Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 100. Celebrating 100 Episodes: Our Husbands Answer Questions Your Ex Wont (And it's Juicy)

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100. Celebrating 100 Episodes: Our Husbands Answer Questions Your Ex Wont (And it's Juicy) · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hi love.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Today marks the 100th episode of Dear Divorce Diary, which is kind of a thing, and Producer Joy had the idea that we celebrate in this super special way.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: So today's episode we bring to you something a little unconventional, perhaps a bit irreverent, so you're warned it is, of course, valentine's Day week, which I think is a BS holiday, quite frankly.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So you're not missing anything, love, and we share with you, producer Joy and I, our husbands to answer some questions that maybe you haven't been able to get answers to.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe say brilliant things, maybe say silly things, but what I want for you to do is to enjoy this episode and just celebrate with us that we have been together now for 100 episodes in a row.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Hi love, welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: In today's absolutely on fire episode, the husbands are going to answer these three questions why was it so easy for you to move in with another girl and also her kids, spending more time with them than your own?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Why do you take your new girlfriend to do all the things we used to do?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Why do men tend to think that all assets are theirs and they're basically doing you a favor by giving you anything at all?
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: So they're going to answer those three questions.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: They're also, at the end of the episode, going to give you their specific advice for your current circumstances, and they're also going to talk about their own experience with a primarily avoidant attachment style and how it affected their ability to live love and be good partners in marriages.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Love, this episode is fire.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I cannot wait for you to hear it, and I just want you to know that it was recorded with so much love in our hearts for you.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, set the scene.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: It is Friday night.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: We have just fed our collaborative family of eight, is that right?
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Producer Joy and I Okay, we have with us this evening our husbands my husband Brian, your husband John, okay, so we have our husbands.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: We have Valentine's Day week and we don't know what we're going to get, but we're like taking a risk.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: So, brian, my husband, y'all don't know, but he touches your lives every week.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: He does all of our podcast editing and he does all of the tech on the back end of the website and various things like oh my goodness, this business does not run without him.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So we're like insanely grateful, and producer Joyce, husband John, does a lot of consulting for us too, like when we're digging into big ideas about products we want to bring to life, or just the path of the brand in general and how we want to connect with you better.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: John has done a lot of round table discussions with us.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Just know that we spend like many a weekend family dinner thinking about you.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: That's what I want you to hear me say as I'm introducing them.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Right, we spend many a family dinner thinking about how we can use each of our stories, our paths, our pain, and use that for good, and that's kind of like what I think our family is about, right, like we've had a lot of struggles in our individual and collected lives and we want to do good with those struggles, and so there are a lot of nights that we spend thinking about you.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Gentlemen, what are your thoughts on Valentine's Day?
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: I mean it's commercialized as any other holiday.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean married you.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: I can vouch for your disinterest in the commercialization of.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: There must be one particular day that love can be spread, and that's just not true.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: How many times?
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: have I forgotten?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: To even not forgotten, but like not gotten you a card on Valentine's Day.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: More than one.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: It's probably tied for our anniversary.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, wow, all of a sudden I've been burned.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I can absolutely say, in 20 years I've never gotten my husband a Valentine's Day card.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, just like that I got redeemed.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Never.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I've never gotten him a Valentine's Day card Right.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: Well, I think this boils down to.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: You know, there doesn't need to be one particular day where you recognize your partner Like you should do that every day.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I feel that everybody does.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Right, like even us happily, can I say we're happily married, or the four of us happily married separately and together.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: So yeah, like there have been years where I have been so burnt out or so in the weeds that I have not been able to like go do an extra thing for a holiday, our anniversary, or I also often don't remember the actual date of our anniversary, which he doesn't love, right, honey?
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: I mean it's fine, it's right back to it.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: It doesn't take a particular day, Like if the person is committed, like it's not only committed on that one day, which is a commercial holiday or an anniversary or, you know, a birthday.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: It's you know, you show it and do it every day.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: So that's maybe like a maybe we're stumbling upon a character flaw of mine.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Like my first marriage, I feel like the ring, the day, the dress, the way it looked Like there, you know, like I was more obsessed with those aspects and not that I yes.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And not that I wasn't just the optics, but it was like checking those boxes was addressing my the anxious side of my attachment style, but that wasn't the meat and potatoes of it, right.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: And so I would probably have historically made a bigger deal of those things and made it, yes, look some type of way on social media, but that.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: But it didn't last.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And so now here we are with this man that I'm married to that has like, would you know, there's nothing he wouldn't do, I don't know.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Like it's just, we just are it's even a podcast cameo.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, no, he's doing a hard thing tonight, right, there's nothing you wouldn't do, and so I don't know, maybe I should be celebrating it, or anniversary, even louder, and then my default is to celebrate it less.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: So maybe that's like a character flaw of mine, but it's like I'm so secure in this marriage, even though it's hard, that I don't need to do it in a flashy way, but that I shouldn't punish him for that.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: All right, honey noted, but still, valentine's Day bullshit, john.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Thoughts on Valentine's Day.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Well, I, I'm not sure, I'm not probably haven't done as much research on its origins as I thought was like come, come through for us with the Saint Valentine's Day goods here.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this is my answer, you know like.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: I think, when you think about it, there was like a tradition of this courtly love that he was supposed to.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Spring is coming, birds are finding one another, I suppose something like that.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: So just to throw a bone to the listeners who do like Valentine's Day because a bunch of haters probably are a few.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: you know it can be a day where you practice some intentionality in some things.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: Now, ideally you're doing that other days of the year too, but depending on how your spouse gives or receives love let's be honest the answer for most men is sex.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: I would say, if you're significant other, likes to go out on special occasions, likes to share that on social media and it's being done in a healthy way, than Valentine's Day is a good way to do that.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: It is hard, however, to do it exactly on the day, so we almost never do anything on Valentine's Day.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: We do it before or after.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: So that said, I have a question for my husband, because John just said something that's really clever, right, if your partner's love language is X, y, z?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: But I don't think of you as the guy who needs some sort of like pomp and circumstance on a holiday.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: You're usually like the minimalist, like I don't need a lot, kind of person.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: So those times that I didn't get you a Valentine's Day card, if those particular times where I didn't show up in that way, is that because that's how you wanna celebrate those holidays, or is it because there was some comparison to my ex-husband?
