Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / The Final Straw (it came on a Tuesday)
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, a podcast covering all things relationships, separation, and divorce.
- 0:09SPEAKER_00: How to create healthy, happy, fulfilling relationships without sacrificing any part of yourself.
- 0:14SPEAKER_00: Supporting anyone feeling challenged in their relationship or marriage.
- 0:18SPEAKER_00: These are confidential conversations for you if you're navigating separation, divorce or reorganising life afterwards.
- 0:26SPEAKER_00: Decide whether to stay or leave a relationship or marriage, divorce with less drama, and consciously choose what's next for you.
- 0:36SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Warrentry people of the Coolin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
- 0:45SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
- 0:53SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this week's episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: All about the last straw and the fact that it very often comes on a random Tuesday.
- 1:07SPEAKER_00: Across time, I've worked with and spoken with my clients and others in the Reflect community about their last straw.
- 1:18SPEAKER_00: What made them finally leave a marriage, a relationship, or what finally ended their relationship, their marriage?
- 1:26SPEAKER_00: And the answers might actually surprise you.
- 1:30SPEAKER_00: Because yes, for some it was a moment, a single, often dramatic event, right?
- 1:39SPEAKER_00: Someone else, an infidelity, an affair, or a different kind of betrayal, maybe a financial betrayal, money hidden, money spent, or lied about, trust that's broken in a currency that has really nothing to do with another human, with sex or even money, really at its core, but everything to do with safety and transparency and honesty, right?
- 2:02SPEAKER_00: Betrayal being discovered, uncovered, or even admitted to by the other person.
- 2:07SPEAKER_00: Or it might be a big final argument where things are said and done that could not be unsaid, unheard, or undone, and there was no way back from it.
- 2:20SPEAKER_00: So for some, yes, there is a big single event or moment, but for many, and I'm gonna say most, it isn't that at all.
- 2:31SPEAKER_00: It's a final recognition on a random Tuesday or a Thursday, driving home from work, folding the washing, mowing the lawn on the weekend, sitting in the rain, waiting for a kid to finish whatever extracurricular activity they're doing.
- 2:51SPEAKER_00: Just a random day in a random week, random moment, and I ask them what it was, and here are some of the things that I hear when I talk with clients about that moment.
- 3:08SPEAKER_00: They say things like I just got tired, I got exhausted, I realized how exhausted I was from continuing to try.
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: I stopped reaching first, I stopped reaching out first, I stopped giving more than I received, I stopped hoping, and this is a really big one.
- 3:33SPEAKER_00: I stopped hoping, I gave up hoping for more, I stopped asking for what I needed.
- 3:41SPEAKER_00: I had asked so many times, I just gave up asking.
- 3:46SPEAKER_00: I stopped explaining my why, my feelings, my ideas.
- 3:52SPEAKER_00: I stopped explaining myself, I stopped explaining what I wanted.
- 3:58SPEAKER_00: I stopped expecting things to change.
- 4:02SPEAKER_00: I realized I didn't miss that person when we were apart, and I wasn't excited for them to come home either from work or from a trav from a trip, right?
- 4:13SPEAKER_00: I wasn't excited about them coming home.
- 4:18SPEAKER_00: I stopped expecting them to ask about me, about my day, about my hopes, about my dreams.
- 4:25SPEAKER_00: I stopped expecting them to be interested or ask about me.
- 4:31SPEAKER_00: I stopped hoping that they would hear me and see me.
- 4:36SPEAKER_00: And I stopped believing the words and started believing and trusting the actions, the behaviour.
- 4:47SPEAKER_00: For others, that moment, that random Tuesday evening, morning moment is when they stopped second guessing themselves, their thoughts, their feelings.
- 4:59SPEAKER_00: They just stopped second guessing it, exhausted by questioning on loop over and over and over, and they just stopped second guessing their thoughts, their feelings.
- 5:11SPEAKER_00: For some, they stopped trusting that their partner would be there for them in the small ways, in the big ways.
