The Difficulties Of Planning For Marriage And Kids (When The Outcomes Are Uncertain)

We need a little more of being able to disagree with each other and challenge each other's behavior and opinions without saying, I'm now shutting my eyes and ears to you. Welcome, everybody, to the Love Life podcast with me, Matthew Hussey, Steven Hussey, Jamison Jordan, and Audrey Lestrat. All of Jams are here today, and we have an incredibly important episode today. We had a listener write in in response to our episode on the biological clock from October the 12th, the episode titled How to Overcome Anxiety About yout Biological Clock when dating. We had someone write in who was in significant disagreement with me on some of the things that I said in that episode, including the tone that I used in saying some of those things in that episode. And I thought, let's actually have the conversation here. Let's talk about it. I think that this is going to be a really important episode for a lot of people, for those of you who are thinking about having children, for those of you worried that it may never happen for you. I think this is one of the most important conversations you can be having, and I hope we do it justice today. Before we go any further, the virtual retreat is coming up from the 11th to the 13th of November. This is our final virtual retreat of the year. Don't you want to set up 2023 in the most powerful way possible? I don't want to be that person who on January 1st is thinking about what their resolutions should be. That's amateur stuff. I want to be going into 2023 with a vision for how I am going to make that year one of my best ever. And that means asking some really important questions. How am I doing in my life right now? Am I coasting? Is there more I want to experience? Am I getting out of life? what I hoped I'd be getting out of life by this point. Is a new chapter necessary? Do I need to work on how I'm approaching a new chapter that has already started so that I can make more of it? How am I coping with the challenges of my life? Do I need more tools to cope with them better? Where do I want my life to go from here? Life is just so terribly short. And I heard someone say something recently where he said, you know why we're all trying to advance our careers and get things done and get through our to-do lists? Life is happening. It's moving forward and we're getting older. And in all of that striving and struggling and trying to make things happen, The clock is ticking. We're actually getting older. And how much are we enjoying our life in all of that? The anxiety of things going wrong, the suffering that comes when things do go wrong or when pain comes into our life, that's a part of life. Suffering is cyclical. So the question isn't, how do we avoid suffering? The question is, how do we make the most of our life now? regardless of the challenges, regardless of the suffering, regardless of what we have to deal with, what's on our plate right now. And the virtual retreat is all about that. It's all about how to make the most of this precious life that we have, even when it's hard. And if we develop a beautiful relationship with life, we will also attract incredible people into our life, whether they're new friends, new partners, the love of our life, new opportunities. I believe that developing an incredible relationship with ourselves and with life is the answer to creating a better future, is the answer to inviting more opportunity into our life. So that virtual retreat is happening from the 11th to the 13th of November. This is the last rallying cry for anyone who wants to come and join us before it's too late. because I promise you, if you want a powerful 2023, this is the place you need to be for three days with me and my team, immersive coaching. And you could do it from anywhere in the world. It could be man or woman. It doesn't matter. You don't need to be single. This is not a love life retreat. This is a life retreat. The virtual retreat. You can go and book your phone call. to book your spot at mhvirtualretreat.com that link is mhvirtualretreat.com I think there is nothing more important you can do today than go and apply for that. Go do that now and let's get this episode started. Now we have actually been talking about this issue for a while not on the podcast, but certainly on the live retreat that we do, because I've always felt it to be one of the most pressing issues when it comes to helping women in their dating lives, not least of which because it is at the heart of so many people's fears and panic, even that this thing that feels fundamental to what they want to do, not everybody, but for the women that feel that it's a fundamental part of their vision for their life. It can become an incredibly exhausting thing to constantly think about this low level anxiety that's just lived with when they're not only trying to do the difficult thing of meeting a life partner, which is an incredibly hard thing to do, meet someone that you want to be with for the rest of your life, but you're also trying to factor in this timeframe in which It needs to happen in order to be able to have your own biological child, if that's something that's biologically possible for you. And I have been acutely aware for a very long time of the bad decisions that people make in their love life as a result of their desperation to make that goal happen. And they often end up in awful relationships, unhappy relationships, abusive relationships, doomed to fail relationships, because they're no longer making decisions from a rational place, but from an