Personally: Forever is a Long Time – Details, episodes & analysis
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Personally: Forever is a Long Time
CBC
Frequency: 1 episode/28d. Total Eps: 37

When Ian Coss decided to get married, every living member of his family who had ever been married had also gotten divorced: parents, grandparents, and all his aunts and uncles on both sides — some of them twice. Today, he has questions: What is the value of a lifetime commitment? Are we doomed to recycle the patterns of behaviour we get from our ancestors? Are we all just better off alone? Forever is a Long Time is a five-episode series that weaves reflection and original music through Ian’s conversations with his wife and divorced family members — a look at love with people who have made mistakes.
Get lost in someone else’s life. From a mysterious childhood spent on the run, to a courageous escape from domestic violence, each season of Personally invites you to explore the human experience in all its complexity, one story — or season — at a time. This is what it sounds like to be human.
Hear episodes early and ad-free on CBC Stories Premium on Apple Podcasts.
Season 1 | Run, Hide, Repeat: a story of a childhood spent on the run.
Season 2 | Welcome to Paradise: a courageous escape from domestic violence.
Season 3 | Short Sighted: an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds.
Season 4 | Sorry About The Kid: an emotional, deeply personal meditation on the loss of a sibling.
Season 5 | Toy Soldier: The unbelievable story of a Jewish boy amongst Nazis.
Season 6 | Forever is a Long Time: Every living member of Ian Coss' family who has been married has gotten divorced. Can his marriage end differently?
Recent rankings
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Apple Podcasts
🇨🇦 Canada - documentary
29/07/2025#25🇺🇸 USA - documentary
29/07/2025#100🇨🇦 Canada - documentary
28/07/2025#23🇩🇪 Germany - documentary
28/07/2025#98🇺🇸 USA - documentary
28/07/2025#96🇨🇦 Canada - documentary
27/07/2025#20🇨🇦 Canada - societyAndCulture
27/07/2025#94🇩🇪 Germany - documentary
27/07/2025#72🇺🇸 USA - documentary
27/07/2025#90🇨🇦 Canada - documentary
26/07/2025#20
Spotify
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See all- https://apple.co/cbcstories
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See allScore global : 63%
Publication history
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Welcome to Paradise | EP 3: L is for Love
Season 2 · Episode 3
mercredi 28 août 2024 • Duration 33:22
Welcome to Paradise | EP 2: See What You Made Me Do
Season 2 · Episode 2
mercredi 21 août 2024 • Duration 29:51
Pat seems charming, funny and worldly – the perfect husband. But shortly after their wedding, Anna Maria discovers the man she’s married is an entirely different person behind closed doors. If you or someone you know is affected by intimate partner violence, you can find a list of resources here. Find transcripts of this series here.
Welcome to Paradise | EP 1: One of Those People You Hear About
Season 2 · Episode 1
mercredi 14 août 2024 • Duration 30:04
Ready to reveal her longest-held secret, Anna Maria Tremonti talks to her therapist about a trauma from 40 years ago that’s the source of shame and self-loathing. She’s reported on gender-based violence many times as a journalist, including from war zones – but this time, she’s telling her own story. If you or someone you know is affected by intimate partner violence, you can find a list of resources here. Click here for transcripts of this series.
Introducing Welcome to Paradise
Season 2 · Episode 1
mercredi 7 août 2024 • Duration 02:18
As one of Canada’s most respected journalists, Anna Maria Tremonti has a reputation for being fearless. She’s reported from some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. But there’s one story she’s never made public: when she was 23 years old, she married a man who beat her. Their marriage only lasted one year but the consequences of that abuse lasted a lifetime. Now she's telling her own story. This is Welcome to Paradise.
If you or someone you know is affected by intimate partner violence, you can find a list of resources at cbc.ca/WTPresources.
Run, Hide, Repeat | EP 5: Stan's World
Season 1 · Episode 5
lundi 12 décembre 2022 • Duration 52:09
Pauline sets out to understand Stan’s mind and motives. She meets up with his son, John, who has some very strange stories of his own. And Pauline finally comes across a potential answer – something that could explain all of Stan's actions. But will it be enough to forgive him? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/run-hide-repeat-transcripts-listen-1.6682766
Run, Hide, Repeat | EP 4: Saving Mom
Season 1 · Episode 4
lundi 5 décembre 2022 • Duration 41:38
Pauline is struggling with doubts — the details of her family’s secret seem outrageous. But why would Stan and her mother lie to her? Pauline sets up a sting to find out once and for all if Stan and Ruth are telling the truth. And what she discovers changes her relationship with Ruth forever. Pauline, desperate to reconcile what Ruth has done to her, turns to understanding her mom’s troubled past. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/run-hide-repeat-transcripts-listen-1.6682766
Run, Hide, Repeat | EP 3: The Weird World
Season 1 · Episode 3
lundi 28 novembre 2022 • Duration 54:43
Based on her mother and Stan’s stunning revelations, Pauline and her brother Ted start sifting through their childhood memories and matching them to the once unexplained events. Stan and Ruth, now openly a couple, are going deep undercover — and they want Pauline to join them. Pauline must choose between joining her mother in the unknown and leaving behind everyone else she loves in the world she knows. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/run-hide-repeat-transcripts-listen-1.6682766
Run, Hide, Repeat | EP 2: On The Run
Season 1 · Episode 2
lundi 21 novembre 2022 • Duration 36:08
Now a teenager living in Saint John, the secrecy and unexplained moves wear Pauline down. Eventually she graduates and starts a career in journalism thinking she can start to live a normal life. That changes in February 1988 when her mother Ruth says she’s finally ready to tell Pauline everything. Sitting alongside Stan, Ruth’s secret shocks Pauline. Pauline realizes her life is in danger — and she will never look at her past the same way. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/run-hide-repeat-transcripts-listen-1.6682766
Run, Hide, Repeat | EP 1: Don't Tell
Season 1 · Episode 1
lundi 14 novembre 2022 • Duration 32:38
It’s 1971 and Ruth Dakin is going through a messy divorce and fears for the future of her young children, Pauline and Ted. She meets Stan Sears, a United Church Minister, a man who offered comfort and safe harbour. But the encounter would change her life – and the lives of her children – forever. Soon, odd, unexplained things start to happen and the young family is suddenly on the run, uprooted from their cozy home in North Vancouver to Winnipeg and then eventually to New Brunswick. The children are told not to tell anyone, and there are no goodbyes — not even to their father. Also on the move? Stan and his wife Sybil. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/run-hide-repeat-transcripts-listen-1.6682766
Introducing Run, Hide, Repeat
Season 1
jeudi 27 octobre 2022 • Duration 02:50
Best-selling author and journalist Pauline Dakin takes you on an immersive journey into a childhood spent on the run, one where unexplained moves and disturbing events took place under a shroud of secrecy. When Pauline was finally told what her family was running from, she was left with more questions than answers.