Rhaina: is your spouse more important than your best friend?

We talk to Rhaina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others, about the importance of "platonic life partners" - friends that you love with a depth and domesticity that mirrors romantic partnership. She tells us how she and her husband structured their life to include communal living with other couples, and her advice to anyone considering marriage: to stop worrying about convention, and figure out what you actually want together. At the end of the episode, Maxson and Emily try to figure out what actually makes the two of them more than just really, really good friends?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There was a point where I had a first hangout with a friend, and I was describing this friendship with M. And he had asked me, what's the difference to between your friendship with M and your relationship with your to be a husband? And I was like, I guess the distinction is like I have sex with one and not that with the other.

SPEAKER_04 0:25

Welcome to Should We Get Married.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

My name is Emily Carter.

SPEAKER_04 0:28

My name is Max and Gerecki.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

And in this podcast, we're trying to figure out if we should get legally married to each other.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Or stay dating forever.

SPEAKER_05 0:38

What's up with people playing? It's so cool, Easter.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Today's guest is Raina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. We talk to her about the benefits of prioritizing deep friendship alongside romantic partnership.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Let's get into it. So, Emily, tell us about Raina.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

So I read Raina's book when it came out a couple years ago. And I remember reading it and being like, whoa, marriage has become all-consuming in some ways. Like the expectations on it are higher than ever. And now friendship is a little unclear where it fits into it.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

She focuses on friendship and highlighting friendship as something that is not just, oh, like you got friends in your life, how nice. It elevates friendship to the same status as marriage. Like friends are really, really important. And that's kind of a novel concept for a lot of people. I feel like I see people get married and they're like, yeah, well, I'm married now, so like I gotta spend less time with my friends. Friendship is just not talked about the same way with the same level of reverence. You would never, you know, fly across the world to go to someone's like friendship ceremony versus like a marriage. But man, friendship is like where it's at. And we used to live in a communal structure for many thousands of years, and now we like live in little these little box houses and are separated from each other.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

I think the question we're answering through this conversation or figuring out how we feel about is like, what is marriage if you have emotional homes with other people other than your partner? And also, given our conversation with Miles and Electra, like is sexual exclusivity the basis of a marriage? It doesn't really feel like that's right. So, like, what what is the basis? And like what can we point to and be like, this is the relationship that you and I share, and it's special, but like why and what is it based on?

SPEAKER_04 2:28

Yeah, is it emotional monogamy? For many people, no, for Raina, certainly not. She she she diversifies her emotional homes everywhere. Yeah, Raina is not just talking the talk, but she is walking the walk. She lives with her husband, but they also live with several other couples, some of which have children and they're all in life together. And it seems like it's super rich, super helpful and supportive. And Reyna has had several friendships that she would describe as, as she puts it, platonic life partners, which is you know as strong a term as you can give to someone who you're friends with.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

If you like what you hear, check out Raina's book, The Other Significant Others. And she's also contributed to this anthology coming out later this year called Living Together, Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection. So I'll be looking out for that once it comes out, and you should do.

SPEAKER_04 3:14

Yeah. Okay. Without further ado, here is Raina Cohen. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

I would love to know what initially made you start asking questions about the default script of marriage or relating. Like, was there a moment or a person that cracked something open for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

You know, the specific thing that made me think about like extremely close friendships came in my mid-20s when I met a friend who uh our closeness really exceeded what it I thought it meant to be a best friend. And I kind of wanted to understand why we didn't have language for our friendship and if people did in the past.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

