Latest / The Smart Mom's Guide to Divorce / Patriarchy, Betrayal and How to Break Unhealthy Relationship Patterns | Dr. Rachel Miller, Part 2

Transcript

Patriarchy, Betrayal and How to Break Unhealthy Relationship Patterns | Dr. Rachel Miller, Part 2 · The Smart Mom's Guide to Divorce

• Brooke: It was like that light bulb went off, like, my gosh, yes, yes. There's so many women out there that are putting up with a lot of things because they're conditioned by the patriarchy to do that. Dr. Rachel Miller: The truth of matter is we are as conditioned as they are to believe that that is all they are capable of. Is it capacity or is it I don't want to do this anymore? Because if you don't want to work this hard, then you need to own that piece and you need to be honest with your wife about that. Don't make her make that decision if you're the one who doesn't want to do the work. You know who high conflict divorce serves? Abusers, family courts, lawyers, custody evaluators, GALs. I mean, it's a pretty big cash cow. You do not get to control what happens in the other parent's house. Period. End of story. Like you don't. Your children hate when you talk trash about the other parent. Boundaries are for you. They are not about controlling other people. Yep. They are not rules. They are not standards. They are not expectations. Brooke: Something women think is normal, but absolutely isn't. Dr. Rachel Miller: boy. Brooke: I want to get back to that patriarchy question. Because I I really do think it's a thing. And I didn't even open my eyes to it until we had spoken. You brought it up, and I was like, it was like that light bulb went off. Like, my gosh. Yes, yes. Society and we're conditioned and There's so many women out there that are putting up with a lot of things because they're conditioned by the patriarchy to do that. So like how how does that happen? How are we conditioned to tolerate, you know, unhappy and unhealthy dynamics? Dr. Rachel Miller: I pull it out even further than just the patriarchy because the system that we live in, Bell Hooks historically has coined the imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. I know it's a big word. It scares everybody. I try to drill it into everyone's head, but it's a description of the system that we live in, right? The United States is a is a nation that colonizes. We are, you know, we are a country built. On white supremacy, whether we like to acknowledge that or not, right? We we were built on slavery. capitalism is is the economic system we reside in, and patriarchy is the relational system we live in. It's the one that tells us the hierarchy of bodies, right? Based on ability, gender, race, ethnicity, all the things, right? We are The system we live in places everybody on a ladder. And you know where you are, right? Able-bodied rich white men sitting at the top of that ladder. Disabled, trans, black indigenous women on the very ground. Right? That that's the system. What the system I'm not I'm not attacking people here. This is an acknowledgement of how the system functions. And so if anybody's curious, I teach systems theory. So this I will try to stay out of professor mode today, which is gonna be tough for me. But the patriarchy specifically is around the gender component, right? It tells us there is a binary, there are men and there are women. That's what it tries to tell us, which is why we've we've got so much backlash right now. And it tells us that men are superior to women in the line. But what we forget about that is that patriarchy also defines. Defines what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. And then it assigns characteristics to those roles, which tells us what men and women are allowed and not allowed to do. But if you're teaching men what it means to be a man, primarily what it says to men is don't be a woman. So anything that has been assigned to the gender, to the female gender, is now seen as not masculine and therefore men can't have. With this is it harms men as much as it harms women. It teaches men to cut themselves off from half of their humanity. It is assigned women to caretaking, to the emotional, anything that's emotional outside of anger and lust. And these days, like stress and some anxiety is allowed for men. All other emotions are like written off as like. Feminine and hysterical and dramatic and like all the things, right? women are too emotional. They can't lead, right? Men are stoic. No, men have been literally cut off from their emotions. They can't touch them a lot of the time, unless it's anger. So everything they feel is either anger or gets turned into this, like, I need connection and closeness, but I can only equate that with sex, right? And so We don't teach men and boys how to be partners. We don't teach men and boys how to be nurturing caretakers. We don't give them relational skills. All of those things are left to women. And women are taught from the time they are tiny. We put dolls in one-year-old's laps to teach them how to care for babies. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: As babies. Right. We teach them how to clean. We buy them little kitchens. We do like, and I will say that we are fighting this to some degree in society, but clearly not to the degree we need to. Hence, why like what we're getting now is a huge backlash, right? Hence all the red pill content, all the like the incel movement. We're getting sort of a backlash from patriarchy because of the ways in which men are trying. To reclaim more of their humanity. And this is the place where I will use not all men are trying to reclaim their humanity, but there are many that are trying. But how would they even understand it? Brooke: Like. Dr. Rachel Miller: How do they know this? This is why I I have massive amounts of empathy for men. Like I'm a feminist to my core. Black intersectional feminism is the the theoretical in the theoretical foundation of the work that I do. People are like, but you work with so many men. I'm like, yes. Brooke: That's important. Dr. Rachel Miller: Because they need us to. Like, but what that but what it currently leaves us with is a situation where women have relational skills that men don't have. Women know how to repair and tend to things and work through in relationships. And do and yes, this is a broad generalization. I know there's gonna be somebody in a comment section later being like, not all men. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I know. I have to I have to speak broadly because every individual situation is different. And every individual person has a multitude of social locations outside of just their gender, right? We have we may have a rich white woman, able-bodied, all the things, highly educated, makes a ton of money, married to a man who is black, disabled. working class, like works a works as like a day laborer somewhere, is is an immigrant in this country. People want to say to me, well, if there's a power and control dynamic there, it automatically belongs. Like he's the man. So he, I'm like, you better slow that down. Cause the system we live in, people have more than one. Like, yes, we're a patriarchy, so gender is huge. But you got to look at everybody's social locations and have a clearer conversation about that, which is why you can't just talk about patriarchy. You also have to talk about imperialism, white supremacy, and capitalism, because those all play a role in how power is utilized and wielded. But women are often typically left carrying the responsibility and believing they are responsible for the relationship. Men think relationships just take care of themselves. They just think they happen. Brooke: And you don't have to work for it. Dr. Rachel Miller: Well there's but they go to work. This is what they say. But I go to work. Brooke: Exactly. I don't want to work when I get home. Dr. Rachel Miller: And I'm laughing because I'm like, most of you realize like many of your women are already working and then coming home and doing the work. So I I don't really know what we're doing with this conversation. But I'm also really floored even by the number of men who don't understand the ways in which patriarchy is it's the water we all swim in. Even when you're trying to actively dismantle it, you're going to have blind spots. And most people are not actively trying to dismantle any of it. