Maybe It's You

Beth Lapides, the creator of the longtime alternative comedy show UnCabaret, joins Amiira and Greg to discuss long term relationships both romantic and the relationship you have with your own creative work. The crossover of working together and living together that works until it stops working, how a dysfunctional relationship can get stuck in the past and stop growing when you stop exploring yourself, and the realization that you might be squeezing the life out of your favorite person. Brought to you by Hello Fresh! Use discount code MAYBE  at hellofresh.com/maybe60 to receive $20 off your first three orders. Thats a total of $60 off your first three orders!

Actress (24, Night School, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and comedian Mary Lynn Rajskub join Amiira and Greg to talk about the shared relationship dynamic of a marriage of a magical thinker with a non-linear mind opposite a linear mind and what daily communication looks like… and how they hilariously still are puzzled by each other after a decade plus of marriage. Learning your person, how they are, how you are and what you both need then training yourself to identify it when it’s actually happening then practicing the appropriate acceptance, boundaries and actions to boost the fun and harmony in your home plus sound bath envy and the desperation of performing comedy. 

The singularly hilarious and mystic Moon Zappa joins Amiira and Greg to talk about all the different obstacles and pitfalls that we encounter in our marriage relationship.  Part 2 of our deep dive into How To Keep Your Marriage From Sucking where we discuss how we behave as badly as your family of origin, hang on to stuff even after an apology has been made because anger continues to come up, and how you can have total willingness and desire to get rid of something and STILL not be able to do it.  The idea of looking to the past as proof that you can recover from adversity or trauma rather than looking to the past for injury. The avoidance trap of putting pleasure on your discomfort rather than digging deeper into the issue and that compromise isn’t meant to be taking turns being miserable.  There’s a ton of funny and insightful information and conversation that will help keep your relationship thriving.   

Amiira and Greg go into the conversations and real life advice that sparked the writing of our new book How To Keep Your Marriage From Sucking, a preventative guide to keeping your wedlock out of deadlock. We’ve run the obstacle course and know all the hazards so we can warn you about all the traps you need to look out for.  Includes a hilarious because it’s true excerpt from the How To Keep Your Marriage From Sucking relationship conversations you need to have quiz, the ability to renegotiate things in your marriage and a sidebar about porn’s effects on how you view your partner. Plus they answer a listener question. Enjoy! 

Comedian Jackie Kashian (The Dork Forest  & The Jackie and Laurie Show podcasts) drops by for an hourlong hilarious deep dive into family dysfunction, celebration and revelation, the joys of marrying the right person after you’re already a formed adult, the steep learning curve of the time we’re living in of sexual misconduct, racism, and human garbage as well as the great hope for self-correction in the future and those who choose to be on the right side of history.

Engaged couple Naomi Ekperigin and Andy Beckerman from the Couples Therapy Podcast join Amiira and Greg to talk about marrying your lives, navigating each other’s parents, historical parent child dynamics that continually teeter on the line of infantilizing.  The responsibility you feel towards your partner in the face of the familial loyalty and love triangle and how too much togetherness and enmeshment can potentially spoil your Couples harmony rather than strengthen it.

Amiira and Greg discuss the erasure of identity that slowly seeps in with the monotony, structure and repetition of daily adult life.  With responsibility and children comes the evaporation of spontaneity and adventure as your role changes to be of service to others before being of service to yourself. The disconnection from how you once defined yourself now that you’re in the environment of adult life.  As well as a lively and revealing discussion of mental illness in marriages.  

Amiira and Greg explore the idea of love elasticity.  How much wear and tear can you put on your love before it stops snapping back? How far can you stretch your love before it breaks? In long term committed relationships (including friendships, romantic relationships, family) we can find ourselves withdrawing our thoughtfulness, consideration and attention from our partner, who once was our first thought, and giving it to elsewhere in the moment then expecting your person to just roll with it. Suddenly, you’ve built this new habit of taking your person for granted, being disconnected and even treating them poorly in favor of another person who is relatively meaningless in your world. Maybe It’s You listener email raises the discussion of conflict in the division of domestic labor and what roles gender, personality and position may play.  

Amiira and Greg’s conversation with Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Prophets of Rage) continues and delves into  band dynamics being similar to a group marriage as well as the challenges that arise when making decisions as a band at the intersection of art, commerce and ego. Then switch gears into fatherhood with his own sons, discovering as an adult that he had three half-brothers in Kenya and developing strong relationships with them and how their new brotherhood bond built a bridge to his biological father finally becoming a part of his life. Finally, Tom challenges Amiira and Greg to a battle of the bands game!

