A messy conversation about divorce
65 min
•Jan 21, 20263 months agoSummary
Matt and Abby discuss divorce statistics, common reasons marriages fail, and strategies for maintaining healthy relationships. They explore data on divorce timing, occupational risk factors, and emphasize that commitment and daily effort matter more than initial compatibility in sustaining marriage.
Insights
- Life circumstances and external stressors drive divorce more than relationship incompatibility; couples often blame marriage when life itself is hard
- Willingness to work on marriage and resolve conflicts daily is the primary determinant of success, not initial compatibility or feelings
- Putting spouse before children strengthens rather than weakens parenting by modeling healthy love and providing children emotional security
- Social media and online commentary create unrealistic pressure on relationships by encouraging quick judgment and exit rather than perseverance
- Professional help and community support are critical resources; therapy should be normalized and made accessible to prevent relationship deterioration
Trends
Gray divorce (50+) rates doubled since 1990; longevity and reduced stigma enable later-life exits from unhappy marriagesReality TV and social media couples experience disproportionately high divorce rates due to public scrutiny and financial/fame pressuresJanuary divorce spike (20-30% increase in filings) driven by post-holiday stress; couples delay difficult conversations through holiday seasonWomen initiate two-thirds of divorces in US; gender dynamics shift by age 30 when childcare responsibilities increaseOccupational divorce risk varies significantly; healthcare workers, military supervisors, and flight attendants show elevated rates due to schedule strainInfidelity patterns shift by age: women 18-29 cheat more; men 30+ cheat more, correlating with parenthood and body image changesAverage marriage length before divorce is 8 years; couples married under 25 have 25% higher divorce ratesCohabitation before marriage correlates with higher divorce likelihood, contrary to common assumptions about trial periods
Topics
Divorce statistics and timing patternsMarriage commitment vs. compatibilityConflict resolution in relationshipsInfidelity and gender differencesWork-life balance impact on marriageParenting priorities vs. spousal prioritizationFinancial transparency in marriageTherapy and professional marriage supportSocial media impact on relationship perceptionGray divorce and aging populationsOccupational risk factors for divorceCommunication skills in marriageHoneymoon phase and disillusionment cyclesRemarriage success ratesEmotional vs. rational decision-making in relationships
Companies
Brigham Young University
Cited research showing peak marital dissatisfaction at year 10, particularly among women overwhelmed by household duties
Purdue University
Referenced study on gray divorce trends and increased longevity as factor in 50+ divorce rate increases
Pew Research Center
Provided data showing divorce rates for 50+ and 65+ age groups have doubled and tripled since 1990
Gallup
Source for research showing married individuals report 30 points higher happiness than unmarried counterparts
Institute for Family Studies
Cited for demographic data on infidelity patterns by gender and age, showing gender cheating gap variations
Gottman Institute
Referenced for research on couples rekindling love through laughter and overcoming conflict together
People
John Deloney
Expert cited for concept that marriages must be grieved and rebuilt with each major life change or new child
Arthur Brooks
Expert referenced for research on cohabitation before marriage correlating with higher divorce likelihood
Tony Robbins
Mentioned for discussing importance of prioritizing marriage over children to create healthy family dynamics
Kim Kardashian
Example cited of celebrity divorce (from Kanye West) filed in February, illustrating post-holiday divorce spike
Kanye West
Referenced in context of celebrity divorce and mental health challenges affecting marriage stability
Quotes
"Your feelings don't tell you the truth. Your feelings lie to you all the time."
Matt•Agree to Disagree segment
"I think the determining factor in whether or not you stay married boils down to whether or not you both are willing to work on it."
Matt•Early discussion
"Marriage isn't hard. Life is hard."
Matt and Abby•Core theme discussion
"Ask not what your spouse can do for you, but what you can do for your spouse."
Matt•Commitment discussion
"We before me. That's right. You before me and we before me."
Abby and Matt•Closing reflection
Full Transcript
Thank you to Time for Learning for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. Schooling is one of the most important decisions you make for your children, and I'm really excited about the option Time for Learning. We are coming to that point where our kids are getting ready to enter pre-K, and there's all these decisions to make, and I love that we're in this day and age where there are so many options, but I'm also very overwhelmed by it. But I'm really excited about Time for Learning because they have everything you need to teach pre-K through 12th grade at home, but with all the core and elective classes offered in a traditional brick-and-mortar school. I love that option because you get the structure that you would like with a traditional school format, but with a personalized intimate setting of homeschooling. And that's because Time for Learning believes in harnessing the flexibility of homeschool to help families explore passions, travel, and hobbies without the constraints of traditional school hours. It can also be used for more than homeschooling. It is also used for school or summer learning to address learning gaps or maintain skills. It was created by experts for parents with over 1 million students served. Time for Learning is also super user-friendly. It can go on your computer or on your phone and they have really easy to read calendars for the day or the month. It also has a progress bar so you can see where your kids are at, what they've completed and what they still have yet to do. I think it's a really, really great option for families that are looking for that flexibility and that nuance in their child's education. So if you're also curious if Time for Learning is right for your family, visit timeforlearning.com. That's time, number four, learning, dot com to explore their curriculum and find the perfect plan for your student. You can get started with a monthly subscription to see just how much your kids enjoy learning on their own terms. People are just so quick to just be like, leave him. If I had a dollar for every comment or like on a comment for people that told you to leave me, I would have a lot of dollars. Getting married under the age of 25, you have a higher rate of divorce by up to 25%. We were children when we started dating, but there's like pros and cons, right? Compromise wasn't exactly possible. That was like a hurdle in our relationship we had to overcome, and we did. We figured it out, right? I got my way. Are men or women more likely to cheat? Let me look that up. Men. Why men? Because they think with their pee-pee. What would you say has been the hardest season to grieve and let go of and recognize that part of our life is done? Hey, before we get started on today's episode, I wanted to ask you guys to just take a couple seconds of your time to leave a review for our podcast. It means the world to us. And if you're not subscribed to the show, if you wouldn't mind just tapping the subscribe button. Actually, the majority of the people that watch the show aren't even subscribed. According to the data, that's probably you watching this right now. So please, it takes one second. Hit subscribe. We'd love to have you a part of this community. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Unplanned, a marriage and family podcast. And today we are talking about divorce. We're going to have an unfiltered, messy conversation about it. We're about marriage and divorce. Which is actually kind of funny because I had people submit some questions today and someone literally thought we were divorced, which is so sad. No, I feel like that's, I thought that, I was like, you're literally going to make it sound like we're getting divorced. We're not getting divorced guys. We're just having a conversation about it, which I think is actually so important to have these conversations in marriage, because if you avoid uncomfortable conversations in your marriage, it's just going to grow like a disconnect between you. Okay. Actually, I was like looking at what we had prepared for this episode. And the thing that surprised me the most, because I feel like we talk, gosh, we talk endlessly about young marriage. apparently getting married under the age of 25 you have a higher rate of divorce by up to 25 do you think that changes how we should advise our kids on marriage like if we have a kid that comes to us wanting to get married like we did when you're 19 are we going to encourage them to wait because then there's data that shows if you cohabitate if you cohabitate there's a likelihood that then you split up two you're saying that if you live together before you're married you're more likely to get divorced yeah that's what arthur brooks told us too and there's research to support that um i think it all boils down maybe this just makes me sound like a hopeless romantic but i think it just all boils down to when you meet your person yeah you do sound like a hopeless romantic would you describe me as well here's the thing babe like we got married freaking young but we're we're also nearly a decade in almost seven years of marriage this summer seven years of marriage and you know i i do think i think i do i want to say well i want to say it's probably there's like pros and cons