236. Abby Wambach: Will I Ever Be Truly Loved?

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Today,

Glenn and I are here to introduce our favorite, favorite, favorite girl on

her episode 188, and that is Abby Wombach.

Will I Ever Be Truly Loved?

That was on March 14th, and it kicked off

three consecutive episodes that week that were all Abby all the time.

And she really just went there and talked about growing up, talked about what it was like on the field, talked about what it was like transitioning from retirement to

becoming a mom and being Glennon's wife and everything they've been through there.

She talks about a magical, magical,

beautifully profound moment, one of the most sacred moments I've had the honor of witnessing on Christmas morning last year.

And

Glenn, to me, the most beautiful,

amazing part of it was how throughout all of the episodes, she kept saying,

This episode's so boring.

We don't need to hear this.

It's so boring.

Isn't this so bad?

And it was so amazing to hear her say that when everything was so compelling and it made me think like do we automatically think that our stories are not interesting because they're ours yeah or like what is the thing that we say because not everybody would say this is boring i'd be like this is crazy this is crazy is this too much is this too much what is the thing that we say to ourselves that we fear we are because i bet everyone's not but abby's definitely was am i boring which is so ironic oh my god she's the least boring person on earth every time we have an episode that is Abby, I'm like, holy shit, she is a freaking master storyteller.

She's so good.

She really is.

Just the best.

I mean, the goodest girl.

My, you know, humble and unbiased diagnosis of Abby is just that she's the best person in the entire world.

And so go ahead.

Listen, we give you the best person in the whole entire world.

Will she ever be truly loved?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, dear listener.

She was truly loved.

Enjoy.

To be loved, we need to belong.

Abby, do you think if you put the corner of your mouth on the microphone, that will somehow disguise you?

You'll only be half present.

Yeah, if I look off screen, does it count?

Okay, so here's why we're laughing, pod squad.

First of all, welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Secondly,

it's fine.

It is fine, babe.

We have my dream interview today, which is why we're already giggling with nervous laughter.

We are skited, all of us, which as those of you know who listen to the words my family makes up, that is half scared.

half excited when you have butterflies and you're about to do a hard thing but you know it's a good hard thing that will be happy for you when it's over that's what we're doing today we are skided because the interview we have today is

abby wombok

we wanted to do an in-depth interview with abby

and ask her some questions that no one's ever asked her before

and as my sister amanda and i thought through what we wanted the theme of this interview to be the obvious you know, categories were like you're just your greatness.

So your achievements in soccer and as a leader.

And we're going to get to all of that.

But the more we thought about your life, the more we could not get away from the word love.

I want to tell the pod squad that I had a moment when Abby was moving.

We were moving in together.

And she was out of the room and I was opening boxes from her house.

And she had just moved from Portland.

And

I saw this box called, it said books on it.

For me, like opening someone's books is the moment where I truly know who they are, regardless of who they've been saying they are.

Somebody's books is like

a peek inside their soul.

So I open up these books and I don't know.

I expected them to be about sports and

leadership or this box of books, y'all.

I just started pulling them out one at a time and every single one, it was like Naruta, love poetry, romance poetry, spiritual books, everything about how to find God and then another stack about being an atheist and then another stack about falling in love.

It was a box full of love

books.

And then there were journals.

Oh, God, the journals.

Journal after journal after journal.

And I don't.

That you wrote in, Abby?

Yes.

Or empty aspirational journals.

Oh, no, no.

Well, a few of them.

I had a tendency to get a lot of journals and write for like a few pages and then close it up.

And that is true.

There was a hundred journals.

Got too close.

Got too serious.

Oh, nope.

That's what I mean about the aspirational journal.

I'm like, this year I'm going to be someone who journals.

Yeah, that was for sure me.

The journals were each was a quarter full.

That's true.

Yeah.

But they were just about

love.

Most of them were about romantic love and they would, they were about just wanting it desperately and not

understanding why it was so hard to get it.

So this interview, My Love,

is

about your relentless pursuit of love throughout your life.

How do you feel about that?

Yeah, that's probably the truest truest statement of who I am.

