Suzie : Welcome to Sharing My Truth with Mel and Susie. The uncensored version where we bear it all.

Mel: We do.

Suzie : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

And hello everyone and welcome back to Sharing my Truth Pod. You are here with the lovely Melissa and Susie. That's me. And we are so excited to be here with you today.

Whatever you're doing, thanks for listening and you can subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it on the Apples or the Spotify's, wherever else you're doing that. And go to our Instagrams and socials socials at Share My Truth pod and go to our website sharing my truth.com

where you can share your truths with us.

Mel: Do it now. Wow.

Suzie : Hey, babes.

Mel: Hello, darling.

Suzie : How are you, gorgeous?

Mel: I'm fabulous.

Suzie : You look pretty in pink.

Mel: Pretty in pink, Very.

Suzie : I am obsessed with this little baby pink color on you.

Mel: I like a bit of pink.

Suzie : It's cashmere, isn't it?

Mel: It is.

Suzie : Oh yeah. She's up there. She's the queen.

She was just traveling the world and left me behind and sorry about that. So rude when you do that. Never gonna forgive you.

Mel: It is a bit rude.

Suzie : She doesn't even bring me anything back.

Mel: I didn't. I'm very selfish. I bring myself loads of **** and you nothing.

Suzie : It's ******* rude. But we'll forgive her. We can slap her on the wrist a little bit. We have a cute little quickie episode. I like that. Little quickie.

Mel: Little quickie.

Suzie : And we. What are we talking about, Mel?

Mel: So it is a thing that lots of people are talking about, but it's actually an article in a magazine we've talked about before. Yes, Grazia.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: Which is a British magazine. And this, this is a title. A title. An article even boo gone an article or a title or is is the age of commitment over? So we've talked a lot about being single in the last however many episodes.

So this is talking about from the female perspective. This is a female magazine. So sorry to all those men, but we've got.

Suzie : Men can read the female magazines. I read gq.

Mel: Yeah, so do I. It can actually teach you a lot. I read magazines.

Suzie : It can.

Mel: So apparently more women in than ever are initiating divorces, confident in themselves and they're find finances. And this reporter explains why she herself through a painful divorce, has no regrets over her midlife split.

Suzie : Right. So this article specifically is talking about in the age of commitment, like how it's kind of over. We're all kind of being like, well, nothing's forever. We can just kind of get divorced whenever we want.

Is that what it's kind of talking about?

Mel: Yeah. I mean, she is not a young woman. Right.

Suzie : She's like a middle aged, kind of 40s, 50s maybe.

Mel: Yeah. And I think it is a bit of a thing, like going around about midlife in general. Like, you know, are midlife women having lots of affairs and therefore are they divorcing and.

And so on and so forth. And it kind of all leads into.

There's also quite a lot of shows about older women having affairs or marrying younger men. Kind of like the whole thing is just this question, I guess it's, you know, female power.

But we're talking about midlife.

That they're making this choice, like, what am I doing? And I'm gonna change gears. Yeah.

Suzie : I mean, this definitely isn't a new thing. Like if you just look at like pop culture and like shows like Desperate Housewives or like Sex and the City.

Mel: Like, it's not new at all.

Suzie : It's not new. Like there's women who are just. They get to a point in their life and also it's starting earlier, I think, when we're seeing with like my generation of millennial and like Gen Z's, like, I think they're having trouble even getting into a relationship of commitment even.

Do you know what I mean? And even. Not even just relationships, but like committing to a job, committing to, you know, a hobby, kind of anything. I think there's a lot more choice with that that younger generations are having.

Mel: Yeah. I mean, the article, like the main photo in the article is that bit from.

And I want to say Sex in the City. I know. So every time. And it's not. And the new one is called. Oh, and just like that.

Suzie : Yes, they're very.

Mel: And how the character Miranda gets this point, like she's not happy and she's finally says it.

Suzie : God, I hate the ******* sequels.

Mel: Yeah.

Suzie : It's so bad.

Mel: And then she goes off and does other things.

Suzie : Lesbians.

Mel: Yeah, like whatever.

Suzie : Nothing wrong with that. But she.

Mel: There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's not very realistic, I think is the problem that most people had with it. But you know, like, having a midlife crisis is nothing new.

I think perhaps what is new is that women now who are 50 look a lot older. Younger. Sorry. Than they did years ago. Like when you were 50, 20 years ago or.

No, maybe even longer than that. It's like you looked older and it wasn't because you actually looked older. It was just like the hairstyles you think of The Golden Girls and the fashion and all that kind of stuff.