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's a comparison to the ex-husband, I think it's a combination of both in our early years coincides with my younger and not as wise years, and I think the longer we've been married the more secure I feel in the marriage and the more personal development I've done over the years, having been married to a therapist, so like there's not as much of the social pressures of oh we better show up for this one holiday because everyone's looking and I deserve this, or something big should happen because it's this day and that's what everybody expects as they peek in your windows.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: And I think as the years go on, I care less about who's peeking in the windows and I'm more secure in the relationship and I'm not as worried that I wouldn't be okay.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: For everybody who doesn't know Donna Brian's story, brian was actually at Don's first wedding, like they have known each other since they were teenagers.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: He attended the first wedding as a guest and then fate closed the circle and they are now happily married.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: But, as he was just speaking, like there is a long, long history of stars aligning with them.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and in the early years it was all the stars of not aligning in the early years and it was hit and miss, hit and miss, hit and miss.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: So I guess in the early years of our marriage, where we are celebrating these commercialized holidays, it was that desire for, I guess, reassurance that this is not another miss.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: That's interesting.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, but I just related to it as I wanted to do all those things that moms get to do have pictures at the pumpkin patch.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I wanted all those kind of like.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like the Instagram moments.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you relate to that honey?
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's probably a similar experience.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we are in the middle of a series on attachment styles, and so I wonder if either of you want to chime in on any attachment style stuff.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Do you, are you?
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: aware of your attachment style.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Are you aware that producer Joy and I talk about it all the time?
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Brian, you have a heavy cameo in some of these episodes, but do either of you want to say anything about what you've noticed kind of in your?
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: You've both done so much personal development work right, which is a game changer in the sustainability of marriage.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: But do either of you have any thoughts, either just personal reflections or maybe thoughts for our listeners, whatever it feels authentic to you about your attachment styles?
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Marriage, you name it, the sustainability of marriage, whatever comes to mind.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Can I just say watching my husband read the attachment effect gave me so much joy, because he was just sitting there reading it and all of a sudden he go, mm, mm.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm like is this resonating with you, dear?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: He was like this kind of hurts a little bit, yeah, like, yeah, like this, this is real stuff, so but like it's.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: It was pretty funny to watch him kind of process through that event.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Right, and the attachment effect is the book that has kind of been foundational to the series that you and I have been recording Lincoln show notes.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Lincoln show notes.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: After reading it, I do think it it's very, very helpful to interpret what's going on in your own mind, especially to see patterns that, if not, if you're not aware of they seem normal.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: It's probably not the answer to everything, and I think the book even is pretty fair about that.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: When it comes to it does say it's the answer to most things.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Not all it says.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Not all, but a lot.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: It says it's part of the puzzle and it's certainly because it's something that is established early in your life and it's almost impossible to change once it's there or to completely do away with it.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: You know you can move into security, but once it's there, it's there and you know I think we're just I don't know.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: I mean we're still just learning about what kids pick up in the early years and from an education standpoint, you know numerous days have been done on that.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: So if someone's interested, you know you can go look at that.
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: The early interactions with kids going down is resulting in the lowest school readiness for people ever because people aren't, they're not being interacted with.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: They're being whatever.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: For various reasons they're being ignored, or you know, kind of given an iPad and left in the room, and that's and I guess what I'm trying to get at is if it can affect education, who's to argue against it impacting?
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: all the other areas of your life.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: I thought it was very interesting and I certainly thought it was, you know, made sense and the things that it mentioned as patterns I've seen myself after I look back over time.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: What would your attachment style be like, all four of us?
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: I'm avoidant, which you know.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: When it comes down to it, I think if you look at it, there's a couple of big patterns I've seen in my life.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: I don't really have any close relationships with people from high school.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: I don't have any close relationships with people from college.