Nailed it.

Nailed it.

Mary Abigail Wombach

is an Olympian activist, author, and co-host of the unparalleled We Can Do Hard Things podcast.

She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA World Cup champion, and six-time winner of the U.S.

Soccer Athlete of the Year Award.

She was the United States leading scorer in the 2007 and 2011 Women's World Cup tournaments and the 2004 and 2012 Olympics.

Abby is the host of Abby's Places on ESPN Plus.

She's an activist for equality and inclusion and the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Wolfpack, as well as the adaptation of Wolfpack for the next generation.

She is a founder and part owner of Angel City FC, the first majority female-owned soccer team in history, and is a member of the board of directors for the nonprofit organization Together Rising.

And she's Amanda Doyle's sister-in-law.

You've done so many things, my love.

Let's start with the first complicated, gorgeous love story of your life, which I think is with Judy Wombach, your mama.

Judy.

Can you tell us the story you've always told yourself about your mom's love?

And then maybe the one I have heard you noodling on revising lately.

How would you describe your love story?

I grew up in a really big family.

There were nine people living in my house almost at all times.

And

one could probably understand that there was a kind of a fight for the attention of my parents and my mom being kind of the main caregiver, the person that we all look to for

advice, to be told what to do.

And so I think living in that kind of environment set me up to be a really good pro athlete because I was like always striving for something.

I think that the early, the early years, my childhood and through my young adult life and my early adult life,

I felt really torn

because

All I really wanted was this love from my mom, this like acceptance, this full acceptance from my mom.

And

because I had this deep knowing about my gayness and I felt like, oh, my mom will never accept this part of me.

And so this is where I think I learned how to split myself a little as a young kid.

Being really athletic, getting that kind of affirmation and attention from my mom really was something that I could hold on to.

And there was so much chaos in my house kind of all the time that

a sensitive kid like me, who really was

trying to feel loved,

I think I directed myself in ways that I could get it.

And so there are ways that I feel like I knew that I wasn't going to get it.

And so this persona, I kind of developed this athlete, this extraordinary athlete,

started to develop.

And the other part of myself, like who i was

started to kind of take a more of a shadow side i guess there felt like to me like a light side of my life and a shadow side of my life but i was equally committed to both personally like even though from the outside

my family and even my friends on some level might have thought that i've just put so much of myself into my sport I was really committed to staying kind of normal in a way, having a normal existence.

I remember when I was really young,

after I'd come home from whatever sporting event it was, my family would be so amazed at like my goals scored or points made on the basketball court.

And I loved that.

I loved that attention.

And I loved like

the respect I could get from my brothers and sisters being the youngest.

And yet I always felt like, why can't my mom love like this other part of me?

How would you describe that, Abby?

That part of you that you felt that you got the message to keep shadowed?

Was it all about being gay?

Or was it other kind of parts of your personality that you thought like this isn't going to be praiseworthy in this house?

Well, I think it was like my beingness.

It's hard to explain, I guess, because when I was really young, I didn't have the concept of gayness yet.

I didn't understand what that meant.

And as I kind of grew older, got into my high school years and college years, I started to understand more about myself.

My mom would have called me a free spirit, you know, when I was younger in high school, that I marched to the, to the beat of my own drum.

I kind of like looked out in my family environment and I saw my family in their life, like doing everything

in a certain way.

And I just didn't like, I didn't fully buy into it.

There were times when my brothers and sisters would be like, Abby, just do it.

Follow the herd here.

And there was a part of me that always was like, no, there's a better way.

There's a different way.

I am not this.

I am that.

And I didn't even know what that was.

But it was something that I felt like it was important for me to continue to pursue.

And as I got older, I just kind of wrapped that whole thing in gayness, right?

I wrapped that whole part of myself in this one thing that I knew my mom would never accept in me.

And that's what I have held on to for my entire life.

Like, that is where I have martyred myself and

probably prevented myself from having any kind of real emotional relationship with my mom.

It's so interesting because it reminds me of what Dr.

