Bisexual Wife Guy

Summary

Podcast Summary: Proxy with Yowei Shaw – Episode: "Bisexual Wife Guy"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Proxy with Yowei Shaw
• Host/Author: Y3 Productions
• Description: Proxy explores intricate personal dilemmas by connecting listeners with individuals who have navigated similar emotional challenges. Described as "emotional investigative journalism™️," the podcast delves into unique, often tangled emotional situations to provide listeners with relatable insights and support. Hosted by Yowei Shaw, a former host of Invisibilia, new cases are featured every other Tuesday.

Episode Details:

• Episode Title: Bisexual Wife Guy
• Release Date: April 22, 2025

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1. Introduction

The episode opens with a humorous exchange between Yowei Shaw and Kyle Pulley about Kyle's self-appointed nickname, "bisexual wife guy." This light-hearted banter sets the stage for the episode's deeper exploration into complex relationship dynamics.

Notable Quote:

• Kyle Pulley [00:25]: "Our mixing engineer is Kyle Pulley. Also bisexual wife guy?"

2. George’s Story: Coming Out and Breaking Point

Yowei introduces the main case of the episode: George, a listener who faced the end of a decade-long marriage after his wife, Charlotte, came out as bisexual. George's initial reaction was supportive, but over time, Charlotte's decision to pursue a queer relationship led to their divorce.

Key Points:

• Initial Revelation: Charlotte informs George of her bisexuality, prompting uncertainty about their future together.
• Attempts at Resolution: They explore an open relationship and engage in couple's therapy, both of which fail to salvage the marriage.
• Breakdown: Charlotte's abrupt decision to leave leaves George feeling like a minor character erased from their shared life.

Notable Quotes:

• George [04:21]: "Ultimately, the elephant in the room is like, hey, actually, I'm queer, and I'm not interested in being with a cis dude anymore."
• George [08:34]: "I'm a minor character that got written out of the show."

3. The Struggle for Closure

George grapples with the aftermath of the breakup, particularly the lack of closure. He expresses difficulty in processing the end of his marriage, feeling overshadowed by Charlotte's swift move forward into a new life.

Key Points:

• Emotional Turmoil: George feels stuck, unable to obtain the closure he needs to move on.
• Isolation: Despite seeking therapy and support groups, he finds it hard to connect with others who share his specific experience.
• Unresolved Questions: George yearns to understand if he could have done anything differently and seeks answers that Charlotte is unwilling to provide.

Notable Quotes:

• George [05:15]: "I always feel like I share this, and it makes me feel like, oh, poor me, like, this horrible thing happened to me."
• Yowei Shaw [10:27]: "Divorce happens. But George is dealing with a particular kind of divorce."

4. The Proxy Conversation: Meeting Hannah

To help George navigate his emotional conundrum, Yowei introduces Hannah, a proxy who has experienced a similar situation. Hannah shares her own journey of coming out while in a long-term heterosexual marriage, mirroring Charlotte's experience.

Key Points:

• Hannah’s Qualification: Though not formally trained, Hannah's lived experience as someone who left a heterosexual marriage upon realizing her queerness qualifies her to empathize with George.
• Shared Experiences: Both Hannah and George discuss the challenges of maintaining relationships and the emotional upheaval that comes with such revelations.
• Strategies for Healing: They explore methods to cope with unresolved feelings and the importance of allowing oneself to grieve authentically.

Notable Quotes:

• Hannah [20:07]: "I was married to a man and then found myself in a situation of being extremely sort of attracted to a woman."
• Yowei Shaw [25:47]: "The person you are projecting is not me. That person doesn't really exist anymore."

5. Insights and Conclusions

Through their dialogue, George and Hannah uncover deeper truths about personal growth, the complexities of emotional healing, and the societal pressures surrounding divorce and coming out. They emphasize the necessity of self-compassion and the importance of allowing oneself to feel and process emotions without the pressure of "performative okayness."

Key Insights:

• Emotional Authenticity: Suppressing true feelings in favor of appearing okay can hinder genuine healing.
• Redefining Relationships: Moving forward involves recognizing oneself as an independent individual, separate from past identities and relationships.
• Closure is Personal: Closure must come from within rather than relying on external validation or explanations.

Notable Quotes:

• Yowei Shaw [28:09]: "It's like trying to stop a wind or something. Like you just can't do it."
• George [40:42]: "So this has been really nice for me to talk about something with someone who's invested and cares."
• Hannah [44:17]: "It's fine. Like, we have kids. It's fine. We see each other sometimes."

6. Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with reflections on the nature of unresolved emotional situations and the value of proxy conversations in offering new perspectives. George experiences a shift in his emotional state, symbolized by the change in sound from the relentless noise of an angle grinder to distant, muffled conversations, indicating his journey towards finding peace amidst unresolved feelings.

Notable Quotes:

• George [50:19]: "It sounds more like the sound of people talking in a distant room."
• Yowei Shaw [54:06]: "Do you think you're ever going to listen to Proxy on the actual Apple podcast app?"

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Conclusion:

"Bisexual Wife Guy" delves into the intricate emotional landscape of a man whose marriage dissolves due to his wife's bisexuality. Through expert-hosted conversations and relatable proxy interactions, the episode offers listeners a compassionate exploration of love, loss, and the quest for personal closure. The nuanced discussions emphasize that healing is a personal journey, often requiring one to confront and embrace complex emotions without external pressures.

Transcript

[Yowei Shah]

Hello?

[Kyle Pulley]

Hey, babe. I have a question about the episode. Well, you're in luck. How do you feel about me calling you a bisexual wife guy?

[George]

I mean, I don't know. It's fine. I don't know.

[Yowei Shah]

It's cool.

[Kyle Pulley]

You wouldn't mind if I just, like, shouted you out at the end of every episode? From now on, our mixing engineer is Kyle Pulley. Also bisexual wife guy?

