Census data indicates that while divorce rates are not rising, an increasing number of people are choosing not to marry. Some data shows that, in 2021, 52% of women in the United States were unmarried or separated, which is a record high.

As more Americans opt out of marriage, what once was the traditional home (one wife, one husband, two kids and a live laugh love sign on the wall of a suburban house) is being recreated to look like communes, co-living, and platonic partnership.

Rhaina came on the podcast to talk about different forms of living, family, and community and how she and her husband have hacked adulthood with one simple trick: housemateys.

When we recorded this episode with Rhaina, we didn’t know we’d be releasing it two days after a historic election. But it’s the perfect conversation for people imagining what community and solidarity can look like in their personal lives.

Rhaina Cohen is the bestselling author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center and an award-winning producer and editor for NPR's Embedded podcast.Her writing about social connection has been published by The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME and other outlets, and her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Program. Cohen lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and close friends.

This season was generously sponsored by Funny Girls, which is a program run by the Harnisch Foundation that uses improv to teach leadership skills to girls and nonbinary kids in grades 3 to 8. You can learn more about its work here. 

Zachary Oren Smith is the producer, and Suzanne Glémot made the art for the show. And thank you to everyone who shared their stories with us.

If you loved this episode, we have a whole first season you can listen to. You can also buy Lyz’s New York Times best-selling book This American Ex-Wife.

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