Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 123. The Unbelievable Reason Uncertainty after Divorce is a Crucial Component to your Growth and Grief Healing

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123. The Unbelievable Reason Uncertainty after Divorce is a Crucial Component to your Growth and Grief Healing · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hi love, we have with us today a guest who is going to share all kinds of wisdom, knowledge and experience with us, but especially is going to highlight how uncertainty is actually the key to your success.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Hi love, welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Today's guest is Dr David McMillan, who's been a practicing clinical and community psychologist for more than 40 years.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I've been chatting with Dr McMillan here, who you're a practicing marriage and family therapist.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Right, we have so much in common.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: He's actually married to a retired judge, marietta, whom we may have on the podcast in the future.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: He studied community psychology and has a theory on the experience of community and has authored several books that we will get into in the episode.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Dr McMillan, welcome.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: So tell us, let's just go straight to the heart of the hook here.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: How is it for our listeners, who are going through what you described a few minutes ago as the fluke of divorce, right?
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: How is it that uncertainty, which is so painful for them right now, actually the key to their success?
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Well, it keeps you open when you know and are certain, then the doors are closed and you can't entertain more ideas or more thoughts or more opportunities.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: So right now, if you're in the midst of a divorce or struggling with thinking about divorce, you're going to be moving into uncertainty, where you don't have control.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: While that's uncomfortable and awkward, it also is alive Life really is.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Life is in the mess.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Life is not in the soft.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: You don't make.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: An A doesn't teach you a damn thing.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: You don't learn anything.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: You already know it.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: All it says is that you already know it.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: C tells you what you a damn thing.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: You don't learn anything.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: You already know it.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: All it says is that you already know it.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: C minus tells you what you don't know, keeps you curious and that makes you go back and dig out and find out what it is you need to learn.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: The divorce is your teacher, it's your friend.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Your failure is your opportunity.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: So you take that pain and turn it into it, to into tuition for wisdom for your next relationship and you hopefully will go to therapy and sort of sort out what it is.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Now you can say, if you want to, that the divorce was because of them, and of course it was.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: But you know, of course it was right, except it wasn't, except it wasn't.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Except it wasn't, except it wasn't.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I've had two divorces.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So I you have yes, yes, okay, all right, I paid my tuition.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: You did pay your tuition.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I did, I did.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: My last divorce was 39 years ago.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: You paid.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Well, you figured it out, I did.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, I did not figure it out.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, but I'm working on it.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: You're working on it and I figured enough out so that I've sustained a 37-year marriage.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: So I'm proud of that, yes, but knowing like when I started my married life with my first marriage at 22, I knew everything, and that divorce taught me I didn't know anything and that I was not as good a marriage partner as I thought I might be, and therapy helped me understand what it was I needed to work on, started me.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Then my second divorce sort of continued that project and I'm working on myself.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: My main goal in life has been to be a good marriage partner and that's been my, my main objective, and and I want my wife to find me easy to love and and I'm not and and so that's important to me and that's what my profession, luckily, has been about teaching me about too.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: So it's really great to be in this profession where my personal goals and my professional goals are the same.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I have always felt that way.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Right, I think that we ask a lot of our clients them coming to us.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: They have all this courage in facing themselves and it's something that we kind of eat, sleep and breathe all day, Right, and it just becomes like a part of us.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: But for our clients, like it's not that convenient, let's say no, no and it's.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: You know it's hard, it's really hard.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It's painful to eat crow, A lot of crow that we have to go through and eat and understand what really happened in a divorce.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: There's a lot to learn from.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: So, but that uncertainty piece I love how you frame it as being alive, how much emotional suppression and repression we do and how it's really kind of, you know, the source of so much disease and so much mental illness.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts about that emotional suppression?
