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37 | Stop Earning Love: Redefine Your Worth · The Messy Middle Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Messy Middle, the podcast for women navigating the raw, confusing, lonely aftermath of narcissistic abuse and emotional control.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm Erica Leon, trauma-informed abuse recovery coach, mom of five, and creator of the six keys to unfuckwithable.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: If you're picking up the pieces, questioning everything, and trying to remember who the fuck you were before you were so carefully erased, you're in the right place.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Hello there.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: It's me, your host, Eric Leon.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: This episode is about when you stop trying to earn love.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: And I have been thinking about the idea of earning love for more than a decade now, and probably way before that.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: And I think if you ask most women outright, do you believe you have to earn love?
0:49
SPEAKER_00: they might say no, because that's their automatic reaction.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: But if you really got them to tell the deep belief, they might say yes.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of the people I talk to, when you dig a little deeper, they do actually feel like it's a thing.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: They might say, of course not.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: But we know the language now.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: We know we're worthy, we know we deserve love.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: We come out of this, and I help people get to that point, and I love every second of it.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: We've all read the books, right?
1:28
SPEAKER_00: We've listened to the podcasts.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have probably got a fucking mug somewhere that says it, but then I started thinking about what earning love actually looks like in real life.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: Because you might not immediately imagine it to look the way it actually does look if someone asked you that question.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Likely you'd feel a little bit defensive at first, like someone was trying to pick on you, because that's the kind of vibe it has, right?
1:53
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't necessarily look like standing in front of someone saying, Please love me, or begging, or being like that poor girl in obsession.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: It can look like being maybe incredibly thoughtful, or being the one who remembers everything, or being really easygoing, the cool girl, being endlessly understanding, giving people another chance because you know they've had a difficult childhood, or another chance because they're under a lot of pressure at work, or they have a substance addiction, and another chance because nobody taught them how to communicate, the poor thing.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: And at some point you realise you've become their defence lawyer, really, and they haven't even entered a plea.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: And the more I hear about it from people in this last decade and a half, the more I wonder whether a lot of the qualities women are praised for are tangled up with this.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: And I know the answer is yes.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: It's all of the loyalty stuff, selflessness, forgiveness, the nurturing, the kind, the one that has the emotional literacy, and none of those things are inherently a problem.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: They're beautiful qualities when they're freely given, but my work and my daily life leads me to understand that we have to be curious about what happens when somewhere underneath them is this little contract that says, if I love people well enough, they won't leave me.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Or if I'm useful enough, I'll matter.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of these qualities can be a fawn response to not fully being in environments growing up or in relationships as adults where there isn't a punishment coming down the pike somewhere for you standing up for yourself, calling someone out, refusing to take certain treatment.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: And I think many of us learn that contract really early.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily because somebody sat us down and explained it.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Actually, saying it out loud would probably make it disappear over the years.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: But children are incredible observers.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: That is literally our nervous system teaching us how to survive in the environment in which we were born into.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: And children notice which version of themselves gets the warmer response.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were easier to love when you're cheerful.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your dad is nicer when you don't challenge him.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm speaking from experience here.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Maybe mom is overwhelmed, so being the child who doesn't need anything is the version that gets praised.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And maybe everybody tells you what a good girl you are because you're helpful and mature, and you never cause any trouble.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: And you start learning the rules.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: And I don't even think the rule is necessarily love is conditional.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: That's far too sophisticated for a little girl to understand.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: It's what I understand now as an adult, but I think what she learns when she's little is something more like there's a version of me that gets loved better or gets treated better, or feels loved more.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And that one she wants to then be her, and that shit really does follow us.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Because then society gets involved and hands girls an even longer job description.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: The be nice, be desirable, don't be difficult, be emotionally available, forgiving, don't hold a grudge, don't shout loud, don't swear.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: I think women are conditioned into something I sometimes think of as reverse entitlement.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Because we talk quite a lot about male entitlement, and especially in the work I do, it's really important to understand these gateways of entitlement and ownership being a lead up to abuse, coercive control, and such.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: And it's all that entitlement to women's time and their care and their attention and their emotional labour, their bodies.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: But there's an opposite condition that I think happens in women.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: We become very unsure about what we are entitled to require in return.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Because frankly, from how I grew up, and this might not be your experience, but I'm over 50 and I'm at Gen X, and my impression of what was a good bar for a partner was someone that didn't hit you.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: That really was it.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: I grew up watching my dad be a violent domestic abuser and an alcoholic, and so many people in my town did when I grew up in London.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: It was just such a naw.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who didn't hit me or could string a sentence together or had a white collar job.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Like that was literally the bar, which when you think of it is in hell.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And I never grew up thinking how much am I allowed to ask for or how upset am I allowed to be?