- 5:23SPEAKER_00: And they stopped imagining a future with that us in it, and oftentimes started imagining and daydreaming about a future that did not include that other person.
- 5:43SPEAKER_00: Others say they stopped making excuses, they stopped making excuses for behaviours, they stopped making excuses for the other person, they stopped making excuses for their own thoughts and feelings, they stopped making excuses.
- 5:58SPEAKER_00: And the really big one that I hear over and over is that either I stopped recognizing myself, I didn't know who I was anymore, or I didn't like who I'd become within the container of that relationship.
- 6:22SPEAKER_00: And I want you to think about that list that I've just led us through, because not a lot of it is dramatic, and there's no single line in there that really sounds like an ending.
- 6:43SPEAKER_00: And that is the part that I think nobody tells you when you're in the middle of those questions.
- 6:52SPEAKER_00: Nobody tells you this about leaving, it's not necessarily a once and done decision.
- 6:59SPEAKER_00: It can be, but it's not necessarily, it's more an accumulation, an accumulation of evidence, if you like, but I really think it's an accumulation of knowing.
- 7:12SPEAKER_00: It's erosion.
- 7:18SPEAKER_00: And if you've experienced it, you'll know what I'm talking about.
- 7:23SPEAKER_00: But erosion is one of those words that we can hear, but perhaps doesn't actually tell you a whole lot.
- 7:31SPEAKER_00: So let's get specific because specificity being really clear is where the recognition can happen.
- 7:40SPEAKER_00: Erosion doesn't always look like fighting argument.
- 7:45SPEAKER_00: Often there can be barely any conflict at all, and for some someone who's in this conflict, overt conflict, an argument, a discussion could actually be a relief.
- 7:58SPEAKER_00: At least it would mean that there was something still being fought for or fought about.
- 8:05SPEAKER_00: Erosion looks like that space between the two of you at dinner where the silence might be peaceful, but it's really just empty.
- 8:17SPEAKER_00: It's silence that's empty.
- 8:22SPEAKER_00: It can look like celebrating something good that happened to you or for you, and you catch yourself before mentioning it, or maybe you decide not to mention it because some part of you who's already clocked is already expecting them to not really be interested.
- 8:43SPEAKER_00: It looks like doing the maths quietly in your head about who initiated the last conversation that wasn't just logistics about who's picking up the kids and when the Lord needs to be mowed.
- 8:57SPEAKER_00: Who asked about the other's day and actually waited for and was interested in the answer?
- 9:05SPEAKER_00: Who remembered to open a conversation about the other person?
- 9:12SPEAKER_00: It looks like intimacy, sex becoming something that you negotiate around rather than something that you move toward.
- 9:24SPEAKER_00: And we can expand that from just physical sexual intimacy to that emotional intimacy too.
- 9:32SPEAKER_00: It's quietly been let go, eroded away.
- 9:37SPEAKER_00: It looks like making decisions about money, about kids, about the house, about your work, your career path, alone in your own head, because asking for input, asking for that load to be shared has stopped feeling worth the letdown, the disappointment when it doesn't come.
- 10:08SPEAKER_00: And something that catches many of my clients a little off guard is that this kind of erosion often speeds up right when things look from the outside the most stable.
- 10:29SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe your mortgage is paid down off whatever the kids are really settled in school or they're finishing school.
- 10:38SPEAKER_00: Everyone externally will look and say, you've got a good life in inverted commas, good life.
- 10:44SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly when the quiet stopping happens because there's no there's nowhere to hide, there's no external busyness or even crisis that's pulling your attention away from what you already know internally, there's space to sort of exhale when life is relatively settled, and that almost forces us to look at what really is going on in our life, in our relationship, and that's when something else, somewhere in all the stopping, you know, I stopped doing this, I stopped doing that, something else starts here, and it's the start of I mentioned it earlier, it's start, it's the start of dreaming about different, dreaming about a different life, daydreaming about possibility, about a different future, imagining a different future.