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: We've it like we were born into it. It's there. You can't escape it. And so if men aren't actively pursuing relational skills, if they aren't deeply trying to understand why they believe the things that they believe, why they understand relationships that we Why they're so disconnected from their own emotions and can only feel emotionally connected via sex. And why all of their friendships must happen when they're doing something and preferably something side by side, like watching a game, drinking at a bar, sitting around a fire. And like what we're gonna talk about are sports and our jobs and maybe our kids' accomplishments, but the men I'm working with are deeply lacking. In social connections. Women have almost always have massive social networks. Women know how to develop, deepen, strengthen relationships so they feel more responsible. One of the things I ask women to do around this is to recognize what you are actually responsible for. Right? That over responsibility that women are often taught, that you are responsible for. Everyone's emotional well-being, everyone's big emotions need to be fixed by you. We got to work on some boundaries and we got to learn what belongs to you and what doesn't. And their well-being is not yours to deal with. It's not your job to fix your relationship. It's really not. Like, can you contribute to the working on your relationship? Yes, but the entirety of the relationship cannot fall on you. And so learning really good boundaries for yourself is like almost always step one. Watching the reaction to those boundaries is a pretty quick clue as to who was taking advantage of the fact that you didn't have any. Brooke: Yeah. And don't you think that some women, because they were conditioned by patriarchy, will make excuses for the behavior of the men in their life? Dr. Rachel Miller: Well, and the truth of the matter is we are as conditioned as they are to believe that that is all they are capable of. This is why we like this is why we excuse it because it's like, well, you know, men are kind of they're kind of lacking in that area. So so we'll give them a pass. Yeah. Right. And number one, we have to have more faith in men's ability to do to do the work. We got to hold their feet to the fire more. But yes, if we are also not looking at our internalized patriarchy, the way that we have also decided that that is all that's required of men. That's all men are capable of. We will continue to just tolerate it. And so when men sit in my spaces, sometimes their wives will even come to their defense in the office and be like, Yeah, but Rachel, now you have to understand this, that, and the other thing about him. I'm like, I know his traumas. We've talked about them. That that does not mean he is not capable of this. I'm really curious as to why you have so little faith in him. Like, why have you decided for him that he's not capable? Let him figure out for himself whether or not he's capable. Like, I had a client, he was so mad at me one day. He's like, What if I don't have any more work that I can do? I was like, are you telling me that we've reached capacity? Have you actually maxed capacity for what you're capable of? And he's like, what if I have? I said, have you? What if I have? Have you? And he's like, what are you asking me? And I said, well, I'm really curious if you've reached capacity or if you've just decided you don't want to work this hard. Is it capacity or is it I don't want to do this anymore? Because if you don't want to work this hard, then you need to own that piece and you need to be honest with your wife about that. And you need to be the person to pull the plug on this. Don't make her do that. Don't make her make that decision if you're the one who doesn't want to do the work. In case I haven't mentioned that I'm really direct. Like that That but that's the directness that it often requires. Now it's easy for me to do, right? I have a I sit in a position of power that I recognize. I haven't been married to them for years and don't have the same triggers that their partners do. But even in that moment, like wives will look at me and go, that was really harsh, Rachel. I was like, I I understand that. Did I say anything that was untrue or unkind? Well, no. Okay. So you're telling me that you don't think he can handle the truth of what it's going to take to stay in a relationship with you. Well, no, but like, but you didn't want me to be clear and direct about it so he could actually do what he needs to do. Cause if we are not clear and direct with them about what we need, and we cannot or we are willing to give them a pass. For decades. And again, does everybody deserve a chance to learn and grow and change? 100%. But if you're having the exact same fight 10 years later and you're still harmed the same way all the time, and you don't see any change in growth or insight or awareness of what's happening? Then I look at them and I'm like, so which I don't like the word enable, but like which piece are you giving him a pass on? And how long are you willing to do that? Because again, people may have beliefs that like it's not bad enough to leave, or I'll only leave if he hits me, or I can't leave until the kids go. But you've got to examine your own beliefs around that. But you also have to decide what you believe. Cause it also means If you bought into the patriarchy, you may actually like the power that you get by being the emotional glue in your family. You may be really attached to believing you are the only capable, qualified parent. And if you are, then once they do start to step up, then I watch women have a really difficult time with that. Because I wanted them to change this thing. I said, yes, but that also means you have to let go of that thing and allow them to do it, even if it looks different than you. We have a shared standard, like minimum standard of care conversation, but he's his own person. You are not the sole like decision maker of all things around parenting and children if this person has also started reading the books, unlearning harmful behaviors, trying to do things differently. And this is where women can get stuck in that patriarchal stuff, because there's something we get, right? We lose societal power in the patriarchy, but we gain power in the home. And sometimes we don't. We don't want that to actually level out. Some of us really do, but some of us only want that to level out around housework. We don't actually want that to level out everywhere. Brooke: Especially when you get divorced and if you've been the primary parent and the caregiver to the children and you want more custody because you've always had that role and you separate and maybe your you know, your husband is now like taking on more of those those responsibilities because you're in two separate homes. Yep. And he's stepping up, you know, and I wanna say that that doesn't always happen. Right? It definitely does I don't want to you know, somebody to say, Well that didn't happen in my like I get it, it doesn't always happen but Dr. Rachel Miller: Often doesn't happen. Yeah. I mean, I'll be I'll be honest. It often doesn't happen. The way they were when you married them and the way they were gonna leave live in that house when you left, you know, or you kept the house and they got an apartment somewhere. They're gonna be the exact same person that they were. They're not do some of do some partners step up and suddenly become actually better parents when you're separated? Yeah, some of them do. It's pretty incredible to watch. Not all of them do. Yeah. And some of them you will have a hard time because they will not parent like you do. They will not keep a house like you do. They will not run a schedule like you do. And you will be livid and constantly trying to control what happens over there. You can't. You can't control that. Focusing on what is within your control and letting go of what isn't is a really steep learning curve in this in the divorce process. And especially if you co parent. Like if you are co-parenting Learning to let go of what is not in your t in your control and recognizing that you do not get to control what happens in the other parents' house. Period. End of story. Like you don't. It's really hard. Especially if not great things are happening to your kids in that space. Then again, you can try to go to court, you can see what happens. That takes ages, that costs a lot of money, you know. That's it's not an easy process. But that's like if you bought into the patriarchal idea of women are women are the runners of the home and the household, and then suddenly fifty fifty to you know plus, sometimes plus percent of the time, those kids are in another household that you have no power over. Or when they end up getting having another partner in that house who's also now having an influence over something that you thought was your sphere, like that was That's my that belongs to me, right? Because that's what patriarchy tells us. Children children and child rearing belongs to us. I got a lot of women who see their children as possessions just as much as I see men see children as their possessions. And my encouragement is always listen to the voices of your children. Hear the voices of your children. They are children, but they are humans. Like we need to treat children as their full human selves. Like they, you know, they don't get a they don't get a voice in this process. The only person listening to them is you. And hopefully their other parent. So listen to them. They don't belong to you. They're people. Brooke: Yeah, and and go through the process with their best interest at heart, which may not align with what you think your best interest is. Dr. Rachel Miller: Lots of times it won't. I'm I mean, I can count multiple times that what was best for me was not what was running the show by any stretch of the imagination, right? But also not assuming you know what's best for your kids all the time. Yeah. Right. Because sometimes we know, lots of times we know. But sometimes they're gonna tell you something that's very different than what you think. You gotta listen to them to some degree. And yes, I'm aware things like parental alienation are super hot button topic won't won't drag that into this mix, but know that it's a It's a thing that I have seen happen, but not the way that it's often sold. So it is often abusers who will accuse non abusive parents of of parental alienation when what it is is protective parenting, right? They're trying to protect their children from the abusive parent. And so then they are seen as the alienating parent. When it's most often it's abusers who are alienating, right? But they're trying to use that term less in courts these days. The courts don't really like it to be brought up at all. It still gets thrown around in high conflict divorce spaces. It still gets thrown around a lot in men's rights spaces, fathers' rights spaces. it's not that it never happens. It just doesn't actually happen in the way that it's sort of Put out into the public as it happens. And so this is why children don't actually get a voice in the process. Like, there's always that fear that children can be bought, and which can like the