So Yeah, I want to know more about the friend. Like how did you meet this friend? And then at what point did you realize that it was maybe more than a best friendship? And where was that like for you?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah. So I'll call this friend M. And the first time you met felt like one of the more romantic experiences or like stereotypically romantic experiences I've ever had, where I saw her across a room and I just knew that I wanted to talk to her. It wasn't like a attraction to her appearance, it was like attraction to the way she carried herself. Like I can still picture her. She was still in her work clothes, like a pencil skirt, and she had like this liveliness about her that I could see people responding to. So I like wanted to talk to her. Like one of the first things I said was, You're a singer, aren't you? Which feels like it could be a blessing. She is a singer. And then we discovered on the way home from that party that we lived a five-minute walk away from each other. And I think that really solidified things because it just meant that it was we could see each other so often, which we did like four or five times a week. Then she would be like texting me when there's a sale on avocados at the Safeway, and we were exchanging voice memos. So, like the sort of day-to-day mundane stuff, and then also like exchanging voice memos like all the time. There was an intensity to that felt like it surpassed what I had experienced in a best friend. There was a point where I like had a first hangout with a friend, and I was describing this friendship with M. And I was also partnered to my now husband, and he had asked me, what's the difference to between your friendship with M and your relationship with your to be a husband?

SPEAKER_06 5:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

And I found it sort of hard to answer. And I was like, I guess the distinction is like I have sex with one and not that with the other.

SPEAKER_04 5:39

So like a sexual distinction.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

That was like the most blunt version of it. Because at the time my my romantic partner and I were long distance. Okay. Actually spending more time with M than with my romantic partner. And there were ways that to some extent my life was more integrated into M's life. And we got married soon after and eventually moved to DC where I was living. But it just didn't feel like radically different. And I also had so much like excitement about spending time with her, which felt like quite similar to me to the feelings that I had, especially early on, like when I met my husband.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

Yeah, you want to like go out all the time, you want to text all the time, you want to dig. Be in the weeds on life.

SPEAKER_06 6:23

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:23

Just like every little thing with them. Like it sounded very domestic. And yeah, what ultimately, like, what was your answer to that question of what's the difference between her and her, your friend or more than a friend, and then me, your soon-to-be husband?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I think in the first couple of years when our lives are very integrated, I think like not having the like the sexual piece might have been the largest part. And maybe like having a vaguer idea about what a shared future would look like than what my husband and I had, because we didn't know exactly how things would pan out, but we knew that we were making decisions about our life in lockstep. Whereas that was not quite the case. For instance, she ended up going to grad school in the UK. And I was like helping her in the process. But if it wasn't a kind of situation where we're talking about, well, what does this mean? I mean, we were talking to some extent about like what does this mean for our friendship, but it wasn't a the nature of the conversation about how to make big life a big life decision like that, I think, is not quite the same as if you are in what's typical for a romantic relationship that you expect to be long-term.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

I mean, did you want it to be? Did you feel like hurt that she was not saying, hey, by the way, tough news that we have to figure out together? I might be going abroad. How are we gonna tackle that together?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

I don't think so. I think partly because I really expected her to come back after two years. Like I knew how special that period is. I mean, I had a lot of like kind of preemptive nostalgia before she left and was sad worried about how like it would affect our friendship. I also kind of wonder how much I didn't feel like it would have been reasonable to ask for those things. Like even though the two of us were very analytical about the friendship and trying to chat like not sort of follow all norms around friendship being this sort of diminished relationship. I'm I'm sure that like plenty of those ideas seeped into the background of my thinking and affected how I then acted.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah. I feel like for better or for worse, friendship like this doesn't have a clear container and therefore you can't really hold on to a vision of the future too tightly because there really isn't one. And with marriage, for better or for worse, we have like a container of what that looks like that we can like we can look at the shape and like decide how we want ours to look based on a structured shape. But yeah, I really resonate with this style of friendship. I've had so many of these in my life where it's just like I'm so intensely connected to someone and like forming an attachment, and it's like so beautiful and it might not last forever, and that's like part of the beauty of it. And it doesn't fit an obvious place in your life. So you feel like you've got something special and yeah, I think it's a a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah, I mean, the word attachment is actually very apt. One of the people who I ended up talking to later as I worked on the book is a psychologist named Lisa Diamond, and she pointed out that in order to have an attachment relationship, which we usually think of as like a parent or romantic partner, but it can be a platonic relationship. Those sort of elements are time, togetherness, and touch, which is certainly what I had with M. But I think the broader point is like, yes, of of course you can be attached. You can have an attachment relationship to somebody who you are not having a sexual relationship with or who do not take care of you from ages zero to 18. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Curious about how the friendship with M landed with your husband early on. Was there like jealousy or negotiation of time or anything to navigate there early on?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Not at all. He was happy that I'd moved to a new city and that I had kind of found my footing. It and was such an important part of those of making me feel settled in DC. And we kind of cultivated an overlapping set of friends. And he's very close to her, and they have their own independent friendship. There are ways that their work crosses over more. They've been and had a lot of like more sort of career-oriented conversations because of that. I mean, like the opposite of jealousy. I think it was more that he was very happy to have this like pre-vetted friend to add to his circle as well.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

