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A Year Without a Man with Barbara Dehart and Gayle Long · The Trauma Therapist

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  Speaker 1: Trauma Thepist Podcast Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
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  Speaker 1: and ad free right now. Become a Plus listener by
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  Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts, searching for the Trauma Thepist podcast
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  Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Neverist Podcast,
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  Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
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  Speaker 1: who experienced trauma. My name is got macpherson, and my
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  Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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  Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us. All are
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  Speaker 1: you ready to do it?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: All right, here we go. So five four, three, two
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  Speaker 1: and one, our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very
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  Speaker 1: excited to have as my guests today, Gail Long and
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  Speaker 1: Barbara DeHart, ladies.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome, thanks for having us. Super excited to be here. Yes,
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  Speaker 3: thank you, gyl, you are welcome.
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  Speaker 4: So.
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  Speaker 1: Gail is a licensed marriage and family therapist and runs
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  Speaker 1: the Empowerment Center where she provides psychotherapy, coaching, and mediation services.
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  Speaker 1: She's a co author, along with Barbara, of A Year
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  Speaker 1: Without a Man Transformational Journey, which follows two women's explorations,
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  Speaker 1: failures and lessons learned through moments of clarity and confidence,
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  Speaker 1: relapses and lows, joys and heartbreak and ultimately healing. It's
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  Speaker 1: a discovery that only through intentional commitment to live authentically
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  Speaker 1: can one begin to find themselves and see their life
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  Speaker 1: change forever. Robert is a media and technology executive and
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  Speaker 1: co author also of A Year Without a Man. She
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  Speaker 1: often speaks at women's events and facilitates workshops on women's empowerment,
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  Speaker 1: organizational and personal transitions, and creativity. Again, welcome, Thanks so
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  Speaker 1: much for being here. So before we get going, share
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  Speaker 1: with the listeners where each of you are from originally
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  Speaker 1: and where you are currently.
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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 5: I grew up down in Marin County, California. I've lived
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  Speaker 5: all over, but I've been in Nevada City, California, up
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  Speaker 5: in the foothills. It's ninety three.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome, all right.
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  Speaker 4: And I also reside in the Vatta City, California, although
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  Speaker 4: I split my time with the San Francisco Bay Area
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  Speaker 4: and here. I'm born and raised in Sacramento, So I'm
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  Speaker 4: a Northern California girl throwing through all right.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome, all right? So how did this start? I was
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  Speaker 1: thinking to myself when I watch like, you know, things
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  Speaker 1: connect with me. It's something about what you folks were
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  Speaker 1: doing connected with me. But let's talk to us. How
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  Speaker 1: did this book start? Who wants to start?
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  Speaker 4: I can start, So a Year without a Man really well,
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  Speaker 4: you know, as they say, kindsight is twenty twenty, and
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  Speaker 4: so looking back on the Year without a Man, of course,
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  Speaker 4: it's much easier for us to see the trajectory of
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  Speaker 4: where we were at and where we went to. It
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  Speaker 4: really started in twenty two thousand and nine, when Gail
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  Speaker 4: and I had reconnected after many of really not spending
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  Speaker 4: much time together but living in the same community. And
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  Speaker 4: during that reconnection, we discovered that both of our lives
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  Speaker 4: had really become unmanageable, and that was in part due
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  Speaker 4: to relationships that we were engaged with, extramarital affairs that
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  Speaker 4: we were engaged with, and our lives were really crazy
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  Speaker 4: and there was a lot of suffering. So that was
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  Speaker 4: the beginning, and A Year Without Avana is really our
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  Speaker 4: journey from that experience.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Gil let me I'm gonna let you go,
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  Speaker 1: but let me just jump in here. So you both
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  Speaker 1: reconnect and you both were having at that time extramarital affairs.
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  Speaker 1: No judgment here, but just interesting that you both were
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  Speaker 1: was just like, I'm having an affair and.