Franco said in the episode 179, where she said about attachment and loneliness, that if you don't show sides of yourself and people are showing you love, then you don't believe their love, and you can't actually receive it because you're always thinking internally, yeah, but if you knew this, you wouldn't love me.

Yeah, and that's what you thought.

You thought they love me for my famous soccery self, yeah, but they don't love the real me.

That's the story that you've told about you and your mom for a long time.

That's right, and you know, I think the real truth, sister, I think you're hitting on it, but

I never wanted

probably for fear of rejection, but also fear of my own capability of being vulnerable at that time.

I never showed them my full self.

I never opened the door and was like, hey, come on in.

Here's my weird world.

Like, and a lot of factors go into that.

A look here or a don't do that there, right?

But

I didn't have the strength.

And a sermon saying you're going straight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, you know, subtle things like that.

Yeah.

I didn't have like the confidence or strength back then to be able to like see and

be like, no, this is who I am.

And we lived in a different time then too.

And so I think the true story that I am trying to weave into my life now is,

and I don't know if people will understand this or even relate, but I believe that

my parents

really did

their best with what they had.

And that my mom loved me me in every way she knew how.

I've been thinking a lot about all of like

obviously when I have, we have children and I'm driving our kids everywhere and I'm showing up for them in the ways that I know how to love.

And now I'm thinking back on my childhood and thinking my mom sacrificed her whole life for her children.

She completely, and not to say that this is the right thing to do as a parent, I don't know, but she drove me to every soccer tournament, every soccer event, thousands and thousands of miles clicked on that odometer.

The amount of murder mysteries we listened to.

I mean, I had trip ticks, the triptics.

I'm like a very good navigator.

And like, we spent so much time together on the New York State Thruway.

I just feel like

my mom really did love me in the most amount of way that she possibly was capable of.

That generation had a certain memo about parenting.

There was a certain kind of conversation around what love was and how to love a child.

And ever since I've retired, I've been getting more and more of that because

gone are like the famous soccer Abbey days.

Thank God.

But here my mom still is.

You know, like

as excited about me being a parent as I was about being a gold medalist and as involved in my life as

she ever was when I was traveling the world wearing the red, white, and blue.

I feel like I put such a huge.

expectation on what kind of love I needed.

And that is true.

I am a person that felt based on my circumstances, based on the DNA and the heart that I have, I have been in search of love.

And I've wanted it from my mom.

And I feel like because it wasn't in the exact perfectly wrapped gift,

that I have not been able to actually call it love.

But that's so beautiful.

It was.

I think it was love

and is.

So you're saying that the way that your mom has been showing up since you retired has a little bit destroyed your story

that she only loved the famous you and was only excited about that part since now she's showing up just as much for you.

It's sort of ruined your thesis statement.

Yeah.

I'll be honest.

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It's so interesting from a timing perspective because it feels like,

so you grew up and she was showing you all of this like affection and adoration for all of your achievements.

Then you have this moment where you tell her you're gay and she doesn't handle it well.

And then that sad and terrible thing casts this very long shadow.

where you go back and you're like,

see, now that you know the real me, you can't love

the whole me and you're rejecting me in this moment.

Therefore, everything you've done for the past 20 years.

Yes.

Self-mind prophecy for sure.

Must be that.

But then

give it 10 years.

And now she's still loving you the same way she did in soccer.

And you're like, oh, wait.

Then maybe all of this is love.

It's just interesting how we assess things

after the fact and the shadow that that casts, both both in a way of appreciating love or completely devaluing everything that happened before because of

a moment.

Yeah.

And having our version, you and I talk about this all the time, but it's like we have this way we've decided that we need to be loved, which has a lot to do with, to me, I think of it in terms of dimensions.

Like we have this deep inner self, which you say you equated all with gayness, but was probably a lot of things.

And we want to be loved for this inner self and this outer self and all of these dimensions of ourselves.

And because our parents sort of had a different memo about what love was with your parents, as you alluded to, and they're like, no, I'm doing it.

This is what I'm supposed to be doing.

And we're like, but you're not loving me on all the dimensions that I need.

And they're like, but I don't even know what you mean.

Yeah.

They're like, what?

dimensions?

Right.

