Latest / The Smart Mom's Guide to Divorce / Why Women Feel Stuck - and How to Move Forward | Dr. Rachel Miller

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Why Women Feel Stuck - and How to Move Forward | Dr. Rachel Miller · The Smart Mom's Guide to Divorce

• Dr. Rachel Miller: Let me be honest with you. The research tells us that often by the time people make it to couples therapy, they're like six years too late. For men, this idea that you're a good guy, I don't understand this. I'm a really nice guy, Rachel. I like pick up the kids from school. I'll even like cook dinner and I do the dishes and I put my kids to bed. And I'm like, you did more than your dad ever did. I'm really proud of you for that. You realize the bar was buried in the ground and you walked over it. Is this a relationship that you want your children to have? And if the answer is no, we gotta talk about the degree to which you seem to believe you either deserve this or aren't worthy of something different. I have actually never heard a woman say, I regret getting divorced. Brooke: Let me gather my thought. It was like this is you know, perimenopause. I gotta Dr. Rachel Miller: I mean why do you think so many women in their forties and fifties are getting divorced? Brooke: Yeah and yeah. Dr. Rachel Miller. Hi. Thank you for coming. So you are a self-described direct no BS therapist, educator, researcher, and your work really centers around all kinds of relationships, from self-esteem, intimacy issues. And infidelity to especially high conflict situations and dynamics and divorce situations. So let's jump right in. I have so many questions. Dr. Rachel Miller: People usually do. Brooke: Yes. why do so many women try to convince themselves that it's not that bad or things will get better for years despite evidence to the contrary? Dr. Rachel Miller: Like there's multiple components to that. First and foremost, you've invested a lot of time, energy. You have finances, you know, wrapped in. If you've got kids, there's that com unraveling a life is not a simple, straightforward decision. And whether we believe it towards that point in the relationship or not, we love or loved this person. And so you really also have to reconcile with What does it mean about me if this doesn't work? What does it mean about me that I fell in love with someone and now it's gone? Like, underneath all of that, like, can I pull my life apart? Can I afford a divorce? Can I live on my own? All those things is still also the what are the beliefs I grew up with? Like about divorce, about like, is divorce failure? What does it mean for my kids? What does it mean for my family? Like, who do I lose? Right? Because that's Not forget, you don't just lose the partner you're divorcing. You often lose their entire family, maybe half your friend group. Like unraveling two lives that have been intermixed for anywhere from five, 10, 15, 25, 30 years, that's not a small decision. And so we should take it slow. We should take a breath, right? Yeah. We will go through phases and stages. In every relationship, we have friendships, relationships with your kids, relationships with your parents, your siblings. They all have like ups and downs. It's a bit of a roller coaster. And I think most women that I speak to want to believe you can get back on track. Right. There is hope underneath there. And so letting go of that requires a pretty deep grief process to make a final decision to go. Brooke: Yeah. Yeah. I I relate to this so much because, you know, my parents are still together, my grandparents were still together. And I was hell bent on making my relationship work. And I was one of those people that told myself, It's gonna get better. We're in a rough patch, you know, like all these things. But then you start to see yourself putting up with things that you never thought you would. you know, investing in therapy and therapy and therapy when, you know, the other person isn't as much of an active participant in it. Yep. So I'm just trying to understand and with no, you know, shame or judgment associated with that. Because I just feel like this is a really common thing where people will put up with this and live in this unhappy life for years and even decades. Dr. Rachel Miller: I think if we're specifically talking about the I didn't have an experience of that, so I don't really know like how bad is bad enough to leave, right? How bad is, you know, how bad does it have to get before I give myself permission to let this go? But I think there's a million reasons why people stay. And my research and the work that I do is high conflict divorce, particularly with a history of domestic violence. I do a lot of training around DV. and one of the biggest questions DV survivors get all the time is like, why didn't you just leave? And I'm like, okay, this is how you know that anybody who's asking that question has never had to wrestle with what it means to leave. Because again, there's your own beliefs, there's the not wanting to disrupt your kids or your family, but there's also like, we built this life. I like my life. And getting a divorce could completely wreck. the entire lifestyle you're used to having. And it's not that a divorce is about money, but it's about money. You may completely lose the standard of living that you've had. Your kids may spend half the time in two different demographics, you know, as far as like the type of lifestyle that they live if you get divorced. And so it's like, is it worth disrupting everything to get divorced? Like you should slow that down. Yeah. I tell people all the time, Take all the time you need. You will know when you're ready to go. Like you'll know. Now, whether or not you can actually make a move on it, that's a different discussion. But people leave when they figure out that the idea of leaving is less scary than the idea of staying. Right? When suddenly the idea of either who you are or what you've become or what you could become. Or how much of yourself you lose if you stay, all of a sudden you're like, actually I'm not willing to take that risk. Right? And and that's true specifically of like abusive relationships, but I don't think it's not true for most people across the board because leaving is scary. Leaving is like, I have no idea what's coming next. What am I gonna do with that? How do I know if it's the right decision? What if I make it and I leave and then I regret it? Yeah. I hear it all the time. And so as a therapist, one of the things that I sit with people on most often is the there is no judgment here if you stay, and there is no judgment if you go. You are allowed to make the best decision for yourself. Nobody gets a weigh in on that. So when you're solid in the decision you're making or you know. That the idea of staying just feels like it's gonna cost you more than what you'll lose if you leave. Great, do that. But there's not a right and a wrong. And I think so often people are like, just tell me what to do. Well, I'm a therapist. I can't tell you what to do. I don't have to live with the consequences of that. So that's like never my choice. But we walk through all of those things. What are the beliefs that are keeping you stuck? What are the You know, what are the actual logistics that are keeping you stuck? What are the resources available to you? But sometimes we just have to get to the point where you look at the relationship and go, There's nothing here to save. Brooke: Yeah. Dr. Rachel Miller: Like I don't even really like you anymore. And then what am I working for? Right. So if you're if you're talking about like how do I figure out how to go, number one, take a really good look at the relationship. Like, is this a relationship I want? Is this a relationship that I want my children to see? If you've got kids, is this a relationship that is worth the work, right? What I get from it is still enough for me to put in more work. The answer's no. You're kind of there. If the answer is I think so, okay, well then we go to sort of two, which is what are the reasons that I would stay? There's there's something here to work towards, but also like, are there reasons to stay outside of that? Like, would I stay for my kids? Would I and it sounds terrible, but would I stay for money? Would I stay for my lifestyle? You know, all those are valid, but you have to go through your beliefs and your values. You have to run that decision through your beliefs and your values. And