[Yowei Shah]

No, I think that's bad branding.

[Kyle Pulley]

I think it's too navel gazy. Bad branding for you or bad branding for me? Well, I don't think I'm all right. What are we talking about?

[George]

Are we going to talk about this episode or not? I have calls with clients.

[Kyle Pulley]

Like, what are we even doing?

[Yowei Shah]

Okay, okay, okay.

[Kyle Pulley]

I'm just. I'm just letting you know that there's going to be another cut for you to master because I have a few fact checking fixes. Okay, that's fine.

[Yowei Shah]

I can do that.

[Kyle Pulley]

Okay. Have a good day at work.

[Yowei Shah]

All right.

[George]

Yes.

[Kyle Pulley]

Thank you.

[Yowei Shah]

Bye. Love you.

[Kyle Pulley]

Bye. Bye. This is Proxy. I'm Yowei Shah, your emotional investigative journalist. Today, the case of the bisexual wife guy who got dumped. That's after the break. Psst. I don't think I've ever made that noise before, but I am thrilled to tell you that Normal Gossip is back for its eighth season. Join the delightful Rachel Hampton each episode as she shares the juiciest gossip from the real world with a special guest. I had the extreme honor of guesting recently, and the production team told me I had a very expressive gossip face, which I couldn't help. There were so many twists and turns. Normal Gossip was named one of the best podcasts of 2024 by Time magazine and Vulture. You can listen now to the new season wherever you get your podcasts and and catch Normal Gossip live this September when they go on tour. For more information, check out normalgossiplive.com Today's episode makes my husband Kyle shudder every time he hears about it. Because today's episode deals with the story hits close to home. A few years ago, I told Kyle something about myself, something I'd been feeling for a long time, but hadn't allowed myself to admit. I told my husband I was bisexual, I was queer, and Kyle was happy for me, as expected, and not totally surprised. But it did beg some obvious questions, like, what does coming out as bisexual in a straight relationship mean? Exactly what did it mean for us? Every once in a while, Kyle will ask, am I going to leave him for my best friend? He's mostly joking and since then, we've come to a good place with it. But then I heard from someone who has lived Kyle's worst nightmare. A listener. I'm calling George.

[George]

Hey, I'm so sorry I'm late.

[Kyle Pulley]

No, no worries. Um, I'm hearing, like, a little bit of, like, water in the background.

[George]

Well, we can get into this, but, like, I moved in with my sister, so I'm in. I'm in the uncle basement, and there's, like, exposed pipes and stuff. Oh, I think the washing machine's running. I'm gonna go stop it, and that might help.

[Kyle Pulley]

George is in his 30s, works in media, and last year, he sent me one of the saddest, sweetest emails I've ever received as a journalist. It was about his decade plus relationship ending in divorce. That's why he's in the uncle basement.

[George]

The kind of. The core reason is my partner kind of decided, like, she, you know, decided nothing. It gets really complicated and kind of prickly to talk about. But bottom line, two years ago, my partner said, hey, I think I'm bisexual. And, like, ultimately, the elephant in the room is like, hey, actually, I'm queer, and I'm not interested in being with a CIS dude anymore.

[Kyle Pulley]

In his email, George wrote, quote, I have not found any support groups or the like for people in my situation. And I'm not saying that should be the priority either. I just want to better understand in what ways I've been perpetuating a system that oppresses LGBTQ people and how it can grow and be better in the future and ultimately be a human who loves everyone, including myself.

[George]

I always feel like I. I share this, and it makes me feel like, oh, poor me, like, this horrible thing happened to me. And, like, that's not really it. It's more just, like, emotionally confusing, if that makes sense.

[Kyle Pulley]

The way George remembers it, he had a loving, supportive relationship with his ex. I'm gonna call her Charlotte. George and Charlotte met back in college, and after their first date, they were inseparable. After graduating, they moved in together. They moved to a new city, they got married, they bought a house. They liked spending time together, going to comedy shows, movies, remodeling their home on the weekend, or sitting out back having.

[George]

A fire in the backyard. Just became, like, a weird, happy place for me. You know, maybe her on the left and me on the right. The bigger thing is more like the dog alignment. You know, it's like, would always be on my lap. Would always be on her lap.

[Kyle Pulley]

And then a few years ago, they were taking the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood.

[George]

And Charlotte told George, you know, I think I'm bisexual. And I said, like, that's awesome. What does that mean? What does that mean for us? Like, how do you want to explore that? And she wasn't really sure at the time.

[Kyle Pulley]

Were you worried at that point?

[George]

No, I don't think so. I think I compartmentalized in some maybe kind of odd ways. Like, the physical part of our relationship was kind of up and down. And in retrospect, like, I wish we'd spent more time talking about that. Maybe it would have forced the issue earlier, but at the time, I just didn't know exactly what it would mean.

[Kyle Pulley]

They left it there, and for a while, George says, that was pretty much the end of the discussion. Charlotte didn't talk more about it, and he wanted to be supportive and not push. George wondered if maybe Charlotte needed something I and didn't ask for it or didn't feel like she could. At any rate, it wasn't till a few years later that Charlotte broached the subject again and told George she had feelings for someone she met at work.

[George]

From the moment she said she was interested in a queer relationship, I was super happy for her and wanted her to pursue it. And we started talking about how to make that work logistically, you know, maybe an open relationship is something that we could explore. And it didn't go very well. We tried working it out in couples therapy, and that didn't go very well either. And then, you know, things escalated pretty quickly. I think she was uncomfortable asking for a divorce. That came up in therapy, and basically the way it came up was, you know, her saying a bunch of things about me that were pretty awful. She said something like, we don't have a life. We have a collection of responsibilities. And then me saying, like, I don't know, that I want to be married to somebody who feels that way about me.