house that offers to buy them this buy the 16-year-old the car is where they're gonna go, where they're gonna wanna stay. And it's why children don't get to decide where they live. most states have an age in which kids are allowed to decide that, but I rarely ever see that actually be allowed. and so kids don't have a voice. So we need to make sure that as their parents, we are hearing what they're saying. We're considering what they want. Not that what they want is the only thing that matters, because you are also a person. And sometimes you do have to do things that are best for you for your own stability. Cause one of the most protective factors for kids of divorce is. one stable parent. So sometimes you will have to choose you and your stability for their overall well-being in the future versus what they want right now. and so yes, this process will also be challenging for your children in a lot of ways. It will challenge your relationship with your kid. it's it's not easy. Like and again the patriarchy says that you're supposed to be like this it In addition to the patriarchy handing you the your role and as in a gender, it also says a lot of things about fatherhood and motherhood and what a mother is. And so losing your children fifty percent of the time feels like punishment for the thing you're supposed to be doing. And how are you supposed to be a good mother, right? How are you supposed to be a good wife? All the patriarchy is what is what sets the rules for all of that. as does like culture, society you live in, but again, most of what we all reside in is a patriarchal system. So where are beliefs and ideas about even motherhood and fatherhood and what that's supposed to look like, all of that stems from the patriarchy. You got to pull it all out. You gotta lay all of your beliefs and your values on the table and you have to look at those and you have to go, who are those beliefs serving? Are they serving me? Is there a different way to do that? Am I interested in upholding the patriarchy or am I here to like dismantle that for the well-being of myself, even my ex-partner, my children, like, or am I just going to follow suit? But that, you know, that too takes intention and work. And some people don't want to do that. And I get that. but it's influencing you whether you recognize it or not. And so unless you dig into your beliefs and your values and you start to identify where those came from and what they're attached to and who they serve. 'Cause I'll tell ya, you know who high conflict divorce serves? Abusers, family courts, lawyers, custody evaluators, GALs. I mean, it's a pretty big cash cow. Yep. I'm not always interested in like serving capitalism in addition to the patriarchy, right? And so this is what I say to people start to pull apart where those beliefs, ideas come from and who they serve. And am I interested in participating in that or is there a different way for me? Even though the family court system is wrapping me up in certain ways and limits some of what I can do, what can I do? What's within my control and what do I do with that? Brooke: Yeah. I would like to go back to infidelity because we just briefly touched on that. What does betrayal actually do to someone psychologically? Like what impacts does that? Dr. Rachel Miller: It's so different for different people. Like I've had folks for whom infidelity didn't do much. Like, I'm done, you're a jerk, kiss off, I'm not like it actually was not devastating to them. I've seen people for whom financial betrayal, like the finding out of a of a gambling problem and loss of all of their, you know, retirement. Was way more of a betrayal than like we'll flat out look at someone and go, I'd rather you had slept with someone else. Right? Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: So there's a million ways to betray your relationship outside of having a having an external partner, right? Is it a break of your relationship contract? Yes. The degree to which it impacts somebody depends on the person, depends on who you cheated on this person with, right? Like, were you the person who? Your best friend slept with your husband, or your, you know, the couple that you were a friend with, like you were friends with, and your kids were all friends, and you all were in like, you know, you went on every yearly vacation, that that's gonna wreck somebody on multiple levels with multiple relationship challenges. But betrayal in some of those senses is a complete loss of loss of trust. And what we often do is then decide what that betrayal means about us. Right. So if I've got some dude slept with his, I'll I'll pick the stereo stereotypical, like slept with a secretary. Is it like I see women spin around in the was it because she was younger? Was it because she was hotter? What did she have that I didn't have? And there's all this like sel like what what did the fact that he did this mean about me? Yeah. Brooke: What did I not have? Dr. Rachel Miller: What did I not have that they have, right? We got a matically go to this self-focused and it it completely destroys your sense of yourself. And if that's what it done does, that's really hard to rebuild. It's not impossible. I've seen couples work through that. I've also very rarely seen infidelity actually be about the relationship. It's almost always about the other person and what they're going through and what they haven't dealt with, and you know, their degree of entitlement and belief like it's rarely about the partner as a person. And yet at the same time, it destroys how they see themselves. And so recovery from that requires massive amounts of long term accountability. Which can be really difficult for couples to get through. And these days, infidelity is one of those interesting things where folks are judged harder for staying together. Like they're judged pretty hard by friends and family. Why would you stay with which is also why it's so secretive and people don't talk about it? Like Brooke: Yeah. Dr. Rachel Miller: it's hush hush for folks who are gonna stay together around it. Like they very rarely talk about it openly. Brooke: I feel like infidelity, and maybe it's just because I'm of that age, I feel like it is everywhere. And it's not even just men, it's women. Like it's ever everybody. And you know, I'm very interested with Esther Perel's work. And, you know, I I've done a lot of research on that. but I I really do wonder like, what does it take to know that you can get through it and actually like stay in your relationship. Because I know, you know, I I've attended some meetings with with betrayed spouses and they will be, you know, on all kinds of medication, like trying to make it work with their spouse. And to me, like when they tell their story, it just doesn't seem like their spouse is doing too much to make them Comfortable, you know. Dr. Rachel Miller: No, 'cause many times what they're not So one of the things you sort of have to suss out in those early stages are like, is that like, am I only staying because I don't want to be seen as an as as the asshole? Like, do I just not want everyone we know to think I'm a jerk and that like I'll be ostracized from so I'm only sort of here to save my reputation? Or am I here with deep remorse and regret? And how long will that person be able to sit in this in the rage that the betrayed partner often has. Like it's rage in the beginning, right? There's the I'm devastated, like I'm I'm wrecked and I'm and then we get to a place where it is Like it's brutal. And folks gotta sit in a hot seat for a little while. And I gotta like hold like I I know, right? Like we're gonna have to let we're gonna let some of that out to a point that has to be moved through. Both of those stages have to be moved through, but people will get in stuck, they'll get stuck in both. Right. So they'll be like revengeful in the rage space where it's like, I want to make you pay. I want you to, I want to punish you for how. hurt I was and how devastated I feel and the my loss of trust in you and all those things. And we can stay in the punishment phase. I have seen some people get stuck in that phase for years. Years. And then I have seen people get stuck in the like it is it wrecks how I understand myself. And I have seen partners both be able to like hold their other, you know, hold their spouses like Pain, sit with their own, like regret and remorse, forgive themselves for causing harm so that they can show up in that space that says, I'm allowed to make mistakes and still hold myself in high regard. And how I know that is because I can take the accountability that's necessary to repair this. If you need to talk to me about this, I can sit here and hear it. I will actually go meet you actively in that space. And this is where people struggle. What I say to the partner who cheated every time is if you want to move through this, you have to be able to invite the conversation. They're like, What do you mean? I said, that means you don't wait for her or him to come to you and say, I need to talk about this. This means you actively recognize, mm, she hasn't said anything in a couple of days. Let me go, let me go do a temperature check. Hey, I know we haven't talked much any, you know, the last few days. Want to see how you're at. Is there anything you want talk about? I'm here if you do. Like be able to proactively put yourself in the potential space to get your head ripped off or to have them sobbing in your lap, right? You have to be, you have to have a strong enough sense of self and a commitment to repairing that in any of the ways that it takes. Not everybody does. Some people really don't care. They genuinely do not care. They are not interested. But on average, recovering from infidelity takes two plus years. And recovery starts from the day they found out the last piece of information. So I've worked with couples who, with an infidelity case, we were almost a year into the work and new information came out. And I was like, God, no. I was like, we had this conversation. I gave you every opportunity to put it all on the table. Brooke: Mm. Dr. Rachel Miller: Here we are back at square one. Yep. Brooke: It's a slow drip sometimes. Dr. Rachel Miller: Back at square one and it's like, you know, but if people are gonna get through it. There has to be an openness and a willingness to repair on the betrayed partner side. You have to be open to open to receiving the repair attempts. And that can sometimes take a little while to get there. But if you're not open to receiving repair, there isn't anything actually the other person can do. