine. What is that? Half a calzone? Don't know. It's all shunted the mozzarella. I'm so disappointed. I went on and on and on. He was a bit sort of why I died. He's very shy, sweet, you know, keep the peace. Why I died? And the inner critic came in and went, apologize, do your thing, say, sorry, I'm an absolute idiot. I don't know what I was doing. I was only joking. I thought, no, I'm not going to. So, you know, awful isn't it thinking also slightly back of my mind first of all problem yeah get into perspective privilege etc but no in that moment i was pissed off about my and there was a slight moment he went oh it is sad look at that mozzarella it's not doing what it should do and i went exactly and i was like we formed this most delicious connection and actually sat eating the pizza in a bit of silence a la the dog loving unconditional presence but because it kick-started the freedom for him and for me to just go, yeah, let's start meeting and connecting.

4:37And if this is going further in this way, let's not do formal. Let's not do small talk. It's not who we are. And then when he did text and say, when should we see each other again? I was like, okay, well, he does like me because I was who I was. I'm probably farted within 10 minutes as well. but it's such a silly example but it's also really important because i wouldn't have done that before yes because you have to be how you've got to be on a first date you've got to be sophisticated and together and pretty and play games ultimately that's what that is it's not showing up as yourself yeah which is a really courageous thing to do in a society that conditions us to be anything but and i'm so happy for you that you have found that because you so deserve it because you have made so many other people feel fully accepted to show up exactly as they are, many of whom you'll never meet.

5:31And I think that's been an incredible act of generosity on your part. And I'm really glad to hear that you found it for yourself because you deserve it. It is lovely. And I'd sort of written a sort of version of it with Gary and Miranda in sitcom. And then I suddenly realised, oh, wow, I was writing what I knew was possible. But for some reason didn't think it was possible for me, didn't think it would ever happen. And then he came along.

6:01And as part of that, I wanted to ask you about your family. So your hot husband, that's what you call him. Yes, that's what the world calls him now. Yeah, that blew up. Well, you're both phenomenally hot and make a very hot couple. But I'm so interested in family units that are unconventional, partly because I'm also a stepmother as we were chatting about before and I just love you to tell us the story of your family and how you met your husband um we've been together for 22 years which is a really long time and um we met in a pub I was working in a bar in Sydney in Australia and he walked in and I've never ever been confident around boys or men I've just never being like boy crazy but something happened when I met my husband I just saw him and I went yep lock it down like that works for me and I just walked up to him and said you'll be coming home with me tonight and he went did you actually say that I actually I know can you fucking believe it wow I just walked up to him and said it I was 21 yeah like and I had the worst haircut of my fucking life he still makes fun of me for it it was remember when Halle Berry had that really short.

7:13When she won the Oscar, I was like, I'm going to try that with this hair. We have very similar hair. And do you know what he said to me? He goes, later, he said to me, oh, I thought, oh God, she must be confident because I had that haircut. If you're going to pull off that haircut, she must be confident. It's been what a long-term relationship is when there's children involved, stepchildren involved, long distance involved. um but we we had a conversation very early on in our relationship that he knew that I I'm an actor and I'm a comedian I'm a performer and this is what I I'm working toward he knew that and he was like I would love to like let's make that happen and I'll have the kids I'll do the he's such a nurturer so early on we had that conversation but it's interesting now that you know the success is what it is he gets such an audience of people going god you're so lucky to have him and I'm like absolutely and they're like you know you're so good to her she's so lucky to have you and I absolutely am but they think that he has given up his life for me and I have so many female friends who have successful successful husbands and not once do they get that audience of going, wow, he's so lucky.

8:35And Arpy, my husband, even says that. He's like, it's weird. I'm sitting with all our groups of friends and these people say to him, God, she's so lucky to have you. What a man. And these women are there going, I have to do the same thing over here with my husband, but there's no audience for it. It's so astonishing how far we've yet to go. 100%. Especially when it comes to looking at those sort of relationships. People genuinely think, like I say, that he has given up so much for me And sure, he has. And I've given up. Like, you do what you do. But it's not as though he was like, well, I did plan on, you know, flying a rocket to space three years ago, but I had to stop that because she wants to be funny.

9:13It wasn't a thing. You have two sons now. Yeah, two sons. 13 and? 11. 11. Okay. So first of all, I want to ask you about being a step-parent. So your step-daughters were two and four when they came into your life. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. Two and four. What do you think is the most important thing that being a step-parent has taught you? There's so many things. It's interesting. When you ask that, I instantly think of the girls, Kai and Sarah, bang, when they were little. They're 25 and 23 now. But in my brain, they're little again. And I just think about I was young when I was 21 when I got the girls.

