Welcome, Rhaina!

Today we’re excited to welcome Rhaina Cohen, author of the bestselling book The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. She's an award-winning producer and editor for NPR's documentary podcast Embedded. And she's written about social connection and policy for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post and other outlets.

Some of the terms we discuss in today’s episode you may not have heard before are:

• “The other significant others” was coined by Eli Finkel, a psychology professor at Northwestern University.

• Compulsory Coupledom: The notion that long term monogamous relationships are necessary for a normal, successful adulthood. Coined by Eleanor Wilkenson, a professor at the University of Southampton.

• Boston Marriages: Unmarried women who supported each other as a kind of “cousin of romantic friendships,” said historian Susan Freeman.

Rhaina tackles the following topics and questions with us:

• Her own background and reasons behind writing her bestselling book.

• The term relationship being used to describe more than just a romantic relationship. What would a full definition encapsulate, and what are people missing out on when they use it to describe only one type of relationship?

• Why do you think the cultural paradigm is so intrinsically heteronormative? Why is it the norm to put so much emphasis and pressure on romantic relationships? Do you think having extremely deep friendships could ultimately lead to healthier romantic relationships?

• The history of friendships and how they have changed over time.

•  The fear that is involved with people mislabeling, misunderstanding, or generally being averse to the depth of someone’s relationship.

•  Possessiveness, specifically from those who are romantic partners to people who have deep friendships.

•  Can you talk a bit about the grief involved with losing friends, both to things like illness and death, but also the changes that can occur due to other factors?

• Disenfranchised grief, ambiguous loss, and intrapsychic grief.

• How changing or questioning cultural norms and paradigms also leads to the role of sex in relationships and our lives.

• Do you see a future in terms of legislation and legal rights for non-traditional relationships? 

Make sure to check out Rhaina on Instagram, get her book, and find her newsletter here!