That's nice. I mean, so was there friction for you anywhere? Like was your family weird about it, or were other friends weird about it?

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Or the one thing that I'm thinking of, which I think was very well intended, was when I had brought up with my mother-in-law that I'm bisexual, she had asked if I had like had a crush on M, if the like bisexuality explained that. And I was like, no, that's just not that wasn't the nature of it. And also M is queer. So like it it's more understandable, that kind of excitement, I think, to people if there is a conventional romantic sexual element to it.

SPEAKER_04 10:55

Do you think that if M were a man, people would have had a different reaction?

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Oh man, I'm just thinking about like how many people I've had send me messages essentially asking the question of can men and women be friends?

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Like this It's Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

So I think there would have been actually as two women, that we probably had more license to be close and for it not to be sort of immediately sexualized than if we were two men or if we were a man and a woman for the men's side, because I think men are given very little license for real closeness with other men, at least in with the sort of the constrictions of what straight masculinity looks like. And then I think for men and women, there's just always a suspicion of, well, is one of them in love with the other? And this can't work out in the long run. So I think those might have been actually more complicated situations.

SPEAKER_04 11:50

Yeah, got it. So to zoom out, like this.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Can I ask you a question first?

SPEAKER_04 11:55

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Um, how do you relate to the part of me that likes attaching to people in this way in friendship?

SPEAKER_04 12:02

For most of the time, I feel really similar to how Reina's husband feels, which is how amazing. I'm so glad that you can have this person that like fulfills these beautiful needs. Yeah, I feel really excited. I would say like 99% of the time in regard to these friendships you have. There's a million people, honestly, where you have an enhanced friendship where Emily has unlimited texting capabilities. I often will like wake up in the morning and she'll be over on the couch having coffee, sending some voice note to someone that I've literally never heard of before. And then turns out they have like an unbelievably like long, robust friendship. And there's just a million surprises like that. I feel lucky that I get to have all these other people on like team Emily. Because I feel like I'm like a big cheerleader of Emily, and I love that all these other people see Emily the same way that I do and love her so much. And I also feel lucky that they have just different interests and they can satisfy her in all these ways. Uh, we have one friend who like loves magic and is down to go to the magic conference with Emily. I'm not necessarily like up for the magic conference every year. There's another friend and Emily like goes to Ibiza with her for three weeks every year to do their special time together. I feel that Emily is unbelievably diversified in terms of who she relies on and is able to vent to other people about me, so I don't have to take like the big I don't know. I'm often getting like a second-order processing with her rather than a first order processing if we're having some issue. I feel like there's a lot of benefits. Sometimes I'll feel very occasional, I'll feel like kind of left out, or I'll feel jealous, or I'll feel I don't know, neglected, but like very rarely because Emily's really good. So yeah, I mean I think there's a great, it's a great question to pose to me, Emily, because it's so what Raina's talking about is so related to like our project in that we're figuring out how we want to relate to each other and will this legal framework serve us and will this like societal framework serve us? And yeah, Raina, like it's common for Emily and it's common for you. Is this common for other people too? Like, do a lot of people have a structure like this, or do you feel like you're in the minority and like what should other people think? How should people think about that?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Well, I think it's more common than most of us probably expect. It's more common than I think I expected, given the kind of feedback that I got, both on the book and before that, with an article that I wrote for The Atlantic that was on this the same topic of people who had a friendship as a central relationship in their life. I mean, there's no date, like no one's, to my knowledge, asking kind of granular info about the nature of people's friendships. They might have something about like, do you have a close friend? But I think there's something that's that has maybe a level of like intensity and commitment and intentionality that we're describing in these friendships here that I think is a little bit more specific than what maybe some people mean by close friend. So I can't say that the stats, but I can't say I was really surprised by how many people reached out saying that they had the kind of friendship that I was I was writing about. I never really sort of thought that it was that common. I just thought that it was worth understanding these friendships because they are they're in like an edge case or an extreme case. And those are some of the most interesting examples I think to look at because they cause us to ask questions about the things on the either other side of the edges. In this case, like there these friendships blend elements of conventional friendships and romantic relationships. And that makes us then ask questions about what's the division between these two things and why one is more important than the other. I do think that these friendships lurk out there, but they people don't have any special language to refer to them. So they might just say my best friend or my friend, or use a euphemism like my sister or my brother. And that can cover up actually that there are these sorts of friendships that are very of a kind almost like a categorically different, or at least like somewhere very far up on the spectrum of closeness.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Are you and M still friends with each other?

