Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Confessions of a Former Trad Wife

00:00:00.000 A couple of weeks ago, I got an Instagram DM from someone who wanted to tell me their story.

00:00:12.520 Now, I freaking read all of my Instagram DMs. Sometimes that's not healthy for me. But usually,

00:00:20.520 usually it is from listeners who have really interesting things to say. And this was no

00:00:27.700 different. I'm just going to read you a little bit of it. Hi, Joe. I'm jumping into the trad

00:00:34.940 wife conversation a bit late, but I just had to share my thoughts because I am a former

00:00:40.760 trad wife. I was raised in a conservative Christian community, and the messaging that

00:00:45.840 I got was that to be a wife and a mother was the ultimate fulfillment of life as a woman.

00:00:51.040 my ex-husband spoiler alert and i started dating when i was 17 and he was 27 i was engaged by the

00:01:00.300 time i was 19 and we got married when i was 20 and he was almost 30 i intended on getting a

00:01:06.680 college education but dropped out during my first semester after multiple conversations that i had

00:01:12.760 with him where he told me i wasn't going to need a college education to raise babies

00:01:19.540 My ex-husband and I fell into traditional roles.

00:01:23.860 As the years went by, his covert abuse became more and more difficult to live with.

00:01:28.960 And eventually I wanted to leave.

00:01:31.040 But how could I?

00:01:32.760 I was almost 40, with no education, and 17 years out of the workforce.

00:01:38.840 He liked to tell me that I wouldn't ever get a job beyond minimum wage at a fast food restaurant.

00:01:44.480 I worry for women who want out but can't.

00:01:49.700 When I asked for a divorce, he drained our accounts, changed the locks on the home we owned together, and left me with literally nothing.

00:01:58.320 It hasn't been pretty, but I'm recovering and I know that I'll be okay. 0.93

00:02:03.620 But God, I'm really sorry about the women who want out but can't leave. 1.00

00:02:12.060 Wow. Wow. 1.00

00:02:13.660 today's episode is a conversation with this woman we are keeping her name anonymous because

00:02:21.940 she doesn't want it out there because she never wants her daughters to feel 1.00

00:02:25.480 like she didn't enjoy raising them that that that time wasn't worthy because she loved spending that

00:02:31.420 time with her daughters that's not what this is about this is more of a warning more advice for 1.00

00:02:37.600 women who think that they don't need their own agency or they don't need their own money in a 1.00

00:02:41.900 marriage. Again, it is amazing to stay home with your kids to take care of your home. But everyone

00:02:48.740 needs financial independence. Because if we've learned anything, it's that a man is not the plan. 0.98

00:02:55.300 And this story is about exactly that.

00:02:58.460 so my ex-husband and I we met when I was 17 I was in my senior year of high school

00:03:13.100 he was just about 10 years older than I was so he had already graduated high school

00:03:21.280 done the whole college experience had gotten some you know additional certificates after

00:03:28.060 he had his four-year degree. And we started dating. Things got serious. And I had a plan

00:03:37.380 for my life after high school. I had already been accepted to a state school. I was working

00:03:44.360 with a local author as a publicist for her. And she was kind of showing me the ropes of that.

00:03:51.460 And that was going to be my plan. I was going to get my degree in publicity and marketing.

00:03:58.060 And I was really excited for kind of my future, but we got serious in our relationship and

00:04:06.680 I graduated high school.

00:04:08.260 I started at this state school and the conversations began with him logically questioning why I

00:04:22.120 would be going into debt for this degree if we were going to get married and have kids. And I

00:04:29.500 was going to stay at home with our kids. I would not be using the degree. And instead, I would just

00:04:34.420 be burdening him with my school debt. And so it made logical sense to me at the time I dropped

00:04:45.900 out of school. We got married when I was 20. Of course, it made logical sense. You were young,

00:04:54.760 and I'm trying to think about myself as essentially a teenager. When we're young,

00:05:01.800 we're also very easily swayed. And he was a grown-up human being who had already

00:05:08.260 gotten the education and things that he wanted and needed in the world.