right like i feel like it's harder because we've changed so much because we were children when we started dating yeah but like we also have grown up together i actually think the determining factor and whether or not you stay married boils down to whether or not you both are willing to work on it oh yeah that's good snaps like i'm snapping for that thing you have to actually be willing to work on it because it's like and there's some I mean that that is some things you could maybe decide like I am not willing to work on this anymore yeah like that's valid but it's that's as simple as it's like if are you willing to work on it yeah now there's the things that are like maybe you shouldn't work on this anymore like it you know what I mean I honestly think that you kind of hit the nail on the head there and we pretty much can just end the podcast there thanks for tuning in everybody people have to be willing to like one person yeah I feel like a lot of times in these marriages where are like one person gives up one person is like i've been working i've been working on this for so long yeah and you're not putting any effort yeah so it's like what is the point anymore and i can see where you i mean heck i probably come to that conclusion if it was like if this wasn't a two-way street you know what i mean and so um obviously so many things in life complicate it i think kids are probably the biggest thing that complicate it yeah complicate that yeah it's really sad you guys I don't know if you knew this, but January is actually considered divorce month because there's so many divorces that happen after the holidays. And there's just a post-holiday spike in divorce inquiries that lawyers report. And they think this is because of like stress, finances, relationship strain. Also, we're going to put all of our sources that we talk about in the description. We're not journalists. We're not experts. We'll bring on journalists and experts. We haven't been divorced either because we are only seven years in. Yeah. Or six and a half. Which is actually kind of terrifying because if you look at what the facts say, apparently the average length of marriage marriages, like that end of a divorce is eight years. So we still have another year to get to the average, another year and a half. To get to the average? Yes. Wow. So the average is eight years. I would have thought a lot of people bailed like within like year one or two. Yeah. It says right here, the fact is average marriage length before divorce in the U.S. is about eight years. And two thirds of divorces in the U.S. are initiated by women, which that was also both of those surprised. That checks out. Both of those surprised me a lot. Really? I would have thought that men were the one initiating divorces. No, I think men are more prideful. Like they're like, I don't want to wave the white flag. Like I want to be the one to call this. I also want to know, are men or women more likely to cheat? That's actually a question that I want to know. Let me look that up. what do you think men why men because because why i don't want to say this because i literally just sound always here how i don't want to be man-hating they think with their pp gosh dang it babe you're right so this is according to ifstudies.org it's demographics of infidelity in america and so according to this research men are more likely to cheat it also depends on like the age so if you're looking at men in between the ages of wait what this is interesting okay wait let me take a screenshot of this graph we'll have to throw it up on the screen so this is a gender cheating gap a graph that shows you when like are men or women more likely to cheat so between the ages of 18 and 29 women are more likely to cheat and then it changes yeah and then it changes to men for ages 30 to 39 and so on um isn't that interesting so this is a graph of like percentage she reported having sex with someone other than their spouse while married and it's higher for women for the age range that we're in i bet these are women that aren't having kids don't have oh so you think that like once women have kids are less likely who's got the time who's got the time when you have children who's got the time to go sleep around who's got the will who has got the will and the desire okay you are right though because i think it says 18 to 29 but i think i I think by age 29, if you look at this graph, it looks like it's moving closer and closer towards men. Yeah, and I think what happens at 29 is women start to have kids. And here's the thing. Here's why I think men hop up then. Because men are starting to get a little shallow. Their woman is going through so many body changes and hormonal changes. So they're like, I got to bail and find someone that, you know. Do you know what my theory is for the men? Yeah. I think men are like, oh, like my wife is putting the kids first, which is true. I think a lot of couples fall in that trap. I was taking a much more shallow approach. I think they're just like, oh, they're pregnant, postpartum, they're breastfeeding, like things aren't looking the same. And so they want, they want a new specimen. According to the data. So legal professionals see a 20 to 30% increase in calls and divorce filings post holidays. That makes a lot of sense. Who wants to tell the family that they're splitting up at Christmas dinner? A hundred percent. Like if, if you know it's coming, so say it's like October, right? And you're like, we're done. This is over. Like you're not going to do anything. Like you know that the holidays are coming up. You got Thanksgiving. You got Christmas. All these gatherings. October's still fine. I feel like that's probably. I feel like it starts to dip in November. Yeah. I feel like November, December. People are like fed up. And they're like we'll wait until January. We don't want to go through that uncomfortable conversation. But here's the thing. It's not like they made that decision most of the time. Probably November, December. It's from fractures for years and years. 100%. And that's why I think the most important muscle you can exercise in a marriage is the resolution muscle. Every little conflict can be like potentially a little fracture in the marriage. Yeah. And so those things I think are the things that add up to a divorce eventually rather than necessarily like one major event that just like, you know, just brought the whole thing down. We had a resolution last night. What was our resolution? Wait, what do you want to bring up? I feel fine bringing this up because it was me. I was clearly the problem. Did we have a description? Oh, yes. Wait, yes. I know what you're talking about now. I was being royal. Fill in the blank. Okay. No, you literally, what did you say to me? You came up to me? No, no, no. I knew, and here's the thing that's so frustrating is that in the moment, the whole time this wheel is going, it's like a wheel going down a hill. It's like, I see that we're picking up speed. I see that we're going down fast. And I know it's wrong. Couldn't stop it. Or you know what? let's be honest let me take responsibility here i didn't choose to stop it until i was like you know what i need to remove myself so then i just put my little headphones in after the kids went to bed read my kindle and then i just sat and pondered i was like that was so unnecessary that was way over dramatic you were a monster for about you're talking about yourself you're talking about me or yourself myself okay i was a little monster for about an hour and a half no you actually handled it super well. I handled it well? Yeah. Thank you. You were just kind of like, I think you were just kind of like, this is crazy. So I don't even, I'm afraid to interact. You did go from zero to a hundred real quick. I turned into a pillow. It didn't have to do with you. It was just like everything in the moment. It just felt like so much and it actually wasn't that big of a deal, but it just felt like so much. And so once the kids went to bed, put my headphones on, read my Kindle. And then finally I was like, let's go, let's go resolve this. And we went and had like a quick it didn't even need to be a long combo because like we have this muscle of resolution i feel like that like last night was like such a an example of like so much progress you know maybe early on in marriage it's like okay we would have had to like think about that for like a day and then be quiet for like a day and then had like two days of like deep conversations and it's like now it's like we're able to like stop rethink come back together and you were so quick to like respond though to that i think we laughed we laughed together yeah you didn't ice me out like that was what was really fun that's actually i really love when we are able to like rekindle things and laugh about it because that's i want to say in uh in the gotman institute they talk about how when couples are able to like rekindle their love and overcome a conflict with like laughter and like they make the i forget the exact term love which is always great that always makes everything just a little bit better could be a little awkward to talk about because our sister-in-law is in the room right now no i talk to add a lot about oh gosh yeah what is up with women and talking about sex i feel like i feel like you and your girlfriends talk about sex way more than me and my my dude friends i know it's and also why is it that you say you have girlfriends but like guys are never like yeah my boyfriends no dude is like yeah they're like my boys my my bro my homies no i like to call them my girls i honestly call my sister-in-laws my girls i've started that recently why is it not gay for women to say that but it is for for guys i don't get why that is sometimes you just throw me a question i'm like i don't know the patriarchy yeah but okay you guys talk about sex all the time talk to