Like, they looked like 80 when they were in their 50s or 60s or whatever. And so now women have allowed themselves or society has allowed themselves at an older age to not kind of be frumpy, you know, that you can still be kind of youthful.

Like, you can still be concerned about your hair and your appearance and beauty, and you don't have to suddenly kind of switch it off and. Yeah. So therefore, you can still have a sex life and blah, blah, blah.

And then maybe you look at this person you've been with for 20 years and think, just what am I doing? Not that the men aren't doing that either.

Suzie : Exactly.

Mel: So, I mean, that's not fair. But they are specifically talking about midlife and this. This idea. So, yeah. Is. Is the age of commitment over, which I think is a very strong statement, because, of course it's not over.

It depends on the individual.

Suzie : Well, exactly. And I know a lot of people my age who would never think about either having an affair or, like, being with multiple partners at once. Like, that just would never cross their mind where it's like, someone like me, I'm a little bit more interested in, like, the freedom that that kind of gives you and the experience that that kind of gives.

But not everyone is like that. And people love commitment. Like, it's in our blood, I think, like, in our genetics, to want to kind of have one person that you share a life with and, like, have children with.

Right. Like, the biological thing of that. But I think it's nice that we're kind of going into this way of, like, being able to rethink, you know, the fight or flight, like, things within us.

Right. Like, it is freeing.

Mel: Yeah. I think it's the point of voicing the fact that maybe you don't want this. So, of course there are lots of people who do, but maybe there are people who don't.

And. And obviously there are. And let's just let everyone do what they want. Yeah. And I think for women, it is different. And I've said this many times to you, and you generally roll your eyeballs at me, but that's fine.

That's fine.

Is that women is this annoying thing that we have a biological clock and we have, like, a time thing? If you want to have babies, you cannot, whatever they tell you, wait forever.

And if you wake up at 45 and say, oh, now I'd like to have a partner and children, let's just put it this way. It's problematic.

Suzie : No. And I Totally get that. I think it's just.

And more women than ever. And I'm not saying this is like a for sure thing, because it can go, you know, maybe they won't last, but, you know, women are freezing their eggs more than ever now.

Right. Like, and I do think that's incredible. You're taking a little bit. You're taking some choice within it. Right. Like, because for the people, for the men who don't know the men listening, you get rid of an egg every month.

So you have a limited amount of eggs inside of you to use at a certain point in time. And then that's when menopause happens, when you lose all your eggs.

Is that kind of correct perimenopause?

Mel: Well, yeah, you sort of shut. Yeah, you're not ovulating anymore.

Suzie : Yeah, exactly. So, you know, once you have that procedure to take out those eggs and just kind of hold on to them and freeze them, you're able to kind of put them back in if you're maybe an older mother.

Mel: Yeah.

Suzie : As in like 40s or even 50s.

Mel: Yeah.

Suzie : Which can happen.

Mel: It's not pushing it.

Suzie : Yeah, it's pushing it because it's more unsafe. Obviously.

Mel: It's probably late 30s, early 40s, really. So I have quite a few friends who had babies in their late 30s.

Suzie : Right.

Mel: Like 39 friends who had babies in their 40s. And even like, your mum was in her 40s, my aunt was in her 40s. It's not a new thing.

But the. Also, the thing is, is because women don't have all these little millions of sperm. They. You're like. As you go along, your egg kind of. This is very unmedical.

Production gets. It's not. It gets less and less, I think.

Suzie : Yeah. Yeah.

Mel: And I mean, even. I've said this to you before. I had my second child, I was 35, and I was classified a geriatric mother. Isn't that hilarious?

Suzie : You were so geriatric.

Mel: And it's still the case. You know, like, it just gets more and more risky.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: The older you get and you have to have more and more tests.

Suzie : No, that's true. I.

Mel: So freezing the egg.

And this is also not a new thing. I have plenty of friends in my generation, so when they were in their 20s. I'm not. They're now in their 50s. I'm early 50s is they did freeze the eggs.

The problem, I think, is we're given this idea that that's an absolute safe plan. And it isn't.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: Because you can get to using them. And they don't work for whatever reason.

Suzie : Exactly.

Mel: Because you don't. Didn't know they didn't. Or whatever it is. And I, and I've seen plenty of articles about that. So that is also. It's a good kind of safety thing.

But it's, it's not a.

Suzie : For sure.

Mel: It's not for sure. It's a bit like, you know, if you reverse your car and you, and you use the little thing. Beep, beep, beep, beep. You should still be looking, though.

No, so don't just look, look, look actually at what car is doing. Don't just trust the little amount of. But it's true, though.