00:05:13.880 Exactly. Exactly. And because we had this age difference, you know, I think that there was

00:05:19.360 a power dynamic there, but there was also just, I, I guess a level of reverence that I had for him.

00:05:27.220 He knew, he knew better. And so I dropped out of school. I had my first baby when I was 23.

00:05:36.300 I was out of the workforce for just about 17 years. I had another baby. So we had two kids

00:05:45.200 and throughout our marriage, we took on very traditional roles. I didn't know of

00:05:54.500 the phrase trad wife. I didn't know that that was a thing until I heard your first podcast about it.

00:06:02.940 And I just, my jaw just dropped because I was like, this was me.

00:06:08.140 I didn't even know.

00:06:09.820 Now, with the exception of the dresses, because my role as a traditional wife and mom was

00:06:16.840 just to disappear and blend into the background.

00:06:20.320 Right.

00:06:20.940 So there wasn't that type of care in my appearance.

00:06:25.820 Right, right.

00:06:26.880 And you say that your role was to disappear into the background.

00:06:31.060 What do you mean by that?

00:06:32.940 I think it goes further than saying that my needs were not met. It was that my needs

00:06:40.040 were not expressed. I didn't even recognize my own needs, much less express them to him or

00:06:51.240 the family. My role was to keep the household running and basically give him the life that

00:07:01.640 he wanted. He could come and go as he pleased. He traveled a lot for work. He never had to worry

00:07:08.000 about the kids' education. He never had to worry about driving them to events. He never had to

00:07:15.780 worry about taking them to doctor's appointments. I mean, he could sleep in. Most weekdays he would

00:07:21.900 sleep in. And he just got to live his ideal life knowing that he had a wife at home that was taking

00:07:31.260 care of everything everything right right uh which is so much labor so much unrecognized

00:07:42.680 unrespected labor how did you feel during this time did and did you ever question it

00:07:50.900 it's really complicated and I'm still trying to understand it myself because when I look back on

00:07:58.920 that time with my kids, I would not change it. I loved spending that time with my kids.

00:08:07.420 Yeah. And that's the complicated part, right? Like, it's amazing to be able to spend that kind

00:08:15.580 of time and energy and just quality, quality moments with your kids, right? Like, I mean,

00:08:24.740 it's also hard. It's also, you know, it's a new, in hindsight, it's even nicer, I'll say. But

00:08:31.460 yeah, like that part of it is amazing. But then there's the other parts of it that maybe aren't

00:08:37.140 so amazing. Exactly. Exactly. I started when my kids were maybe five and one, I started having

00:08:47.160 dreams and desires to maybe explore a different facet of who I could be outside of this traditional

00:08:57.600 role in wife and mother. I started, you know, just thinking about different possibilities of

00:09:05.080 maybe I could go back to school. Maybe I could get a certificate in something. Maybe I could have

00:09:11.600 a part-time job. And that was completely shot down by my ex-husband. He was absolutely not.

00:09:21.880 It doesn't make sense for us to go into debt. At one point, I wanted to do this physical therapy

00:09:28.480 assistant. It was going to cost $10,000. And it wasn't that we didn't have the money. We absolutely

00:09:34.380 had the money, but because it wasn't a priority for him, it just, it didn't, he explained it didn't

00:09:41.480 make sense. We shouldn't spend this money on my education because he would say he makes the money

00:09:49.620 for the family. And so we need to make sure we're prioritizing his career because he's the one that

00:09:55.820 puts food on the table. So multiple ideas that I had for wanting to go back to school, even just

00:10:03.160 to get my two-year degree or a certificate in something, it was always a no. And I wonder now

00:10:10.220 if it was about the money, or I wonder if he realized that by keeping me uneducated

00:10:18.780 and out of the workforce with no experience, I was stuck.

00:10:25.020 Right. Right. Because it's power. It is power to be the one who controls the money

00:10:32.440 in a relationship. I mean, make no mistake, right? So he did maintain control over you

00:10:40.380 and the family when he was the only one who was even able to earn, right?