a lot of times those will end up warring with each other. Yeah. Brooke: Yeah. Dr. Rachel Miller: And so that that peace alone can also sort of keep you stuck in a place. But the thing that I will say specifically to women that I work with when they're trying to make this decision, I have actually never heard a woman say, I regret getting divorced. Never once. And I've worked with a lot. I know a lot. I am divorced. Like I do not know a single woman who filed for divorce who said that was the worst decision I ever made. I totally regret doing that. They may have regrets about the process or they may be really traumatized by the family courts. but the divorce itself, yeah, that's not that's not a thing I ever hear I've ever heard anybody tell me they regret doing. Brooke: Yeah. And especially when you have kids, I find that people typically don't rush into it that it has been years and years Dr. Rachel Miller: Yep. Brooke: in the making. Dr. Rachel Miller: Begging for somebody, you know, whoever they're with to meet them where they are, to do the extra work, to try to understand. And that's like you burn yourself out. You just hit burnout. You can't you can't do anymore. And you can't fight for a relationship by yourself. Like, yes, there's some things that you can do individually. If you have a partner who doesn't want to go to therapy or who goes and does the like, Well, I'm here because she told me if I didn't come, she'd leave me. Though those are a good time. I do tons of couples therapy. But those are the kinds of things like you can still do stuff. You can still do work on you that will actually improve your relationship, even if they do nothing. But what I've seen that happens in that space is when you start to do that, you outgrow them. And then by the time they start to realize that you've outgrown them and you're going, I'm done, then they have a panic attack because they're like, I had no idea. And they look at me and go, I don't know how we got here. I'm like, Really? You don't know how we got? I'm pretty sure you know. Cause I don't know a single woman who's gotten here without having spent years begging you to meet her in the place where she was. And now she's outgrown you and she's no longer willing to wait. And so I do a lot of work with men who are sort of grieving that after. Where women are grieving it before they ever make the decision to leave, which is why it looks so often like women move on so quickly and like have or even just like have a whole new life ready to go and they're not super impacted by the divorce itself. And people are like, aren't you sad? I was sad for five, 10, 20 years before I left. Yeah. So the grief happens before for women most often and afterwards for men because they feel so blindsided. Brooke: Yeah. What about with women who have been blindsided? Like maybe they've seen that their marriage has been on a decline, but they weren't really paying too much attention or again, just saying, No, we're in a rough patch, you know, things are fine. And then all of a sudden, you know, their husband comes home and says he's met someone else and you know, and I don't even want to say just husband and let's say all partners, right? Dr. Rachel Miller: That can happen. Brooke: Any relationship. So, you know, what do you say to to those women? Dr. Rachel Miller: Mean I think those situations are really different in the sense that When I watch this happen, particularly with men, with men who cheat, they are often doing that without even it's not like they're begging their partner to meet them where they are. A lot of times you'll hear of there'll be things about sex, there'll be things about other stuff that had come up. But again, I've got new moms or moms of toddlers or moms with three kids who are doing 75, you know, all the stereotypical things that moms do that dads don't do, and dads come in and they're like, I don't understand why we can't have sex more often. And I'm like, because her brain never turns off. Can we talk about that? Right. And and so it's like when men come in, they're just like, Well, this thing just sort of happened. And yes, there are some that do the like, I was searching for something else, but I have worked with a lot of couples around Infidelity, some who make it work and some who don't, where they just sort of like slide into something. And Because it feels good, because it feels better than what's at home. And for the women who were like, I thought this was just a rough patch, right? Like yes, I knew it wasn't great, but I I thought this was just like a a period of time we'd get through. It's a reminder for them too that you didn't check in enough. You didn't actually make sure both of you were okay. Now, is that going to prevent infidelity? No. You can't you can't affair proof your marriage. You just can't. Though a lot of people try to sell you things tell you can't. Everybody's gonna go through their stuff. But something I say to everybody, you have to remember that other people's behaviors are almost never about you. They're about them. It's about them and where they are, what they know, what they're going through, things they believe. Like all their own stuff. And yes, it's gonna impact you. And even sometimes it might be about you, but not about you, right? And so it's like you can't change other people. And so no matter what is happening, the only thing you ever could have worked on was yourself. And in those moments where that's what we're dealing with, that's where I tell people to focus. You've got to focus on you because you can't change them. And if you do that work, your relationships usually improve. Or if they don't, that's your clue that you're with somebody who wasn't interested in doing that work to begin with. Brooke: What do you say though to women who aren't doing the work? I mean, I I can't tell you how many people that I've talked to, friends Over the years and everyone says, Well, he didn't do this and he needs to do this. And it's it's like, you know, you want every and I'm not like innocent of it either, but you know, you you want the other person to change to accommodate you. Yes. Instead of doing the work yourself. And that is probably one of the greatest lessons that anybody can ever learn is that I mean you are not gonna change anybody. No. Like you need to accept them for who they are and whether that's good enough for you or it isn't. You know, is is the question maybe you could be answering, but like what do you need to work on with yourself? But people I don't know, they just don't seem to want to do the work. Not everybody. Dr. Rachel Miller: Well, I think some of it is like it's hard to look at yourself in the mirror. It's uncomfortable and people don't like to be uncomfortable. It's part of why people stay in relationships for so long because people don't want to be uncomfortable. And even an unhappy relationship still has things that are comfortable enough for people to stay. I know my routine. I know their stuff. I know my stuff. I know their family. I know that we can like pay our bills. I know that we Can raise good kids together. There's a million reasons. But when you're looking at you, well, who wants to own their stuff? Not a lot of people. And if you are someone who cannot sit in accountability, your relationship is actually doomed at some point anyway. Because accountability is the key to making sure relationships can make it. Because if you're only ever pointing a finger at them and you never stand in front of the mirror and are honest with yourself. You're always going to be stuck there because it means you won't apologize when you need to. It means you won't do the repair that you need to do. It means you won't be able to sit with the fact that you hurt your partner 15 years ago and sometimes they still bring it up. What I find underneath that, though, is people who can't take up take accountability really often struggle with a very fragile sense of self. There's this idea that I'm a good person and I'll I'll use men specifically. anybody who ever watches any of my stuff, you'll you'll hear me talk about the patriarchy constantly. The men who come to therapy with me, they're like, my god, that word again. I'm like, you know, you're gonna make me say it. Don't make me say it, say it for me. but the patriarchy teaches men. what it means to be a man, and they teach women what it means to be women. But for men, this idea that you're a good guy, I'm