141: The Most Important Life Decision Creatives Will Make

 

Choosing a romantic partner is one of the biggest decisions you'll ever make. And it can have ripple effects on your creativity, your writing, your career as an author, etc. In this episode, we cover green flags for a supportive, loving partner who won't be threatened by your creative pursuits. 

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the most important life decisions creatives will make

Hi, friends, welcome to your big creative life. I just did a workout class right before this that was heated. And y'all I had my hair all queued for the podcast, which I don't normally do. But I was like, I'll put a little effort in for y'all today. And it was a heated class, and I just became a sweaty mess. And now I have to have my hair back because it's all gross. And yeah, that was dumb. I really didn't plan ahead for that one. But yeah, here we are.

 

I feel like I'm an average level sweater like, like outside of workout classes, I don't notice that I sweat a lot. I think I'm pretty average. But something about a heated, this was a heated Pilates class, and oh my god, the amount of sweat that comes out of me. And it's funny because I always it's hard not to compare, because sometimes I'll like look over to the person next to me, and they're mat is completely dry. And they're like, they have like a little bit of a glow on their face. And that's it. And I'm like, I look like I just got out of the shower, and there's like a puddle on my mat. It's so gross.

 

So I don't know, I don't know what that says about me. I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing. But it is what it is. And I have to take that into consideration in the future because I just looked like a drowned rat after workout class. Thankfully, it really doesn't matter. Like, for work because it's not like I have to go back into an office or something. That was always tricky. When I was working corporate, I would never be able to do like a heated workout class. But okay, so we've had a couple of q&a episodes that will have come out by the time this episode comes out. And what I tried to do for the podcast is like balance craft episodes with episodes on other topics, like maybe mindset episodes, or even episodes that have something that have a topic outside of just writing.

 

And so I want to... this is something that I've been wanting to talk about for months, actually, because back earlier this year, I did an episode about the decision whether to have kids or not, and how that that making that decision is something that's really important. Because it's going to impact your life, the name of this podcast is your big creative life, right. And it's a decision that I wrestled over with for years and years and years. And you can go back and listen to that episode if you want. But it's something that I knew was going to have a big impact on my creative output, it's something that I knew is going to have a big impact on my life, my career, all of these things.

 

And so that's why I think it's important to talk about and the other thing that I think is even more important, actually than the decision of whether you want to have kids or not, is the decision of who you have who your partner is. Growing up, my mom always said to me, that who you marry is the most important decision you will make in your entire life. And growing up, I thought that was very dramatic. Because I misinterpreted what she was saying I thought she was just reducing to some of my life and all the big things I wanted to do that she was reducing it down to who I was going to marry, which to me was like kind of dismissive and reductive. And so I rejected that.

 

And also, I was young, I didn't know, come to find out as an adult, and now a married woman. I 100% agree with what she was saying. And it doesn't even I'm saying of who you partner with because it's not even necessarily a marriage thing. It's just like who's your partner? Who is the person that you are with on this journey in life, and whether it's marriage or long, long term commitment. And obviously, I'm going to be talking about my own experience in a heterosexual relationship. So I know there are dynamics at play in if you're in a relationship with someone of the same gender, different gender there, just just know that I'm basing this off my experience.

 

And also what I've noticed, among writer friends and just people in my network who are in long term partnerships, so the reason that I think this is such a big decision and why my mom was right turns out Mama knows best she was 100% Right? Is because the person that you marry or partner with, it has ripple effects. This is a decision that you make that impacts every single other area of your life. It impacts you where you live, it impacts your finances, your mental health, your future, your physical health, all of these things are so tied into this. And it's sort of it's one of those things that you don't really understand, I think, at least for me, I didn't understand it until I was an adult, until I got into a long term relationship. And this is also obvious if you know anyone who is in a toxic relationship, whether it's something like an actually an abusive situation, or just not a good fit, you know how detrimental this can be not just on the relationship, but on the person's entire life.

