ON FINDING THE ONE… With Miranda Hart, Celeste Barber and Glennon Doyle

This is a special episode, sponsored by Bumble, taking a look at all the different ways we can meet someone: whether you meet young, in your 50s, or post-divorce. The three women in this episode (and four if you count me!) - are here to show us that finding the love of your life isn’t always straight-forwards, or linear. First up, you'll hear from the brilliant and hilarious Miranda Hart, who got married when she was 51, and talks through her first date with her now husband. Then Australian comedian Celeste Barber talks about meeting her ‘hot husband’ young, and quickly becoming a step-mum to two young children. Finally, American author Glennon Doyle talks about leaving her marriage for the love of her life, Abby – and co-parenting her three children with her ex-husband in a blended family. I hope this episode brings you as much laughter, reassurance and warmth as each of those guests have brought me. And hopefully it inspires you to refresh your Bumble profile, or download Bumble now! Listen to Miranda’s full episode here: swap.fm/l/oTScN30b80GflJtO4rgu Listen to Celeste’s full episode here: swap.fm/l/qLmwfjyeSolWuFeaHGdt Listen to Glennon’s full episode here: swap.fm/l/Nd3ZzVy73FXUMupJ4i1q 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Elizabeth’s Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ Join the How To Fail community: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @howtofailpod @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod @elizabday Website: www.elizabethday.org Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

  This super special episode is brought to you by Bumble. Now, we're brought up to believe very often that finding a life partner, the person that you want to walk through experiences with, your lobster, if you will, is something that should happen quickly. And when you first set eyes on each other, fireworks go off in the background and you get married, buy your house, have lots of kids together and live happily ever after in heteronormative bliss. But life has taught me that it's not like that for everyone. It definitely wasn't like that for me. In fact, it very rarely plays out like that, and that's okay. Today, we look back at three How To Fail guests who found their partner at different times in life. First up, you'll hear from the brilliant and hilarious Miranda Hart, who got married

• 0:44Elizabeth Day?

  when she was 51. She talks through her first date with her now husband. Then Australian comedian Celeste Barber talks about meeting her husband young and quickly becoming a stepmother to two children. Finally, American author Glennon Doyle talks about leaving her marriage for the love of her life, Abby, and co-parenting her three children with her ex-husband in a blended family. I hope this episode brings you as much laughter, reassurance and warmth as each of those guests have brought me. And hopefully, it inspires you to refresh your Bumble profile or download Bumble now.

• 1:24Elizabeth Day?

  We've come on to the boy, Aka, your husband.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  And I We dance together, can I just say?

• 1:32Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, that's like, and he's a drummer, you said?

• 1:35Speaker 01

  He's a drummer, so I'm very envious of his musicianship.

• 1:38Elizabeth Day?

  But there was something about, and I'm not going to give away how you met because it's the most amazing story and the most incredible payoff for the book. But there was something about the first date that you had with him that was so important in terms of acceptance. Will you tell us that story?

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's very, very, it's very silly, but because I was, I met him sort of halfway through the story of the book. So it was at the point where I was like, okay, I'm this unexpectedly to me, this story is, and this discovery of this time is learning to be honestly who I am. And Who I inherently am and how to be a kind, loving version of me. So I think that's, that's basically our purpose is to love and to be kind. We all do that in our unique, different ways. So it's like, okay, I'm going to, I'm not going to say sorry unless I've made, you know, really need to. I'm going to be me. I'm not going to rein myself in. Okay.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  So I had the opportunity to go on this date and I thought, the reason I'm nervous is because I'm, I've made a little vow to myself to be honestly myself. And so we were chatting all very easy, very fun from the off. And then we get a pizza delivery. And the pizza comes and I'm very, I haven't shied away from saying how excited I am about my pizza because I think pizza's very exciting. And he found that, I'm pleased to say, charming. And he was like, yeah, I'm excited about pizza too. But my pizza arrived and it had done that thing of shunting towards that one end. The mozzarella was leaking everywhere, that end of the cardboard, it, it sort of flipped a bit. So it looked a bit like a calzone.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  But I don't like calzone's, don't know why. They're just pizzas halved, aren't they?