You're like, I live in this dimension, the one where I drive your ass all over New York.

And that that's love.

And then it feels like in 20 years, our kids, there will be some other dimension

that because of the way that culture evolves, it will be so obvious that we should have been loving them that way.

And they will come to us and say, What the hell?

You didn't even love me because you didn't love me on this dimension.

And we're like, So sorry, didn't know that dimension existed, but loved the shit out of you the way that I knew to.

Yeah.

It's terrifying.

And I think that there is a responsibility that I never was able to

honor in myself

and a fear fear and all of that that like I didn't do anything to establish the relationship with my mom

giving her all parts of myself I just caged the parts of myself called it gay packed it away and shut the door and locked it and threw away the key and that that's that was a choice I made and I have a responsibility in

the outcome or the consequence of that.

You know, And

I think that I'm old enough now and wise enough now and I'm sober enough now.

I mean, I'm sober now

to be able to see that.

Like, oh, oh yeah, this wasn't just a one-way street that my mom was walking down.

I also

put a stop to that relationship from being fully evolved.

Because I could have said to her at 25 years old when I was a proper adult, hey, mom, this isn't isn't working for me.

I need to be loved in a certain way.

I could have done certain things.

I wasn't capable then, and I know that now.

This is not revisionist history.

This is just trying to really see it for

what it is, like the truth of what it is.

And as my parents age, as my mom is getting older, I think it's important for us to really revisit these stories that we've, that we have

permanently inked into our beings and see if they're true or not.

It's so interesting that you say you wrapped it all up and called it gay, that the part of you that was

questioning everything that your parents told you you should be, because that is queerness.

Right.

It was all of your queerness that was like, not that, no, thank you, questioning the way we do this, different than that.

I feel like your mom and soccer are so tied together in your original story.

And clearly, one of the love stories of your life has been between you and soccer.

So Q, Abby Wombach, did you play soccer because you loved it?

Or did you play soccer to get love?

Or both?

I think the answer has to be both here.

But

I feel like this is the most boring podcast in the whole world.

Just so you know.

I think that what you just said was the most beautiful, well-articulated, world-shifting thing.

I thought it was like, if we ended it right now, I would be like, everyone needs to listen to those 20 minutes.

You are crushing.

All right.

So when I was five years old, I went to my very first soccer game and I scored nine goals.

And next soccer game, I scored, and they were like three games in one day.

And we were walking back to the car, and

my mom said, so how many goals did you score?

And I said, 27.

She said, how many goals did the other team score?

I said, zero.

She was like, okay, what about passing?

How do you feel about, you know, assist making?

And I said, well, I don't understand what the problem is.

If the whole point of the game of soccer is to score more goals than the other team and I can do that better than somebody else, why would I pass?

And she was like, okay,

might have to work on humility at some point.

And so that's how I, I was just a very talented little kid doing weird stuff at younger ages than everybody else in my family.

And so from the beginning, I knew that this was going to be my thing.

And I loved that.

I loved being good at something.

And it gave me self-confidence and it gave me that affirmation and adoration from my family and from my mom.

Felt like my whole world at that time.

Did it feel like love?

Yeah.

When do you remember feeling loved because of soccer?

Oh, instantly.

We always had family night dinners every single night.

And all of us would have assigned seats and we'd be sitting there and everybody got to talk about their day.

And it was always chaos, and everybody's interrupting each other.

But

at some point, they'd say, Abby, how was your game?

And I'd be like, It was great.

How many goals did you score?

And I'd say, All of them.

I mean, I was a little, I was also probably insecure when I was young because I was just trying so hard to be something in this huge group of people that felt like bigger somethings.

And so

I loved seeing the shock on the faces of like my brothers and sisters.

Like, what?

And they were always really good at pumping me up.

I think that as time went on,

I was

always pretty good.

I was always one of the best.

I played on the boys' team when I was really young, because this is a long time ago, and elite girls' soccer club teams weren't really a thing.

And I think that the love of the game was there.

It was also really hard.

Even at 10, 11, 12, 13 years old,

I felt this pull, like this weird energy that was like, this is not going to consume me.

