Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
THINK YOUR PARENTS ARE TOO OLD TO GET DIVORCED?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Jaimee joins Ross to discuss the uptick in "gray divorces". Secrets about Nicole Kidman are shared.
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
You were expected to work every day, stay stupid, smell like a horse, and never leave. Yeah. Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and my guest today. If they gave an award for being scrumdidly umptious, she would at least make it to the playoffs. It's Jamie. Hi Ross. Welcome, Jamie, and welcome everyone to the show. We are glad to have you. You are welcome here. You can arrive any way you want to arrive. You can listen to us any way you need to listen to us. And we are so grateful that you do. And as I always say, if you are in any way inspired to help us, the best way to do that is to share the show with one of your friends, somebody in your family who you think might like whatever it is that we are doing here, hopefully giving you some light, entertainment, and on occasion, some witty repartee. Now, Jamie, let's talk.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00We know that a lot of marriages don't make it.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_00And for all the reasons they don't work out. And while that's normal, many of us expect that people who are older, especially those have been married a long time, like decades, especially those people who are our own parents who are old.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Boring, decrepit, craggle, craggly. Craggly. Craggly. What else are they? They're hagbaggin. What is their thing? They're craggly. Oh, the toenails. They've got claw toenails. They're they smell weird. Their clothes are off brand. Papery skin. Paper skin. Those people would never get divorced. Right. Well, think again, hammertoes. Rates of gray divorce, that's what they're calling it. Gray divorce are climbing. People 50 and older, that cohort, the rates of divorce have climbed sharply. And now 40% of all divorces are older people.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_00The I guess the good news is that divorce rates among younger groups is actually declining. I think people are getting married later and they're staying together longer. But 65 and up, that group toast. They are hating it and they're getting out. A lot of them describe their marriage after 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years as empty shell marriages.
SPEAKER_01Right. There's nothing. They're just roommates.
SPEAKER_00There's nothing going on there. Yeah, they're just roommates. They're just roommates. But the difference, I think, I don't think that's a new feeling. Right. I I've saw a lot of old people when I was a kid that were together, and it's like, uh, this does not look good to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It does not look good. Somebody's got a newspaper up in front of them. Right. Today it would be a screen. The other person is just gazing off in space, thinking about how much alcohol they can drink to make their day work. So I mean, that's been around. I think the difference is with these group of oldsters is that they think they deserve something better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like I because who are these people that are getting divorced?
SPEAKER_01I think that's part of it for sure. I also think that women, you know, we couldn't have bank accounts and, you know, we couldn't vote, all that kind of stuff back in the day, you know. And so it was a lot harder to get a divorce, especially later in life, and think like, how am I ever going to retire because I never had a checking account in my life, you know?
SPEAKER_00There was a lot done to control women then and now, but then especially to keep them basically helpless.
SPEAKER_01Captive in your marriage.
SPEAKER_00Captive in a marriage, property.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's always that's been going on for a long time. But now it's more likely that women would have had a job and probably have a job.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Or at least had a job, but they also more likely to have their own resources and certainly more likely to think of themselves as an autonomous.
SPEAKER_01And when you get a divorce now, you can get half of your, you know, husband's assets or whatever, you know. At least. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But you know, so this group, I think this cohort, which essentially is aging boomers, 65 and up, let's say, they've grown up their whole life feeling kind of entitled to a good life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like, like, you know, like what were the hippies saying? I don't want to fight and I don't want to go to war.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I don't want to be a soldier. I just want to smoke dope and have sex.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's all I want to do. What else is there?
SPEAKER_01Rock and roll. Back in the day, it was like you could buy the same type of house that you would kill for now. You know, it's like it's so hard. They they're like, Well, but well, I had that house when I was that age. You know, I'm like, okay, well, it was a hundred dollars.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Then they have gotten, so they I I mean, the most unkind way to think about the boomers is that they're spoiled babies and they always have been. Yeah. They totally are spoiled. But the good thing about that is, what's wrong with that? It's kind of like, well for them. But wouldn't everybody kind of do whatever they want and feel entitled if they could? Yeah. So, you know, it's almost like I think some people look at the boomers and with reason, good reason, they think of them critically and all the mistakes they've made. But on the other hand, it's kind of like, I mean, would anyone really act that differently if they had the opportunities they had and the chances? I don't know. Yeah. Maybe they would have. Yeah. I don't know. But that group has, I think, spent a lot of time thinking about how do I make my life better? And so the other thing we know about that group is that for some reason they will not die. They just keep on going. They keep going. People are living longer. Yeah. So it used to be when you stayed married in the old days for a long time, you wouldn't live long enough to say, what else do I got? Right. Can I do something else? Yeah. You just croaked. Yeah. And people went to your funeral, and mom and dad, they stayed together till the very end. Well, they died at like 47. Yeah. So was it really that hard? Yeah. When you get to be 67 or 77, and you still feel like I could be around 20 more years. Do I want to keep doing this empty shell marriage? Right. A lot of people are saying, I don't think I want to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I don't think I want to.