- 11:55SPEAKER_00: This is when clients say I start started imagining myself solo, living solo, living alone, really happy, really peaceful, wondering, maybe wondering if there was somebody else out there, something else, something different.
- 12:12SPEAKER_00: But it's also when they say they really started trusting in their own knowing and believing that potential is not enough and sunk cost is not enough to hold, to hold you.
- 12:28SPEAKER_00: And it's a period when a lot of a lot of us who've been there, who've done this, a lot of you who might be in it are grieving a relationship while you're still in it.
- 12:42SPEAKER_00: And so many of my clients come out of that space and say things like, I was really grieving myself.
- 12:50SPEAKER_00: I was grieving parts of myself that didn't have room or weren't held in that in that space in that relationship.
- 12:58SPEAKER_00: And grieving something you haven't actually lost yet is one of the strangest, loneliest, hardest kinds of grief that there is.
- 13:08SPEAKER_00: There's there's no support system, there's no ritual for it, no one, no one drops the food at your doorstep, and no one checks in because no one even knows to ask if you're okay.
- 13:19SPEAKER_00: Because from the outside, everything looks fine, right?
- 13:23SPEAKER_00: Nothing's changed.
- 13:24SPEAKER_00: You're still there, still showing up at work, still making the school lunches, still sitting across from this person at a dinner or going to the kids' activities together or at a barbecue, whatever.
- 13:35SPEAKER_00: But internally, some part of you, something has already left, something is already gone.
- 13:43SPEAKER_00: Inside, there is an aching, empty space that nothing seems to fill.
- 13:51SPEAKER_00: And there is a loneliness of grieving something that's still standing, that still exists, but it doesn't have a name in any language that we use for loss.
- 14:02SPEAKER_00: We have words for mourning and death around death or widowhood.
- 14:08SPEAKER_00: We have words for a relationship that's already ended.
- 14:11SPEAKER_00: We don't really have a word for mourning a marriage or mourning a relationship, grieving something that is technically still fully intact.
- 14:21SPEAKER_00: You still wear the ring, you still answer to how's your husband, how's your wife?
- 14:24SPEAKER_00: while some private internal part of you has already started to say goodbye.
- 14:31SPEAKER_00: It's really disorienting because grief is supposed to follow loss.
- 14:36SPEAKER_00: This is grief that arrives before the actual loss, grief that shows up to work on you, do its work on you while you're still there in relationship with this person ever almost every day.
- 14:51SPEAKER_00: Some of my clients feel like describe feeling like they're living two lives or two timelines at once.
- 15:00SPEAKER_00: The one everyone else could see externally where the relationship was ongoing, and the one that only they could feel or exist in, where it had in every way that mattered internally for them, the relationship had already ended, it was already over, but they're still stuck in it.
- 15:17SPEAKER_00: So living these sort of two versions of a life.
- 15:21SPEAKER_00: And if that's you right now, if you're grieving in advance, if you're grieving quietly, if you're grieving something you're still in, and grieving in a way no one else can see, if you're feeling that, it's real, it's valid, and it's hard.
- 15:40SPEAKER_00: One thing I find really interesting when I talk with clients and other people in the Reflect community about decision to leave or to end a marriage, hardly any of them say they left because they stopped loving or caring about their partner.
- 16:01SPEAKER_00: I want to qualify that because it's a different, there's a different quality to the love.
- 16:10SPEAKER_00: But it's not just I woke up one day and decided I didn't love that person anymore.
- 16:16SPEAKER_00: Many still felt love, some some still do, even as we're unraveling their marriage, their relationship together in coaching.
- 16:26SPEAKER_00: But more than love, they left because they slowly realized that erosion worked on them, right?
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: It drip by drip by drip, they slowly realized that to stay meant completely losing themselves.
- 16:48SPEAKER_00: To stay, ask them to keep abandoning themselves over and over and over.