• 3:20Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, they're too much dough.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  I just don't know what's going on there. So I, in the spirit of just being authentically me, I go off on one. I get full on teenage grumpy. I'm like, I am so disappointed by this. Look, look, look, yours is really nice. Look at mine. What is that? Half a calzone? Don't know. It's all shunted, the mozzarella. I'm so disappointed. I went on and on and on. He was a bit sort of wide-eyed. He's very shy, sweet, you know, keep the peace. Why died? And this, the inner critic came in and went, apologize, do your thing, say, sorry, I'm an absolute idiot. I don't know what I was doing. I was only joking. I thought, no, no, I'm not going to. I was like, so, you know, awful, isn't it? Thinking also slightly back of my mind, first of all, problem.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Get into perspective, privilege, etc. But no, in that moment, I was pissed off about my. And there was a slight moment, he went. No, it is sad. Look at that mozzarella. It's not doing what it should do. And I went, exactly. And I was like, we formed this most delicious connection and actually sat eating the pizza in a bit of silence, à la the dog loving unconditional presents. But because it kickstarted the freedom for him and for me to just go, yeah, let's let's start meeting and connecting. And if this is going further in this way, let's not do formal, let's not do small talk. It's not who we are. And then when he did text and say, when should we see

• 4:47Speaker 01

  each other again? I was like, okay, well, he does like me because I was who I was. I'm probably farted within 10 minutes as well. But it's such a silly example, but it's also really important because I wouldn't have done that before.

• 5:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Because you have to be who you've got to be on a first date. You've got to be sophisticated and together and pretty.

• 5:08Elizabeth Day?

  And play games. Ultimately, that's what that is. It's not showing up as yourself.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:12Elizabeth Day?

  Which is a really courageous thing to do in a society that conditions us to be anything but. And I'm so happy for you that you have found that because you so deserve it.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 5:23Elizabeth Day?

  Because you have made so many other people feel fully accepted to show up exactly as they are, many of whom you'll never meet. And I think that's been an incredible act of generosity on your part. And I'm really glad to hear that you found it for yourself because you deserve it.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  It is lovely. And I'd sort of written a sort of version of it with Gary and Miranda in sitcom. And then I suddenly realised, oh, wow, I was writing what I knew was possible. But for some reason, didn't think it was possible for me. Didn't think it would ever happen. And then he came along.

• 6:01Elizabeth Day?

  And as part of that, I wanted to ask you about your family. So your hot husband, that's what you call him.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, that's what the world calls him now. That, yeah, that blew up.

• 6:12Elizabeth Day?

  Well, you're both phenomenally hot and make a very hot couple. But I'm so interested in family units that are unconventional, partly because I'm also a stepmother, as we were chatting about before. And I'd just love you to tell us the story of your family and how you met your husband.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Um, we've been together for 22 years. Which is a really long time. And um, we met in a pub. I was working in a bar in Sydney in Australia. And he walked in and I've never ever been confident around boys or men. I've just never been like boy crazy. But something happened when I met my husband. I just saw him and I went, yeah, lock it down. Like that works for me. And I just walked up to him and said, you'll be coming home with me tonight. And he went.

• 6:58Elizabeth Day?

  Did you actually say that?

• 6:59Speaker 02

  I actu- I know. Can you fucking believe it?

• 7:02Elizabeth Day?

  Wow.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  I just walked up to him and said it. I was twenty one.

• 7:05Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Like, and I had the worst haircut of my fucking life. He still makes fun of me for it. It was, remember when Halle Berry had that really short?

• 7:13Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  When she um, won the Oscar.

• 7:14Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  That.

• 7:15Elizabeth Day?

  Monsters Ball.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  I could try that with this hair. Yeah.

• 7:19Elizabeth Day?

  We have very similar hair.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  And do you know what he said to me? He goes, later, he said to me, oh, I thought, oh god, she must be confident. Because I have, I had that haircut. If you, you know, if you're gonna pull off that haircut, she must be confident. It's been what a long term relationship is when there's children involved, stepchildren involved, long distance involved. Um, but we, we had a conversation very early on in our relationship. That he knew that I, I'm an actor and I'm a comedian and I'm performing. This is what I, I'm working toward. He knew that and he was like, I would love to, like, let's make that happen and I'll have the kids. I'll do the, he's such a nurturer.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  So early on, we had that conversation. But it's interesting now that, you know, the success is what it is. He gets such an audience of people going, God, you're so lucky to have him. And I'm like, absolutely. And they're like, you know, you're so good to her. She's so lucky to have you. And I absolutely am. But they think that he has given up his life for me. And I have so many female friends who have successful, successful husbands and not once do they get that audience of going, wow, he's so lucky. And Arpy, my husband, even says that. He's like, it's weird. I'm sitting with all, you know, our groups of friends. And these people say to him, God, she's so lucky to have you. What a man. And these women are there going, I have to do the same thing over here with my husband.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  But there's no audience for it.