 

I have extended family members who are in extremely toxic relationships, toxic marriages, and it is so sad to see it is so devastating to me to see the effects that this has on the person on their children, just all of this stuff. And my mom saw that growing up, she saw that as an adult. And that is why she drilled into me and my two younger brothers, that this is such an important decision. And how this all ties into creatives and writers specifically, I think it's, again, it's one of those things that can be easy to gloss over. But it's going to, it's going to have a big impact on all of the ways that you write the way that you create the way that you think about yourself and your creative abilities, your creative works, how you put them out into the world, all of those things.

 

So what I want to do in this episode, because this is a big topic, and it can be hard to sort of like distill this down into something that I hope will actually be helpful. What I want to do is talk about green flags in a partner when it comes to having a partner who, like if you're the creative, if you're the writer, and you have a partner, what are green flags in that partner? And I have a few of them. And some of these are kind of they're like Venn diagrams, like some of them kind of overlap, but I want to talk about them separately.

 

So yeah, we'll just go through them. The first green flag, and if you're not, like super on, I mean, hopefully, you know the phrase green flag, but I just think about this a lot because it's like super common on tick tock, people will talk about like beige flags, and obviously red flags and green flags. And so green flags are like the good things, right.

 

The first is that your partner has their own interests, separate from you individual interests, and encourages you to have your own. This is something that I think is super essential, it is very easy to when you get into a long term relationship and you start combining your life, it is very easy to just automatically do things together all the time. And if you are a little bit codependent like I was when Sam and I started dating, it can feel sometimes like a bit of a rejection when the person goes to do their own hobbies.

 

So this is why it's so essential to be like No, actually, this is a good thing. This is a healthy thing that each person in the relationship has their own interests and hobbies. Outside of of stuff that you do together as a couple. Sam plays volleyball, he plays, beach volleyball, you know, some indoor as well, but he prefers to do beach volleyball. And I am not athletic. I've played with him a few times just for fun, but it's not something I really enjoy.

 

So yeah. And early on, when we were dating, I would go watch him, like I would go hang out at the beach and then watch some of his games or watch him play. And it was it was fun to do that together. But I think ultimately what I realized is like this is Sam's thing, this is something that brings him joy. It's a social outlet for him. It's a way for him to get exercise. It's good for his mental health, all those things. And it's like he can just have this thing. I don't need to necessarily be part of it. And when we were first starting to date, like I remember we would have these really long dates where he'd spend like all of Saturday together and then you know, spend the night together Saturday night at my place or his place. And then Sunday, he would go to play volleyball and I even though rationally I knew this wasn't like, this is fine. I'd be like, he wants to leave, he wants to go play volleyball and like end our time together.

 

But I got over it pretty quickly because again, I realized how happy it made him. And the same thing is true of me with writing. Sam is not a writer. He doesn't fully understand this world, but that's okay. He knows that this is something that's super important to me that books are important to me writing is important to me, and that I have my own hobbies and interests. And I just think both of us having those things individually that we enjoy is really helpful for us. Especially with a baby now that we have a nine month old and obviously, family time is really important too. But just yeah, just having those, having those interests, I think is essential. So green flag first green flag is just that your partner has their own interest and hobbies, and encourages you to have your own, that's healthy.

 

The next thing that I think is a green flag that sort of related to this is that your partner supportive even if they don't understand this world, and they don't diminish or demean or talk down about the things that you're interested in this, so that I want to break this into two parts. The first is something that I mentioned, which is which as Sam does, just being supportive, he he actually does have a degree in English. And then his undergrad, or his first degree was in English. And then he went back to school years later and got a more of a computer science type of degree.