[Kyle Pulley]

George says, once the D word got tossed around, that was it. No more discussion. In fact, that therapy session was the last time they talked about the emotional side of their breakup. From that point on, George says, it was logistics. Selling the house, moving out, getting divorced, doing it all as quickly as possible.

[George]

I really admire that. My ex has that, like, stick to it. Iveness, like, we're gonna get this done. But I was, like, not in a good state and kind of felt like in the headlights, and it was just totally out of my control.

[Kyle Pulley]

Well, first of all, I just want to say I'm really sorry.

[George]

Thank you.

[Kyle Pulley]

It sounds really, really, really Hard.

[George]

I appreciate that. But, like, even you saying that is very sweet. I'm having trouble receiving it.

[Kyle Pulley]

Is it that you feel like you don't deserve to feel feelings around this?

[George]

When I think about this, a story like this in abstract, you know, my ex is the. Is the main character, if that makes sense.

[Kyle Pulley]

What do you mean by that?

[George]

I mean, when you. I feel like. If you hear, like, hey, someone came out later in life and they got divorced and met someone new and lived happily ever after, like, that's the story. You don't. That's why I'm, like, a little uncomfortable talking about this in a public way, because this story really isn't about me, but I still exist. And it's been a year since we separated. She's moving on. She's bought a new house. She's living with a new partner. And it's great. I mean, all I want is to be happy for her, but I feel like I need the closure of knowing that there is a story that explains any of this.

[Kyle Pulley]

So divorce. It happens. But George is dealing with a particular kind of divorce. Thanks to compulsory heterosexuality. There are lots of people who've gotten married and never gotten to explore their queerness. Things are changing now, thank God. But George is not alone. I was telling an audio colleague about this story, and he was like, I know two couples in their 40s going through the exact same situation. Anyway, here are a few fun facts I found. There's a Pew study that's surveyed bisexual adults. They wanted to know how many of them had come out to the most important people in their lives. The results point to a generational gap. Under the age of 45, 32% said they were out. But above 45, it drops to only 18% saying they were out. The same study looked at bisexual people who had partners. A whopping 88% are married or in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender. In other words, a hell of a lot of bisexual people in hetero relationships. But while George isn't alone in his experience, he's having trouble finding people who can relate to the specifics. George has tried therapy. He's been to divorce groups. He's looked for support from friends and family. But he can't ask the questions that will help give him closure. And he doesn't feel like he can. Ask Charlotte. He says their only contact is about the dogs these days. And when he did email her to open the window to talk about feelings, he. He says, she didn't respond.

[George]

And I don't feel like it's my place to press my ex to explain, like, her state of mind and how she was feeling.

[Kyle Pulley]

And that's why George reached out to us. Now, if this were a different kind of show, I'd probably track down George's ex and compare their version of events, maybe set up a meeting. But this is not that show. On proxy, our job is to help people like George investigate their feelings. And we believe you can get special insight by talking to a stranger who's outside your situation. Because you can ask questions you wouldn't be able to ask, say things you wouldn't be able to say, be less defensive, more open to learning and listening. So that's what we do on the show. We search the entire world for the perfect proxy to talk to someone who has relevant experience.

[George]

Experience.

[Kyle Pulley]

Sometimes it's a researcher who studied the issue at hand. Other times it's someone who's lived through the same kind of experience. In George's case, that would mean someone who's also been left by a queer partner or someone like his ex, the queer partner who decided to leave their straight relationship. So, George, what are the questions you would ask that would help you, um.

[George]

How other people navigate this? I think I just would really want to understand when you are coming out later in life, like, who is your ex as a symbol to you? Is it painful to be around me? Like, is it painful to be around me to the point that, like, a friendship would never work?

[Kyle Pulley]

George wants to know if a future friendship with Charlotte is possible, and he's curious, what was this whole coming out experience like for her? I'm really glad you emailed. I'm gonna really try to find a proxy for you. But I have one last question. If you were to vocalize the sound of your niche emotional conundrum, what would it be?

[George]

You want me to make the sound?

[Kyle Pulley]

If you're willing.

[George]

When we actually decided to split up, move out of this house, the basement was fine, but kind of gross. So I needed to take an angle grinder to all this paint and, like, stuff on the floors and the walls. And so I spent two days with an angle grinder just, like, grinding things away. This is just like this kind of noise.

[Kyle Pulley]

Angle grinders are great, but on today's show, I tried to give George a slightly less grading kind of cathol narcissist. After the break, George meets his proxy and gets to ask the questions he's been holding on to. Foreign.

[George]

G calling in from D.C. my two niche to podcast conundrum is you say niche, niche. What do you do when you don't know how to pronounce a word help. But I'm glad Proxy is investigating other niche emotional conundrums. Which is why four months ago, I became a member of proxy's page Patreon. Because Yowei makes this show independently, and I don't want it to disappear, ever. When you join the proxy Patreon, you get benefits, like hearing episodes without ads and exclusive bonus episodes. What a bargain. Plus, you get to sleep at night knowing that you're helping make the world's first podcast for emotional investigative journalism. To become a member, go to patreon.com that's patreon.com ProxyPodcast Can I get a power rangers morph?

[Kyle Pulley]

Let's do it, guys.

[George]

It's morphin time. All right, later.

[Kyle Pulley]

If it's your first time listening to proxy, the thing that we do on the show is an experiment. We create a conversation between my guest, in this case George, and a proxy, a stranger we are hoping will be helpful because they have expertise either through research or lived experience.

[George]

Okay. And it's coming through. Okay.

[Kyle Pulley]

You sound great. The day of the conversation, I check in with George 15 minutes before letting the proxy in. It's been a while.

[George]

Yeah, I was just thinking about this. A lot has changed, Even just in that. What feels like not a lot of time.