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Because aliveness is to feel right in all of its glory, the ups, the downs.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, no Aliveness to when you go to anger, which is anger, and bitterness which you can go through, that will give you answers.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: The answers are it's their fault and they're assholes and that's the problem, and you can just stay there and you won't learn anything, but you'll be certain.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: You'll be certain.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm, be certain, you'll be certain, if you've got the courage to go into sadness, where you don't really know and you're, you are struggling to let go and and go on instead of, uh, defending and protecting your ego.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: If you can go into sadness and hang out there for as long as you can.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: That's painful but it opens your brain, because anger closes your brain down and opens it back up.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: So, sad, you've got your whole brain, your neocortex, and when you're angry you only got about a third of your brain.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: And you're right, because anger has only two categories right and wrong, and of course you're always right.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: So also, you're stupid and you can't think very well.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: So sadness is where you learn, it's where you're uncertain, it's where you're open, it's where you can move and see and understand and find new ways of thinking, whereas bitterness and anger just get you stuck in victimhood.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Brilliant.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I have two follow-ups.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: So I have a lot of clients who tell me I wonder if you've heard this in your practice.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Clients tell me that they're so afraid that if they go to sadness they're going to get stuck there, there.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: So that's one so my my second follow-up is what would you say to parents, moms about allowing their kids to see them sad like that?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: so two things right yeah, okay, the first, if I get sad.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I might get stuck in sadness yeah, you get stuck when you try not to be sad Ding, because the sadness keeps you.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: When you repress it, it stays.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: You express and feel your sadness and really feel it.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Sadness is boring and pretty soon you get tired of it, you begin to want.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and as you begin to want, you begin to move out of sadness.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: So sadness will probably in the grief cycle will come and go and eventually you'll get comfortable with reality as it is and you'll let go of the past and begin to open your eyes to the future.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: And that's the purpose of sadness.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Does that work for you?
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: So avoiding it will be terrible.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: You'll be stuck.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: It's being in it that liberates you from it.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: It's paradoxical.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Now the second question you asked was what about your children?
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: And seeing you sad?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Because I think there's so much of life as a cover-up job these days, right, especially social media and all the things.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: That is one that you've got to do.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Being a parent is a job description.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: It's not being real, it's not about the truth, it's not about being honest.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: It's a role you play.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Your job is to put your children on the emotional stage and you be there to receive their emotions.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: You do not use them as your confessional, making them have to carry the burden of your emotions.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: So your job though it's difficult, very, very difficult is to put that smile on your face and say I'm fine, go see your dad, you're going to have a great time, you're going to have a wonderful time with him and, besides, I need you to get out of here so I can go do something else.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: You don't say I'm going to miss you, I'm so sad you're going to be gone.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: You don't put the burden of your emotional weight on your children, as hard as that is.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: That is absolutely essential to your child's well-being.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Children they're narcissistic little pricks.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: They want what they want, and so if you just don't put your emotional weight on them, they won't take it.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: They don't want it.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: They'll just slide on through being kids wanting what they want, and as much as you can just make their life be seamless and without your emotional bumps, they'll be fine.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: A child can get through a divorce in a very healthy way, as long as the parents don't burden them with their confidence.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Don't use them as go-betweens and blaming and shaming and all that.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Don't put them in loyalty battles.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Loyalty battles, that's so good.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, they're awful, they just tear up children apart.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but if I let myself go to sadness, though my kid might see that, right, it's going to happen.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, well, when it happens, this is what you say, you should say yes, I'm sad, um, I I loved your dad, I loved your mom.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: This was a hard thing to let go of, um, but I'm going to be fine.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I just need to cry a little bit and go on just like you do the same as you.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: You have a friend and they insult you or hurt your feelings.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: You know you're going to be okay.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: It just will take a while.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: I need my time and I'll be fine.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: But you know you're great and you're the light of my life and I really, really am happy that you still have a mom and a dad who both love you.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: You're going to be fine.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: It's the subject back to them, of course, the center of the universe in their mind.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: So and they'll let back to them.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Of course, they're not the center of the universe in their mind and they'll let you be.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, they'll trust you to say I can take care of myself.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, I love that.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about I'm going to pivot a little.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, tell us a little bit about the scientific definition of love.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: There are four parts.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, Tell us a little bit about the scientific definition of love.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: There are four parts.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: The first part is belonging membership.