Arthur and Ben met in church in the nineties. Both men grew up thinking that they might not find a church that accepted them as gay men and that they might not even find love as gay men. But one day in the pews of St. Bart's Episcopal church they found one another and they started a life together. They both wanted to be fathers and they tried open adoption and then regular adoption and fostering but there were so many road blocks.... This episode is the story of three decades of love, how...

Shannon and Jerome Schwartz are married television writers. But up until a few years ago they had never collaborated on a project. They had their own separate careers and they were very content in their own spheres. But then a project came along that felt like the right thing to do together. And that project was to try to turn the Committed podcast into a television series for ABC Studios. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Larry and Sarah Nannery didn't know that Sarah was autistic when they first met and fell in love. They knew their brains worked differently and sometimes that was frustrating, but very often it was also incredibly interesting. They had their miscommunications, but they made figured them out. And then after about seven years of marriage Sarah got a formal diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. I found Larry and Sarah through their book, What to Say Next, where they break down how they...

One wife writes romantic comedy novels for a living. The other wife works with the world's most famous relationship guru and had her on speed dial throughout the early days of their relationship and engagement. Does this pairing make for a perfect union? Sometimes it does. But no relationship is perfect. Lindsay and Georgia work at their love every single day and they are the first ones to tell you that it takes a village of other humans to make a marriage succeed. Learn more about your...

Tim and Susan Bratton found their path to being intimacy experts because their own marriage was falling apart. Tim was cheating on Susan. Susan didn't enjoy sex at all. So they dug in and went to counseling and workshops and they became experts on the subject. And along the way they fixed their own marriage. Today Tim and Susan are two of the most sexually open couples I have ever met. They are in an open and polyamorous relationship, they have a thriving sex intimacy business and they're...

Christina and Ryan Hillsberg are a real life Mr and Mrs Smith. They met and fell in love while they were at the CIA. Their time as spies shaped who they are, but it also shaped their marriage. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Lauren and Cameron got engaged before they ever set eyes on one another. They met on the reality TV show Love is Blind. If you're not familiar with the show it involves 15 men and 15 women going into this experiment where they see if they can find love through a wall. An actual wall. The two of them fell for each other in just ten days and got engaged without ever touching. It sounds crazy, but they're still together and still really happy. Maybe there's something to being forced to fall in...

Joe served half his life in prison for taking the life of another man. Sheila met Joe while he was serving his time. She was 20 years older than him, a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, a mother, a homeowner and she fell in love and married a man in prison. Joe was behind bars for twelve years of their relationship. I first learned about Sheila and Joe's love story in an incredible book by Elizabeth Greenwood called Love Lockdown: Dating, Sex and Marriage in America's...

When Ash met Chip he was a part of the furry community, a community of people that enjoys an interest in anthropomorphized animals, that often likes to dress up as cartoon animals, sometimes in social situations. Ash had no idea what to expect from this new person that she was very attracted to. She had no idea how to dive into the furry community herself. But she did. Finding the furry community through Chip helped Ash learn to express herself in totally new ways. For the two of them the...

Committed is back for Season Seven on November 17th! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Sonya and Paul Kix have been married since 2007. She's a Black woman from Texas and he's a white guy from Iowa. There were zero black people in his graduating class. Living as an interracial couple, Paul living as the only white person in his household that now includes three children, that forces their entire family to have difficult conversations about race on a regular basis. It has been more than 50 years since Loving versus Virginia struck down laws banning interracial marriage. And some...

With no previous climbing experience Harold Earls sets out to climb the world's tallest mountain right after marrying Rachel, the absolute love of his life. Rachel had been supportive. Harold's dreams were her dreams. But that year was one of the most dangerous years of all time for Everest climbers and at one point during the descent Harold was caught in a life-threatening snow and ice storm. Rachel hadn't heard from Harold and she just kept thinking, my husband might die, my brand new...

Broadway actors Amanda Kloots and Nick Cordero were a young and healthy married couple with a new baby when Nick went into the ICU with COVID-19. Nick was only 41. He was strong and everyone thought he would be out of the hospital in a week or two. But Nick's health continued to deteriorate. He couldn't breathe on his own. His organs began to fail. Amanda did everything she could to stay hopeful. She rallied the entire world in song and prayer. We don't normally do episodes with just one part...