intensely emotional and fear-driven place. So for a long time now, I have spoken on this issue to even if clumsily weighed in on something that I think not enough people are talking about. I don't think there are enough forums for people to have emotionally intelligent conversations about this issue in a way that might help, that might move the needle for someone in deciding how to approach this, what practically they could do to mitigate some of those fears of not being able to have a child or not happening in time, or how do I navigate conversations with a man when I want it and I'm not sure he does. especially in early dating, but also just what's my mindset around this going into it so that I remain high value and confident and attractive in all of my dealings with people. And this doesn't become this anxiety that then leaks into my dates in a way that actually sabotages what could be a great thing with somebody. There was a, in this episode, we talked about lots of different aspects of this argument, but one of the things that came up was the idea of egg freezing. And I talked about my feeling on this matter that it would seem to me to be an important thing for people to consider if upon having the conversation with themselves, they have decided that it feels like a non-negotiable the idea of having a child. I know I want this to happen. And my view has always been, how do we put women in a position of power and control in their own lives? How do we put them in the driver's seat so that they're not relying on a man for something that feels Elemental to themselves? and in talking about egg freezing, there was a particular listener who was, had a, a very significant reaction to what I was saying and sent us an email. Her name is Elizabeth. I won't mention her last name, but she sent us a well-written and somewhat lengthy email detailing how her experience and her feeling about this differs significantly from the manner in which I was talking about it. And I thought, you know what? This is a really important email to read to add specificity and nuance and color to this conversation. And this person disagrees with me in the way that I talked about it. And I thought this would be a great way to continue the conversation for us to educate ourselves more on some of the things that women face in this area and for us to potentially even set up another conversation in the future where we might bring somebody on board, a doctor, a medical professional who deals specifically in this area, to elaborate on some of the things that Elizabeth is talking about. So I want to start by thanking Elizabeth for being really candid. with us and really direct. I think it's certainly added to the conversation in our minds. I'm going to read this email to you in two parts because she has divided it into two parts that she took issue with two different ways that she took issue with what I was saying on the podcast and we'll address them one by one. I don't expect that we will end up anywhere conclusive here because I want to bring on an expert in the medical field to come and help us with some of the specifics here. But I do hope that if you are someone who is affected by thinking about pregnancy, by thinking about planning for the future, if you are someone who for whom it is very important that one day you have a child, I think this episode is going to continue that conversation in a way that's really valuable to you. So let's begin. Elizabeth says, hi, Matthew, Stephen, Audrey, and Jameson. I usually love your advice, and I have learned a lot about relationships and dating through listening to your various works. But I think your advice on the subject of dating and biological clocks was fairly unhelpful and uninformed. I'm speaking as a 37-year-old single woman who has frozen her eggs, helped several friends through that process, who does want a family created with a partner and a biological child and who is a registered nurse. I had a strong reaction to this podcast and wrote a lot, but I really want people in positions of power to know all of this when they suggest something as invasive as egg freezing. Egg freezing can be helpful. It's something to do if you have the money, energy, and time, but it's not the magical solution everyone thinks it is. I think there is a popular underlying assumption that in freezing your eggs, which is also called fertility preservation, you are buying yourself 100% guaranteed time. You alluded to this a bit, but freezing your eggs is not a guarantee of a healthy child years down the line. Depending on many factors that a trained fertility physician considers, your odds could be 60%. This could be lowered depending on the quality/age of sperm of your eventual partner. Many of the eggs you painstakingly harvest could be lost just through unfreezing. Then, the part that everyone forgets: pregnancy. Pregnancy complications rise the older you get, and even though it's rare, pregnancy at any age can cause ongoing morbidities and even mortality. so freezing your eggs is not a magic bullet. I also think that many people are unaware because of the blithe breeziness of saying just freeze your eggs gives off that egg freezing is very involved, painful and expensive. Excluding medications, it can start at $7,500 per cycle with deals on paying upfront for more than one cycle. It is the exact same process that conceiving couples go through for the first part of IVF. When I froze my eggs, the hormones made me feel depressed, withdrawn, and lethargic for at least a month. I gained at least 10 pounds without changing my diet, and I felt bloated