Confederate Currency (Ari & Betsy)

Ari and Betsy have been together for NINETEEN years...but it “feels like twenty!” They look VERY young for a couple who got MARRIED ten years ago and have three young boys! The great majority of their fights, especially their pre-children fights, occurred either en route to or returning from the IKEA in New Jersey. Ari & Betsy fight a lot more than they ever did before the kids. They chat with Julia about the ‘mental load’ that women have to bear in many heteronormative relationships while men remain exempt...a load that Julia is all too familiar with. Ari and Betsy’s families’ approach fights in VERY different ways, which has forced them both to come to terms with aspects of their past that now inform their relationship with each other and the ways in which they rear their “three white men in a world where a lot of the problems are caused by white men”. Julia learns about the power of what Ari and Betsy call “confederate [obsolete] currency,” and how this can aid the end of a fight. What changes in an argument when the goal is no longer to “win” the fight but rather to end the fighting? Can you peacefully end a fight without fully recognizing that your opponent might be right after all? And, ultimately, do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?