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, Sidebar this scientific definition of love.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: It dovetails with your community theory.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: My sense of community theory.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Sense of community theory.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, same, thing, got it All right.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Love, attachment, bonding, connection.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: All are about the same thing Human relationships and connection.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: It's human gravity what pulls together.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: The first thing that does is we need to feel that we belong.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: So I'm taking notes over here.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: The first thing is we feel a sense of belonging.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: We feel, hey, this is familiar, this is home, this is where I belong.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I've heard you say like these are my people.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: These are my people.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is my person, and so that's the first thing.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: So there are boundaries, because there are places where we don't belong and places where we do belong.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: So to have that sense of belonging, we have to recognize that of definition of boundaries who belongs there and who belongs where and how we can be and how close we can be and where we are in relation to each other.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: There's some rules of that game we establish.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: So this gets us to the second part, and the second part has to do with power.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: We exchange power, we let somebody influence us, we give somebody power over us, we let them tell us what they need and we care about them so much that we want to give them what they need.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: So they matter.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Mattering is the second part.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: They matter, and this is government, this is laws, this is rules and norms, so we conform to each other and to our expectations of each other, so that we can dance together.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: We're in chaos.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So we need a government.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: We need the first, even if it's inside of just a romantic relationship.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: There has to be some form of government for it to be sustainable.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: There are expectations and those become norms and those become rules and when we get to community level they become laws.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: But they're the same thing.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: My wife just came home from being with her friend on the lake and she said she'd be home by lunch.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: And she was Well, she created that expectation and I'm glad I knew and it was helpful to us to plan our day and we couldn't really do it without that kind of organization.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: It's essential that we influence each other.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: We matter to each other.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: The third thing has to do with trade.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: This is the economy.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Relationship has an economy.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: If you don't bring something to the table that somebody values and has a passion for, it's not going to work Right, wow?
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: So so you need to be able to have something to give a value.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: They need to have something of value to you, which is the trade that's the least valuable, but it's the most.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: It's the most.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: It's the thing everybody does.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Just agreement, it's agreement.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Consensus, it is agreement.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: So I um, I'm a family therapist, you're a family therapist, I'm a family therapist yeah, so we have a consensus.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: We have something we share, don't we?
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: And we started, started our introduction to each other with talking about family therapy and what that's about, and we bonded around what we had familiar, what we were the same as.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: That's our consensus, I see.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: So I would bet that we're both Democrats and that would be good too.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: That's another bonding experience.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Well, now I am a registered independent.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: We could talk about Bobby Kennedy Jr, but that's a different podcast episode.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Well then, we don't have that as consensus, Okay there we go.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: That's not part of our consensus bond.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, so this gets us to the next kind of trade.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: The next trade is called complimentary trade.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: You got a line and I got a pole.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Now we can fish.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: That's how wealth is built.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Wealth is built by the appreciation of differences.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: So most of the time, in most romantic relationships, a woman has something that a man doesn't have, that he wants.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: A man has something a woman doesn't have.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: This is not kind of podcast, Doc.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I'm kidding.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I'll see if I can get.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I'm kidding, so, but that's complimentary trade.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: And so when two people put together something that they have with something they don't have, they now all have something that they never had before and they end up with a baby, for example yes.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Or with a new business, or with something else yes, because they both bring something to the table.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: If you're forming a team, a basketball team, you need a tall player May not be fast, but they need to be tall and strong and can jump and you need somebody who can move very fast and quick and handle the ball really well, and you need somebody who's really accurate at shooting the ball.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And if you get those players, those different players, and put them together With different skills.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Great basketball team, yeah, but just saying having tall players, yeah, you can't get the ball down the court, nope.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: So to build wealth, you have to appreciate differences, and in most couples, after the bloom is off the road, they begin complaining about their differences when at first they loved them, but now they irritate the hell out of you.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: They forget that those differences are what, what made the?
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: value.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: So there's some reframing there that we have to learn how to do in that stage of a relationship around um.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Is it maybe a growth oriented mindset, right, like if we're, if we're criticizing differences, are we maybe shut down to growth or expansion?