a nice guy. I I don't understand this. I'm a really nice guy, Rachel. I like pick up the kids from school. I'll even like cook dinner and I do the dishes and I put my kids to bed. And I'm like, you did more than your dad ever did. I'm really proud of you for that. You realize the bar was buried in the ground and you walked over it. We didn't lift it up out of the ground and actually raise it to an a to an equitable level. And when I start to pull this apart for them, they really struggle because they want to believe, but I'm a good guy. I'm a nice guy. And I'm like, I never said you weren't a nice guy. I said that your expectations of yourself are really low. Because what society told you was an equitable partnership was never equitable to begin with. And I need you to examine that part. But when you ask somebody to look at themselves in the mirror, they have to be able to wrestle with how they see themselves. And if somebody at their core does not believe that they can make mistakes and still hold themselves in high regard, They will never be able to sit with the accountability you need from them. They'll never be able to sit with the impact they had, regardless of their intention. And what you watch people do often is go, but that wasn't what I intended to do. That wasn't what I was trying to. Doesn't matter, you had an impact. And if you can't own that, meet your partner in the place they are in the pain that they're in, see their pain rather than your ego. You're gonna get stuck and that's not gonna go anywhere. So when you're examining your relationship, I always say to people if you've got somebody who has zero ability to take accountability for their stuff, and I don't just mean like their crappy behavior, I mean like their impact on you. You can know your partner cares about you and isn't looking to try to hurt you, but if they can't sit with the with the truth that you were hurt by their actions. Well, then what are we doing? You've got to be able to do that. You have to be able to listen to understand. And if you're with somebody who can't do that, therapy can help. Brooke: If they're willing. Dr. Rachel Miller: Well, if they're willing to go, A, B, if they're willing to actually do any of the work once they're in there, and C, if you get a good therapist. Like this is also like a really big challenge. Finding somebody who can sit with someone, like sit with a couple and be like, I'm gonna hold both your feet to the fire here. I'm gonna make both of you stand in front of the mirror and see yourselves and own your piece of this relationship. I got divorced, God, 17, 16, 17 years ago now. But I was in a violent relationship. And even I can look at it and go, I was a really awful person to fight with. Like I didn't fight fair and I wasn't nice. Now, yes, he was still abusive. And I wasn't a great person to be in a relationship with. I got married at 20. Like what did I know? I had kids at twenty-three, twenty-six. Whoa. What did I know about how to have a good relationship? I wasn't the greatest partner either. But I can only do that because I can look at myself in the mirror and go, that part's mine. Not not everything that happened in that relationship is mine to own, but I know what's mine and I own those pieces and I've been working on that stuff for years. It's why, it's why my second relationship has been almost another d another 16 years. Like you have to look at yourself. And if they won't change, but you will, then you'll figure out pretty quickly. If you need to stay or if you can go. Brooke: Yeah. Absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said when one person grows, like you just don't want that anymore. No. You just Dr. Rachel Miller: Sometimes it's not even not sometimes it's not even like anger and maliciousness. Sometimes it's just resignation. Yeah. Like I've got folks in their 60s that I'm working with who've been married 30 and 40 years. And and there's like this resignation of these women going, okay, this is my last ditch effort to figure out if we can fix this. And these are the men that I'm holding their feet to the fire and I'm like, look, I am in this with you. Like I am here to help you, but it's not going to be comfortable for you because she's ready to walk out the door. I'm asking patience of her and work, like active work from you. They get frustrated with me, they get annoyed with me, but I'm like, I am here to help you save your relationship. Help me help you. But not everybody can come into that space with me and do that work. But I got a I got a couple of men who I will not lie to you, I've been super impressed by and the work they've been willing to do. They can get they get mad at me in session. They don't like me all the time. But those are the men who are there fighting for their relationships. They realize their wives are ready to walk out the door. And they're like, I want this to work. I said, okay, well then let's dig in. But if you don't have somebody who wants to do that with you, then why are you banging your head on a brick wall? Brooke: Yeah. Dr. Rachel Miller: hurting yourself every minute of every day with someone who doesn't want to do the work. Brooke: Yeah. And sometimes it's like, you know, to your point, you were married really young. You're not the same person at twenty that you are at thirty or forty, right? Like there's absolutely not especially after you have kids where, Dr. Rachel Miller: yeah. Brooke: you know, I think for for some moms that I know, you know, they've been home taking care of kids, not getting any sleep, doing the laundry and the dishes and the cleaning and the cooking and all of the things. And their husband's out, you know, just going off and doing his job and, you know, maybe mowing the lawn and doing those things. But he's still getting together and like drinking with his friends and like living that partier lifestyle and not really like evolving at the same rate that the mom is. So, you know, you don't have to necessarily do a ton of inner work to also grow and evolve. Dr. Rachel Miller: Well, I mean, the science tells us that like one of the biggest developmental stages of your brain is after you have kids. So it's like your brain literally changes and rewires after you have kids. And men will often complain, or even just, you know, if we're talking about, you know, LGBTQ relationships, anybody who's birthed a child. out of their own body will have a massive alteration in their brain. And the person who they are in relationship with who did not have a child will not experience that same kind of change in growth. Not because they don't want to, not because they're not invested, but they literally didn't have the chemistry change in their body. And so that's not anybody's fault. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: But this is where society has epically failed partners of birthing people. Like We do not do a great job of talking about those changes, setting up society in a way that supports birthing parents, just supports parents, period. Let's be real. Like we don't do a good job of training dads on how to participate. I have seen I have seen a lot of men really genuinely trying without a framework for it. Really wanting to show up, but having no understanding of like, what it means to own something from conception all the way through execution, if you've ever read Eve Rodsky's Fair Play, right? Which is who's carrying the mental load and who does all the invisible labor. Men have no framework for this. Like, it's not there. So even the men who are trying are often failing. And it's not entirely their fault. It's their job to fix it. It's not their wives' job to figure it out. It's theirs. There are plenty of YouTube videos. There are documentaries. You can learn how to properly clean a bathroom, change a diaper, raise a kit. You can do all of it. Anybody can learn it. But only one of you went through like a full like biology, you know, biological shift. Even though we know that dads also experience postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety. And so it's not like they're not affected, but The brain changes is not the same. And so I'm really careful from where I sit to not hold judgment about how and why men are there. I'm actually really open about why this looks so different. But that doesn't mean anybody has to live that way. Anybody gets to make a decision whether or not they can live with the relationship as it is. But