 

And he enjoys reading, he doesn't do it very much now, but he enjoys it. So we can talk about books, but it's really more of my thing. It's something that I really enjoy. So I would take him we'd go to like author readings, book signings in Nashville sometimes together. And he's always been super supportive of writing, I've shared things with him a few times. I've talked about ideas I have for books, I've I've asked him for his thoughts on different scenarios, or just his take if I'm wrestling with something. So even though he's not really in this world, he's supportive.

 

And he doesn't understand a lot of the like nuts and bolts of the craft of writing. But again, he's still supportive. Like if I take a writing class, and I want to talk to him about something, he can listen and think it's great and be supportive, even if he doesn't really understand what I'm, like getting at. I think that's essential. And also, the second part of this is that your partner doesn't dismiss or view your interests as like trivial or stupid. This grinds my gears like no other.

 

This is, this is something that I really pay attention to, with friends and their partners with Well, I mean, let's be honest, anyone I mean, their partners, especially if the like friends who are readers and really into writing, if their partner thinks that it's silly and frivolous and stupid. I hate that that really gets me going. I've seen this occasionally on Tik Tok or social media to where it's like, let's say it's book talk, that it's a book talk creator, and they're talking about books that they read or creating content or whatever. And they have like their husband or their partner who's who's a man in the video.

 

And it's like, I don't know, it's like, I can think of one video I've seen where the guy was like, Oh, your silly fairy porn, like talking about her fantasy books that she was reading. I can't stand that. And you might be like, Oh, it's just a joke. It's just funny people joke about reading fairy porn. Yeah, true. It's funny. I can get behind that to a certain extent. But it's just I think it's a symptom of this larger attitude that some people have that reading is silly. reading romance in particular is silly. reading fantasy is silly. And then if you're going to read you need to be reading like more highbrow literature. And I obviously could not disagree more. Something that I love about Sam.

 

I mean, a lot of things about Sam but I have talked to him a number of times about fanfiction that I'm reading. He has never read a fanfiction in his life probably has no plans to ever read a fanfiction in his life. But I can talk to him about Germanie fanfics that I'm reading, like after I finished manacled, which is a Germanie fanfic that I found out about through Tik Tok.

 

And was like, devastated emotionally about it. I talked to Sam about it. And he wasn't like rolling his eyes like this is so stupid. Like, he just was like, oh, you know, like, he listened to it. He listened to me talk about it. And there's something so safe about that. So green flag is your partner supportive, even if they don't fully understand this world and they don't diminish or like talk down or they're not condescending about the hobbies that you have related to writing, creating content about writing and books.

 

All of that can because especially why I think this is so damaging is for new writers. When you are first starting to write and you are telling people in your life that like hey, this is a dream that I have. I want to write a book. It can be very scary to do that. It can be very vulnerable to put yourself in the position of saying like actually, I want to try this thing like it's scary because I don't know if I'm going to be are you any good at it, this is something I've never done before, but I want to try it. And if you go to your partner and you share that, and their first reaction is to like laugh or dismiss it's going to be, you're going to remember that it's going to be so much harder in the future for you to then share your work with a beta reader or to publish your work or whatever, like, that's going to be in the back of your mind.

 

So I just, and this isn't to say, I mean, if your partner really is not supportive, well, I was gonna make an excuse. But honestly, if your partner isn't supportive at all, like, that's a serious red flag, you need to you need to have a supportive partner, again, doesn't mean they have to understand this world, doesn't mean they have to also be into the books that you're reading or writing. But as long as it's not harming anyone, and you're not like taking out a second mortgage on your house to finance your author career, then like, you know, they need to be supportive of your dreams related to that, and other green flag.

 

They aren't threatened by ambition when it comes to creative dreams.Oh, my God, I hate could do a whole entire two hour episode on this, but I'm not going to. I'm talking about ambition related to financial success, but also just ambition related to like doing the thing that you want to do. It is so alarming to me how many men are still not comfortable with the idea of their female partner making more money than they do being more successful than they are? Even just like work, I mean, not even talking about writing or a creative pursuit, but just like day jobs. It's astonishing to me how many men still have that level of insecurity.

