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379. Why wasn't I worth it to him? Why This Question Keeps You Stuck After Divorce · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies, today we are talking about why I wasn't worth it to him.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you will agree with me that every single woman we have ever worked with has grappled with this, is still grappling with this.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the thing, one of the things that is the hardest to put to rest.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Really deep rabbit hole that has very little to do with him, actually.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: But that is not obvious to women when they're embarking on their divorce recovery journey.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like it is not at all obvious that that heartache about why wasn't I worth it to him really has so much more to do with our early attachment wounding and our sense of self and our self-esteem.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it just gets all uh like collapsed in the story of your marriage and divorce, right?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: And his choices and his capacity to just give up, let go, move on, do all the things that, you know, are so heartbreaking.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, love.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave, and build back your confidence.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Don Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and divorcee.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So women are constantly trying to answer this question.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Why wasn't I worth it to him?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: What evidence do you think they're actually trying to collect?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: What do you, what problem are they really trying to solve when they're asking that particular question?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why wasn't I worth it to him?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: What is the problem they think they're solving?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or the evidence that they're actually trying to collect?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I would say it's why couldn't I fix him?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, not what's wrong with me.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's it for some women.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it was why couldn't I fix him?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like why wasn't I good enough?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why wasn't I this transcendent goddess that came down into his life and fixed all of his trauma, right?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: For me, it was why wasn't I good enough?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: Because I had tried so hard to be the perfect wife and build a perfect life and have the perfect house and have like there was so much intention behind me being like this trophy wife, not in looks, but but like in intention.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like um it was so much of my day was to make him happy.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so when everything fell apart, it was very much like it was all in vain.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why wasn't all of this, everything I did sacrificially loving him, worth enough?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why wasn't I worth it?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like me a bad word, like performance bad.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, yeah, just couldn't measure up there.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell the right.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Mine was twofold in feeling very performative as having to be a perfect army wife, having to have the right connections, the right socialization, the right level of appearance when we would go into public and working the room and things like that.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was yes, feeling like I wasn't measuring up, and then also like, why couldn't I be enough to fix what was wrong with him?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why couldn't I love him enough to where his trauma didn't affect him anymore?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I wanted him to change for me, right?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like I wanted me to be a valuable enough prize for him to want to change for me.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the concept of someone changing for themselves could not have landed for me at the time.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's a phrase I hear people say, I want you to change for you, not for me.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: But when it comes down to it, and I was walking that path, no, no, no, no, no, I wanted I wanted him to change for me.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is such um such an intense feeling for so many women who are getting divorced.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they often think that if he finally admitted everything, if he finally owned up to everything, if he finally apologized to everything, it would solve their pain.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find that to be true?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something that they're hoping that they're gonna get from the apology.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And for me personally, I got the apology, not the accountability, not the details of what happened, right?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I got the blankets.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really sorry that I hurt you.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really sorry that this didn't work out, that we couldn't make this work.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it it didn't do shit for me.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was no relief in the apologies because the damage had already been done.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I was also looking for uh admission to the lies and the secrets because then I felt less crazy, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or I felt like a permission to move forward that I didn't, I couldn't own for myself, right?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like when immersed in codependency, like I'm only okay if you're okay, or I can only feel permissioned if you give it to me, right?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Or I can't take action unless somebody I perceive as more powerful than me tells me it is safe to do so.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like I wanted those secrets and lies and years of patterns I was picking up on to be validated so I could say, CCC, I'm not crazy and I can, I can, I am justified now.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, is that none of that actually repaired my self-esteem or my attachment style or my capacity to feel safe or secure in my own body.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it provided pain relief in a moment, and it did, right?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think that when you get an apology, it's validating.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: When secrets get owned up to, it's validating.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think it I do think it provides pain relief in a moment.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Would you agree with that?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: I do feel in the moment for sure, because it's like that glimpse of someone apologizing is the is kind of a glimpse of who you thought he actually was.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: Oh.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like, okay, I'm not crazy, but also I wasn't wrong all the way either.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I do think I don't think it definitely doesn't close the chapter.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't make everything go away, but that momentary, like, okay, like there was, I wasn't crazy when I thought the best of him.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: Cause there is a spark of that in there.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting thought because I think a lot of times people use performative apologies to exactly keep women on the hook.