- 16:54SPEAKER_00: And I do want to say this clearly because it really matters.
- 16:58SPEAKER_00: Leaving is not simple just because love wasn't enough to keep you there.
- 17:03SPEAKER_00: Leaving is messy and layered and complicated and hard.
- 17:08SPEAKER_00: But most of the time it's not a lack of love.
- 17:12SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it is, but mostly it isn't.
- 17:14SPEAKER_00: It's that erosion, it's a slow wearing down, wearing away of hope, of trust, of the version of yourself you used to be.
- 17:29SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say that again.
- 17:30SPEAKER_00: It's the erosion of the version of yourself you used to be before it all happened, before you learned to expect less, need less, ask for less.
- 17:42SPEAKER_00: And nobody, no relationship, no connection erodes all at once.
- 17:47SPEAKER_00: It happens bit by bit by bit, incrementally, in random Tuesdays across random weeks.
- 18:01SPEAKER_00: And next I want to talk about things that keep us stuck, myths that keep people stuck in relationships.
- 18:09SPEAKER_00: I want to name and talk about a few of the beliefs I do hear over and over, not necessarily in my coaching sessions, but in those people who connect with me who are thinking about leaving.
- 18:24SPEAKER_00: The beliefs that keep us awake at 2 a.m.
- 18:29SPEAKER_00: thinking over and over and over the same things on loop.
- 18:33SPEAKER_00: And the first is the belief that if you don't have a good reason, if you can't point to one clear reason, then you don't have a valid reason.
- 18:44SPEAKER_00: I do hear this often, but nothing nothing really happened.
- 18:48SPEAKER_00: As if a relationship only qualifies as ended, done, over, if there's that one big headline event attached to the end of it.
- 19:00SPEAKER_00: It doesn't.
- 19:01SPEAKER_00: That slow eroding away is just as valid, just as real a reason as any dramatic moment, an affair, a betrayal.
- 19:12SPEAKER_00: You don't need a dramatic story to justify your own knowing.
- 19:18SPEAKER_00: The second is the belief that love and rightness, love and quality of relationship are the same thing.
- 19:28SPEAKER_00: That if you still love someone, staying must then be the right choice.
- 19:34SPEAKER_00: Love is real, love is layered, love is complex, and love can also coexist within a relationship that is no longer safe or and safe.
- 19:50SPEAKER_00: I'm talking emotionally safe here, safe for the person that you're becoming.
- 19:54SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking abusive relationship here, right?
- 19:58SPEAKER_00: Those two things can be both true.
- 20:03SPEAKER_00: That you love someone and the relationship doesn't hold the space, the emotional safety, whatever it is that you want or need from a relationship.
- 20:14SPEAKER_00: The third belief is that leaving means the years you've spent in relationship, the years you had together were wasted or meaningless or a failure.
- 20:28SPEAKER_00: And this is a big one that keeps people stuck.
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: That if I walk away, all of that means nothing.
- 20:36SPEAKER_00: But it's not true.
- 20:38SPEAKER_00: The years that you've spent weren't wasted, meaningless, or a failure.
- 20:46SPEAKER_00: A relationship ending doesn't retroactively erase all the good that happened inside it.
- 20:52SPEAKER_00: It doesn't undo the life and the family you built, the love that was genuinely felt, the version of both of you that showed up for each other in those good years.
- 21:04SPEAKER_00: An ending does not mean that you have to wipe it all out and that it meant nothing.
- 21:10SPEAKER_00: You carry all of that meaning, all of that learning, all of that experience, all of the good stuff, all of the love, all of the laughter, plus the family that you've built together, you carry that forward with you.
- 21:26SPEAKER_00: And yes, of course, there are going to be other things that you carry: memory of hurt, memory of potentially betrayal, all of those things come too.
- 21:36SPEAKER_00: But choosing to leave doesn't erase all that was good in and about that relationship.
- 21:45SPEAKER_00: And the fourth belief that I hear, although it's never stated really openly, it unravels and it comes out in conversation, right?