This is a part of who I am, but I will not let it consume my whole person.

Kind of like in your family, where you're like, I am part of this

crew, but I am different.

I'm going to hold on to that.

I am from you, but not of you.

Yes.

Yeah.

I had friends.

and i you know when i got into high school i was on the varsity team in eighth grade and i had older friends and so that was really fun

do you remember a time when

the love that soccer got you where your talent started to feel like

a block of connection so there was a soccer game that

Where I played, it's called sectionals in New York State.

All the different regions of high schools, they play, and then you play for a state championship.

And

I think she says, like, that's normal.

And then obviously you play for a state championship every time.

If I'm on the team every time.

No.

My sophomore year, I think this was, we got into the final of sectionals

and

we were winning two to one.

And the other team, Greece Athena, they got a penalty kick against us Mercy Monarchs.

And my coach called me over to the sideline as soon as they got the penalty kick.

And she looks at me and and she says, Do you think you can save it if I put you in goal?

I'm a forward.

I'm on the field.

I'm a field player.

And I just like, was like, yes, of course I can.

She goes, okay.

Calls our goalkeeper to the sideline and says, switch jerseys.

And so I put the freaking goalkeeper jersey on.

I do my best impression of a goalkeeper.

Like I'm jumping, grabbing the crossbar, trying to psych out the penalty kick taker.

And

I don't know how this happens this way, but the penalty kick taker shot the ball right at me.

I saved the goal.

I'm now in goal.

I'm now the goalie.

So we end up winning the game minute later or whatever.

And there's a picture.

It gets in the newspaper, television stations.

And so I remember being so excited for our team.

And then like the next morning, the newspapers come out with the articles.

And then that night, the news stations put the story on air.

And I remember feeling like, oh, no,

something different is happening now.

Like, I knew I was the best player, but I wasn't yet the magnified only player that does the thing for the team.

And also,

I felt horrible for our goalkeeper.

She was our goalkeeper.

Except when it really mattered.

She was a goalkeeper until it really mattered.

And then she wasn't.

So that is a tricky situation for you to be in.

I felt super torn, and I go home to my family, and they're so excited for me.

And I'm like, but I love my teammates.

Like, I don't want to be different than them.

I want to be the same as them.

I want them to know that I feel like I'm the same as them.

I don't want to have this divide.

So then it was this weird feeling like, oh,

now I'm like this singled-out thing in the soccer space, which drove my desire for normalcy in my other life

to be even more important.

Like my friends in high school, we would go to parties and I would ask them to change my name so that nobody knew who I was there.

And it wasn't like for protection.

It was so that I could fit in.

I didn't want to be seen or treated any differently.

That was really important to me.

It's just fascinating to me that the talent part of your soccer got in the way of the thing you really wanted from soccer, which was togetherness.

Yeah.

And love.

And love and connection.

Yeah.

I find it so fascinating when you talk about

how when you are admired for talent,

it's almost impossible for it to feel like love.

And why is that?

Yeah.

So here we are.

I'm like on the relentless pursuit of love.

I'm trying to figure out how to get people to love me.

And so so I put on certain costumes, and this is like the soccer costume I put on.

And I'm like, people will love me.

I'm going to become the best at this.

And people will then love me.

But there's actually nothing about me that people actually know by watching me play soccer.

And I think that maybe that's why I played with.

so much passion and emotion is because the whole time I was like, love me.

Just see me.

I'm here.

Look at me.

I'm a soccer player but i'm more than that watch me that makes sense yeah it does and talent is not a person's personhood and it's not their heart per se what talent is is you can see their work ethic you can see their natural gifts but it's not really

the person that you get to know it's like this persona the outline of a human being.

And so it feels fake.

So it was fake.

It just makes me wonder because we have now met so many people who are so freaking good at one thing.

They have achieved this level of greatness.

And I would say, and I think you probably would too,

that percentage-wise, it's amazing at how many of them feel so

lonely, isolated, unseen.

fucked up in lots of ways.

So much to the point where, you know, I'm

wish for my children to not be extremely great at anything.

Yeah.