9:48And I just think love, just you have to, whatever is going on up here with parents and co-parenting or lack there or whatever, that is all that matters. Now, look, that's great in theory, but that's one thing that I have learned. We just have to make sure that those little sausages are okay. Yeah, I think as a step parent myself, one of the key realizations I had after many, many years was my job, my step children are older. My job is actually not to parent because they have two really effective co-parents. My job is to be a support system for the parents in that situation. And that really, really helped me being a support system to my partner.

10:39And also it's a completely different situation because they don't live with us. Oh, right. And I think that part of my journey was about letting go of the dream of having my own children, which didn't happen for me. And there was part of me, I think, that for years wanted to preempt the blendedness of our family unit. And I was just trying too hard to be parental rather than being myself. Right. And sometimes when you decide to show up as yourself, you do end up being parental. And it's such an interesting conversation because for obvious reasons, we can't talk about it that much because it involves so many other people.

11:18So many people and so many different experiences and so many different perceptions of how it all went down and how it works. But I agree with you, actually. I wanted it all to be one big happy family at all times no matter what and it doesn't work like that because as we just say we're not the only ones in the situation there are people that don't want to do that they you know have different ideas for it I found I think yeah I think we did have very different experiences because I did have the girls a lot and I it was hard like I was their next of kin I was all of that so it's like I being their friend and it's the number one rule when you're a step parent everywhere you read everything is like don't parent them just be your friend I was like well they are two and four that is impossible for me yes and yeah I think if I had my time again I think about this a lot it would it would be different I'd make I'd do it differently I think they are so incredibly lucky to have you as you are them but what an amazing stepmother to have, just someone who has redefined what it is to be a woman and made it acceptable just to be our authentic, imperfect selves and to celebrate that.

12:33You also have two sons. And I'm so intrigued to hear from you whether you perceive many differences in terms of now that your sons are entering teenage years, the pressures societally that they face as someone who has done so much for women? It's very different from the girls to the boys for me. I think given the time that we're in in the world, I think I find it challenging to raise my boys, letting them know that they are the greatest kings that have ever lived and they're kind and they're funny and they're smart and they deserve everything and that most things in society are skewed toward them without them feeling like shit.

13:21That's hard. I'm, you know, I'm such a feminist. My boys are feminists. I'm raising them as feminists. That is, I find that very difficult, like, to empower them to be the excellent young, like, you know, rock stars that they are but at the same time going, just so you know, it's really fucking hard for women and men are trash. Not you but men. No, not dad but men are trash. No, not Poppy. Men suck. No, not Uncle Ben. Like it's that thing where you kind of have no filter around that sort of stuff with my kids, which I really think I should sometimes because I get myself into a bit of trouble with them.

13:56Yes. What's Arpie's take on it? We're aligned in that. We're aligned in. I mean he'll be the one that sometimes goes, okay, mum, we get it, because I'm like, and another fucking point, like another thing. but no he's absolutely the same he's yeah an excellent feminist

14:20and how did that realization affect how you parented your children in the aftermath of your first marital breakup well the way my life actually works is I say these wise things on podcasts, and then I promptly forget everything in my real life. Okay? So what I learned and know in my head is that all feelings are for feeling and that beautiful people are not made through lack of pain and lack of struggle, that beautiful people are made from overcoming and overcoming. What that looked like in my parenting is I will protect my children from all pain forever, that they will never feel anything, that no raindrop will fall on top of their head, right?

15:09This is none of my spiritual knowledge translated to my real life. Okay. So when I fell in love with Abby, even with all of the pain in my marriage, I initially decided that I would stay in my marriage. And I could give a lot of reasons for that, but mostly it was just that I felt that I could not hurt my children in that particular way. And then one day I was braiding my daughter Tish's hair and I looked at her and I realized, oh my God, I am staying in this marriage for her. But would I want this marriage for her? And if I would not want this marriage for her, then why am I modeling bad love and calling that good mothering?

15:59Wow. Yeah. Right? And Elizabeth, the answer is simple. It's the same as every other message given to women. It's because through osmosis, through modeling, through overt messages, I was tamed into believing that a mother is a martyr. Right? The good mothering is about slowly burying yourself, your dreams, your emotions, your personality, your ambition, your desires, and doing that in the name of your children, which is so ridiculous, right? It's such a burden and it's such a terrible legacy to pass on to our children, right? Because then they too believe that they have to become martyrs to prove their love and it never ends.

16:44It's why Carl Jung said, the greatest burden that a child can bury is the unlived life of her parent. Yes. So yeah, eventually I just decided, okay, I just have to reject these cultural messages of goodness. We all want to be good. That's because we are good. It's just that we have to define what good means for ourselves because if we default to the cultural messages of good for women, those messages will always tell us in one way or another, disappear. So I decided for myself that what I wanted to be for my children, I didn't want to slowly die for them. I wanted to show them how to bravely live.