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's way easier to apologize than it is to actually change or to take responsibility.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's actually a pitfall a lot of women run into is they maybe get an apology, a breadcrumb, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or a love bomb.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: They get an apology or a validation or a piece of honesty.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then that keeps them thinking that, oh, maybe it's going to be different this time.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's its own cycle in women coming to the end of their rope and finally accepting that a marriage is over or is not salvageable.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: When that cycle has even happened so many times that it's like, then like, okay, no, this is yeah, I was one of the women that just kept on up taking the apology.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not necessarily advocating for forgetting, but there is a piece that comes from an understanding that like this part of him is apologizing.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: He might be run by 90% of the other parts of him, but um, or and it's not necessarily the apology that I'm advocating for, and it's the accountability.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know how many men actually have true accountability or ownership.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: So like ha having yourself be very clear what is happening.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: I don't, I don't advocate for just like, yeah, sorry, I hurt you because that that's more for him than it is for you.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Say more about that.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's more for him than it is for you.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, yeah, I'm back that.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: So like just a blanket apology or a manipulative apology like you mentioned, or the emotional, like having him require the emotional labor for you.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like, is he apologizing to ease his conscience?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: Is he apologizing and owning it to like say he did that and be able to sleep at night or, you know, move on without worry?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like, oh well, I I I owned it and I apologized and I'm check, done.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's uh the heart behind it, not the necessarily words he says.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: And when if he's having you do the emotional labor, if he's having you kind of um do the work for him, he's not truly owning it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: He's not truly, it's not a heart change.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's for appease him.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: Just because he needs to say it doesn't mean you need to hear it.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I never got the detailed apology in that situation.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think that, and to Don's point, um, I was the one, yeah, that was always told that I was crazy, that I wasn't seeing what I was seeing, that there was nothing going on behind the curtain.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: When really the entire time, like that wasn't true.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things that was most impactful for me with my second husband was that when we were months down the road, able to come together, and he was like leaving town and we got together, you know, to wrap up some things.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was able to look at me and say, like, in the course of our relationship, like, hey, a lot of what these things that you brought to me were correct.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just couldn't see them in the moment.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was some relief on that to say, okay, well, I wasn't crazy, you know, when I was calling out these things in the relationship that weren't right, you know, like that was so yeah, there was a little bit in that.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, when you're conditioned to be with somebody that just apologizes to apologize.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times of just getting you to apologize, just so you shut up and move on, right?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can just shut her up.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just apologize and whatever.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, it was that behavioral switch that I started to realize like, okay, when we're apologizing for the same things over and over and this cycle keeps ramping up and ramping up, and there's no real change on your end.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I started to really disconnect in the marriage and just really went off the rails because I'm like, this is not, this is not changing.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing new is happening.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing new is happening.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason for that is, and this is the thing that took me years to understand.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So let me serve it to you hot and fresh.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: My ex-husband certainly was immersed in an addictive process, but we don't realize the ways in which that shows up in even very successful, high-achieving, high-functioning people's lives, right?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so when there's an addictive process, whether that's workaholism, alcoholism, porn addiction, gambling addiction, vaping, name the thing, right?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: When the frame in someone's body-mind is, I feel discomfort, I need to reach for something to soothe my discomfort.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we all do this to some extent, right?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: For women, it's a lot of overthinking, or it might be reaching for food.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: We all do it, but when we refuse to just sit with a feeling and work through it and own it, and we keep using something outside of us to soothe the pain inside of us, that's addiction.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so my ex-husband was very much entrenched in an addictive cycle or pattern.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when I stopped relieving his pain in whatever reasons, right, when he wasn't getting his pain relieved by me, then I was no longer on the list of things that served him.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And perhaps that early in my healing journey, the opposite was also true, right?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was so codependent and I was still unhealed trauma, right?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I probably needed him to fill certain, fill certain gaps also.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: But so often people do not realize that what we don't have is healthy attachment.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: What we don't have is true love, this reciprocal nature of being able to give and receive love, the capacity to feel our feelings and work through them without getting defensive or shutting down or running away or getting high.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so really understanding that most marriages do I want to say that that way?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: That many marriages that dissolve dissolve because there's an addictive process and they have been using each other rather than truly loving each other deeply and intimately.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would definitely agree with that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, being married to someone that had a very addictive personality.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then, you know, some relationships that I had in college were with guys that also had, you know, a lot of addiction issues, right?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but so did I.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it was kind of like like drawing to like like I was attracting them, they were attracting me.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: We were serving a purpose.