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: It's very common for me to go into relationships, kind of say, and this is gonna end, so there's not really too much purpose in going too deep or on the other hand, you go, you can actually throttle up really quickly to try to maximize the time that you have, Like it's like well, Like go deep fast.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wow.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: But like can we just take a moment right, because the avoidant attachment, that's so powerful.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: So, john, what you just said is the avoidant attachment is anticipating already, subconsciously, maybe, something ending, but also there's almost a freedom in there to just go deep fast, maybe almost inappropriately.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: You didn't say that.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Almost absolutely inappropriately yeah almost absolutely inappropriately, which I just know.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: So many of our listeners have so many questions about why did he move on so fast and why did he go there with her kids so fast and all the things right.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And so you just kind of low key explain that unintentionally.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: But brilliantly.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: If a person is struggling with that of like why me like, why wasn't I good enough or why did they move forward quickly, it pretty much has nothing to do with you.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: That's what I would say.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: It has.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: That person, at least for me, I could speak in my mindset if I were to extrapolate that it's.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: You are willing to go forward quickly because you just wanna get what you can out of the limited time that's there, because you don't expect it to last Deep down.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Subconsciously, you don't expect it to last, subconsciously, yeah, from an infancy state.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Subconsciously, yeah, like yeah.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: And I remember one story especially.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: This is kind of burned in my brain because if you read the book he's talking about these stories.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: One day I decided to run away from home.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: You, literally I decided to run away from home, but, truthfully, I wasn't a baby anymore, so my calls for help weren't a kid sitting in a diaper or screaming, they were.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Something is bothering me and I want you to talk to me about it and the way I evidenced it.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: For whatever reason I don't exactly know why personalities would exhibit this way but I decided to run away from home, but I made a pretty big show of it.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: All I wanted somebody to do.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: All I wanted somebody to do was to ask me what was bothering me.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: I got my suitcase out.
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: I threw some clothes in.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: I distinctly remember I threw a two liter Pepsi.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I have watched your oldest child do this.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: I threw a package of ham Deli ham and I said goodbye to everybody very loudly and I walked out the door and I went.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: We lived kind of out in the country at the time so I went out in the middle of a field and I sat there and I ate the ham and drank the Pepsi.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: I was there for hours.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: And nobody came the.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: It was a joke to everybody else and it still kind of it was a joke.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a joke and you're getting choked up right now.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a joke to you.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: It's a loneliness to you.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: I think that the concept was for me.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: I just wanted somebody to ask.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: What's wrong?
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: What's wrong.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: What's wrong love?
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: And so that is avoidant to me.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: You know like when you realize that-.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Nobody's coming.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: Nobody's coming.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you learn.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: That's literally what he teaches us, right?
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Is that we learn to believe that there is no problem and feelings don't matter.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: That's what an avoidant strategy is, yeah.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: And you know, when I think about my family to try to be fair, I don't know if you know I mean, they knew I was just trying to make Well, they knew I wasn't really running away.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Let me put it that way.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Right Fair.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: But at the same time, I think what I'm trying to figure out is, as kids get older, their calls for help may be nonverbal and that.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: So for my own parenting style, I'll just be honest with you I'm extremely likely to go not only the extra mile but five extra miles to talk to the kids who have something bothering them.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: I probably go too far, to be honest with you.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: I probably do because but that but you know what?
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I just learned something about you.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I've never heard that you tell that particular story Relatable.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I tell the story about the bridge to nowhere and running away.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Similar there was no Pepsi involved I was not allowed to drink Pepsi, but relatable, right.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: So when I see you maybe doing more than I would do as a parent to communicate with our girls, because we are between the two of us, the four of us, there are four girls, right?
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Three years one is ours, that that's part of what informs your approach, right?
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: So for me, where I would cut the boundary earlier, you're in that field with your Pepsi, thinking like no, I'm going to go the extra mile here, yeah, yeah.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Because I just I believe I'd rather, and I do understand there's a balance, but I would rather air on the side of air on the side of asking you what's wrong.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Now eventually.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: One thing I'm trying to get better at is cutting it off, because you know you can't keep looping.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: So can I provide some context here as a disorganized leaning towards anxious attache, but this is directly context for you, john.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: So the next way is anxious attache have higher antenna for like preceptory antenna right.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Like to read this situation, and an argument that Brian and I have had frequently is about when I am angsty he like goes dumb.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: And I don't mean that in an insulting way, I mean literally the book that we've been reporting from this series right states that an avoidant attache's brain actually becomes less active.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: During intense periods of like conflict or high emotional anxiety, the avoidant attache's brain becomes less active.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And so there are these situations, probably, where our four girls are doing whatever they're doing right, and my instinct is to cut it sooner than yours, but an anxious attache's instincts are more attuned than an avoidant attache's instincts.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: So that's just to reassure you, love, that it's okay.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: You're doing a really good, like you literally are doing an extra job, like you could take that in.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: You are going above and beyond than probably you need to and not from a place of, like gosh, you're doing it wrong, like meaning no love.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: You did it, you did it, you did a good job, okay, brian.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Anything you want to say about attachment style.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Well, I guess, since that makes me an avoidant attache and my brain literally shuts down in the chaos, it's my job to try and recognize that in the moment and, like, focus on one thing and try and stay in it.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: But no matter what attachment style you are, it's the acknowledgement that you know what you're working on it.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of our listeners are up against issues where they're not in a relationship anymore and they're trying to figure out why, while it could be due to the other person not having done enough development in their own lives and understanding where their own flaws are, and their willingness to like, dig deep into themselves and do it and like, do the work.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: I think the four of us work well in this family unit that we have here, and producing this podcast and delivering this information is that you know we've all really strived to walk the path and to better ourselves in a way that we could turn around and teach it to help better other people so they can better themselves.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: So you kind of just hit on something that I'd kind of like to circle back around.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: As you mentioned the women who were no longer attached to their partner and how they were wondering how they got there, and you said it's because they weren't.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: The partner weren't willing to do the work.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: What would you say to the women that are sitting there thinking I'm willing to do the work, he's not willing to do the work.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Why am I not enough?