when men come to me and say, I don't understand why she's so different. Let's have a quick chat about that, shall we? Because the thing you're expecting her to do is actually completely impossible for her to do. Her whole brain is actually wired to be attentive to that baby. Now, I will challenge mothers in the stay all the way out of the social media, Pinterest mom. It's it's scary what's happening to moms, that really perfectionist expectations, the ways in which we've I actually in my practice see more postpartum anxiety than I do postpartum depression because there's such a fear of like doing it wrong. And now we have so much monitoring of babies, like we have less support than ever for new moms. And and so it's like that changes your relationship. It can't not change your relationship. But if couples aren't prepped for that, if couples don't get to therapy soon enough, like let me be honest with you. The research tells us that often by the time people make it to couples therapy, they're like six years too late. So I talk to folks all the time, like you don't have to wait until it's a crisis before you come to therapy. If you just feel like there's some disconnection, go in, do some work, do some digging, get back to a place where you're growing together. Grab one of the, you know. I don't know, the Gottmans have eight dates, or there's a million, you know, there's the 36 question of questions to fall in love from the New York Times. Like, go do those things and actually tend to your relationship ahead of time. But if you've already passed that place, that's okay too. It's okay to just say, This isn't what I want anymore. And no reason to stay is too big or too small. And no reason to leave is too big or too small. Nobody gets to make that decision for you but you. Yes, people may have things to say, yes, people will judge, but ultimately. You gotta do what you gotta do what's right for you. It's your one life. Yeah. Brooke: And it goes by fast. Quick. Dr. Rachel Miller: So cool Brooke: Especially when you have kids. Dr. Rachel Miller: Absolutely. They're five. Okay, I'll wait till they're ten. I'll wait till they're fifteen. Well now I might as well wait till they're eighteen. Yep. And I'm like, here's the thing. Kids don't always appreciate that you waited until they were out of the house to get divorced. You rewrite the whole story of their life and how they understand their family if you wait till then. Like, do I acknowledge that divorce is an adverse childhood experience? Yes. And there's a lot of ways to put protective factors in for kids. Really, only requires one stable parent to mitigate many of the potential challenges that come out of a divorce for kids. But I've watched adults like be Rocked when their parents got divorced when they were 20, 25, 30, because it changed their whole understanding of their family, all the traditions they thought they were gonna have, all the things they thought that their kids would get to have. And so this idea of, well, I'll just wait till the kids are gone, I'm like, don't do that. Your children will not thank you. Like, you gotta make the decision for you. They may not thank you for the divorce either, but you know, they're not gonna thank you for waiting either. Brooke: Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause what are they witnessing? You know, what are they witnessing when you are clearly, you know, unhappy in your relationship and you think that you might be putting on this, you know, happy face and the kids don't really know, kids know a lot more than we think that they Dr. Rachel Miller: Every time, every time people come in and are like, Well, really carefully and I deal with some really high conflict folks, right? Like I I will work with domestic violence in couples therapy. I will work with perpetrators on their o like I work with some pretty intense folks. They will say to me all the time, Well, we do the we're really careful so the kids don't know. And I laugh at them every single time. I'm like, the only person you're fooling is yourself. I promise you your children know. Now they may not have details, they may not understand, but children pick up the energy in a space. So like my dissertation research is on high con is with adult children who grew up with high conflict divorce and a history of domestic violence. So these kids went through the ringer. And I talked to them as adults and they were like, we knew. If they thought they were hiding it, that like, no, we knew. And the really interesting thing that came out of my study is that there's a repetitive pattern in that. If you grew up in a home with high conflict divorce and domestic violence, you will every single one of my participants who grew up in that and had children was now in the middle of their own high conflict divorce with a history of domestic violence. And so I say to people, if you're talking about cycle breaking, the sooner you do that, the better. Like, so if this is a like, I don't want this relation, I wouldn't want my this relationship for my kids, right? That's often a question that we talk about. That's what I'm is Brooke: I ask all the time. Dr. Rachel Miller: this a relationship that you want your children to have? Would you be okay if your son was treating, you know, their partner this way? Would you be okay if your if your if your daughter was living in the same relationship that you are. And if the answer is no, we gotta talk about that. We gotta talk about the degree to which you seem to believe you either deserve this or aren't worthy of something different. That goes back to a lot of that self-esteem work that we often have to do. but these patterns repeat. And so paying attention to like What's the story I'm telling myself about why I'm staying or why I'm leaving? And making sure you're being really honest with yourself. It can be really easy, really easy to kind of like tell ourselves a story that's really self serving, but be honest with you because at some point, if you decide to leave, you have to talk about that with your kids. And so make sure you behave in a way that's in alignment with your integrity. So that when you have to talk about it, you can. Solid, assured. Even if you know that there was an impact, you'll be able to take accountability for the impact you had on them. Because you know why you made the decision and the fact that it was it was in alignment with your values. Brooke: Yeah, and again, intention is different than impact. Dr. Rachel Miller: Hundred percent. Hundred percent. You have to be able to sit with your impact. If you leave, if you're the one who files for divorce, you will be the villain in someone else's story. You have to be okay with that. You have to have enough self worth, enough your your sense of yourself has to be solid enough to withstand being the villain in somebody else's story. Brooke: Yeah. Mm. so let's dive in a little bit more to this high conflict talk because I'd like to know what are subtle signs that someone is in an unbalanced or controlling relationship, even if there's no physical abuse. Dr. Rachel Miller: Yeah, so most people will say, like, well, at least they didn't hit me, right? Like that's often that's often the conversation I get. Well, there's there's there's no physical violence. So it's not domestic violence. Okay, so for starters, let me remind everyone, go take a quick look at the Department of Justice website. Go read the definition of domestic violence. Coercive control, intimidation, and a multitude, those are in the definition of domestic violence. No one ever has to put a hand on you. Intimidation is enough. And if you read up on coercive control, Evan Stark's book on that is sort of like the foundational conversation around that. Is the some of the most damaging relationships are both are based solely on coercive control where physical violence was never a piece of the puzzle. And it never starts that way. Because by the way, if somebody put their hands on you in the first six to nine months, most people do go. It never starts that way. It starts with super intense really quickly. you might see some of the isolation piece, but kind of a hot take in the moment is that I'm actually really worried about how much we're seeing on social media around Here are all of the ways that coercive control works. Like, yes, I want victims of course of control to know what it is, but I'm seeing a lot more subtle and covert control