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  Speaker 2: It's all in the book.
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  Speaker 5: We bond We discovered that in one another, and that's
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  Speaker 5: how we truly bonded. And we were able to see, uh,
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  Speaker 5: the suffering that was reflected in the other. And you know,
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  Speaker 5: it's easy and it's easier to see that when someone
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  Speaker 5: else is, you know, having a really messed up time
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  Speaker 5: than it is to see it within yourself. And then
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  Speaker 5: Barb had an amazing experience with a Sri Lankan medicine man,
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  Speaker 5: and I'll let her share that, and that's how we
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  Speaker 5: came to do the decided to make the decision to
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  Speaker 5: go a year without a man.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so Gail and I reconnected. We spent a few
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  Speaker 4: months really spending a lot of time together and sharing
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  Speaker 4: our suffering. As Gail said, we were each other's mirrors
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  Speaker 4: and we're able to see how messed up a lot
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  Speaker 4: of our behavior really had become. We both have a
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  Speaker 4: ton of therapy and self help under our belts, like
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  Speaker 4: literally a lifetime's worth and or two lifetimes worth. And
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  Speaker 4: I had a medical crisis that had me off work
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  Speaker 4: and really wondering what was going on with my health.
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  Speaker 4: So the universe really did kind of slap me upside
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  Speaker 4: the head, and it happened to be at the same time,
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  Speaker 4: I had a meeting with a streaml medicine man who
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  Speaker 4: was here spending time with people and teaching them how
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  Speaker 4: to meditate and whatnot, and he put me on a
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  Speaker 4: fifteen day meditation exercise really to access my self conscious
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  Speaker 4: and really be able to identify where I wanted to go.
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  Speaker 4: And it was through that process that I received literally
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  Speaker 4: received the message. You know, there's a big difference between
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  Speaker 4: thinking a thought and receiving a message, and it was
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  Speaker 4: through that process that I received this message that I
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  Speaker 4: meaned to do a year without a man, and went
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  Speaker 4: for a hike the next day with Gail and she said,
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  Speaker 4: I'll do it with you, and that set us on
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  Speaker 4: this amazing journey of transformation that really we're still on today.
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  Speaker 3: But it was the genesis of the year.
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  Speaker 1: I was recently divorced, so two years ago, so a
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  Speaker 1: lot of this is like hitting home for me. But
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  Speaker 1: when you were when you both reconnected, you said both
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  Speaker 1: of your lives were I forget what the exact word was,
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  Speaker 1: but kind of in shambles. Things were not often talk
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  Speaker 1: more about that for each of you specifically, what was
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  Speaker 1: going on for you what did what were you feeling?
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  Speaker 5: I was in the midst of grad school and all
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  Speaker 5: the stress that was going on with that. My husband
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  Speaker 5: and I had had the divorced conversation, but most people
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  Speaker 5: didn't know about it yet, our kids didn't even know
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  Speaker 5: about it.
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  Speaker 1: How long had you been married, Gail at.
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  Speaker 5: That point, I want to say twenty three years, so
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  Speaker 5: long term marriage. But I was miserable, and I was
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  Speaker 5: obsessed with a married man and how miserable?
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  Speaker 1: Wow, what does it mean?
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  Speaker 5: Just really suffering, crying all the time, having obsessive false
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  Speaker 5: thoughts over this man, thinking if only I could just
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  Speaker 5: be with this man, everything will be okay, and just
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  Speaker 5: miserable with the stress of going through a divorce and
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  Speaker 5: also all the stress that goes along with being in
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  Speaker 5: grad school. And I was very out of alignment with
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  Speaker 5: my true authentic self. You know, I don't do married men.
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  Speaker 2: You know, this is who I am.
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  Speaker 5: And so the shame that went along with that, and
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  Speaker 5: the secrecy that goes along with that, and the obsessiveness
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  Speaker 5: that went along with it, that was causing me to suffer.