me about that why is that a thing what it's it's fun for me to talk about i get but it's what's interesting to me is like men myself included think about it probably 10 times more than you do i i think i don't know that's why i'm like why aren't you talking about it yeah i don't know why maybe we don't want to maybe we just want to do it and we don't want to talk about it like maybe i don't want to talk to other men about maybe we want to talk about it we don't want to do it i should i want to talk to you hey you know what i want to talk oh my gosh abby let's just talk about it and let's not no see i want to do it you want to talk i don't want to talk about it i just want to do it and but i i would love to talk about it with you like that's kind of hot i don't know i feel like that's what no we're going too far now but like the best time to laugh though that's how you know you've been married for a little bit longer than like the honeymoon stage is when you can just like laugh during it and yes they're hilarious and speaking some people don't like it when they laugh during intercourse both of us have definitely passed gas in the middle of of spicy time for sure i don't know what's up with we're too comfortable around each other i thought we're talking about the honeymoon stage well i thought you were talking about how like how we laugh like during during this time. Thank you to Rocket Money for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. Is there a subscription that you've been meaning to cancel that you keep putting off or are you getting overwhelmed with managing your financial situation? Because if that's you, I've been there and that's why Abby and I both use Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money also tracks your subscriptions, which is really, really cool because I know if you're anything like us, you might have some subscriptions that you don't even necessarily know about that you're spending money on every month. And they even have the ability to cancel those subscriptions within the app with just a few taps, saving time and avoiding charges. I'm also a nerd when it comes to numbers and money. And I love that you can get insights and reports into your finances through their app and you can set budgets and goals as well as have Rocket Money negotiate your bills down, which we actually had them do that for us. They negotiated our home security bill quite a bit. It went from, I think it was like 50 or 60 down to 30 bucks? That's just one of many ways that Rocket Money can help you save money. And now that it's the beginning of the new year, it's a great time to take control of your finances. With Rocket Money, you also can receive real-time alerts for large transactions, upcoming bills, refunds, and low balances. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join rocketmoney.com slash unplanned. That's rocketmoney.com slash unplanned. rocketmoney.com slash unplanned. Let's talk about common hard periods. This is kind of like analyzing the different, uh, the different times that people exit marriage. So, okay, if you're looking at year one through two, that's considered like the end of the honeymoon phase and the initial pretend phase fades, revealing daily quirks and responsibilities leading to clashes over routines and expectations. I've heard of couples getting divorces in like one to two years, but I feel like that's pretty uncommon. Really? I want to say so. I was going to say I thought it was the highest. No I feel like the highest is like the seven year itch that everyone talks about Oh Which this is our seventh year is this summer Well here the thing i don count that i already think we passed seven years because we were together for three years before true but i think we were like together together but i think people are talking about like marriage marriage though because it's like we weren't committed like once you make that commitment well i think it's great that we go to therapy because i think it's like getting an oil change on your car well i was actually going to talk about that i don't think everyone needs as much therapy as we need but i think it's the fact that i'm going to transition into this later but i think it's because of our occupation that like we need to be safeguarding it we're literally talking about some of the most vulnerable details of our life on the internet this is the reason why this is because of you freaking dude gosh darn cameras dang it gosh darn mike no i it's i say this jokingly because i think it's such a blessing that we get to work together but then we also need to like literally safeguard the crap out of it because we do know that this is probably a liability to 100 percent no 100 i think like we get in more arguments about like filming schedules and content and like like I don't think we have arguments about stuff outside like I feel like work is where we have arguments in my opinion right yeah so that's why we're in therapy but then also I think I noticed from my experience you kind of get over those things yeah you do but I think like I think the hardest phase that we've ever been through well we've had some different ups and downs we've had family members lost we had our miscarriage we've had a lot of stuff but what i think for from my experience i think the hardest phase was like the newborn stage mixed with then dealing with two under two is that when most people exit what's the statistics so okay so let's yeah let's keep talking about this so that's year one through two um end of the honeymoon stage then we have year three to five again all of our sources that we're getting this information from in the description year three to five um reality sets in so you have disillusionment grows as reality hits major discussions about finances housing and family planning often surface gosh i mean i'm i feel so blessed abby that you are a frugal queen and that you don't obviously we spend more money now than we spent you know a couple years ago but i still like i appreciate that like when you go and buy clothes you'll be like since i'm the one who like checks our rocket money and checks the numbers and make sure we're hitting our investment goals and hitting our savings goals you're like hey am i good to go spend you know it might be like 500 at abracomb on clothes i'll be like oh you know that's what that's what it usually is right like clothes are expensive and and i appreciate how you like like i think we like run purchases by each other which i like i appreciate well we have transparency in finance yeah i think that's like the best policy there's random things like i think i bought a mat that says you know take off your shoes and i don't think I ran that purchase by you which that ended up being the mat that the floor mat we have in our garage was not the cost of the mat you just hated the mat it was just I was like people can keep their shoes on in my house okay but uh yeah I think we're pretty good at just like making sure we're communicating about that and I and I think yeah the communication aspect of marriage is huge but we did have conflicts arise when it came to buying houses just like oh yeah so that is still related to finances in some capacity but also it's like yeah this bigger picture thing of like we are establishing our life together like where and how we're gonna do it and what we intend for this to look like i can see where that because it's one thing to say these things when you're dating and engaged but it's another thing when you've gone through life a little bit more like you're allowed to change your mind and i think that's what happens probably in that three to five years it's like okay well i know we like dreamed about having this many kids or we dream starting now but i'm not ready or i don't think we are where we're at financially to buy a house but i think we are blah blah i think that's that's a hard time big decisions if i think about the only money quote-unquote fight that we've ever had was probably buying the house that we're in now because we didn't technically need it you know you know like yeah yeah it was i wanted it abby abby just wanted it which is fine like she this this is a hard-working woman she just launched a new podcast guys okay go give her some love but like no i just i i didn't see i it had more to do with the location yeah and i think we're in a location that there's a lot more families we're also not as isolated there's a better location for our kids yeah which we've all talked about before but you know it wasn't necessarily a need but that was that was like a hurdle in our relationship we had to overcome and we did and we figured it out i got my way yeah you're a good man i love you so much man okay so next common hard periods if we look at years five to eight which that's what we're in right now okay okay wait so it sounds like every single year is a hard period because you said one to two three to five five to eight well this this like timeline that i'm talking about right now is just like uh pointing out the difficulties that you experience in every phase okay okay and this is generalizing this is not everyone right like not everyone's having kids It's not everyone's doing this. But this is, yeah, this is overgeneralizing what a lot of couples feel. And I think they're probably like just speculating on data, like why we see these. Yeah. Like jumps. But yeah, years five to eight, a lot of couples experience high stress from child care, differing parenting styles, work-life balance, resentment can peak. It's funny. Work-life balance is why we had the argument that why that we had a little thing last night that was about because we you had worked late and I think that was frustrating you. so I find that really interesting that it brings it's like it's like it knew our minds this this is just from the internet this is from website none of us are living unique