6:47
SPEAKER_00: At what point am I allowed to say, actually, this is not fucking good enough for me?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: I went through a little phase of that in my early 20s, and I was certainly determined not to have the kind of relationship my mum had, but without realizing it, the face of the person was very different.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: He did hide behind all of what society would consider to be very decent and a catch.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: But underneath, he was the same snake.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: And I do see this everywhere.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: I see women making extraordinary excuses for grown ass men every day.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: They tell me about their childhoods, their fathers, their trauma, their mom's stress at work, the fact that nobody taught them emotional intelligence.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: They're always explaining, and they might be completely accurate, but I'm fascinated by why people behave the way they do.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: It's my thing, and understanding matters enormously to me.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: It's more or less every single woman I've ever worked with who has a host of explanations for why their male partner who is abusive is the way they are.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: And somewhere along the way, particularly with men, I think women can confuse understanding something with having to tolerate it.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Those two things are completely separate decisions.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: You can understand precisely why someone struggles with emotional intimacy and still decide you don't want to spend the next 20 years living with that shit.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: There are consequences.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And we are taught this.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And I see this even when women talk about their parents.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they'll have enormous compassion for a father who was emotionally absent.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, men of that generation, and his father never showed him affection, and he really didn't know how.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And again, all of that is probably true.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: My dad was the same way.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: I've done an episode on that.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: A horrendous childhood, completely fucked by the patriarchy.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: This is what men don't really understand, I think.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: The way they are not allowed to feel their feelings, the way that anger is the only emotion that's been normalized for them to feel, and then you get the Andrew Taints of this world guiding boys towards a misogyny cult.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: This is how the patriarchy fucks men too.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: But I am fascinated by how low the bar can become for men's emotional development.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Because the thing for me is men are capable of doing their own inner work.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: Of course they are.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: I work with men, every single one of them is put through quite a rigorous entrance process.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: So I know I'm not wasting my time.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: When I teach them about internalized misogyny, they can actually recognize it.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And they do beautiful work.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: They're some of the most satisfying and amazing humans I work with.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: And I've watched my guys do extraordinary work on themselves, including my own kids who are adults now.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: They can learn emotional intelligence, they can examine their conditioning, they can develop empathy, accountability, self-awareness.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: They have all of that stuff at their fingertips, just like we do.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: They can Google it for fuck's sake.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: They can watch YouTube videos, they can buy courses, they can get therapists, they can do all the things we do.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And we do not do men any favours by treating them as though emotional maturity is some kind of advanced female software that their brains can't install.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: It's bullshit.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And I have five sons to prove it.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: And there's a really bizarre contradiction in our culture where men have historically been regarded as rational and rational enough to lead governments and corporations and religions and families, but apparently asking one to examine why he shuts down whenever his wife expresses an emotion or kicks the fucking wall and makes a hole in it when his sports team loses, or smashes up something in the room when he can't express himself.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, that's just too much.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Pick a fucking lane.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: And this is where I think earning love gets really interesting, actually, because a man who's learned to explain, accommodate, and forgive can start seeing these things as of evidence of how deeply she loves.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: How many chances can I give?
10:59
SPEAKER_00: How much can I understand?
11:01
SPEAKER_00: How loyal can I be?
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And eventually love becomes measured by how much of yourself you're prepared to override in order to maintain that relationship.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And that is a dangerous definition of love in my book.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: It's one I see every day, and I don't like it, I don't recommend it.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think we need to talk about where some of that came from.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Because women haven't simply been taught to earn love, we've also been handed some extremely questionable ideas about what we're supposed to do once we have it.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And just let me rant for a bit.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: I gotta, it's been a fuck of a week.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And one of the biggest is unconditional love.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Oof! I'm probably gonna piss a few people off here.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: That's always a promising start.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: I do not believe unconditional love should be the goal or a goal in an adult romantic relationship.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I said it.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: That is what I'm saying, and I stand by it.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: I said what I said, as they say, the young ones on the internet.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: And I know it sounds terribly unromantic because we've been sold this idea that the deepest love is the love that survives absolutely anything.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Ugh, yuck.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: But no matter what, you love them through it, right?