happening these days than I've ever seen before. I think in part because more and more people see red flags earlier. So people have to get more and more. Like sneaky subtle, underhanded, in ways you wouldn't anticipate. they have to do it more slowly because people are more aware. And so what I am witnessing now is even the use of a claim of a victim position in the relationship and offending from that victim position. So I will have try to think of a good example of this. So I'll have somebody Who uses their neurodivergence and says, well, like I need this, that, or the other thing because, you know, or I can't do X, Y, and Z. This is my excuse, right? But I've also seen people use that in the exact opposite way of that, which is like denial of someone's diagnosis. I've seen like I ugh I see so much kind of like really underhanded kind of things where people think of financial abuse, for example, as like you don't get any access to the money. Right? I give you an allowance, you need to feed your family on fifty you need to feed our whole family on fifty bucks a week. I don't have any seen the price of groceries. or like I won't let you work. You don't have your own bank account. but An offending from the victim position is a partner who refuses to work. Who could work but chooses not to, and then will blame their partner for the fact that there's never any money in the house. We'll get their partners in debt and then blame them that like, why don't we have any money? Why are like why are we broke? so examples of very subtle things are the cruelty, but I was just joking. The slow, methodical. Isolation where it's like they don't really like one friend and then it's like the next thing, you know, there's another friend that's gone, and then the next thing there's a and again, it's so it's slow, it's subtle, it's methodical. It's the convincing you that you can't trust your own reality. That isn't how it happened. I don't you're crazy. That's I don't even know how you could believe that that's what happened. Right. And then you start to second guess yourself. The gaslighting, we way over to overuse the term gaslighting. Gaslighting is not somebody who just somebody who just says, that's not how I see it. Gaslighting in its truest form is an absolute denial of your reality over and over and over again. If you really want to understand it, you can go watch the play that it was the concept was originally based on. But it's so it It is so slow and day to day. I don't I don't know why you'd think that. I'd have no idea like where where would you get that idea? Like that you know that's not true, right? And they're they're deadpan. They're so serious to the point where they start to like act concerned for you. And like, I'm really starting to worry about your memory. Are you sure you're okay? You know, like I've had people, I I know people who, from coercive control and and true gaslighting, thought they had dementia. When and got tested. My clients joke with me all the time. They're like, we never see you take notes in session. I'm like, I don't. They're like, you have that kind of memory? I'm like, well, the fun part about my trauma is that I have a really good memory because of it. Because in my world there was this constant, that's not what I said. That's not what what are you talking about? That's not what happened. I had to become so solid and clear about what I knew. I it's almost photographic for me at this point. I can tell you where people stood, what they were wearing, exactly what words were said, why it is that way. the longer I've been out, the less the less intense it's been. And I will say everything like. Front to back, back to front, inside to outside. Because I was constantly told, you never said that. That's not how that happened. I don't know where you, I don't know where you got that idea from. To the point where I was like, I am not insane. I know what happened. If you feel crazy, start to write down the things that happen. Because you're gonna need to check. You're gonna need to lock yourself into the, into that like truth of what you know happened. Another tactic you'll see often is that deny, it's Darvo, deny, attack, reverse victim, and offender. And let me be clear, everybody does this to some degree, right? Every one of us has been like, yeah, but what about my feelings? In the middle of a fight, right? Every everybody does it. But if it is every time, and then at the end of that conversation, you are like, wait, how did how did we get here that we're now that I'm comforting you? I'm having to make make you feel better when I'm I came in here hurt. What is happening? If that is every experience with every feeling you ever have, and there is no room for you to ever. receive repair or care or an apology, be concerned. You need to look for patterns of these things more than you look for like single incidents. So people will be like, they threw a, you know, they threw a chair across a room. Okay. They screamed obscenities at me. Okay. Yeah, that's some high conflict stuff. Like I don't I don't really get super phased by that. What I'm looking for is a longstanding pattern of power and control. To control you, control your behaviors, control your movements, control your finances, control your time, stalking surveillance. These days that's a Brooke: yeah. Dr. Rachel Miller: like there's air tags in your car. You they want you to share, you know, all your passwords. They want you to share your location. They want so I'm always telling people, like, look at the history of the relationship. And look at the ways in which power over you has crept in, and your ability to be an autonomous person without being controlled by the other person disappears. Like it again, it's this like, we're these two people, and then you sort of start to watch it kind of collide. but it's the it's the control over time, it's the pattern. more than it is the individual behavior. Because all of us do abusive things. I have screamed, I have thrown things, slammed doors, I have done, yeah, I'm I'm not proud of how I show up all the time. I have slammed my fist on a counter. I have said, I'm sorry, you want to talk about that? I have no interest in talking about that because I got a list of my alongside things I'd like to talk about with you. Right. But that is not my typical pattern of behavior, but it doesn't mean I've never done it. And so you're looking for it as a pattern rather than a single incident, which means you need to look at the history of your relationship. You need to look at the people around you. And sometimes the people around you will see it before you see it. Brooke: Yeah. And it makes me think about communication issues because everybody talks about our communication isn't good every time. Yeah. Every time they come in. Yeah, we have communication issues. So how do you know if it is like if it's more serious than just communication issues? Dr. Rachel Miller: So this is where like in therapy everybody comes in and it's either like we have intimacy issues or we have communication issues. That's what they tell me every single time. and there's a lot of discussions online that you can find about communication issues, which are like again, the lack of accountability lack of being able to be accountable, the, you know, the not being able to sit with your other with your partner's big feelings, which is a huge one I see all the time. One of the biggest ones is just nobody knows how to listen. Nobody is listening to understand. Everyone is listening to respond. There are skill sets that a ton of people are missing. That is real and true. And so what I say is go give that conversation a try. Like learn some skills. Practice some speaker listener. Like practice what a real apology looks like. Start to like dig into what accountability is and what it isn't. really examine the trust in your relationship, look at boundaries. Like there's a million things you can do around communication. Number one, are both parties willing to dig into that? If I've got a party who's not willing to dig into that, well then I got some questions. Mm-hmm. Right. If I've got a party who is like who is never able to look at their own space and go, yeah, I do that. Never take ownership of their stuff. I'm looking real careful. I'm also watching things specifically around money and isolation. I'm looking for people who have really bad boundaries and who like believe they are entitled to