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:57

In the same way, like has it grown?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

So after grad school, she did not end up moving back to DC. And that fundamentally changed our friendship. We just you don't see you can't see people as often. I really do think it is hard to be as close to somebody when you are not in the same place as each other. And I I found the transition very hard. I mean, it's a thing I write about. And yeah, I was like when I read the like I narrated the audiobook when I read that like a section about how things changed, like I got choked up in a way that I had not anywhere else in the book. So she's still like one of my, I don't know, two to three like closest friends. But the ways we were intertwined is just not the same as they were.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

I want to switch to marriage. And as you were doing research on the history of marriage, was there something that surprised or moved you or anything that came up that was like, huh, didn't expect that, didn't hadn't thought about that before?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

The way that marriage has changed over time is striking. And it's and it was very related to friendship because the more space that marriage has come to take up, the the less space there has been for friendship. And it really put into context for me that the that how we think about marriage or or non-marital relantic relationships is just so contingent on time and place. And if you're looking really in the distant past, monogamous marriages, maybe living in multi-generational communities of people, and a lot of those people might actually not be related to them. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

Yeah. Okay, so you got married, so there must be some component of it that you think is good.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah. My husband's, he's now American. He was not American at the time. We knew we wanted to be together. It certainly like accelerated the timeline for us to get illegally married. But like he came from a family where his parents did not marry. They were like Amsterdam hippies, and like I think nobody in their friend group really married. My husband did not have a strong attachment to marriage. I did not have a strong attachment to marriage. But yes, so it made sense legally. I mean, we have a lot of legal rights that are wrapped up in marriage. And I liked the idea of having getting to gather the close people in our lives, and and that I think like a wedding is one of the few socially, maybe one really one of the only socially sanctioned excuses to ask people to inconvenience themselves and for you to like come to one place and for you to get to see those people in one place. I really understand why people don't want to get married, but there were, yeah, there were specific reasons in my case where why it made sense and wasn't it didn't feel like a sacrifice or anything.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

