Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / You Can Always Do Better Than Someone Who Treats You Badly

Transcript

You Can Always Do Better Than Someone Who Treats You Badly · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
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  Psych mom show today, we are going to be talking about how
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  you can always do better than somebody who treats you badly.
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  And if you are securely attached and you grow up in a happy home
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  seeing a loving marriage, this makes total sense to you.
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  And for those of us who were not that lucky, then it may be a
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  harder sell, but I am up to the task.
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  Before we dive in, please do subscribe, I'm going to be up to
• 0:32
  my 80th episode soon. That's it.
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  Subscribe. Episode, there's hundreds of
• 0:37
  these free episodes and that is about how acts of service and
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  physical touch, our kind of opposite Love Languages and I go
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  into that in depth. So anyway what we are talking
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  about is the fact that some people say well I'm not happy in
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  my marriage but I couldn't do better than my spouse and look
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  if you're not happy in your marriage because you are
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  dissatisfied with them because they're just like not perfect
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  enough and you know not Like whatever, like a perfect ideal
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  human from romance, novel, or a porn movie, or whatever.
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  Well, then that's a you problem. But and you got to kind of
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  accept that nobody's perfect. But in most cases, what people
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  mean by that is my partner doesn't seem to love me or
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  outright says, they don't love me.
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  Isn't very nice to me. And doesn't really treat me very
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  well and makes it pretty obvious that that they do.
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  Not find much value in me but somehow they're the best.
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  I could do, how are they the best you could do?
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  I mean, what would the other people be lighting you on fire?
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  You know I mean it's like what is the comparison Point here?
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  This is as low as it should get in an intimate relationship,
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  this is a 0 out of 10. If the person doesn't love you
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  there is not a love relationship so I could see if you're saying
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  I'm staying because of the kids or even I'm staying because
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  Because we can't afford to divorce.
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  These things are, you know, usually can be worked out, you
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  know, but it's not, it's not as as obvious as a sign of low
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  self-worth as somebody saying, my partner doesn't love me but
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  yet they're the best that I could do.
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  No, they are not. Now, let me tell you why.
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  You would think that you would think that because you grew up
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  in a home where you did not feel loved or valued.
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  If you did not feel Of their valued and you were never really
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  good enough and you were made to feel inadequate and you were
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  made to feel like a second-class citizen in one way or another or
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  you were ignored or devalued or certainly.
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  If you were abused or neglected, then you don't really think you
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  have much worth anyway. So for your partner not to love
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  you or care about you or Express, anything positive
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  towards you is, it's not surprising.
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  You don't necessarily feel like you deserve that anyway, and I
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  talked a lot about About this in my podcasts on when you don't
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  think you deserve to have a good sex life when you don't think
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  you deserve to be happy, I have posted about that too.
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  And usually what this also means is that you're depressed, so not
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  only do you have low self-esteem but you're probably very
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  depressed between the childhood, which is definite.
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  If you stay in a Loveless marriage, there's always
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  childhood issues at play. If you feel like you deserve to
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  be there if you hate every second of it and you're like,
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  Adding to get out as soon as the kids turn 18.
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  Well then at least maybe you got a little bit more to work within
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  the self esteem department. But if you're saying that, I got
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  to stay in this for the rest of my life, because I couldn't do
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  better than somebody who doesn't even like me.
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  No, that isn't true, that isn't true.
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  The person in order to do better, a person would only have
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  to be nice to you. That's doable, that's really is
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  doable. You know, you are a person of
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  worth a Person of value. Even if you didn't think so
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  growing up, which of course, LED you to reenact that as, you
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  know, if you've been listening to my podcast, you replicate how
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  you grew up subconsciously. So somebody that grew up being
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  talked down to and being shit on basically at home is going to be
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  drawn to somebody who does the same thing.
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  Not because they want that they yearn for something totally
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  different, but it would not feel comfortable, you know, I just
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  had a either a poster podcast or something about think was a
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  podcast on when you broke up with people that I do too much
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  and then you ended up with somebody who didn't like you
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  that much. Why?
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  Because it's familiar. It's familiar to always be
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  courting. The attention of somebody that
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  you can't ever fully get the attention of, you know, trying
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  to impress. Somebody who's never impressed
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  trying to get somebody to love you.
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  Who doesn't love you. You know, that's very familiar
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  territory. If you were raised in a very
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  similar home environment and so you end up thinking when you
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  were raised in a dysfunctional, Home that you're just not meant
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  for things like love, that just does not happen for people like
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  you. And you may think that's because
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  you're ugly or because you're stupid or because you don't look
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  a certain way or don't act a certain way, or whatever.
