Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 47. Breaking the Cycle of Divorce and Attachment Trauma: A Child of Divorce's Story

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47. Breaking the Cycle of Divorce and Attachment Trauma: A Child of Divorce's Story · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, this is Dawn, and you're listening to Dear Divorce Diary with my coach, dawn, where we explore the post-divorce life and you, the woman who lives it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We cover everything from trauma during and after divorce to feeling like a stranger in your own life and the new frontier of life as a single woman.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Cozy in for the conversations you've been longing to have about this new life.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, today is a big deal because today we are talking about adult children of divorce, and this topic is the topic that I'm actually still recovering from, and so much of what I share with you today is going to come straight from my story and my journey, and is much of why I have chosen to focus much of my career path on recovering from divorce, because I, in many ways, am still recovering, not necessarily from divorce, but from the generational traumas that led to my parents divorce when I was 17 years old And how I have spent my lifetime healing from those traumas, and in some ways, i'm still doing that, and so this episode is deeply personal.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: It will be probably some of the most specific storytelling I've ever done, and if you relate to being adult child of divorce meaning your parents got divorced when you were older, or if you have children who are adults or who are becoming adults and you are divorced, this is an opportunity for you to kind of get inside your kids heads.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And if neither of those things apply to you, but you are realizing that you have some traumas to heal from Love, this is a beautiful place to be.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: We are just gonna have a really rich discussion on generational trauma that happens to involve divorce, which is part of your story.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: So thank you for being here, thank you for sending me all sorts of loving vibes, and let's just dig into the good stuff.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So I am an adult child of divorce and my parents' marriage and subsequent divorce has definitely been the larger trauma for me to recover from than my own divorce ever was.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Now, if you've heard any of the divorce statistics and I would guess you've heard plenty you know that if your parents got divorced, there's a lot higher probability of becoming divorced, which is my case And unless there is something that interrupts, that cycle increases the likelihood of your children getting divorced.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: And if you don't interrupt, the cycle have a much higher probability of you getting remarried and getting divorced a second and or third and or fourth time.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: So all paths point to oh, it's time to heal.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: It's time to heal.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: And as I was prepping for this episode, it's like, yes, this episode really is about healing generational trauma, and it's a funny thing.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It's like I don't know how old you are.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I am 42 today And today is not my birthday.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I just mean, like, as of now, i am 42.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: And something about this generation I would say for those who are maybe upwards of 10 years older than me or for sure younger than me, it just seems to be that we are born into a season of existence where it is our responsibility to interrupt and heal generational trauma.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: That is the responsibility we were born into And it's exciting because we have this ability to change the future and to create such powerful legacies.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: But it is a lot of responsibility And we're gonna talk about how to ease that responsibility later on in the pod, but just wanna validate that for you.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: If you're feeling that crunch of that sandwich generation where we're just feeling like we have to juggle all the things in such a big way, that is super real.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: So for me, being an adult child of divorce was incredibly painful, and what was funny about that is I begged my parents to get divorced for years And for whatever reason.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: That didn't happen until I was 17.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And when I was 17, there were many aspects of them getting divorced that were a relief to me because, namely, the violence and the amount of fear that I lived in was coming to an end, right, those explosions that would happen that were so terrifying, the cold silences, the abandonment, like all that stuff was gonna come to an end.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately, there was at that time in my life no container for me to heal from all of the years I spent in a family where there was abandonment and violence and codependency, and so when they got divorced, while a certain thing got relieved, something else got bigger, and it was that I was left with this pile of pain and no real way to process it.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Now, one of the things that influenced me wanting to become a therapist was my parents went to marriage counseling for a short time, when I was, i think, in middle school, and they never brought me, which is fascinating And so loves if you were sent to counseling and you didn't love it, or you've sent your kids to counseling and they don't love it.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I just wanna say good job anyways, because I think it says something that they at least understood enough to make that effort.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I just knew that I wanted to try to.