- 21:55SPEAKER_00: But it's the belief underlying, it's the belief that every Everyone else's opinion about you, about your relationship, about your marriage actually carries more weight than your own internal intrinsic knowing.
- 22:12SPEAKER_00: Whether that's family, whether that's friends, what people will think, what it will look like.
- 22:19SPEAKER_00: And I want to gently challenge that one directly because it comes up in really sneaky ways, and we don't even realize that that's what we're worried about.
- 22:31SPEAKER_00: But we are.
- 22:32SPEAKER_00: What will people say?
- 22:33SPEAKER_00: What will people think?
- 22:35SPEAKER_00: Which means their opinions, thoughts, beliefs about my relationship matters more than my own internal knowing.
- 22:43SPEAKER_00: Nobody else is living inside this relationship with you.
- 22:48SPEAKER_00: Nobody else feels what you feel on a daily basis, a random Tuesday, driving home from work, folding the washing, unstaking the dishwasher.
- 22:58SPEAKER_00: Nobody else has your internal knowing about you and about your relationship.
- 23:06SPEAKER_00: So if you're in that really hard in-between phase right now, wondering whether to stay, whether to go, what it might look like on a random Tuesday in a different version of your life, if you're asking those hard questions on loop, staying awake at 2 a.m., I need you to hear this.
- 23:28SPEAKER_00: It feels hard because it is.
- 23:32SPEAKER_00: You're not being flaky or indecisive.
- 23:35SPEAKER_00: You're actually overwhelmed by indecision because it really matters.
- 23:42SPEAKER_00: It's big, it's life-altering, and not just for you, but for everyone involved, and that matters.
- 23:50SPEAKER_00: It's hard, it's messy, it's heartbreaking.
- 23:53SPEAKER_00: You're not just deciding whether to leave a relationship, you're unraveling a shared life.
- 24:00SPEAKER_00: Shared dreams, shared visions, and yes, maybe those dreams and visions have changed, but they were shared once.
- 24:07SPEAKER_00: And then we get to the nitty-gritty: shared bank accounts, shared finances, cars, houses, mortgages, all the things, but also shared friends, shared extended families.
- 24:18SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, if you have them, there's your kids, what you both wanted for them, the life you wanted to give to give them, what you both maybe still want for them, and there's the shared history, right?
- 24:32SPEAKER_00: And for the ones of you listening with kids in the picture, I do want to spend a moment here specifically because I know a lot of you listening are weighing this decision against the little people, the small faces in the back of the car or asleep down the hall, right?
- 24:48SPEAKER_00: Here's something I say to almost every client who's a parent, and I'll say it to you now, too.
- 24:53SPEAKER_00: Staying in an eroded relationship for the kids doesn't protect them, it doesn't protect them from what's happening.
- 25:02SPEAKER_00: Kids are extraordinarily perceptive, they feel it, they know it.
- 25:09SPEAKER_00: They don't need to hear harsh words to feel the atmosphere.
- 25:13SPEAKER_00: They register it, they clock it, they register two people who have quietly stopped reaching for each other.
- 25:19SPEAKER_00: And what you're modeling for them, whether you stay or whether you go, is what a relationship is supposed to look like.
- 25:26SPEAKER_00: What's normal, what's healthy, what is worth accepting.
- 25:31SPEAKER_00: That is what you're showing them.
- 25:33SPEAKER_00: And that's not me telling you to leave, that's not a verdict on your life and your relationship.
- 25:40SPEAKER_00: It's just an invitation to broaden your thinking beyond staying equals protecting my kids.
- 25:48SPEAKER_00: Staying equals giving my kids the life I want to give them.
- 25:52SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't.
- 25:55SPEAKER_00: And only you can know that.
- 25:58SPEAKER_00: Only you know your own house, your own kids, your own truth.
- 26:01SPEAKER_00: But it's rarely as black and white or as simple as the story that we're telling ourselves at 2 a.m., which is why we're awake at 2 a.m., right?