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Why am I not enough for him to do the work?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: What would you say to them?
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Well, it's not that you're not enough.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Your spouse didn't think that they were enough for themselves.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: They don't think that highly of themselves, are not looking to better themselves, like why are they going to do it for another person?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: So but love, you've connected those dots for yourself, that doing this quote unquote work is really about self love, Like you feel, like you've connected those dots internally.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Can you help us with that?
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I want to hear it from your Gosh ladies.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: He doesn't say this stuff to me like on a regular Thursday.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, over time I've connected the dots in my like older, wiser self.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: You know if you'd have asked me when I was, you know, 21, riding a four wheeler in the woods lighting bonfires?
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: No, it's not the things that were going through my head at the time.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: You still loved me then.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: True, but I didn't nearly have the self awareness then that I do now.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: So how did you figure out that participating in this relationship at this level was really about participating in a relationship with self, right, like, that's a, like, the things that I say are a bunch of like psycho babble, right, like, how did you figure out inside of you love, that closeness, that connection, that vulnerability meant self worth for you, the man?
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, as you read more and listen more, as long as you're like willing to look, read and listen and like take in some of the knowledge and concepts, you can see where maybe not anything bad that's ever happened to you in life.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Like many of the things that you perceived as went wrong or bad in your life, there was some self destructive component in there that you personally contributed to, and things don't change unless there's change.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: So you know, unless you're living for and wanting more of the chaos in your life like something's got to change and you know other people changing around you is not what changes.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: You have to change for yourself.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: You know, for our listeners, if their spouse is still living in that 21 year old mindset and they're okay with whatever destruction comes their way in their lives, you know it's the old adage of you cannot make another person change.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Only person you can change is yourself.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that was a real sticking point for me before you and I got, even before I would even agree to be your girlfriend, right?
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: So at this point I'm post divorce.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Obviously you'd been around for a long time, you'd love me forever, I had all these reasons why we wouldn't work, but at that point I was like once bitten twice shy.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Right, I was divorced and then I had come out of this post divorce relationship where there was domestic violence, like I was a mess, right, and I kept friends owning you, and one of my sticking points was this piece about personal development work, right, like I'm just revisiting that kind of moment in time where in your apartment in Coral Springs and I'm delivering the big speech about we're better as friends and you agree to read the four agreements.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't even know what that book was at the time but you had said it, so I went and bought it and I read it and again early stages at the time, like I read it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Maybe the first reason was to, like, appease you in the moment, but I read it and some things clicked and there were some aha moments while reading it.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: But I gotta tell you, even a year after having read it, I couldn't have really recalled any of the content in that book.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: But now you know, here we are years later.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: After that I've read, reread that book and probably four or five other books written by he and his son and have really absorbed the content.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: And you know, try to be better Fascinating, because being self-destructive is only going to bring destruction.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: What are you feeling right this moment?
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: Pride in myself for having walked the path for becoming better and not terrorizing myself and other people around me.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I love this.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I've never heard you say these words ever in my life.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: What is the difference between the guy who fakes it till he makes it and then gives up later and the guy who fakes it till he makes it and is not going to give up?
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: What is the difference?
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Does that?
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Am I asking the question well enough?
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: If what you're asking is how can the ladies or people that we're talking about, who are looking, what can they, what could they pick up on that would clue them in that this guy is a guy who's going to keep going?
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: Is that what you're asking?
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's hard Because I get you know, some of it is, I think, in general.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Sometimes you do feel, I think, in a lot of ways in life.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: Sometimes you feel silly doing some things, or or you don't necessarily have all of the passion in this particular action today that you did last week or last month, but you still do.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: There's a discipline to loving people.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Aha, so like does this person show discipline in other domains of their life?
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: I'd say that's a pretty strong one.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: If they don't show discipline in other areas of their life, they're probably going to really struggle with discipline in expressing and caring about the other person.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess Can I throw another theory.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: I hate to make it sound because it's not just like oh, just do the thing, no matter how you feel.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: But I am saying sometimes you do the thing that you don't feel like doing at the time.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: No, I could get that right.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Like Brian signed up enjoying the Marine Corps, right and he was willing to make that commitment to the Marine Corps and he medicaled out right Cause he like almost died I don't know.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Multiple times I think.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: But like there's a discipline, there's a amount of surrender that it takes to do that thing right.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: So, like looking at other domains of his life, was he willing to?