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: And if you have no intention of allowing them to repair or you're committed to really punishing them for life, then you actually need to like be the one to walk away. If the other person is actually unwilling to really sit in it, like to actually get comfortable. And truthfully, what they most often have to wrestle with is shame, which is that shame's a really difficult emotion. It's never helpful to the person who's feeling it or the person who needs repair. But shame is really where like people who've cheated will get stuck a lot of times. And either they'll move out of that by going, F you, I don't really care, and like, you know, sort of Do that one-up position of whatever, you know, dismissive and all that, or they sink so far into shame that they can't even attempt to repair anything. and if you got either one of those spaces, then there's not, there's just not anything you can do. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: But I have seen people work through it. I have seen people unpack their stuff, heal their own wounds, repair the damage that was between them. Doesn't mean we never talk. Recovery from infidelity doesn't mean we never talk about the affair. It means we can talk about the affair as if it's a thing that happened to us. It almost goes back to that resiliency story, right? Is it a piece of our story? Did it change our relationship in a way that feels meaningful to us so that we made sense of it in our story? And both parties were able to do that in a way that was connected and moved them both through their journey. But that's not easy and not everybody wants to do that work and some people are uninterested in doing that work. Brooke: Yeah. And I think there's shame on both sides. I think both people feel sh shame. And I you know, I know one woman who drove like three hours to get to a betrayed spouse's meeting. And nobody in her family knew, no none of their friends knew, like she was, you know, dealing with this on her own and wanting to make it work. But that's the thing, it's like when When you're so scared, when the fear is just like, what's gonna happen to me? I don't know if I'm gonna like you can tolerate things that don't feel like you're being in in your own integrity. absolutely and I so I'll ask the question of, well, are they leaving their phone open? You know, like do you have access to things? Like if they're not showing you that they can be trustworthy again. then that might be a sign that, you know, they just wanna have it both ways. Dr. Rachel Miller: I mean, there are those people, right? And I think the reminder that trust is not an all-or-nothing conversation. If you dig into Brene Brown's work on trust, right? There's the braving acronym with the seven com I think it's seven components. It's boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault, which is that can I trust you to keep my secrets kind of thing? and not to tell stories that aren't yours to tell, integrity, non-judgment, and generosity, right? So when I'm helping couples rebuild trust, regardless of what the betrayal was or where the trust or why the trust was lost, we're we're going through those and we're tending to each of those spaces. We are making sure both parties have good have good boundaries and know how to respect boundaries. Cause the reminder, boundaries are for you. They are not about controlling other people. Yep. Brooke: Exactly. Dr. Rachel Miller: Which is like, They are not rules, they are not standards, they are not expectations. If you don't understand the difference in those, highly recommend checking out both Dr. Raquel Martin and Casey Davis have both done really great like TikToks and Instagram sort of comp you know, compiling reels that really break down the differences in those if if you're unfamiliar, if you don't really know how to pull that apart. And I also talk about Terry Real's framework of psychological boundaries, which is an external boundary that protects you from the world, but also an internal boundary that protects the world from you. You have a responsibility to protect people you love from yourself. Right? And that's where I when I talk about people with infidelity, I was like, you had absolutely no internal boundary. You didn't protect the person you cheated on with from you, you didn't protect your partner from you. You didn't protect your family from you. Like those psychological boundaries are really problematic. Sometimes people have a strong external and no internal. And some people have a strong internal but no external. So everything comes through and everything feels very personal. Like an infidelity. It's all about it's actually has nothing to do with you. It has to do with them. It has to do with the fact that they didn't have that internal boundary that would have protected you from them. so I do a lot of boundaries work when we're repairing trust. We talk about what reliability is and isn't, right? Because people are human. You have to be allowed to like you're gonna screw it up. Like, I just don't know how to tell you nobody's reliable 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And if you've got a partner who's neurodivergent, you have to understand that reliability has to be understood differently because I need you to recognize the role that ADHD Aud or autism can play and how people show up around reliability or even how they like understand themselves and like their that over optimism of like, yes, I'm gonna do this thing. Forgetting that working memory doesn't work in ADHD. And so, like, it's not about you. They didn't forget it because they don't care about you. They didn't miss that thing because they don't love you and you don't mean anything to them. That literally has to do with how their brain functions and they Like we can talk about setting up better systems for them, so that's helpful, but you might actually have to have different boundaries and you might have to do some digging in and educating for yourself. You know, and accountability is a process most people don't actually understand. Some people think it's just saying I'm sorry, and it's not. Most people don't even understand what a good apology is. Some people believe it's only changed behavior. And I need folks to have a little more wiggle room than that. Right? Like, yes, changed behavior is an important part of that. But again, if we're dealing with people with chronic illness or we're dealing with people with you know, any kind of like neurodivergence or other disability, that may impact like the degree to which changed behavior is realistic or possible in the way that the person wants it. Right. So if you have a financial situation and you don't and and this was true in my marriage. And you want someone to never impulse spend. That is never going to happen. If you understand ADHD, impulse spending is going to happen. What are the guardrails we can put up? What's the avenue for talking about it? How do we not create an environment of shame? Like, how do we like repair from it when it does happen? There's things we have to do differently based on everyone's individual stuff, right? So I like you have to understand what accountability is, what the process is, and what that looks like. You know, and then we talk about, you know, vault, especially around infidelity of like, are we telling people? Who are we telling? How are you talking to people about me? Are you sharing my part of the story that's really not your business to share? and where most of this work is around integrity. I thought we shared values around this. Now you did this, do we share values? Brooke: Hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: Right. And so it's getting everybody back into a place of integrity or recognizing where they actually have different values sometimes. And then non-judgment and generosity is required of everybody. Like we gotta rebuild some some. Can I give people the benefit of the doubt? Right. Cause here's what I'm gonna say. If you're gonna be checking that phone every five minutes, there is no there this is not Because nobody's gonna stay in a relationship where they're surviv where they're surveilled 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Brooke: For sure. Dr. Rachel Miller: right? And also there are ways to check in like that. Your partner can check in with you around openness and transparency that isn't about them completely up never having any privacy again nor having any autonomy. Right. And and generosity is what's the most generous interpretation I can make of this behavior, right? Not saying we give them a pass, right? Acknowledging that context can make behaviors make sense. It doesn't make them okay. It only makes them sometimes make sense, oftentimes make sense. I don't have to agree with it. I don't have to like it, but if I understand it, here we go. I can uns understand someone's trauma history and understand why they are now controlling everything in their life and say to them, the