Just because I've seen the results for real, I don't believe in it.

Yeah.

Because when I think about

in order to be that great,

you had to not pay attention to any of the parts of life that actually make you feel loved, like actual relationships, connection, the mundane things one day, like you had to ignore that to achieve greatness.

Do you think that greatness comes at the cost of

connection and peace?

Yeah, I think that there's a very very small part of the population that can achieve,

at least I can speak for athletic greatness, like I was able to achieve, like in terms of the whole of the world.

But I do think there are some people that are able to manage it in better ways than I was.

Kristen Press is the first person I think of, somebody who takes her full humanity.

Yeah.

She centers it.

Like she centers it as

you can't watch me in soccer without knowing this about me.

So it's kind of like a requirement.

If you're going to buy this, you're also going to buy this.

Yes.

And what I would call her is an outlier, right?

Of this, of this even smaller fraction.

She's like a minuscule percentage point of this minuscule percentage point of people that make it into the, but yeah, I do think for me,

my greatness compromised

my real ultimate goal in my life, which was

to feel lovable.

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Tell us the moment that you realized,

because I think I know this answer, but when you finally realized, oh my God, soccer's not going to ever love me back enough for me.

Like this isn't going to work.

So you can imagine a person striving for that deep need for love and thinking you're going to get it through this one medium through, and I thought it was soccer.

I'm going to finally be loved and beloved and lovable through the game.

And in 2012, I think the awards happened in 13, but it was for the year of 2012.

I got the FIFA Player of the Year award.

Somebody literally handed me a trophy that

crowned me the best in the world.

And I realized that night, I remember laying in bed

feeling like, oh,

I still feel void.

I still feel unlovable in this weird way.

And I think I realized then that my talent and soccer world wasn't really an.

exploration or a show of who I really was.

It was just like that part of myself, like the quote unquote perfect part of myself, like the soccer part of who I created, my soccer avatar.

Yeah.

In a way.

Yeah, you had reached the top of the mountain.

Like there was no further left to climb.

And you're like, but

wait, I was waiting for the feeling.

Yeah.

Because there's nowhere else to go up.

And it's still not here.

That means it's not coming.

There was no there there.

This is the only way I can explain it.

Everybody wonders, oh, and everybody aspires to being the best in their field or whatever.

And that wasn't the thing.

That wasn't the thing that was going to fix my internal angst about my life.

It's so relatable to me.

I feel like so many of us do that.

We still feel the void.

And so we think, oh, I just need to get one rung higher on the ladder.

Oh, I still feel the void.

So it must be that I just need to get two rings higher.

And then Abby gets to the very top of the ladder where she's looking down at everybody else and she realizes

this might have just been the wrong ladder or i needed to be climbing something else at the same time but i've done the thing as high as possible and it wasn't the climb to the top that was ever going to make me feel

whole yeah yeah it was really weird i was excited that night and then i

I got back to the room and my parents were so excited.

And I remember looking around and being like, you're the best.

And also, I do have to say this, because this is actually what I believe philosophically.

It's just fucking impossible to name one person the best at something.

Like

that's such a relative thing.

There's so many positions and so many people.

Like, just because I scored goals didn't mean that I was better than some of my teammates who passed me the ball or saved the goal from going in our own net.

Did it feel a little bit like that time you got put in the goal?

and then all the attention was on you but it felt icky because yeah because then you have to go back to your team and they're like congratulations and i know deep down that like some of them are like we helped you get that thing and also deep down some of them are like you're not that good at soccer because the truth is i was one of the best at scoring goals i know that deep down

But I wasn't really a good soccer player.

Like this is the headline from this podcast.

Abby Wombach, not really that good of a soccer player.

I was really exceptional at this one thing.

And if I was fit, I was one of the best at it in the world.

But I was not a technical player.

I'm not the player that can break down a defense in my mind and like go in a locker room and be like, all right, you guys, here's what we need to do.

Here are the X's, Y's, and Z's of the next game plan.

I was just like, give me the ball.

That, like, you're like brute force.

Yes.

I will get it in there.

