Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / Navigating The Crossroads of Staying or Leaving

Transcript

Navigating The Crossroads of Staying or Leaving · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, a podcast covering all things relationships, separation, and divorce.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: How to create healthy, happy, fulfilling relationships without sacrificing any part of yourself.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Supporting anyone feeling challenged in their relationship or marriage.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: These are confidential conversations for you if you're navigating separation, divorce, or reorganising life afterwards.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Decide whether to stay or leave a relationship or marriage, divorce with less drama, and consciously choose what's next for you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the war and tree people of the Coolin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this week's episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Navigating the Crossroads of Staying or Leaving.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that your future self will thank you for, whatever you decide.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Today I really want to talk about one of the toughest decisions many of us will face, and that is whether to stay in a relationship, in a partnership or a marriage, or whether to leave.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And to invite you to switch your focus a little from the mess of the now to the future, which is why I opened with something your future self will thank you for, whatever you decide.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you're thinking about leaving your relationship.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's early January, we've just navigated Christmas, the holiday season, and it's a time for reflection and kind of looking forward, you know, what's what's this new year going to bring for me?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a common time that people really look at, reflect on their current reality and what they're hoping for in the future.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you are thinking about leaving, but the thought of what that means starting over, the weight of what comes next feels terrifying or overwhelming or impossible.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's paralysing, like too much to face all at once.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the thought of beginning all over again can feel really daunting.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: That mixture of fear and uncertainty brings a kind of exhaustion.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, rebuilding a life from scratch feels exhausting, crippling.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you accept this life in limbo.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe you've been thinking about walking away, but that fear of the unknown, the fear of hurting people that you love and care about with this change and the challenge of starting over just feels too much, too overwhelming, and so you can't even take the first step.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Deciding whether to stay in a marriage that feels less than what you'd hoped for, less than what you dream of, but not bad enough to leave is really heavy.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really heavy space to sit in and navigate.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Leaving feels daunting, staying feels suffocating.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're standing at a crossroads, torn between staying in a marriage or relationship that no longer feels right, or leaving and facing all that that brings and all the unknown.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is exhausting, it is overwhelming, and it is scary.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And deep down, you just want to make the right choice.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: The right choice for you, for yourself, the right choice for your kids, the right choice for your future, for your future self.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the questioning can absolutely paralyze you, and the indecision overwhelms you.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you tip into that freeze state.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Deer in the headlights.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: You don't fight, you don't flee, you freeze.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: your future self is waiting.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Your future self is waiting for you to make a decision and take action that honours you and honours that future version of you.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what I really want to tell you here is that it's okay to feel uncertain.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's normal, it's normal and okay not to have all the answers right now.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it is okay and perfectly normal to feel afraid and overwhelmed because this is big, it is a big deal, it's life-changing and it has impacts that not only affect you but affect other people, maybe your kids, maybe your extended family.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it is okay to feel overwhelmed.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I want you to know that there are ways forward, there are ways out of that freeze state, out of the overwhelm.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to invite you to think about this.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: What if you really could ground yourself, ground yourself in certainty and clarity?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: What if you could switch the focus and focus on the future you want for yourself, not just what you're leaving behind, not just what you're losing, but what you're gaining?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: What if you could really make deeply empowered, grounded decisions and choose from a place of calm and self-belief and self-trust rather than of fear?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you have been thinking about leaving for a while, asking the hard questions on loop and not being able to find a way out, an answer for yourself.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of a different reality, a different future has almost certainly crossed your mind more than once.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't a new feeling or a new experience for you.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: For women and female identifying folk, the statistics about how long we sit in this indecision is pretty compelling.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere I heard that women stay on average seven years after first questioning a relationship.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: But that's probably a whole other podcast episode, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: All the reasons we self-sacrifice and stay.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: But women leave mentally first.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: They leave mentally and check out emotionally long, long before they leave physically, and can sit in this space part way out, but not leaving for a really long time.