controlling behaviors you have. I recognize where they come from and they're not okay. We need to we need to tend to the trauma so these behaviors can stop. Brooke: In regards to the phone though, I can understand if, you know, your spouse always flips their phone over and then you find out that they've been having an affair and maybe there's been text messages and photos, you know, that are shared. All the things. And that becomes a trigger. Totally. You know? And every time so I I completely understand that you don't want the betrayed spouse to now be in a position of control and it's like you can't have any privacy, but how do you find that balance? Dr. Rachel Miller: That's negotiated between them, right? Like we talk about what's realistic and not realistic. Like I'll talk to the partner who cheated. I'll be like, you recognize transparency is going to be real important for a while. But transparency isn't you have no privacy. I have access to all of your stuff every minute of every day. Right? Like there is a way to negotiate that where there is still a I'm still a person. I made mistakes. I know that. And at the end of the day, if we're being really honest about it, when you decide to stay, at some point what you said was, I'm going to trust you enough to try this again. And so you actually do have to sort of mean that in good faith. Now that does put the other person in this position where they've got to be able to like lead from that place of, hey, I'm really doing like, I'm really working on transparency. An example of this that I did with a with a couple once was he was pretty notorious for doing inappropriate things on business trips. So the very first business trip after things came to light, he brought it up in session. He said, I realize that there's a business trip coming up and I want to make her as comfortable as possible. So I said, I wouldn't do any of these things. And these are all the things that I'm gonna give. And she says, She's like, okay, but now I just feel like he's only like he's gonna do he went from all to nothing and that doesn't feel sustainable either. And then like, do I actually believe him? Do I not believe him? And so we talked about like, what do we feel comfortable with? Like what's you know, she's like, I would feel better if I'm allowed to have his location and he leaves it on because he was notorious for turning his location off. But and that if he was gonna go out. with some coworkers that he let me know and then he lets me know who it is. He says, I'm happy to do that. She says, can you also come home at a d can you come back to the hotel at a decent time? I don't remember what time they set. And can you FaceTime me? He says, Yes, that I can do. I'm happy to do that. Right. So that's like the what's our negotiated understanding of I am still a person. And I know that you are hurt and need things from me. So what can I do? What can I offer? How far can I how far can I come? How close can I walk to you? Without the other person just coming in like steamrolling and saying, You are no longer allowed to do anything and I'm gonna be hypervigilant and like some of them don't understand the hypervigilance. It's real, it's it's true. And you have to get the partner who did the cheating to begin with to like be willing to sit in the discomfort of like leading those conversations, walking into those conversations on their own. you know, what that would look like is like, hey, I'm gonna turn my phone upside down right now because it's distracting me from being able to talk to you. But I don't want you to think that anybody's, you know, anybody's calling me or that I'm trying to keep something from you. I can actually show you my phone if you'd like to, but I'm gonna flip it upside down for now. That kind of proactive stuff goes so long, like so like it just it gives you so much distance and so much leverage, but people who cheat are like have a hard time with it. So both parties have to sort of expand their tolerance for like the unknown and discomfort of like, I don't wanna give up all my on, I don't wanna be fully transparent. Well, we gotta talk about what what do we mean by fully transparent? There's fully transparent, there's radical transparency, which I don't actually always recommend because that just gets because then we're just policing. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: And and where are we recovering and repairing if all we're doing is policing? Yeah. but yeah, you should recognize somebody's triggers. And if you're triggered, your triggers are yours to manage. Right. If we love someone and we know they're getting triggered, we can tend to that and try to, you know, recognize that on the front end. But also, if we are triggered, that is ours to manage. Brooke: Absolutely. And it makes me think of Michael Singer's book, The Untethered Soul, with you know, the thorns that we have and that we will build things around these thorns and expect other people to not get close to our thorns instead of working on pulling out the thorns ourselves because that's the work that we have to do. Dr. Rachel Miller: Absolutely. Yeah, because people can't do that for you. And I think if we want to tie that back to the conversation of like victim mentality, right? Part of where that empowerment work comes in is doing some of that pulling out of those thorns, finding what your triggers are that keep you in spaces where you never feel safe or you are, you know, you are hyper vigilant in spaces that that don't. like don't actually warrant that anymore, or that all these things happen to me, because when you can pull those out and sort of make sense of them, right? Incorporate that back into your story, they just don't have the same kind of power over you anymore. Like you get to take back your own power. Brooke: Yeah. And staying is hard. You know? Yes. Like it is really hard work. And you do hear people say, you know, you didn't try hard enough and this and that. It's like that is really hard, but you're not taking the easy way out by staying and you're not taking the easy way out. Yeah. Dr. Rachel Miller: no, they're both hard. Pick your hard. Brooke: It's Dr. Rachel Miller: Pick your hard. They they're both gonna suck. Like I I don't pull any punches around that. And what I say to people is like, if anybody else is making judgments of you, that's about them. They've not been where you are. They don't know what's hard for you. They don't know how hard you've worked because most of the time we don't share our stories with them. And at the end of the day, nobody else is walking in your shoes. They can judge all they want, but Their judgments are about them and their beliefs and where they are stuck in their own stuff. You do not need to pick that up. That does not belong to you. Yeah. Brooke: And it there is so much noise and so much judgment and so much bias and it it can be really hard. It can be really hard to get Dr. Rachel Miller: Yeah. Everybody's got something to say. Everybody believes they get to say something about somebody else's whatever. And it's like, mind your business. Like, if it's not impacting you, mind your business. Like, and just show up with empathy and generosity for folks. Right? Like, it goes a really long way. You don't know. what it's like to walk in somebody's shoes. And you don't know if you had been through what they had been through, if you would be acting the way they'd be act the the way that they're acting. So before you judge them, find their humanity first. Start from the place that says, I don't know what they've been through that maybe makes this behavior make sense for them. It's not okay. I don't like the behavior, but like, can I still see the person? Brooke: Mm. Dr. Rachel Miller: And when we judge people and we other them and we like We lose that. We just lose what that is. Brooke: Mm-hmm. So in regards to infidelity, betrayal, even high conflict, how do you know what to share with your kids? Like, you know, and we and and I can rope in the patriarchy with this too. Dr. Rachel Miller: Yes. Brooke: You know, because some people might not want to share information because they don't want to impact the relationship that the kids have with their spouse. Right. So how do you know when you need to be honest so that you can stop repeating those patterns like you mentioned earlier? Yep. Like how do you know when is the right time to share that information? I know that there's not like a one size fits all, but I'm just like, yes, in general, right. What do moms need to understand? Dr. Rachel Miller: So I think what I'll f what I'll name first, and I name this for people often, and it's one of my biggest frustration with the family courts, is remembering that the family court system is an institution that upholds our larger governmental system, the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, right? That's what it's doing. That's its job, right? And And yes, I know some people will come at me and that's how Yeah, that's fine. I'll fight with you about it later. But like in this moment, if we recognize that family court is an institution to uphold the system, then we have to recognize why it acts the way it acts is because it's trying to uphold those things. So what you'll find that happens in family courts is that the responsibility for the relationship that children have with their father or the non the The not primary custodial parent, which they don't do much of that anymore, but like sometimes you do. Mothers. Are given that responsibility. So if children don't have a good relationship with their father, mothers are blamed every time. Which, if you go back historically, mothers are blamed for pretty much everything in society, and that's the patriarchy, right? We give women all of the responsibility for all of the child