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Right, but you're asking.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: The question is you're asking is how can you distinguish a man who is faking it to get you into bed or to get you?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: into bed.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, how do you?
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: To me, there's a level of self-awareness.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think my husband had it when he was reading the four agreements the first time.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: He was self-aware enough to know that he had to do that to get you.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, that, that's what's yes Right like it was what took.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: You drew a line and he either rose to it or didn't.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: But like, if you're, if you're, if the average woman is sitting there and is trying to decide do I go on a date with this man?
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Do I continue to date this man?
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Can I trust this man?
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: It's, it's.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: But then there's something there about us as women too, right, like I was.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: So when we're gonna get into this because the next series we're gonna do is on boundaries I was so clear for myself that I was done accepting scraps, and so I never stopped tolerating anything less than above average participation in personal development stuff.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Right, and I have maintained that level of so.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Is your theory, producer Joy, also that we as women have a role in discerning that in the men that we're dating Like that?
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: What is your standard, love, and are you maintaining that standard for yourself and the partner that you want to have, and not making and making zero excuses?
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And is the partner that you have self-aware enough to know when he falls short or when he you know like.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: There's this whole trend on Instagram right now about like the green flags and the relationship with the green flags.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Right, but like, as Jonathan said, like if you're not, if he isn't self-aware to know that he isn't God's gift, there is an evaluation that needs to happen, because if he's doing all these things to get you into bed, then he's not doing them for your heart and for your, your soul.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: You know, like your soul, right?
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, so then this question is again for both of you.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Did you know, when you were wooing us, that you weren't there wherever there is?
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Did you know?
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Did you know that you were faking it and hoping we wouldn't notice?
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: At that point I'd say yes.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: At that point, yeah, and I do think there's an idea of and I'm trying to remember the exact quote, but the idea is there's a fine line between pretending and doing if that makes sense.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: Like when you sit down at the Thanksgiving table this was the illustration used and you wanna say something you're thankful for, do you?
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, obviously you've got some, you know easily, you know easy to throw out once, like you know your families and things like that.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: But when you really get down and you start thinking about all of the things you're thankful for, it's at first you may kind of pause.
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: Doesn't mean you don't have things to be thankful for.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: And by thinking about that and by verbally saying those things, even though you may not feel very in that moment, you know.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Vibrationally aligned.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: You might not feel vibrationally grateful, but you're practicing gratitude.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: But by giving thanks, you change your mood Vibration.
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: You change things, so there's that I think there's that aware.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: That's the thing.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: You see.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: You find what you're looking for when you right.
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: So if you sit down and you say I know I've got work to do and I'm going to do the work, that's like the thing that I'm smiling, or.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Even when.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: I don't feel like it.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: I begin to feel like it by doing it.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: I hope all that landed.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay, yeah, because there's so much data on you know, when you don't feel like smiling but you smile or like standing in the eye, pose that power position right.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: That there is.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's beautifully put that there's a fine line between.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you're gonna find what you're looking for.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: It's that simple.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's really that simple, like it's Intentionality.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, love, what?
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: What we're setting up here in the narrative is that the dynamic in our marriage and this is the truth of it, right?
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: The dynamic in our marriage has been I say jump, and you say how high give or take.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: It's not cute when I say it out loud Ugh.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Until such time that you have gotten to a place in your own personal development that you can that you're like no, I've got this, I don't need to say jump so much anymore, right?
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: So how can we explain to women what is healthy and what they should look for?
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Because I think that our story love dances dangerously in the like happily ever after, like Disney version of the story.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: I think it's accountability, you know.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: I think for women that are wooed early by the hopes and dreams of happily ever after and then do nothing to help secure that outcome and it all goes astray.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: I think the difference here is you are very good at boundaries and accountability and you apply those to me, and that encourages me to become a better person, which inevitably makes it a better relationship.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Well said.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: So it's just that you're just not willing to like I hold the boundary and I'm willing to lose, I'm willing to let go if you're not willing to come to the table.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Like it's just that clear.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I may be but that's what more women need to do is they need to understand what it is they want and check in on a regular basis, rather than once every five years going oh, I still don't have it.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: No, check in regularly, and if it's not there, somebody's feet's gotta get held to the fire, and you hold mine to the fire.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Frequently so.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: But is the issue so often that women, we are settling, we satisfy ourselves, we settle?
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I so.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I'm a disorganized attacher, which means I'm avoiding and anxious right and so John has always loved me.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I've never doubted that.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: But I think that because it was easier for me to avoid that's my default is I kind of avoid and I didn't really settle line or set a boundary and follow through.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: There were plenty of times I set a line but I never followed through, you know and so like, and he's an avoidance.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: When you have two avoidance together, like the world burns right.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't until he, kind of self-exec like, stood back and was just like, how am I the way I am?
