Committed

Today we have a very special episode of the podcast Love Letters in our feed. Ever since Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey was a kid, music has played a major role in her life. “Eye of the Tiger” got her pumped for basketball games. She caught sets from Joan Baez and Melissa Etheridge working as a cocktail waitress. When she came out in her early 20s, she found solace in the Indigo Girls. These days, the governor uses music to center herself, especially at hard moments. She and her partner, Joanna Lydgate, sit down with Meredith to talk about how music helps them in their lives and in their relationship. Get more Love Letters here. This episode is brought to you by Better Help. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/COMMITTED, and get on your way to being your best self.

Jessica found out her husband Steve was gay a year and a half into her marriage. They broke up, got back together and tried to make it work because they were living in a very conservative Christian community. And in the midst of it all she met Matt and fell hard for him. Eventually Jessica and Matt got together and today they work with Jessica's ex-husband Steve on a podcast. They share stories of love, marriage, coming out, divorce, remarriage, and co-parenting to help others know they are not alone. They are trying to break down stereo-types about what divorce and co-parenting look like every single day. It isn't always easy and it definitely isn't always perfect but they are constantly trying to find new ways to support one another. Listen and subscribe to the Husband in Law Podcast here.

For the past five years, Alex and Christina had been running a bookstore that is both their primary income as a couple and their passion. They opened A Novel Idea, bookshop in Philly, a year before the pandemic hit. And when the city closed all of its stores, they had to completely rethink everything about their small business. They had no one to lean on, but one another. For better. Or worse. This is a story about perseverance and pivoting, about love and about following your dreams. It's about how the things that should break us often bring us closer together. Learn more about A Novel Idea here.

Molly and Ash met when Molly was in her late thirties, newly separated from her husband and the mother of a four year old. She was just started to explore her sexuality and wasn’t looking for anything serious. But you know what they say…make plans and the universe laughs. Molly and Ash fell in love and quickly knew they wanted to be together, but that meant navigating how to blend a family and reconciling the fact that Ash wanted their own biological child and Molly did not want any more kids. The two of them are here today (and spoiler, they have a new baby) because they put in the work. Their story is a gorgeous narrative of the ways we need to change, adapt and grow for love and family.

Manny struggled with porn addiction for years. He told himself that when he met the right woman he would be done. Then he met Becca and knew she was the one. But the night before his wedding he was still watching porn and he was so far gone in his addiction that he couldn't perform sexually on his wedding night. Manny and Becca struggled with Manny's porn addiction for years until both of them finally reached a breaking point. This is the story about how they made it out the other side. Learn more about Manny and Becca's porn addiction courses at their Team Vulnerable website here.

The FBI came to Carl and Amy Nelson's house in the middle of the pandemic. That's when Carl found out that he was under investigation for a federal crime. Over the next two years, the couple had most of their money and assets seized by the government. What wasn't taken, they had to sell to pay for lawyers. They lived in constant fear of the FBI returning one morning and arresting Carl in front of their four daughters. And to this day, both Amy and Carl insist that Carl has done nothing wrong, and he has yet to actually be charged with a crime. But still the two of them have had their lives ripped apart in ways that could have completely destroyed their marriage. People ask Amy all the time. Why are you still with him? People can't believe she stuck by his side. She can't imagine not doing it.

