Speaker 1: Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Lari Gottlieb. I'm the author of
Speaker 1: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Speaker 1: Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic.
Speaker 2: And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
Speaker 2: and I write the Dear Guy advice column for TED.
Speaker 2: And this is Dear Therapists.
Speaker 1: Each week we invite you into a session so you
Speaker 1: can learn more about yourself by hearing how we help
Speaker 1: other people come to understand themselves better and make changes
Speaker 1: in their lives.
Speaker 2: So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week,
Speaker 2: a woman wonders whether her ex husband is a narcissist
Speaker 2: and why she is still struggling to move on seven
Speaker 2: years after the divorce.
Speaker 3: He said, So, I have four major stressors in my life.
Speaker 3: My marriage, my health, my work, and that I'm a father.
Speaker 3: He said. One of those things is on the chopping block,
Speaker 3: and that's the marriage first.
Speaker 1: A quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only.
Speaker 1: It does not constitute medical or psychological advice and is
Speaker 1: not a substitute for professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Speaker 1: Always seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional,
Speaker 1: or other qualified health provider with any questions you may
Speaker 1: have regarding a medical or psychological condition. By submitting a letter,
Speaker 1: you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in part
Speaker 1: or in full, and we may edit it for length
Speaker 1: and clarity. In the sessions you'll hear. All names have
Speaker 1: been changed for the privacy of our fellow travelers. Hey Laurie,
Speaker 1: Hey guy.
Speaker 2: So today we have a letter about being in a
Speaker 2: relationship with a narcissist.
Speaker 1: We get a lot of letters about relationships with narcissists.
Speaker 2: Indeed, here's this one deotherapists. I am seven years out
Speaker 2: of a marriage with either a narcissist or a man
Speaker 2: with serious narcissistic tendencies. While I have known this intellectually
Speaker 2: for a long time, I think that I've yet to
Speaker 2: move past the confusion, pain and sadness of the situation.
Speaker 2: I feel stuck. I seem to push people away who care,
Speaker 2: I choose relationship that are not healthy for me, and
Speaker 2: I feel a deep sense of loneliness and hopelessness.
Speaker 3: Lately.
Speaker 2: I have two children who are the lights of my life.
Speaker 2: They are doing well despite the divorce, and that is
Speaker 2: the most important thing to me. But I can feel
Speaker 2: myself sinking deeper and deeper into isolation and despair. Part
Speaker 2: of this is that my ex husband is remarrying soon.
Speaker 2: I really love the woman he's marrying. She's wonderful, and
Speaker 2: I have a lot of confusion around this. So much
Speaker 2: of his courtship with her is identical to what mine
Speaker 2: was like with him. This is bringing back memories and pain.
Speaker 2: As I try to be supportive and do my own thing,
Speaker 2: I start to wonder if the divorce was my fault
Speaker 2: and if I imagined his cruelty. This makes me feel
Speaker 2: all the more stuck. All I want now is to
Speaker 2: move past all this and be more like the person
Speaker 2: I was before I ever met him. But I don't
Speaker 2: know how Audrey well.
Speaker 1: I can see why she's confused, because when somebody acts
Speaker 1: a certain way toward you, and then you see them
Speaker 1: act towards somebody else in a way that you wish
Speaker 1: they had acted toward you, you start to question what
Speaker 1: is real what is imagined. And although we can't diagnose
Speaker 1: someone that we haven't seen, so we don't really know
Speaker 1: whether narcissism fits here, we do know that people who
Speaker 1: do have narcissistic tendencies or have narcissistic personality disorder tend
Speaker 1: to be incredibly charming in certain contexts and can be
Speaker 1: incredibly cruel in others, and that generally causes so much
Speaker 1: confusion when you're in a relationship with somebody like.
Speaker 2: That, and when the situation is severally is removed, that's
Speaker 2: where a memory can trick us a bit, and we
Speaker 2: can tend to start remembering the highlights rather than the
Speaker 2: low lights, and we can start to create a slightly
Speaker 2: different picture in our head. Memory is very fallible in
Speaker 2: that way, and so it's also possible that when she
Speaker 2: sees him being so lovely with his new fiance, she's
Speaker 2: starting to recollect the times you were so lovely with her,
Speaker 2: and that makes a question that the other times where
Speaker 2: he was not. So let's go talk to him and
Speaker 2: find out.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Dear Therapists for My Heart Radio. We'll
Speaker 1: be back after a short break.
