Committed – Details, episodes & analysis

What makes a great marriage, or even a good marriage? Today we're talking to Frances Mayes, bestselling author of the mega-hit novel Under the Tuscan Sun which has been a touchpoint for women going through any kind of life change or reinvention for nearly 30 years. Now Frances has a new novel called A Great Marriage, to which she brings a lifetime of wisdom from her own two marriages and her parents' tumultuous union. I adore this quote from the book: "You can hammer out a good marriage. Great is a whole other thing. Boiled down, way down, a great marriage happens when two people are big enough to want more for the partner than they want for themselves. Not just as much. More.”

Order A Great Marriage today.

Support the show and get 50% off your first Factor box, plus 20% off your next month with code COMMITTED50 at https://www.factormeals.com/committed50

What happens when you meet the right person at the wrong time? In this heartwarming episode, Nina and Mario recount their love story that began with a chance meeting in Central Park in 1999. From exchanging shy hellos to an unexpected reunion two decades later, their romance is straight out of a movie. Discover how they reconnected after years apart, overcame personal challenges, and are now planning the adventure of a lifetime together. This is a journey of love, separation, and a beautiful reconnection that brought two passionate souls back together when they needed one another the most.

Learn more about Nina and Mario's GoFundMe for their Sicily adventure here and follow Nina here.

In April of 2020 the writer Amy Bloom traveled to Switzerland to help her husband Brian die with dignity before he was plunged into the long term suffering of living with a dementing disease. She writes about their late in life romance and how she helped Brian to end his life in her gorgeous memoir In Love. This story hits close to home for any of us who have ever watched a loved one suffer and felt helpless to try to alleviate their pain. My own dad was bed ridden with muscular dystrophy for eight years before he finally passed in 2016 and I know that if I could have, I would have done anything to help him do what he wanted to do to have a more dignified death. That is exactly what Amy managed to do. Her story isn't always easy to hear, but I promise it will stick with you for a long, long time.

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Levi and Jared are ready to get engaged. But Levi has been keeping his relationship with Jared a secret from his family and that has to change if they want to move forward. This is a story about being honest, completely and radically honest, with yourself and the people you love before you get married.

I asked Levi if he was scared, scared to tell his story in such a public way, if he wanted to use a pseudonym. He didn't. He’s trying so hard to be brave, to be honest. Levi wants to tell his love story now....all of it.

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Raakhee and Agan had finally gotten the exact life they wanted. Then their five month old daughter was diagnosed with cancer. That could have broken them, but instead it made them and their relationship so much stronger. Raakhee’s thoughts on gratitude and embracing adversity are exactly the kinds of things we should all try to remember on our own good days and bad.

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Laura and her husband met in college. They got married quickly and had four sons. Laura’s husband was born a man, but always felt like something else, always felt like a woman. After thirteen years of marriage Laura's husband transitioned into a woman named Samantha. Now Laura and Samantha are navigating their new relationship as parents, partners and wives.

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Allison was five months pregnant when her husband Dave had a stroke on the plane on the way to their Hawaiian babymoon. Their entire lives changed in the blink of an eye. Allison had no idea whether her husband would survive this traumatic brain injury, and if he didn't survive if he would ever be the same. She began to write him letters in the hopes that he would one day be able to read them with her and their daughter. 

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We’re back, baby! On April 11th Committed is coming back for Season Two. Get ready to believe in love all over again as host Jo Piazza interviews couples navigating the good, the bad, the messy, the wonderful and sometimes the hilarious —-often all in the same story. As she did in season one, Piazza will cover an array of poignant and timely topics such as coping with a spouse stricken with a sudden illness, an engagement put in limbo because of immigration status, watching a husband transition to a new gender, processing the news that a newborn baby is diagnosed with a terminally ill disease, adjusting to marrying a famous person, coping with sex addiction, navigating marriage in a brothel and more.

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This Valentine’s Day we want to think about celebrating marriage for more than just one day. A marriage is ongoing. It’s a collaboration, an adventure. This week we have two bonus love stories, a collaboration and an adventure. We have a couple who met in Antarctica and has spent the majority of their marriage traveling to one of the most hostile environments on Earth...we’ll meet Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarehli who collaborated on one of this year’s most lauded Academy Award winning documentaries, Free Solo. Their stories are incredible examples of partnerships that continue through the ups and the downs of creating something beautiful together.

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Some of the very best love stories come in small packages. Last year we asked all of you to tell us your own stories in three minutes or less, and let me tell you a lot can happen in three minutes. You can fall in love with someone in three minutes. You can fall out of love in three minutes. While we're working on Season Two we wanted to share a few of these three-minute love stories with you. In them, you are going to meet Colleen and Sam who fell for each other when they were just 15 years old, got married, and figured out how to fall in love again after Sam had an affair. You’ll meet Shannon, who talks about what it's like to support your spouse when they decide to do one of the most challenging things in the world. And finally we'll hear from Christie, on how her marriage has evolved and persevered through her daughter’s special needs diagnoses. All of these stories could have been full episodes, but there is something special about boiling them down to their essence. The essence of a marriage. So, take about 15 minutes, settle back, and enjoy!

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