[Kyle Pulley]

Oh, really? George is still living in the uncle basement with exposed pipes. But since we last spoke, he's taken a few steps forward. Like, he met his ex's partner for the first time when he came over to deal with dog care.

[George]

I was also nervous about, like, going to their house because.

[Kyle Pulley]

And even though he was worried about that being a bad idea, it was fine.

[George]

Like, the house is super cute and, like, it felt so normal. But I do think that there's a lot that can't be said. Still.

[Kyle Pulley]

George still has so many questions about the breakup that he can't talk to his ex about.

[George]

I mean, I think I just would really want to understand.

[Kyle Pulley]

Like, while we're chatting, I see a notification pop up. The proxy has landed in the virtual waiting room. Okay, are you ready for us to let her in?

[George]

Okay.

[Kyle Pulley]

Now, as I was looking for a proxy, I thought about George's initial email. He wrote that talking to someone who's been through exactly what he's going through would be helpful. So that was one. Find some other straight dude who's been left by his queer partner. But further down in the email were some of those questions that George was holding on to. Questions like, was it something he Did. Was he not as supportive or kind or responsive at the enough. Was it painful to be around him because he represented a time in her life? She was in the closet. These weren't questions for another straight guy who got dumped. These were questions for Charlotte, his ex. Which is why I decided to find a proxy who could stand in for her. Meet Hannah, my former coworker and a previous co host of Invisibilia.

[Yowei Shah]

Hi. Hi.

[George]

Hello.

[Yowei Shah]

We're here together in this vulnerable space.

[George]

With strangers getting vulnerable in small boxes on the Internet. It's 2024. That's what we do.

[Kyle Pulley]

I know both of you. Why don't you introduce yourselves to each other?

[Yowei Shah]

Okay. I'm Hannah. Hi. Hannah Rosen. I worked with Yoe at Invisibilia, and I live in Washington, D.C. and I still do podcasting.

[George]

Hi, Hannah. I'm familiar with you. I'm using a pseudonym for the purposes of this show. My name is George, and I live in the Midwest.

[Yowei Shah]

Amazing. I see Star wars behind you.

[George]

Yes. My. As we'll get into, my living situation is such that I, after my divorce, moved in with my sister. So my office is a room where I put up some drywall, but it was a largely unfinished corner of the basement.

[Yowei Shah]

I also think, like, post divorce, maybe there's something interesting to be in some unfinished space. There's like, a metaphor about that.

[George]

The metaphor isn't lost on me.

[Kyle Pulley]

Okay, so, Hannah, why don't we just start with. Can you just explain what qualifies you to be a proxy?

[Yowei Shah]

Okay, George. I don't have any degrees in proxy, Dom. I did not study proxy in either college, high school, or graduate school. What qualifies me is life experience. Had a similar experience to your partner. I was married to a man and then found myself in a situation of being extremely sort of attracted to a woman. And then it just kind of cracked my brain open. And my train was running a thousand miles an hour in a way that was a little bit inexplicable to most people around me. Like, my internal reality and sort of all the things that were like, breaking, breaking, breaking, breaking inside my head were invisible. And so anybody looking to the outside was like, excuse me. Like, it just didn't quite sort of add up. And yet in. In my head, it was. It was going really fast. So I think that's what qualifies me. My only role here. You know, I will never, in this conversation, know you well enough. I will never talk to your ex. So we're doing this at the level of like roles. So in. In the way that I can just speak from that experience without either overgeneralizing or getting over specific. I think that's. That's the place we want to aim for.

[Kyle Pulley]

So, George, I'm going to turn it over to you. Can you explain to Hannah why you are here today and the niche emotional conundrum you're having?

[George]

Sure. So I separated from my partner last summer.

[Kyle Pulley]

George runs through the breakup. His wife telling him she's bisexual, the attempt at an open relationship, the couple's therapy. That didn't go well. And then George starts talking about the speed at which things happened. More specifically, the speed at which Charlotte moved on.

[George]

It was like I got pushed onto a train, and it was just like moving a million miles an hour.

[Kyle Pulley]

I'm going to let the rest of the proxy conversation roll from here. What surprised me was, yes, George and Hannah get into the nuances of what being queer in a straight relationship can mean for both sides. But I also heard things that apply to any relationship breakup, like how to create your own closure when the other person can't give it to you, and how performative okayness after a breakup can be a disservice to everyone. Okay, here is the proxy conversation.

[George]

She kind of didn't break stride. I mean, like, she got back out there. She met someone. She actually bought a house recently. They're getting a puppy together. They got a puppy together, which was something. We. We don't have kids, but, like, we had Boston terriers. And, like, the fact that she's, like, went and got a Boston terrier puppy, like, obviously not intentional, but it was another one of these things where it's like, yeah, she's just, like, continuing the same life. She just, like, booted me out of it. And I've felt for a long time like this is really her story, you know, Like, I'm a minor character that got written out of the show, and I do feel like I want to talk about these things, but I just don't feel like it's fair. I don't feel like it's fair if she doesn't want to talk about it, to take her back to that place. If her way of moving forward is, again, at 100 miles an hour, that's her prerogative.

[Yowei Shah]

Right, Right.

[George]

So I'm left with a lot of unresolvedness, mostly related to how things ended and feeling like I couldn't really question or interrogate it as it was happening. And I'm trying to work through that now.

[Yowei Shah]

Wow. First of all, that is really rough as you Were talking through it. I'm thinking, okay, he sees and understands all the things except one thing, which we'll get to.

[George]

Okay.

[Kyle Pulley]

George, I know that when we talked, you were wary of asking a queer person to explain this stuff to you. Do you still feel that way?

[George]

I'm still a little uneasy about it.

[Yowei Shah]

Maybe this will help you, George, to truly understand that you're helping me. This isn't a conversation I was able to have either. It's a conversation I've had with myself in my head or wish that I could have had with certain people from my old life. But it's just not the way the world works.