Speaker 2: I'm Lari Gottlieb and I'm Guy Wench and this is
Speaker 2: Deo Therapists.
Speaker 1: Hi, Audrey, Hi, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: We wanted to start by learning a little bit more
Speaker 1: about the relationship with your ex husband. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about how you met and when
Speaker 1: you started to see what you're calling these narcissistic tendencies.
Speaker 3: Sure, my ex person I met when I was working
Speaker 3: as a bartender at an event where he was a
Speaker 3: graduate student, and we began our relationship with a lot
Speaker 3: of phone calls. So we talked quite a bit over
Speaker 3: the phone, just about all different things, family, career, interests,
Speaker 3: and it was sort of a whirlwind quick relationship. You know,
Speaker 3: we were suddenly just in the relationship. And the thing
Speaker 3: that I can tell you about what I noticed was
Speaker 3: that he had a way of just commanding everything. A
Speaker 3: month into our relationship, he wanted me to meet all
Speaker 3: of his fraternity brothers and their wives and significant others.
Speaker 3: And this was going to take place at a wedding
Speaker 3: that was out of town, which would mean I would
Speaker 3: have to fly there, be there, and I was nervous.
Speaker 3: I was coming off of a trip myself that I
Speaker 3: was going on for photography, which is at the time
Speaker 3: what I was doing. And I said, I really don't
Speaker 3: know if I'm ready for that, because it's been a
Speaker 3: short period of time that we've been dating. But he
Speaker 3: just wouldn't have it, and he was so intense about
Speaker 3: me meeting these people, and he persuaded me. He talked
Speaker 3: me into it, and I went on this trip and
Speaker 3: I ended up really liking everybody, and it was a
Speaker 3: good trip. But I'll say that this characterized our relationship
Speaker 3: going forward quite a lot. It was me being a
Speaker 3: little unsure if I was ready for certain things, and
Speaker 3: him sort of just convincing me with it. He was charming, smart,
Speaker 3: and I would always say, okay, all right, I'll do
Speaker 3: it your way. And you know, I felt kind of
Speaker 3: lucky to have this person interested in me if he
Speaker 3: had this way about him. He was very, very determined
Speaker 3: in his career. He was incredibly focused. He was accomplished,
Speaker 3: you know, at a young age, and he seemed to
Speaker 3: know a lot about what he wanted at that particular
Speaker 3: point in his life. And I was trying to establish
Speaker 3: myself as an artist and photographer, so I was working
Speaker 3: more than one job, including the bartending, to get to
Speaker 3: that place. So for me, he just represented something I lacked,
Speaker 3: and that is what drew me to him.
Speaker 1: How old were you both at this time?
Speaker 3: So I was twenty five and he was twenty seven,
Speaker 3: almost twenty eight, so we're about three years apart.
Speaker 2: So this all happened within the first month that you're
Speaker 2: meeting all the fraternity friends, you're flying off for an event.
Speaker 2: How quickly did things progress after that? And again, when
Speaker 2: did you start to first see signs of what you're
Speaker 2: characterizing as narcissism?
Speaker 3: So things progressed fairly quickly. We got engaged after a year,
Speaker 3: which seemed fairly quick. And I think the first indicator
Speaker 3: for me that things were possibly a problem were when
Speaker 3: he was beginning to interview for new jobs because he
Speaker 3: was coming out of a master's program in business and
Speaker 3: one of the possibilities was overseas. He was willing to
Speaker 3: take me over there with him, which was really nice.
Speaker 3: We flew overseas together while he went through this interview process.
Speaker 3: But I expressed to him there I really wasn't sure
Speaker 3: that I was ready to move away from my family
Speaker 3: and overseas, and his reaction was really tough. He got
Speaker 3: very angry. He didn't seem to understand. He thought that
Speaker 3: this was a great opportunity for both of us, and
Speaker 3: so it felt like, Okay, this is what he wants
Speaker 3: to do, and I should be on board and again,
Speaker 3: I think I was just overwhelmed by the attention. And
Speaker 3: what I didn't express at the time was I'm very
Speaker 3: close with my family. I live with my sister, I
Speaker 3: had for five years. I really loved seeing them. I
Speaker 3: saw my grandmother every week, I saw my parents. So
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure if I was ready for that kind
Speaker 3: of move, and I just felt drowned out by his
Speaker 3: pushing and pushing. As it turned out, he did not
Speaker 3: take that job, but he did take a job out
Speaker 3: of state, and I did move out of state with him,
Speaker 3: and that was incredibly difficult. So I'd say that things
Speaker 3: began to get difficult when I left my home.