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Some women spend years, even decades, trying everything they can to make the marriage or the relationship work, to reconnect, to rebuild something, to find a way forward within a relationship that isn't what they'd hoped it would be.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a common pattern that I see a lot, the we see a lot, right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Where there's a discussion, a request, maybe an argument, an attempt to repair from that same argument that you're having on loop, and things improve a little bit, things improve slightly, you feel better for a little while, there's a little more connection, a little more engagement, but the cycle always returns and repeats.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: The same emotional distance, the same unresolved arguments or resentments or frustrations experienced on repeat and the same feelings of disconnect and hopelessness.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, after sometimes years of effort without being able to create the lasting change, she stops asking.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: She stops hoping, she stops trying, she disengages and lets go of the marriage or any real hope of change or connected relationship.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: She lets go of her husband, her partner, she lets go of him or her, and in doing so, she lets go of herself too.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: But letting go of yourself is the most heartbreaking part of this.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: The most devastating part is that somewhere along the way, you let go of yourself, your hopes, your needs, your dreams, your identity, sacrificing pieces of who you are to hold on to something that no longer holds you.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And really commonly, she likely, you likely don't share this or tell your partner that's what's happened, that's what she's done.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's been so long coming and so insidious, it's just crept up.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even realize that you've given up mentally and emotionally stepped away until sometime later, and you don't share that with the person that you're still living in relationship with.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So women leave a relationship mentally and check out emotionally long before they leave physically, if they leave.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually, in a disconnected, even dying relationship, leaving physically can actually start to feel like checking off the last thing on a really long list.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: A simple or actually not so simple but inevitable next step, logistical move.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, that act of physically leaving becomes a matter of following through on what you've already decided in your head and in your heart.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like closing a door on an empty room.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing left in that room, in that relationship, in that space, compelling you to stay.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so leaving just becomes the next step.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not as easy as that, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you are sitting in this space wondering whether to stay or leave, but that thought of starting over feels really terrifying.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's a fear of unknown, a sense that if you leave, you might regret it, or you might find yourself in an even more difficult, challenging situation, lonely, financially challenged, missing time with your kids, all the things, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: All the things that come with leaving.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you stay feeling stuck, feeling overwhelmed, feeling disconnected, mentally, emotionally, checked out.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And for you, maybe it is that the marriage is not bad in inverticomas, right?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not what you hoped it would be.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it has been a long time, years of slowly growing apart, or things that have just felt not quite right for a really long time.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, on paper, it's not kind of bad enough again in inverticomas to leave.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: But living in that limbo is really heavy and it's really draining.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So while on one side leaving feels daunting, on the other, it's overwhelming to think about how you're going to navigate the logistics, the emotions, the finances, and everything else that comes with a separation.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have kids, those stakes feel even higher, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: You want to make sure that your kids are okay, that you're okay, and that everyone comes out of this as okay as possible.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But staying can feel suffocating and life-draining, like you've lost pieces and parts of yourself, and you wonder, is this all there is?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's heavy too, right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Another part of what makes straddling this, should I stay, should I go, navigating that crossroads is the pressure we put on ourselves to get it right.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: You want to make the right choice for yourself, for your kids, for your future.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the hard truth is there's no perfect answer, there's no guaranteed outcome, and so that's scary.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's perfectly normal.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it would be not normal to not feel completely overwhelmed.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's a massive, life-altering decision, so it quite rightly feels overwhelming and filled with uncertainty and accompanied with a whirlwind of emotions as you try and untangle what's going on in your head and your heart to come to a decision.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the switch.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Here's something I want you to think about.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about what you're leaving behind, what you're losing, it's about the future you want to create.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: The future you want to create for yourself, and if you have kids, for your kids.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's about what you gain as much as about what you lose.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you're at this crossroads, it's really easy to doom spiral and get caught up in the fear and the stories about loss.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, some of those losses are very, very real, whether it's losing your relationship, your home, your sense of security, who you were in that relationship, the future you thought you'd have for yourself, financial safety and security, time with your kids.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: They are all very real losses.