control other people. So I'm really looking underneath that around beliefs. So I'll do all that work in therapy with people. While I'm in that, I'm watching to see if there's a different dynamic. Right. So Going to do communication skills training, go ahead. That's fine. It'll serve you later if this relationship doesn't work. Like it's still good for you to have that information, to learn how to fight fair, to learn how to sit with your own discomfort, to regulate in a moment. All of those things are great for you individually, even if the relationship doesn't work. You can get a ton of stuff out of couples therapy, even if somebody else is just sitting there like a bump on a log. You might be better for your next relationship. Props to you. But if that person is never is never invested in that, then I have questions. And again, I'm always watching for that coercive control, that intimidation, that dismissiveness, that entitlement, right? I see always the entitlement that plays out underneath there. And I think one of the challenges I run into these days is the very large and overly consuming conversation about narcissism and narcissistic abuse. I'll try to stay off my soapbox about it today and and just keep it down to this. The concept of and and it I before anybody comes at me, because somebody's gonna come at me, I know this. The term narcissistic abuse is redundant. If you go read the definition of domestic violence, it encompasses everything that is identified as narcissistic abuse. It's unnecessary. Labeling people with narc as narcissists or like having narcissistic traits, well, I'm sorry, have you met the American population? Brooke: I was like, aren't we all narcissists? Dr. Rachel Miller: Somewhere in another. I was like, everybody has some narcissistic traits. Yeah. And so identifying your partner as a narcissist is actually unhelpful to you and it's unhelpful to them. Diagnosing someone when you don't have their credentials to diagnose and having and therapists are doing this too. And I'm really having a hard time with it. I'm calling it out a lot. If you don't see that partner, you don't get to diagnose them. Like, don't do it. It's not helpful. Partially because if we're just gonna label them all as narcissists, well then you realize there's no treatment for that. And so now we've thrown away all of these people as not people, right? We've othered them to the place where we've dehumanized them that they're just narcissists. No, I would much rather be able to hold them accountable by calling them abusive, which is what they are, and entitled. I don't need to diagnose them with narcissistic personality disorder. Which by the way is a really small part of the population. And those people will never come to therapy anyway. So it's it's really not helpful in this, like, you know, it's narcissistic abuse. If it's abusive, it's abusive. Great. Then let's deal with that. Talk to talk to the therapist if you if you went to couples therapy, name that out loud. most couples therapists will tell you they can't see you because they don't know how to work with it. there are some of us who can and will. but that's a very specific skill set. If you are dealing with an abusive relationship, most couples therapists will not be able to do any work. And if I'm really honest with you about it, if you are with an abusive partner, the likelihood that they are going to change is slim to none. They're Brooke: Yeah. Dr. Rachel Miller: even people who go to like batters intervention programs, the success rate of that is two to eight percent. So I know that people want to believe, desperately believe that we can make it stop. What all what most often happens when I see couples and I start to identify that that's what's happening underneath there, because most of the time they don't tell me out front. Usually I can spot it and figure it out. is I have to hold space until that person is ready, like is strong enough and ready and can leave. And the truth is is sometimes they can't leave. Like I know that that's real for a million different reasons. But people who are abusive, who feel entitled to power and control over others, almost never change in the relationship that they've had that power already. Brooke: Well, and that makes it really difficult for the people that do leave, right? The women that leave and their co-parenting, right? So 'cause you have kids now. Yeah. So you're in each other's lives for a really long time. And when they're not changing and that abuse continues, like how how are people supposed to move on with their lives if they're just constantly getting, you know. Dr. Rachel Miller: This is where the conversation of post-separation abuse comes into play. if you're unfamiliar with it, you can do a quick search. Google pull it up for you. post-separation abuse, because this is this is always the joke, right? If you think, and we tell this to survivors all the time, just leave, it'll be fine, just leave, it'll be fine. As if leaving actually ends the abuse. It doesn't. It just changes the strategy and the tactics. Now, what happens, unfortunately, is The legal system is the mechanism by which they abuse you. Your parenting time plan is the method by which they control you. The the what are the communication apps they have now? Pick pick one. There's several, I believe. Right. They will just use those. Po they will use your children. Like the abuse does not stop just because you leave. It's The biggest lie abuse victims are ever told is just leave and it'll be fine. It won't be. I I tell people all the time, I do not judge anyone who chooses to stay as someone who left, who then left my children unprotected 30 to 40 percent of the time. It's Brooke: Which is terrifying. Dr. Rachel Miller: horrible. It's it's horrifying and it is the hardest thing you'll ever do. And as much as I would love to say to people, the family courts will. Land on the right side of this. Historically, they don't. Family law is an offshoot of property law. Children are property. The baseline is 50-50. I got lucky enough to end up with a 50-50 legal custody, but a 70-30 actual like time split. but my research also revealed, which is pretty well known but a confirmed the research that suggests that as much as the family courts and many people would like to say that domestic violence and abuse is only between the adults, it's not. The majority of abusers who abuse their partners will also abuse their children, at least verbally. Coercive control over a partner means they will very likely use coercive control on their children. And the courts will they will not they will actually They will actually frown deeply and consider you to be the problem when you bring this up. If you try to make it an issue in in family courts, a lot of times you become the problem. So I s I say to people every day, choose wisely, know you're gonna fight. I don't think I really celebrated my divorce. I definitely celebrated the day my youngest aged out of the system. Never having to deal with family courts again was a great thing. I was in and out of it for 10 years. I I have a story from someone whose children were twenty-four and twenty-six in graduate school, and they were still fighting. I know somebody else whose parents We're back in court again and they are over thirty. Like it just It's really problematic and the family courts do not help. Do I believe that there are some judges who get it? Yes. Some lawyers who get it? Yes. Some Guardian Adliums who get it? Yes. But you have to know when you leave that, like when people are talking about high conflict divorce, there's some people that suggest as high as 90% of those cases have a history of domestic violence and course of you course of control specifically. Right. And but the courts don't. have that information, even though I know lots of folks have been trying to get it to them. it's actually next on on my list of of places some of my trainings will be going afterwards because it's a it's a really big challenge. you can't and you I would love to say just get out, just go. But I don't judge people who stay because getting Having to listen to a recording of your ex husband screaming at your children for forty five minutes and they can't leave. It's a horrible position to be in. Was worth was leaving still worth doing? Yes. Are my kids great? Yes. The doctor behind my name only happened because I left. Right? That PhD I've got back there, that licensed