all the time. You must give yourself daily, then twice daily injections, several of which you mix yourself. You must pay out of pocket both for the medical care and the meds, which alone cost like $3,000 per cycle. and for many women, three to five cycles may be needed. And then when your follicles are getting ready to be harvested of eggs, you have to go into the doctor's office to have blood work and a transvaginal ultrasound to monitor their growth. First every other day, then every day, all in all for about a week and a half. All this leading up to a short surgery, again transvaginal, where you are given general anesthesia, and the eggs are harvested. Even if they've harvested 10 eggs, only six might be viable because their genetics are tested. Try to be a person with a job and do all of that. Finally, when I'm ready to use them, the only way to do that is through IVF because the eggs are outside my body and must be fertilized by a lab tech. Then the embryo implanted, which may or may not result in a pregnancy that goes to term. Until that happy time, you must pay what I call egg rent or the storage fee for the eggs, which for me is $60 per month until I use them. It's a lot of time, energy, and expense for a woman to take on single-handedly. So why did I do it? To be honest, the cost-benefit analysis in my head was razor thin. and doing it was just marginally better than not doing it. I'm still dating with intention or trying to, to find a life partner and co-parent, but it hasn't really removed my sense of urgency, both because I know all of the risks and because it didn't change the fact that I am ready to be a parent today. So that's part one of Elizabeth's letter. to us. And I think it's worth pausing there before part two, which gets a little bit more of a commentary on society and men and women and the way we ref, we talk about men and women. But that's just the Practical side of someone whose experience has been that they have frozen their eggs. It seems as a kind of forward-looking move, but is looking for that traditional family unit and is on the dating scene right now, having gone through all of that effort. I want to start by saying to Elizabeth and anyone else out there that this is incredibly helpful, that I absolutely agree that there was something flippant about the suggestion that people should just freeze their eggs, albeit with some caveats. But I think that the message of that was received by Elizabeth and no doubt by some people who didn't write in as not taking into account the sheer cost, energy, intrusiveness and time. that is involved in a process that, as Elizabeth articulately points out, is not by any stretch of the imagination a guarantee. So I want to acknowledge that, and I want to apologize for the way that that might have come across at the time. And I want to use this as an opportunity to see if this further's the conversation. Firstly, about what we should do. What does this change, if anything, about a woman's decision to create this backup option? Because it seems to me here we are talking about a backup option that's not a guarantee, but remains the best backup option that there is available. So I'm almost curious, firstly, to put it back on our listeners and to say, with all of that in mind, I am curious to hear from people. Does it change the calculation for you? Does it make you more inclined to to wait and see if you are able to meet somebody. Does it make you more inclined to say, well, if that's the case and if those are the odds, then it really makes me think more about just doing it by myself earlier instead of freezing my eggs and waiting to meet a partner, because as Elizabeth points out, the chances of complications in pregnancy, the chances that those eggs don't take, the chances that I'm not. My body isn't able to handle it at that time. If those things are true later down the line, does it change anyone's perception of, well, actually, I'd like to just do this sooner without waiting for a partner at all? I mean, Elizabeth says herself, it didn't. The fact that she has frozen her eggs doesn't change her urgency because she knows that with every year that passes by, there's more potential for complications. And I have to assume, therefore, what that also means is if this round of eggs doesn't work, if there aren't any viable eggs, then I find myself potentially looking to go through the same process again. And if I've waited and put all of my stock in those eggs that I froze, by waiting, if it doesn't work, by definition, I'll have less eggs at that point to try again. And there's no guarantee that I'll get any viable eggs at that point. So it's a very, very complicated issue, and, and I think that Elizabeth, part of your frustration is the idea in the last podcast we did on this that it was deemed to be in some ways a simple issue. I've never seen it as an easy thing. I think it's a tremendously difficult subject. And it's one I will say it's one I'll never shy away from because it's for me, even if I stumble in this conversation, it's too important. a conversation not to have for fear of saying the wrong thing or for fear of upsetting someone or offending someone. I would rather stumble and learn along the way than not have this conversation and have women who leave it too late to have the conversation with themselves because there aren't enough people out there actually having this difficult and nutty conversation. So I'll open it up to anyone who wants to jump in, but I found myself reading Elizabeth's email, at least this part of the email, and thinking, does it change anything?