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then when said purpose was done, we were kind of moving on.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: There was really nothing left at the end of the day.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like one person was either out healing the other, one person was deciding that their addiction had changed or whatever.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, when I stopped drinking, I lost a lot of friends, you know, when I stopped using, like I lost a lot of people in my life that weren't okay with sober Tiffany, you know, Sober Tiffany wasn't as fun as, you know, hi Tiffany.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And when we think about this through the context of why wasn't I worth it, man, it's like, is it that I wasn't worth it to him to get sober, whatever that means, emotionally sober, right?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: To be able to tolerate uh all of my feelings.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: But what it really means is that anyone who anyone who can't choose to feel their feelings rather than cover them up, numb them, bypass them, avoid them, right?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have to pass.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have to pass because it's too much.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's too intense, it's too overwhelming what you're asking me to do.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're asking me to sit with whatever pain I've been running from for my entire life, and it's too much and too overwhelming.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that women are as guilty of that as men are.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is not like just a man-bashing episode, right?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think that, yeah, women can sometimes hide it out in different places.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: The way in which our popular culture has uh used motherhood in certain instances to hide out and numb our pain, right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: We've taken on motherhood as like this identity.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if my kids are happy, then I'm happy and we buy them too many things and we keep them way too entertained, and we, you know, like as long as they're happy, then I must be winning.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um, that's one of the ways we soothe our pain, right?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, rather than actually solving root problems, uh, perfectionism and sort of obsession with how it looks on the gram.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think is another way women have sort of hidden out from actually facing their pain.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Women also have affairs, right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Women cheat.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um in this room included.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so there are a lot of ways that women also run from our pain.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, that's how we attracted these partners in the first place, right?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: We we were all in cycles of trying to escape the wounds that have been asking to be healed.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and then we slap this idea on it, like, why wasn't I worth it to him?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Why do I have to do the work?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Why isn't he willing to do the work?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I see this a lot in couples counseling, also, that it does seem that women are more naturally resourced to go first with the work, meaning it's socially acceptable for us to be vulnerable more so than men, right?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's super celebrated in our culture yet.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Lord knows it isn't in my town, but I do think it is more socially acceptable for women to be vulnerable, for women to go to therapy, for women to feel feelings, for women to whatever it is.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that when women do go first, it creates a greater safety for men to go second.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I see that a lot in couples counseling.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't I don't know.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be curious what each of you thinks about that pattern.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: That that's where we are in society.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is that biblical joy?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's our job as the muse, as the feminine muse, to get grounded and to be that sort of um woman that runs with wolves, like to own our power and our femininity, and then it becomes safe for men to come back to the table to reclaim their masculinity and um, you know, not toxic masculinity, right?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: But like true capacity to go deep.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: Bri Brene Brown is famous in her famous, the one that made her go viral TED talk about how she was at a book signing and a man walked up to her and said, you know, those two women would rather see me fail than be vulnerable, basically.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I do think that there is uh toxic masculine culture in which boys aren't supposed to have feelings and suck it up and be manly and you know, toughen up and all that.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so I do think that there's truth to be said that it's easier for women.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: I also think that it's biblical, you know, as wives we're instructed to be um, as women, not just wives, but as women were instructed to be helpmates, we're created from his rib to be beside him, not behind him.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um and that's right, and I think that there is the power of demonstrating safety and demonstrating vulner vulnerability and creating, but it's also and and hear me when I say this you can lead a horse to water, you cannot make him drink.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: So you can do what you are called to do, that's not gonna create that's not that's not necessarily gonna guarantee him following your your steps.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: So like that's not on you.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's not your cross to bear.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: You do, you're in charge of you, you do you.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: If he doesn't, that's on him, you know?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: So like don't make his choices your responsibility.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: You touched on something really interesting, though, that segment from Brene Brown's book, right?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because the man walked up and said, Why don't you study men?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it like had never occurred to her.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: To write a book for men or to study men, right?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and in that whole section, she talks about, yeah, we would prefer our men on their steeds with their swords and their shields.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: How many women can't tolerate men being vulnerable?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: We want them to be able to go deep with us.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: We want them to choose us.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: We want them to change for us.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if they actually started crying in our arms, what would we do?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: If they actually started admitting, I feel really anxious about X, Y, or Z, what would we really do?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: If they actually showed us everything they were feeling inside, what would we actually do?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really interesting inquiry that I'm so genuinely curious how our listeners feel about that.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's what her, that's what Brene Brown's data showed, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is that show me a woman who can tolerate her man's vulnerability, and that's a woman who's done her own work, right?