12:15
SPEAKER_00: You stand by them, you forgive, you don't give up on people.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And historically, who do you think benefits enormously from teaching women that that was the highest expression of love?
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh yes, exactly.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't even need to say it because that's a rather convenient arrangement hiding inside it, isn't it?
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Women are expected to meet a long list of conditions in order to be considered good partners, while simultaneously being encouraged to remove the conditions under which their partner continues to have access to them.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a fuck no for me.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: I think love itself can sometimes be unconditional.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: I understand that profoundly as a mom.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: There are people I will love regardless of whether I approve of every choice they make, obviously.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm not really judgy like that anyway, but relationships require conditions.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: That's different.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: I can love someone and refuse access to me.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: I can love somebody and decide I can't live with their behavior, and I can absolutely love somebody and leave them.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Relationships require conditions.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Love maybe not, but sometimes you're gonna have to love someone from a distance.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: I think it's particularly important for women who are coming out of abusive relationships because one of the things I hear all the time is, but I still love him.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: And of course, right?
13:39
SPEAKER_00: How would you undo all of this time and this life together overnight?
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Of course you might.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: I would expect you to.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And feelings don't disappear on the schedule we prefer.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: As soon as the ink is dry on a divorce, doesn't mean all your love disappears.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to stop loving somebody before you're allowed to decide they're unsafe for you and you don't want to be with them anymore.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Love is not the only variable.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: How does the person behave?
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Can they take accountability?
14:07
SPEAKER_00: What happens when you say no?
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Do their actions match their words?
14:11
SPEAKER_00: Who are they consistently?
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Not who do they keep promising to be or who they're about to become.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever date for potential, by the way.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Those questions do matter.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a huge believer in evaluating behavior all the time.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Like marriage, I think it should be a contract that you re-up that you have to actually look at and evaluate every year or two.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: But hey, maybe that's a conversation for another day.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean living with a clipboard marking your partner every day out of ten.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that does sound fun, but just keeping your eyes open.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Because women can be exceptionally vulnerable to falling in love with potential.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Potential's lovely, but it doesn't take the bins out, it doesn't go to therapy, it doesn't repair conflict after that's happened, and potential does not make you feel safe.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: At some point, we have to have a relationship with a human being who's actually standing in the kitchen with us.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: And of course, everyone has difficult periods, everyone has wounds.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Healthy relationships require a decent amount of compromise, of patience, of generosity, and fundamentally you need to love that person as a human being.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: You need to like them.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: You want to be around them, not just that chemical phase at the beginning, but you actually love and respect them as a human and their contribution to this world.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes your partner will need more from you because they're ill or they're grieving or they're going through something horrible, and there may be a year when one person carries more because the other genuinely can't, and that is life.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: What I'm talking about is when chronic depletion gets renamed as compromise, when one person's peace, energy, time, and autonomy are consistently funding the relationship, and that's where I want women to become much more discerning.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Because heterosexual partnership statistically is not automatically some glorious lifestyle upgrade for women.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Shocker! There was research from the University of Michigan that found that married women did seven more hours of housework each week than single women, while married men actually did about an hour less.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And think about that.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Seven hours a week?
16:32
SPEAKER_00: That is a lot.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: I remember reading that and thinking, what a fucking sales pitch, right?
16:36
SPEAKER_00: There is more recent time use research from Pew, PEW, showing the same broader pattern hasn't magically disappeared either.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Even in marriages where husbands and wives earn roughly the same amount, women are still spending more time on housework and caregiving while men get more leisure time.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: So when we keep telling women that partnership is the prize, I think we're skipping a rather important question.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Aren't we?
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Is this relationship actually making my life better?