marriage and family therapist, that all happened after I left. It wouldn't have happened if I'd stayed. We broke some cycles, my kids are doing great, but the process was awful. And lying to women about that or pretending that that's not true is super disingenuous. And so I don't do it. You know, and I named earlier, like your kids don't thank you if you're if you stay until they're they don't. Like this is the thing. There will be impacts that you don't intend, no matter what you do. Make the decision that's in alignment with your values. Figure out how to prioritize those values. So that when you look back, you're solid on your decision. It'll be brutal in the process though. Brooke: So what can what can women do if they're going through that? I mean, just you know, from a self preservation standpoint. Dr. Rachel Miller: Number one, do your research. Like find find the lawyers, find the the supports that you need, right? So get a good support group. Make sure your your family support, your friend supports that those are all there. Educate yourself on what post separation abuse is. Make sure if you've Get you know, check your lawyer. Do they understand about coercive control? Do they understand about domestic violence? Do they recognize, you know, how that plays out? There are educated lawyers out there. There's some really great lawyers who've been doing this work for decades, but you're gonna need to do your research. They're not cheap though, I'm not gonna lie to you. Like I w I wish that were true. But what I most often say is this. The end of the day, engage as little as possible. Parallel parenting is your best bet if you can do it, if you're unfamiliar with the term. Basically, what happens at their house happens at your house. What happens at your house happens at yours. Communication is minimal. Mm-hmm. Right? We talk logistics only, only when necessary. In my scenario, it was we communicate this is before the apps. This this is how long ago mine was. We communicated only by email. I had that written into my divorce agreement to to minimize contact. We used the school to so the kids left on Thursday morning. We dropped them off at school, they took the bus on the way home to their dads, and then Monday morning they took the bus home and I picked them up after school. So we almost never crossed except during breaks. reduced contact. Make sure your communication is is in written form. Expose yourself as little as possible. recognize that your engagement is the point. They want your reaction. So a lot of times there's a term out there that you'll hear called grey rock. I don't always necessarily love the term, but I get what they're what they're saying from it. Recognize bait as bait. They're poking at you. They're dangling a carrot in front of your face. Do not engage. Answer only the questions you're legally required to answer. Get so good at regulating yourself. Have spaces where you can go process that elsewhere. Get yourself a really good therapist who also understands what this is, understands the process, who can then like. Help you stay regulated and like, and help you develop your voice in such a way that a lot and your boundaries, you will need every like you will need boundaries for you, right? Boundaries are for you to control your behavior, not anybody else's. so that you know how you will respond and react to things. You need to. Know that if you get an email, you're gonna take five minutes before you respond. You need to know that regardless of how many ways they verbally assaulted you in person or in writing, the only thing you will be addressing is the question about who's taking the kid to the doctor. Brooke: Yeah, like the Biff response if you're familiar with Yeah. Dr. Rachel Miller: Yep. And it's so funny because there's so many more like ac this is how much better we're we're doing at this now than we have historically. there's so many more conversations about this. But again, it ends up not being about them. If you focus on them, you will get stuck. You will stay reactive. You will not be able to move through and forward. You will get that loop will just keep happening, even though you don't live in the same house. This goes back to the even if you go to couples therapy, do that work for you? It won't stop it, but it will reduce the impact that it has on you. And they get really frustrated, so warning, sometimes they escalate before they stop, right? Remembering that when you're leaving an abusive situation, it is the most diff it is the most you're at the most risk at that time. And not just for like when you first leave, but for like two years after. So Make sure you're well, you know, you're well protected. Make sure you have your supports. Getting a good therapist who understands this, or even a good domestic violence advocate. You know, some of the organizations here in Illinois are fantastic. get the supports you need. Do not hesitate to talk about it with people who get it, because you're gonna need, you're gonna need some backup for yourself. It's the only way you get through it. On the plus side, your kids will eventually age out of that system. Brooke: Yeah. W can you talk a little bit about the difference between being victimized and living with a victim mentality? Dr. Rachel Miller: Mm-hmm. What I say to a lot of people is that acknowledging that something happened to you, that that you are a victim of a crime or you are a victim of an abusive relationship, which I again, we can argue that term because it makes it sound like it's a participatory thing and it's it's not, but That is a factual thing that happened to you. What you do with that is then up to you, right? You can then have what we in the field call post-traumatic growth, which means you can work through what does that mean for me, about me, my future, incorporating it into your story in a way that empowers, or you can do it in a way that keeps you stuck. That keeps you actually more likely to repeat that pattern. Cause if you don't do the work on you to do the healing that you need, which by the way is a journey, not a destination. Like, if you but if you aren't actively working on that, you will get stuck. You will, you will not have learned anything about you that's helpful that keeps you out of that the next time. You if you stay in that sort of and I don't love the term because again it does do this thing that you're talking about where it sort of conflates a victim with victim mentality and that it's not. When people talk about victim mentality, they're talking about people who've completely lost their self-efficacy. What I name it for people is, you decided to get in the passenger seat of your car and let something else drive it. Or some of them I joke all the way back to, so somebody kidnapped you, wrapped you up, tied you up, put you in the trunk, and they're driving you through your whole life. And I'm like, I would like to get you out of the trunk, and I would like to put you back in the driver's seat of your own life. but that requires sort of some cognitive restructuring, some storytelling, some trauma healing, maybe some somatic work to see where some things are are stuck so you can't move forward. If the world is always happening. To you. We got some work to do. That's the space I don't want people to stay in. Acknowledging that you're in that like post separation abuse, acknowledging that that's what you're living in and you are still being victimized by both the perpetrator of your abuse and now the system itself. Yeah, we can acknowledge that for as long as that is happening. That doesn't automatically equate with someone living in a victim mentality. 