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  Speaker 4: And I'd say that the obsessiveness is such a key
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  Speaker 4: point because you know, plus one to everything Gale just
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  Speaker 4: said around my experience, I know, high tech career, traveling globally,
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  Speaker 4: raising two kids. My husband and I had separated, and
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  Speaker 4: I too was obsessed. It was the if then thinking
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  Speaker 4: that was completely kind of derailing what normal behavior would
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  Speaker 4: be otherwise, And so that's when suffering occurs, right.
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  Speaker 3: It was.
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  Speaker 4: It was a crazy time, which of course is what
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  Speaker 4: led to my medical crisis. Yeah, and so it was
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  Speaker 4: tons of suffering behavior that was unlike either of us
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  Speaker 4: and obsessive, the obsessive thoughts, that's what we would recognize
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  Speaker 4: in each other. So we would have these long conversations
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  Speaker 4: about how did we end up in this situation? We're
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  Speaker 4: both in the same situation, how do we end up
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  Speaker 4: in it? And when the other person was talking, we
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  Speaker 4: could see and can we swear on this show? We
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  Speaker 4: would say to each other, that's really fucked up, Like
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  Speaker 4: what you're saying right now is really fucked up. I
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  Speaker 4: can't tell you how many times that was the response
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  Speaker 4: because we didn't recognize the behavior in ourselves, but because
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  Speaker 4: we had created this trusting, open, reflective relationship, we were
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  Speaker 4: able to reflect that back to the other and that
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  Speaker 4: was really an important part of the journey. For us
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  Speaker 4: is having that safe place to have those discussions and
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  Speaker 4: have somebody reflect back what they're saying to you.
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  Speaker 1: It's really interesting to me because I can identify with this.
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  Speaker 1: You have this incredible relationship between the two of you,
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  Speaker 1: you and Barbara. You also were obsessed to use your
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  Speaker 1: word with another guy, some other.
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  Speaker 3: Guy, the married man.
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  Speaker 1: What was it? Why were you not able to live
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  Speaker 1: authentically in your relationship? Why were you both so miserable.
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  Speaker 4: In it in our original relationships or marriages. Yeah, I
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  Speaker 4: think for me it was, you know, a path that
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  Speaker 4: is not uncommon, right, you get married, you have children
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  Speaker 4: at that point. My husband and I've been married twice previously,
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  Speaker 4: and so it was with my second husband, and we
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  Speaker 4: had gone down this slow path of decreasing our communication
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  Speaker 4: in areas of interest, really looking elsewhere or looking outside
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  Speaker 4: of our partner for.
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  Speaker 3: Enjoyment.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, we continue to operate as a family even
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  Speaker 4: well after we separated, but we didn't have an intimate relationship, right,
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  Speaker 4: We weren't each other just trusted source. And Elizabeth Gilbert's
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  Speaker 4: book Committed It's the books she wrote after Eat, Pray, Love.
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  Speaker 4: She talks about the walls and windows and when you're
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  Speaker 4: in an open and trusting relationship, you have an open
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  Speaker 4: window between the two of you. You're in an open
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  Speaker 4: hearted stance, and things flow easily back and forth. And
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  Speaker 4: as soon as someone else comes into the picture, what
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  Speaker 4: happens is you create a wall between you and your
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  Speaker 4: primary partner, and you open a window between you and
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  Speaker 4: this new person. And that's exactly what both of us did.
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  Speaker 4: It was it was that motion and that image really
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  Speaker 4: stuck with me because that's the thing we treasure and
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  Speaker 4: have to maintain in relationships, and I don't think either
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  Speaker 4: of us had the skills.
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  Speaker 3: To do that at that point in our relationships.
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  Speaker 1: How over you fail?