You know, it's such a complicated subject.

Because.

Having a family for so many people is something that they desperately, desperately want. and it's really difficult to say to someone, well, it's not a guarantee, right? And, you know, if you want something so much, being told that there is a possibility that you might not get it, that's heartbreaking. And I think I kind of see the kind of argument that you put forward in the other episode as, as you say, just another way of getting a higher probability of getting what you want. And, you know, I think something that's worth also remembering is I know someone who couldn't conceive naturally with her husband and so went through in England, you get free IVF, but you get one round for free. And when they harvested the eggs, they basically, something went wrong and none of the eggs were viable and she was not able to get another round of IVF and she can't afford to do it a second time. So the chances for her and her husband to have a child has now disappeared. And I think that's also worth remembering, is that there are couples who would be seen to be able to conceive naturally, who can't. And it's just one of those things that isn't a guarantee, however much we might want it. And I would almost, I, I actually think that I really loved her email and I think everything she said is so pertinent. And I think the difficulty of.

The.

Reality of how difficult it is to go through that process only to not have a guarantee at the end of it, that's what's really difficult. But I sort of see it as just, you know, stacking the odds a little bit more in your favor, even if it is 60% and even if that 60% reduces after 40 and even if you know, it's still just trying to get a little bit more of an insurance that you might be able to get that thing.

Which is interesting because, you know, Elizabeth said that the cost benefit analysis was razor thin in the, you know, tilted towards doing it instead of not doing it. But as someone who is so informed, she still decided to do it. which is, you know, I find that to be interesting because there must have been some sense of it's still worth covering this base if I can. And that suggests to me a level of self-awareness in Elizabeth that, that knew how important it was to her, knew that this is something she deeply wants to do and. And to me, albeit with many more caveats about how difficult and painful it is and costly, it seems to me to still be a basic kind of exercise in risk management of saying, what's going to stack the odds in my favor for this thing that's really important to me? happening. And not everyone is going to be able to afford something like that. That's just a given. There are going to be people that sadly, price excludes. But for people on the fence, for people who will really have to save up in order to be in a position to do this, once again, it becomes a kind of It becomes a decision of, well, what do I want to spend my money on?

It's a calculation in life.