00:10:47.080 Exactly. Exactly. I remember early in our marriage, you know, I read a lot of the

00:10:51.920 traditional wife books and I listened to a lot of Dr. Laura. And I remember Dr. Laura had said

00:10:57.740 at one point, something about being a single mom in a dumpy apartment. And that is, as I started to 0.99

00:11:05.340 explore this idea of, I don't think I can stay in this marriage. I don't think I will survive

00:11:11.920 this marriage. If I stay in this marriage, I would always come back to that dumpy apartment.

00:11:17.760 And that's my future. And looking at that, and I think that kept me in this marriage for a lot

00:11:24.420 longer than was healthy because I was used to a lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah. You were used to a

00:11:35.200 lifestyle and you kept being told that you couldn't do something. And that has an impact on

00:11:41.480 us to be told, oh, no, no, this is not something you should you should be doing. This is not

00:11:47.860 this is not your role here. Right. Exactly. Exactly. He would remind me that I was uneducated

00:11:58.180 and unqualified. And he would tell me you would be lucky if you could get a part time job

00:12:04.180 at a fast food restaurant, which that's that's noble work. Right. But it was just the way that

00:12:11.720 he phrased it, it felt really hopeless for me. Hopeless and condescending. And

00:12:20.200 you were saddled with so much. When you emailed me, you said that he never even got up with the

00:12:27.880 babies at night, not when you were recovering from your C-section or you had raging mastitis.

00:12:33.980 even reading the word mastitis, my nipples burn. My muscle memory remembers it so,

00:12:42.240 so deep in my body. And he told you he just couldn't do it, right?

00:12:48.780 Right. He said that he made the money and he needed to be rested. And so he would sleep as

00:12:56.600 I got up. My oldest daughter, I love to remind her, she got up every two hours for two years. 0.94

00:13:03.040 yeah as they do exactly exactly and even on the weekends i mean it was just they don't know it's

00:13:09.700 weekend no one told them no one told them no no no um so and i you know i say this all the time

00:13:17.660 not having sleep makes a person feel crazy not having sleep there is a reason that is used to

00:13:25.640 torture people because sleep is the the one thing our bodies need to recover to to work properly

00:13:33.860 uh and so how could you even think straight when that's what you were going through exactly exactly

00:13:40.220 i have friends that are like well you let her get up every two hours for two years and i was like i

00:13:45.520 was just too damn tired to even consider any other solution that was the easiest at the time right

00:13:53.320 Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Exactly. Exactly. And so how long did this go on? How many years did this go on?

00:14:01.600 So we were married for 21 years. 0.98

00:14:03.920 That is a long ass time. That is a long time. I am only at eight and I'm like, I feel like this 0.96

00:14:09.860 has been forever. Yeah. Yeah. It was my entire young adult years. You know, we were together

00:14:17.460 for 23. And from the time I was 17. And so I feel like in a way he really shaped, you know, those,

00:14:27.760 those years where you're growing up and you're building your confidence and you're learning who

00:14:34.940 you are for all of those years. I, he got to mold me and shape me into the woman that he wanted.

00:14:43.600 it. Right. Right. Yeah. That's a lot of power. That is a lot of power. And so when did the tide 0.54

00:14:52.460 finally change for you? You know, I would say about, we had been through marriage counseling

00:15:02.480 our entire marriage. I just knew something was not right. And, but during the pandemic,

00:15:11.280 it. I got a part-time job and my kids were home from school. And so it was. How did he feel about

00:15:18.020 that? How did he feel about the part-time job? You know, he was fine with it as long as it didn't

00:15:25.120 affect him. Of course. So the times when it would be like, hey, I have to work this shift. Can you

00:15:31.740 drive this daughter to soccer? It was like, oh, well, no, I can't. That's your job. That's your

00:15:40.540 job. And he would say, you know, you, you make minimum wage and I make how, you know, however

00:15:47.120 much a hundred plus thousand dollars a year. Like I should not have to rearrange my schedule

00:15:54.420 to accommodate you and your minimum wage job. And I think that it was that job that helped me

00:16:02.220 start to build the confidence in myself. It helped me experience this different facet of who I am.