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  You may not even interrogate it that much.
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  Except to think it's always been this way.
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  You know, I've always kind of been on the periphery of human,
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  you know, existence and I don't get things like a mutually
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  loving relationship. So the best I could get is this
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  person who looks good. Everybody from the outside
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  frequently they don't even frequently.
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  They're like everybody thinks they're kind of an asshole or
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  mean or cold or something but let's even say that they look
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  great to everybody on the outside.
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  Looks to everybody else that you have a good marriage.
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  But then internally, the marriage is just nothing.
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  This person does not really care for you at all.
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  So, and there are many, many people in these situations,
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  think about it. If 10% and people are in sexless
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  marriages, you think there's a lot of love there in most cases,
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  certainly not. Not, you know, I mean those
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  things usually go hand in hand. Unless of course I apologize.
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  I still have my voice issue but, you know, usually when when
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  people when the physical affection and the romance is
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  just totally gone. Usually, the romantic love is
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  gone to but in some situations, there's health concerns or a lot
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  or real old age or whatever and the people still love each other
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  even though they're in a sexless marriage, or one, or both,
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  people just have no sex drive for whatever reason.
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  But in most Cases. So let's say it's like around
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  ten percent. Let's even say it's like 5%,
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  some 5% of people, and then there's all the people who are
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  having sex, but it's Loveless sex, right?
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  So, I don't know, I don't know what percent of people are in
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  Loveless marriages. Maybe somebody wants to Google
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  that depressing statistic, but in my field I see it a lot,
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  right? And nobody deserves to be in a
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  Loveless marriage and especially nobody deserves to be in a
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  Loveless marriage, because they think that this is somehow it's
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  good as they could get, it is Is Never As Good As you could get
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  to be with somebody who does not treat you well or who does not
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  love you. You know, this is not a
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  relationship that somebody should say.
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  This is the Pinnacle of what I can do.
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  Everybody that I have ever seen this actively searching for
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  love. That really genuinely wants to
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  be connected with somebody ends up connected with somebody in
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  some way. It's not like that relationship
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  will last forever. But I've never I work with lots
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  and lots of people who are divorcing pre divorce
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  post-divorce Never have I seen and everybody's always like, no,
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  no, I'm the weird one. I'm gonna go on a dating web
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  sites and I'm gonna, you know, join groups for singles and
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  whatever and I'm the one who's going to have zero success.
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  You don't no, no, no, you don't know.
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  I'm going to have zero success and invariably that just doesn't
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  happen. They end up on dates with people
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  who treat them nice, they end up like you could be treated nicer
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  on a first date with a stranger. Then you were treated for the
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  entirety of a multi-decade marriage.
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  H, if it's the wrong marriage, you know?
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  And because at least it's person doesn't hate you, right?
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  I mean they just met you. So the point is is you really
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  need to interrogate your innate assumption that usually goes on
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  explored, that's for whatever reason.
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  You are this person, this the solitary person that that is a
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  unique situation that cannot do better than a person who hates
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  that or dislikes. That honestly, the opposite of
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  Love is hate. So I know that the real opposite
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  is indifferent, you know, whatever, I'm angle that same
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  but the opposite of Love isn't hate.
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  Its indifference, that's the right way to say it so some
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  people aren't even with somebody who hates them.
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  They're just with a partner who's totally indifferent to
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  them. How could you not be able to do
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  better than that? You know, everybody has positive
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  traits. Everybody has positive traits in
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  the whole world. Everybody is positive some
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  positive trait. And if you are out there,
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  putting yourself out there being vulnerable.
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  And being real and authentic, the odds of finding.
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  Somebody that thinks that you have.
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  A positive trait are very high. You have Myriad positive traits.
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  Everybody has, you would know this if you were raised in a
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  different sort of home, where your positive traits were a
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  focus and were lauded instead of ignored or made fun of or
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  diminished, you know, it the exact same person.
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  If and I talked about this in a scarcity mindset podcast, the
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  exact same person who was raised in a half.
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  Home versus an unhappy home. They could have all the same
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  personality traits look. Exactly, identical.
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  They were raised in an unhappy home.
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  They're going to think that they are, you know, kind of shitty
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  and really not that great. And anyway, and if they were
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  raised in the happy home with loving parents, who had the
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  bandwidth to give and receive emotional support from one
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  another and toward the children, they would think they were
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  pretty great. The same exact person, you know.
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  And I can promise you this because the people that I
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  interact with with Low self-esteem versus the ones,
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  with high self-esteem, do not much difference.