It's a calculation and it's, it's no, you know, I know that I applied for a green card for the United States at a time when it wasn't easy for me to afford what it cost me to apply for a green card. And many people will have had that same experience in trying to move to a country. You may not have much in the bank, but you may really, really wanna go to that country and you save everything you can to be able to apply to do that. And it's because, you know, this is something that's really, really important to me. And, you know, it may be argued by many people that the decision, you know, the life goal of having a child, if that is your number one life goal or one of the top two life goals you have, is more profound than moving to a country for many people. And so the cost, I think it would be any way that the cost of this can be brought down would be an incredible thing, but that's beyond the scope of this podcast, that's for sure. But the budgeting of that and saying, I do think even the cost of it forces us to have a really honest conversation with ourselves. What's most important to me over the next 10 to 20 years? Where do I want my money to go? This is going to be very costly, which means I have to know how important this is to me in order to consider doing it, especially if that money is something I'm going to miss. Not for some people, they won't miss that money. But for others, it will be a huge financial decision. But so is buying a house, so is buying a new car. There are many ways that we have to make big financial decisions and having a child, I can't think of anything more important in terms of weighing those things up. But all of these things, to me, they force the serious conversation with ourselves. And Elizabeth, I grant you this, everything you've said, certainly makes it a more complicated analysis when you consider that, God, all of this and it still doesn't guarantee, you know, there's still a 60 chance. And I could have outlaid all of this money. And you're right. When you're busy and, you know, to take the time is, is difficult. Although when something's that important to you, you make time. Whether it's true of anything, it's true of, you know, someone in your family gets sick, you know, miraculously, you. you find time in and amongst everything else in your life because it's that important to you. And that's not me making a commentary on what women should have to do over men. And we'll come on to that in a moment. It's just a per, I'm talking about personal decisions in our lives about things that we choose to, to have some agency over. We choose to try and stack the odds in our favour. We find the time when something is that important. But if anything, all of this detail for me just makes that conversation that much more important. How important is this to me? And the thing that I find myself a little lost on and the thing that I would love to kind of, I'd love to get an expert in to talk about with us is, what does that look like practically? what does it look like for a 25 year old? Is it a very different calculation then? At that point, is it almost worth saying to yourself, let me wait because I've got time and I'm going to see if I meet someone and why outlay that money and that time and that energy and something that's painful. Why do that before I have to? Is it something that should be considered at 30? or 35, or should the 25 year old considering it because those will be the most viable eggs? You know, I, those are the kinds of specific questions that I find myself in light of Elizabeth's email not knowing the answers to and wanting to speak to an expert about so that, because I would love in our position, and when I'm up on stage, I would love to almost have an ideal answer in my head of this is an age by which this should be seriously considered and should be an option on the table. But I don't know exactly what that answer should be. I hope that in having this conversation, we start to elaborate on some of the themes and some of the conversations we should be having with ourselves and each other. but to get some more specificity when we talk about it next time with someone who knows this area inside out. Let's move on to the second part of Elizabeth's email. She says, so that's part one of my letter. The part of the podcast that I found even more worthy of writing in about was that I think that Matthew in particular was a bit blinded by his position as a man on this issue. When he talked about egg freezing, he gave off the attitude, intentional or not, that it was so great mainly because it levels the playing field between men and women by removing a very real and crucial part of being a woman: your fertility clock. To me, it felt like he was saying, if only women could be more like men and have unlimited fertility, then this whole pressure to have a family thing would go away and we could put off the decision forever. To that I say, no. Not only is that simplistic, but it is putting way too much responsibility for everything to do with family formation on women. We could write a whole dissertation, or several, on the topic of men and women and their different attitudes to family formation. But in the dating world, I think it's generally men who need to be better adults here, not women who have to do painful and expensive things to their bodies so that we can wait until men magically feel ready one day when they're 55 or whatever. By which time, I might add, their sperm has suffered in quality as well, leading to greater chance of miscarriage and potentially less healthy children. Still, those are relatively smaller risks than a woman takes with later-in-life pregnancy and delivery. Besides, the experience of being a woman with an inherent fertility clock is irreducible and valuable in its own right, and I don't like the implication that it is something that needs to be changed rather than men's maturity levels. If you are a man and don't want to have a family, don't have one. I'm not here to pressure anyone into having children they don't want. But it is each of our responsibilities as adults, man or woman, to know where we stand on this. And it is completely reasonable for someone whose fertility will end relatively soon to be upfront and honest about their goals and needs in a dating situation. And it is reasonable for adult women to expect that adult men know where they stand on this issue and to be able to talk about it without men misunderstanding it as pressure on them specifically. I like that you advise women to say, I'm ready for a family with the right person. That is what I have taken to saying in my own dating life. I think that instead of saying that in an ideal world, all women should freeze their eggs at 21, we should say that all men should have reversible vasectomies, a far, far less invasive procedure at 15 or whatever, to be reversed when they are ready to be parents. If that sounds ridiculous to you, then you'll know how ridiculous it sounds to me when you say, I should just freeze my eggs. I do truly enjoy your discussions and I will continue to be a listener, but you really missed the mark here. Well, Elizabeth, I am glad that we have the kind of relationship with our audience where you can say that and where we can talk about it and where you generously say you'll continue to be a listener. That's exactly how the world Should be. Unfortunately, the rest of us have blocked you on social media and we will not be letting you listen to our discussions anymore. Jamison has canceled me. But that's fine, because I canceled him three years ago. I love that. I love that, you know, there's too many parts of the world now where someone says something you don't like, and the response to it is, I'm no longer a fan. I'm no longer a listener. And we need a little more of being able to disagree with each other and challenging each other's behavior and opinions. without saying, I'm now shutting my eyes and ears to you. I think that's a really, really, we hurt ourselves, we hurt the conversation, and we end up making far less progress as a result of that attitude. I feel like there's a lot to say about what you've said, Elizabeth, and a big part of this was also me wanting to just give you a voice on the platform to express what you're saying. So I don't think we need to respond to every single line of it. But I understand what it is you're saying in relation to this feeling of why is it that on top of the fact that there is this timeframe to contend with biologically, the pressure to deal with it is coming all from one side, that it's our job to have to fix it and pre-plan and do this invasive and difficult and painful and costly and time, time expensive procedure that is all a result of us not actually being a team on this. as men and women of men not getting their shit together, men not having an idea of what they want, and them kind of just kicking it down the road and saying, well, I'll just see, you know, we'll just see what happens. And because of that ambiguity and because of the fear of scaring a man off, because I might want kids and I'm afraid that me even hinting at that is going to make me undateable early on and make me seem too intense. is gonna upset him and, and make him run the other way. And I have to now be sensitive to that, too. And, and it's, I I understand. I get it. I think, you know, my, my feeling in life is always let me deal with things the way they are. Let me work to make them better. Sure. And I hope this podcast is a place where we can talk about progress that needs to be made amongst men and women. I hope that it's a place where we can have the kind of societal or philosophical conversations. But it's also a place that people come to get solutions. It's a place that people come to say, well, what do I do? And, you know, I sometimes think of it. If someone came to me for coaching and they wanted to progress their career, and they said to me, what do you think would be more helpful today, talking politics and debating who should be president? Because one president is going to be, is going to make my path to success easier than another. Or we talk about how I can actually go and take action today, which one would be more beneficial? And I would always say to the individual, let's talk about your goals and what you want and how to get you there, because I'm not confident that A, any president is going to come in and make a difference, and B, that you and I here are going to change who's president. So you and I figuring out what you can do proactively today is going to make much more of a difference to your life than us talking about society or politics. So that is where I've been coming from on this argument always, is not from a place of how it should be, But from a place of working with the way it is. Because I know if Audrey and I ever have a daughter, when I'm giving advice to her, I'm going to be giving advice to her on how to deal with things the way they are, not the way I would like them to be, because I don't think that would prepare her for the world. But I'm happy while we're here to have this conversation about men and women, because I think it's an interesting one. you know, it's interesting, I think, what Elizabeth said about men making their mind up on what they want so that they aren't an obstruction to women who do know what they want, which is kind of an interesting argument. And it also, I suppose, assumes perhaps overly simplistically that all women know what they want. There's plenty of women that go into relationships kind of with their own sense of ambiguity in other words, right? That's not just a male thing.