rear rearing and for all of the things so that when it goes wrong, we have someone to blame, right? So you can't. You can't talk about family courts without talking about the patriarchy and the ways in which, despite fathers' rights movements preaching that the courts favor women, the four the courts favor moms. It's not true. It's statistically not true. Fathers who fight for their fight for full custody of their children will get it. If I remember the statistic correctly, it was like 70% of the time. Fathers who fight for full custody get it. 70%. of the time. If I can find the study exactly again, I will pull it and I will share it with people so that they don't think I just pulled that out of my rear end. But but if if the story in society is that mothers are responsible for their children's relationships and pretty much everything to do with their children, then the courts will also look at mothers and say, do not bad talk, you know, do not trash talk your ex-spouse to your children. Like I was literally like berated at one point because there was a belief that I had trashed my ex to my children. And I laughed. I said, You assume I had to say anything? They spend time with him. This is about how he treats them, not anything that I say. Well, you are supposed to foster that relationship. I said. I have no control over what happens in his house. I have a forty-five minute recording of him screaming at my children, but then you think I did this? they do. Right? So I always say tread lightly, be careful, but do not lie to your children. Do not lie to your children, because that comes back and bites you in the rear end. And I am not here for mothers to sacrifice their own relationship with their children in order to foster the one with their father. I'm just not. Like, why are you supposed to because those kids will grow up and they will find out all the things and they will look at you and go, Why did you lie to me? Why were you not honest with me? Right. And now I am not saying to trash talk your partner to your children, but I am saying that when your children come home and they're sobbing to you, because this happened or that happened. You are allowed to say that something is not okay. You are allowed to say, I do know that this happens with your dad. And I'm really sorry. We do not deny their reality. We do not do the toxic positivity, smooth it all over. We can validate our children's experience without lying to them. And we don't need to move them past the hard feelings. We just have to be able to sit with our own guilt about the pain they're experiencing. And when it comes to like what happened and how did it happen, and like why are you getting divorced? Okay, be very careful. Children do not, depending on their age, need the details of that. But you can be honest with them. Look, there are things about your dad and my's relationship that you don't really want to know, but that don't allow us to live in the same house anymore. Right? And as kids get older, like if we're talking about an infidelity case. Is there a time and place for you to be honest with your kids about that? Yeah. When will that be? I don't get to tell you when that is. Like Because kids are gonna find that out. And also, it's not like their kids don't know their parents. Like, yes, sometimes some parents manage to hide their stuff well enough, you know. But it usually comes out anyway at some point, right? Because kids start to like notice things and have questions and they put stuff together differently. You know, like the the couple who was, you know, all of a sudden, my dad is living with your mom. And like at the time it was really cool because all the kids got to like hang out together. And then like, and then when that didn't work and it all split up and now nobody talks to anybody and and my mom won't talk to your mom and but like I thought our moms were best friends. So kids are already putting stuff together. It's gonna depend on your child's maturity. It's gonna depend on how your ex has continued to behave, right? Because sometimes that's a pattern that repeats on the other end. And if you're talking to your children who are now, I don't know, teenagers, or young adulthood in their dating, and they're getting really not great dating advice from the other side, and you're going, look, I need you and I to have a really honest conversation. But maybe that's 17, 18, 22. Right? So there's not one right way to do this. But I do say don't lie to your kids. Don't blow things over with toxic positivity. When things are not okay, name that they are not okay. That came out of my research that said the first time a therapist actually looked at my dad and said to him, That behavior is not okay. You may not treat your children that way. She goes, I was 17 years old. It was the most powerful moment of my life because I recognized that what had happened in my household was not okay. Right. And so you can be honest with your children without trash talking. What's that? Is it an Anne Lamont quote that's like, if people wanted you to write nicely about them, they should have behaved differently. I won't lie for you. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: Like, now I didn't I didn't have to, like. My ex just acted the way that he acted and like his relationships with his children reflect his own lack of work. That has nothing to do with me. But if you can find the positive things about their dad to remind them of, right? You know, or their other mom or whatever, like, yeah, or their other dad, do that. Like if you can also remember who they were, all of them, right? Nobody is the worst thing they ever did. Like that's not the only thing they are. They're also not only the best thing they ever did. They're a whole person. Make sure kids learn that all of us are whole people, including them. Right. And so choose carefully. Don't lie to your children. Validate their emotions and experiences. Doesn't mean you agree with them. You're just validating them. There's a difference. And if there are things you want to tell your children, I will I will say to you, tread carefully. That can be used against you in court. Especially if you have a spouse who wants custody. But recognize their maturity, where they're at, think about the questions that they are asking. Do not just go dump stuff on your children when they're not already sort of in that space and kind of like have had some questions and are curious and are like wondering some things. Brooke: Yeah, I think it can be really tricky though, especially in a high conflict situation where you have the aggressor, the one that is initiating legal abuse or financial abuse or whatever the case is. Right. And he's trash talking you. You know, and he's doing all the all these really negative things. Yep. And this is one of the things that I hear in my support group and the women that I work with, they're like, I'm tired of being the mature one. I'm tired of you know, being the bigger person because he's over here talking, talking, talking and trashing me. And I see the value in not doing that. And in Ill Illinois, we have to take a parenting class when you do and Dr. Rachel Miller: They say that parenting class. Brooke: So, you know, it it's just what do you say to the women that are just like getting really tired of being the bigger person? I Dr. Rachel Miller: Feel you. I feel you. It's terrible. It really, really sucks. And you have to walk in your integrity because you have to live with yourself at the end of the day. And what like my research confirmed a research that's already out there is that your children hate when you try talk trash about the other parent. They hate when all you do is talk negatively about their other parent when they're with you. And so them doing that is eroding their relationship with their own child. Let them do that damage themselves. You have to play the long game. This is a long game conversation. This is where you go to your girlfriends, you go to your support group, you call your mother and you cry, you rail, you scream, you say all the horrible things you want to tell them about their father, and you let that go elsewhere. Because they will not thank you for that and you will erode your own relationship with them if you do it. If you do what if you do what that other parent is doing, it will come back and bite you in the ass. Brooke: Yeah, that I mean that makes a lot of sense. It's hard Dr. Rachel Miller: Hard to do. I'm I say it like it's easy, but it is not easy. It is horribly painful and difficult, and you will cry many a night. Brooke: Yeah. But it really does come down to your values. Yes. And who you want to be. Dr. Rachel Miller: That braving acronym is actually really powerful to use with yourself. How do I trust me to know what the right decision is about how to talk to my kids about some of the things that happened? Right. Is because I trust me. And how I why I trust me is because I know what my boundaries are and I hold them and they're in alignment with my values. I am reliable. I am accountable. If I screw this up, I will be accountable and tend to the impact, right? I will not tell stories that are not mine to tell. I will tell my stories. I will live my values, not just preach them. And I will practice non-judgment and generosity with myself and others. If I can trust me, then I will know how to make that decision. And I will be able to live with the consequences of it because I did the best I could with where I was and what I knew. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's such a good reminder. Wow. okay, I'd like to end with some rapid fire questions. Dr. Rachel Miller: Okay, I'll try to keep it short. I'm not good at that in case you haven't noticed. Brooke: no, it's okay. 