 

And this, I think this can come out in sneaky ways where okay, I don't want to get too down the road of like giving you a specific example, because I think this person might listen to the podcast, but let's just say that,you know, in the example I shared earlier about, like, if you share your dreams with your partner, and they dismiss them, and they think they're silly.That's a huge red flag.

 

Yeah, that that I have. I know someone where that's, that's happened to them. And I just think it's so sad. Because this person, this man is threatened by the idea of his wife, getting attention and getting notice and publishing her books and all of the stuff that goes with it. And it's really sad. It's really sad.

 

So green flag is just that your partner doesn't not only is not threatened by this, but is supportive of you having ambition. Sam knows that I'm incredibly ambitious. I have been from the beginning of our relationship, although my ambition looked different. I mean, when we started dating, I was working as a college librarian and hadn't even started writing yet. So my ambition looked a lot different than but I've always been driven. I've always been ambitious, and it is like, never even occurred to him, I would guess, to be threatened by that.

 

Early on, and actually, up until I quit my day job, I was making slightly more money than he was. And it was never, it never bothered him. It was never even a thought or a conversation. Now he makes slightly more money than me just because of the business and everything. But yeah, it's just it wouldn't even occur to him to be bothered by that. So I think that's such a green flag. Because it's okay, if you're listening to this and you're a woman, it is okay to be ambitious. And it's okay to say out loud and like publicly claim that you are ambitious, that you want to make lots of money, that you want to have success that you want to be a successful author or creative in some capacity. It is okay to want those things. And it's okay to say those things out loud with conviction.

 

And you should have a partner who is cheering you on 100% Instead of feeling threatened by that I think I just have one more green flag. Yeah, okay. Your partner the green flag is that your partner doesn't resent you taking time for yourself. I think this is especially important if you're a writer who has kids, where it can be difficult to carve out time for yourself. But this is essential for you to do if you want to be writing a book if you want to be creating content if you want to be doing any of this stuff that that we're talking about here.

 

And your partner should not be rolling their eyes and dragging their feet. And asking like, or acting like you are asking for the impossible if you ask your partner to like, take the kids for an hour, so you can write. That is not, that is not asking too much. I know that I'm in a different situation because I only have one child, and we have daycare for her. But I still think this is true. Even if you are, let's say a stay at home mom. And you might be like, well, this falls under my domain, like having the kids taking care of the house. Note, even if your husband works an incredibly demanding job and you are home with the kids, it doesn't matter, you still deserve to have time for yourself, even if it's just 30 minutes in the morning to write or whatever.

 

Get selfish about that time for yourself. Even in the nine months of me being a mom, it is remarkable how much of a difference it makes when I have time to myself, I'm a better partner to Sam, I'm a better mom to my daughter, I'm more present, I'm just a better person overall. And so I think that this is going to be something I'm going to have to be intentional about for the rest of my life. Like being a parent, I just think it's so essential. And it's easy to get. It's easy for writing to get put on the back burner. Because so many other things are actually important, like work is important. Laundry is important. Getting groceries is important. Taking care of your kids is important. These are all things that you have to do. And for writing. It's like, Yeah, you don't actually have to write a book unless you have like a publishing contract. This isn't something that has to get done.

 

So it is very, very easy to put this on the backburner. So you have to guard this you have to guard this fiercely, and communicate with your partner and ask for the time that you need. Both of you going back to that whole having your separate interest thing, both of you need to be having time to yourself, even if it's just a little bit of time per week.And I think the resentment piece of it is is key as well. It is such a joke among okay, I was in a mom's group. When I was When Audrey was I think she was like two months old. Six weeks old.