This week we are bringing you an old episode in celebration of our friend Doree Shafrir’s new book Thanks for Waiting. Doree and her husband Matt have been on the show twice to talk about their long struggle with IVF and what that meant for their family. Doree’s new book is all about hitting life’s milestones (like getting married and having kids) a little later than expected and it is a beautiful read along with her and Matt’s episode.    Learn more about your ad-choices at...

Todd Tilghman had been a pastor for more than 20 years when he realized he wanted to do something new. Call it an itch, a calling, a midlife crisis but Todd knew he needed to do something else. And so he tried out for The Voice. This episode is about Todd’s journey from pastor to singing sensation but it is mostly about how his wife of more than 20 years, Brooke, pushed him and encouraged him to get there. Todd and Brooke have weathered so many seasons in their two decade marriage. They got...

Laura Stachel and her husband Hal Aronson save lives every single day through their work providing solar power to hospitals around the world. Neither of them ever could have done it on their own. Their marriage has informed their work and their work has informed their marriage. Laura is an obgyn and public health professional. When she traveled to Nigeria on a research trip she realized that women and children were dying during childbirth because hospitals had no electricity. When she brought...

This is the story of a female police chief in Philadelphia and how she reacted to Floyd’s murder and how she managed her police force through what came next. But it’s much more than that. This is also about the woman who supported that police officer, her partner, now wife, Jackie. This is a love story. But it is also a story about policing and how things do have to change. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

When Aimee Oates got pregnant with her first baby she told her husband John that the two of them were hitting the road with him and his band Hall & Oates. It wasn't a thing that usually happened. Wives, babies, they didn't usually come on the road with this old boys club. But Aimee was adamant. And they did it. They traveled as a family with the iconic rock group Hall & Oates. Their son took his first steps in a casino. They barely ever spent a day apart. I have always been curious...

COVID-19 has divided Americans in so many ways in the past year. Many Americans have completely opposite views on whether or not they want to be vaccinated right now. And those conversations are happening very close to home, sometimes within the same home. We were so curious to know what was said behind closed doors when one spouse was pro-vaccine and the other one was against getting the COVID-19 vaccine. We put out a call to the Committed community and got way more responses than we...

If you binge-watched Tiger King during the beginning of the pandemic like Nick and I did then you may think you know everything there is to know about Carole and Howie Baskin. You probably have an idea about them in your head, maybe even a suspicion or two. But there is so much that you didn't see on Tiger King. We got to interview Howie and Carole about it all -- the documentary, Joe Exotic, the murder for hire plot, the cat sanctuary, Dancing with the Stars -- but most of all about their...

Hey Committed listeners! Today, I'm bringing you something special. Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue fell in love on live television and wed over 40 years ago, and a few weeks back, I opened our new season by talking with them about their long love story, and the secrets to making their marriage last. I wanted with you an episode of their new podcast, Double Date, where they host intimate conversations with long-married couples about enduring love and all its challenges: family, career,...

Chris had proposed to Goldie when they were 18. He got down on one knee at Cinderella's castle. When you're that young you think marriage might be like a fairytale, that the prince being down on one knee is the one thing that will make it all better.  But their first years of marriage were hard. They were totally broke and Goldie was dealing with trauma from past sexual abuse. She developed an autoimmune disorder where she was in pain all the time. Pain that made her want to take her own...

Reverend Roxy and Reverend Joshua come from completely different backgrounds. He’s a white guy from Colorado. She’s a Black woman from Brooklyn. They met while they were both chaplains in the military. They fell in love fast and hard despite all their differences. Being in an interracial couple in America has never been easy, but right now, as our country deals with a much overdue racial reckoning, there is often even more of a learning process involved.  Joshua had to learn how to grow and...

Leah was terrified of getting married. She didn’t want to give up her independence. But a terrible accident at a construction site changed everything Leah thought she wanted. Her longtime boyfriend Kelsey rushed to her bedside to be with her and she proposed to him from the hospital. The two of them have had to figure out how to navigate their first year of marriage during a pandemic and with Leah paralyzed from the waist down. Learn more about your ad-choices at...

For forty years Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas tried to keep their celebrity marriage out of the spotlight. But after being married for four decades, or what felt like a hundred years as Phil says, they got interested in researching what makes a marriage work and last and thrive over such a long period of time and they decided to put their own marriage front and center in a new podcast. Marlo never wanted to get married. But she was so smitten with Phil after appearing on his show in 1977 she...