SPEAKER_01Also, I think people just look a lot younger now. So you got you have more opportunities, you know. Like if you look at people that were 60 in sitcoms, you know, from back in the day, uh like the Golden Girls or whatever, right? They look so old. Yeah. But they're like the same age as Sandra Bollock is now. Right. And she looks like she did when she was or Nicole Kidman.
SPEAKER_00Yes. There were people like that. Yeah. Although I hear that at night Nicole Kidman turns into a pile of sawdust. That might not be true. I've heard it. I've heard it. It's certainly believable. Because she's old. So yeah, so we're living longer. We live living longer than our ancestors ever lived, than our own grandparents ever lived. We're hanging around.
SPEAKER_01We look more dateable. Oh, and we look good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that's a really good point. So I know for a fact that when a person a 60-year-old person, let's say in the last century, go back to when I was a kid, a six-year-old person looked like a bundle of death. They were a death bundle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They were crickety and crackety.
SPEAKER_01Crumpled up old paperwork.
SPEAKER_00Punched over. They had stuff growing out of it. Right. They had humps.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like, you know, they couldn't move. Undatable. Everything or could not get with that.
unknownI don't care.
SPEAKER_00If you are Stevie Wonder, you can't get with that. No. And now you see people in their 70s and they're like going strong. Right. 80s, same thing. Yeah. Like they look good. Right. Am I wrong about this? No, you're right. Okay. Because I thought maybe it was just desperate. They're looking good. That's my age group. Yeah, so I think that's really important. Is people not only look better, they're doing more to take care of themselves, they're eating better. You know, some people are doing, you know, plastic surgery or maintenance, as I call it, but you know, there's other reasons. Like they're just, you know, doing a lot more to maintain their health, they're more active, all of these things. And so they have a lot of life left to give, right? And so then they look around and say, was I really planning to, when I got married when I was 25. Right. Now I'm 75. I've done this for 50 years. I've raised a family. I want to have fun.
SPEAKER_01I want a thrill. I'm not having excitement.
SPEAKER_00I want some thr. I want a thrill. I want some excitement. I want some love. I don't feel like I feel like my marriage is loveless. I'm not getting anything. I'm not self-actualizing. I'm not. And some people, you know, it's funny how they realize it. It's not that different from anybody in a marriage where they don't feel happy, is they go and they do an activity. They join another group, and all of a sudden they find that, oh, I feel so good. Right. It has nothing to do necessarily with another person. It's just like, oh, I'm not playing this role that I've been playing for 50 years or 40 years. And it feels really good. What else can I do?
SPEAKER_01Right. Sometimes it could be another person. They're like you meet somebody and you're like, oh, I've I felt something and I haven't felt that for a long time. Right. You know?
SPEAKER_00Right. And so I think that that's that's also part of it. Is you might meet someone and feel just a little excitement and not know what it is.
SPEAKER_01Like, oh. Remember that.
SPEAKER_00I remember that. I remember that. I remember that thing. I remember it. Yeah. So I think that's exciting. But I just think being in being able to explore a different identity and a different explore your your own interests and needs in a different way can be thrilling. And that can lead, like start taking you down a path that draws you away from an empty shell marriage where those feelings aren't there. You're kind of just doing time in these marriages. Right. You've been doing time. You're the it's the green mile.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I never saw that movie.
SPEAKER_01What? I know. Oh, it's such a good movie. I know.
SPEAKER_00I it's it's it's a Tom Shanks joint, right? Yeah. So I I know I like him. I don't know why I've never seen it.