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  Speaker 5: Mine was. I grew up with the belief that I
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  Speaker 5: needed a man to provide for me, and I ended
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  Speaker 5: up marrying a physicians psychiatrist, and there became pretty major
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  Speaker 5: issues with alcohol and drugs and other women, or I
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  Speaker 5: should say and other women. And I was just so
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  Speaker 5: resolved in, well, this is my life. I don't believe
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  Speaker 5: in divorce. I'm just gonna forge, you know, just continue on.
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  Speaker 5: But I was miserable in that I wasn't getting my
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  Speaker 5: needs met, I wasn't a priority. There was no sense
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  Speaker 5: of the we there was a lack of trust. And
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  Speaker 5: so when I met this other man and all the
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  Speaker 5: chemicals started to flow, and he started to open up
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  Speaker 5: with me about his miserable marriage. It was just this
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  Speaker 5: immediate turn on.
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  Speaker 3: It's like, oh yes.
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  Speaker 5: And so he and I bonded over our miserable marriages,
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  Speaker 5: and I began to fantasize how wonderful a life with
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  Speaker 5: him would be, and we began to plan that. But
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  Speaker 5: of course, it's like, we're going to do it the
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  Speaker 5: right way. You know, we're not going to have sex.
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  Speaker 5: We're going to do it all above board. And we
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  Speaker 5: came up with a plan, and the plan was that
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  Speaker 5: we were both going to get divorced and wait a
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  Speaker 5: year and then date and get back together. And of course,
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  Speaker 5: during the year, he ended up staying with his wife.
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  Speaker 5: And at the end, at the end of the book,
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  Speaker 5: it says, well, my husband ended up dying the week
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  Speaker 5: that the world shut down due to COVID. We weren't
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  Speaker 5: speaking at that point. We had we were divorced or yeah,
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  Speaker 5: we were divorced at that point, and mister married stayed married.
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  Speaker 5: And I learned throughout the year I had a tremendous
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  Speaker 5: fear of being alone, and I believed that I could
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  Speaker 5: never let go of one relationship until I had another
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  Speaker 5: one to hold on to. And I think a lot of.
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  Speaker 3: Women can relate to that fear.
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  Speaker 5: And like barbar is quoted in the book saying, I
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  Speaker 5: don't know how to live in the world without a
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  Speaker 5: man in my life. And so by the end of
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  Speaker 5: the year, I had shifted all of that and got
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  Speaker 5: to that place, like they all say, I learned to
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  Speaker 5: love myself and find my own self worth and self
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  Speaker 5: love within me. And to this day, I'm happily single
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  Speaker 5: and still living on my own and running my private practice.
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  Speaker 5: And I'm Okay, what was my greatest fear of being alone?
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  Speaker 5: I found out I was already alone. I was alone
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  Speaker 5: in my marriage, and I was alone in the affair.
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  Speaker 5: There really was nothing to fear.
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  Speaker 1: It took you a year, just a year to get
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  Speaker 1: to that space.
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  Speaker 4: Well, you know, my god, it's a journey, not destination.
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  Speaker 5: It's a journey, and it isn't I definitely relapsed. I
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  Speaker 5: have relapsed after the year and went right back out there.
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  Speaker 5: And and then Barber was able to recognize that in me,
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  Speaker 5: and I was able to then with her help. Oh yeah,
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  Speaker 5: I am I have fallen off the ledge again, and
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  Speaker 5: so I was able to you know, get back up,
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  Speaker 5: put my big girl panties back on, and for John
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  Speaker 5: or no, it's a lifelong process. My heart is still
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  Speaker 5: a little bit guarded for sure.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean there's so many topics within this broader
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  Speaker 1: scope subject that we're talking about here that I that
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  Speaker 1: I find really interesting. But let's get specifically to the book.
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  Speaker 1: When you how did you decide you were going to
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  Speaker 1: write a book and talk to us about what you
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  Speaker 1: wanted to say in this book.
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  Speaker 4: Well, as we went through the process, we were very intentional.