Speaker 1: Once you moved and you realized that it was difficult,
Speaker 1: did you talk to him about how difficult it was
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 3: I did when I came down there. I expressed nerves
Speaker 3: in the beginning about how much work he'd be doing,
Speaker 3: and I said, can you tell me roughly how long
Speaker 3: your hours might be and if you feel like you
Speaker 3: could possibly control them so that I'm not alone all
Speaker 3: the time as I figure out what I'm going to do,
Speaker 3: because right now I don't have anything. I'm leaving. You
Speaker 3: know what I was doing, which was photography, and you know,
Speaker 3: I had a life and I was struggling. I was
Speaker 3: struggling with the fact that it was just very different
Speaker 3: from home. I didn't know anybody, so I had a
Speaker 3: real tough time. And I did make it known.
Speaker 2: Did he take an interest in how your days were going?
Speaker 2: Would he come home and say, well, how was your day?
Speaker 2: How are you doing? Are you making friends? Would he
Speaker 2: show an interest?
Speaker 3: He did. He would ask and make suggestions, and he
Speaker 3: would ask if there were any possible jobs that I
Speaker 3: was looking into. And I did find a job at
Speaker 3: an art gallery slash frame shop that I just found
Speaker 3: it was a great way to pass the time. But
Speaker 3: in the beginning, I just felt completely like a fish
Speaker 3: out of water.
Speaker 1: What did the two of you have in common? What
Speaker 1: drew you to each other?
Speaker 3: I mean an interest in art. He did love art,
Speaker 3: even though he came from much more of a mathematical,
Speaker 3: scientific world, and so he liked going and looking at museums.
Speaker 3: I just really appreciated his focus, his dedication to work,
Speaker 3: his education, because I had grown up in a family
Speaker 3: where education was very important. I think learning was something
Speaker 3: we had in common.
Speaker 1: I guess the question that I'm really asking is emotionally
Speaker 1: what connected the two of you.
Speaker 3: Interestingly, I found emotionally that it was difficult first to connect.
Speaker 3: He was very attentive, but I always felt that there
Speaker 3: was just something slightly disconnected. And so I thought, well,
Speaker 3: he shows so much adoration and attention in certain ways
Speaker 3: that I told myself that would probably happen eventually, that
Speaker 3: I'd feel that true sort of emotional connection. But it
Speaker 3: was a challenge.
Speaker 2: If I were to ask you at the time or
Speaker 2: even now, why you Why did he choose you? What
Speaker 2: would you say?
Speaker 3: That's an interesting question. I would say he saw someone
Speaker 3: who was also hardworking. He thought I also was intelligent.
Speaker 3: You know that I had a closeness with my family,
Speaker 3: as he expressed in his own family. So he seemed
Speaker 3: to see things that were similar to him in that way.
Speaker 3: Even though I was probably more introverted than him, that
Speaker 3: didn't have a hard time interacting with his friends or
Speaker 3: his family. You know, that was always pretty easy. I
Speaker 3: think he thought we could do things together, we could
Speaker 3: compliment each other.
Speaker 2: It's my guess, getting back to the signs of what
Speaker 2: you're calling narcissism, it tell us some of those highlights
Speaker 2: or low lights if you will about some of those
Speaker 2: the big incidents that really shook you and made you
Speaker 2: feel there's something definitely wrong here.
Speaker 3: So I think that it came a little later when
Speaker 3: I was getting a little antsy because I did want
Speaker 3: to go back to school, and when I brought this up,
Speaker 3: there was not a whole lot of support. Long story
Speaker 3: short is I was not able to do that anyway
Speaker 3: because we got pregnant. So enter baby number one. And
Speaker 3: I think this is where those things started to appear
Speaker 3: for me. During the pregnancy. I really was terrified those
Speaker 3: first three months, and there was really no empathy there.
