Gary and Emma Neville: Menopause, anxiety attacks, and opposites attracting
Happy Place
Fearne Cotton
4.6 • 15.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2024
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are you a Gary or an Emma? He thrives with a super social, demanding itinerary, and she’s all about lovely calm solitude. Gary Neville has had an ambitious drive instilled in him by his parents and his football career; his wife Emma is more reserved and serene, but they reckon opposites definitely attract.
Fearne had two goals for this chat, live at the Happy Place Festival: to get Gary into wellness, and to marry the subjects of football and menopause...
Emma experienced early menopause, and Gary admits to some of the errors he’s made in talking to her about her symptoms, but they also talk through the ways he’s helped her build her confidence along the way (spoiler: there were spreadsheets involved).
Do you ever wonder if you’re selfish for putting yourself first? Emma explains how she found the self-belief to start a new career later in life after slightly losing her identity to motherhood.
Meanwhile, Gary explains why his football career has made him into a solution-finder who wants to control problems in a practical way rather than dwelling on the emotional. What has he learnt about validating how his partner feels?
Plus, has your relationship with alcohol changed as you age? Gary definitely can’t drink the way he used to...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place. Today we're live from the Happy Place Festival in |
| 0:07.7 | Tatton Park with Emma and Gary Neville. |
| 0:11.5 | You're playing football, the people who are watching are not interested in whether you've got a problem at home or you've had a relationship breakup or whether you're member of your family's ill. You've got to go out there and play so there wasn't this idea of don't bring your crap in here. |
| 0:24.4 | Obviously you speak more now than we've ever spoken which is great but I think I grew up in an environment |
| 0:28.5 | where that wasn't the case. I think with Emma she didn't want my solutions and my sort of compartmentalized attitude |
| 0:34.7 | she wanted absolutely listening to and she wanted me to ask how she was and I understand that I accept that now |
| 0:39.7 | but that's not how I'm ordinarily wired. |
| 0:42.5 | Gary is of course a former professional footballer who spent his whole career at Manchester United |
| 0:48.4 | and since retiring has built multiple businesses including the overlap, a podcast that hears from the biggest names in football, politics and business. |
| 0:58.0 | He's also been encouraging his wife Emma to use her own voice. |
| 1:02.0 | She actually experienced early menopause so alongside |
| 1:05.5 | being a councillor she's founded this is me a community for women navigating the wild wild |
| 1:12.0 | ride that is menopause. |
| 1:14.6 | This was such an interesting chat for me |
| 1:16.4 | because I obviously wanted to bridge both subjects |
| 1:18.8 | and talk to Emma and Gary about their passions passions but also their home life which actually moves into quite hilarious territory. |
| 1:28.0 | I mean I knew that Gary was a good laugh having watched him on the TV, heard his podcast, obviously seeing him on the David Beckham documentary, |
| 1:37.0 | but I did not realize that he is basically a stand-up comedian without knowing. |
| 1:41.0 | He made us all laugh so much even when he was trying to |
| 1:44.2 | tell quite moving stories which is so awful but yeah he was really funny and |
| 1:51.4 | Emma was just so wonderful. Luckily Emma is a real big fan of Happy Place and loved being at the festival. So I was just so grateful that she was there walking around meeting people and really getting into the vibe and I loved |
| 2:05.2 | hearing her thoughts about menopause and early menopause and really getting this chat out there |
... |
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