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  Speaker 4: As I said, you know, two lifetimes worth of therapy
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  Speaker 4: and self help extraordinaries. We were totally and so when
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  Speaker 4: we went through the process, we set up a structure.
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  Speaker 4: We knew, I've done a ton of transition management, and
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  Speaker 4: one of the things that we do when we're going
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  Speaker 4: through a big transition is we create temporary structures. And
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  Speaker 4: so Gale and I set about this temporary structure. We
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  Speaker 4: would be each other's primary go to person, we would
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  Speaker 4: be our travel partners. We were you know, we had
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  Speaker 4: a team of people that we relied on, our therapists,
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  Speaker 4: different types of therapists and body workers and spiritual guides
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  Speaker 4: and all of that.
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  Speaker 3: So it was it was an intentional process.
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  Speaker 4: And as we were going through the year and then
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  Speaker 4: all the years later, whenever we talk to people about it,
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  Speaker 4: they all say, oh, that would make a great book.
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  Speaker 4: I need to read that book, or I know my
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  Speaker 4: daughter needs to read that booker my boyfriend thes to
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  Speaker 4: read or whatever. Right, so we would hear constantly what
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  Speaker 4: a great story it would make. And so in twenty fourteen,
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  Speaker 4: I think was the first time we really set out too.
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  Speaker 4: We went through all of our journals. Gale and I
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  Speaker 4: both are great journals, you know, writers, and so it
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  Speaker 4: was helpful for us to have record, really of what
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  Speaker 4: we were going through. In that process, all of our
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  Speaker 4: calendars we went through, and we created a timeline and
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  Speaker 4: then started to put the story together. Then in twenty
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  Speaker 4: eighteen we took another path at it. Gail had has
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  Speaker 4: unfortunately had to go through breast cancer and multiple surgeries
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  Speaker 4: and that sort of thing, and so that took priority
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  Speaker 4: for us for a while, and then we got back
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  Speaker 4: to it in twenty eighteen.
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  Speaker 3: And then finally.
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  Speaker 4: After the year without a man, I ended up with
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  Speaker 4: the married man that I was having the affair with
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  Speaker 4: We spent you know, more than a decade together living
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  Speaker 4: a wonderful, fabulous, beautiful love story, and it was everything
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  Speaker 4: that I ever dreamt a really healthy, happy, functional relationship
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  Speaker 4: could be. Unfortunately, last year he died out on his
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  Speaker 4: morning run, and so yeah, so it was definitely a trauma.
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  Speaker 4: And it was after his death that we decided to
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  Speaker 4: revisit the story. He had read the book in twenty
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  Speaker 4: eighteen and really wanted it to be published, and he
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  Speaker 4: thought the story could help a lot of people, and
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  Speaker 4: so Gail and I, after his death, we took the
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  Speaker 4: next year and we reviewed everything and really got the
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  Speaker 4: book ready for publishing, and then published on June first.
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  Speaker 4: But this year, which happens to be the date that
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  Speaker 4: A Year Without a Man started, was June first, So
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  Speaker 4: that's kind of our that's our anniversary date for freedom.
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  Speaker 1: What specifically did you want to say in the book,
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  Speaker 1: like we need to say this, we want to say this,
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  Speaker 1: what was this?
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  Speaker 3: Two things.
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  Speaker 4: One is to tell the story, because there's a lot
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  Speaker 4: that can be learned just from reading another's story. So
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  Speaker 4: telling the story as it was in the most honest,
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  Speaker 4: vulnerable way that we could and the second thing, but
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  Speaker 4: the story of what of the year without a man,
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  Speaker 4: of why we did it, what it was like, and
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  Speaker 4: how we created a structure and a method to move through.
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  Speaker 1: I guess having gotten to it clearly in my mind,
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  Speaker 1: the point where you said we need to be had
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  Speaker 1: this a year without a man? What was when you
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  Speaker 1: got there?
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  Speaker 2: What was that it was?
