EPISODE TAKEAWAYS:

- A weekly non-date check in can help to balance the parenting load and scheduling.

- Even though women often think we need to be less direct to get our message received kindly, the opposite is true when it comes to communicating with men. As direct as possible is the best way to go.

- Find things you can connect over that you can do together.



WHAT'S INSIDE:

 READ THE ENTIRE TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Dr. Whitney: Hey mama. Welcome back to the Modern Mommy Doc Podcast. This week, I have a very special guest, none other than my husband, Mr. Scott Casares. Scott, welcome to the podcast.

Scott: Thank you, Whitney. It's great to be here.

Dr. Whitney: Dork. Okay. So here's the deal. Scott hasn't been on the podcast, but I asked him to be on it, because I wanted him to talk with me about marriage and relationships and parenting and how we do life as two working people who've been together for how long?

Scott: Too long. No, 21 years.

Dr. Whitney: 21 years. And we've been married for what? 16 years?

Scott: 17.

Dr. Whitney: There you go. See, he keeps my math straight. It's good. Anyway, because you guys know, we talk all about parenting in equity and trying to balance out the mental load with your partner. But it's one thing for me to put up funny Instagram posts that Scott doesn't like and to talk about stuff on the blog. It's another thing to have his perspective here.

Scott: To be specific, it's more the ones that make fun of me, the blog posts and the Instagram posts versus everything else. I am okay with everything else. Just nothing that makes fun of me.

Dr. Whitney: Fair enough. Okay. So here's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna try to just be honest with you guys. We are not relationship coaches. Far from it. We are not experts on how exactly you should be doing this in your own relationship. But we have been doing this for a long time, relatively successfully, and with a pretty challenging kiddo. 

And with two kids now, a five year old and an eight year old, there are some things that have worked well for us. And some things we found to be really challenging that we're still working on. So I think you guys will find some camaraderie in both of those parts. So, okay. Scott, I wanna ask you first, what do you think has been one or two of the most challenging parts of both of us being in the working world and also trying to parent together?

Scott: For the working world, I would say scheduling time. Not just to get everything done with the family, but also to get everything done with our desires or wants, whether that be for me playing golf, for you working out, or for us as a couple, to be able to do a fun date. That would be probably the scheduling around life, just to get everything done and everyone where they need to get to. 

And then as parents, I would say trying to be consistent in our messaging because I grew up in a household that was a little bit more authoritarian and you did not necessarily. And so when it comes down to that communication with the kids, making sure that our communication is consistent and that we are kind of coming from a similar place. Because that's not always easy.

Dr. Whitney: Yeah. I think that's true. I also think when we got married, I remember we did premarital counseling. But none of it was, (because it was years before we had kids), about how we communicate in a way that's actually gonna be helpful when we have really tough decisions we need to make. And I think it might have been easier if we had maybe a kid who didn't make us make a lot of tough parenting decisions all the time. If maybe she'd been a little more straightforward, I think it's been challenging sometimes because sometimes it's hard to even know what is the right thing to do. So figuring out how to talk with each other about it has been really critical and also really hard.

Scott: Yeah, I think that making sure our conversations are constructive between each other as well is really important. Sometimes it can not necessarily be the most smooth and constructive criticism and communication. We've learned in our multiple experiences with family counseling and marriage counseling and that kind of stuff just to make sure that those communication lines stay open. That we're making sure that we can be as helpful as possible with our communication.

Dr. Whitney: Okay. So clearly you don't speak for all men everywhere, all male partners everywhere, but from your own experience, what are the things that you think have made it even more difficult to hear me? Like what are the things that I say or that I do (we'll say in the past, because now I'm so evolved) that in the past have made it difficult for you to hear the message that I'm trying to give you around parenting or around my needs. What are the things that kind of turn you off in terms of being able to hear me?

Scott: I think that prior to probably two or three years ago, it was hearing what you were saying, even though the way you were saying it was aggravating. Sometimes it was very indirectly asking me to do something and I'm somebody who probably needs more direct discussion or directives in order to make me understand what you're trying to get at. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of people, men particularly, out there that have the same situation.

Dr. Whitney: Yeah. And I think that's interesting because most women, they might be thinking if they're more direct, that actually might not get them the help they need. That that might come across as too aggressive. So that's interesting that it's almost counterintuitively. What we actually need to be doing more of is being more businesslike or more direct. Okay. What about things that you think have been really helpful that we've done to try to make it? So our relationship is as good as it can be.