Speaker 3: There was anger that I wasn't more excited.
Speaker 1: Was the pregnancy something that you both planned?
Speaker 3: No? No, turned out to be a great thing, but
Speaker 3: we just didn't plan on getting pregnant at that time.
Speaker 3: So it was one of those fun ones where the
Speaker 3: pill didn't work. In that particular instance, I was pregnant
Speaker 3: and so it was out of the blue.
Speaker 1: And had the two of you talked about a timeline
Speaker 1: for having kids, if you wanted kids, when you might
Speaker 1: have kids.
Speaker 3: I always said that I would feel much more comfortable
Speaker 3: to begin a family when I had finally established what
Speaker 3: I was going to do. And gotten my education, and
Speaker 3: that was a large part of why I was so
Speaker 3: nervous when I did get pregnant. It felt like the
Speaker 3: timing was really bad.
Speaker 1: When you had had the conversation before the unexpected pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Did he seem to be okay with waiting. It sounds
Speaker 1: like you were still on birth control, so he must
Speaker 1: have been on board with that plan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was on board, but that was a difficult
Speaker 3: subject for us. Once I was pregnant, it was sort
Speaker 3: of like, definitely changed the plan. I didn't go to
Speaker 3: that program, and you know, I spent the first few
Speaker 3: months again being really unsure about the pregnancy. I was
Speaker 3: very upset because I wasn't sure I wanted to go
Speaker 3: through with it, and it was a real issue with us,
Speaker 3: and he was very angry angry about that. But this
Speaker 3: was really tough for me, really back and forth until
Speaker 3: about the second trimester, and suddenly, and this is why
Speaker 3: I wonder if it was even hormonal changes, I felt okay,
Speaker 3: I accepted it, and I was happy and our daughter
Speaker 3: was very healthy and great. So with a conservative narcissism,
Speaker 3: I just felt like there was so little empathy around
Speaker 3: that feeling, and it was more anger but it came
Speaker 3: out more in the expectation that I was going to
Speaker 3: be home with the baby when he worked. And little
Speaker 3: things started occurring, like I did find a program that
Speaker 3: I could do where we lived. It was a night program, actually,
Speaker 3: and I worked very hard to create a schedule that
Speaker 3: allowed for his work. He would say, yes, I'll make
Speaker 3: a commitment to being home by a certain time on
Speaker 3: these nights, and then he wouldn't show up. And when
Speaker 3: I confronted him about that, he would say, well, you
Speaker 3: didn't say that, or we didn't agree to that. I
Speaker 3: didn't say I would get home at this time where
Speaker 3: it's not that important. It's more important that I'm doing
Speaker 3: what I'm doing. So those were the types of things
Speaker 3: that were beginning to happen. I was beginning to feel
Speaker 3: like I couldn't trust that he would be there when
Speaker 3: I needed him to be so I could do the
Speaker 3: things I wanted while simultaneously taking care of this baby.
Speaker 2: And how would you respond to him when he's saying
Speaker 2: to you, it's more important that I do what I'm
Speaker 2: doing for the extra hour than you get to follow
Speaker 2: your dreams. What was your response to that?
Speaker 3: It started more subtle and where I would just sort
Speaker 3: of get quiet, and then after the third or fourth incident,
Speaker 3: I started getting angry. You know, we would have a
Speaker 3: bit of a yelling match over it. There would be
Speaker 3: the Okay, I will be here on time next time,
Speaker 3: and the cycle would sort of begin again where he
Speaker 3: would own up to that and you would show up,
Speaker 3: and then we would have another episode where, you know,
Speaker 3: it was the lateness again in me getting angry.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes when people say they're going to do
Speaker 1: something and then they don't do it, and then people
Speaker 1: are really confused by that because it's like you said
Speaker 1: you were going to do this and you're not here.
Speaker 1: The reason they don't do it is because they actually
Speaker 1: don't want to. And it sounds like the two of
Speaker 1: you had some really fundamental differences around what you wanted
Speaker 1: the day to day of your marriage to look like.
Speaker 1: He was very clear from the beginning he wanted to
Speaker 1: move forward very quickly. He wanted to get married, he
Speaker 1: wanted to have a family, he wanted to focus on
Speaker 1: his career. He was very ambitious, and maybe you wanted
Speaker 1: someone who was going to go at a different pace,
Speaker 1: who was going to have more of an egality marriage
Speaker 1: in terms of the childcare and career and all of
Speaker 1: those things. But I don't hear that you had a
Speaker 1: direct conversation of where are you, what are you wanting?
