Should We Get Married? with Maxson and Emily

We talk to Bridget, Emily's freshman year college roommate and the show's first listener-turned-guest, who reached out after hearing the couples therapy episode and had notes. Bridget has been with her husband for 12 years, and her take is direct: if you're not sure you want to be together forever, don't get married. She also drops a spicy opinion - that couples who “need” couples therapy while just dating are n...

We talk to Nico Raineau, a professional wedding officiant, who takes notes on our love story as he prepares a mock wedding ceremony for us. We learn about the unusual world of wedding officiants, we describe our weird and distinctly un-vibey first date, a surprise kiss in the rare books section of a bookstore, and Hinge-gate: the first big moment where we had to really assess our relationship. At the end of the episode, Maxson and ...

We talk to John J. Lennon, a self-taught writer who has been incarcerated at Sing Sing Prison for 24 years. John has been married twice to women he fell in love with through handwritten letters. He tells us what conjugal visits are like, who gets access to them, and their surprising origin. At the end of the episode, Maxson and Emily ask each other if they’d stay in a relationship if one of them went to prison.

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We talk to Karen Gordon, our couples therapist, about the health of our actual relationship. We've been seeing her for over three years, and in some ways, she knows us better than our friends and family. We talk with her about our conflict cycle, specific issues we've worked with her on in the past, and the issues we are working with her on now. At the end of the episode, Maxson and Emily ask if we need to "fix"...

We talk to Miles and Elektra, a legally married polyamorous couple, about what marriage means when it's not grounded in sexual exclusivity. They make the case that non-monogamy actually strengthens their commitment: loving others keeps their lives fresh, and building their marriage on shared values instead of exclusivity gives them a sturdier foundation when conflict arises. We also learn that Elektra is planning a "fourg...

We talk to Julia Funke, an immigration lawyer, about if getting married will help Emily get Maxson's EU citizenship. We also talk about the "love test," which is how the government figures out if you have a real relationship and sometimes involves sending more-than-intimate texts from your personal life to an immigration officer. At the end of the episode, Maxson and Emily go through the primary sources of their life...

We talk to Isabel Gillies, a mother of two whose first husband fell in love with someone else, about whether marriage actually prevents couples from breaking up. She shares her theory that everyone has multiple soulmates over the course of a lifetime, and you are going to meet some of them after you get married. At the end of the episode, Maxson and Emily get real: what's our actual game plan if one of us starts developing fee...

We ask Deb, a trauma nurse, if it's true that you can be blocked from entering the emergency room to visit your partner if you aren't legally married. We also talk about who gets decision-making priority if you are on life support. She tells us a heart wrenching story from her early days in the ER that prompted her to reverse her take on marriage with her then-boyfriend, and they went that same week to get a domestic part...