00:16:10.540 and what I could experience working outside the home. And I really enjoyed it. I really,

00:16:20.160 and that, I think that's what started to get the wheels turning in my head that maybe I wasn't as

00:16:26.920 stuck as I was led to believe I was. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And so

00:16:35.680 how did that end up manifesting in in your marriage you

00:16:41.140 when did you want to leave and could you leave I wanted to leave year one

00:16:49.680 I was able to leave shortly like towards the end of the pandemic so I had taken that part-time job

00:16:58.380 which was outside of the home. And I had taken that experience and found a great job with a

00:17:05.520 great company that is fully remote. And as I started to work part-time for this company that

00:17:11.380 was fully remote, and they made it clear that they were super happy with my work, they felt like I

00:17:17.500 had a lot of potential for growth, they wanted to see me take on more of a leadership position and

00:17:23.180 take on more hours I realized I think I could actually do this um and and and so I did and so

00:17:35.720 and so you did but it but it was but it wasn't easy and we're gonna take a quick break here

00:17:42.260 and when we get back I want to hear all of your advice for women um and some of your warnings too

00:17:50.300 who are in a much more traditional marriage, right?

00:17:56.500 Who are completely dependent on their husbands,

00:17:59.880 whose husbands are making all of the decisions,

00:18:02.700 who don't have agency about what was really hard for you

00:18:07.500 and what you wish that they knew that you've learned.

00:18:20.300 so we are just we're really in it with the holidays right now we're just like we're in it

00:18:36.940 and i love the holidays i am a holiday freak we just cut down our tree and decorated it last night

00:18:43.140 and it is magical and glorious and i'm just so happy that it's here what i don't love doing

00:18:49.400 they're doing during the holidays is grocery shopping and meal planning. I don't. I'm just

00:18:54.620 like, it's not my jam. It's not my jam. I want my December to be filled with a lot of couch sitting

00:19:00.300 and hot chocolate and hot wine drinking and watching Christmas movies and not meal planning

00:19:07.660 and not grocery shopping. And that is where HelloFresh comes in. Yeah, I love these guys.

00:19:13.560 I love them so much. You can say hello to a stress-less holiday season with the help of

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00:19:25.460 recipes with freshly chopped and ready-to-go ingredients right to your door. Right to your

00:19:32.460 door. They make it so easy. My husband cooks it. Sometimes my kids help. It takes away so much

00:19:38.880 thinking. Just like the thinking. All of the mental energy that goes into having to decide

00:19:44.640 what people will eat is now gone. It's gone. I also like to gift HelloFresh. Yeah, I do. Because

00:19:52.900 my friends don't need another scented candle. They've got like a gazillion scented candles.

00:19:57.520 So I like to gift them HelloFresh subscription so they can sit on my couch with me and do nothing.

00:20:02.920 Yeah, yeah, it's nice, right? It's a good idea. HelloFresh has got more than 45 recipes,

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00:20:25.100 hellofresh.com slash terryfree, T-E-R-R-Y-F-R-E-E, and use the code TERRYFREE for free breakfast for

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00:20:38.920 life at hellofresh.com slash terry free with the code terry free hello fresh is america's number

00:20:46.100 one meal kit for a reason do more nothing this holiday season that is what i want for you and

00:20:52.020 that is what i want for me 0.51

00:21:03.660 we are back and i want to hear all of your all of your warnings for for women who do put all of

00:21:21.340 their eggs in say the basket of only supporting their husband's career and don't have agency

00:21:27.980 or money for themselves it's a dangerous place to be because like you said joe it's very it's a

00:21:38.940 valid point that what if your husband leaves you but it's equally scary is what if you need to

00:21:46.280 leave and you can't and you feel stuck um things that i wish that i had done i wish that i had

00:21:54.160 from the beginning maintained some sort of career path or job, just that would have helped me with

00:22:07.360 my confidence. That would have, it would have just changed the game. There wouldn't have been

00:22:15.020 as much of a power dynamic if I had some sort of income coming in. And also contributing to

00:22:23.020 retirement. I mean, I am now almost 42 years old and the only retirement that I have is the portion

00:22:29.840 of his that I was awarded in the divorce. And that's really scary. It's going to be really

00:22:37.800 hard for me to catch up. And I don't know if or how I will catch up. Right. Right.