Yeah, of course. I suppose it's kind of what you touched on, which is, you know, as a woman, you're made to feel like you are going to come across as too keen and too desperate and to whatever if you have the audacity of talking about what your goals are and what you want in that area. I think something that's really, for me, something that's really interesting is I feel like there has been, I mean, I was doing a bit of research on this after the email because I just was curious about it. And I found a few articles and studies on the male biological clock. And what is interesting to me, and I'm not an expert, so I'm not going to give any sort of solid, hard statistic on it, but there is no education for men in understanding their own body clock. And it kind of appears to be that society's rhetoric is basically women after a certain age can't have kids, but men can, you know, like Elon Musk's dad can have kids in their 70s. But that's only if they're having children from what I've read anyway, with much younger women. And actually, if a woman was also procreating with a younger man, her chances of having a healthy baby would also increase. Obviously, you know, as we've stated, there's complications to carrying its term and whatnot, but there is just this real imbalance between, and there's not enough conversation around the fact that men also need to worry about this if they want to have a child with someone their own age. And I know people who are having IVF because they can't have kids naturally with their partners because they're in their late or early, late 30s or early 40s. So, and that majority of the time, again, from my, from my sort of reading up on it, it's because actually male infertility has a huge part to play in, in how you're able to get pregnant naturally. So it's sort of, I think the kind of discussion, which is a huge one, which is probably not, as you say, that useful is just a bit sick of how women are always made to feel like it's on them and it's their fault. And it's like, you know, Elizabeth says, just freeze your eggs. And I think that the kind of frustration that comes through in her email, I think is probably shared by every woman of probably any age, but certainly of any woman in their 30s, because there is just such an imbalance all the time between the two genders.