SPEAKER_01You say Tom Shanks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I did on purpose. I don't know. It's not funny. I I don't know why. The stuff comes out of my mouth. This is how I get in trouble. Some people have an empty shell marriage. I have an empty shell brain. I was going to say, I do so though, I do so love the Shawshank Redemption.
SPEAKER_01Great movie.
SPEAKER_00I just I can I've watched that probably half a dozen times and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. I have to give myself enough time to forget all the bits.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I can enjoy them in the moment. But man, I like that movie. So that's kind of my prison movie.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I feel like if you like that one, you'd really like this one.
SPEAKER_00I think I probably would.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But does the Green Mile guy, does he get out? Does he escape? Or does he have to roasted? Because I don't know. I don't need to see another roaster. I like, I like happy movies. I like I like that one.
SPEAKER_01There's definitely some roasting in it.
SPEAKER_00Oh boy. And then so people, they get older, they're in these marriages, and they look around, they see other people like enjoying their life, and they're like, whoa, why can't they be me? And I think in the past, I know for a fact, like my parents stayed together. My mother died pretty young, but they were, I think they were gonna stay together. But I think they would have gotten to that point, though. Okay. When I think they would have gotten that point, but they never got to that, never got to be tested. But I think in their in their cohort, I think they believed that it was their duty to stay in the marriage. Like that was their job. Yeah, that's just what it is. When you get married to somebody, that is your job. Does anybody actually think like that anymore? I'm guessing no.
SPEAKER_01Right. They shouldn't.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, okay, so you're I'll say a couple of clicks younger than me. And what's your opinion about that? Like the fact that you have married somebody and you're it's it's the old expression, for better or worse. I'm sticking. I'm never going to leave, no matter what. That's what our parents believe.
SPEAKER_01That that is yeah, I don't think that that should be it. Like we're we got married, and of course I love my husband, but we mostly got married because of the tax benefits, and like, you know, it's like there's certain things are just easier if you are married. But I don't feel like it's like necessary. Right. You know, it's not like oh, it's such a a loving commitment or whatever, you know. It's like the the place we live in makes it kind of mandatory if you want to get certain perks, right? You know, right. So yeah, I'm definitely team when if you're not feeling it anymore, you should bail.
SPEAKER_00Explore other options, yeah. Pull the ripcord, find out what's out there. I think I think that's right. And I know it sounds we're sounds like we're being overly glib about something serious, but it really I mean, it's it's the way I think about it. I think that you have an obligation to be intentional in your relationship and to every day be thoughtful and mindful about your partner and how to support your relationship. That is what it's about. And if you don't find that you can do that, that means it's not working. Yeah. And if you can't do it or they can't do it, it's not working. There's no reasons you stay in it. Yeah. If you can't, you can no longer have an intentional relationship with another human. I don't care what the relationship is. It could be a boss, it could be a parent, it could be a sibling, it could be a dog.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Although most dogs are in it, they'll stay in anything.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I see dogs with the worst owners, and they're just like, look, I look at them, I go, what's going on? It's like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm sticking. Dogs will stick with you. They will. That's great. Cats will slit your throat, but dogs, they're there. Okay. So did I I did I wanted to tell you that when I I took a break before this show. And when I came back, I skipped across the floor. Did you? Yeah, it's weird, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, I thought so. I was just feeling it. I don't know. Yeah. I don't all right.
SPEAKER_00I don't think people should skip.
SPEAKER_01Did anybody see you?
SPEAKER_00I'm sure there was video. I'm sure there are cameras everywhere. So the answer to that is stay tuned. They will. You will see it. You can't do anything without being on camera now. And there's somebody actually, probably some security guard right now posting this on his YouTube site with security videos.
SPEAKER_01It's just you skipping on a loop.
SPEAKER_00Look at this joker skipping. People, I think people perceive they have more choices. I think more importantly, older people now are perceiving that they deserve to have all the goodnesses in the world. And I agree with that. You know, I think some people realize, of course, as you mentioned, that divorce can be expensive. You have to separate your assets, and you may not be in a situation, no matter who's got the money, where there's enough to spread around. There's not not going to be enough for everybody, and it's going to put both of you in an in economic peril. So, you know what some people do is they don't get divorced, they just go on separately. They're still married. Yeah. Which I think is kind of a so they continue to have all the perks, but that's it. They're not living together, they're not doing anything together, they're not unfriendly toward each other. They just both decided, no, let's let's see what else is out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What I don't understand is people that do stay living together.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, what do you think that what do you think is motivating them?