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: It was coming from a place of codependency, my desire to become a therapist, but I wanted to spare children and families from having to go through what I went through And it was a huge part of why I wanted to do this work.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: My parents both got what we'll call remarried relatively quickly, within 18 months.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Both of them were repartnered And I remember and my stepmom will tell stories of, when her and my dad were at a restaurant having dinner we lived in a very small town I would see their cars together in a parking lot And I would whip it in and I would get in that booth And I would do this territorial thing like, just be clear, lady, he's mine.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And I think that what that spoke to was how under supported I felt in life, like how that possessiveness right, it felt like I did not have the resources to cope with anything that I was experiencing, that I was grasping for and trying to claim like you cannot take this resource from me because I need it And I'm not going to take this resource from me because I need it.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: You know it happened the way it happened anyways And, quite frankly, neither of my parents had the mental or emotional resources to help me through my pain anyways.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: So there wasn't necessarily really an actual loss in there.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: But lacking any other resources right, I didn't have a therapist or a coach or a counselor Like I just there was no other container for me to heal in.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: So I grasped it what I had And so I, would, you know, kind of stalk the restaurant to stake my claim on my dad And then, with my mom, um, the day she got remarried, i was her, um, you know, made of honor And I was walking down the aisle during the ceremony in the church and I was crying and I knew I was disappointing her but I could not force myself to stop And she was angry with me for years for crying during her wedding because she wanted me to be happy for her And she wanted to be able to move on and have her happy little life.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: But the reality is that that was an unacceptable request from her, that there was clearly an unmet need on my part.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Um, i had not processed my grief.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I was wildly under supported through my childhood and um, through their divorce and through my early years as a young adult And I was in pain.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to disappoint her while I was walking down that aisle and I felt guilty for it And she was mad at me for it.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: But oh, it was not my fault And it took me years to figure that out.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: So what I can kind of see clearly today is the amount of responsibility that was placed on me to heal all of this generational trauma, because the codependency and the violence and the abandonment and the sexual dysfunction and all the stuff, the infidelity, all the things that existed in my parents' marriage didn't just show up in their generation.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Right, it's a.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: It's an accumulation of generations of not healing, from not taking responsibility for their personal dysfunction and how that manifests into relationship dysfunction and how that manifests into dysfunctional parenting.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: And so if this episode is feeling heavy to you, gosh, it's feeling heavy to me Also.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I literally have this weight in my chest and in my stomach right now.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: So obviously there's still love that I need to pour on all of this, and perhaps me recording this episode is part of that right.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I think I intentionally am very careful to not say anything blaming or hurtful about my childhood or my parents or my ex-husband in other podcast episodes, but this particular episode just calls for me to speak some truth, and so I also want to model for you that I'm not doing anything wrong by speaking these truths.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Might it trigger pain in them if they listen?
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think they listen, but might it trigger some unresolved pain inside of them?
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Of course, but in many ways, me telling my story and speaking my truth is me saying I am no longer going to bear your burdens, i am no longer going to carry your responsibilities.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: So we can see through this lens that their relationship dysfunction and their parenting dysfunction led to a lot of my personal dysfunction.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I was chronically anxious, struggled with panic and didn't know it, often had bouts of depression in childhood, in young adulthood and I had no clue.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I was absolutely undiagnosed, untreated, complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I was had a very strong, anxious, actually really mixed attachment style anxious and avoidant, but primarily anxious attachment style.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I was one of those people who could not be single.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I just could not tolerate being single.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It's not because I didn't understand that there was value in it.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: It literally felt like physically impossible for me to be single And I was a workaholic.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I would soothe moments of quiet or stillness in my life by working, and it's because I mixed up financial security with healthy attachment right, a secure attachment style has enough money and just knows they have enough money, right, but somebody with not a secure attachment style doesn't have a sense of security or well-being in the world.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: And so how do we kind of misattribute how we can create security?