[George]

That's good. It's not just like, listen, straight guy, I'm gonna explain some stuff to you. Maybe there'll be a bit of that. I don't know.

[Yowei Shah]

No, I bet that it's not a straight guy thing.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

And the thing you said that really, really broke my heart for a lot of different reasons was the minor character written out of the story. It's so painful. But forgive me, George. It's kind of true.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

And it's like a thing to grieve, you know? Marriage cliche is a shared story. And your wife kind of sidestepped to another story that is, like, filled with characters and feelings and a sense of herself. And she's, in a sense, become a different person. And you're from the old story.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

And that fucking sucks. I don't know what to say. That is painful as fuck. That is really, really painful. So the fact that you see that and said that and understand that, that's a huge amount of understanding. But I do think a lot of your work is to, like, walk back from that and then start working forward into a different story. I do think, like, your work is main character energy. Not to memeify your whole life, but you know what I mean?

[George]

I think a lot about this Lucy Dacus lyric that was like, if you rewrite the story of your life, can I still be in it? Which is like such a sad, sad lyric.

[Yowei Shah]

Yeah. Oh, my God, I'm gonna cry.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

And I understand it from her perspective. First of all, it's only been a year, and so I don't know her at all. But you don't just flip and become a new person as an adult. You don't. She's, like, busy figuring things out and who am I and what is gay and what is queer and what does it mean? And what did it mean about the rest of my life?

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

She's in a completely different energy where you're just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, let me catch up, let me catch up. And so I think there's nothing you can do but, like, let that be.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

Like, what are you supposed to do? It's like trying to stop, like a wind or something. Like you just can't do it.

[Kyle Pulley]

Okay, I want to shift to questions for Hannah.

[Yowei Shah]

Yes. Okay, bring it.

[Kyle Pulley]

What do you want to ask Hannah about her experience that might be helpful.

[George]

Were you afraid to talk to your partner? Like, how did you tell them that you were queer? How did he react?

[Yowei Shah]

It was a little different because we were married for a long time and had children. It was just such a left field shock of a turn. And it was so like, where did that come from? That I think it was a little non really believing at first. Nobody was like, cool. Let me hear more about that. It was very disruptive to a peaceful reality. Very disruptive.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

I had like an entire giant heterosexual universe that I lived in.

[George]

But how long did you think about talking to him about it before you finally did?

[Yowei Shah]

Three weeks. In my case. It was like I stepped into an alternate reality and once I saw something, I couldn't unsee it. So it was almost like a physical visceral sensation. It was like zombie walking towards something that I had no idea what it was. I was not walking away from a bad marriage or a bad situation or anything like that.

[George]

Was there any part of you that wanted to preserve some part? I mean, you said you had like this whole constellation heterosexual world. Was there a conversation about, like, well, what of this can we preserve? Or was it like, I need to hop on the train and get out of here?

[Yowei Shah]

It's, it's, it's. It's neither of those things. There is a huge part of me still always that yearns for that stability, role, all of it. But I don't actually think of them as having much of a relationship with each other. One is over here and I will miss it until my dying day. And one is over here, and that is my life now. Like, often people will say, like, even in heterosexual divorces, oh, you met a new person, great. Now you can forget about the other person. It's like, no, there will always be, like a feeling when I'm in the room with my ex and my children. Like when the configuration, you know, you can see the shadow of what my life and my family was, or when I drive through my old neighborhood. It will always, always be a huge part of my heart. And there's this other thing they really don't erase each other. They just exist on different tracks.

[George]

It's making me realize binary thinking can really hurt you here. I think I'd been thinking about everything from before. That moment that you knew is like a reminder of something you want to forget.

[Yowei Shah]

I would amend that to. It's a reminder of something you cannot process at this moment or integrate. And it will take you a long, long time to process and integrate. You will not have the capacity to, like, squash it or forget it. It's a huge part of your evolution. Your soul, your heart, your sense of self. Like all of these other things, you just maybe can't make sense of it at this exact moment. Yeah, I notice often, like, in divorces, like, we went through the Gwyneth Paltrow conscious uncoupling. And that was like, oh, great, everybody's still friends. Talk to each other now. It's like, you have to be fucking friends. I feel now there's, like, a performative okayness about breakups. Like, a performative requirement. Like, oh, man, it's cool. Like, everyone has open relationships and everyone's chill with everybody's new husband. And it's like, but they might not be. And in a lot of cases, they're not. And it just papers over the. Just tremendous shards of pain underneath the untangling of an intimacy.

[George]

I think that you really nailed the. What I've probably been putting myself through is the performative okayness. Like, I haven't given myself space to not be okay.

[Yowei Shah]

Yeah.

[George]

My therapist called me on this. I kept saying, I just want to be happy for her. And she's like, why? That's not your problem.

[Kyle Pulley]

Yeah, exactly.

[George]

I think that's why I keep talking about, like, milestones hitting me like a truck like this. Like, why do I care if they got a puppy? Why do I care if she bought a house? And, like, that one made me mad.

[Yowei Shah]

Yeah. You know, it's weird and counterintuitive. I'm going to give you an exercise. Not a licensed therapist, but I'm going to give you an exercise. Because you do this so often, George. Every single time you have a feeling like, I'm so pissed that she bought a puppy. Your immediate next thought is, but she wants a puppy. And it's nice for them to have a puppy. And it's. You know, they need a puppy. You have to count to, like, 50 before you can do that. But she needs a puppy. You really have to create enough space to be. Fuck them and their puppy. Like, be pissed off or be really sad or Whatever. Not for, like, 17,000 days, but just for, like, you know, half an hour. It's probably really hard for you.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

Like, honestly feel that. Do not go straight to like, oh, but it's so cute. Blah, blah, blah. Because actually, you're doing a disservice to everybody, to yourself, to them, to your feelings for them if you do not create a enough sense. Like, just remember this as the fuck the puppy strategy. How about that?