00:22:45.300 Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I was really glad is that I did have a credit card in my own

00:22:49.920 name. So I was building credit. The home that we owned was in both of our names. So I was building

00:22:55.640 credit there. So smart. So smart. Right. Because I've talked to a lot of women who do not have a

00:23:01.480 credit card in their own name, whose name is not on their house. And if your husband goes poof 0.98

00:23:09.200 one day, which husbands go poof, it happens. You literally don't have a credit history.

00:23:15.320 yeah yeah i can't i can't imagine um i just i i wish i had had an account in my own name

00:23:25.860 when he realized that i was seriously leaving that our marriage was seriously ended

00:23:31.360 he drained all of our accounts they were in all they were in both of our names

00:23:35.660 wow and he drained everything from our checking account to our you know little

00:23:39.920 working monthly savings to our big savings account. Um, I wish that I had

00:23:47.060 some kind of, I mean, those accounts, my paycheck was going into those accounts right now. If I had

00:23:55.800 just had a separate account that my paycheck was going into, and then we worked together as a team

00:24:00.780 in partnership to, you know, pay the different bills or kid expenses, that would have made a

00:24:06.640 huge difference huge right absolutely huge and that's that's actually how our finances are set

00:24:14.000 up i'd like to be really transparent about how we do it because i got married so late i was

00:24:20.160 got married on my 35th birthday and i had all my own money but more money than my husband when we

00:24:26.580 got married uh i insisted on us keeping our own bank accounts i was like all right cool this is

00:24:32.960 my money uh so we each have our own bank accounts and then we have the joint bank account which i

00:24:37.320 really like uh and we each put money into it but he doesn't have any idea what i do with my money

00:24:42.920 and that's probably also not healthy but you know that's that's my that's that's my cross to bear

00:24:48.500 that is my cross to bear yeah yeah you know if i ever get married again that's going to be how i

00:24:55.060 do it. And I just, one of the best things for me for being single now is that nobody is looking

00:25:04.500 over my shoulder when I come home with a target. No one is questioning the Amazon boxes on the

00:25:11.260 front porch. And that is so freeing. I just, I can't get over, I can't stress enough how freeing

00:25:20.080 it is to have that ownership. Yeah, it's freedom. It is freedom. And financial independence,

00:25:32.960 even if you were the parent staying home, there are ways to be financially independent and to be

00:25:39.100 equal partners when you are a stay-at-home parent. And stay-at-home parenting is so important. You

00:25:43.500 are the CEO of your household. I say it all the time. That is different from trad marriage. That

00:25:48.660 is different from these, these marriages where you have such prescribed and restricting gender

00:25:55.840 roles. It really is. It really is. Exactly. Exactly. And the rules in the, the show that you

00:26:03.820 did, uh, the, with Anne Helen Peterson and the rules that were listed, that was my life. That,

00:26:13.140 that was my life of cooking only, you know, what, what was going to make him happy.

00:26:18.900 We had, we had this one time where I was just making spaghetti with like a jarred sauce and

00:26:23.860 we had two jarred sauces in the pantry. One was like the more expensive, fancier one, you know,

00:26:28.960 maybe $9 a bottle and the other one was $3. Yeah. And I love a ragu. Yeah, exactly. It was the ragu

00:26:35.720 and the rouse. Yeah. Yeah. Rouse is so overpriced. I think rouse is now like $15 a jar. And I'm like,

00:26:42.240 i'll take some ragu any day of the week exactly exactly so i'm making this pasta for just just

00:26:49.620 my kids and i he wasn't hungry and i go to open up the rouse and he's like oh well don't use that

00:26:57.260 that's too expensive i'm not eating tonight and it was just that was the approach of our entire life

00:27:04.600 is that we reserved the best of the best for when it benefited him but if it was just me and the

00:27:12.220 what we would be fine with whatever with whatever yes with the ragu that is so much better so

00:27:19.060 exactly whatever he doesn't know that he is missing out exactly um yeah and i'm just i was