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, by collecting money.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: And so these were the things that I experienced.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I had chronic illness in the form of cluster headaches and GI dysfunction And, let's see, i had about of adult acne and infertility.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Right, there was so much mental, emotional and physical dysfunction that came as a result of having parents who refused to own their shit and to heal it.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And so, of course, as I was dating and picking a partner, i was doing it from a place of untreated trauma, which means I was dissociative.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Right, I was not.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't have an integrated psyche.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: There were parts of me that were running the show at various times, and parts of me, right, the inner critic, the angry teenager, the insecure, they were all these parts that were running the show and they were not functioning cohesively as a team.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: And in many ways, even though I was so angry with my parents, as a grown ass woman, i also still turned myself inside out to please them, which is backwards.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And so when I picked my first husband which was really more about being picked, quite frankly, because I didn't believe I could pick when I was that age I believe I had to be picked.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I was I was afraid I wouldn't be picked, And so when I was picked, that was kind of it for me because, yippee, i was picked.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: And so much about who my ex-husband is is a wonderful human, but really he's the person my mom would pick, not the person that, like authentic, integrated me, would have picked.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: And so when I got married, all of a sudden my relationship with my mom improved because I was living in a way that she approved of and that pleased her.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: And so now all that insecure attachment was like double-soothed, because I had a husband who is now like legally obligated to be my partner and be my mom, was proud of me, and so, you know, all of that just created a greater sense of security.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: But the whole marriage was a setup.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Love is because of all of that generational trauma.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And so the other reason that I feel so powerfully about doing this work with women who are divorced is because when I, when my ex-husband and I, who honestly had a very amicable divorce and I really honor them how he showed up for me in that process I know that as much as he hurt me deeply, i hurt him deeply and and he really did show up as an honorable man in the way that we separated And I am really grateful to him for that And as we walked through that process, that was the door that I walked through to heal, to start healing everything.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: And because I could see that as such a turning point in my life, i recognize it as a as a magical place for women to recognize, oh, everything I need to heal from right now.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Everything that's coming up about this marriage that's coming to an end is really an echo of all of this other stuff that is yet unresolved from my childhood.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And so, because that was the portal that I stepped through I am just married to pun intended that moment in time for women, because I was so motivated in that moment And that doesn't like you know I was also simultaneously hopeless that that healing was possible or that true love was possible, but I wasn't going to stop.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I was like I'll be damned if I came this far, to only come this far.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: This is not where my story ends, and so that level of motivation to know myself better and to heal all the things that I could kind of see where all screwed up is what I leveraged, and it's what I'm inviting you to leverage, is to really kind of see this is the magical opportunity for you to re-roll and change everything about your legacy, and so that path for me to healing it has been the hardest thing I've ever done and simultaneously, the most rewarding thing I've ever done, because I get to say to you today that I used to be chronically anxious, used to deal with depression, used to have an insecure attachment style, used to deal with chronic illness.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: I still deal with some of these things on a tiny little scale, right.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Every now and then I get anxious, like recording this podcast episode today.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I have a tiny bit of chronic illness.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I'm still working through, but I'm so super clear that it's on its way out of my body and that's it right, it's just on its way out and I'm just working through the finer points of that And I have a strong, healthy, amazing marriage and a wonderful child and a good life and I have a sense of well-being And I did that, i did that And I want that for you desperately.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying, if I can do it, you can do it.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: That's that's like reductivist right.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: It's like not fair, because we have different stories and different paths and different pain points, similar themes, but we have different levels of resource and and different jobs and different right.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Our stories are different And the nuances of your story matter because the nuances of your story are part of your specific magic.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: So I'm not saying if I did it, you can do it, but I am saying it is available to you if you want it.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Now, that point where I got divorced wasn't the end by any means of much of this struggle, especially as an adult child, of divorce, because, quite frankly, when you're going through a divorce and your parents are divorced and they don't get along, that makes it that much harder, right, it's like your support system is cut in half and they don't get along.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: And so now I'm managing their feelings about my divorce, which PS was its whole own drama, right, like mom was obviously ridiculously disappointed in me And and then moving forward as I got remit.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Well, actually, even in my first, the day of my first wedding, my parents were in high conflict, still themselves.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: You know all that violence and all that abandonment that I was so excited was going to be over with when they got divorced.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: That was bullshit, because on the day of my first wedding, the very get this the very first words I said to my husband when we walked away from the altar were you will never believe what she did, she being my mother the night before my first wedding.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So getting divorced rarely solves a problem, unless unless the two people getting divorced are using the past.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Right So getting divorced rarely solves a problem unless, unless the two people getting divorced are using the path to take full responsibility for the problems that led to that point in time, right?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: So this is a call to you, loves, that if you don't heal your stuff, right, getting divorced is not going to solve your problems.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So then it's time for me to get remarried, and I'm pregnant and my parents are still doing their high conflict thing.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: And so this is where I decided that boundaries were going to be my best friend And, in many ways, my daughter's very existence on this planet which is why her name is Grace has given me everything I've needed to tackle the rest of this story That in the having of her, i had somebody I was willing to fight for more than I was willing to fight for myself, and I think many of you can relate to that when it comes to your children, and they're probably also part of this story for you.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And so in the having of her was where I finally said to these people in my life if you cannot be respectful, loving and kind, you are not welcome to have a seat at the table And I will push this red button to protect her.