lives and yeah all of us are we're all so much more alike than we are different but so yeah work-life balance um and then resentment can peak coinciding with divorce spikes that's why the seven-year itch get that out of here this is my foot okay I apologize I'm gonna move my foot down you're I'm putting my dogs away, everybody. Sorry, Addy. Sorry. So, yeah, that's where we get the seven-year itch. But, guys, this is very fascinating. Last but not least, year 10, according to this research, is peak dissatisfaction. What? I was going to think that was the best year. A Brigham Young University study found the highest dissatisfaction around this time as festering issues become major complaints, often linked to women feeling overwhelmed by chores and kids. Well, that's... This study could be biased. If this is from Brigham Young University, you know, I know a lot of LDS Mormon families. If you're 10 years in, you probably have like seven kids at that point, right? They didn't say that they were only studying people. Yeah, I'm guessing they're studying the entire US. They probably have a better population to study research. You know, I feel like we've gotten into a decent spot with two, But I'm like, man, as we grow our family. Well, they say you have to grieve your marriage that you had every time you have a new kid or anything, something, anytime something big happens in your life, that marriage is done. A new marriage is starting. You have to rebuild your marriage. You can't just try to carry the same marriage into that new phase of life. You heard that from John Deloney. Yes, I did. What would you say has been the hardest season to grieve and let go of and recognize, okay, we're moving forward. That part of our life is done. You want me to go first? I could tell you right away. I feel like I need to keep my private. For me, it was like, like reality hit once we had Augie because it was like such a whirlwind with like we had, it was like, boom, Griffin. Like I didn't even feel like I got it, got a chance to come up for air before. It was like, oh, you're pregnant again with your second kid. I think when around like when Augie was born, I had this like panic moment of like, oh my gosh, my life is not my own anymore. Yeah. And, and I think, yeah, I wish, I wish I would have had John Aloni there to be like, hey, it's going to be okay. He would have been like, yeah, it's done, brother. It's done, brother. But guess what? there's there's good things in the future coming for you you know and like this this stressful period of the newborn stage is temporary this stressful period of having two essential newborns at the same time is temporary yeah and that would have helped me out but i think i you know i i loved the idea of us like leaving missouri being on the beach in hawaii surfing every day seeing my smoking hot wife in a bikini all the time because we're going to the beach all the time eating acai e-bulls living in a little cute surf surfer shack on the beach like we had this amazing life and then i'm like i'm freaking living in the desert and i've got two rug rats that i have to keep alive 24 7 and i don't have any time myself that like freaked me out but we got through it now i'm like fighting myself to not love my kids more than you because it's like it's so important that i love you and put you above our children because that's like the key to a happy healthy relationship that's a trap we can't fall into yeah you can't fall into that trap of like loving your kids tony robbins tony robbins talked to us about many people and arthur brooks and john no but it's so refreshing because i do think that the culture is pulling you especially moms yeah to put the kids first you can't do that put the kids first and it's like it's dangerous this doesn't mean that you're not taking care of your children taking really good care of your kids but it means you're taking amazing care of your marriage you want to as you're raising your kids want to see you put your spouse first they do that makes them feel safe and i agree i felt that way as a kid when like i mean i've experienced that and so i do think like we can circle back to like the hardest part for me i think in our marriage was when we were just on completely different pages about like where we wanted to be yeah like location wise like yeah and i just felt so much guilt i talked about this on always here but i felt so much guilt because i felt like i was in the way of you experiencing your dream life yeah because i wasn't experiencing like i was like i just don't think i can thrive here and so just like being in that tough position of like okay where should we literally locate ourselves yeah that was a hard season that was hard because it was it's just so hard when you're you are on a completely different page with your spouse like you're like i see you thriving like basically like so happy and so like excited about life where you're at and just like me really trying to get on board i just like can't yeah and i just felt so i like felt so guilty about that and so that was like just a really selfless thing of you to do like that compromise of like that was a hard thing where it was like really compromise wasn't exactly possible yeah like it was either like one person gets their way or one person doesn't you can't Like we could split the difference. That's part of it too. Like, yeah, I mean, it's funny hearing you say that. Yeah. Cause like moving out of Hawaii really wasn't a compromise or moving to this house wasn't really compromised. But I think there's times in marriage where you just have to fully abandon what you want. Well, I think that's where compromise comes. It's like, you get this one. I'm going to get this one. Yeah. You get this one. I'm going to get this one. So you can always split the difference, you know? Yeah. But, um, yeah, I think that was the hardest. I think that's like that year three to five thing. Thank you to Olipop for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. Oh, yeah. It's Olipop o'clock. You guys, in this household, we have been fighting over this flavor of Olipop ever since it came out. It is their new Shirley Temple flavor. Yes, guys. The Shirley Temple flavor is probably my favorite Olipop flavor of all time. I drank, I think, the entire case basically by myself. You were hogging them. And then I realized, oh, my gosh, we need this to film this portion of our sponsorship with Olipop. I had to go buy a bunch of more cans because I just keep drinking these every day. And this is still the last one we have left. This is actually the last can. I bought like 20 extra cans and I drank all of those too. With one sip of this drink, you are transported back to your childhood. I remember weddings when every adult was getting like alcoholic beverages, obviously, and Shirley Temple's were really hitting the spot. And guess what? They hit the same spot as an adult. They're so good. And this is my favorite part. It only has four grams of sugar. Four grams of sugar in a soda. Have you guys heard of a soda that has four grams of sugar? That's insane. Olipop right here people. If you don't know what Olipop is, it's a new kind of soda that combines the classic soda taste with the benefits of a functional ingredient blend to support digestive health. Olipop is basically reimagining soda with high fiber and low sugar. And Olipop, as we said, just launched a new limited edition flavor, Shirley Temple, and it's their take on the Shirley Temple classic you remember from your childhood. And it has real ingredients you can actually feel good about. Supports digestive health with real ingredients and less sugar. Again, this can right here, guys, only has four grams of sugar. And it's the perfect color for Valentine's Day. So think about that. Yeah. Get a free can of Olipop. Buy any two cans of Olipop in store and we'll pay you back for one. Works on any flavor, any retailer. Olipop is sold online at drinkolipop.com and Amazon and available in the soda aisle and with the chilled beverages at thousands of retailers nationwide, including Walmart and Target. For more information, go to drinkolipop.com slash unplanned. I will say this is a random thought I'm having right now, but if you're if you yourself are going through a hard season in your relationship, I don't know why this always like just puts reality in perspective for me. But I love looking back at old videos of Abby and I if I'm ever in a season of, you know, just feeling overwhelmed or maybe we're having a disagreement that day. Right. If I ever look back at like old videos of us, it just kind of puts everything in perspective. And I'm like, man, we're these two kids. We freaking love each other. We freaking love each other. We're these two just crazy, like infatuated individuals that sent it, got married in college. We were, how the heck legally did we even do that? But we did. I mean, like we got married so young. We've adventured the world together and it's always been about you. Like the entire reason I ever even did this freaking YouTube channel is because of you. Like it's always been you. So it just kind of puts it all into perspective for me. And apparently, like when we've talked to different experts about divorce, when I've read books about what leads to marriage's ending, oftentimes you have contempt. Contempt apparently is one of the largest indicators. but there's also the aspect of couples not being able to remember the good days not being able to remember a time where they were happy with their partner and so that's why I like looking back at videos because it's it kind of just tells your brain you're wrong look at you you're happy right here you love your life right here this can be you again this is in store for you again you're just in a season or a very brief, tiny little moment of time where you're frustrated. And this is, this is just a little blip. Life