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're, you know like.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: It's back to that knowing versus not knowing versus uncertainty, Right right right right, right.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: And this leads us to the growing piece, which is the next form of trade.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: This is transforming trade.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Transforming trade.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: So if you were wanted to be a beautician and you come to a training school where you pay your tuition that's your gift to the to the school then you come and take the classes and at the end of the class you have certificates and you have knowledge, mm hmm.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: So that's a training as a transforming trade.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: They transformed you from being just a person on the street to a beautician, mm hmm.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: So.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: So we do that for each other all the time.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Mm, hmm.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: My wife is a really good cook, a gourmet cook, and so we do that for each other all the time.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: My wife is a really good cook a gourmet cook and she has taught me how to slice an onion.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, and I didn't know that.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Now I'm a pretty good onion slicer.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Well, there you have it.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so she taught me some things.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, and we have to take interest in order to be able to become transformed.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: And you've got to be.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: You've got to not know, not know, be willing to learn.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Humility vulnerability.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, you've got to have that vulnerability.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Without that vulnerability, there is no intimacy.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Intimacy is in the mess of life, not in the perfection of life.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Intimacy is I don't know what to do, I'm lost, I'm frightened, I need help and if we can share those moments, we can build and know and grow together.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: So that's the transforming trait.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Then the next trait is generativity trade, generative trades.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: This is where you want to help the next generation learn how to do Thanksgiving.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: So this is where your mother teaches you how to make the dressing Tradition.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Tradition to the next generation and the next.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Those are the four trades.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: So our last element of love is art or stories.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Shared emotional connection in time and space, where you have life events that become stories.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: The stories become symbols, traditions and rituals.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: You must have a story.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Everybody will ask you how did?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: you meet.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: The story.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: That's the story.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: They start there because that's a treasure.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Your stories are your treasures and that's what makes you feel honored by being in the relationship is how the story unfolds, because you want that story to be something you're proud of In your divorce.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Probably there's a story that humiliated you and that may have been what caused the divorce.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: And that may have been what caused the divorce because the story turned sour.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Now, the truth is, all stories can be redeemed.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: In our divorce, in our divorced relationship, we were not able to redeem the story and transform it into an honorable moment for all of us but for some.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: But that is the job of the couple is to keep those stories and keep reframing them and building them into something that honors everybody.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So those are the four elements Beautiful.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: So those are the four elements.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Beautiful.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: So belonging with boundaries, exchanging things that are valuable and that matter.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Well, that was three Power exchange.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Power exchange is two right Mattering to one another, making yourself vulnerable to someone else, prioritizing someone else, then exchanging things of value, and so I want, I want to see if my sales of my book create your own love story goes up.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: This is in create your own love story.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, that's all about create your own love story.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, these four things these four things.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful, and so we can kind of.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Why didn't I name it Love recipe?
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: I should have named it that.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I don't like Create your Own Love Story, but anyway it's the book.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I think that marketing geniuses would say Create your Own Love Story probably is a better title.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Well, they did.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: That's why it's-.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Exactly, I love that.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: So we can kind of see in the in this you know kind of four part recipe for love where it might've broken down in a past relationship, right?
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: You can use that, that, that recipe, and you can watch a decision tree.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: So I've got a decision tree map of it in in another article.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's on my website where you start with okay, do you feel, is there a problem with trust?
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: No, is there a problem with belonging and spirit.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Is there something wrong with your spirit?
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And you ask the question do you feel like you belong and do you have a place at the table and do you expect that you'll be welcome when you walk in the door?
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: And if all those are yes, then that's checked, Okay.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And you move on to the next one.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Then the next one goes to trust.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: The second element has to do with trust.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Do you trust each other?
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: And there's a bunch of questions about how to build trust in the second element.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Then the third element is is this relationship valuable and did?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Were the trades fair?
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: And did you feel that you had to be right?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And did you feel like everybody had to agree in order to get along?
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: And did the other person feel like, could you be yourself and, and where you be yourself, and what you have to offer, was it valued by the other person?
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: The last set of questions is what did they say about you?