[Kyle Pulley]

It will stick in your head. On that note, the fuck the puppy note. Let's take a quick break. When we return, George turns the tables on Hannah, and here's her side of the breakup.

[George]

Not to turn. Like, turn the spotlight, but do you have regrets about how you decided to get divorced? Do you have regrets about the conversation or the process?

[Yowei Shah]

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that I was a wrecking ball. Yeah. I mean, I try and be kind to myself about it, but there's just no right way to be. I mean, queer is maybe your only good option here, where it's like, okay, I'm queer now, so everyone's like, yay. But actually, people's feelings still get hurt. And sure, like, I read books about how to do it, and I talked to lots of people, but I myself was holding both of those things at once. This revelation about yourself. Not necessarily just the gay queer, but just the fact that you want to live outside a certain structure that is very, like, exciting. And the kind of enormous pain that you're causing people, whoever those people are, those are really hard to put into one body. That's really hard to manage. I imagine the only person who can manage that well and behave well with those two things floating around is someone who's gotten divorced 30 times. So do we want to hang out with that person anyway? Most of us don't do this that many times. And it's so weird. Could anyone behave well? I mean, I tried my best, but I doubt it.

[George]

Were you afraid to have the conversation with him? Like, were you worried about hurting him or how he would react?

[Yowei Shah]

Yeah. This is a person you love and a person you're very intimate with. And I think because it's such a bomb to survive it, you really almost have to, like, shut yourself off to the other person's feelings. It's otherwise just almost impossible to do. If you love the person. If you don't love the person or you've, you know, had long years in a loveless marriage and you've been planning your exit and whatever, it's different. But if you love the person, do you have to write yourself a script. I am queer. I am this. I'm doing this. You have to write a script and then walk into the script for a while, because that's, like, as much as you can handle. And then later, maybe be more human about it.

[George]

You said he was shocked, but could he have said anything or done anything that would have made you think, like, actually, maybe.

[Yowei Shah]

No.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

No.

[George]

I feel like even asking this out loud. I know the answer.

[Yowei Shah]

I'm glad you asked, because it's probably a question, and that's probably a thing that anybody thinks about. This is like, when my father died, my mother was just like, I should have gone to this doctor, and I should have gone here, and I should have done. I was like, no, he had, like, cancer up in an undetectable place. But she would roll around that for years. So I totally understand why you're asking that question, but the answer is no. What was invisible to him and everybody and almost to me, inarticulatable? It was just that, like, my reality had cracked in some way. And so, no, it'd be telling me to eat dirt for dinner. I couldn't do it.

[George]

How did you tell your kids?

[Yowei Shah]

That was a very carefully planned reading a lot of books. And there are categories of divorces, and there's one which is like, parents fight all the time, and so the kids are like, hallelujah. Like, I don't have to listen to this anymore. And then there's another which is like, the parents don't fight and the families fairly happy. And that's trickier to handle. I did lean on kind of gay a little more. Even at the time, I understood that this isn't just what this is. This is something else about scripts and rules and how I want to live and something about me. Like, I had a. I had a kind of tiny, tiny, like, inkling of that, but I didn't understand it. But it's. It's much easier to have, like, a concrete thing to say.

[George]

I was gonna say, like, I don't think I found myself in the position. Well, you still do with family, where you have to turn around and explain the story of, like, here's why we're coming apart. But you can avoid family reunions and things like that until you're ready to talk to people about it. But, like, talking to your kids, that's really hard.

[Yowei Shah]

I actually would say it's really hard to go to family reunions and things like that because there aren't scripts for that. Like, you will find 10,000 million books about how to talk to your kids, but how do you talk to your friends and which friends and how do you respond to certain things? I felt that I had to make that up myself and it was really hard. And I actually think for people who are sensitive, it's actually kind of nice to just have a sentence or two. Literally. Like you're on book tour and the book tour is divorce and you're out.

[George]

That's totally how it feels.

[Yowei Shah]

You're out there pitching and so you just, you do not owe your vulnerability or your soul to anybody except the people you choose to give it to. So you just come up with a socially acceptable line that teases a little bit of vulnerability, but where because it's so rote, you don't have to expose yourself at every fucking event. It's really useful.

[George]

Yeah. Actually, you know, I think that's where that feeling of being uncomfortable, you know, I have a lot of family that she got along with really well and like, it was weird to have some of them turn and say we didn't like her. Like these things that I wasn't even really ready to process myself.

[Yowei Shah]

Right.

[George]

And I'm actually, and I am curious, this is like maybe one of the more specific questions I had for you. But in telling like parents, there was definitely like a hint of homophobia in some of the things that they said. My parents said something like, I can't believe she hid this from you, which was awful. But even things that I think were like grasping at understanding but were like, we're not going to take sides or the words like, how's that gay thing going? I was just like, I feel like this comes from a sweet place, but like, this needs some editing. That's my note. But like, did you encounter either like maybe well meaning but ill informed family or just out and out people who were not supportive and were very hurtful?

[Yowei Shah]

Yes, sure. People who don't take it seriously, people who think it's just a joke. And then that sort of like, what did you know this? Like, people are just so confused because they have one thing in their heads, which is there's a coming out story. And you know, people would say, well, when did you know? And it's like, I don't know what you're talking about. That's just not how it rolls out sometimes. You know, there's a million different ways this can happen and it's about different things. But of course you don't want to get into that with people.

[Kyle Pulley]

I have a question for you, Hannah. Yeah, I'm curious about blame. In the breakup of a relationship. It feels like when you're broken up with or you break up with someone, it's very easy to have like a black and white kind of like, oh, it's me, I've messed up, or it's them, they really messed up. They're the one to. I'm the one to blame. And I'm wondering, did you have. Did you deal with that from the outside? Like people blaming you?