• 8:50Elizabeth Day?

  It's so astonishing how far we've yet to go.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. Especially when it comes to looking at those sort of relationships. Like, people genuinely think, like I say, that he has given up so much. For me. And sure he has, and I've given up for like, it's, you do what you do, but it's not as though he was like, well, I did plan on, you know, flying a rocket to space three years ago, but I had to stop that because she wants to be funny. It wasn't a thing.

• 9:15Elizabeth Day?

  You have two sons now.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, two boys.

• 9:17Elizabeth Day?

  Thirteen and.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  Eleven.

• 9:18Elizabeth Day?

  Eleven. Okay. So first of all, I want to ask you about being a stepparent.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 9:22Elizabeth Day?

  So your stepdaughters were two and four when they came into your life, is that right?

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:26Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Two and four.

• 9:27Elizabeth Day?

  What do you think is the most important thing that being a stepparent has taught you?

• 9:31Speaker 02

  There's so many things. It's interesting, when you ask that, I instantly think of the girls, Kai and Sarah, bang, when they were little. They're twenty five and twenty three now, but in my brain, they're little again. And I just think about, I was young when I got, I was twenty one when we got the girl, when I got the girls. And I just think, love, just you have to, whatever is going on up here with parents and co-parenting or lack there or whatever, that is all, all that matters. Now, look, that's great in theory, but that's one thing that I have learned. Like, they just, they have, we just have to make sure that they, those little sausages are okay.

• 10:11Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. I think as a stepparent myself, one of the key realisations I had after many, many years was my job, my stepchildren are older. My job is actually not to parent because they have two really effective co-parents. My job is to be a support system for the parents in that situation. And that really, really helped me. Being a support system to my partner. And also, it's a completely different situation because they don't live with us and.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Oh, right.

• 10:43Elizabeth Day?

  And I think that part of my journey was about letting go of the dream of having my own children, which didn't happen for me. And there was part of me, I think, that for years wanted to preempt the blendedness of our family unit. And I was just trying too hard to be parental rather than being myself.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:05Elizabeth Day?

  And sometimes when you decide to show up as yourself, you do end up being parental. It's been an, and it's, it's such an interesting conversation because for obvious reasons, we can't talk about it that much because it involves so many other people.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  So many people and so many different experiences and so many different, you know, perceptions of how it all went down and how it works. But I agree with you actually.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  I wanted it all to be one big happy family at all times, no matter what. And it doesn't work like that because as we just say, we're not the only ones in the situation. There are people that don't want to do that. They, you know, have different ideas for it. I found, I, I, yeah, I think we did have very different experiences because I did have the girls a lot. And I, it was hard, like I was their next of kin. I was all of that. So it's like I,

• 11:58Speaker 02

  being their friend, and it's the number one rule when you're a stepparent, everywhere you read, everything is like, don't parent them, just be your friend. I was like, well, they are two and four. That is impossible for me.

• 12:08Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  And yeah, I think if I had my time, again, I think about this a lot, it would, it would be different. I'd make, I'd do it differently.

• 12:16Elizabeth Day?

  I think they are so incredibly lucky to have you as you are them. But what an amazing stepmother to have, just someone who has redefined what it is to be a woman and made it acceptable just to be our authentic imperfect selves and to celebrate that. You also have two sons.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 12:35Elizabeth Day?

  And I'm so intrigued to hear from you whether you perceive many differences in terms of now that your sons are entering teenage years, the pressures societally that they face as someone who has done so much for women.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  It's very different from the girls to the boys for me. I think given the time that we're in, in the world, I think I find it challenging to raise my boys, letting them know that they are the greatest kings that have ever lived and they're kind and they're funny and they're smart and they deserve everything and that most things in society are skewed toward them without them feeling like shit.