17:08
SPEAKER_00: It's a biggie.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Because having a partner and having a good life are not sometimes compatible.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: It's not really what's happening.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And I think the question becomes equally important when we're talking about women who've come through divorce or abusive relationships, maybe more so, because there can be this strange pressure to eventually date again.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I hear it every day, it makes my head want to explode.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's barely out of their relationship and they're saying, Oh, get back out there, get on the dating apps, blah, blah, blah.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: You'll meet someone, you'll find love again, don't give up.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: And I do understand the sentiment.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: I think people have I've said this before, very uncomfortable with you feeling uncomfortable, and they want to move you to the next stage or solutionise you or give you hope.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: I get it, and it's human, but what if she doesn't particularly need reassuring?
17:55
SPEAKER_00: What if she builds a fucking brilliant life?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: What if she likes her little house with everything pink inside?
18:01
SPEAKER_00: If that's what her bag is, and her hobbies and her friendships and her family and her work and her independence and her peace with nobody pissing on the toilet seat or finding pubes on the floor.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's just my personal experience.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Ignore me, I was drifting off into hell again.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: What if she discovers that she really enjoys making decisions without having to manage another adult's reactions to them?
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And then something really extraordinary happens.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: She stops viewing being single as a thing she needs to escape.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: And this is a piece of the work that I feel really strongly about.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: And people hate me for it when I tell them at the beginning of working together that it might be a while before you meet that person if you do want to meet it, and it will likely involve you getting to the stage and the realization that you are fine being alone.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: I will explain.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: So I genuinely believe that before you can become incredibly discerning about who you allow into your romantic life, you have to reach that point where not having another romantic partner is a completely acceptable outcome.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean saying that while secretly hoping somebody appears next Thursday, I mean actually sitting with the possibility and the eventual realization that maybe I don't meet someone.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Can I build a life I love anyway?
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Do I truly want to be on my own?
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Can I enjoy my own company?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Can I have intimacy through my lovely friendships and family and community?
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Can my life still be exciting, sexy, meaningful, adventurous, and full?
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: It's your hobbies, it's your strong community of friends, it's your nature, it's your plants, it's your animals, it's your little space that's all your own, it's your rituals, it's your fun, it's the way you can do whatever you want when you want.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to ask anyone.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: And actually the answer eventually becomes yes.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Actually, it can be beautiful and amazing.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And when that answer comes, something shifts.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's energy, maybe it's just this feeling that people get, like a smell about you that you don't need something.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a nicer place to come from where you want something in your life but you don't need it?
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Then that's when you don't compromise.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: And people can tell the difference somehow.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: You can call it whatever you want, but they can tell.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Now you're not really evaluating a man against other men or a partner against other partners.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: He's being evaluated against your peace, your lovely life.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: And that is a way tougher field.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: He's up against your autonomy, he's up against your friendships, the life you've built, your lovely regulated nervous system.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: And that's something, isn't it?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: To go against.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: He's up against Sunday mornings, exactly how you like him, and a bed you can sleep diagonally across if you want to.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: So good luck, mate.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: And I don't say that because I think men are unnecessary or relationships are inherently draining.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: I love love.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: I really do.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: But I think a wonderful partnership can add extraordinary richness to life.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: But that's the word for me and I want you to focus on.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: It's add.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: A relationship can absolutely ask things of you, of course.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Intimacy does, but it cannot require the erosion of you.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: And that's where my standard sits, and I really would like you all to think about this too.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And if being alone romantically is no longer frightening, and you don't have to negotiate against it, you don't need to make somebody fit because the alternative feels unbearable.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to turn potential into evidence.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: You can simply notice this doesn't work for me and you leave it there, which means something else then begins to happen.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: You when being chosen Stops being the goal, you become much freer to choose.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: I personally love it.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: It makes perfect logical sense to me.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: If there is a very heavy filter in place, because you're comparing it to the beautiful life that you built and the peace that you've carved out for yourself, then your discernment skills are now 10 out of 10, as opposed to when you're so desperate for a relationship or to quote unquote be loved by a partner, you will see things the way you used to see your abusive ex where you saw them with a rose-colored, rose-tinted glasses on.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: And that is that there is bullshit.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: You're setting yourself up for another potential relationship that takes you exactly nowhere.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: They say you get a lesson or a partnership, that will be the lesson kind.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: And one of my favorite phases in the work I do, and it usually comes later because early on, especially after an abusive relationship, we're often dealing with the high-uptain shit.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to get through the day, maybe you're leaving, maybe you're divorcing.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: There are lawyers, children, finances, housing, messages coming in, nervous system going fucking bananas.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: We're not sitting there having philosophical conversations about the cultural construction of romantic love.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: We're just firefighting.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: But eventually there can come this really interesting stage where life isn't on fire in quite the same way.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: And now we get to ask different questions.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: And this is the bit I absolutely love.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Because now we're not simply recovering from one relationship.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: We can start pulling apart everything you were taught about how you were supposed to be in relationships at all.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like putting the entire belief system out on the floor, like tipping out the Lego box and having a look at it all.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Do I actually believe this?