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what if instead of focusing solely on that, on what might fall apart, you focused on what you could build, the life you could create, the version of yourself you could step into?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine yourself five, ten, fifteen years down the track.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: What does that life look like?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: How does it feel?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the really big question is can your current relationship support that version of you?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is there space in this relationship, in this marriage, for the person you're becoming and the person you want to grow into?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not just about whether the relationship works for you now, but whether it has the capacity to evolve with you.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Does this relationship give you the space to grow, to change, to be all of who you want to be?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And not just now, but in the future.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you feel stuck like you're shrinking or compromising parts of yourself to stay?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Look at where you want your life to head, what you want for your future, and really deeply honestly ask yourself what has to shift or change for you to be living that life?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: How likely is it?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: How possible is it for those shifts and changes to be created in this container, in this relationship?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that clarity look like for you?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is where the concept of clarity comes in.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's about grounding yourself in the present moment and asking, is there room for me here?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Room for not just who I am, but for who I want to become.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if the answer is no, or if the fear of finding out is what's holding you back, that's a very clear sign.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sign to start exploring your options and to make decisions from a place of calm and clarity rather than fear and overwhelm.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's an invitation to strip out all the noise and get underneath all the stories you're telling yourself and the projections you're making.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: What if you could approach this decision with clarity?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: What if instead of focusing on the fear, you switched your focus to the future version of you that you want to become and create?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: It really is possible for you to do this.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's possible to scaffold yourself, to build the support around you that you need to be able to step back, calm your racing mind, calm that loop thinking to breathe, and to really look at all of your options before rushing into any big decisions.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Making an empowered decision means you're not reacting.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're not being driven by fear, whatever that fear is, fear of the unknown.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're not being driven by guilt or pressure to get it right, be the good girl.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're deciding from a place of strength, of really knowing and understanding what you need, what you want, and what will be best for your future, for your future self.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Part of that process is really understanding and accepting that you don't have to do it alone.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's really easy to feel isolated when you are sort of trapped at this crossroads, when you're into thick of it.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: But getting support to unravel those questions in your mind and break down the unknowns can really make all the difference.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Someone walking with you, pointing out the obstacles, helping you get out of your own way and make those grounded, empowered choices.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, absolutely, that could be me.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I invite you to book a clarity consult or book an intro call if you want to explore how that can look.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: But whoever you choose, you need someone else with you at the crossroads, someone trusted, professional, objective, or at least somebody that you know will point out your blind spots, will help you get out of your own way.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe for you it's about having the hard conversations, maybe it's about building a team around you to help you navigate the next steps.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's as simple as giving yourself permission to explore what's possible, to explore options and possibilities without even committing to any one single path just yet.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: The key is that clarity piece, taking time to reflect on what you really truly want, the things that you're afraid of, and how you can move forward with clarity and intention, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that can mean staying, it can mean working through things and reconnecting and rebuilding something different, redefining the container that this relationship sits in.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or it can mean making a plan to leave, but doing it in a way that feels aligned with the future you want to create for yourself.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: It is about whatever you decide, honouring the future version of you.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: As I said at the very beginning of the episode, your future self will thank you, whatever you choose, whatever you decide, for taking the time to strip out the noise, to get underneath the fear and make a grounded, empowered decision.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Take the time to ground yourself in what matters most to you, and then when you're ready, make those decisions that feel right for you.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Your future self will absolutely thank you.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you need support around this, you can download my free choose you guidebook.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can book a free intro call with me to discuss working one-on-one, or you can book out book a clarity consult to map out what's next for you.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thank you for listening.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love or benefit from listening to this episode, please share it with them.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also be so grateful if you would follow and review the podcast so we can get it in the ears of a whole lot more people just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join me next week for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Until then,