Yes.

yeah and that relentlessness to score

i also had like an a relentless energy and emotion that i played with probably because i was like please love me everybody but i wasn't necessarily like the best soccer player on any team that i played on i was just good at the one thing i think it's so interesting what you're saying about

like this loneliness and alienation from people

as a result of being elevated from from people.

And that kind of makes sense even from a visual.

When you put someone on a pedestal, A, you're giving them a job.

Like you are now on this pedestal.

Don't disappoint us.

We've given you a job you didn't ask for.

You're up there.

So when you open the paper and you're like, oh, wait, I'm the one in the paper.

Okay.

So I'm different.

If you're up on the pedestal, then people are looking up at you.

You're not looking at each other and you're not being together.

And so there's this separation that happens.

And

I wonder if that just inevitably leads to loneliness.

If everyone has collectively decided you're up there, then you are necessarily not down here with us, where people make actual friendships and actually

are together.

Yeah.

It's like how pride is the other side of the coin of shame.

Yeah.

Cause it's like shame is I'm below us all.

And pride is I'm above us all.

But all the good stuff is just in being equal and the same as other people and you didn't have any of that well it's pride in what abby's one of the most proud people on our team i don't think it's pride that's wrong it's pride in what so now she's supposed to instead of have pride in her team and be generating the will and the excitement and the connection with other people it's supposed to just be in herself and her own achievements like that's pressure and that's scary and that's lonely lonely well and i spent my whole life this is not just in the national team, but my whole life yearning for the connection of my teammates.

And so it was a complicated matter when I knew I was one of the best on the team.

When you're on any team, there is competition regardless.

And so I made it my mission to,

and I really philosophically believe this, like truly, but it was also with a desire to create and to have the connection of my teammates, to be friends with them, that all of my interviews, all of the things that I talk about were about them.

I was always trying to deflect like what was happening to me personally, individually, to talk about the collective, because I really, all I was doing while playing soccer was trying to get the connection and love of my teammates.

And I was doing it through this certain way,

but sometimes it separated me from having that connection and that deep desire for feeling loved that I think I was in search of all along.

So

you

get the player of the year.

You're at the top of the mountain.

You don't feel,

I guess it's like satisfied.

It's like a deep satisfaction that you're trying to

settle into.

And then a year later, you get married.

Can you tell us about whatever you want want to tell us about the first marriage and

why did you get married?

I think that the FIFA award

made me see that

soccer wasn't going to be the thing that eased the angst.

And at the time,

I didn't have these words.

I didn't know that I was like in search of

love or lovability.

i was just like what's the next thing that i need to do the next mountain i could climb yeah like the surely it's at the top of that the prescription that you get from the world is like the higher you achieve the better you have it the happier you'll be and i bought that stupid bullshit so

i remember

that next year i got married and the relationship had its ups and downs even before we got married.

But

I really, I loved her.

And I felt like this could be a relationship that lasts forever.

But there was also something about it

that

I think was missing.

And I think a lot of people out there will totally relate to this, maybe.

Oh, the missing pieces of marriage.

Like the thing that you're looking for will be fixed with the lifelong commitment of a marriage.

So we get married months later after the FIFA awards and I'm waiting to expect like the happily forever after

feelings.

Whatever this void is that I'm trying to like fix

or fill.

Easing of the angst is so freaking good.

I love that.

Because I've been on teams my whole life.

I was thinking, okay,

maybe,

maybe

this is going to make us a team finally.

Like, I feel like maybe that was like something that like we weren't necessarily, we were kind of like individuals walking side by side.

Maybe I felt like I was walking ahead at times because of my career.

And so I thought, oh, for sure, marriage, team, that's it.

That's the fix.

And that wasn't the fix.

In fact, it felt like immediately after our marriage, we started to even get more separated in our individual experiences and lives.

That just kept fracturing us.

And by the way, our whole relationship, I was gone for so much of it.

And again, this is me splitting myself, a soccer Abby, and trying to have like a normal life Abby.

And it was a really confusing and hard time because, you know, when you think about the struggle that I had with my mom and the relationship I had with her, and me putting all of my eggs in my gayness basket.