isn't perfect. Get over it. Figure it out. I'm lucky that I have a husband that sees life that way and sees marriage that way and prioritizes it like that. And, um, yeah, I, I do think back to when we first got married, I'm like, gosh, we basically were gambling. Yeah, we kind of did. We kind of, we really weren't because we had like had so many discussions. We had mentors. We had so many long, deep talks about like, why are we doing this? Like all these different things. But yeah, in the end, like people, people change over time. And it's just important that you change together. You know what's so interesting? Do you know which month Kim Kardashian and Kanye West got divorced? Guess what month? Probably January. It was actually February, but still like just again, beginning of the year. Now February, that's a sad one because there's Valentine's Day in there. I know. maybe kim just decided that she didn't want to celebrate one more valentine's day with kanye actually that's sad i also think he was going through a lot of mental health stuff which like i think was just hard on them but i don't want to speculate about them we're here to talk about us um abby what do you think are the most cited reasons for divorce cheating yep infidelity okay i read this thing oh wait you already know what these are i remember lack of communication which That's so broad. You can't file for that. Poor communication. Well, I think if you're unable to communicate effectively with your partner, that's just a disaster. No, no, no. I feel like everyone struggles with communication at times. Okay. And then it's like you just got to get back on. I think that's early down the road and then things conspire. Yeah, if you're dealing with some poor communication, go to freaking therapy, dude. I think there's still so much. It's expensive. Well, yeah. Therapy is expensive. And a lot of I feel like a lot of times one of the spouses is like super against it still Even nowadays Okay Even even just having friends that are also married they put things into reality That true Their struggles are the same That actually one of my best advice pieces of advice for newlyweds is to surround yourself with other married people. Yeah. That like have marriages that you also admire. Yes. No, I think when I'm hanging out with my buddies who I literally just met because they're the husbands of the people that you're friends with at the gym. But they're your friends now. But they're my friends now. We all have the same problems. it's like man do you guys have that same stupid thing happen to you oh my gosh yes what's up with this your your wife complained about that too oh my gosh we all have the same problems you just need a gripe i think a little bit of that is okay every once in a while no i think it's healthy but you don't want to like you don't want to trash you want to speak highly of your spouse totally yeah but i think it's okay to do it yeah there's there's like a there's a healthy way to be honest about like hey we're having this this thing come up and like that feels productive and then one that's like, okay, you're just trying to bash on your wife. Abby pulled up an article about the occupation. Well, I was just curious about this because like more on the topic of thinking about, I'm like, gosh, this has been on my mind a lot recently. Thinking about the fact that a lot of people, like couples and families that are on reality TV break apart. Why is that? I think about every TLC family and every, you know. We just had Lydia Plath on the show. Her parents got a divorce. we've had uh you know a very sweet couple uh zach why am i blanking on their names right now torii torii the roll-offs zach and torii roll-off uh zach's parents divorced divorced like all of these there it's just it's running rampant on the reality tv side social media couples too it's so many couples on the social media side too yes so that's what i was thinking about it i'm like obviously these these things haven't made it to the list yet also they're kind of niche still like Yes. So that's not going to probably make it on a list like this. But which was more reason why I said like that's why like I feel like we wouldn't really be in like we probably go to marriage therapy like once every three, four weeks. Yeah, it's like a once a month thing that we do. But we probably wouldn't need that. I mean, I don't think we would choose to do that if we didn't work together. Did you know what the percentage of marriages and divorces? It's like 50 percent. Yeah, it's like 40 to 50. So that's yeah, that's what I read. OK, so here are the occupations. Some of them I was like, yeah, that checks out. The other ones I was pretty surprised by. One of them was bartenders. That kind of makes sense. Yeah. If you're a bartender, I feel like you're in a flirtatious environment. This is also overgeneralization, but you're working late nights. Yes. You're in a very casual atmosphere where alcohol is involved. People are dressed up. People are drunk. A lot of flirting. People making dumb decisions when they're drunk. Like you can also, you have weird hours too, so it's easy to like. I feel like if you're a bartender, it'd be safer to be a bartender with your spouse. Like if you're bartenders together, like you see your. Well, I'm sure there's a lot of bartenders and healthy, happy, committed relationships. But this is just a pattern. True. Military supervisors. Interesting. Now, this one is interesting because I would have thought I know military in general doesn't have a great reputation for. Yeah, I have heard about that. I think there's a lot of people that get married. You're away from your spouse. There's that being away from your spouse. A lot of cheating goes on infidelity. But then there's also the aspect of if you get married in the military, you get more money from the military. so people will get married and then divorce. That's different though. Oh yeah, I guess you're saying like maybe they weren't, they should have got married at the first place. They did it for the money. Yeah, yeah. But this was supervisors. So it says military supervisors have difficult, high stress jobs that send them all over the world. So I guess it's the same reason, I guess, as like maybe non-supervisors, but people in the military experience. Next is medical and healthcare workers. I'm sure that's also related to probably- That's actually surprising to me. And they work really like long, odd hours. Yeah, I guess working odd hours, especially if you're doing nights. You're never home. Not being home. That's sad. Yeah, it is really sad. I mean, medical and healthcare workers sacrifice so much. Yeah. And so I can easily see where it's like, I can no longer prioritize this marriage because this occupation is like taking all of me. Do they have stats on these people? Like, do they have any numbers associated with like the medical and healthcare workers? No, but I do know that there's even within the medical field, like certain jobs, I think it's like brain surgeons like have a really high divorce rate why brain surgeons i don't know i don't i i can't i'm not i'm not here to speculate on the data yeah but and i don't even quote me on that but i'm like that's just what it's saying you're so pretty it's distracting right that's ridiculous you need to go ahead and like wear some sunglasses you have really pretty eyes next is gaming service workers which is like people like running casino games and stuff it's like i feel like that's kind of in the same category as it's like bartenders same type of atmosphere flight attendance why would a flight i guess they're traveling a lot yeah they're in new locations no one would tell them you could get away with it so easily it's like i was in belgium no one saw me so then who which occupations have the best rates wait let me finish these really quick marital success this one this one is weird to me what telemarketers and switchboard operators what what is a switchboard operator is that something from like the 1800s i don't know a switchboard It says they work completely different jobs, but the details surrounding these jobs are the same. They sit in a chair all day and deal with phones. Telemarketers attempt to sell products or services and switchboard operators connect callers to other people who can solve their problems. They're both speaking with people on the phone all day and people on the other end are likely stressed out or unhappy. Many people find these professions to be unfulfilling and nobody likes to spend the entire day getting yelled at by strangers. It's hard to cope with a job you don't like that leaves you feeling exhausted at the end of the day. Okay, babe. That is my hot take. All right. I think way more than like the marriage itself or the relationship itself. I think outside factors play a much bigger role in divorce than people like. Oh, for sure. It's not necessarily the marriage that's hard. It's that life is hard. Life is hard. And you're both individuals living life and you're showing up in your marriage. And you're responding differently. Right. To the situation, which then can build resentment, which can lead to conflict, which can lead to one person being like, why are you reacting this way why i saw you smile are you how are you happy right now and we just this thing just happened right right so i think when life gets hard i think you know we had brooklyn and bailey on the podcast two years ago and something that they said was they don't think marriage is hard they think life is hard i would 100 100 agree with that totally yeah i'll go through the rest of this list really quick though but dancers and choreographers this one surprised me massage therapist that's why that surprised me that's funny and this one's really weird textile knitting and weaving machine operators these are some weird don't find yourself in that profession if you