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: To be grounded in self.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I was just gonna say.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I couldn't tolerate it in my 20s with my first husband.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like, and clearly, like when he was coming home from war, he would share certain things with me.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was a lot of like vulnerable sharing, but it's like it never went too deep because I I feel in his mind that he knew I didn't have capacity to handle some things, you know, like he just knew that there's some things that he would say, and by my facial reactions or however I was reacting to him, that it was too far, it was too much.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like now at the age that I am now in my 40s, I could totally handle it and stay completely grounded.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I want and I desire in a relationship because I think that it's important.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't, I for me, it's like I don't want to keep I don't know, I don't want to make somebody feel insecure about them having their own feelings, is my point.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that as a society, I think we suck at allowing men space to be able to be vulnerable.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's Where why there's such a high suicide rate among men.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that's why men tend to be very violent.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's all this suppression of anger and emotion that they feel like they can't, they can't take it anywhere.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was talking to a couple recently, uh, the wife of a couple who is in couples counseling currently, and I said, Well, your husband is really depressed.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, What?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: If he doesn't put his tools away, if he doesn't clean up in the kitchen, if he retreats into the sofa and the television, if he shuts down, your husband is depressed.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Love.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, what?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how many women don't realize that that's what that is?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Chronic internalization and suppression.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: To your point, Tiffany.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're in therapy.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm shocked.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm shocked.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so question what becomes possible when we stop making him the authority of our value?
• 23:14
  unknown: Well.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: I got divorced.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: But like not just like your, not just your ex, but like men in general, when we stop searching for the apology, when we stop looking for the answers, when we let go and just okay, so it was all blended together for me because in choosing to get divorced at that time, I was still so immature that I felt not only did I need um, you know, to have my own self-esteem, but like I needed my mother's approval to get divorced.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that was linked to God's approval to get divorced, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a daisy chain of approvals I needed.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when I finally realized I wasn't gonna get it and that I like, I just couldn't live like this anymore.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, is when I sort of threw off the shackles of needing anybody's approval to do this thing.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, it boiled down to a really a clinical decision for me.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like at the time, right, I was actively a therapist working in addiction recovery, and I understood the data and what the data said about complex addiction and complex trauma.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I just understood that the numbers weren't in my favor and that it was going to be a very long, very painful, very expensive, very unlikely process in the end.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I let that be the fulcrum point, but it wasn't that I was like, oh, I'm worth it.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was more like, oh, this probably isn't possible.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it was such a longer journey for me to say, actually, I have to treat myself with respect.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I have to embody self-respect.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: I have to embody self-awareness, I have to embody, um, just to even circle back around the concept of men being vulnerable.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: If my husband were to come to me and say, I'm really afraid about our finances this month, I would have to not fall apart into an anxious puddle and saying, like, don't tell me about that.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: I can't handle it.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to just handle it.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: How many women do that?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: I would need to be mature, resilient.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that was a journey for me to develop those things.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: So not making him the authority, gosh, it means I have to be the authority, uh, maybe in partnership with my the intelligent creator, right?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Who I believe created us very intelligently.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd have to believe more what you know, the creator believed about me, and I'd have to be willing to believe those things about myself.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: But we are so trained to need everybody else's approval.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is the bigger picture that's way harder.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Agreed, agreed.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly didn't divorce from a place of emotional maturity.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I just didn't.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I cannot tell you how dissociated I was when I left the marriage, but I feel like I had to be.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: There was so much that I was compartmentalizing, and it's like I was just going through the motions of packing the house, driving to U-Haul, picking the things, right?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was no rhyme or reason for what I was doing.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: There was just a part of me that completely shut down and was like, I have to get out because there is no fixing this.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what did the journey from that moment to this moment where you understand that how you feel about yourself is what drives everything, but not how he not whether or not you were worth it to him, right?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like talk to us about that arc of time.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: I made my divorce about me so much and the things that I couldn't fix about him, that I couldn't make it better, that I couldn't be the best wife that I needed to be, or the best mom that I needed to be.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of my divorce was around lack, just in general.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because I wanted it so badly.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to show everybody that the wild child could be a wife, right?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like she could be tamed, she was in there, she could do the right things, she could say the right things, she could put on a fucking ball gown and go to a ball in Kurtsty.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Such a good point because the wild child can be a wife, because here you are, very much wife material, right?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: There is the difference between performative and embodied.