Interview with a Husband
My own, about 10 years in.
I’ll celebrate my 10-year wedding anniversary this summer, and for the first time since 2014, I interviewed my husband, Arthur.
I’ve been doing a lot of interviews over the last year about major marital resets in middle age —
’s perimenpausal romp, filmmaker Halina Reijn’s age gap fantasies in Babygirl, and this week, two academics who got into porn production.Some tweaks along the way are not so dramatic.
Here’s Arthur’s answer to whether there’s anything he wishes we’d done differently in the start of our relationship:
This question prompts me to daydream a little bit about like what sort of prenuptial agreement we could have formed regarding certain household chores. But the problem with that kind of agreement is I wouldn't, I don't know what the penalties would need to be, because I don't want to not be married to you if you don't do the chores.
I just, I just want to have a little more leverage.
Figuring out the leverage question can be a little tricky when you’re inside a long-term committed relationship. It makes me think back on something Al Simpson said about marriage years ago: “The secret is, you both try to control each other, and you both fail!” he told me.
As Arthur and I are remembering Al this month, it seemed a good time for us to check in for a mid-marriage progress report. We answered questions from Death, Sex & Money’s Daisy Rosario, who celebrates her first anniversary with her wife next month.
Listen to my interview with my husband here.
It’s a special Slate Plus drop, so I hope you’ll join Slate Plus to listen if you haven’t already.
New This Week: A Middle-Aged Couple Made Porn to Spice Things Up. Then One of Them Got Fired.
In our Death, Sex & Money episode this week, I interview a married couple — Joe, 64, and Carmen, 57 — who together discovered a new sense of sexual adventurousness when they got together later in life.
So much so that it led to them producing and starring in adult videos they shared on the internet. The videos eventually cost Joe his job as Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin at La Cross. (Thank you to our Slate colleague Dan Kois for first introducing us to Joe and Carmen.)
I talk with them about what brought them together, how erectile dysfunction medication provided some of the zeel for Joe’s new experimentation, and since they’re academics, we also dig into what constitutes “research” and how they evaluated the professional risks of performing in online porn.
Listen to our new episode here.
My conversation with Joe and Carmen made me think back on some previous episodes about ways technology is changing sexual expression, with some unintended consequences. There was our 2023 episode about a New York City weatherman who lost his job after someone sent explicit internet screenshots to his bosses. And our 3-part series “Hard” by then-DSM producer Katie Bishop in 2022 explored the science and cultural history of Viagra, 25 years in.
Until next week,
Anna
p.s. Remember my conversation last spring about caregiving of all sorts with
, author of When You Care? It’s coming out in paperback, and we’re celebrating the book in the Bay Area with the Department of Invisible Labor. Join us in Berkeley on April 19 if you can.
AN IMPORTANT REMINDER: If you like my work, the best way to support the Death, Sex & Money team is to become a member of Slate Plus. What do you get? Ad-free listening and special member-exclusive podcast drops, at least two per month! What does it give us? More of a handhold on financial security and self-determination during chaotic times! Please join us at slate.com/dsmplus or through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Listen to our latest Death, Sex & Money episodes
3/25 A Middle-Aged Couple Made Porn to Spice Things Up. Then One of Them Got Fired. (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
3/25 Bonus: Anna and Husband Arthur Play the Not-So-Newlywed Game (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
3/18 Life After Blowing It All Up: A Sugar Baby Story Revisited (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
3/11 Call It ‘A Midlife Awakening’ (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
3/11 Plus: Drop Everything and Watch This Music Documentary (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
3/4 From Uncertainty to Total Chaos, Your Stories About the New Trump Term (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
3/4 Plus: An Ode to Public Service (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
2/25 I Was Ready to Write About My Domestic Abuser—Then Lawyers Said No. (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
2/19 Manhood: It’s Complicated (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
2/11 After Sobriety, Chasing Goosebumps Instead of Highs (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
2/11 Plus: Is Addiction a Disease or a Choice? (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
oh my goodness I truly can't tell you how excited I am for this. I'm all for the divorce conversation, but also am so curious and want to hear more from my fellow marrieds...because midlife marriage is A THING I also want to explore and better understand.