Suzie : Yeah, no, that was good.

Mel: It's like it's a kind of safety thing. It's not the actual.

Suzie : Yeah. Like, if you, if you do believe that that's something you want to do, sure. You have to commit to that.

Mel: Yeah. It's sensible and it's sensible. And I have a couple of my friends who've had babies without partners.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: So they've done the old business vitro.

Suzie : Right.

Mel: Yeah. Yeah. There are different ways of doing it.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: Yeah. But yeah, so that's that. Yeah. And you are committing to have a baby. It's a different kind of commitment.

Suzie : Right. Like there's just like so many things that like a woman especially has to commit to because you're the one who has that child. Right. You get married and you're expected to a lot more things typically than the man is tip.

Like typically you will expected.

Mel: There is. To everyone out there, there is no 50, 50. It does not exist.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: It doesn't mean that it's not shifting different partners at different times. But it doesn't exist all the way through. It doesn't exist.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: You can all go ahead and try if you want. Yeah.

Suzie : You can go listen to our episode on 5050 relationships. See how me and Mal think about that.

But yeah, no, it's. So there's a lot of things that women have to commit to, obviously. And our bodies are not going to be hot and sexy forever unless you're JLo or like Jane Fonda, unfortunately.

But I mean, you can ******* well try. But there's things that we have to think about for our future and like, you know, committing to that job, committing to that man.

Maybe if you want to have a baby, have a baby or you don't have to do any of it either. Which is kind of what I'm getting from this too, where it's like, yeah, maybe the age of commitment in Quotes is over because we don't have to commit to something like in the old days.

Mel: Yeah, no, because there are different ways of making money now. There are different ways of having relationships or different ways. I mean, again, I don't think this is necessarily a very, very new thing.

I think it's just the fact, like so many things we are voicing it and is out there and for people to look at all the time. And I think that is the era of commitment over.

Obviously not, because like you said, like religion or life or society was built for people to couple up because, you know, that's it. You know, there are other issues of people being very lonely nowadays, you know, so.

But you know, but I think, you know, is it. Of course it's not over. It's just you can make. You are free to make choices, but if you make choices, you have to understand, like everything there are consequences for good and for bad.

So there's a good, there's a very good consequence to you being single and free and doing your thing and being.

Suzie : Happy and well, doing your thing, girl.

Mel: Yeah, but there are also other consequences and it really depends on what?

Suzie : Like what? Having too much fun. Like, what are you talking about?

Mel: Well, you know, if you having too.

Suzie : Much money to spend on myself, what are the problem?

Mel: The consequences are if you. Because I seen this with friends of mine who were very, very, very, very hyper focused on their career. I don't know why. To the exclusion of everything else.

I'm not quite sure. You can't do all the things. And then met somebody very late in life and then went, I now want a baby. And it gets very difficult.

And I think, of course, you know, of course. What's the consequence in having fun? Well, the consequence is that sometimes you do. You would like. It's Sunday night, you would like to have a partner.

You know, the point is you can't pick and choose. You kind of have to take the good with the bad. Right. If you want the partner and you want that nice thing where you go out for dinner and you cook at home and you talk to somebody and somebody is there for you to support you.

Yeah, those are all good things. But you have to accept the sum of the less good things. Yeah, sure. Bad, just less good. Because nobody's perfect.

Suzie : No, of course not. I just think, I think it's really exciting about women being able, like she said, like to initiate the divorce. Like being able to like have that kind of wherewithal being like, oh, wait, I also make money.

I, you know, have a Good career, I can take care of the kids. Like, I. You know what I mean? Like, where it's like. I think women before we weren't able to do a lot of things because we literally relied solely on man.

And so the fact that we are able kind of getting our shifting our mindsets around being able to be like, no, I can initiate the divorce if I don't want this.

I can have an affair if I'm not happy. Like, there's a lot of things that we're like now doing or being more open about. Like you're saying.

Mel: Yeah.

Suzie : Where it's just more.

Mel: Yeah, I think it's the fact of being open because I don't think any of this is new.

Suzie : No.

Mel: Like, women in my generation were doing it, you know, like younger and weren't getting married.

Suzie : Weren't talking about it, though.

Mel: We weren't talking about it. We weren't talking about a lot of stuff. And I think because of social media, because of the way the digital forum of life now that you can share so much and so much is out there and so on, it makes it different.

But the question, I think the article, what is important is that for men and for women make the right choices for you. So of course, don't meet, settle and be with somebody which perhaps in previous generations people kind of had to get married or they got pregnant or whatever, they had to get married.