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Or whatever he did this whole self-awareness involvement thing.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Did I ever like I would have never asked myself why am I the way that I am?
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: How did I get here without him doing it first?
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Surely, I would have offered you an answer.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: You didn't hold it here and we didn't have the relationship we did at the time I mean at the time think about it Like we didn't have the relationship that we do now, and so I do think that how you have to be so self-aware and self-secure in who you are and what you want to be able to say yes to put.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: You've always.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: You've always said if I put a bar, john rises to it.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: You've said that from the beginning, right and so like.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: But I was never good at that.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: I was never good at that and it took a lot of work on both of our parts to kind of get there.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I'm flashing to.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Just like before we came in the room tonight I said that I'll set a bar for myself and then I'll rise to it.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Aha, and so loves.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: This is me saying to you.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Right Is the amount of I can-ness we can embody and believe and have faith in right?
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Cause I don't believe I can do it on my own.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Like you know, there have been so many times I've been crying on the bathroom floor, the kitchen floor or the whatever like you know, up to and through like last week right that I've coached myself by saying God did not bring me here to leave me here.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: God is not a God of chaos.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: I need that on a throw pillow.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, we should right Next Christmas plans goals Right like he's not a God of chaos and he is bigger and smarter than we are.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: I like to call her.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: She, you do, but I Okay, I'm okay.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: It was less threatening to me, right, okay?
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: So this brings me to fast forward to this week.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we are not four people who are just like in some kumbaya state, Like life is still hard for the four of us sometimes.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, 100%, and cause we're-.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I just mean like life, and then for the four of us, right?
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: our goal is to be the secure or detacher Like that's the goal, but it is a messy process to get there, it's a process.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so, whether it's in our marriages or in our family, like there are still things we deal with yeah.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: Struggles will happen, but we're committed to struggling.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Well, Learn, and it's hard.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: But learn to grieve and celebrate seasons of life, Because if you're not careful, what happens is you get stuck on denial and you just don't ever move past that stage of grief.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: And you know, like, for instance, when your kids are ready to move out which ours are not yet, but like when they are that's hard and some couples never make it past that.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: You know, recognizing that, hey, we had, we had the gift of kids.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: You know, God gave us kids to raise and now we get to launch them into the world so that they can be people who contribute to other people's lives.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: And, if things work out like we hope, maybe they'll have some grandkids to come visit and now we have some time to focus on us and travel or do things.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: Like we're not at that stage, but I know people at that stage right now.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's like aspirational and if you never learn to anticipate.
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: Lean into the next cycles of life grieve what was, be thankful for what was and then look forward to what's coming.
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: And that happens in relationships too, to some, degree you know what I mean.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: So to answer your last question, which was, I think, really about what would you look for in just to tie this a little bit to the person If your person that you're looking at and you're dating, and if they never, ever, take responsibility and are willing to get off of the merry-go-round, like when you're fighting, it's a merry-go-round because you can say one thing, they say something back, you say, and it just keeps going around and around and it just keeps escalating.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: Eventually, somebody has to get off the merry-go-round.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: If they're never willing to get off the merry-go-round, that's a big red flag.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: It's a telltale sign.
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: Because if they are and that probably means there's some hope for self-awareness If they never get off it, it means they never see anything else as the everybody else is a problem.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Everybody else is a problem.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: So, what is that so?
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Ruby.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Ruby.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Hello Ruby, Send us some questions.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Ruby's, not Ruby's real name.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: No, yeah, that word being Anonymous.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Anonymous, yeah, have we answered all of Ruby's questions?
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Because Ruby had some questions for the men, right For the husbands.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I think we answered one along the way.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: Why was it so easy for you to move in with another girl and also her kids, spending more time with her kids than your own?
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: That was actually answered earlier about the anxious attachment about how you wanna get as much as you can as fast as you can, because it's not gonna last.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: And yeah.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Does that still Brian?
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Would you answer that differently?
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: I don't think so.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: I think you know if the X is an avoidant attacher, which is why they were able to leave so easily.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Then to John's explanation earlier about how it's also easy for them to burst into the next thing quickly because they have no expectation of it lasting.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: That gives them the space to move on faster and do more with the new person without ever looking in the review mirror.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like the story of your dad, Brian.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Which time Point me?
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah and so, but in this instance you relate to Ruby.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: How could you just like, you're Ruby's kid, right?
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: How could you just move on and start a new family and so, honey, you're Ruby, you're Ruby's kid.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: But does it soothe you to think of him as an avoidant attacher that just couldn't attach, or no, not so much.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Is that why John's answer is not as good as John's answer?
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: I think over time and again, with the personal development like I have found a way to love more people well and let them be who they are and not try to pick them apart.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: My side of the street is clean in that I did all that I could, as often as I could, to foster a relationship, to keep a relationship, and the other person family or not was just not willing to do the same, and at some point you just have to be willing to let the relationship be whatever it's going to be, even if it doesn't meet your expectations of what you had hoped.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: What you just said was so important that you have to be able to love people where they're at, and you know like To do that you have to not be in a victim mindset.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, you have to be.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: I love them, I wish them well, but I also know that they are where they're at and that is not a good place for me.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: For me.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: I have to let go of and grieve what.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: I want.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: I want a relationship with so-and-so, but I also know that they're not capable of that, and so I have to grieve and let go of that expectation of that relationship.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing, right?