SPEAKER_01I mean, probably it's financial, right? But maybe also because you just because you don't love the person anymore romantically, maybe they're still like your best friend, you know? They could still be your best friend. But I do think that it is weird when they stay living together after. Like how would you date after a divorce or after a yeah. Yeah. Like I was just watching a like a home renovation show that this couple was showing the house together, and they said that they had been together for seven years and they broke up four years ago, but they still just live together. And he lives upstairs and she lives downstairs.
SPEAKER_00And I think for a lot of people, when they're going through a tough emotional decision like divorce or anything like that, or leaving a job, you do a lot of half measures initially. You start doing things, you quit in your mind, you start making choices, but you're not ready to do the do the full Monty. So you're you're just taking it in steps. I think it's great that people don't, for whatever reason, even if they're spoiled babies, well, even if theft's a reason that they've always gotten whatever they want, they've always chosen themselves first, they always they've always chosen their own self-actualization first. I think it's great that if they're in a situation where things aren't great that they want to change and they do change. And they do change their situation. Because we were told, I was told as a kid that you're not doomed. I was one of the kids that were told you could do anything you want to do. You can do anything you want to do, Ross. You can be anything you want to be. They would say this to you all the time. It's like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna be a serial killer. That's why we had such great serial killers.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, we were told we were good and we deserve good things. We were a group of people who could expect better things for ourselves, and we were encouraged to do it. And I think a lot of people coming along today feel just the opposite, like they can't do anything that they want to do, and that their lives have been attenuated, their choices are attenuated, things are not in a good space. But these people who are aging out now, these people weren't told that. They've always believed that, or at least they've believed in the idea, even if it was a myth.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Even if they couldn't live that way. Because there's a lot of people, the thing about the boomers is you know, the boomers that get the criticism are the tiny, tiny fraction of boomers that could afford a house, that did get good jobs, that did get it, did good into pollux politics, that did run company, whatever they did, that's a lot of them that's that wasn't the reality. They lived regular lives, they had to work hard, you know, they had to scrape together money to pay bills just like everybody else. It was kind of it's kind of a mythology about the Mooors because it's fun to hate the previous generation.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I mean, we didn't like the generation before us. Right. It's just going, this is not a new idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You hate those people.
SPEAKER_01They ruin everything. They freaking ruin everything.
SPEAKER_00How about the how about in the old days when your family would have you just to have labor on the farm? Yeah. And that was it.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00You were expected to work every day, stay stupid, smell like a horse, and never leave. Yeah. You have to take over the family farm. You are stuck. It's like a prison sentence. Yeah. What we haven't talked about is what happens to the children when their old parents divorce. Right. The parents that they figure don't even think about sex anymore. All they do is just want to be grandma and grandpa.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And just grandpa's out in this wood shop and grandma's tending to her artichoke stew. What about those kids? The adult children of gray divorce.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What do you think the impact is?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, so my biological parents got divorced when I was three. So I don't really remember them ever being married. I have like a couple of screenshots in there, you know, of stuff, but I don't ever remember them actually being married. But my actual parents. They they were never married, but they were together for twenty years and they split up when I was twenty-three twenty-two or twenty-three.
SPEAKER_00And what did you think about that? How did that affect you?
SPEAKER_01That was horrendous, you know. Cause so these parents are are my if you listen to the show, you know I have two dads. And I was always and I'm from Utah, so I was always like very, very proud of the fact that I have two gay dads that have been together for 20 years. And, you know, people always make a joke about, you know, gay relationships being so short and all that kind of stuff, you know. So I was like really proud that my parents were together for 20 years. And then they they had us all meet and over video call to tell us that they were getting divorced, more or less. And it was horrible, you know. It was I was really, really sad about it because I really, really liked them together. I understood why they did it. Yes. For sure. There was very valid reasons why it happened, but it was pretty devastating, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, that turns out to be a very common experience.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That even though they're fully grown up, even though they might have their total independent life going, they might even have their own kids, when they're when their old parents get divorced, they experience almost the same feelings that a younger child would experience.
