"Strangers on the Internet" Podcast Episode 21: Second Marriage in the Second City

Neuroscientist Prof. Talia Lerner and former military sniper Phillip Nightingale talk about their unexpected relationship

The twenty-first episode (Apple Podcasts link here and Spotify link here) of Strangers on the Internet with co-host and psychologist Michelle Lange features a conversation with married couple Prof. Talia Lerner and Phillip Nightingale. They are our first guest couple, and Phillip is our first male guest altogether on the podcast.

Northwestern University neuroscientist Talia did not think that a heavily tattooed former military sniper would be in her romantic future, and yet that is how the dating app process shook out in the end. Phillip proved to be the interesting, open-minded, poetry-writing partner that would turn into a capable stepdad to her son and involved father to their subsequent daughter together. Our Chicago-dwelling couple came from different socioeconomic classes, ethnic backgrounds, and religions, and via therapy and solid communication forged a path toward what became a happy second marriage for both of them.

How did Phillip abandon his plan to travel the world and instead navigate becoming an academic spouse? And what were the reasons Talia agreed to add a third child to their family when initially, Phillip criticizing her parenting of her oldest kid on a first zoo trip together almost led her to call it quits on the relationship? Follow us to the Midwest for this modern-day love story you don't want to miss!

Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it immoral for me to find hope in autism?

[Dr. Ed 2]

It is not healthy for the wife to have considerably more education than the husband.

[AmosArch]

Well, get used to it. While we’re moaning about equality for women, men are behind in the college game to an extent few people realize, closing in on the point where 2x degrees are awarded to females and the gap is only increasing. Of course much of ‘higher education’ nowadays is a scam anyway so maybe the men are making the right decision.

[apedad]

YES! YES!! YES!!!

100% AGREE WITH AMOSARCH!

A-A, can you do me a favor and please encourage all your male family members, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances NOT to attend higher education?

It'll make ALL our worlds much better.

Mucho thanks!

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You can really get advantages in life with the right kind of college and university education. Just choose the right course of study, a good school, work extremely hard (and be intelligent), make networking connections, and of course try as far as possible to pay as you go to minimize loans.

This is the kind of higher education which will produce a surplus of educated and successful women if men stop doing the same.

I’m not sure I’d recommend a “studies” degree, or even a bona fide humanities degree, at least not if you don’t have a specific realistic plan for how to use it (a plan which doesn’t involve debt).

There’s a lot of innocence-by-association reasoning going on if we’re assuming that “having a degree” is always an automatically good thing.

[John F. Carr]

In science, at least, educated women drop out of the work force faster than men.

[John F. Carr]

A few years ago a study compared survey results and tax data to conclude that both men and women were likely to lie about their relative incomes if the woman earned more than the man.

[Lee Moore]

It is not healthy for the wife to have considerably more education than the husband.

This isn’t quite right as far as the research goes. Every word that follows has a silent “statistically speaking” qulaifier in front of it.

1. Women are attracted to men of higher or at least equal status (“attracted” here means naturally, juices flowing, attracted, rather than get the calculator out and compute the net income attracted)

2. Meanwhile status is more or less irrelevant to how attractive a woman is to a man. Men are simple creatures.

3. Even in cases where a high status woman genuinely falls in love with, and couples up with, a lower status man, the pairing is less stable than in the more traditional structure.

4. This obviously includes a contribution from the male feeling inferior, worse paid etc, not the ‘man of the house” , but

5. It also includes a significant contribution from the female side. A status-inferior male loses his attraction in the eyes of the female quicker than a status-superior male. A status-superior female is considerably more likely to be sexually unfaithful to her status-inferior male mate, over time, compared to a female of comparable status who has a status-superior or status-equal mate; and the rates of divorce also demonstrate this

6. However, education is not the only source of status. Charlie Sheen, Novak Djokovic and yes, even Hunter Biden, all have high status. So a supersmart female top top top Big Firm lawyer could easily perceive, say, a top flight golf professional or even a relatively low income, but high reputation, sailboat designer as being of equal or superior status. If the man holds his status in a different hierarchy from that in which the woman holds hers, it’s easier to perceive the status as tied. “Perceive” here again refers to the juices not to any conscious calculation.

7. Obviously, living in a household where one partner is really smart and really well educated and the other is dumb as a brick isn’t that easy. And generally clever, well educated successful men who want a really good looking, faithful and adoring wife, will often prefer a really good looking, faithful, adoring wife who has two brain cells to rub together. But it’s hardly essential.

8. So education level is important, but not necessarily a killer. All the same, this status thing combined with the importance of education to the female partner’s self estimation does explain why the really smart and successful sisters are always complaining that “there are no men !” Actually there are millions of men, it’s just that the more smart and successful a gal is, leading her to assess herself as having a high status, the smaller is the universe of men who are of equal or higher status to whom she is likely to be attracted. And most of the men who do possess that suitable high status are perfectly happy with a gal who isn’t quite so smart as him, but who has bigger boobs, or is 100% committed to being a wife and mother, or whatever.

It’s tough to be a super successful gal. It’s like being a deep sea fish. There’s very little suitable prey out there.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only truly stable strategy I can think of is “always default to the oldest”

[Number 2]

“Phillip is our first male guest altogether on the podcast.“

That fact alone speaks volumes.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You figured that the Volokh Conspiracy, when choosing a token woman, might not select a woman who is awkward around men?