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Is that where I think that we, as a collective, right.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: As a collective get hung up.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: That just because I can't have it with this person doesn't mean I can't have it.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: It was promised to me.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that my children can't have it right, like when I think about the time that I have wasted going in circles about what I didn't get from XYZ person when I could have pivoted and received all this love from people who were waiting for me to tap into it.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing is sometimes we have to let go of how we think it should look to accept how it could actually look and grieve through that process.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Grieve, yes.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: Speaking from again, avoid an attachment concept, as I've tried to boil this down.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: Why is it so easy for you?
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: I think Joy mentioned that that's a common question that comes up.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, why was it so?
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: easy for you.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: And why was I not enough?
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was too busy to get to it.
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: Let me try to say it this way If you're avoidant, what that means at its heart is that people who should have loved you did not express it in a way that made sense to you if they express it at all.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: They didn't really express it much at all.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: And therefore getting somebody who's not supposed to love you to love you is the highest mountain you can climb and it becomes addicting, it becomes a dopamine hit.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: Like drugs.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: Truthfully, if you can make this person, who's not supposed to care about you, care about you, it proves you're not the problem.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: Now, does it really do that?
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: No, it really solved the problem, but you think it's the problem Now.
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: On the other side, if you're the spouse having this happen to you, you need to realize there's two things that this person is giving the other spouse that you cannot give.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: But it's not a bad thing.
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: It's not because you're less than they're giving them unavailability and they are giving them kind of.
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: They think the relationship, subconsciously, is going to end anyway, so they're just giving them the out to go into the next one.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: The easier out.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: The easier out, the more comfortable the feel good out they're socially accepted.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: So it's not that they're publicly accepted.
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: So it's not that they're, it's not that they're better than you by any means.
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: It's that, this unavailability making somebody care about you, that should not.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: That's the draw that you, as a spouse, can't give them, because you've loved them for years.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: So while you were saying all that, john, you were getting choked up.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: What was happening for you as you were explaining all that?
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: It took a long time to understand that, like it took a long.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Like for you to own that pattern inside of you.
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: It took a long time for me to understand that and I think the other connection that, through therapy, I was able to make with my therapist is what they.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: We love her Is.
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: What they helped me understand is, I think for me you suffer or you have this hero complex.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: You want to be somebody Like you want to earn affection.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: You don't feel like it's going to be there if you don't earn it and ultimately, Honey.
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: I'm telling you, ultimately, what I got turned into was that you don't have to be anybody's hero.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: You're already some people's hero.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: I'm already my kid's hero, I'm already my wife's hero.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: I don't have to be here at anybody else.
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: It really Nobody else matters.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: That's a big journey for me personally.
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: That was a big journey for me personally.
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: So I think I get choked up just because all of that journey comes back and when you finally realize the root of the issue, and you see it you can then understand all of the things that have impacted you over and over again, Like when the illusion has fallen away
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: there's no more denial.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the truth, and you're willing to see the truth.
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when you finally see the truth that the problem is, you don't feel worthy of love.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: That's the problem.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: That's the problem.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: And that's avoided and I don't know all the others yeah.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: But for the avoidance.
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: You don't feel worthy of love, and so you just live that out, and the only thing in many cases that can bring out the feeling that you think should be there is by conquering the biggest mountain you can conquer, which is unavailable people.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: That was purely magical.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: Why do men tend to think that all the assets are theirs and they are basically doing you a favor by giving you anything at all, especially after a long marriage?
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: I really feel if this is the case, there's just no love there.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: There's no way you would treat somebody you really care about that way, and the switch is what I mean by that.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: That says a lot more about that person than it does about you.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: That people are not people to you, they're objects.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: That people are not people to you.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: It's dehumanized, it's yeah.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: And so then there's something I'll say that as painful as the whole thing may be.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: It's it's wounds, you're better off.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: You're better off, you're better off.
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: You're better off.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: You're better off.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and again, this may not make the cut, but I'm going to say it anyway.
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: No, I think there's.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: yeah, don't let Mary say no, I think and then, and then I think there's something for that, for Ruby to to notice about the like, how worthy she feels of love or belonging and the kind of man that she's attracting.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: That would treat her as less than human.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the circumstances of the divorce are probably indicative of how the marriage went on the whole.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Ah, yes.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: You know this is not new behavior.
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: However, he, you know, the one is treating the other.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: This is not something that just started, it is what has been going on.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: It's an extension of.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: It's an extension of the day to day rut that the marriage had fallen into.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: So Ruby writes why do you take your new girlfriend to do all of the things that we used to do?
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, all right.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: So I can't say that this is pound for pound my lived experience, but, like I met my ex-husband in the bank with his fiance for us to transfer my name off the bank account.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Like right, why, why, why did you bring your fiance to the bank to take your wife off the like?