00:27:26.620 so happy when you emailed me or you dm'd me first and then we talked on email to share your story

00:27:32.000 because this is the part that we've been missing uh we've spoken with other women who are in more

00:27:38.280 traditional marriages and they're very happy with them. But we have not spoken to someone

00:27:42.720 who's gotten out of it and has been on the other side and can say, hey, ladies, this is just this

00:27:49.040 is what I'd like you to know. This is this is this is what I learned from this. And you're just

00:27:54.960 you're so brave for for doing what you did and, you know, carving out your own life and then for

00:28:01.660 sharing this with other women. I'm so grateful that you reached out to me. Well, thank you so

00:28:06.940 much for just the opportunity to share, you know, as the mom of two daughters, it's really important

00:28:12.760 to me that women and this, you know, new generation of women that's coming up, consider this part.

00:28:22.320 Yeah. Yeah. How do you talk to your daughters about this?

00:28:26.120 Oh, it's hard. You know, they're 18 and 14 and they have both said that they don't want to have

00:28:33.660 kids. And I just, I can't help but wonder if it's because the model that they saw in their growing

00:28:41.860 up years was a woman that completely just lost herself and disappeared into the background to

00:28:50.200 raise kids and be a wife. And I hope that they, I hope that shows like yours and just in general,

00:28:59.960 they learn that it doesn't have to be what they experience that there's different ways of

00:29:06.580 being a wife and a mom um but my oldest daughter she's in college she's already she's 18 but she

00:29:13.640 already has her two-year degree oh my god yeah i'm like i tell her all the time you are better

00:29:19.600 educated than i am and that's one of my goals is like just to get both of them better educated

00:29:25.060 than I am. And if they, whatever they decide to do with their lives is fine. I'm just so grateful

00:29:31.620 that they have something that nobody can take away from them. And that's an education.

00:29:37.300 It's an education and it's an education and, you know, the knowledge that they can manage their own,

00:29:43.380 their own money. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. You, you, when you emailed me, you said,

00:29:51.360 you know that you're rebuilding the confidence you've lost and you're wondering if 41 is too

00:29:56.780 late to dream or go back to school i don't think so and i'm 43 and i'm like you know i was doing

00:30:03.980 this crazy thing the other day because you know i'm convinced that ai is gonna replace the things

00:30:08.620 that i do in the world well i'm like could i become a commercial pilot oh my gosh that's awesome

00:30:15.100 guess what i could and you could too apparently there's a commercial pilot shortage and so the

00:30:21.260 Airlines are supplementing pilot training and you don't have to retire till you're 65.

00:30:26.780 That's 20 years of being a commercial pilot.

00:30:29.440 And I'm like, well, then when AI starts hosting this podcast, maybe I will fly your planes, my friends.

00:30:37.540 I love it.

00:30:38.140 I love that.

00:30:38.840 I never considered being a commercial pilot, but I'm going to get off this call and Google it right away because maybe that's my future.

00:30:45.320 Maybe that's your future, right?

00:30:46.520 We can be anything.

00:30:47.940 Like we age is just a number at this point. And I think that we can absolutely reinvent ourselves. And just the fact that you reached out to me to say, hey, I'm going to share this story is proof positive that you have the confidence and that you can you can do this.

00:31:03.680 Thank you for that. I really appreciate it.

00:31:05.580 Thank you for reaching out to me. I love this conversation. I love this episode. And I just,

00:31:10.860 you know, I want the takeaway to be that you can, we can all choose whatever kind of role and

00:31:17.820 purpose that we want. We can stay home. We can raise our children. We can go work outside the

00:31:22.460 home. But just having that financial independence in that agency is what matters. And if anyone,

00:31:29.260 a man or a woman if you have a wife says no I don't want you to have agency in your life then

00:31:35.820 that's abusive it is it is it is um thank you thank you so so much for coming on today for

00:31:44.580 having this conversation with me for just you know being you and like I said hey you can do

00:31:49.560 all the things maybe we'll fly together one of these days I love that idea let's do it let's do

00:31:54.800 it.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - December 04, 2023

Confessions of a Former Trad Wife

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