Scott: I think hands down, one of the best things we've ever done is the marriage counseling. That's one thing. And not just from a marriage perspective, but from a communication perspective. How we can talk, the way that our past has colored our present and will continue to probably color our future. But having that understanding of what it is that we are trying to say and how we're saying it and having that respect for what people are trying to say. But then also I think that when we do things that are fun together, that's one of the things that's more helpful in breaking down barriers and walls. Whether it be you teaching me something, me teaching you something, or us doing something kind of novel together. Traveling's always been a good one for us go someplace we've never been, or me trying to teach you golf, back in the early days of our marriage.

Dr. Whitney: Unsuccessfully

Scott: But still. That was actually a lot of fun and it made it so that we had that opportunity to communicate and connect. I think that just being there for one another and having those kind of experiences have been crucial to our ability to communicate better or just to be able to engage with one another constructively.

Dr. Whitney: Yeah. It's been kind of funny too, as we're growing up, right? You're 41. I'm 40. And we used to really feel like every single time we did something, we had to go big or go home, sort of capitalizing on it as much as possible. And almost like this scarcity mentality, probably because when our kids were little, we didn't have as many chances to go away and be by ourselves. But we just went to Vegas for a conference that I had to be at. And Scott came for one night, we had all these plans. We're gonna go to go see a show or go out to a club and act like we're 21 and be dancing and all this stuff. And then it came to it and we had dinner at nine o'clock, right?

Scott: It was 8:45 to be correct.

Dr. Whitney: It was 8:45. And we just looked at each other and decided that the best thing we could do at that moment is just to go back to the hotel room and not even do anything, just lie there and watch Saturday Night Live.

Scott: Literally fell asleep by 9:30.

Dr. Whitney: It was glorious.

Scott: No, it was spectacular. And that look that you gave me across the table, that wasn't a come hither look. It was more of a, I've seen that look before and it means that we are doing nothing but going to bed, look. It brought a smile to my face because I was thinking the same thing, but I didn't want to be the Debbie downer of the weekend. But it was pretty spectacular, I'm not gonna lie.

Dr. Whitney: That's why people talk about doing date nights all the time. At least once a week, date nights. And we don't always get to that. And there's definitely been times financially that we haven't been able to afford that. But I think that's why people talk about having that regular cadence, so that it doesn't feel so precious in those moments. And you don't feel like this is the only chance I get, so I have to make it amazing. 

It gives you maybe the space to be able to just relax into it and talk more. One thing we've been working on too, I wanna hear how you think it's going, but is doing these regular, weekly check-ins. Every Wednesday we're supposed to be spending 15 minutes. I feel like it usually lasts more like five minutes. But 15 minutes where we're kind of going through what needs to get done, what we wanna get done, connecting. Do you think they've been helpful?

Scott: Yeah, I think they have been. I think it's one of those situations where I'm somebody who has plans, but I don't necessarily communicate them, especially when they revolve around me wanting to do something. Whether I want to go to a game or hang out with some friends or do something like that. And so for us to be able to discuss what it is that we are hoping to get out of the weekend or the rest of the week or what we have to do for work or for the kids. And also trying to schedule around having other people in our lives helping with the kids. That is completely and utterly ridiculous that we haven't done it yet up until I don't know, six months ago. I mean, in some ways we were doing it, but a lot of ways it was more out of frustration that we were doing it.

So I think that now that we're doing it in a much more constructive and less than spontaneous, but really regulated and scheduled way, it's been spectacular. It's not so much that you need to do it for 15 minutes versus us being able to say, this is what we need to get done. So I'm not sure 15 minutes is the crucial timeline, but just making sure that everyone is on the same page. Because there's times when you're working on the weekends and I didn't realize it's coming up or I've got plans during the week or I've gotta get some work done and it helps make everyone be on the same page. So that's been really good.

Dr. Whitney: And I have shared with our couple therapist, I think part of the reason that I felt like I really needed that was because I sometimes felt like if this is supposed to be a moment that we're having a good time together on a date or even on a vacation, that's the only time we had together. So then I'd fill it with a bunch of tasks we needed to talk about or to-dos. But then I would get all nervous. And then if you brought up stuff that was like that, I'd be kind of irritated and you'd be kind of irritated. So it feels like this helps to separate it out a little bit.

Scott: And I think you have to come at it from a place like, "Okay. We scheduled this out in order to talk." So we don't get that frustrated because there's no reason to get frustrated about stuff that is gonna happen anyway. It's just a matter of being able to have it framed. And in a way that's kind of palatable for everybody,

Dr. Whitney: What would you say to men who have a wife who is going back to work after maternity leave, after having a new baby? Any things you feel like you learned maybe once we had our second kid about what worked well for us to divide up responsibilities or just to be supportive to each other?