Speaker 1: Where am I and what am I wanting? What prevented
Speaker 1: you from having those more direct conversations with him?
Speaker 3: I think I was a little intimidated. I think he
Speaker 3: had a very intense presence. I didn't like to make
Speaker 3: him angry, but I'm also not very confrontational. The second
Speaker 3: thing is that he was working so hard and it
Speaker 3: was a hard job that oftentimes our conversations would begin
Speaker 3: with his difficulties, and I found there was not as
Speaker 3: much room for mine. I always felt a little bit
Speaker 3: nervous to approach him with whatever was going on in
Speaker 3: my end. And then of course when I did it
Speaker 3: is you know, already sort of perceived like, well, you
Speaker 3: just don't have it as hard as I do. You
Speaker 3: just don't understand You're not the one who has to
Speaker 3: make the money. Here, you're doing school, which is kind
Speaker 3: of a luxury. I think I would end up feeling like,
Speaker 3: maybe I'm being a bit selfish. I would question whether
Speaker 3: I was right to fight for these things that I wanted,
Speaker 3: you know, And I think that really became a big
Speaker 3: issue over time. Is that inner battle of am I
Speaker 3: being selfish? Or is it okay to want these things?
Speaker 2: And were you talking to your sister or your parents
Speaker 2: or friends to get some more balanced outside perspective about
Speaker 2: whether he were being selfish or whether his demands were unreasonable.
Speaker 3: I was, and in particular my sisters. I have two,
Speaker 3: and I'm very close to both of them. My younger
Speaker 3: sister was not a fan of him from the get go.
Speaker 3: She found him to be a bit condescending and difficult
Speaker 3: from the start, so her take was always that he
Speaker 3: was being selfish, so I sort of took that with
Speaker 3: a grain of salt. My older sister was a bit
Speaker 3: more understanding. She would hear both sides, but she also
Speaker 3: validated that I had made sacrifices for him. She said,
Speaker 3: you moved to a new city, you left what you
Speaker 3: were doing sort of in the middle of it, and
Speaker 3: it's okay to want to do something for yourself.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about your relationships
Speaker 1: before this relationship, where you worried about bringing things up
Speaker 1: in other relationships.
Speaker 3: So I had two serious relationships before I met Derek.
Speaker 3: They were different in the sense that we were on
Speaker 3: equal terms. The first one ended because this person moved
Speaker 3: across the country and wanted me to go and I
Speaker 3: said no. So interestingly, with that situation, I was able
Speaker 3: to say, you know, this isn't the right time. You know,
Speaker 3: I think I was twenty one and I knew it
Speaker 3: wasn't the right thing. The second relationship ended because I
Speaker 3: felt like the person I was seeing had addiction issues
Speaker 3: and I wanted to get away from that. I just
Speaker 3: saw that happening.
Speaker 1: Did you talk about the addiction issues or did you
Speaker 1: communicate openly in that relationship?
Speaker 3: I did. It was an issue, and I was pretty
Speaker 3: adamant about the fact that I just couldn't see pursuing
Speaker 3: a future with that in the in the mix, and
Speaker 3: he at the time just did not see it as
Speaker 3: a problem.
Speaker 2: So in both those earlier relationships, you were able to
Speaker 2: assert your needs, to stand your ground, to not lose
Speaker 2: yourself within the relationship, but to really hold on to
Speaker 2: what you want and what your needs on what your
Speaker 2: perspective is. And then with Derek, you did have trouble
Speaker 2: advocating for your needs. What do you think that was
Speaker 2: about for you? That you went from two relationships in
Speaker 2: which he was so clear and centive to one in
Speaker 2: which you were of center. Almost from the beginning.