'Cause a lot of times those are some of the most you know, those are some of the biggest fighters I've ever seen. They will fight for their kids, they will fight for their own freedom, they will, you know, they probably have a massive team behind them, whether that's friends, family, therapists, advocates. But if somebody, I don't know, 30 years later is still talking about, like that's the only thing they're still talking about. Then I'm like, where where and how did we get stuck there? Like I know what happened to you, and I know it was really awful. But often where that happens is there either wasn't enough validation and acknowledgement, or there wasn't nobody sort of guided them to the path of like how to make sense of it and meaning of it in their own story. So they could close that chapter and move forward. Brooke: Yeah. And I I guess I just see a lot of women who have been through a traumatic divorce experience and they're always walking through the room with that rain cloud above their head. And they are it's like they maybe they're continually being victimized by their spouse, getting the nasty text messages, getting threats, you know, getting legal abuse, you know, all of those things. And They just feel like they've lost their agency and they can't, you know, it's become now part of their identity. Yeah. And you just feel for them. Dr. Rachel Miller: You know, absolutely. It's an easy place to get stuck when it seems like it just keeps happening. Right? When there's stuff that why like we're divorced. Why am I still having to deal with all of this? Right. It's an easy place to get stuck. I have zero judgment about it. I know how you can get stuck there. It is easy to do. I I use the line my own therapist back in the day said to me, We are allowed to like stay in our pajamas. It's how we used to talk about it. We can stay in our pajamas for a day, maybe even two. But we are not unpacking and like living only in pajamas. Like, I do need us to get dressed. I do need us to go out into the world. I do need us to like recognize that there is more to your life than this thing. And empowering people though is is a process and it takes longer for some people than for others. Sometimes it depends on their degree of isolation. Sometimes it depends on the difficulty of what is actually happening to them. Sometimes it is it is like that loss of agency around how they're able to protect their children. Right. And I don't pretend that those things are not true and happening, but it's like, how do you make sense of that for you? Right. Like what is your story? And and having People who've had traumatic divorces or are living in a traumatic divorce, sort of making meaning slash making sense of what that is without getting stuck in the why. In the why does he do that? Why does she do that? Why are they like they do it because they can. Like I like it's as simple as that. They do it because they can. That's probably not the greatest space to spend your time and energy. But how you make sense of that for you, and how you make meaning of what happened to you, and then make it part of your story, not your entire story. What is the rest of your story? If you leave at 30, you still have 40 years, 50 years, of all you have more than an entire another lifetime. Like I got. I got folks leaving marriages at 50. I said, I would like to remind you that as long as you were married, that lifetime, that chapter of you, you have ex you have that much time possibly after this. Like, we have a whole nother story to tell. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: Like, the life I led then is. Wildly incompatible with the life I live now. It's not when people hear even from me, right? You look at you look at all the credentials, you look at all the things, you know. You've you see me on this podcast, on that live, on the you know, in this article, in that piece. Yeah, that wasn't always me. That's who I became after that. Right? People are like, How did how did you do why did you do the research you did? The the joke I sort of throw around is like. I came into this field not to actually do this work initially. My divorce was happening while I was starting to do this. And my kids were still, you know, we were dealing with their dad and all the things that came with that. But what I found out, well, I came in going, I want to know why so many therapists were so horrible for my kids and for me, they caused so much damage. Well, what I found out was there was no research on kids like mine. Number one, most therapists get like less than a class. Like they get one class period of a conversation on domestic violence and abusive relationships. Like it it's so small. It's barely touched. Then I found out there was no research on kids like mine because the research on domestic violence is done on the kids who have contact with like DV shelters. N most of us are not going there. Most of us are like the majority of people believe that those resources are for those who are, you know, poor and or, you know, maybe low working class, right? If you are someone who, you know, has a decent job or has a degree, or most people aren't going there. And so there's no research on kids who had to maintain contact. With a parent that the kid these kids knew was abusive to their parent, there was no research on kids like mine, so I did it myself. But that doesn't happen if you don't find a not a I don't even want to say a purpose, right? Because that was some crap. Nobody should have to live through that. I'm not over here being like, the purpose of my trauma. No, no. But I will just not make that the end of my story. I will make it be meaningful in my life in a way. That serves something or someone, even if that's just me. Right? It doesn't have to my my story is sort of big and obnoxious, and I'm like, this is not this is not what everybody needs to do. But if it just allows whatever it is in your story is I learned this about me. I became this. I developed this skill or this thing. Like, what is it gonna do? What post-traumatic growth can you find for you? How do you get back in the driver's seat of your car and let the rest of your life be your life? Brooke: Yeah, I I wanna say something about that. I had something in my head and then I was like, but I wanna go back and talk about the patriarchy. Dr. Rachel Miller: I can talk about the patriarchy for the babies. Brooke: I know. Let me gather my thought. It was like this is, you know, perimenopause, I gotta tell Dr. Rachel Miller: I mean why you think so many women in their forties and fifties are getting divorced? Brooke: Yeah, and yeah, I I'm actually like trying to get somebody on with menopause looks you know, like a doctor from menopause to talk about that because it it is a thing. it's a good lesson in resilience too. Like I like to remind people, even though this is the biggest thing that you've ever had to deal with in your life. I'm sure that you have at some point in your life dealt with other challenges and you've overcome them. And sometimes you just have to be reminded that you're stronger than you think that you are. And you know, how many wonderful books and movies have we watched where, you know, you want to see that character go through a journey and they will have a difficult situation, but you can come out of that and that's what everybody hopes for. And I think about like gosh, all the actors and musicians who've, you know, been in and out of rehab and all these horrible things and we're still rooting for them. Right. Dr. Rachel Miller: Yeah, we do. And I think that's the conversation about like how do you have how do you give it meaning in your life doesn't mean you have to make it the like, you know, I I overcame. You can just do the and I move forward. Mm-hmm. And I chose differently the next time. And today I got up. And the process is hard. Like I I don't joke with people. Like I I do not lie to anybody about how difficult divorce is. Cause like you should make an educated decision on what you're gonna do. So I don't pull any punches about it. Like if you if you want somebody who's gonna sugarcoat it for you, I am not the person for you to talk to. I will tell you all the things. And I'll borrow Glenn and Doyle's, you know, with all the caveats around her and all the things. This is hard, and you can do hard things. Like you have done hard things before, you can do hard things again. And this will be one more hard thing you've made it past or through, pick your word. Like writing the story of your life, you are the only one who can do that. The only one who can make sense of this in a way that's meaningful for you. Brooke: Absolutely. There is so much more left in this conversation, so come back next week for part two. We dig more into the patriarchy and how it shapes what women believe about relationships and motherhood. Hearing Dr. Miller's insights on this blew my mind, and it's one of the reasons that I wanted her on the show. We also dive into betrayal and not just infidelity, the realities of co-parenting, the question every mom should ask before deciding whether to stay or go, and so much more. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already so you don't miss it. See you next week.