Yeah. You think people should like be able to, I don't know, you get all these legal benefits if you get legally married to someone, but do you think that people should be able to get married if they're not romantic with each other?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah. Well, I mean, a way to answer that question is to think about what interest does the state have in marriage. And when I was looking through the legal scholarship on this, there were kind of two main things that that it came down to. And one was like economic interdependency, trying to support that. So like that kind of economic stability is of interest, I think, to the government. And the other has to do with caregiving. That I mean, it certainly saves the state money when you have when individuals are taking care of each other as opposed to relying on government services or like having to outsource that to other people. And those are two things that that really have nothing to do with whether your relationship is romantic and s or sexual. And if we can kind of think about the function that a relationship serves rather than the form that it takes or the label attached to it, then I think it justifies having the government recognize relationships that that have those economic interdependency and the and caregiving. I talked to the these women who I think they'd wanted to get a domestic partnership and then were looking partly because of the healthcare benefits attached to it. And the employer for one of them said that a domestic the domestic partnership was only valid if it was for a romantic relationship, which is Whoa, it's like so personal. Yeah. And I just it feels a little bit like, well, why does it matter for who gets your health care if you are like have passionate love for them or if you're having sex with them? And the other thing is that there are lots of romantic relationships that are not kind of stereotypically romantic, or that where sex isn't a big thing.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

Sexless marriages. Or, you know, we we did this interview with Miles and Electra, who are polyamorous and married. And in in that discussion, Miles talks about companionate marriages in marriages that are monogamous, but like they don't have sex. Like, and he was saying those are just as valid as any other marriage. Like these partnerships, we pretend like they're about sex, but they don't have to just be about sex. They're about like, like you said, like caregiving and being and like companionship and all these other things.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

And when you think about the vows that people make to each other, I mean they're making vows to take care of the other person at old age, to be by their side, to be on their team.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

And not a lot of sex mentioned in vows.

unknown 20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

And it partly because maybe that's like that would be un I don't know, it feels like uncouth. Untoward.

SPEAKER_06 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Yeah. Untoward, yeah. I think there is an important that like underlying marriage is about commitment, even though lots of people obviously break the commitment and a lot of marriages do not end up lasting until death duty part. But like I found it really interesting and challenging to talk to people about like what makes long-term romantic relationship different from the closest to friendships. To me, what it came down to is that there's there's this kind of like vision toward a shared future that you're expected to build with the like somebody who you're in a long-term romantic relationship with, and that sex is can be a part of it. Romance can be a part of it. It traditionally is, especially at the beginning, but that often isn't what lasts. And it's and I don't think it's the primary thing that if you had to pick one or two features, that would necessarily be what unifies all marriages.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Yeah. I was on the beach with some friends yesterday. We were talking about like plus ones at weddings. And our friend was saying her husband hates weddings. He has the word Time he doesn't like dancing, he wants to sit. It's too loud. Too many people like why not just give people a plus one and be like, who do you want to come with you tonight? Who would find this fun? I want like who should we know? Like bring people into our life that you love.

SPEAKER_04 22:15

Basically, Raina, as I understand it, a big part of your work and your life is dedicated to this point of friendships are just as important as marriage. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah, I think maintaining like great friendships is just a huge part of for I think most people, maybe not every single person in the world, of like what makes a good life.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

So so for someone to believe that, like how does that then affect your marriage? How does it how should it change the way that we do marriage if one has this belief?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Well, I think the conventional idea these days that your romantic partner is supposed to be your everything, that they are supposed to be your confidant and your career coach and your co-parent or your caregiver. And that if they can't meet every one of those needs, that there's something wrong with the relationship, like that idea goes out the door because that you have other people in your life who might enjoy things that your romantic partner does not. And that's actually not pointing to a deficit necessarily in the romantic partner, but actually to the like richness and robustness of the wider social circle that you have. So I think that like one person being everything idea doesn't really hold as strongly. And also the kind of automatic hierarchy that a romantic partner is, of course, on top, that their needs are going to be more important than anybody else's. So if you have to choose between two things that are happening, that you would automatically choose something that your romantic partner wants to do rather than something that is important to a friend in your life.

SPEAKER_04 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

And I think that you would also not see friendships and romantic relationships as competitive with each other necessarily. But instead, there's a way that you can see friendships as really being complementary, as creating a kind of like a buffer or a form of strength for the romantic relationship.