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  You know, they're not much different by any measure, so it
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  they might have great jobs. They look perfectly fine, but I
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  need a core level, the people with low self-esteem because
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  they were raised in an upbringing where they did not
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  get their emotional needs met. They just think that they're
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  kind of shitty, they think. Yeah, my jobs are right, but,
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  you know what, I'm not really even that good at it.
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  It's kind of easier than people think and yeah, like II.
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  Good at, you know, XYZ I did win these awards at this or that,
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  but, you know, it was really by a hair and the judging committee
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  wasn't really very good. And it's like, it's like, no
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  matter what happens, no matter what evidence, a person with low
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  self-esteem, has about how good they are, they don't believe it.
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  That's like, what literally, that's what low self-esteem is.
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  You do not assume yourself highly.
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  So if by accident in your mind by coincidence, you happen to
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  have gotten positive feedback, you assume that it's some sort
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  of mistake that is By the way, the way that you could sabotage
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  yourself and dating is, if you do not work on your low
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  self-esteem. So let's say, you do get out of
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  the Loveless marriage, you don't work on your self-esteem.
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  Well, then you will be fine. Find yourself yet again,
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  tragically drawn to people who confirm, what you still think
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  about yourself, which is that your kind of shitty.
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  And if they look down on you, then you're like, oh well, that
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  makes sense. They have good judgment.
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  You don't think that out out loud but, you know you think it
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  on a deep level? You're like, oh, that person
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  likes me too much. Something must be wrong with
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  them. This one doesn't like me at, all
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  seemed, like there were a viable candidate.
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  So, of course, you can see how that would sabotage big.
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  But if you are in a situation where you want to get out of
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  your Loveless, marriage to lead a different kind of life, then
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  you go to therapy. You work on yourself, you work
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  on your unresolved childhood issues.
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  You figure out that you're pretty good, you're in all
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  right, person. You know, you may not be a
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  perfect person, but nobody is. And so you deserve to have love
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  in your life and then you go forth and you get it or maybe
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  you go to couples counseling, with your existing spouse, who
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  doesn't seem to love you or care about you very much.
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  Maybe it turns out that they're very mad at you.
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  Maybe there's an unexplained empathic ruptures that they
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  never talked about with you and maybe you can work on rebuilding
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  a connection, who knows? I mean, I work with people all
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  the time that come from a place of profound disconnection and
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  can grow closer. You know, sometimes works,
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  sometimes it doesn't. There's no couples.
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  With 100% success rate because people come in frequently as
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  I've said as the step you know, right the step before going to
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  the divorce lawyer frequently after the divorce lawyer you
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  know when they're you know have not even possibly been told the
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  spouse, they went to the divorce lawyer to think about it.
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  But anyway my point is that, if you are somebody who thinks that
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  the best you can do is somebody that doesn't even love you.
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  That is not real. That is stemming from a very sad
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  upbringing that I am sorry that you suffered through.
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  But it should not should not should not be thought of by you
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  as the real truth. How would you tell your child to
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  think about this? If your child was in a marriage
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  where somebody didn't even seem to like them didn't give them
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  any affection. Didn't give them any Smiles or
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  happiness or a warm hand or a hug.
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  Would you tell your child? Wow, you know it is the best you
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  can do after all. No.
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  You would not say that to your child?
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  You wouldn't say well you know, you you do suck, you know?
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  So really Do you expect from your spouse?
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  You would never say that to your child.
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  So why are you saying it to yourself?
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  You're saying it's yourself only because this is a the way that
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  you learned how to think about yourself from a maladaptive
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  upbringing, which was not your parents fault.
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  They didn't try to give you a maladaptive upbringing.
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  I'm sure. There's we're worse than you
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  then yours. So we're nobody's blaming
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  anybody. But the point of the matter is,
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  if you have terrible self-esteem, it originated in
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  early life, you know, I'm for some people.
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  You know what, there are some people that just had Just, and
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  it's not just, but the, the home life was, alright.
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  But then they had real peer bullying or they had a horrible
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  trauma happen to them, you know, and from a significant other or
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  something like that, and wherever it was, they got tipped
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  off the balance of healthy self-esteem and they started to
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  think about themselves as somebody that really doesn't
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  deserve to be happy. So no matter where this
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  originated, it originated earlier than your spouse and you
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  picked your spouse in park. Because they perpetuated a way
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  that you thought about yourself, you know, by just not really
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  being is into you as maybe other people were or other people
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  could have been certainly. So think about this, if it
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  speaks to you you know listen to it again, think about it.
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  And remember, you can always get something better than a shitty
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  terrible situation as I hope. And I know that most people
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  would tell their children. Okay.
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  You deserve to hear that as well.
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  All right. Hopefully, this was useful and I
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  will talk to you all soon. Have a great day.
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  Everybody.