You don't have to do that anymore.

So, you know, I would always say much better to be on your own than with not your somebody, your 100% choice, whatever you want to call it. Right. There's no point settling.

Suzie : No, definitely not.

Mel: Because down, down the line it's. That's going to be definitely not.

Suzie : And I think it's like to also being open with like your sexuality, as in like, you know, maybe not just committing to a man, but like maybe being open to try other genders or anything like that.

If you have any kind of inkling, right. That like, that maybe I could be into this, maybe it could be fun. And if you don't try it once, then, like, maybe you just miss out on an amazing experience and we literally only have one life to live.

Mel: Yeah, no, I get it. I get it.

Suzie : And I was like, I don't get it. Actually.

Mel: No, I, I do get it because I think that that's another thing a lot of people are talking about is how, especially a lot of women, how are they kind of finding out later in life their sexuality.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: And there is an element of they're.

Suzie : Just More open to experimenting.

Mel: Yeah. I think there's an element of just repressing it because they wanted certain things, like they wanted children and home and all this kind of stuff. And does this all fit into this little image?

And so I think that's the thing. Yeah. Just don't shove yourself in a box. And society does want to put you in a box, doesn't it? And that's the thing, I think the thing about the article.

And you will find this, Susie, the older you get, the less of a **** you give.

Suzie : For sure.

Mel: You just don't care. Like, you're gonna, like, I'm gonna do this for me. If you don't like it, if you don't like my hair or my face or my ***** or my Persona or my whatever, tough ****.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: It's that this is. This is it. This is all I got. So just whatever.

Suzie : Yes.

Mel: And I think that is a thing. And I think women are voicing that. They didn't voice that. You know, a bit like, we talk, excuse me, about like the menopause now.

Yeah. When I was younger, my mother's generation, nobody talked about that.

Suzie : I don't even think they ******* knew it was happening. Pretty much. The doctors, like, yeah, you're in menopause now. You're not going to get your period. You're going to have hot flashes.

Like, I swear.

Mel: Horrible.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: And so in turn, like, if you talk to old. Like I talk to women that are older than me, 70s and 80s.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: They're just like, you know, what's all the fuss about? You know, be quiet. What's all the fuss about? Because they would. They were made to kind of not talk about it.

So it's any of these issues that. It's not like they weren't there. It's just we didn't talk about it. So if you are getting to midlife or to any point of your life, man, woman, whatever, and you are not happy, like you said, life is short.

Don't stay in the thing. It's very easy to stay in the thing. But if you are independent, you are able, then live your life, be happy. So, I mean, it's talking about the search for happiness and, you know, what is going to make you happy.

Suzie : Yeah. It's literally reminds me. And I was just talking to you a little bit about it, but you haven't seen it yet. It's called the Substance. And if anyone has seen it, and the only person I would recommend this movie to is someone who can handle gore and someone who likes to see a lot of ****.

Like, it's a really.

Mel: It's an interesting mixture.

Suzie : It's a very interesting mixture. And it's a very good, well thought out movie. It's very, like. It's kind of more like indie movie, but it has Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley in it, who I love.

But so the movie is all about, like, self image and, like, how you perceive yourself and all, but, like, you know, how men see us and, like, what. We want to keep young because we want to be hot and we want to be the best version of ourselves.

Even though we're inside, we're, like, dying.

Mel: Yeah. Yeah.

Suzie : And so, like, she's like. Demi Moore is able to, like, create, like, kind of like a twin, almost a young, hot version of herself.

And it gets really ****** up at the end. Like, there's nothing that can prepare you for the ending of this movie, but it's, um. But it's an incredible way that they've been able to show how just ****** up the world can make women feel when we're just like, we just want to live our lives and yet we are just striving for perfection all the time.

And if we don't get it, then, like, we're not loved.

Mel: Yeah. You know, and it's not realistic.

Suzie : No.

Mel: I mean, I think men do it to a degree as well. Not necessarily in a physical way, but I think it's because we're told there's all this manifesting and all this **** out there and all these people going on about their perfect ******* lives.

Suzie : Yes.

Mel: And so it's ******* exhaust. They are not perfect. Everyone just don't believe all this ****.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: And then it's exhausting. And then you're trying to do something or be something that they're not in the first place. And particularly for women. Yeah.

Suzie : Yeah. I think **** social media, Scott. Just a horrible, horrible. You know, **** everything. Like, you really.

Mel: And you're like, oh, my God, look.

Suzie : At all these ******* fun people doing fun things. I want to do all these fun things even though I have no money and no savings and all this stuff. And, like.