SPEAKER_04 24:16

Yes, I agree like wholeheartedly that friendships enhance your relationships. Like, how do you prioritize marriage versus relationships versus friendships? Like when you have a friend who's super, super close to you and you spend so much time with them, sometimes a partner might get like super jealous. That definitely happens out in the world. Like, how do you think about that? And how do you think about prioritizing like a friendship, like super close friendship, platonic life partner versus a marital partner?

SPEAKER_00 24:48

I don't want to kind of speak with a broad brush about how either treating all forms of envy or discomfort as legitimate or as illegitimate. I think it's really it really depends on the situation. And maybe that's partly an answer to your question, Max, and that like how do you think about balancing these types of relationships? Do you want to talk about what is the commitment that I've made to each of these people? And I mean, in a romantic relationship, there are people often more explicit, but you can be in a friendship. And like, am I doing right by this person? Am I like neglecting them or do I have multiple close people in my life and I need to attend to all of them? If someone feels jealous, is that about like just feeling insecure in the relationship because their partner is not behaving in a way that like that would make them feel secure? Like we have ideas about a romantic partner being constantly accessible and that they shouldn't go to anybody first. And I just think that when you're trying to figure out the roles that friends versus romantic partners will play in your life, like it's worth asking how much does what the culture says actually align with what I believe to be true or what my values are. Like I take seriously that there might be costs to having more than one really close relationship in your life, but it doesn't mean that it's worth just saying like it's easier to just treat romantic relationships as priority number one always. Tell us about your decision to live with many people. I mean, in a way, it's been like a decision that I've repeated several times. But my husband and I guess close to five years ago now, ended up having a conversation with friends who were going to move from Massachusetts to DC. And we joked about how we could live together and they took the idea seriously and wanted to run with it. Um, and they had a young child at that time, which was a real bonus for my husband because he loves children. So the idea of getting to live with the kids was really exciting to him. And we moved into a house and lived together for three years. Our friends had jobs that ended up taking them elsewhere. But we loved that. And when our friends were gonna leave, we wanted to like continue living in a similar way. And we managed to recruit a friend of ours to move to DC and then ended up having like a couple other friends live with us and just really enjoyed sharing space with other people. You know, my husband is not a musician, but several of my friends, like I like I play rudimentary piano and sing, and like a couple of my housemates are very into music, and we all kind of reinforce each other's interest in that. And my husband's very into games, and I am like not the most capable or competitive at like card and board games, and he has people in the house to do that.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

Do you and your husband want to have children?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

That was a big motivation for all of the couples. Like, all three couples want to have kids, and we got a house that was meant to accommodate the like each of us having a kid, and we wanted to not like be parents in isolation. I've certainly witnessed with the friends that I lived with who were parents how much of a difference it makes to have other like people that you care about and trust who are in close proximity because your time is very limited and ability to leave your home is limited when you have a one-year-old who has a nap schedule that you have to adhere to. But if you can just go downstairs and hang out in the living room while your kids asleep, like you still get social time and adult time in a way that a lot of parents just don't have because they don't live close enough to other people that they could do that with. And it's a very isolating time when you have young children and we realize that we could set up our lives. That's not the case.

SPEAKER_04 28:11

Yeah, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

I have the same instinct. I'm like, when I think about parenting in a certain way, which is just like family in a house, trying to figure out how to pay for a good school and like feed everyone and like I don't know. I'm just like, I don't want that at all. And then I imagine these like more communal modes where all that feels so free and fun. I'm like, wow, I want to move toward that so badly. And just these like structures are what make me be like, I want motherhood so badly, versus like, I definitely don't want that.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah. There are so many things where as with very young kids, or if you have multiple kids, that's that can be hard. And then and just having another body. You have a village.

SPEAKER_04 28:44

It's literally like a little village, like the way it used to be. You just have the community. I think that's so cool.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

As Maxine and I are on the edge of this decision of getting legally married or just dating forever, what would you suggest we really consider in this?