- 26:12SPEAKER_00: None of it disappears just because you know deep down you can't stay.
- 26:19SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not going to pretend a podcast episode can hand you the clarity that maybe you've been searching for for weeks, months, years, but it's useful if it's useful.
- 26:28SPEAKER_00: Here are a few of the questions I actually ask my clients in early sessions together.
- 26:35SPEAKER_00: And you don't need to answer them out loud, you don't need to answer them today, but this is an invitation to just let them sit with you.
- 26:45SPEAKER_00: When did you last full feel fully like yourself inside this version of the relationship?
- 26:54SPEAKER_00: When did you last feel fully yourself?
- 27:00SPEAKER_00: If nothing changes, not one thing for the next five years about your relationship, about your marriage, if nothing changes for five years, how does that feel in your body right now as you imagine it?
- 27:19SPEAKER_00: Your body is giving you a really clear message here.
- 27:23SPEAKER_00: If nothing changes in five years, how does that feel in your body?
- 27:30SPEAKER_00: What are you afraid people will think if you leave?
- 27:36SPEAKER_00: And whose voice is that really?
- 27:43SPEAKER_00: What would you tell your closest friend, or if you have children, what would you tell an adult version of one of your children if they described your exact situation?
- 27:58SPEAKER_00: What would you tell someone that you deeply love and care about?
- 28:03SPEAKER_00: Just sit with those questions.
- 28:07SPEAKER_00: There's just you, your truth, whatever true thing rises up when you allow yourself the time and space to sit with those questions.
- 28:19SPEAKER_00: And if you've been quietly listening, wondering what's next for you, here are some soft places to land.
- 28:28SPEAKER_00: There's unravel, the online multi-module, self-paced course here at Reflect.
- 28:36SPEAKER_00: Really, for those of you who are still questioning, still in the is it just me of it all, like wondering whether to stay, whether to go, unravel online self-paced, multi-module course.
- 28:48SPEAKER_00: And then there's one-to-one coaching.
- 28:50SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to talk it through properly with me in your corner, you can book a free call to explore what that can look like for you.
- 28:58SPEAKER_00: And there's my mailing list, VIP mailing list.
- 29:02SPEAKER_00: It's where I'll share what's coming.
- 29:05SPEAKER_00: News, invitations, what's next at Reflect.
- 29:08SPEAKER_00: There's something new that I'm building for hopefully later this year, and I want to be really clear about this part.
- 29:15SPEAKER_00: It's not just for you if you've made it out the other side.
- 29:21SPEAKER_00: It's for you too, if you're still in the mess right now, still deciding, still grieving.
- 29:26SPEAKER_00: Maybe grieving that's something you haven't quite lost yet or haven't quite left yet.
- 29:31SPEAKER_00: Because it's about you being able to see what's coming for you afterwards, the hope, the joy, the version of your life that's still possible, the potential, the good stuff that's coming.
- 29:44SPEAKER_00: Because I want you to be encouraged and inspired and supported in community long before you've got all of it figured out, right?
- 29:53SPEAKER_00: It's hard and it's heartbreaking, and you don't have to do this alone.
- 29:59SPEAKER_00: As I said, soft places to land, all of those links will be in the show notes, or you can message me for a link.
- 30:07SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to this on what feels like your random Tuesday or your Thursday morning, go gently with yourself.
- 30:17SPEAKER_00: Sit with those questions, allow them to settle into your knowing.
- 30:22SPEAKER_00: And as I often say, choose you.
- 30:27SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
- 30:28SPEAKER_00: Until next time.
- 30:29SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.
- 30:32SPEAKER_00: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
- 30:37SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love or benefit from listening to this episode, please share it with them.
- 30:46SPEAKER_00: I'd also be so grateful if you would follow and review the podcast so we can get it in the ears of a whole lot more people just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
- 30:57SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join me next week for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
- 31:02SPEAKER_00: Until then,