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  Speaker 5: I would phrase it as it's the story of facing
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  Speaker 5: our fears of being alone, facing our fear of not
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  Speaker 5: having a man in our lives, and learning that we
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  Speaker 5: do have the strength within us to break free from
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  Speaker 5: that obsessive thoughts over over men, thinking that we have
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  Speaker 5: to have a man in order to survive in this
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  Speaker 5: in this world. So it was breaking free from that
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  Speaker 5: and in doing so getting much closer to ourselves, finding
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  Speaker 5: ourselves and helping each other through that process. And another
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  Speaker 5: thing I want to add is that a part of
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  Speaker 5: the year we worked with doctor David Nyland, who is
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  Speaker 5: an expert narrative therapist, and part of our sessions with
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  Speaker 5: him there were two hour sessions and one of us
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  Speaker 5: would go first and the other one would sscribe verbatim
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: what was being dialogued back and forth, and then we
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: would switch at the end of the hour, and at
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: the end of those sessions. Several weeks after a session,
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: we would get a letters, a letter from doctor David
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: and sometimes the letter might be from an entity such
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: as Fear. So we received the letter, dear Barbon Gail,
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: you know, I don't think you're going to get through this.
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: You can't do this. How dare you think you can
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: go a whole year without a man, without dating, without sex,
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: and you know, and then it Fear would sign in
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: it Fear and all of my friends, you know, shame, blame, regret, guilt,
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: and Barbara would write back, you know, you know, basically,
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: fuck you, Fear, We're doing this. And so we because
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: of those Doctor David letters that those were more documents
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: we had that helped when it came time to write
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: the book. We did not go into the year thinking, oh,
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: we're going to do this year because we're going to
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: write a book. The book evolved from our experience. As
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: we shared the process that we were going through. Many
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: many people said that would make a great book.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: And so, yes, this idea of needing a man, I mean,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: it's it's on one hand, speaks to a previous generation, right,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and what the forties from probably when marriage started, women
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: were led to believe that they need a man, and
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: even to this day, I think there's some of that.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: But were you addressing that or was there something beyond that?
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: I would say that that what really.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: The thing that's interesting about the Gail and Barb story
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: is that we come at the same problem from two
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: totally different perspectives.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: Gail was raised in a two parent household where dad
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: went to work every morning, came back for dinner at
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: six thirty five every night, and had a very consistent
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: traditional family environment. I dad left when I was two,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: abandoned me and the family when I was two, never
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: came back.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: So part of our journey was really.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: Uncovering those original wounds, not uncovering them, because in the
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: in therapy, of course we'd identified original wounds and done
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: our work on them, but this was a different This
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: was different. This was really internalizing that journey of for me,
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: being abandoned by my dad when I was to We
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: never came back, and that really, in my mind, set
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: me on the trajectory. So we had our personal stories
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: that were part of the path, but the other is
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: all the social construct.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: We have a culture that is still to this day
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: built around you grow up, you get married, you have kids,
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: you retire right, And so I think all of that
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: led to us ending up on the path that we
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: were on, which was a path of self destruction at
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: the point that we reconnected when we discovered we were
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: both having these extra marital affairs and we were both
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: miserable partly because of them.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's amazing that you found each other
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and reconnected again. Let me ask you as we kind
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: of wind down here, but during this journey, I want
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to ask each of you what was the most challenging
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: aspect of it for you personally?
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: It's a really good question.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: For me, my journey has been about my coping mechanism
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: that I have created, in addition to always having a
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: man in my presence or one coming or going, has
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: been to be very independent, financially independent. I have a
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: tech career, I live on my own, I do my
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: own you know, I make my own choices.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: I financially secure all of that. So I had.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: That coping mechanism, and my challenge was how to really
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: access my heart right, how to truly open my heart
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: and have a relationship with all the parts of my
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: psyche with my physical body.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: But for me, it was about truly.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: About how how to connect with a deep, spiritual centered
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: place in myself connected to spirit, and how to find
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: peace and solace in that place, and then everything in
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: my life moving from that place has really been the transformation.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: For me. It's like I have a home, that's me.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: My home is within me, it's in my own heart,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: it's my own connection to spirit, and nobody else has
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: to be involved in that relationship. So for me, that
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: was the hardest thing and the most rewarding outcome of
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: the journey.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: And to do that, what did you have to do?