We're closing out the Committed podcast with an intimate look back at our favorite episodes. Join host Jo Piazza and producer Ramsey Yount as we recount the shows that made us laugh, the ones that made us cry and the one that has helped save Jo's own relationship. This has been an incredible journey with all of you. Thanks for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2006 Lee Woodruff got the phone call that no wife ever wants to get. Her husband Bob, then the co-anchor of ABC World News Tonight, had been hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq. In the explosion of rocks and metal, Bob was critically injured, sustaining shrapnel wounds to the head. He was evacuated to Bethesda Maryland where he was put into a medically induced coma for five weeks to allow his brain to heal. Bob and Lee had already been together for a long time, they had four young kids and Lee had no idea what their life would look like moving forward. Lee recounts her love story and their family's journey beautifully in her New York Times bestseller In an Instant, but I have to say that there was nothing like hearing both Bob and Lee tell their story together in this interview. This is a story about the unexpected, both the unexpected tragedies that upend our lives, but also the unexpected joy that we find in the aftermath of those tragedies. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In April of 2020 the writer Amy Bloom traveled to Switzerland to help her husband Brian die with dignity before he was plunged into the long term suffering of living with a dementing disease. She writes about their late in life romance and how she helped Brian to end his life in her gorgeous memoir In Love. This story hits close to home for any of us who have ever watched a loved one suffer and felt helpless to try to alleviate their pain. My own dad was bed ridden with muscular dystrophy for eight years before he finally passed in 2016 and I know that if I could have, I would have done anything to help him do what he wanted to do to have a more dignified death. That is exactly what Amy managed to do. Her story isn't always easy to hear, but I promise it will stick with you for a long, long time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last fall Renee moved from Singapore to Los Angeles to be with her partner April. April calls it a grand gesture and it certainly is. But it was confusing to a lot of people because Renee and April aren't in a romantic relationship. At all. And yet they do consider themselves life partners. The two women have been best friends since they were teenagers and they now consider themselves platonic life partners. But our society doesn't really recognize that as a thing. Committed is a podcast about love stories, and here's the thing. This IS a love story. We talk so much about romantic love in our culture. We see romantic love in movies and books and songs...so many songs. And yet we rarely talk about the lifelong friendships that are the backbones of our lives. The ones that often last much longer than a marriage. Today we do. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On their first date Tony Dokoupil said to Katy Tur, "So, we both have crazy parents." This was wildly refreshing for Katy to hear and for Tony to say at the start of a relationship. Any of you with crazy parents will understand how much easier it is to be with someone who also has an unorthodox family. As she recounts in her stunning new NY Times bestselling memoir Rough Draft, Katy's parents were the first helicopter news pilots in Los Angeles; they covered some totally insane stuff from the OJ Simpson police chase to the LA Riots, often with Katy along for the ride. Her dad was brilliant and volatile and often abusive. Tony's dad was a multinational drug smuggler who used the drug money to fund Tony's fancy education and privileged childhood. Getting it all out in the open was the start to their relationship. But there were bumps along the way. Tony was divorced with two kids. He didn't know if he wanted more and if he didn't that was a dealbreaker for Katy. At the time Katy was a rising star in the news world covering the 2016 Trump campaign and Tony was struggling with what to do next in his career. They were both on the road all the time. But they figured it out. They fell in love, got married, had babies, living and worked through COVID, supported one another's careers and it all began with Tony saying, "we've both got crazy parents." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For Mike Comforto, the worry and the anxiety over his infant son completely took over his life and his marriage. He was constantly convinced that the baby was in near fatal danger and those fears only intensified when he and his wife Nicole had a second child. Once he was having panic attacks and anxiety episodes every single day Mike was diagnosed with OCD and his road to recovery was a long process that is still ongoing today. The term OCD gets thrown around a lot, but we rarely think about the impact that it can have on an individual, and their spouse and their children. Mike and his wife Nicole had to learn how to tame his crippling panic otherwise they'd never be able to thrive as parents of two children or as husband and wife. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Renee Montgomery is a basketball legend. She won two WNBA championships with the Minnesota Lynx. Today she's a part owner and Vice President of the WNBA team the Atlanta dream and a social justice activist. Renee talks a lot about the many, many ways that basketball has changed her life, including getting to meet her wife, the singer Sirena Grace. Meeting Sirena at an Atlanta Hawks game completely changed Renee's life in myriad ways and the two women wake up every day thinking about how they can each support the other's dreams, goals and personal brand. I love this story because Renee seems so tough on the outside, but when you get to know her she is a hopeless romantic who found her soulmate when she least expected it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sarah and Eric became foster parents in the hopes of one day adopting. And when baby Coco came into their lives it looked like it could be for good. But that wasn't the case. Caring for Coco became much messier, more challenging and more difficult than Eric and Sarah ever expected, mainly due to the fact that the foster system continually told them that they would likely be able to adopt Coco and then completely blindsided Sarah and Eric by pushing for reunification with Coco's birth mother who they called a "bad prospect" for getting her child back. Sarah writes about this heartbreaking situation so beautifully in her book Stranger Care, the title of which was inspired by how the foster system refers to the non-relative men and women caring for the hundreds of thousands of children in their care every year. Sarah and Eric had to learn a new kind of love, not just a love for baby Coco, but also a love for her birth mother Evelyn, in order to give Coco the best possible life she could have. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Erin and Jason's third date ended with Jason falling off of a roof and ending up in the hospital with a major spinal cord injury that left him in a wheelchair. The two of them have only been on a few dates, but both of them had felt a serious connection, maybe even the beginnings of love. But neither of them knew what could or should happen after an accident that completely changed Jason's life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Peloton Instructor and international cycling champion Christine D'Ercole was not looking for love. She was focusing on her work, her sport and her daughter. And then one shout out on her bike led to some witty banter with a rider which led to a deep friendship which led too much, much more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Committed is back for Season Seven on June 8th! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Holly Frey, host of Stuff You Missed in History Cass, sits down with Siedah Garrett, one of the ten winners of Seneca Women to Hear: Search for the Next Great Female Podcasters See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We interviewed Shazi and Joe a couple of years ago and we are bringing their episode back into our feed because Shazi has a new podcast called The Healthy Baby Show. Shazi and Joe met while Shazi was building her company, the organic baby brand Happy Family Organics. Their storybook romance completely changed when their first child Zane was diagnosed with regressive autism. Shazi and Joe were forced to re-examine everything about their lives and their marriage to figure out how to parent Zane. But they did it; their family didn’t just survive, they thrived. Their family motto is “we win,” because they refuse to give up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Founder of the beloved organic baby food company Happy Baby, and now Founder & CEO of Healthybaby — Shazi Visram has learned so much starting businesses and advocating for children’s health; but she’s learned the most from raising her two developmentally different kids. She’s also met some of the world's brightest minds along the way. Armed with everything she wishes she’d known the first time around, Shazi wants to share the knowledge she’s gathered to help parents raise healthy connected...