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Honor you when they talked about you?
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Sometimes, when I hear my wife say the word husband, that word, the way she says it, sometimes just the tone of voice in that word, honors me so much.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: It makes me feel like I've been loved, cherished.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: There's that word, and I feel that from her, and so that's part of our story, is that she.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: You can see the love that she has for me.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: It's evident, I feel it and it's such a gift to me.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I'm so grateful.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: So in your book, write your Own Love Story.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: You have this decision tree so that people could go back and they could do like a postmortem right on their previous relationship and then they could use it as a roadmap for their next relationship.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: You understood the reason I wrote that book.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's beautiful.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: We will definitely have to link that book in our show notes.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: So we've talked about the scientific definition of love.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: We've reframed uncertainty.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: We've talked about how our listeners can make better choices in the future.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: How would you help women really discover their own personal power in this season right, when maybe they've been feeling disempowered for quite a while?
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: What might you say to a woman who's feeling a little helpless, a little hopeless, and she needs to tap into that power?
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: We talked about right, letting yourself grieve, letting yourself go to sadness.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Is that the answer?
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Well, it's part of the answer, it is.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: And it's the paradoxical approach.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the first step.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Okay step is to reintroduce yourself to yourself.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: So many times women who are divorced decide that they are going to reclaim their body.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: They get in the gym Revenge workouts yeah right, exactly, and they love themselves that way.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Invest in themselves, invest in themselves what you need to do is invest in yourself, yes, and put the work in that you need to do to be a better you, you know what I find, though, is so often the way investing in ourselves is framed.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Today is got to do like with Botox and lip filler.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Somebody literally sent me a meme this week.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: That's like, uh there, and then my therapist asked me what's the most expensive thing I owned, and the woman replied my face right, it's a therapy meme I got sent this week.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I love therapy memes.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: They're great, right, but when you say invest in yourself, you don't mean.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: No, no, I'm an old man and old men have aches and pains.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: So in my journey with my aches and pains, I went to this physical therapist and and when I walked in the door I was not impressed.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm a body snob, I guess, and she's a little bit overweight and I want a physical therapist.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I, you know, I just and, um, I got to know her and I fell in love with her.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: I just thought she was wonderful.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: If, if I were a younger man and I were single, I'd have been she was cash?
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: yeah, she would have.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: She would have passed my test.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: And it didn't have a damn thing to do with her looks, it just had to do with her spirit, the smile on her face and her sense of humor and her, her warmth and her delight with me and her, her talent for what she did.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: She was a wonderful, wonderful woman.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I loved her.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Couldn't help but love.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Couldn't help but love her.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: And did it help?
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Did you get back?
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Did you heal?
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, that helped too.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: That made me love her well, it does right, it certainly does.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Her confidence made a big difference, yeah.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: It is such a joy to talk to you Like I almost I'm dating myself here, right, but it's, it's almost like being back in grad school with, like, my favorite clinical professors and my favorite professors were the ones who were practitioners, right, not the ones that were necessarily in academia, but the ones who had spent all those hours with patients, right In the stories and in the mess of it, and there's such a wisdom that you have to share that just cannot be found just anywhere.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Well, I put in my time in the therapy chair, that's for sure, on both sides of the therapy.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, I've heard you say that, that you credit a mentor of yours.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: I heard you say 15 years.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 15 years.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Wonderful, wonderful man.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: I loved him.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: I loved him.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: He was my father, like a father to me.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: When he died, his wife called me and told me to come help her with the body.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Was this in?
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Nashville or somewhere else in Nashville.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: His name was Bob Stepak Wonderful, wonderful man.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, now I'm going behind the mirror right.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Do you ever reflect on that as a therapist, like when you die, who you will have left an imprint on in that way?
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: yes, I do so do I.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's such a vulnerable role we have.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, you sit with places people.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I don't have any children and, uh, it's one thing in life that I missed and grieve about.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: But so I love my patients too much.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: I relate to that.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're sort of like my children, so yeah, I wonder what kind of imprint will be left behind.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: I think it's significant just from sitting with you today.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: It's very special to sit with you, thank you.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: This is a precious moment, isn't it?