That idea that men can can have children later. But the part that men aren't educated on is that it would have to be with someone younger for it to be likely to be successful or for it to be more likely for it to be successful. And that women could have children later if they had significantly younger Partners. Isn't part of the issue with that, that the There is a greater ease with which older men can find a younger woman.

But again, that's society.

But it doesn't make it not true.

Yeah, but it's just, that's my point. And I think that's Elizabeth's point as well. It's just, and I was saying this to you earlier, like it is just a man's world created by men for men, always to just side with men. And it's sort of like the things that have been made normal are always geared towards the benefit of men and the detriment of women. And it's just like that in every single pocket of the way that society has been set up. And the problem with it is that you're right, you're not gonna, this podcast isn't going to change, you know, the whole world's attitudes towards men and women, but it's just, it is just so frustrating. And I think her email is sort of voicing the frustration, which I very much share.

But if I said to you, do you think it's more likely that a 50-year-old man will find a 35-year-old woman to have a child with, or a 50-year-old woman will find a 35-year-old man to have a child with? Which one do you think is more likely? I'm not talking what's right or wrong. I'm just talking about in life, which of those would you put more money on happening?

The first.

And if that's true, then isn't that a real thing to worry about? In other words, if that just happens to be the case, regardless of society, what's right and wrong, the way we should re-educate men, wouldn't. If I was a woman, I would want to at least that I would be basing my choices on that understanding of empirically the what I see around me and. and what life is really like. You know, saying it's so wrong that at 50 as a woman, it's, you know, it's more difficult for me to find a guy at 35 who's willing to have a child with me than it is for a man to do it if he was 50. Saying that wouldn't help me in my life. And it certainly, I wouldn't wanna be planning my decisions on kind of planning for a world where that wasn't the case.

Yeah, and I suppose the whole point of this and the thing that I was really just kept coming to when you were reading the email and when I read it the first time as well is it's just not fair. And that's why it's so frustrating. It's just not fair, but the same way life isn't fair, right? It's, you know, you can want a child more than anything in the world and it can just not be in your future, or you can get sick and die six months later. when you're 21, like, you know, life isn't fair. We very, very few things are for certain. And I guess, and I know when you were first talking about it, you know, the sentiment was, and I, you know, I, I completely understand Elizabeth's point, but I definitely think the sentiment that you were trying to get across is, you know, try and get as much control. over the situation as you possibly can, because ultimately, even then, it's not a guarantee. But if you can come to the end of the road, either with a child or without, but at least saying, I did absolutely everything in my power. I dated with intention. I froze my eggs. I did this, I did that. But ultimately, it wasn't on the cards for me. You will have a much easier time than if you didn't explore every Avenue that you were able to explore, which I think was the point you were making, which is a A good one, I think.

My thing is all about how unfair it is.

Yeah.