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Where did I get it?
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Does it serve me now?
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Would I choose it if nobody had handed it to me?
24:03
SPEAKER_00: And we can do that with everything.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Marriage, motherhood, sex, loyalty, forgiveness, what being a good woman means, what being selfish means, what you're entitled to expect from another adult.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: I sometimes think of it as like the burn it all down phase.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't literally burn the house down, obviously, but I have to specify these things.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: But it's a deconstruction.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to replace one set of rules with another.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm not interested in taking away the patriarchal rule book and handing you the Erica Leon approved rules for womanhood.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: That would rather defeat the fucking purpose, wouldn't it?
24:43
SPEAKER_00: I want to know what you think when you're finally given room to think and choose for yourself.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Because maybe you still want marriage, right?
24:52
SPEAKER_00: That's wonderful.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you never want to marry again.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Also wonderful.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want companionship but not cohabitation.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: That's big nowadays, you know, and I have been of that opinion for two decades.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want a relationship in separate bank accounts and your own bedroom and Thursdays completely to yourself.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: That's the fun part.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: You get to find out.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: And I think that becomes possible when romantic partnerships stop sitting at the top of the hierarchy as proof that your life worked out.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Because women have been taught for a very long time that being chosen is significant.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Think about the language.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Finding someone, settling down, ending up alone.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: God, that one, ending up alone.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like the final scene of a Victorian tragedy.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: But to me, it sounds like heaven.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Nobody ever says, Oh god, what if you end up financially independent, surrounded by people you adore, doing work that interests you, traveling, laughing your ass off with friends, and sleeping diagonally across a king-sized bed until you're 87.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a terrible fate.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: And I'm being silly, but I think the language matters.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Because if being alone is coded as failure, partnership automatically gains value simply by just existing.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's why the bar is in fucking hell.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And I really don't think it should be given value just by existing.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: I think partnership has to justify its place in your life, certainly after you've been through something like this and you get to be the right side of 40.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean a partner has to entertain you 24 hours a day or improve every metric on a spreadsheet because obviously people aren't appliances.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: It means that over time the relationship contributes to the quality of both people's lives.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: There's reciprocity.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Care goes both ways.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: So is the respect.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Responsibility goes both ways.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: You can rely on each other, you like each other, you think of each other, and crucially, you still get to exist as yourself inside of it.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want women to become better at tolerating relationships.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: I want women to become much more comfortable evaluating them.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: I think it's one of the harder shifts after you've spent a lifetime earning love.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Because earning love does keep that attention on you.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Am I being understanding enough?
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Am I expecting too much?
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Should I give this another chance?
27:20
SPEAKER_00: And when you stop auditioning, you finally have enough attention available to look across the table and think, hang on, what are you bringing?
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Not just money, not status, not promises.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: What happens to my life when you're in it?
27:35
SPEAKER_00: How do I feel around you?
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Can we repair?
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Can you hear no without punishing me or getting passive, aggressive, and shitty?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Are you interested in your own growth or am I expected to perform emotional excavation on your behalf?
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, please never do that.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: So tiresome.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: Do you make room for me to be fully human?