And then I have the gay wedding and my mom is there.

And then the gay marriage is falling apart.

Oh shit.

And so I'm like, fuck, this is proof that my mom is right.

Yeah, you're ruining it for the team.

Like, this is fucking proof that

everything.

And I think that that was also like one of my deep fears because of my internalized homophobia.

Like, maybe my mom is right.

And I think that this is also the case for much of the struggles that I ever had with my life.

I turned to drinking as the solve.

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I just relate so

to the idea that we often escalate a relationship

to fix or create something that's not there

instead of only escalating a relationship because of what's already there.

Our marriage is struggling, so we're going to have a baby.

Or like, this job isn't right for me, so I'm going to get a promotion.

Yes.

Or something's missing from this relationship.

So let's just get married.

And like the escalation doesn't ever bring the thing that was missing.

It only escalates and illuminates what wasn't there in the beginning.

So the idea that we maybe consider only escalating because of like a celebration of what's there and not to create what was never there.

Yeah.

And I want to just say that first marriage was so important for me.

And I learned

more about myself, I think, than in any other experience because I was so heartbroken around

being the failure at marriage.

I was so confused.

I just want to say, like, I went into it with real pure intentions.

You know, this is hindsight 2020, a lot of this stuff.

I thought that it was going to work out and I thought it was going to be great.

And it wasn't.

And that doesn't mean the person I married was bad or wrong.

And it also doesn't mean that I was bad or wrong.

It just means like we made a decision that it wasn't best for both of us.

It was an extraordinarily difficult time in my life.

We were married for

two or three years,

two years without being separated.

And we really, we struggled a lot.

And I'm so grateful because it taught me so much.

I have seen the depths of the darkness.

And I think that

almost every divorce in a lot of ways feels that way.

And I'm glad not to be in that darkness anymore, but I'm also grateful to that marriage and the hardship of it because it makes me,

I don't know, the love that I have

around it and the

protective nature that I feel for it, I think it still lives in me today.

And it's part of my, it's part of who I am.

I love about you, Abby, that you honor and protect

your ex-wife and your marriage so beautifully.

I feel like that's that's such a priority for you.

And I think it's respect for yourself.

You honor every piece of your life before now and protect it whether or not it's an active part of your life.

And I just think that's a really beautiful, honorable thing about you.

This is my story, right?

Like.

My ex has her story.

And I don't think it would be fair of me to insinuate that her story is the exact same as mine because there are always two two sides, and her heartbreaks might be different than mine, and her reasons might be different than mine, and her stories might be different than mine, which is true.

All of it can be true.

I just think it's important that, especially now that we have so many years in between then and now, I've just done a lot of work around it, and I'm grateful to be where I am.

It's a weird thing we do where we just

demonize or throw things away because they ended.

We don't have to do that.

We can hold a lot of things at once.

We're going to stop here because we're going to get to

the next episode and we're going to start with your

strategy of numbing and coping all of the angst with booze.

Drinking a love story.

I think that's a title of a book, which I love that title so much.

But I do want to just,

I don't know, this is so weird.

I just want to send love to your

ex.

I just am so so grateful for the part she played in

making you who you are.

Do you have anything to say, either of you, before we wrap this up and move on to the next episode?

I've said enough.

You're perfect and wonderful.

Just really can't wait to talk about Abby's unrequited love in the next episode because I find that whole thing fascinating.

Yeah.

Okay.

And we're talking about the unrequited love in addition to the drinking, which also appears to have been an unrequited love.

Yes.

So far, it's a theme, isn't it?

I think maybe this is the theme of my life until you, Glennon.

All right.

We'll see you back here next time for Abby Wombach part two.

Thanks for hanging with us, y'all.

Sorry, it was so boring.

It was not boring.

It was beautiful.

You are beautiful.

See you next time.

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I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through fire, I came out

the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure I got what's mine.

And I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on back.

A final destination

lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do a heart pain.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the

problem,

sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue to believe

the best

people are free.

And it took some time,

but I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

A final destination we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to belong.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a heart again.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay

back.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do hard things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do

hard

things.