 

No, it was younger than that. It was like a month. And it was his mom's group that met for five weeks. And all of the moms in the group had babies that were around the same age. And so it was like a support group. It was like, Hey, let's talk about how challenging this is. Let's talk about like, sleep, your recovery, postpartum, postpartum, mental health, all that stuff. It was great. But we as the babies got a little bit older. And as we, you know, sort of hanging out and getting to know one another. There were a couple of times where we joked about like, what it was like having the dads was like hanging out with the babies, and like the moms go do something else. And it was such a joke how like, the dads will send 800 texts like Well, where's this? What does the baby need this? Where's this? What do I do? They're crying. What do we do about this? Now Sam didn't do any of that Sam was was the exception, like thank God, because I'm not I would not put up with that bullshit, honestly.

 

But it's just like such a common thing that like, women feel like they can't take time for themselves, because their husbands are so incapable of watching the kids for an hour or whatever. So I think the resentment piece of it is important. Like if your partner is like rolling your eyes and dragging their feet and making you feel incredibly guilty for taking some time for yourself, that's not helpful either. You need to have a conversation about that. Y'all, I'm trying not to make this like preachy. I don't want to I don't want to make it sound like Sam's the perfect husband. And like, everything's magical in our relationship, because that's not the case at all, we actually have some challenges, just like any, you know, relationship does and some things that we're working through.

 

But he does show these green flags and these areas that are super important, because I cannot be I could not be with a partner who doesn't support me like, this is such a big part of my life. That it's a non negotiable for me. And even though I didn't have these specific big goals and dreams when I met him, I wouldn't have I just couldn't be with someone who wasn't at least supportive of my dreams. That's what I'll say. So again, I don't want it to sound like I'm like a therapist telling you what you need to do or like, preaching down like, Oh, I've got this perfect relationship. So here's what you need to do to get your relationship to be perfect. I don't I don't want to be judging but yeah, this these are just things that are non negotiables.

 

Like they really shouldn't be that out of the ordinary to have a partner who understands your your and respects your desire for a creative hobby to have a partner who listens and supports... who isn't threatened by your ambition, and doesn't resent you taking time for yourself like those are pretty small asks honestly. So I don't know, I guess I would just encourage you, if you recognize any of these things, and you, you don't have them to have a conversation with your partner, it's not essential that they believe in your dream more than you do, or as much as you do.

 

But at the, at the minimum, it should be something where like, they support you, as you're pursuing your dream. I think that's essential. So and if you're dating, if you're single, just keep this stuff in the back of your head, really. Because you some of these, these red flags, or green flags, however you want to think about it, a lot of these things are present early on, like if I think about Sam, and you know how he shared like, he was going to play volleyball, like, there were there were green flags around this stuff early on in the relationship. So even though I didn't think about them related to writing at the time, like I felt, I felt good. Knowing that I had a partner who, who had their own separate interests, and we wouldn't be totally 100% enmeshed with each other.

 

So, alright, I think I'll leave it at that just so I don't get more preachy and judgy. But going back to what mom said, you know, this is the most important decision that you make. I've seen how someone's life can go when they make a bad decision. And yes, I know that sounds judgy. But I am judging it. I'm judging it because it's like their partner's just I see what it does to every area of your life.

 

So yeah, I just want everyone to have I just want everyone to have like a good partner. And I feel so grateful for Sam. Again, we don't have a perfect relationship by any means. And then we have stuff that we're working through. But I think part of the reason I'm so grateful for him is because I had such shitty boyfriends in my 20s like teens and 20s. Well, 20 is really just a horrible so I can really appreciate Sam for the man that he is, and especially seeing him become a dad. It's like, I'm just so grateful.

 

So this kind of person is out there. I mean, I met him when I was 28. We started dating when I was 28. Anyways, I'm gonna go on a ramble a tangent there. But uh, I hope this was helpful. I think next week, we're going to be back to a craft episode. And if this resonated with you, let me know, send me a DM on Instagram. I'd love to hear your feedback about this, and I'll talk to you next week. Thank you so much for listening.

Katie Wolf