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's so different.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's so different now.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it took me a long time to be okay with this version of myself, right?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And like learning the balance of the two.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because then it's like I went from one extreme to the other post-divorce, and I went very self-destructive, you know, and I stayed in that spiral for several years before I started feeling like, okay, enough self-destruction.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna come back to myself now and I'm gonna do the work and I'm gonna see what this feels like.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels amazing on this side of it to have I feel this beautiful blend of both of it, right?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like light and dark.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's this beautiful blend in there of the parts of myself that I'm learning to embrace that I forgot about a long time ago.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I said going to Myrtle sort of impacted that journey for me, right?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like taking these pieces of me and saying, but no, this wasn't all bad.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was still beauty in the self-destruction.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was still love in the self-destruction.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I still loved myself.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was just figuring that out.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so marrying these parts together now, like having this beautiful blend of like the wild child and also like the girl that really fucking loves herself fiercely.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's pretty awesome.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty awesome.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: So this idea, why wasn't I worth it to him is really just a mirror for we didn't learn how to choose ourselves first, right?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't learn how to wait.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't learn how to trust ourselves or that something better was coming.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't know what secure love felt like, right?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Why wasn't I worth it to him?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is really just one big freaking billboard that says, dear one, you never learned secure love before you got married.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is that fair?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: That is everything.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everything.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if you knew what secure love felt like in your body, you would never have chosen that partner that wouldn't have chosen you when the chips were down, when life got hard, when things got complicated, when it was uncomfortable, right?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Secure love is able to stay when it's hard.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the invitation is to learn how to feel secure love in an embodied, like really rooted way inside of you.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then you will choose partners differently.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: You'll choose friends differently, you'll choose jobs differently, you'll choose everything differently, right?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: When you have a different of secure love in your body.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Joy, what are some of the most key moments you've experienced in your journey the last several years where you've been like, oh, it's about secure love?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: Definitely this, like, because this particular subject is something I've really grappled.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: I've really, you know, like walking, right?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like walking through the house and you seeing the family pictures, and like we had the Instagram perfect family.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like what what why wasn't I good enough or whatever?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but when I realize I'm looking for someone else to satiate or calm or attach to when I'm asking someone else to do the emotional labor or those or even my kids, because I re I even related to what you said about, you know, so much of my identity went into my kids.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, those are the moments that I kind of take a step back and be like, oh.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: Because when when everything went down, I got super victim-y for a bit and been like, I did this and I did this and I did this and I did this, and I, you know, and like you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: But when you really peel it back, like, I'm the one that married him.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm the one that kept the peace by um suppressing, and I'm the one that ignored, and I'm the one that, you know what I mean?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I had a role to play too.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I might not have done the things that he did, but I wasn't innocent in this.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that is such a key moment when you can own your part of the demise of your marriage.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because while you can do everything that you know to do, is it coming from an indwelled grounded place, or is it coming from a need to make him happy or to keep the peace, or to like the actions could be the exact same, but it's the motivation heart behind it and the security behind it.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you are acting in the lane of suppression, and you're acting in the way of keeping the peace, and you're acting of like the boundary crossing, and just to make him apologize, right?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: And own it like it's it's it's not authentic self.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's not sustainable.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's not sustainable.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Something you did I answer your question?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Something you were sharing also made me think about.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know this is a concept I'm constantly trying to drive, but addiction and co-addiction.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: So Alcoholics Anonymous, right, was created by Bill W and his buddies.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I don't know, maybe back in the 50s, something like that.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then Al Anon, the sister program was developed because the wives of all the alcoholics used to like bake brownies and like, I don't know, drop their husbands off or whatever.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: So finally the wives were like, Well, they're all in these meetings, we ought to hang out, right?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then they sort of developed their own 12-step program.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing about codependency and what it has to do with addiction and co-addiction is that every addict loves a co-addict or a codependent, right?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because we so anxious attachers, codependents, it's all the same thing, right?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Avoidant attachers, addicts, it's all the same thing.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: So anxious attachers love to have someone who needs them.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: We love to have someone to serve because it soothes that anxious attachment, that hole in our soul, right?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: That feels like I'm not okay unless you love me, right?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: And addicts love to be served because it keeps them comfortably numb.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's so interesting how addiction and co-addiction work.