• 13:20Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  That's hard. I'm, you know, I'm such a feminist. These, my boys are feminists. I'm raising them as feminists. That is, I find that very difficult, like to empower them to be the excellent young, like, you know, rock stars that they are, but at the same time going, just so, it's really fucking hard for women and men are trash. Not you, but men. No, not dad, but men are trash. No, not poppy. Men suck. No, not Uncle Ben. Like, it's that thing where you're kind of, I have no filter around that sort of stuff with my kids, which I really think I should sometimes, because I get myself into a bit of trouble with them.

• 13:56Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. What's Arpy's take on it?

• 14:01Speaker 03

  We're aligned.

• 14:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  In that, we're aligned in, I mean, he's, he'll be the one that sometimes goes, oh, okay, mum, we get it. Because I'm like, and another fucking point, like, another thing. Um, but no, he's absolutely the same. He's, yeah, an excellent feminist.

• 14:20Elizabeth Day?

  And how did that realisation affect how you parented your children in the aftermath of your first marital breakup?

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Well, the way my life actually works is I say these wise things on podcasts and then I probably forget everything in my real life. Okay. So what I learned and know in my head is that all feelings are for feeling. And that beautiful people are not made through lack of pain and lack of struggle. That beautiful people are made from overcoming and overcoming. What that looked like in my parenting is I will protect my children from all pain forever. That they will never feel anything, that no raindrop will fall on top of their head, right? This is, none of my spiritual knowledge translated to my real life. Okay.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  So when I fell in love with Abby, even with all of the pain in my marriage, I initially decided that I would stay in my marriage. And I could give a lot of reasons for that, but mostly it was just that I felt that I could not hurt my children in that particular way. And then one day I was braiding my daughter Tisha's hair and I looked at her and I realised, oh my God, I am staying in this marriage for her. But would I want this marriage for her?

• 15:50Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  And if I would not want this marriage for her, then why am I modeling bad love and calling that good mothering?

• 15:59Elizabeth Day?

  Wow, yeah.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Right? And Elizabeth, the answer is simple. It's the same as every other message given to women. It's because through osmosis, through modeling, through overt messages, I was tamed into believing that a mother is a martyr.

• 16:15Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  Right? The good mothering is about slowly burying yourself.

• 16:20Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  Your dreams, your emotion, your personality, your ambition, your desires, and doing that in the name of your children, which is so ridiculous. Right? It's such a burden and it's such a terrible legacy to pass on to our children. Right? Because then they too believe that they have to become martyrs to prove their love and it never ends. It's why Carl Jung said, "The greatest burden that a child can bury is the unlived life of her parent."

• 16:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  So yeah, eventually I just decided, okay, I just have to reject these cultural messages of goodness. You know, we all want to be good. That's because we are good. It's just that we have to define what good means for ourselves. Because if we default to the cultural messages of good for women, those messages will always tell us, in one way or another, disappear.

• 17:12Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  So I decided for myself that what I wanted to be for my children, I didn't want to slowly die for them. I wanted to show them how to bravely live. Right? I wanted to be a model, not a martyr. And I decided that what that meant is that my children will only allow themselves to live as fully as I give myself permission to live. So that means just trying to resist settling for any relationship, institution, et cetera, that is less true and beautiful than the one I would want for my children.

• 17:47Elizabeth Day?

  You talk as well about the island of your family and it's funny.

• 17:54Elizabeth Day?

  Because you're friends with heroes of mine. So the idea of you, Brené Brown and Liz Gilbert all sitting around for dinner is enough to make me orgasm. I'm like, I want to be there.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  You love it.

• 18:07Elizabeth Day?

  But you were.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  Best sentence ever.

• 18:09Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. You were on Brené Brown's amazing new podcast recently and you told the story of the island. And I think it's so interesting that you were talking to her about it because she's been so influential for me in terms of setting boundaries. And how setting a boundary is not a negative thing, but we as women have been taught that it is. We've been taught that it's selfish and self indulgent and somehow unfriendly. But tell us about the island when it came to something your mother said about your new family setup.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. First of all, telling women not to have boundaries, the same same, right? It's just another way to say a good woman disappears. Don't have needs, don't have expectations, because that's all that boundaries are, is just saying, I have needs.