SPEAKER_01I think it's almost worse as an adult because when you're a kid, you like well, especially when you're a little kid, you know, you don't you know them together, but you you haven't known them together for that long, and you just kind of do whatever your parents say at that age, you know, and it's like so them saying that they're separating, you don't know that that's not like a a normal thing that happens all the time. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And when you're adult, you you know that, you know, you know the the difference, and you just kind of expect especially if you expected them to stay together, you know. It's yeah, more almost more heartbreaking because you know what's happening.
SPEAKER_00And it's a s and that's a good point. You understand what's happening better. And even when you're an adult person, the idea of your parents as a unit is a stabilizing force in your life. And when that goes away, if that goes away because of divorce, adult children uh still report feeling grief and loss, instability. Some are sh shocked and angry, some feel betrayed, some feel ashamed that their parents aren't sticking together. And then, you know, they think about the complexity of their life now. Like holidays are blown.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Forget about holidays.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna go to dad's, yeah, I gotta go to mom's.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And you know, and as an adult, if you're dragging around your own kids to these holiday gatherings, it's like no, I don't want to do it. It's too much. Your inheritance might be blown. Yeah. Because now, where'd the money go?
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_00And then a lot of these graying parents, they turn to their adult children as counselors, like, hey, I gotta tell you, I gotta unload on you. And it's the same thing about getting your kids in the middle. They tell you never to do that. When you have little kids, don't get them in the middle of the divorce. It's very damaging. Well, that they'll do that because they figure, oh, these kids can take it now. They're old.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're grown up.
SPEAKER_00So I think it was interesting to me to see just how destabilizing it can be for kids when their older parents get divorced. In fact, you know, it's these these stories we tell ourselves, these narratives we tell ourselves about the people in our lives, and these stories help feel help us feel more secure and safe and stable in the world. And when something disrupts one of those stories, even if they're fantasy stories, even if they're totally made up in our head based on nothing except our own desires, when those get disrupted, then it really can be troubling to our souls and our spirit and what we think about the world and our sense of stability and security. And that's what can happen, you know, when your parents suddenly say, Hey, we're moving on. You know, I'm gonna be a Zumba teacher, and you're and your father's gonna be one of those guys with the little coin detector on the beach. Right. And we're happy as clams. Yeah. And you would think that the kids would say, Whoa, that's great. You're both kind of exploring your thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I tried to project again, you know, my parents stayed together, but mother died fairly young, so we didn't get to test this out. And I think at different times I would have thought different things. I think if I was like 30s and 40s, it would have been a lot tougher. Yeah. But now as I'm older, I think I'd be happy for them. I'd be like, yeah. Yeah, I'd do your own thing.
SPEAKER_01When I was when when I was 22, it felt horrible, but I think now I would have a a better understanding and maybe more empathy, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think that when you're I'll just talk about myself. When I was in my twenties, uh-huh, I think I was still a kid. Yeah. I still look at my parents just as my parents. I didn't think of them as human beings.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I didn't start thinking of my mother as a fully dimensionalized human being until she died, and I started going through her like personal notes and things. I was like, she was like a real human.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00She wasn't just a mom.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I know that sounds unenlightened, but that's kind of how I thought about that. Both of us.
SPEAKER_01I think that's pretty common, probably.