want to be a textile machine operator don't do it you will your relationship there's no clear correlation or speculation as to why this industry is so heavily affected by divorce they're like we don't know um but very interesting and i feel like you know if we were to look onto reality tv and yeah social media people so we've talked we've talked a lot about divorce it seems it seems like we need to have some positive stats on yeah it seems like marriage is doomed it's like hey is marriage even worth it it's not even worth it why the heck a lot of people listening into this probably married probably want to get married or know someone that's married is marriage worth it well before we get into the positive stuff let's talk about gray divorce gray divorce is actually a trend going back to the negative it's divorce rates for people that are like 50 plus i mean it's doubled the rate of divorce and people that are 50 plus has doubled since 1990 while those while those for while the rate for people that are 65 plus has nearly tripled according to pew research it's not is that not crazy well that's really sad yeah so why is gray divorce increasing increased longevity people live longer and are less willing to stay in unhappy marriages for decades according to purdue university that's a weird way to analyze that generational i'm gonna live at least 30 more years well if your marriage sucks and you don't like it i mean i guess but then that flip side of that is that they're saying that it's someone that's like 80 is like well i hate this person but i'm only i'm gonna die soon so i'll just stay in it that's a weird way to analyze that data in my opinion and then we have the emptiness factor couples may realize they have little in common once the children leave their home that's really sad that is sad and i can see that happening and that's why right now with us having kids that's why you put us first we prioritize our marriage and we put us first we love each other more than we have to constantly remind ourselves because it's it yeah it's so easy to slip into that well i think it's almost like almost an evolutionary thing where like your brain once you're it's like prioritizing your offspring and you're like i gotta you know this is my legacy this is what's gonna keep spreading my dna you know we also have to clarify this means that this doesn't mean you get to be a bad parent oh no not at all you're an amazing parent but i think it makes you a better parent when your kids see you loving your spouse right i agree it makes you a better father you can do both it makes you a better father and a better example to your your young boys when you show them how to love their mom yeah and you don't and you don't just tell them you exact you lead by example your kids are watching you at all times yeah and also i don't think that one has to come at the cost of the other. Yeah. Both can be important in the same breath. Yes. But with all of that negative news about divorce, it's very sad. Can you finally transition into the positive? You dangled that earlier. These are some uplifting stats about marriage. So marriage actually comes with higher thriving rates. Married people, especially ages 25 to 50 are significantly more likely to thrive. And then also there's a happiness boost, which just makes sense to me. Like I've heard of married couples because they're checking in on each other. They're making sure that the person's taking their medicine or going to therapy or getting checked out if they're sick. Like people live longer when they're married too. There's a bunch of data and research to support that. But not only does it make you live longer, but there's also there's research to support people being happier when they're married. So married individuals report being significantly happier with some analysis is showing them 30 points happier than unmarried counterparts. Points. Wow. I guess that's just, I guess the points is a percentage. Um, and this is again, research from Gallup and life satisfaction studies show married people report higher overall life satisfaction and happiness. Interesting. I love that. I feel like that all is not surprising. Like that all makes sense. Yeah. So there's a lot of health benefits, a lot of positive, you know feelings and emotions that you get with marriage and i think while people can sometimes like it's easy to when when life's not going your way just to find find something to gripe about oh it's my marriage it's this could be better oh my no it's like maybe maybe your life is just hard because life is hard and it has nothing to do with your spouse at all or maybe it's maybe you're the problem too like that's something that's a reality i've had to face myself whenever I'm facing a struggle or a challenge in our marriage. And it's like, hey, how am I being a good spouse? That's very mature. What am I doing to love and serve Abby? Like if I want her to be this perfect person for me, maybe I first need to be this perfect person for her. I actually have to go to the bathroom real quick. Oh yeah, you can go pee real quick. I can go really quick. Well guys, while Abby's taking a quick potty break, I do want to fill you in on a new segment we're going to try out today. We're playing agree to disagree. We've played this game for an entire episode before, but I actually wanna try ending an episode with an agree to disagree relating to the topic of the episode today, which was divorce. Let us know what you think about this. And while you're letting us know, please be sure to hit the subscribe button. It really helps us out. And if you haven't left us a review before in our podcast, that would actually mean a lot. If you could just go leave a quick review, it literally takes 10 seconds. You can just say, love it, and then tap how many stars you wanna tap, and you're done. Have you been putting off starting a business that you've been dreaming about for years? because we ourselves are actually starting up a new business this year. We're very excited and we're doing it with today's sponsor of this portion of the episode, Shopify. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have already made this leap from household names to first-time business owners just getting started. I don't know about you guys, but I really like how easy and seamless Shopify makes the whole experience for you as the business owner. It's not too hard to set up a website with them. They like help manage everything and make it streamlined. So you don't have to deal with the headaches that business owners used to deal with years ago when a platform like Shopify didn't exist. I agree. It can be really daunting to think about building something from the ground up. But Shopify is very user friendly and helps get you started. They have all the tools you need to easily build your dream store. Choose from hundreds of beautiful templates that you can customize to match your brand and set up as fast with Shopify's built in AI tools that write product descriptions and headlines and help you edit product photos. Marketing is built into create email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they scroll. As you grow, Shopify grows with you. Handle more orders, expand to new markets and do it all from the same dashboard. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash unplanned. Go to shopify.com slash unplanned. That's shopify.com slash unplanned. Hear your first this new year with Shopify by your side. All right, Abby, welcome back. We've now made it to the section of the show where we will be playing agree to disagree. That sounds fun. Let's play the game. That sounds fun to me too. First question or first agree to disagree prompt. Unhappiness alone is a valid reason for divorce. I'm going to say strongly disagree. Yeah. I'm going to say strongly disagree. Your feelings don't tell you the truth. Your feelings lie to you all the time. All the time. Your feelings are liars. Should I quote John Deloney one more time? I was going to quote Arthur Brooks. How sick is that that we get to interview these experts on our show? How the heck did we con our way here, man? High five. Go us. But no, your feelings are made to keep you safe, but they're not there to tell you the truth. Your feelings can go on all kinds of crazy roller coasters. There's valleys, mountains, and that's normal. We don't need to be alarmed at that. That doesn't mean we need to acknowledge them. We can honor them, validate them, but we cannot use that as like, it's saying that factor alone is making this decision for me. If you make every decision in your life based on your feelings, you are living a rather aimless life. I love how we chatted with Arthur. He talked about how we're gifted with this prefrontal cortex and we're supposed to use it we're supposed to decipher all the feelings that we have and and understand do we agree with them like is the feeling that i have valid i mean i i mean the reality is like we're allowed to feel all the there's nothing wrong with feeling a certain way yeah but it's what you do with that information yes dangerous that that's like that's like deciding that you're a monkey right yeah or deciding like you're like you're a three-year-old a three-year-old just goes off of their feelings all the time yeah like what separates you a grown-up with a developed prefrontal cortex from a three-year-old if you're just gonna go off of your feelings all the time it's complex decision making so i agree i think that's really good next agree to disagree prompt marriage should be hard to leave i'm gonna say agree yeah i'm gonna say agree i almost said disagree because i think like for women or i guess there's men too that can be stuck in a domestic violence situation they definitely need to get out like that's not safe for them or the Either way, though, it's hard, though, if you marry someone, assuming like marriage is