'Cause I think that you've just I mean, there's so many wonderful words of wisdom in here and things. I think this has been amazing conversation. okay. One thing women in high conflict relationships need to stop doing immediately. Dr. Rachel Miller: Being reactive. You have to understand that your reactivity is what they want. Don't do it. Start to keep an eye on. I tell people, like, make a triangle with your hand and like put it on your thigh. And I need you to figure out which role are they trying to play and where are they trying to put you in the triangle? Perpetrator, victim, rescuer. Are they trying to put you in the perpetrator role? Are they trying to put you in the victim role? Are they trying to, you know, make you rescue your kids? Pay attention. It's a triangle. They're playing a game all the time. Start to observe it from the from the outside and go, which role are they in or which role are they trying to put me in? Cause then I get to decide if I'm playing. I'm the one in charge of my decisions. I am in control here of me. Am I participating in the game or am I not taking the bait today? Am I not jumping into the triangle? Brooke: Yeah, that's that's really smart because it is really hard for women to r to keep their emotions in check when they're getting those nasty text messages. Dr. Rachel Miller: I mean they're hurtful, they're rude, they're like disrespectful, and and half the time they're just blatantly false, right? Of course. So there's like there becomes this need to like defend yourself, right? But if you feel a need to defend yourself, it's because they're probably trying to stick you back in that victim position. I have no interest in playing in that. You can there can be no perpetrator if there is no victim. So I will not be I will not be standing there. I no thank you. I'm not coming to rescue you. You don't get to come rescue me from myself. And you don't need to rescue my children from me. I do not need to rescue my children from you. I'm not playing this game. Once you start to see it as a game and you recognize that your reactivity is what they want, and you can observe it, like step back and observe it. Watch them. It's so easy to see. It happens every time. They all play out of the same playbook. The tactics are different, but the playbook is not. Brooke: Yeah, and you actually might start to laugh at the power of right? Like Dr. Rachel Miller: I laugh every time. Every time. I'll sort of do the prediction game and I'm like, I'm my anticipation is we'll see this happen. And people come in and they're like, How did you know? I'm like, because they're all the same. Like, I I'm not psychic. They're literally just all the same. And I'll put it out there and like, this is my prediction. Why are you always right? I said, Well, I'm due to be wrong at some point. Like statistically speaking, I'm due to be wrong at some point. But these these people are always this predictable. If you understand power and control dynamics, if you understand what it is they're looking for, if you understand entitlement, it's not hard to predict them. And then you can just watch them be in like absolutely go off the walls. You'll watch them bounce around that triangle like I used to watch my ex do it like five times in one email. And then when I wouldn't respond and would just answer the question, then he'd come back with something like completely out of pocket that makes no sense. And you're just like, Well, I'm glad you're you're having a good time over there. I will I will not be participating in that. I will be closing my laptop now, right? You it gives you the distance that you need in your upper hand. Brooke: Okay, what is a belief about love that causes the most damage? Oof. Dr. Rachel Miller: That's good question. I mean, I could do the the quick answer, sort of all you need is love, because you don't. It's not enough. It's not enough. I don't care what anybody says. Because sometimes you actually have to love somebody enough to let them go. Like it will not solve all things. You can love someone deeply and it cannot be enough. So letting that idea go can actually free you up to sometimes do what you need. Brooke: that. What is the biggest myth about co-parenting? Ugh. Dr. Rachel Miller: Co-Parenting. I don't know if it's a myth per se, but what I'm seeing a lot of is like this belief that like, well, we can just do this, like we're gonna be BFFs after this, and like, and then you're gonna get remarried, and I'm gonna get remarried, and we're all gonna like hang out together, and it's gonna be amazing. I love that for the small minority of people that can pull that off. But if that's the thing you're trying to measure yourself up to, you're gonna feel like an epic failure forever, and that's not helpful. Recognizing that the two of you got divorced for a reason, you're gonna have a lot of differences in how you wanna do things with your kids. That has to be okay. What happens in your house will not be identical to what happens in theirs, and that cannot be your expectation. And you may need to go get therapy. To figure out how to co-parent together, because the communication strategies that you didn't learn in couples therapy on that last round that you were supposed to would have actually served you really well in this co-parenting space. But if you didn't get them and you still communicate badly, or we've still got a power and control dynamic going on, then we might want to tap into therapy. And worst case scenario, parallel parenting is still shown to be good parenting on both parts. Kids do okay in parallel parenting. It's okay if things are different in different houses. Brooke: Yeah. That is a that is a really tough one, the co parenting thing 'cause everybody does want to have this beautiful, harmonious co parenting relationship and sometimes it just it can't be that way. Dr. Rachel Miller: And sometimes it's that way for a little while. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: And then we introduce new partners and that doesn't go well. And then we have like that can like we didn't even touch that today, the degree to which the introduction of a new partner can wreak havoc in whatever it is you've already worked out. And so this is where, you know, even conversations around things like a collaborative divorce where you have like a financial neutral and like a mental health neutral and a kid neutral. And You know, you have family therapists who can help with those some of those tr you know transitions can be really powerful. Family therapy is really highly underrated and underutilized. And and in family therapy, I don't mean like all of you still come together. Maybe it's dad with the kids, maybe it's mom with the kids, maybe it's the new partner with, you know, maybe the other parent, or maybe it's like a joint session. There's there's a lot of ways that family therapy can be really useful in. Guiding and supporting the transitions that happen and will continue to happen throughout their childhoods. Brooke: Yeah. And I think that that also makes me think about the importance of having a good therapist because you can be in a high conflict relationship and the court can order you to have co parenting therapy and you know, the the high conflict person is just spending that entire hour railing on the other person. Yep. Dr. Rachel Miller: Yeah a good family therapist can. Can sort of, I'll call it take control of the room, right? They should be in control of that process. And they should be able to understand where neutrality is helpful and where neutrality is actually compliciteness in a problematic system. And so knowing like doing your research on a good family therapist, make sure that they have like and I will acknowledge my full bias in this. I am a marriage and family therapist. I train marriage and family therapists, but our specialty is relationships because we are systemic relationally trained. Not saying that nobody else can get that, but nobody else gets that from their foundational training up. We do. Does that mean all marriage and family therapists are great? No, it does not. Does it mean everybody's good at family work? No. But you want somebody who really specializes in family work and high conflict and co-parenting. Like those are sort of the unique specialties. You want to do your research around that. I will say that like not all people who work with high conflict and are sort of in with the courts, because here's the other thing you'll find out: is in the same way that like other systems often have people who are all sort of in the system. Like there are therapists and there are realtors and there are other people who are in those family court systems pretty tight and get referred into those cases because they know people, not because they're great at their job. So do your research. Hopefully you don't get appointed somebody who's terrible. and where I always say to ask some real questions around that is I'm really curious about your your work with and your understanding of power and control dynamics in post separ in post, you know, post-divorce. And in co-parenting scenarios. Like I just ask, I'd say ask it out front. Because a direct therapist will be able to talk you through that. Like somebody who's had training can walk you through that. If they haven't had training, then they they'll just give you sort of the I work really hard to remain neutral and what happened in the past is not red flag. I don't want to know anything about the history of this relationship. Red flag from a therapist. Though I'm sure I'll get some pushback from therapists around that. I I'll stand by it every day of the week. Because if you don't understand power and control dynamics and how those carry through from a marriage or a relationship through its ending and into co parenting, then I highly recommend updating