Scott: Well, I think the first thing is that if it's your first kid and your wife is going back to work, just knowing how completely and utterly disruptive going back to work is to the family. You know, whether that be three weeks, three days (which is probably unheard of), six weeks, 12 weeks, six months a year, if you're lucky. But when it comes down to going back to work, you have to think about what that does, to not just your family, but also to your partner, because it is not necessarily a place that they want to be. It's a place that they need to be. So understanding that there's a divide. It's kind of a disruption or a feeling of being pulled in two directions.

That is not something that you can necessarily make better. You just have to help them through it. And so the more you can help them with the other stuff in life, the better. You know you're gonna be doing feedings and diapers anyway. But when it comes down to the extra things, you just gotta be able to bear that cross, that burden, because there's so many other things that are going on and it's not just going back to work. 

It's the pumping, it's the scheduling, it's the other type of social stuff that goes on with being at work while you're a mom. Your wife will come home crying because somebody said something and it's not necessarily something that HR could address, but it's just something that you know your partner is going to be super self-conscious about. Or something happened where some baby started crying and all of a sudden you've got an issue where your wife's leaking all over the place. 

And it's one of those situations that sucks, but it's also a situation where you can't help. And so you just have to be able to do what you can in the places where you can help, because there's so much other emotional and psychological kind of stress that goes on that is not associated with work at all.

Dr. Whitney: No, I think that's true. I think it's a lot of the emotional support and then learning how to be either the soother-in-chief or the diaper-in-chief or the swaddle-in-chief, whatever it's gonna be. That you have something that you're the number one in charge of in the house, because I just remember feeling so fully in charge of the feeding and making sure that it went well. And I think now we also have different things that we give each other. I think one of the biggest things that both of us offer each other is the reminder of acceptance that this is the way it is with our kids. We take turns. 

Yesterday, I was in a tizzy and you told me, “You need to go take a break." And I just went for a walk by myself for like an hour. You probably were wondering if I was gonna come back because it was relatively dark by the time I got home.

Scott: It was actually really dark. And the girls kept asking and I said, "Well, she's coming home when she comes home." As I was trying to track your phone as we go, but then you left it here. So there's no way to get ahold of you. That was probably pretty well thought out on your part.

Dr. Whitney: It was yeah. Yeah. Okay. The point is that you are good at calling it like it is. And I think I am the same way for you. And I think that's probably one of the biggest ways you could be supportive to your partner. And then I think the other thing that I've been appreciative of has been all the stuff I've done with Modern Mommy Doc. Doing something that's on the fringe or a side gig from my main physician job that I had that in the beginning. Nobody knew, including myself, if it would actually amount to anything. It was just a passion project and something I really cared about and something I felt in my heart, like moms need this and that's the thing I'm supposed to do.

And I remember there was one night where I hadn't made any money. In fact, we lost money for a lot of years on this. I was crying and felt like I'd just wasted everything. And you said something to the effect of, "Yeah, but you're so much happier than you were before now that you have this." And just think as a partner who's supporting a working mom, who's trying to kind of do her thing and follow her dream, for lack of a better word or phrase, that meant the world to me. For you to say, "If it's making you happy and you're doing the thing you wanna do, let's not go bankrupt, but it's just money. It's okay. And I'm happy that you're doing the thing that's making you happy."

Scott: Yeah. I think that when you see your partner struggle, not professionally, but when you see them struggle feeling like they wanna be one place and hey can't be--whether that be with kids and going back to work or whether that be with doing one job and wanting to do something else or at least kind of feeling like there's something else that's kind of calling you. I think that it's tough to see that, but when you realize how happy the other thing makes you, there are obviously really significant social and economic issues that we have to deal with. 

But when it comes down to it, like I'd rather be with a woman who is happy and enjoys her life than to be with someone who just wants to get to Friday. And then we can do what we want to on the weekends and then start it over. And that's not living. And it's not a way to really show your kids how to live because, you wanna model good stuff for our children. Having somebody who is very happy and very hopeful in what they do and how they do it is probably the best thing you can do.

Dr. Whitney: Thank you. Well, I realize that you're a podcasting newbie, but I feel like you did a really nice job explaining things for all the moms out there and their partners who I'm sure are listening too.

Scott: Well, thank you. I struggle to talk sometimes and say things, but I had a really fun time. I hope that this will happen again. Maybe not sometime soon, but sometimes in future. Thank you for being such a wonderful host...ess. Hostess.

Dr. Whitney: Always. I love you.

Scott: Love you too.

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