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, all of that, why help me understand?
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: Well, in that case I would love to hear Jonathan's answer for this, because If you were there, the fiance probably wanted to.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's like a territory thing territory thing but peeing on your, let's just say in general again for, um, that's, that's an image In general.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: I think again I'm speaking of avoidant just because I don't know enough about the others.
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: And one ditch he's trying to hurt you by doing the same things used to do in the other ditch.
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: They're so good at disassociating that they're not even they're not even thinking about you.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: They're literally not thinking about you, and that again so hard to hear, as the female has nothing to do with you.
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: It's just, that's how disassociated right.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Associative guys of full blown psychiatric situation, yeah, yeah.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: It just doesn't occur to them.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: Or in the middle they're in, in, considerate our soul, and just you know whether it matters or not.
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: It it should cross their minds, but it doesn't, or they just don't care.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: So there's somewhere on that spectrum.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: I like that spectrum is where I would land.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: Is there an aspect to it I'm curious, Like?
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Is there an aspect to it where they're trying to recreate the happy time?
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I would have said.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Like you know, our favorite vacation.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Let's go there and see if that's what I would have said yeah, yeah, and humans in general are creatures of habit.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: So you know, if you all live in the same small town, then you know the restaurants you've been going to for the last five, 10 years, regardless of who you went there with.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: Like those are still the restaurants you go to moving forward.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so in my spectrum that would fit in the middle of they're doing it but they aren't considering your feelings at all, the impact of it.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: And that's not a full blown dissociative thing, that's just you know, yeah.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Your arsehole yeah.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: That's just your emotionally unattuned to the point that you're doing things that you should know would hurt your spouse unnecessarily, who's still the mother of your children.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, like I know I'm going to hurt her, or I should know I'm going to hurt her and I just don't think about it.
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: So that's where this, I think that answer would fall in the middle.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Is there somewhere in there where, if you've made a decision to move on and you're getting divorced, that like, for instance, my ex-husband I mean bringing her to the bank appointment that's like extra right.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: But like, okay, she moved into our house, like well, where did I expect her to move in?
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Right, like if you made a decision like just being willing to own and say like, yes, I'm going to go to these restaurants and I'm not going to kind of codependently like live my new life, of course right.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't be getting divorced if you were able to be this considerate of each other in a marriage.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: But is there some level where maybe we as women are like he's taking her to all the same places and taking his kids to all the same place, like, is there some level of that?
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: That's also maybe a little self-absorbed on our part as the women.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: I get the feeling from Ruby's question.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: That her ex is avoiding.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: That her ex is doing a lot of things.
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: A lot of things they used to do.
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and again, if you're living the same town, then maybe even the same exact places and everything, yeah, and I do think there's something to.
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: It's really hard, like I don't know how to say, to get over that easily.
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: I hope I didn't sound like I'm trivializing it, because it sounds like, oh, this person just stepped into my life.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: You know that was my life.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: I used to do all that stuff with that person.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: I know that's how I felt.
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: And like, wow, what am I supposed to feel about that?
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: So Okay, gentlemen, is there anything that you would add before we wrap it up?
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: That is just like kind of on your heart to say today.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just think to the listeners that are possibly looking to get back into dating or getting over a relationship or divorce.
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: It's something that just broke up Like you've got to do your own work.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: You can't make other people change, and the more work you do for yourself on yourself will help you to better set boundaries and proper expectations of whoever else you're going to let in your life next and then know how to hold them accountable so that they move forward with you.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Gosh, I'm proud of you, honey.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: So what you're saying is there's no shortcuts.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: Now you got to do the work.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: The only way through is through.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Well said.
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: Our pastor likes to say time heals all clean wounds.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: I love it when I hear him say that, and I don't even go to your church.
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: You might have heard you might have heard time heals all wounds, but that's not true.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: If you haven't cleaned it.
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: So give yourself some grace.
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: Day at a time is what some people say, but sometimes you got to take it an hour at a time Sometimes you're going to take it a minute at a time.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: You have to be like 30 minutes.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: I'm doing 30 minutes at a time and that's okay.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: And you know, little by little doing the work, it will get better.
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: Things get better Things get better and time will heal those wounds.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, just be careful not to go so fast and move forward before you've done that piece, because it doesn't go away.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just shows up in a different way, what we resist persists.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well said.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you, gentlemen.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Happy Valentine's Day.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: We love you so much.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be great if we just spent Valentine's Day together on this episode?
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: It's very long.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: It is very long.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: It's a crap holiday anyway.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: It's a crap holiday anyways, okay.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: If you're lonely tonight, if you have not yet checked out the Loneliness Roadmap, highly suggest it's a journaling product that adds bilateral stimulation.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: It's just unique.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: It's just something you've never seen before.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, so just check it out.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: The Loneliness Roadmap it's my mug on a video with some prompts, with some bilateral stimulation and some journaling.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Not gonna find it anywhere else.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Just give it a try Right, yeah, okay.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Love you so much, thank you.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you, dear.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Divorce Diary is a podcast by MyCoachDawn.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: You can find more at MyCoachDawncom.