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: I'm glad to share it with you today.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: It's very special to sit with you.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you, this is a precious moment isn't it?
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: I'm glad to share it with you.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Anything else you want our listeners to know about you, the things that you love to teach, the things that you love to share your current projects where they can find you, where you want them to find you.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: You could Google any of us right.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: I have a website drdavidmcmillancom.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: We'll put it in the show notes.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of essays about divorce in my blogs on the website.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: I have four about parent-child reunification therapy.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Say a little more, because you were telling me before we hit record, right, that's great.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: You were telling me about the difference between parental alienation and reunification as an approach.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well, children get caught in loyalty battles in the middle of divorce.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: It's sad, but it happened.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: They have to choose, or feel they have to choose, one parent over the other, and so they reject a parent and the rejected parent often gets hurt and angry and and blames the other parent.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: And often the other parent is to blame.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: But that's not the question.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Who's to blame is not the question.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: What you want to do is not get involved in a parental alienation lawsuit, because that'll take days and hundreds of thousands of dollars and you'll be diagnosing and making somebody crazy and somebody wrong when the question is how can we fix this?
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: How can we fix this?
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: And everybody needs the help.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: The alienated parent has to help.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: The favorite parent has to help.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Everybody has to help.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Alienated parent has to help.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: The favorite parent has to help.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Everybody has to help.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: There's jobs descriptions here.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: The parent who's alienated has to start building a bridge to the child with apologies and with efforts to understand and hear and listen to the child's pain.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: The favorite parent needs to be a cheerleader for the relationship with the other parent.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: The child's job is to get back into the child's role and be a child who loves their mother and their father equally.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Back into the child role that is so powerful.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because when the child gets in the alien, the child gets to vote and decide who's right and who's wrong, and children kind of love that they do.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: They get seduced into that and they can't get out and then they can't be a child anymore.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Wow, thank you for the way that you said that.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: So you have some essays about this and a better approach.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's called Parent-Child Reunification Therapy.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: What an interesting I can hear now, as all of these pieces come together, how you and your wife, the family law judge right.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: How you took your two different skill sets and you built things together.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: You created an economy.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, I created a program for domestic violence because the Duluth model for domestic violence didn't work and people were coming into Marietta's court after going through that course and beating their wife even more and killing them.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: So I found Stephen Stosny's program in DC and I brought that to Nashville and and it's a much more effective approach, and I did that for Marietta and it but the.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: The Duluth model is what the courts like the most because it's the more punitive of the models.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh, shames the the offender, yeah, and when you shame somebody, no, it just keeps the cycle going.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: It's just a generative beast.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: It doesn't work.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: You can talk about patriarchy all you want and how bad it is and how horrible men are, but that's probably not going to help anybody get better.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a good point.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: We've been dabbling over here on the podcast and even in my own marriage talking about polarity, dynamics, right, the masculine and the feminine, and how to really encourage men to embody the masculine but not the toxic masculine right, but to really celebrate that.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: That's kind of fallen by the wayside a little bit in our conversation about the patriarchy right.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: We're not celebrating the masculine in the way that we really need to.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and we're not allowing the masculine to have sadness.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Sadness is the key to unlocking healthy masculinity.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Anger and power are the keys to making it sick.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's the same thing you told us as women, right, like rewind to the beginning of this episode.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: You said that the key to getting out of bitterness after going through divorce is to go to sadness, right, so?
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and women do better.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Really Sure Recovering from divorce.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: I think they take a longer time and they take it more seriously and men just get mad and just say, to hell with the bitch and go on and they don't learn anything often.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Go to therapy and that's a great thing.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Men should too.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we're going to definitely put your website.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: We'll link those articles on divorce.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: We will share your book Writing your Own Love Story.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, and I would love for us to stay in touch.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: This has been just such a magical.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we could, yeah, we got lots to talk about.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Lots to talk about.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Dr McMillan.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: You're welcome.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by my coach John.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: You can find more at mycoachjohncom.