SPEAKER_00 29:01

I'm just thinking about something I told friends of mine that was specifically about a wedding, but I think is also true for marriage, and considering marriage, is um that I think there's a there is there's a group of people who just will do what is the like dominant cultural prescription. And uh and some of them that totally fits and they enjoy it. Uh I think there's also a group of people who will make decisions to do the opposite of whatever the dominant cultural prescription is. And I understand that. I think that it can sometimes run the risk of keeping people from actually figuring out what they want and that they are still making a decision in relation to what you are supposed to do. It's just that instead of doing it, you're doing the the opposite. And I would encourage you guys to think about what do you want? Like if you had to sit down and figure out what you wanted, like what would that be? And then you can sort out like, okay, how much does marriage overlap with that? And where does it not? And if it does overlap, like what would we modify? What would we keep? And so it's just starting from a place of trying to understand what is important to you rather than being reactive to what other people are saying, I think will lead to better outcomes. Yeah, just reminds me of like a couple people in the book who I just I have so much admiration for because I think they did the really hard work of trying to figure out what they wanted rather than just like them being reactive. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Yeah. And ironically, by being reactive, you're still being controlled by the dominant narrow just in reverse rather than like.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Exactly. And you might end up finding that actually it is the thing that fits you, or like that it or it fits some set of your values. And that can be uncomfortable if part of your identity is being counter-cultural or is like being uh original or unusual. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:57

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

I hope that's what we're doing here. I think that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

Yeah. Getting to our last question that we do with all of our guests. Ray know, knowing what you know about us, knowing what you know about your own life and society, do you think that Emily and I should get legally married to each other?

SPEAKER_00 31:14

I think like commitment is really is like a beautiful thing. And I think commitment does not equal exclusivity necessarily. It doesn't have like I think people conflate a lot of things with commitment. But I think I would just try to see like if you want to be committed to each other, are there ways to like honor that, bring other people into it, have them witness it? And you can decide whether that's a what that's a marriage, and you can decide whether you want a wedding, want to have a wedding.

SPEAKER_04 31:35

Okay, so don't necessarily get legally married, but definitely do have a party. And if it fits logistically for us, then consider getting legally married.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Something like that.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Totally cool. Well, thank you so much. This was so fun.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Thank you, Raina. Yeah, we learned so much. We appreciate this. That's the end of our interview with Raina Cohen.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

Thank you, Ray.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Thanks for being on the pod, Raina.

SPEAKER_04 32:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Maxine, what did this make you think about?

SPEAKER_04 32:05

I feel like I grew up thinking, oh man, like one day I'm gonna have to say goodbye in some way to like the super closeness that I feel with friends. And one great thing that I've experienced by dating you is feeling so free to have super deep friendships and that I'm allowed to really elevate those and put those on just as high a plane as my relationship with you at times.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

I agree with all of that. We've always lived with other people. We live in a house with another bedroom, and we've had a rotating cast of lovely characters in this home. And I think it's so valuable and enriching for us to have friendships outside of our relationship and for also us to share friends together. And there are so many people who like have seen our relationship really up close and know the strengths, know the weaknesses, really understand us. And I feel way more like supported in the world by letting people into that.

SPEAKER_04 32:55

You and I are in a relationship. What separates our relationship from just being a friendship? Like, how do you think about the difference between a extremely close platonic life partner and a boyfriend or husband?

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Okay. I think the connection that you and I have is very special and has like a texture that I love and I love the humor that we share. I love spending time with you. Doesn't mean that me also having that with other people makes yours less real or defunct. Yeah. So I think you and I can share a very special bond, and I can also have special bonds with other people, and that doesn't mean yours is less important or relegated to something more like plebeian. Plebeian?

SPEAKER_04 33:34

Plebeian, I think.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Plebeian.

SPEAKER_04 33:36

Yeah. Plebeian. And if you pronounce it plebeian one more time, you're getting get demoted from but people say plebs, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Or plebei.

SPEAKER_04 33:42

No, you're right. People do say pleb. Well, no, they say plebs. Plebeian.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Plebe.