forever, to have to rewrite the rest of your life. Yeah. That should be hard. Yeah, I think it is hard. I think it's hard for a reason. I think that's why you need to put so much thought and care and time into the decision to get married. And get this, staying married is hard, too. Yeah. Life is hard, so you got to choose your heart. Right. There's no way to get over the fact that you're going to suffer and struggle and life is going to be hard. And that's a sad reality. But it's like I think what makes it all worth it is having a purpose You know finding something that gets you up in the morning Maybe it's a charity that you want to support Maybe it's a certain belief system that you embody and you want to you know share with others and share the joy that you have But you have to find like what that purpose is in your life I think that how you approach the hardship of life Of course I truly believe that like life is hard Marriage isn hard Yeah It okay to stay together for the kids I going to say disagree Oh, I was going to say agree. Oh, really? Why are you saying agree? That's interesting. Well, I feel like maybe at times where it's like, okay, it feels like we're not like the, I don't, I'm not having fun with you. I'm not feeling happy around you, but we have kids together. I know that's going to be really hard for them. If you say in those like really like deep, deeply low points, I feel like anything that you can hold on to stay and that gives you a reason to work on it is valid. I guess I'm going from the standpoint of things being very toxic. You know, maybe they're being maybe not dangerous, but just like words being said, arguments that the kids are witnessing. It's just it's just not a good environment for them to be raised in. Yeah, I agree with that. That's where I would be like, you need to get out, you know? Yeah, I agree with that. And look, like arguments are going to happen. Our kids have seen us argue. There was a time in the car where we were not even arguing at all, but we were just talking about something. Yeah, they rarely see us argue. We were getting past. But I think it's good for them to see you disagree because then you show them how you resolve the conflict and then they learn conflict resolution from you. Yeah, but sometimes. But no, it was funny though because I think we've talked about this, but we were in the car and just getting passionate about something we were talking about and Augie thinks we're arguing. He goes, be nice. Yeah, we were like laughing. Be nice, dada. Be nice, mama. and we started busting out laughing. We were just making jokes. Yeah I thought that was so funny. I think it's just because we were like getting loud. Next we have divorce is too normalized in 2026. What are you saying? I'm saying disagree. I don't know. I feel like I'm coming from such a place of like I'm so biased to the fact that like we have a good healthy marriage. So you're gonna say agree? I was gonna say agree but then I'm also like that's fair. I've never been in like a terrible marriage. Yeah. And so I don't want to just be like yeah it's too normal just stick it out and it's like you don't understand yeah the person i'm married to is a monster or you know well i think i think yeah to be to be a devil's advocate i think that we've been through terrible times in marriage i think we've experienced terrible things in marriage but um i think it's uh immature and like just simply untrue to like prescribe all those struggles to like your partner or the relationship. Again, because life is hard. Marriage isn't hard. It comes down to life being hard. But yeah, I do think, I don't know. I do think just about every marriage is salvageable. I would agree with that. So it's like. Yeah, there's people that have like pretty effed up marriages. You have to really set your pride aside. Yeah. And seek professional help. Yeah. So yeah, maybe it is too normalized. Emphasis on the professional help too. Because I think like if you're, yeah, if stuff is pretty effed up and you're not going to professional help, like you need to get a professional. But also it's easier said than done. like we're we're fortunate where we can afford therapy therapy is expensive that's what i'm saying you know so if that's you i mean i i know there are resources where there's like free therapies oftentimes it's with different religious institutions or organizations but heck i think that's even better than nothing um of course but uh yeah i don't know that that is that is true though like not everyone can afford therapy so i think we definitely are speaking from a place of privilege because we you know if therapy is expensive therapy is expensive um okay agree to disagree social media encourages divorce yeah i would agree with that 100 actually strongly agree strongly agree yeah i feel like there's been times gosh we had a video that went got on the wrong side of youtube shorts where we were making a video about thanksgiving and then abby came back from the neighbors to like bring the turkey or something and all the comments were like she's totally screwing the neighbor she's totally messing around like everyone hated you and it was and it was like first time learning about this well no you knew about it i took off the comments this was back in 2021 but it's just like it's crazy how things can end up on the wrong side of the internet and people can just spin a narrative out of nothing well it's happened for both of us oh yeah people are just so quick to just be like leave her leave him yeah she's for the streets he's terrible drop him it's like this is like people yeah it's so quick if i had a dollar for every comment or like on a comment for people that told you to leave me I would I would have a lot of dollars well that's how you just know that it's just like it's so baseless I think because like if yeah I think it's because people you're a rock star husband like you're an amazing husband you're an amazing wife I think people people get frustrated with their own life circumstance and they look at a very small snippet of someone else's life and by saying like leave maybe they want to leave maybe they're in a in an unhealthy marriage and they want to leave but they don't have the courage to get out so i think it could probably come from that it probably come from people projecting where they've known someone also just like there's so many reasons yeah like culture and society doesn't necessarily promote perseverance in a marriage or perseverance honestly i would say in general what about this one modern marriage is harder than marriages of the past agree to disagree i'm gonna say disagree i'm gonna say disagree it feels it feels out of touch to say agree oh i think life was just way harder in the past like i think people literally were like hunting for their food like they didn't have grocery stores to be the devil's advocate you could make the argument then that like marriage then now became because i feel like humans will create problems we create problems for ourselves out of nothing and so it's like well if life isn't as hard now i guess i gotta find more problems in seriously no that's so i don't know so everyone's chronically online like we create problems out of nothing on the internet i don't think it's harder for sure if anything it might be like a little easier because there's a lot more resources i would say oh yeah totally there's like if you can sift through the information overload there's there's definitely resources out there to help support your marriage there's there's whole youtube channels that aren't like like this is just we're just two people like we're we're a couple chatting about this like there's resources of people that actually are actual have like gone to decades of school and could give you like we're yeah we're just we're just talking about this we're creating conversation but there's there's a lot of information that's helpful out there. Okay. Commitment matters more in marriage than compatibility matters more. Strongly agree. Oh, that's hot. I like that. Okay. Why does commitment matter more than compatibility? Because I was going to say agree. I think for a little bit, I was like, do I disagree? Because compatibility matters. But I think at the end of the day, it matters so much more that you committed. Yeah. I would agree with that. Yeah. Speak to me about that. Talk to me about that. First of all, humans are not like, we're not stagnant creatures. Like we are constantly changing and evolving. so like you could give me a compatibility test with you when we were 17 years old you could give me one now you could give you one like yeah and i'm sure those results would fluctuate greatly yeah and like what matters is that we've committed to each other and through that commitment we're also shaping one another yeah and therefore becoming more compatible to each other yeah that's because we committed did that make any sense or did i just i think i think i think i followed that okay yeah that's good no yeah i i think i think that the commitment like yeah but by by definition makes you more compatible no i don't think that's true i think you could commit and also stay stuck in your ways and not work on your marriage but you're like but we're committed to this and that's where you find the marriages that you're like we're staying for the kids we absolutely hate each other going at each other's neck every day yeah but i don't think that necessarily means the same thing but it's also like you can commit and then also committing to the everyday. But it's like, are you even for the kids if you're fighting all the time? Because your kids want to see you guys in love. They want to see you getting along. Yeah, that's a different conversation. Yeah. Yeah. I like where you're going. Sorry, not to dismiss what you said. No. That is true, but that's not exactly the point I was making. I like