Speaker 3: The difference between Derek and those two folks was that
Speaker 3: Derek was an overachiever. He showered me with more attention
Speaker 3: and intensity in those first months than those other relationships,
Speaker 3: and I kind of ate it up. I thought, Wow,
Speaker 3: this guy is so bright and so interesting, and he
Speaker 3: had this way of making you feel like you must
Speaker 3: be pretty amazing if you're in his club, because he
Speaker 3: was also putting people down around us, and I kind
Speaker 3: of knew that there was a red flag, but I
Speaker 3: was seduced. I was seduced by this notion like everyone
Speaker 3: else is kind of bad and not good at this
Speaker 3: and that and the other thing, but I must be
Speaker 3: great because he approves of me. And I admit that
Speaker 3: I think that his approval became almost like a drug
Speaker 3: in a weird way. And when he would take it away,
Speaker 3: I wanted it back.
Speaker 1: How did he take it away?
Speaker 3: He could withdraw by not talking, And I remember he
Speaker 3: went on a business trip and we didn't speak the
Speaker 3: entire week. He would not respond to my calls. We
Speaker 3: had an argument before he left, and I was home
Speaker 3: with our two daughters at that time, who were very young,
Speaker 3: and he just not for a week. He did not respond.
Speaker 1: What happened when he got back and you had been
Speaker 1: alone with the girls for a whole week and your
Speaker 1: husband didn't respond to you.
Speaker 3: It was late at night, so the girls were in
Speaker 3: bed when he came in. My heart was racing. I
Speaker 3: was waiting, you know, I was already worked up, and
Speaker 3: I started yelling about it immediately. It wasn't a controlled conversation.
Speaker 3: It escalated to the point of us having a screaming
Speaker 3: match again. It resulted in him leaving that night again.
Speaker 3: He had just got back in this trip, turned around
Speaker 3: out the door. Those times were just awful.
Speaker 1: When he came back after leaving again, how did you
Speaker 1: guys reconnect?
Speaker 3: This is the kind of strange thing that was going on,
Speaker 3: And I'll put us a little bit forward in the marriage.
Speaker 3: I had pretty much given up my dreams of being
Speaker 3: a travel photographer, which is what I was sort of
Speaker 3: working towards. So he said, well, let's start this company.
Speaker 3: So the bizarre thing that began to happen with us
Speaker 3: is that our work relationship got so compartmentalized that we
Speaker 3: could flip from these emotional angry battles, writing to work
Speaker 3: mode seamlessly and back. So to answer your question, when
Speaker 3: he came back after being away, it was like, oh,
Speaker 3: by the way, did you get that paper done? Or
Speaker 3: did you get that logo? Or did you do this?
Speaker 3: And I'd switched right out of the screaming mode, and
Speaker 3: but oh yeah, yeah, yeah I did, and then we
Speaker 3: could go right back into screaming mode. So we were
Speaker 3: in this very bizarre, compartmentalized place, almost pretending like those
Speaker 3: things didn't happen, and sort of just moving through our days,
Speaker 3: getting further and further apart in our emotional connection, but
Speaker 3: maintaining this work connection and this parenting connection.
Speaker 1: What was going on with your sex life during this time?
Speaker 3: It was getting pretty non existent, and I know that
Speaker 3: that was upsetting him, but I was feeling so disconnected
Speaker 3: that I didn't feel like going there.
Speaker 2: Were you talking about it?
Speaker 3: We were arguing about it, and we really had a
Speaker 3: hard time communicating anytime we were upset. We even went
Speaker 3: to therapy. We went to therapy together to try and
Speaker 3: work that out, but the therapist would suggest that he
Speaker 3: a lot specific time during the day for us, be
Speaker 3: it at the end of the workday, when the kids
Speaker 3: were in bed, no computers, no work, it would be
Speaker 3: just us time. It just didn't happen. And he would say,
Speaker 3: but I can't. I can't because I'm the owner and
Speaker 3: boss of this place and it's just not something that
Speaker 3: I can do. And it reached a point where he
Speaker 3: stopped coming to the therapy sessions. It was just me,
Speaker 3: And after the sixth therapy session alone, the therapist wisely said,
Speaker 3: you know, we can't do this. It's not couple's therapy anymore.
Speaker 1: How did the marriage end?