SPEAKER_04 33:47

All right. Hey, if you're a listener out there and you actually know the answer, if it's plebeian or plebeian, please let us know. Come on, the pod. Okay, so you're talking to the to the P words.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Okay, so that's one thing. Um just because I feel um a desire to spend time with other people, have a lot of curiosity about them, open up to them emotionally, share intimate life experiences with them. Does not mean that you and I are less special. That's one thing. Two, I do feel like a hierarchy in my mind with you and others. Like, yes, and it it I can have it with other people, but still I would like to always come back to you as like the person that I'm starting and ending my day with and like ultimately processing the big stuff of life with. If I'm trying to make a decision of all right, I'm maybe I'll take this job or like something's gonna take me somewhere else, I will like weight your thoughts and feelings about it more strongly than anyone else.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

So I just think you have like priority access to my life and heart and head forever.

SPEAKER_04 34:52

Yeah. Do you feel like it's okay to if you have like um if you like are going through something, do you have to come to me first to figure it out? Or is it okay for you to go to a you know, platonic life partner? Is it okay for you to go to a like a close friend? Is it important that I receive all your info first or most strongly?

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Not important to me. Um, there are certain things that I think are important. For example, like, I just got a job offer or this really exciting thing just happened to me. I would love to go to you with that first. But then there's like the stuff of life where someone just might be better suited to talking with me through something, whether they've had that experience before, or it has to do with you, and I just need like a separate outlet for that before coming to you with it. So almost like priority access in like the joyful celebratory information of life, and maybe not always in the stuff that is just like the gritier.

SPEAKER_04 35:48

Yeah. So Emily, did this conversation with Raina make you want to place a pebble, a gumdrop, a little jelly bean, into the bucket of get married, or a pebble gumdrop jelly bean into the bucket of not getting married?

SPEAKER_02 36:05

I think get married in that there is nuance and at times sort of gray area between platonic life partners and romantic relationships. Um they touch on many of the same things that we get from the other. And I like the idea of something being branded in a way that makes it feel as special as it does internally, even if the expression of your intimacy and love and care has many homes. Like it kind of allows for this thing to have special priority from the world and from me because I get to call it something different.

SPEAKER_04 36:44

Yeah, I what do you think? I feel I feel really similarly. I feel like I the scariness of marriage being something that makes your life smaller rather than bigger is mitigated by this conversation. I feel safe to have like really super close friendships with people and have a lot of you know diversity in who I'm leaning on. That feels really nice. I also just every time we talk to someone who's doing it a little different, I feel really inspired that you can still have this legal structure and get the legal benefits while also preserving a lot of the great life-giving aspects of friendship and you know openness to the world. It's nice to see someone who's as thoughtful as Reina say, Yeah, sure, I'm gonna get married and I'm gonna be able to get my husband to like live in this country and I'm also gonna continue living with other people and like having communal life. And yeah, that's I don't know. I feel inspired by that. I I love that. And in our next episode, you're gonna hear me and Emily actually get fake married with Nico.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

Then here's the little taste of that.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

I, Max and Girecki.

SPEAKER_03 37:52

I, Max and Girecki. Pledge to you, Emily Carter. Pledge to you, Emily Carter.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

To stop poking and prodding you when you're trying to fall asleep. Don't stop. But also, no promises, because I know you actually love it.

SPEAKER_04 38:08

I'm so happy you said that last part. Should We Get Married is an original series by Easily Wowed and Bad Cooley Productions. This episode was created by me, Max Injerecki.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

And me, Emily Carter.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

And our producer, Ramoy Phillip.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

The music is the song Fake Romantic by the band Melt. Logo and brand design by Madeline Vogue.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

Sound design and mixing by Ramoy Phillip.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

There are so many of you out there who are asking these exact same questions, and we don't all have to investigate marriage on our own. Subscribe to Should We Get Married and learn with us as we make our decisions.

SPEAKER_04 38:40

See you next time.

SPEAKER_05 39:05

I need to let it go.