their training. Brooke: Mic drop. okay. something women think is normal but absolutely isn't. Dr. Rachel Miller: boy. Something women think is normal but absolutely isn't being dismissed. Dismissiveness is actually incredibly deteriorating to a relationship over time. And many men don't even actually understand that what they do is dismissive. Right? It's the way they downplay everything. You you think, you feel, even the way they like dismiss your input, right? The way that things you bring to them almost like everything's like a debate. You know, they can't, they don't even like get. excited about what you're excited about or like there's so much dismissiveness that truly eats away at your sense of self in a relationship and it's pretty much seen as normal, unexpected. Right. It's the like it's the little wife jokes, but but in a like sort of pat you on the head. You know, I have I have a client that I I sometimes jokingly t call him the decider. I'm like, because you're the decider. What do you mean? I said, Well, you and your wife made an agreement about XYZ thing. And then you decided that that you weren't okay with that. And so you just went ahead and changed the whole conversation and went and did something else. And you think that's normal. She goes, I used to think that was normal too. I said, And what do you think it is now? She goes, It's incredibly dismissive of me and our conversation and like. It just tells me that he values himself and his own opinions and his own whatever's above mine. I'm like, mm-hmm. He's like, You make me sound like a dictator. I'm like If it quacks like a duck and it waddles like a duck, it's probably a duck, you know, and but it it's so baked into everything to dismiss and diminish women's everything. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's not, I mean, it doesn't even have to be that you just don't like this thing or that thing or whatever. But you're right. I I man, I'm like, now that you say that, I'm just like yeah, replaying all these situations in my head of like, no, it wasn't, you know, a difference in something. It was being dismissed. Dr. Rachel Miller: Right. You want you want the house like the house being cleaned, like the schedule you have for the cleaning on the house is dismissed and diminished as you having too high of a standard. It's you being neurotic or like O C D, right? Not true. The cleaning of a house is a skill set. It's actually a highly developed, important skill set that men don't have. But what do they do? They dismiss it and diminish it because it belongs to women. You know, nobody's gonna notice if I don't clean the shower door. Mm-hmm. I promise you, everybody who walks in your house and sees your shower door isn't cleaned is gonna blame your wife, not you. Because the research tells us that. Everyone, men and women, hold women to higher standards around cleanliness than they do men. Wim this is where women also are like women are co-opted by the patriarchy to police other women into this stuff. Brooke: Mm-hmm. Dr. Rachel Miller: This is why some of the harshest judges of of mothering is from other mothers. Right. And so now the non-divorced mothers are looking down their noses at the divorced mothers and like. But all of this goes into that whole like where the patriarchy is at play in all of this. If women are less than, everything they do, they think, they contribute can be diminished. All of it can be dismissed. As like, it's just more natural for women. It's just this for w it's all dismissive and diminishing. Brooke: Yeah. Man, that makes me think of the movie Bad Moms too. Like, well, I mean, it it is. It's so true. Like women are so hard on other women. Dr. Rachel Miller: They're awful. Brooke: I didn't like working for women like when I was younger because they were so hard on me. And that's why I made it a very conscious effort when I got into a leadership role to not do that. Dr. Rachel Miller: Yeah. And and like even if you think about sometimes the ways that this will play out, like in a divorce, as kids get older, who gets held responsible? For their childhoods, the mom. Who gets judged more harshly for things not going well? Mom, even by their own kids. Right? And so, and again, men are excused and women are dismissed, right? Like, well, that was your responsibility because women are naturally better caretakers. So patently false. Like, It's wild to me that people still think that's a thing, right? Well, women just have a natural inclination for. I mean, okay, again, we can talk about the biology of the brain, but that does not mean men don't also have an inherent nurturing tendency. Like it's it's interesting, but if you talk about how much women have normalized being dismissed by men, that they don't even notice and recognize how often they are dismissed. Everything from I brought this deep concern I have about our child or I I'm really feeling disconnected from you. honey, we're fine. I want to do a check in about like how we're doing. We're fine. I don't know why you worry about these things. But then they're stunned ten years later when their wife leaves them. And I'm like, Yeah, because you've been dismissing everything she says forever. And so I hope we can like make that not a normal thing. Brooke: Let that be a wake-up call to all of the women listening right now. okay, so I would love to end with this. What is one question every woman should ask before deciding to stay or go in their marriage? Dr. Rachel Miller: Do I believe that I am worthy of the opportunity to have a different life? That's not an easy answer. But if I don't believe I deserve the opportunity to have a different life, then I won't ever take the chance. I'll stay where it's safe. I won't do what Virginia Satyr calls she has a five freedoms conversation and the fifth one is one of my favorites is do I have the freedom to take a risk that's in my own best interest or will I only ever stay secure and never rock the boat? And if you never ask yourself if you believe that you're worthy of taking that risk of giving yourself the opportunity to have a different life, you just don't know what's possible. If you had told me at 35 when I left that this would be my life, I teach at two universities, I have a published dissertation, I do a I do lots of media, I have, you know, I have clinicians who work for me, I supervise, I have a ridiculously well-known reputation that still sometimes throws me, I wouldn't have believed you. I got divorced. I wasn't I was working retail. I was living in rural Indiana. That like this was not a life I even pictured as a possibility, but I believed that I was worthy of the opportunity of a different life. And I took it. It's paid off in spades. Wasn't easy. But it's been worth it. Brooke: my God. I don't know how we could end any more beautifully than that. That's amazing. thank you so much for all of this. It's just incredible. So where can people find you if they want to learn more? Dr. Rachel Miller: so you can still you can find me on Instagram. my practice is hold the vision therapy. my individual one is Dr. Rachel D. Miller. you can find me on where else am I floating around at you can find me on Facebook. You can find me on sometimes I'm on threads, I'm also on Blue Sky. It's all the same handle. my website has a blog that I post on pretty regularly. if you know. If you're interested in therapy, you can find us at holdthevision therapy.com. I do consultations for other therapists. So if you hear this and you have a therapist, but you're like, I think, I think she has information you may not have. You can your therapist can reach out to me. I can easily do a consult and have that deeper conversation because we're being honest, a lot of therapists don't actually have the training to do the work that's involved in. the courts, because they just don't know enough about them. Therapists aren't trained around the courts and they don't r always understand the ways in which high conflict situations are often stemming directly out of, you know, abusive relationships, nor do they understand post-separation abuse. It's not a conversation many of them have had. So if you've got a therapist who is looking for some info on that, they can reach out to me. but yep, you can find me on all the socials and all of that fun stuff. Brooke: That's amazing. And I will yes, do not hesitate to talk to your therapist about a consult because I don't think a lot of people know that that's a thing, but it is a thing. Dr. Rachel Miller: No, therapists consult all the time and and again it's not even a therapist's fault and it doesn't say anything about them that they don't have this training. It's number one, it's rare. Like it's like you have to go seek this training outside of this. like outside of your initial, you know, master's or doctorate degree. And it's usually a specialty that someone's pursued because either they have an experience with it or they have an experience that, you know, they had a client and so they went and sought training. and so consultations are a way that we as therapists often get expertise and insight on the cases we're working on from people who specialize in that. So yeah, I I do a lot of consults around that. I do lots of trainings around you know, domestic violence in couples therapy and domestic like domestic violence and high conflict divorce. So therapists actually find more of me than usually do people getting divorced, unless I happen to be your therapist or your couples therapist. but yeah, I do a lot of training of therapists around this. And so yeah, if you've got one who you're like, I just don't think they get it, I don't think they understand, absolutely send them my way. Brooke: Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's just good to be here. It's so incredible. man. Wow.