Tom Morello, (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Prophets of Rage) join Amiira and Greg to talk about the glory and challenges of his adolescence as the only African American kid in his town and high school, how working at the Renaissance Faire is still the best job he's ever had, the other education he got at Harvard, having a change of heart about getting married and having kids,  and the five problems you encounter in a band.

Greg and Amiira introduce new producer Land and discuss the difference in the pageantry of young couple weddings and the later in life weddings that are coming down the pike. In true How To Keep Your Marriage From Sucking fashion Greg and Amiira relive their own wedding planning dilemmas that led to them having an engagement party where they staged a surprise wedding and Amiira’s struggle with vulnerability and anxiety at weddings and all the mistakes they made around their wedding.  The reality of post wedding day depression, the brain scramble of when you and your person part ways in what moves you and the opportunity that lives within heart crushing breakups.

Greg and Amiira are joined by engaged comedians and podcasters Kelsey Cook (Self-Helpless) and Kane Holloway (Your First Time) at the How To Keep Your Marriage From Sucking book signing at the infamous Book Soup on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. We get into the meat of bad proposals, conflicting fighting styles, control issues and boundaries as well as reading an excerpt from How To Keep Your Marriage From Sucking and taking questions from the audience on Greg and Amiira’s first live Maybe It’s You..

Amiira and Greg get into the guts of lazy communication plaguing your long term  and most meaningful relationships. How we get into the habit of sacrificing the feelings of our significant others in favor of accommodating near strangers, how we enter a space with conversations that have already started in our head then land them on our bewildered partner with an unexpected punch of amped up and heavily laced energy to guarantee that everyone gets to feel bad now. 

Beverly D’Angelo (National Lampoon’s Vacation, Hair, Every Which Way But Loose, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Entourage, Simpsons) discusses her career as a misfit in Hollywood, seeking fulfillment rather than success, her obsession with Steve Perry of Journey as a gateway for the nostalgia of a time of innocence and seeking safety and her entrepreneurial  idea for mobile therapy. Plus the bonus of close up magic with Handsome Jack!

You know them from seasons of the Bachelor, Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise, the vibrant, foxy and newly engaged Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon join Greg and Amiira to talk all things love under and outside of the microscope. Finding strength in their differences and incredible introspection these two reality stars were put on television to find love but developed their relationship off screen between seasons where they nurtured and protected their friendship and incubated an authentic romantic love.  Plus we talk about wedding planning and the awkwardness of having to watch your fiancé’ date on television.

Jennifer Armstrong, author of  Sex and the City and Us, drops by to discuss the cultural impact of female aspiration and the breadth  of relationships and behaviors explored through the characters and storylines of the the much celebrated and groundbreaking Sex and the City.  Shining the light on their own marriage proposal as well as Jennifer’s and Carrie Bradshaw’s, Greg and Amiira delve into the expectations and realities of your evolution both personal and as a couple when marriage is on the table.

Aaron Woodall and Jessa Reed of the Mormon and the Methhead podcast join Greg and Amiira for a deep dive into the experience and expectation of growing up in the Mormon religion, self-discovery through meth use, climbing your way out of isolation, failed marriages, fear of rejection and the dynamics of mastering vulnerability. 

Paul Gilmartin from the Mental Health Happy Hour podcast joins Greg and Amiira to take a deep dive into the difficult conversations that you have to have to achieve true intimacy, how we plant landmines in our relationships in the first five years that will explode later on, recognizing that the shared reality of a relationship morphs with time and fractures, and the fall out of growing up in an emotionally invalidating household. It’s a good one people!

The revealing (and puzzling) truth of Amiira’s family dynamic through a text chain about salad. Greg and Amiira answer listener email about dating and making a connection. Producer Yusong discusses his experience with dating apps and struggles with being complimented. Greg can’t decide whether to discuss his colonoscopy or True’s improv summer intensive.

Our friend Dan Freedman joins us to talk about being a single father after the unexpected death of his first wife, having to be your own moderating force as both the disciplinarian and the paternal figure, being alone in making all the parenting decisions you usually make with your partner, how wasted time is just wasted time and some really insightful perspectives on first and second marriages including the idea of the six month break.