the, wait, okay. Restate the point you're making. Go. It's one thing to commit the day of your wedding. Okay. And say like, we are committed and we're staying together no matter what. And then go about the rest of your marriage and not change anything about yourself as a person and then go at each other's necks every day. It's another thing to commit every single day to your marriage. And therefore, I say when you commit every single day, you're growing in compatibility. In that first example, you're not growing in compatibility. You're just staying committed. That reminds me of that famous quote by a president that I can't think of their name of right now, but it's like, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Wow, that's profound. Flip that around. Flip that around. That's a famous quote by a president. I forget which one. Probably like Teddy Roosevelt. Ask not what your spouse can do for you, but what you can do for your spouse. I think if you wake up every day and you ask yourself the question, how can I serve and love my spouse today? I think you're going to end up with a really happy marriage. If you're both truthfully, honestly doing that, that's a really good spot to be. Incredible. I feel like you'd be stronger than 90% of marriages if you do that. 100%. I'm throwing stats out there left and right. Okay. Next up, we have marriage is unrealistic because people change over time. Strongly disagree. Let's go. And I think because people change over time is why marriage is so freaking cool. Well, and that's why I can grow stronger and that's why I can and it should grow stronger. Yeah, you're going to change. So why not choose to change in a direction that you want to go in? Yeah, I think about a tree with their roots. They grow around each other. Yeah, intertwine your roots. They keep getting deeper, but they're intertwined. Yeah, that's beautiful. Stronger together. That's beautiful. I love you. Thank you. Super hot. Thank you. And next we have divorce is more common today because people give up faster. I'm going to say disagree. What are you going to say? I'll agree. You agree? Well, I think I do because, first of all, if we're looking at history, it wasn't even an option for women for so long. That's a good point. So it's like, I mean, and I feel like give up is given such a negative connotation. but it's like no I genuinely give up because this person is not is not there for me I the reason I said disagree is I think if you look at history people literally couldn't get divorced in the past in the past well you said you said agree you said agree you said you said people give up faster today yeah I'm confused am I overthinking this question that's it we hit all okay now we're gonna move on to user submitted questions thank you to everyone that was actually really fun I feel like we should bring that segment back if you guys want us to bring that segment back let us know in the comments because agree to disagree is a really fun game to play first question we have from uh this is gabriella what are some things you guys did to relight the spark when things felt hard uh fake it till you make it honestly yeah no that's really good that's really really good because i think that like time heals i think just you're you just decide like this sucks but i'm gonna keep going forward i'm gonna give a silly example but trust me when i say that this can be used in deeper scenarios yeah so sometimes when we're mad at each other we've talked about this a lot we'll play a car game together we'll play anopoly deal and that is an example of faking it till you make it because you're doing an activity together there's so many things about it like why that's good yes but also just like hey we're playing a game together you're not thinking about whatever you were mad about or all the things that were upsetting you but you have a common shared goal of playing this game technically against each other but this probably wouldn't work if you're really competitive people. But at that point, like it's a way of faking it until you're making it because we're playing games inherently is something you do with friends, people you enjoy. And so, yeah, I think pretty soon you'll find yourself in a much happier place together. I agree. I agree. I think fake it to make it is a real thing. Or there's another, I heard of another saying it sounds so cheesy. Another one is believe it till you achieve it. Love that. Believe that your marriage is going to work Until you achieve that marriage. We also have, do y'all think it's wrong for people to get back together after divorce? Absolutely not. If you think you can work it out, oh my gosh, go back. I think that could be a very good thing. But I think you might need to make some changes from, there needs to be some serious change from what the relationship was before. Yeah, do a lot of reconstructing before you dive back in. This question's really good. Actually goes right in line with what we talked about earlier. Why do you feel- Actually, I'm sorry to interrupt. that does make me very, I'm very curious now what the rates are divorce after you remarry the same person. Oh, someone let us know in the comments. I would, I would imagine it's high. Yeah, the success rate is low. Yeah, the success rate is low. Yeah. Why do you feel like a lot of influencer couples get divorced? So many people are commenting and making videos on their marriage and it's, that's not healthy. Yeah. it's a day it's dangerous it's a dangerous game like i honestly you guys like i think you know i don't look at any of that schnoz that and honestly i'll just be real with you guys that's why like i i abby and i are having this conversation today because i feel like our marriage is in a very healthy happy good spot so i i feel comfortable i think we feel comfortable to talk about such a taboo controversial topic but like i really like doing guest episodes because I like to talk about other people, not myself. Yeah. You know? It's not healthy. Yeah, it's not healthy to like, it can definitely get unhealthy when you put yourself out there. Like, think about it. If you yourself had millions of people commenting about your life and your spouse and your partner and saying, you know, positive and negative things about you and the other person, and then you intermix pride with that, you intermix like fame with that, you intermix money with that, it can get really complicated. So I think- Yeah, it's only dangerous if you drink it though, because I don't- I don't- Yeah. I don't partake in that schniz-niz. Yeah, I think that's why you can't let the money and fame go to your head for any person that's involved in entertainment at all. And I think that can cause problems in marriages too. Yeah. Okay, thoughts on separating before officially divorcing? Maybe a good idea. Probably. Yeah, just to really think it through. Like, is this actually what I want? And maybe you can do some independent healing and then show up differently in your marriage. How do you settle debts related to gambling in a divorce? My gosh, I don't know what you would do with that. probably hire an accountant to look through everything no i think what you got to do first is your make sure your spouse doesn't have access to your credit you got to cut them off freeze your credit cut them off make sure that you're you're keeping yourself and your kids safe because if you're if you're married to someone with a gambling addiction or a money issue they could be ruining your credit your kids credit they could be ruining you financially so you got to really take steps to protect yourself and if you don't know what to do find someone a trusted friend colleague maybe somebody at work, someone at your, you know, church, synagogue, whatever, to help walk alongside you. Because I really do believe that there are so many good people out there that if you tell them what's going on, they would love to help you. Oh, yeah. And last question is, have you ever considered it? We have answered this before. We've answered this. Oh, have we ever considered divorce? Yeah, we've, we've like considered it in our heads. We've never like legitimately gone through with anything like that. And well, not even close. Yeah, not even close. Well, I gotta be honest. I mean, has the thought entered your head? Yeah. But I mean, I think it's good. There's a really great example of emotions not giving them the driver's seat. Yeah, I think it's too, like if you allow that thought to enter your head and you really think it through, I think it also will challenge you to look at yourself and say like, I have all these expectations for my spouse. What about me? Am I holding up my mind of the deal? And I think all these things are really good to talk through in therapy. But we've thought about it. We've never actually done it. We love each other. And I feel so, so lucky that I get to be married to such a beautiful, loving, kind woman that's just an amazing friend, an amazing mom, an amazing public figure. You're a great example. There's so many women out there. I really do believe that. And I think you give back a lot. And I love that you are always thinking about others. You're sweet. You're an awesome husband. And I'm really grateful that we're both committed to constantly working on us. Yeah. And constantly committed also to that, like putting each other higher than ourselves. That's right. That's essentially like what marriage is. It's like me. 100%. 100%. You before me and we before me. That's right. Well, you guys, thank you for tuning in. This was a good, messy, real, unfiltered combo about marriage. If you want more conversations like this, let us know in the comments. And again, thank you to everyone that subscribed and left a review on Spotify or Apple. It really means so much to us. We'll see you in the next episode. Love you, babe. I love you. I love you, baby. Give me a kiss.