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I never pushed the red button to protect me, but PS, that's come over time as evidence by this podcast episode, right.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: And so that's where boundaries really started to become my best friend, where I started to say no more will you do the abuse of abandoning you know bullshit thing.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And eventually the ways that I would protect her became the ways I would protect me.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: And this is where I have more and more and more learned how to sell healthy boundaries, not just with them loves, but in all the places, with myself, with all my loved ones, in my friendships, at work, you name it where I've just really, you know, embraced that I am worth it.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And that is the programming shift that ultimately happens when you heal trauma is a moving from I don't feel worth it to gosh darn it.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I was always worth it.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: It's just that some people treated me like I wasn't worth it And I got it in my head that that was the case and it never was the case.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: So, love, if you struggle to feel worth it, if you struggle to feel lovable, if you struggle to feel like you have control or you have choices, those are all signs that you've internalized somebody else's baggage and it has become your baggage, and it is time to put that baggage down.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: One of the things I have that have come into my life this year that has been a game changer in healing some of the remnants of being an adult child of divorce is a book called the masculine in relationship by GS Youngblood.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I believe that GS Youngblood's body of work and he's not the only one that talks on this topic, but his book happens to be the one that came into my life And so I am printed on it like a baby duck.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: In his book, the masculine in relationship, he teaches men and women what true masculine leadership looks like and how a woman feels in a relationship with true masculine leadership and loves, any questions or difficulty with trust or self-respect, or any difficulty with boundaries or self-confidence or anxiety that I had left all the sudden became so crystal clear in reading his words on the page.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Because when a man is coming from a place of true masculine leadership, a woman feels a sense of security and well-being, she is able to trust herself, she is able to trust her partner, she is able to be in touch with her feminine intuition, she is able to parent her children from that place of feminine intuition and everything changes.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: And so the reality is loves.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Until we, as women, get it clear in our heads that if a man is not functioning from a place of true masculine leadership, it is, it is not a great idea to partner with them.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Until we set those boundaries and hold them and we do not settle loves, it is going to be hard for us to be in relationship and not embody our true feminine selves.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: We will always lose ourselves in relationship when we are not in a relationship with a man who is grounded in his masculine leadership, taking responsibility for his roles in a relationship.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, men and women can't exchange masculine and feminine roles?
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Of course we can.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: My husband does most of the cooking and most of the dishwashing and I do a lot of the you know strategizing and and I we have very different work schedules.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: I tend to log a lot more work hours than he does.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: We do play with polarity in our relationship, but there are some very clear structures, The Gia Zhang blood laid out for me, that automatically helped me feel more secure in my existence as a woman, in understanding my worth, in understanding that places where I don't feel worthwhile or because I've been a part of a toxic culture, this is not me blaming men.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: This is not me hating men.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I love my husband.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I understand that men need to step into a true reform of leadership and this is me holding men accountable to that and believing in them.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: In reading this book, it has not only changed my sense of security in the world, but it has helped my marriage improve that much more And it's helped my husband have a greater sense of security because loves.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: How many of us had great examples of great marriages?
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I don't think very many of us did, and so if you've never had the example, how do you know?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: it's like building the airplane in the sky, like how do you know how to do it?
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: And so there's something about how GSE on blood writes that to me feels like he's so good at connecting with and coaching along his audience that it feels very affirming, very supportive, very clear, very direct.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: And so if anything in this episode has related to you, resonated with you, i'm going to link his book in the show notes.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: But I want you to know that your legacy can be different, and if all of this feels overwhelming and heavy, that's okay, it can be.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: But also, this is no longer about us growing up in a culture, living in a culture where the emphasis is on looking good.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: It's time for us to flip into this season of feeling good more than looking good.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: So we're not doing this work so we can lose 10 pounds to fit in and address for our high school reunion.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: We're doing this work to fundamentally change our lifestyle so that we are living healthier, so that we are living in alignment and joy in a way that's sustainable, and not just when we're at Disney World for the weekend, but in our day-to-day lives.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: We are doing this work of breaking the generational trauma.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I believe in you so much and I believe we have the guidance and the tools that we need.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: You know, just in the last couple of years, i have found so many new truths that have helped me heal faster and faster and faster than ever before.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: You know, i got divorced when I was 30.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I'm now 42.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I would say that the first seven years, eight years, of the healing journey were slow for me.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: But I didn't know about EMDR, i didn't know about EFT tapping, i didn't know about homeopathy, i didn't know about gut health.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that if you did all these things, it doesn't have to be that hard or that long.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: And so you are in the right place, love, because all of these tools, they're right here, waiting for you, and in a space that doesn't have to feel.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, this episode feels heavy, but healing doesn't always have to feel this heavy.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: In fact, we heal faster when we focus on play and joy and we have fun.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And so, no, this episode wasn't that fun.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: But guess what, my chest doesn't feel so heavy anymore, and neither does my stomach, and that's because I said the things and I got it out.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: And that's what I'm always coaching you to do is get it out so that you're not living with it, you're not carrying it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you for hearing me and for knowing me and for understanding me, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to do the same for you.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Peace.