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm bringing that too.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps this is where we get to completely rewrite that childhood contract.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: The little girl me might have learned.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: There's this version of me that gets loved better.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: And the adult woman can look at it now with enormous tenderness, really, and say, I know why you learned that.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And then she gets to build something new.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't have to become useful enough to secure connection.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't have to make herself endlessly easy to keep someone close.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: She can just be loved and still have standards, and she can love and still have limits.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: And she can decide that nobody currently available gets the job.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: That's allowed to.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to become a woman who doesn't need anybody.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't particularly want that.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's fine.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Do what you do.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: That's what you want.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: But humans do tend to need humans.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: Connection is glorious.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: And usually men are jealous of our beautiful, deep female friendships because that is something that we do beautifully.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Connection is glorious, love is glorious.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: I want you to have oodles of it, enormous amounts of it.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: But romantic partnerships is one form of human connection.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: It's only one.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: It's not the certificate proving you successfully completed womanhood, or you're desirable, or you're good, or you're anything.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: I think there's an extraordinary energetic shift when you genuinely know that.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Not that performative, I don't need no man thing.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Just my life is good.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: If somebody extraordinary joins me in it, wonderful.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: If nobody does, I'm still gonna fucking live it and it's gonna be awesome.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: And once that becomes true, that discernment in you changes, and I strongly believe that people can feel it.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Because now you're not asking somebody to rescue you from being alone.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: You're deciding whether allowing them closer is worthy of the life you've already created.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: It's a very different position, and maybe that's ultimately what happens when you stop trying to earn love.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: You stop asking the big question, how do I become someone worth choosing?
30:01
SPEAKER_00: And eventually you start asking, What am I choosing?
30:05
SPEAKER_00: And to me, my friends, that feels like freedom.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: So before you go, you know I like to give you a little something.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you something slightly different to sit with this week.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: So think about one relationship in your life.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't have to be romantic, and ask yourself, what do I routinely provide here in order to feel secure in this relationship?
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Don't judge the answer.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're always available, or you're the funny one, or the useful one, or the forgiving one.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you really ask for help because somewhere inside you needing less has become part of how you stay lovable.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Just notice it and then ask yourself another question.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: What am I afraid might happen if I stopped doing that quite so much?
30:49
SPEAKER_00: That is an interesting question.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Because underneath the behaviour, there might be a really old fear that they'll be disappointed or they'll think I'm selfish, they'll pull away, they won't need me anymore.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: And we're not going to immediately change anything.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you marching into the kitchen tonight announcing that Erica said I'm never going to load the dishwasher again.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: We're just gathering information here because you can't consciously choose a relationship pattern while it's invisible, and that's all.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: And if you're single, particularly if you're thinking about dating again, I have another question for you.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: What would my life need to look like for being single to feel like a perfectly good outcome?
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Not a consolation prize, a good life.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: What would you build?
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Who would be in it?
31:39
SPEAKER_00: What would you do?
31:40
SPEAKER_00: How would your days feel?
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Because I think there's an enormous power in building that life before somebody arrives.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Then if somebody does, they're not filling any kind of hole.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: They're joining something, and you get to decide then what they bring and if what they bring belongs there.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: And if you'll listen to this in that strange phase after the immediate chaos has settled, where you're functioning again, life's technically okay, but you're beginning to realize just how many of your old beliefs you don't actually want anymore.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: That that is some of my absolute favorite work to do.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: When you get to pull the whole thing apart, not just the X or what happened in relationships, but everything.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Standards, boundaries, what do you believe about love, worth, sex, family, success, compassion, all the stuff you inherited without ever actually choosing it.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And then we get to ask, what fits the woman you are now?
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And that is a huge part of my one-to-one work.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: And if there's one particular knot you want to pull apart with me, my laser sessions are right there too.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: I'll put everything in the show notes here, all the links if you want to approach me for one-on-one work.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: But whether you do that or you don't, whether you are in relationships right now or not, I want you to take this with you.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to prove how deeply you can love somebody by demonstrating how much you are willing to tolerate.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: I might say that again, because I think it's pretty profound, and I think I'm having a little clap myself on the back moment for writing that.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to prove how deeply you can love somebody by demonstrating how much you're willing to tolerate.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Like it?
33:27
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty good in it.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to earn your place either by being endlessly useful.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: And you certainly don't need a romantic partner to validate your life.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: The life you built, by the way.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Love can be wonderful, partnership can be wonderful, but neither should require your disappearance.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: A relationship, of course, can ask things of you, but it cannot require the erosion of you.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm repeating these things because I think they really matter.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: And if nobody comes along who genuinely adds something worthy to your life that you've created, I hope you have the audacity to keep the fucking life and say no to the relationship.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you guys.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: I love you lots.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next time.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: This episode is about.