Speaker 3: So we had a couple that we were very good
Speaker 3: friends with as actually one of his fraternity brothers and
Speaker 3: his wife, and I just went to him and I said,
Speaker 3: you know, I just don't know what I'm not seeing
Speaker 3: if we're in huge trouble. And what this person told
Speaker 3: me is that he had had a talk with Derek
Speaker 3: and that Derek very clearly said with my company, my
Speaker 3: being a father, and my health problems. He had developed
Speaker 3: some health problems. He had developed hypertension and severe sleep
Speaker 3: apnea at that point, which will probably work related even
Speaker 3: some eyesight issues from computer usage. And he said, so
Speaker 3: I have four major stressors in my life, My marriage,
Speaker 3: my health, my work and that I'm a father. He said,
Speaker 3: one of those things is on the chopping block, and
Speaker 3: that's the marriage.
Speaker 2: How did you feel when you heard that from the friend?
Speaker 3: I was devastated.
Speaker 1: And you heard this through his friend. This had never
Speaker 1: been brought up to you. The two of you had
Speaker 1: not discussed divorce.
Speaker 3: Not at that point. I did bring it up after
Speaker 3: I heard that, and I asked him, I said, is
Speaker 3: this how you feel? He said yeah. He said I
Speaker 3: can't do this. He said, you know, I can't not
Speaker 3: be a father, I can't not be the president and
Speaker 3: owner of this company, and I can't not take care
Speaker 3: of my health. That leaves one thing, and so he
Speaker 3: echoed the exact thing.
Speaker 1: So he tells you that the marriage is the one
Speaker 1: thing that has to go. And was that the moment
Speaker 1: that the marriage ended? What did the two of you
Speaker 1: do with that?
Speaker 3: We sort of lingered in this limbo place for an
Speaker 3: additional two years.
Speaker 2: Except it wasn't you too who lingered in the limbo.
Speaker 2: It's you who lingered.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: You just went back to your normal routine and never
Speaker 1: talked about it again.
Speaker 3: You know, we sort of did, because what would happen
Speaker 3: was we'd get into these fights and we'd sort of
Speaker 3: sleep in different rooms, and then we'd get up and
Speaker 3: go and do the work thing and do the kid thing,
Speaker 3: and we'd kind of put it away as though it
Speaker 3: wasn't there.
Speaker 2: Oh do So you go to the friend to get
Speaker 2: advice about how to do something with the marriage, how
Speaker 2: to improve it, and what you hear is kind of
Speaker 2: you're on the chopping block. And then you go back
Speaker 2: to Derek and he confirms, yes, you're on the chopping block.
Speaker 2: Now when you describe what happens thereafter, keep saying, well,
Speaker 2: we were in limbo. We just went back to normal,
Speaker 2: But you're not in the same boat there. You were
Speaker 2: the one that was trying to save the marriage. He's
Speaker 2: the one that's biding his time to when it would
Speaker 2: be suitable for him, yeah, to end it. And I
Speaker 2: guess I'm wondering what was going on with you during
Speaker 2: that time? Were you thinking about, Okay, if this ends,
Speaker 2: what do I need to do to set myself up
Speaker 2: to protect myself, to be able to rebuild my life?
Speaker 2: How much were you thinking about yourself and trying to
Speaker 2: plan and deal with this eventuality that seemed to be coming.
Speaker 3: I think I was still very much wanting for it
Speaker 3: to just go away. It's crazy as it sounds, I
Speaker 3: still wanted his approval. I think emotionally I was thinking, well,
Speaker 3: we can work this out. Because I came from a
Speaker 3: family where my parents were together and still are and
Speaker 3: had some difficult periods but they made it through. It
Speaker 3: was such a bizarre sort of denial. But I also
Speaker 3: don't think I had a very high self esteem at
Speaker 3: this point. I think by this point I was kind
Speaker 3: of terrified to lose them because it was my entire
Speaker 3: life at this point. This is my work, these are
Speaker 3: our friends, my children. It didn't seem possible that all
Speaker 3: that could just stop. When it did, just threw me
Speaker 3: into a complete sort of crisis, you know, because the
Speaker 3: friends chose him, And even though I continued to stay
Speaker 3: with the company after the marriage ended and he moved out,
Speaker 3: I think I had a hard time processing the whole thing.
Speaker 3: I just didn't know what hit me.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what it was like when the
Speaker 1: divorce papers arrived?
Speaker 3: When you were served, I remember exactly, which probably says something.