SPEAKER_00Probably. I think in your 20s, you're still really not thinking about them in any other way. But as you get older, you start realizing, oh, these are real people with real lives, and you start thinking about the choice they made, good and bad, and how why they might have done it. My father lived a really long time, so I got to ask him a lot of questions about the choices he made. And it was just illuminating, even if it wasn't always satisfying to hear the answer. It was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I get it. It was nothing personal against me. You were just making these choices because you thought these were good choices. And you were doing the best you can with whatever you had. And it was just it's helpful, you know, to get that perspective. But I think you have to be a certain ways down the path before you're willing to kind of consider, oh yeah, maybe my parents are real people and they are dealing with the same stuff that I deal with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they have the same controversies and crises and issues that I deal with, and they've always had them. Because you think tend to think your parents, when you're younger, like, well, they're in charge, they signed up for this. This is, I guess this is what they do. This is just so do your job, mom and dad. Stay in your stay in your lane.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, and I think parents who get divorced are saying, We're not gonna stay in our lane anymore, kids.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think they're probably surprised that their kids are still, you know, their adult children are feeling upset, upset about it. And ultimately, I think we know we talked about parents in a different episode and parenting and how involved they are, but I think it's a little selfish of kids to feel like their parents owe them a lifetime of marriage.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You owe it to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I need you to stay together because that's my story. Now you're ruining my story, you're ruining my holidays, and where's the money at?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You're ruining it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, and it makes me uncomfortable that one of you is dating now. Right. It's weird. I don't want that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I have a friend that just his parents just moved out of the country and he was so mad about it because he doesn't even have a girlfriend, mind you. Right. But he was really mad about it because he's like, Well, I need you to be here for when I have babies and so you can help me take care of my babies. Like, like you're an adult man, yeah, and you don't have a girlfriend. Like, they don't owe you that either. They retired and they're gonna go live in another country for a period of time, you know? It's just like it seems crazy to me to think that they owe that to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I but I think there is that certain amount of ownership. I own, I have entire I'm entitled as a child, I'm entitled to own your experience. And I'm probably putting that too harshly, but it there is a certain amount of ownership that's being expressed. Like I need you guys to just maintain and not put any more disruptions in my life. My life is complicated enough without having two older parents getting busy, yeah, you know, on the apps.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I don't want to see you out there, mom. I don't want to see you out there. You told me there was a show like that.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00You told me there was a show where the moms are the sons they're dating each other. I don't know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01MILF Manor, I believe. MILF Mannor. Disgusting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So if you find yourself, if you're a cragger out there, if you're cragging out, and you know, your grandpa, your grandma, or you or you have parents who are old, you know, and Mima comes to you, and Mima says, I'm divorcing your father or your grandfather or whatever they're doing. And don't lead with, why? You have nothing to live for.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00What is the point? Yeah. Don't don't don't start there. Maybe have a little more patience, a little more empathy. Listen to the story. And if you are one of these older couples and you're thinking about maybe there's something better, why first of all, explore that. Always tell people go on a thought experiment first. When you're thinking about a major change, experiment with it in your mind. Like think about it, read about it, study on it, meditate on it, join a group where you can talk about it safely. And then as you explore it, think about how that makes you feel. You know, and there was one in one of the articles I was reading, one lady just said, I just felt every day like I just wanted to get in a car and drive forever and never come back. And it's like, if you're having those feelings, you need to follow those feelings and see where they lead you. Yeah. Because that's not a good sign. And maybe it'll cause you and your partner to reimagine your relationship and figure out how you can do it, like how you can make it work, and that's a good outcome. But maybe it's, you know, after putting in 30 or 40 years, you know, it's people weren't people weren't supposed to live this long. Right. So it's a big ass to say this person that you thought was a cute biscuit at 25 is somebody you gotta stick with at 75. Not because they could still be a cute biscuit. I've seen some cute 75 biscuits.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_00Jamie, thank you for joining me to talk about gray divorce. If you think your parents would never get a divorce, you gotta look at it because it's again. You think again, Heimlich, it could happen to you. And you know, if it does happen, it doesn't have to be the end of the world. It's a great time for you as the adult child of a gray divorce. You can use that as an opportunity for growth too, and for you to re-establish your a more genuine and honest relationship with your parents. It's actually true that older people are truly marginalized in Western society, especially in this country. And we get used to thinking of them as less than, not fully entitled. And so I think that's part of it. It's like, how can it be that you have these feelings for life that a younger person has? Like, isn't that gone now? It's like, no, no, it's not gone. It can be just as strong for an older person as it is for a younger person. Older people can fall in love, older people, you know, are sexual beings, older people have dreams and desires, older people like to experience life. You know, the fact that they're pruning out, it should not be held against them. Right. So I think some of the bias against gray divorce has to do with just not thinking of older people as being fully, fully capable human beings because of the way they look. And we want to kind of treat them in a very constrained, confined box. Stay in your lane, stay in your box. So I think when your parents, uh, if that happens to you, it's an opportunity for you to grow as a person and it's an opportunity for them to grow as a person. And it could be an opportunity, instead of it being a disruptive, horrible thing where you feel betrayed and you might feel that way initially, it might be a catalyst for you actually going closer to them and experiencing them on a whole different level. So that is what we're saying at this moment. And thank you, Jamie, for joining us, and thank you everyone for listening. Please share the show, as I say. That helps us a great deal, and we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are a bag of thaw dust like Nicole's kidney, but only at night, or just someone who's a cute aging biscuit, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Bye everybody. I've seen some cute 75 biscuits.
SPEAKER_01Sure.