That's what it's always been about. Jameson knows, because we've been talking about this for years. Stephen knows, because from the retreats, this is all I've ever barked on about, is how it is by nature. There is this imbalance. And, you know, I'm all for the discussion on, how we should be educating people. I just think it's a separate discussion from the one of what should we do? Because I'll never, never, ever will you catch me basing my decisions in life on how I would like things to be. Ever. I'm a control freak. I. No, I. I. You. But everyone here around this table knows me. I I. If. If there's. My biggest strength and my biggest weakness is. my need to control everything. It, you know, I think there's a good dose of trauma in there. There's a, you know, a real healthy dose of me growing up with a lot of of insecurity and not being able to control things that were important to control and and me feeling like as an adult and even as a child, I need to I need to put in place all sorts of contingencies to make sure that this doesn't happen and that doesn't happen. You know, that's always been my MO. So I bring that control freak approach to women when I am trying to guarantee the things that they want in their lives. It doesn't, it doesn't have, it's almost, and I think that what happens in doing that is I often bypass the kind of formalities of kind of the kind of throat clearing of Isn't it wrong that men are like this and women are, you know, like, I, I kind of end up bypassing that and going, okay, if I was a woman, what would I do? If this was this important to me and I really wanted to make this happen, what would I do to try to guarantee this result for myself? And I, and, and what Elizabeth has very helpfully done is made the stakes very real, made the the process very real and visceral in saying, well, just so you know, if you do this, this is the actual toll of it. This is what it's actually going to take. And that would force me to have many, many conversations with people in my circle and say, that is a lot, isn't it? Oh, that's a lot to put myself through. Oh, do I even have the time for this? Oh, like, do I really want that to happen to my body? Do I would be that all of that would go through my head and it would necessitate many conversations with people I trust, with people who are further ahead in life than me, with people who have already been around the block, with other people who had done it. I would want to have those conversations. I would be having those conversations. And my God, if nothing else, I hope that this podcast and the last one together force you to go and speak to people who know more than us and have the conversations and not shy away from the conversations. And if you're if eventually you end up in the place of going, Absolutely, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna freeze my eggs. I'm not gonna go down that route. I don't wanna have a child on my own. And I want more to not freeze my eggs and not have a child on my own and not go through that process than I ultimately want a child and therefore I'm not gonna do it. That's a good place to come to. There's a sense of peace to that because you've arrived there consciously. Or if you decide, even by a razor thin margin, I'm gonna go and freeze my eggs, I'm gonna do that. because you had all those conversations, then great. You arrived like Elizabeth. You arrived there consciously and well informed. And, and I think that's the most important thing in the world. So I, I'm very, very happy to be having this conversation. I, I assume that as we continue to talk about this, and I'd love to do a I'd love to keep doing this on the podcast and elsewhere and keep educating myself on better ways to have this conversation. But I think it's one of the most important conversations we can be having, even if clumsily, even if in a messy way. I appreciate you, Elizabeth, for writing in. I appreciate all of you for listening. Let us know what you thought of this episode. Please add to the conversation. Please tell us what we're still missing, if anything. If you have a strong opinion on, like maybe listening to this conversation, you come to a conclusion that we haven't, or maybe you know more about it than we do, or maybe you're a fertility doctor out there who does this for a living and you want to come and join us on the podcast. If so, tell us about it. And We'd love to set up that episode. But we really appreciate this conversation and we hope you do too. And if nothing else, we hope that this is a place you can come to have it instead of a place that's not having it. Thank you everybody for listening to this episode. Don't forget, if you haven't already, go over to our website and use the tool@yourdatingsolution.com to find my solution that best suits your love life challenge right now. Maybe you're single and looking for love. Maybe you're dating someone and trying to get more of a commitment. Maybe you're trying to work out how to have a difficult conversation with someone or how to revive the attraction with someone that it seems to have stagnated with. We have solutions for every single one of these challenges. Go to YourDatingSolution.com you can tell this tool on my website your particular challenge and it will recommend the best solution for you from the years of work that we have done in this area. YourDatingSolution.com is that link and don't forget to join us again for the next episode of Love Life.