17:21I wanted to be a model, not a martyr. And I decided that what that meant is that my children will only allow themselves to live as fully as I give myself permission to live. So that means just trying to resist settling for any relationship institution etc that is less true and beautiful than the one I would want for my children you talk as well about the island of your family and it's funny because you're friends with heroes of mine so the idea of you Brené Brown and Liz Gilbert all sitting around for dinner is enough to make me orgasm I'm like I want to be there

18:07best sentence ever yeah you were on Brené Brown's amazing new podcast recently and you told the story of the island and I think it's so interesting that you were talking to her about it because she's been so influential for me in terms of setting boundaries and how setting a boundary is not a negative thing but we as women have been taught that it is we've been taught that it's selfish and self-indulgent and somehow unfriendly but tell us about the island when it came to something your mother said about your new family set up? Yeah. First of all, telling women not to have boundaries, it's same, same, right?

18:40It's just another way to say a good woman disappears. Don't have needs, don't have expectations, because that's all that boundaries are, is just saying I have needs. But the thing about boundaries is that they're my best friend. Great loves of my life are Abby, the children, coffee, and boundaries. But the interesting thing about boundaries is that they are harder to hold with people that we deeply love. When I first told my parents about me and Abby, my mom was scared to death. Okay. My mom and I are best friends, just completely codependent. Okay. We talk six times a day. Most of that I don't want to change, but she was so afraid and I could hear her fear in every conversation and every question.

19:30It was just, what will the world think? How will the kids' friends treat them? What will the internet say? Just all this fear. Because mothers sometimes think that worrying is the same thing as love. It's not. But I fall into that trap too sometimes. So I found myself getting really defensive every time I talked to my mom, just like becoming seven years old again, just incessantly explaining why I was allowed to do what I wanted, why I was okay. Because I don't think that it's the hatred from enemies that shakes us from our knowing. I think it's the quiet concern of those that love us. That's what's the hardest.

20:10And one day I was talking to my mom and I heard her say, your dad and I are coming to visit next week. And I heard myself say, no, no, you can't come here because you are still afraid. And I can't let you bring your fear to my children because they are not afraid. I taught them, they were raised to know that love in every form should be celebrated and that it is best to be yourself and let the world catch up. But if you come and you bring your fear to our home, they will see it in your eyes and they will help you carry it because they love and trust you. So I have to tell you this really hard thing, mom, which is that your fear is not my family's problem.

20:53And my job as the mother here is to make sure it never becomes their problem. So go figure out your problem. And when you are ready to come to the island of our family with nothing but love and celebration, we will lower the drawbridge for you, but not one second sooner. And that was, out of all of the tellings, out of all of the telling the world about me and Abby, that was the moment, Elizabeth, that I became an adult. Yeah. Just hearing you talk about it, I would find that so terrifying. I mean, isn't that stupid? That it's just that's the thing that terrifies us. No, it's not stupid. It's universal.

21:36I know some of the fiercest activists in the world. They get up on podiums in front of thousands of people. They say the things, they preach liberty and freedom, they know it. And then they come home and they cry about their moms. It feels like the ultimate untaming. It's just a reframing. It's like, of course, the best way to honor our parents is to trust fully the women they raised. Right? And of course, if we're not doing anything they don't understand, we are not living into our place in the world because we live in different worlds. Our parents were conditioned and programmed in a different world, right?

22:13And they had us for the future. It reminds me of that Khalil Gibran poem that's so beautiful on children that says your children are not your children. They are life's longing for itself. It's like we are, if we're not doing anything that our parents don't fully understand, we're not doing it right. And the terrible part of that is that if our children are eventually not doing anything that we don't understand, They're not living into their place. Right? So eventually we will have to allow them to make their own islands and hopefully just approach them with nothing but love and celebration so that they will lower the drawbridge for us.

22:50How did your mother take it? At first, on that phone call, she said, I hear you and I will think about what you've said. I had the miraculous situation where my mother now, Elizabeth, for sure Abby is her favorite daughter and she has two other ones. She has been to now more gay pride parades than we have. She is for certain the fiercest activist of our family. She works to plan trans remembrance conference ceremonies. She goes to every activist meeting in her town. Something about watching me own myself. I just think that really at the heart of it, people that love us just want us to be okay.

23:36Her fear was her desperation for my okayness. And it turns out that the only way we can convince people we are okay is to just go about being okay. And so her watching me trust myself, watching us walk through the pain, but watching my family come out the other side, truer and more beautiful than we've ever been. It's like that thing where you see a cheetah and it makes you return to your cheetah, right? She needed to watch me untame myself so that she could do the same thing. And yeah, it's been so beautiful. But I know a lot of people who don't get that miracle, right? And that doesn't mean that it wasn't the right thing to do.

24:14Yeah.

24:18Oof, that was an emotional one. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This episode was brought to you by Bumble, helping turn dating into real conversations and connections.