• 18:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  But the thing about boundaries is that they're my best friend. The great loves of my life are Abby, the children, coffee and boundaries. But the interesting thing about boundaries is that they are harder to hold with people that we deeply love. When I first told my parents about me and Abby, my mom was scared to death. Okay, my mom and I are best friends, just completely codependent. Okay, we talk six times a day. Most of that I don't want to change, but she was so afraid and I could hear her fear in every conversation and every question.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  It was just, you know, what will the world think? How will the kids' friends treat them? What will the internet say? Just all this fear. Because mothers sometimes think that worrying is the same thing as love. It's not. But I fall into that trap too sometimes. So I found myself getting really defensive every time I talked to my mom, just like becoming seven years old again. You know, just incessantly explaining why I was allowed to do what I wanted, why I was okay. Because I don't think that it's the hatred from enemies that shakes us from our knowing. I think it's the quiet concern of those that love us. That's what's the hardest. And one day I was talking to my mom and I heard her say,

• 20:13Speaker 03

  "Your dad and I are coming to visit next week." And I heard myself say, "No, you can't come here because you are still afraid. And I can't let you bring your fear to my children because they are not afraid." Right? I taught them, they were raised to know that love in every form should be celebrated and that it is best to be yourself and let the world catch up. But if you come and you bring your fear to our home, they will see it in your eyes and they will help you carry it because they love and trust you. So I have to tell you this really hard thing, Mom, which is that your fear is not my family's problem.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  And my job as the mother here is to make sure it never becomes their problem. So go figure out your problem. And when you are ready to come to the island of our family with nothing but love and celebration, we will lower the drawbridge for you, but not one second sooner. And that was, out of all of the tellings, out of all of the telling the world about me and Abby, that was the moment, Elizabeth, that I became an adult.

• 21:25Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, just hearing you talk about it, I would find that so terrifying. Having to do, isn't that stupid? That it's just, that's the thing that terrifies us.

• 21:34Speaker 03

  No, it's not stupid, it's universal. I know some of the fiercest activists in the world. They get up on podiums in front of thousands of people. They say the things, they preach liberty and freedom, they know it. And then they come home and they cry about their moms.

• 21:47Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  It feels like the ultimate untaming. It's just a reframing. It's like, of course, the best way to honor our parents is to trust fully the women they raised. Right? And of course, if we're not doing anything they don't understand, we are not living into our place in, in the world because we live in different worlds. Our parents were conditioned and programmed in a different world. Right? And they had us for the future. It reminds me of that Khalil Gibran poem that's so beautiful on children that says, "Your children are not your children. They are life's longing for itself." It's like we are, if we're not doing anything that our parents don't fully understand, we're not doing it right. And the terrible part of that

• 22:32Speaker 03

  is that if our children are eventually not doing anything that we don't understand, they're not living into their place.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Right, so eventually we will have to allow them to make their own islands and and hopefully just approach them with nothing but love and celebration so that they will lower the drawbridge for us.

• 22:50Elizabeth Day?

  How did your mother take it?

• 22:52Speaker 03

  At first, on that phone call, she said, I hear you and I will think about what you've said. I had the miraculous situation where my mother now, Elizabeth, for sure Abby is her favorite daughter and she has two other ones. Okay, she has been to now more gay pride parades than we have. She is for certain the fiercest activist of our family. She works to plan trans remembrance ceremonies. She goes to every activist meeting in her town. She, something about watching me own myself. I just think that really at the heart of it, people that love us just want us to be okay.

• 23:35Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Right, her fear was her desperation for my okayness. And it turns out that the only way we can convince people we are okay is to just go about being okay. And so her watching me trust myself, watching us walk through the pain, but watching my family come out the other side truer and more beautiful than we've ever been, it's like that thing where you see a cheetah and it makes you return to your cheetah, right? She needed to watch me untame myself so that she could do the same thing. And yeah, it's been so beautiful. But I know a lot of people who don't get that miracle.

• 24:10Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  Right? And that doesn't mean that it wasn't the right thing to do.

• 24:14Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 24:18Elizabeth Day?

  Oof, that was an emotional one. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This episode was brought to you by Bumble, helping turn dating into real conversations and connections.