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the part that we have to be willing to own as wives or women or whatever, is that we have the same hole that we are trying to use another person to fill rather than learning how to fill it with true grounded embodied esteem.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is our part, right?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so, no, maybe we're not out running around town like gambling the house away.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're just trying to fill a hole with a person, which is, dare I say, using someone versus truly loving them.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, yes, so ugly when you're ugly to that room.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I really love the way you just put that.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I can look back in my first marriage and say the same thing.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: We were using each other, right?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like there were we we both came to each other in a very activated state.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were trauma bonded, we had so much in common that way.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, we were very much addict and co-addict, just hanging out, just dancing.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dancing.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hanging out.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: So why wasn't I worth it to him?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, leave us with a few sentences about just, you know, we hear women say this all the time.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why wasn't I worth it to him?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want her to hear?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want her to hear about her circumstance, this thing she's looping on?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think this is my quote.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's actually your quote, but it's perfect.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's like you can only love someone to the capacity you can love yourself.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so if he can't, he cannot love you more than he loves himself and has nothing to do with you.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would also say that when you choose your partner, you may have chosen them from that unhealed state.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: You might have chosen, chosen them from an addictive state, right?
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where you choose each other.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: But there comes a point in the relationship where things start to shift.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Women in particular, I think, are good at this intuitively, knowing when phases of their life, stages of their life, like something just starts to not feel aligned anymore and to call it out.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, does your partner have capacity to come to the table and change and grow with you?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: If they don't, that's not about you.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's about them and their inability to meet themselves where they're at and to want to, because it's very hard to do the uncomfortable thing.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to say to each other, hey, I don't know if we're aligned anymore.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we're both moving in that same direction.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so if this person isn't willing to do the work on themselves, then you're fighting a losing battle and it it no longer is about you.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's just about them.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in this rabbit hole again lately.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's a new old rabbit hole.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fresh, fresh old rabbit hole about soul growth.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I get that this probably isn't biblical, but not it, what's that saying you say sometimes, Joy, that like not everything that's true is in the Bible.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Everything in the Bible is true, but not everything that's true is in the Bible.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna put this under that heading.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: That if we all have a soul or like a non-physical energy about us, right?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: That there's something indwelled in all of us that's non-physical.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that some of us in a lifetime are gonna burn off more or different karmic seeds or lessons, however you want to say that, right?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna face more challenges and be willing to work through them.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some of us are going, our souls are going to mature this much in a lifetime, and some of us, our souls are gonna mature this much in a lifetime.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, it's just such an interesting concept I sit with, because the longer I live, the more I realize there is no destination in this lifetime.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: There is simply a constant unfolding of opportunities to burn off more karmic seeds and expand, like grow further.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: I get that I'm like in all the woo-woo language right now.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it's freaking landing.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I used to think there was a destination.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like once I solve this particular batch of problems, then I will be happy and satisfied and life will just carry on.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be healed.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be healed.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it'll just be like living in Disney World from now on.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just not how it is, right?
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's like every time I set a new goal or I desire something beyond my current capacity.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, guess what?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's a new set of challenges that has to be burned off.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that what it feels like for me in this lifetime is an awareness that we'll all go as far as we're willing to go, as far as our willing, as our soul is willing to mature in this particular lifetime.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not gonna be the same for each soul.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: And that's not on you.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: No, yeah.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you you are on you, but like to the women who are soul's journey, like reaching down, trying to drag him, or you know, like the puppy that is doesn't want to go for a walk and you've got the leading and you're like, come on, come on, come on, like you you're not responsible for him.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's a very hard lesson to the addicted, disorganized, attached women to learn that yes, yeah.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's not on you, baby.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, darlings, when this episode airs, we will be actively openly enrolling for this year's cohort of a different D-word is a big freaking deal.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you are at all curious about coming to work with us for a year, and it's a year on purpose because it's a big task and it cannot be done in three or six months.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's just not a thing.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Check out the link in the show notes all the way at the bottom.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you'll find the chat form.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Fill it out.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: We'll handle the rest.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: We would love to chat with you.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: We love you so much.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Peace.com.