[Yowei Shah]

Yes, for everybody. I am the one to blame. Like, the person who leaves the marriage is the person who is blamed for breaking up the marriage generally. Or at least in my case, you know, that's the person who people would call selfish or all the things that people say. I thought I would get a bigger like. Like lift from she's gay now, but.

[Kyle Pulley]

You get more gay points.

[Yowei Shah]

Maybe I got like one half a point or something.

[Kyle Pulley]

How did you deal with that? Like, did people actually call you that to your face or did you just feel that?

[Yowei Shah]

The blaming?

[Kyle Pulley]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

Because there are people who are still mad at me. There are people who still, whether they'll say it out loud or not, feel me to have broken and betrayed something. Not everybody, but certainly important people in my life.

[Kyle Pulley]

Did you ever struggle with blaming yourself?

[Yowei Shah]

Oh, yeah, yeah, I still do. There are still days when I think, oh, I'm not capable of stability or I'm not capable of holding something together, or I'm not capable of working on something. Just a lot of thoughts like that.

[George]

For sure, this is going to feel like a clunky analogy, so I'm really sorry, but, like, you know, when you. You move somewhere and you have maybe like a piece of furniture that you really love, and you move into that space and you, you love the new space, but the piece of furniture just doesn't fit and like, you're just better off selling it, you know, no matter how much it meant. You could pay for a storage unit. But, like, if it doesn't fit, you shouldn't hang on to something that doesn't fit.

[Yowei Shah]

That is a very apt analogy. I mean, I could say that for a long, long time. I was. It's like you just trying to fit it and make it all hang together and you yourself are like slipping out of a skin so it doesn't feel right or comfortable to you either. I mean, I don't know, like, I guess in the movies people are like, I'm gay, I'm liberated, or whatever, but it does not feel that way on your skin. It just feels like, what the fuck is happening. Like, you know, you just feel very at you. I felt very, like, uncomfortable all the time. Now, I would say I'm getting to the point where I recognize this is my life. This is the track I'm on. I wonder about your wife from the outside. From the movie shot, it's like, house, puppy, partner. Does it feel that settled? I don't know. Probably feels as evolving a story as your story is evolving.

[George]

Yeah. Yeah. This is really what I fixate on now, which is like, she seems like she's doing great, but, like, I don't actually know. And I shouldn't presume we're not really in a place where she would share that even if she wasn't.

[Yowei Shah]

Mm. And why does that hurt you?

[George]

It's not that it hurts me. It's more that I'm just curious about it. I think that was the thing for me where I was like, I would like to get to a point where we can talk about some of these things. I was saying just because we were doing shared dog care stuff for a while. Like, I have met her new partner and she was, like, quite lovely. And it seemed like they had, like, a lovely life. And it didn't make me super sad to be there. It made me just realize, like, how normal it could feel to just be friends. But there's still all this stuff in the way, you know, this is a.

[Yowei Shah]

Good space for me. I like this. I appreciate. I love talking to you. This has been, like, really nice for me because the new thing for my post divorce, the thing that is also my sore point, is just really realizing that sometimes you're just not going to get closure with some people. Like, they just don't want it.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

I wake up every morning still and think, like, maybe if I have the conversation this way and maybe if I have the conversation this way and it ain't going to happen.

[George]

So you still feel like that same kind of unresolved feeling?

[Yowei Shah]

100%. And it's. I hate it. I hate it. Sometimes I think, like, oh, I wish I wrote fan fiction, bad fiction, where I play out the scenarios and play out the conversations. Would that make me feel better? We're used to thinking now, especially now. Like, talk about everything, process everything, go to therapy. Everything has to come out. But there are some things that can't, Won't. Will cause too much pain if they do. It's not the right time. And I've stopped trying to, like, think about why I. I don't know. And it is actually not my place to ask. So you just won't know.

[George]

Yeah. How would you describe your relationship with your ex now?

[Yowei Shah]

It's fine. Like, we have kids. It's fine. We see each other sometimes. I would want a somewhat closer relationship, but even some other people who were left behind in my old life, who couldn't deal with my new life, I don't have closure there either. I lost some friends and some people who were dear to me.

[Kyle Pulley]

Hannah, I want to go back to the closure piece for you. You said that you don't have all the closure you would like in a bunch of relationships, including with your ex. Is there anything you want to ask George that would be helpful to you?

[Yowei Shah]

Oh, that's a good question. I mean, do you think you could ever see your ex as a person separate from you, whose happiness, pain, like, really has, like, a vivid life of its own? Like, doesn't. Doesn't ping back on you.

[George]

Doesn't ping back as in like that.

[Yowei Shah]

It's clean. Like, you see her the way you would see Yohei or some other person. Like, you could have a conversation with her and, like, you would be fully present to whatever it is that's going on with her. You wouldn't be thinking about yourself in there at all. You'd just be like, oh, here's a person. Here's a person I have affection for who happens to be my ex wife.

[George]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

But truly that, like, not a person who you just like, reflexively think about everything she's thinking. That's different.

[George]

Yeah. I think I have a tremendous amount of respect. Like, she's tenacious, she knows what she wants, and she doesn't hesitate. That never changed for an instant. I've always admired that about her. And, like, you know, like, sometimes being married to her felt like being strapped to a rocket ship. You know, that wouldn't necessarily always be pleasant, but, like, the things that are emotionally hard are contextual and I think will fall away over time. I think people physically move to different places and build different things. And like, now it's this thing of, like, she's building a life that looks pretty similar to what we would have built together. But that's not going to be true five years from now, ten years from now. It's just going to start looking more and more different. And the more different it looks, I just get to appreciate those things I've always appreciated. But the pieces that do feel tethered to me will have fallen away. I think there's a morning process of letting go of some of those things. We're probably both Working through that in our own ways. But, like, that's 100% where I want to be, and I definitely think I can get there.