Right. And I just. I do feel bad when people look at themselves in the mirror and then they look at social media and it's like, obviously these things aren't real.

And that brings us back to commitment, you know, like, all this plastic surgery going on and, like, all of these things that, like, we want to make us feel like we're like, oh, like, I don't like what, you know, I've been given.

So I'm going to change it and then I'm going to commit to, like having Botox on my face every three months or like, whatever you have to do. And you can end up looking really nuts.

Mel: You really can. Yeah.

No, I mean, I think there's also. I mean, the sort of.

The last thing I would also say about it is. And we've talked about this before, I was talking about this with somebody earlier today is this fact that we. We look at social media and it's algorithmic.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: So it's feeding you this narrative of what you've already seen. You don't realize what you're saying is what you're. You've looked at kind of. It's feeding you the same thing.

Suzie : Yes.

Mel: And so you think the world is like that when actual fact, it's just feeding you the vision of what you've been looking at, if that makes any sense. And that is actually mad, because then you get a completely skewed view of the world rather than it showing you everything, as we all know.

And you. And you know this when you're looking at. So. But you don't, like, you know this in your mind when you're looking at social media, but you don't think it when you look at stuff like this, you know, example, like you look at a dog once and then you see 15,000 million.

Suzie : Yeah. You look at one ******* pug one.

Mel: Time, that's all you see is pugs. And then you'd think everyone in the world had a pug. And they don't. That's. That's the thing.

Suzie : I wish they did, though.

Mel: They do. I like pugs. They're sort of beautifully ugly.

Suzie : Yes.

Mel: I love them.

Suzie : I love them.

Mel: Are they stupid?

Suzie : I mean, they look so stupid. Stupid cute, though.

Mel: Yeah. Or like, you know, you look at, like somebody's going to Paris or Rome or something, and then all you see is Paris and Rome. You think everyone's traveling to Paris or Rome.

They are not.

Suzie : They are not.

Mel: You know, or like everyone's, you know, whatever it is you looked at. And then you just get fed this stuff.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: And then you think the world's like that, and of course it isn't. And although, you know, in your rational mind that's the case, but that's all you're seeing. And when you're scrolling, you're not really using a vast amount of intellect.

Yeah. You're just going like this.

Suzie : Seriously.

Mel: And then it goes into your brain somehow. Yeah.

Suzie : It's feeding you these ideas.

Mel: It does sort of rot your brain. It does.

Suzie : It actually. It actually literally does.

Mel: And I. I do. I do think it is good to not look at it. I'm not terribly good at that, but it is good.

Suzie : And that's also like, you know, going on social media all the time. It's like. It's like seeing people, seeing what else is out there, too. Right. So. And also, like, that brings us, like, into, like, dating apps and stuff like that, where it's like, how can someone possibly commit to one thing or one person when there's just literally, when you see so many other people out there, so so many options in quotations.

Because no one. You don't actually have the options.

Mel: Exactly.

Suzie : Date these people or see or meet these options. And they're not even real. They're AI.

Mel: Exactly. And you could meet somebody really, really great.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: But your head is not committed to the idea that you're secure, that this is good. Like, just stay with this. Yeah. And you can actually screw it up because you think that somebody else.

Suzie : 100.

Mel: And then you mess the whole thing up.

Suzie : Yeah.

Mel: Anyway, on that very positive night.

Suzie : Oh, my God, you guys, just. Just don't take yourself too seriously. I think. I think commitment is a very. It's like. It's kind of like a sneaky little devil. You know, like, one day you're like, oh, no, I like to be in a relationship.

And then the other day, you know, you're gonna get married, and then you're gonna have a child, and then you're kind of, like, stuck into a relationship. So just make sure it's a good one.

Mel: Yeah. Commit to the right person.

Suzie : To the right person if that's what's right for you.

Mel: Very good, Susie. Very well said.

Suzie : Well, I love you guys so much. I hope you like this little quickie, as we call it. Love. You can't help, so I can't. And we'll see you next time. If you guys have any stories like this, maybe you committed, maybe you didn't commit.

Mel: Yeah. We want to hear it. We definitely need to hear the stories, midlife and otherwise.

Suzie : Yep. Go to share my truth.com guys and tell us all about it. We love you. Until next time, sharing my truth pod is so excited to partner with vibrator.com where the A in vibrator is the number 8.

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Mel: Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review this podcast and follow us on social at Sharing My Truth Pod and leave us a voicemail on our website sharingmytruth.com to share your stories and experiences with us.

We'll see you next time. Bye bye.

Suzie : 3, 2, 1. Sa.