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Just mean, I'm sure there were a lot of things,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: but some of the what was some of the things
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you had to do?
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Number one, take then take men off the table, right
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: because I would literally go from is that the one?
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Is that the one?
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: If I wasn't dating someone I had, I had another
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: one who was you know, coming into rotation. So I
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: always made super I always made sure that I had
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: somebody in my life. And uh, and so that was.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: The key is taking were filling a gap for you
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: one hundred percent?
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Right right? Right? Okay? And how about for you Gil.
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a really great question. And the question was
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: what did I struggle with the most throughout the year. Yeah,
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: I think it was I really have to think about it.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: Because that year.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: For me really was a safety net.
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: There was a gift in not having to worry about
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: what men might be thinking of me or if I
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: was out. You know, it was so freeing to know
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: that I didn't have to be on if that makes sense,
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: like it does if some guy asked me or wanted
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: to buy me a drink or just I was just
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: like I would just be able to casually be like,
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: thank you so much for asking, but no, I'm doing
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: a year without a man, And it was just so freeing.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: So having that safety net of the year and having
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: barbed there throughout the year, I think a challenge would
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: have been the biggest challenge for me during the year
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: was when Barber and I actually got into a fight
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: and I thought, for a few days, I thought I
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: might lose her and I thought that the relationship and
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: that terrified me more than anything because I thought I
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: can't do this without her, and so it's just hard.
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: I think the year it wasn't very challenging. It was
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: fun and because we had each other to do it,
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: and all the structures and all the therapists and the traveling
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: we did, which is really funny stories.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: About that in the book.
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: So it wasn't The challenge for me, honestly, guy was
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: when the year ended. The year ended, I lost the
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: safety net. I thought that when the year was over,
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: there'd be you.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Know, applications waiting to date the amazing Gale and that
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: did not happen. Plus, mister married stayed married, and that
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: was a very clear thing that he was not an option.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Greg had moved on with the woman that he had
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: been having an affair with, and so it was.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: I was truly alone when the year ended, and I
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: just I think I needed more time, to be honest,
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: and just went a little crazy. I call it Jenny
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: on a ledge like from Forrest Gump reference And yeah, yeah.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: As you talk about the book, what really continues to
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: emerge is your relationship, the relationship you have with each other,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: which is really really cool. All right, Barbara, what's the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: best way for people to reach out and get in
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: touch with you? Obviously the book is called A Year
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Without a Man. Where can people get it?
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: First Off, it's available at your local bookstores and it's
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: also available of course, on Amazon dot com. The best
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: way to get in touch with us is at www
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: A Year Without a Man dot com. There's all kinds
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: of information there, and there's ways to reach out to
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: us directly that there as well.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have that lend up here at the show
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: notes page at the Trauma theapspodcast dot com. Gail, do
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: you want that also to be the way for people
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to reach out for you?
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: For sure?
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: If it has anything to do with A Year Without
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: a Man, then it's the www dot a Year without
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: a Man dot com. If anybody would like to reach
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: out to me personally or was interested in doing any
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: type of counseling or coaching or therapy with me specifically,
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: it would be Gail. That's spelt g A y l
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: E at gaillong dot com.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, we'll get down here. Awesome, all right, ladies,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here. Really incredible story.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot more I could talk
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: about about this topic, and but I want to thank
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: you so much for being here and taking the time.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Thanks guys, Thanks for having us all right, Thank you
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: so much, guys,