[Yowei Shah]

Just the tone of your voice, more than what you said just now, it made me feel more hopeful than other things that you've said. I mean, it felt distant is all I can say. Like, a little distant from her in a way that I thought was really nice. I mean, I will say closure from my end. I realized it had a selfish aspect, which is like, I kind of just want them to see me as a person separate from them and their trajectory. It's almost like I'm looking for less closeness. Like, look at me across the chasm and say, like, oh, I see that you have this life with this person in this place doing these things, and then we can be friends again.

[George]

Yeah.

[Yowei Shah]

But, like, I need you to see me as separate from you.

[George]

Right.

[Yowei Shah]

The person you are projecting is not me. That person doesn't really exist anymore. So once you see the person that I am now, then we can be friends. Like, you're in dialogue with a fated person.

[George]

Right. I'm obviously more in the rumination dwelling kind of world, but I had not really thought about just, like, it'd be healing for me to focus on building something new for myself. It would be healing for her, probably, to see that I'm capable of that. And that's not a reason to do it. But when I think about what it would take to be friends, that clarifies what the actual work of it is. It's not necessarily about, like, hurtful things that were said, but it's trusting. You did what you set out to do, which is, like, you wanted to, like, re. Establish yourselves as two independent people, but both of you have to do it.

[Yowei Shah]

Yeah.

[George]

If one of you just can kind of continues to dwell on the past, then it's kind of hard to feel like you could ever just be totally settled with having moved on.

[Kyle Pulley]

Hmm. Any other questions from either of you for the other person?

[Yowei Shah]

George, this is really, really lovely for me. It's so rare that I talk about this, you know, partly because it's long ago and partly because I've given up. You know, I'm not trying to have those conversations anymore, but they're just kind of, like, knotted up somewhere in there, you know, they just come out in my dreams, so. So this has been really nice for me to be able to talk about something of stuff with someone who's invested and cares.

[George]

Yeah. Similarly, I'm really floored by being able to talk about this. That directional empathy, I think, is, like, very healing. So I really appreciate you being open to that.

[Yowei Shah]

It's going to be awesome. You're such a good soul. Like, it's going to be great.

[George]

You're going to make me cry again.

[Kyle Pulley]

Thank you to Hannah Rosen for being our Proxy today. She's the host of the Radio Atlantic podcast as well as Chutzpod. We'll have those links in our show notes. And thank you to George for being our special guest. After the Proxy conversation, I asked George if he was still hearing that angle grinder when he thought of his conundrum, but he said the sound has changed.

[George]

I think now it sounds more like the sound of people talking in a distant room. Just kind of like muffled sounds that you can't hear. There's a conversation happening, but you're not a part of it and you're in a different story now.

[Kyle Pulley]

That's the show we have for you this week. We'll be back with a new episode on Tuesday, May 6, and new episodes every other Tuesday for the rest of the year, which Ashley, a listener from Philly, thinks is just great. Are you away? Hey, Ashley, what do you got over there? What are you eating? I'm eating some peanut butter filled pretzels.

[Yowei Shah]

High in sodium and some mixed nuts, also salted.

[Kyle Pulley]

So you like peanut butter pretzels, huh?

[Yowei Shah]

I love peanut butter pretzels.

[Kyle Pulley]

And what about proxy? Do you like Proxy?

[Yowei Shah]

I love Proxy.

[Kyle Pulley]

How many peanut butter pretzels is proxy worth to you? Well, I get them at Costco, and I don't remember how much they cost.

[Yowei Shah]

But it's a huge bin.

[Kyle Pulley]

It's like a big plastic thing.

[George]

So I would say one episode is.

[Kyle Pulley]

Worth at least two plastic containers of peanut butter pretzels. Ashley gets it. She's willing to pay $23 a month for proxy. I looked it up. But instead, because she's a Patreon member at just $5 a month, she's getting a steal. If you like a good deal like Ashley, you can join our patreon at just $5 a month. Proxy is an independent podcast and we rely on listener support. For just $5 a month, you'll get ad free episodes and exclusive bonus interviews. What a bargain. Sign up at patreon.com ProxyPodcast. That's patreon.com ProxyPodcast com. And if you want to support us but can't swing $5 a month in this economy, you can still really help us out by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Apparently that stuff matters. You can also sign up for our free newsletter and follow us on Instagram ProxyPodcast and I'm Yoe Shaw. We'll have those links in our show. Notes this episode was edited by John Delor and Tim Howard, produced by me and mixed by my bisexual wife, Guy Kyle Pulley. Proxy is also produced by Kim Nadervane Peterso with help from Anna Karan Santana and Nick Leblanc. Our newsletter editor is Juliana Feliciana Reyes. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder and we are distributed by Radiotopia. Special thanks to Abby Wendle, Bryant Pooley, Emanuel Jochi, James Kim, Callie Anderson, Liana Simpson, Matilde Verlino and Bigger Picture. And if you have a niche emotional conundrum you'd like investigated by Proxy, get in [e-mail] we're taking cases. Do you think you're ever going to listen to Proxy on the actual Apple podcast app?

[George]

No.

[Kyle Pulley]

Why not? I'm Proxy's biggest fan.

[George]

I've heard everything like five times and I even get the director's cut behind the scenes.

[Kyle Pulley]

You don't want to add like a download metric for me?

[George]

I mean, I'll hit a button.

[Kyle Pulley]

You do have to like play it till the end that you can track that stuff.

[Yowei Shah]

Oh really?

[Kyle Pulley]

Wow. Maybe you could like put it on and then mute it while you're gardening.

[Yowei Shah]

I think if it hinges upon my.

[Kyle Pulley]

Download, I think we have bigger problems.

[Yowei Shah]

Radiotopia.

[George]

From PRX.