Speaker 3: He had just had surgery for a problem with his eyes,
Speaker 3: and I had brought him to the surgery and I
Speaker 3: was taking care of him after and I walked to
Speaker 3: the mailbox while he was sleeping and resting on the couch,
Speaker 3: and I opened it up and it was like a
Speaker 3: gut punch. I mean, it was like the ultimate. I
Speaker 3: just felt like my stomach just felt like whoa, there's wow,
Speaker 3: like the roller coaster. And I didn't walk back to
Speaker 3: the house. The girls were playing. They were there, they
Speaker 3: were safe, and he was on the couch sort of
Speaker 3: watching them. So I took a walk to a neighbor's
Speaker 3: house real quick before I went home, and I showed her,
Speaker 3: you know, and she's like wow, And you know, I
Speaker 3: just took a second to try and absorb the whole thing,
Speaker 3: because number one, it was a shock to get it,
Speaker 3: but number two, it was a horrible agreement. It was
Speaker 3: completely one sided. It kind of made me out to
Speaker 3: be someone who didn't deserve any portion of the life.
Speaker 3: And I was thinking, wow, I mean, it's like in
Speaker 3: that agreement he was saying that I got no part
Speaker 3: of the company, I give up one rights.
Speaker 1: So you're taking care of him as he's recuperating from surgery,
Speaker 1: he doesn't warn you that he has filed for divorce. No,
Speaker 1: you go to the mailbox as you're caring for him,
Speaker 1: and you get the surprise. You go to the neighbor
Speaker 1: you kind of talk to her. Then you come home
Speaker 1: and what happened to you go back into the screaming,
Speaker 1: yelling fights that you have not.
Speaker 3: That day because he was recovering.
Speaker 2: Well, so are you recovering?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You come back and there he is on the couch
Speaker 1: and you have this this in your hand, this bomb
Speaker 1: is in your hand, and what do you do.
Speaker 3: I came into the room. I said, I received your letter,
Speaker 3: just calmly, you know, And he said, uh huh. And
Speaker 3: I said, I just need a little time. So I'm
Speaker 3: gonna have our neighbor come over sit with the kids
Speaker 3: for a little bit while you recover. But I just
Speaker 3: need a little time. And I remember calling my dad.
Speaker 3: I remember walking around the neighborhood and crying to my father.
Speaker 3: It was devastating, but it was also scary. It was
Speaker 3: scary because this agreement was felt like it was just
Speaker 3: writing me out of my life.
Speaker 1: I think it was a characteristic of the dynamic between
Speaker 1: the two of you, where not only did he not
Speaker 1: communicate that while you were caring for him, as he
Speaker 1: was recuperating from surgery that you were going to receive
Speaker 1: this letter. He didn't even have the courtesy to give
Speaker 1: you a heads up that it was this very, very
Speaker 1: aggressive agreement. There wasn't okay once you came back from
Speaker 1: that friend earlier and you discovered that he had confided
Speaker 1: in his friend that he felt like the marriage was over.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a conversation between the two of you. And
Speaker 1: I'm saying neither of you had this conversation. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just him, that's right about what does this mean for us?
Speaker 1: Because our lives are so intertwined. We've got the company,
Speaker 1: we've got the kids, we have a history together. How
Speaker 1: can we do this in a way that feels loving
Speaker 1: to each other even though we're parting.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And it was very clear. I think that he
Speaker 3: wanted one thing in this agreement, and that was that
Speaker 3: the company be his. And even though I was told
Speaker 3: by my attorney, by my family, by my friends that
Speaker 3: that was not correct, I was unable to fight for that,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 2: Conceded, what do you mean enable?
Speaker 3: I still was in a place where I always believed him. First.
Speaker 3: I think this was years of conditioning, you know, in
Speaker 3: all different ways. It's sort of like what he said
Speaker 3: was the ultimate truth, and what he was saying to
Speaker 3: me was you really don't have a right to the company,
Speaker 3: even though I had an attorney telling me that's blatantly
Speaker 3: not true, the thought of going to court it was terrifying.
Speaker 3: Everything else we agreed upon, we agreed upon the distribution
Speaker 3: of possessions, and even the house we agreed to shared
Speaker 3: custody fifty to fifty. But the pain of having these
Speaker 3: two taken away half the week, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: after I was really the primary caregiver for their lives.
Speaker 3: I wasn't ready for that either.
Speaker 1: You know, this is going to sound strange, but sometimes
Speaker 1: when couples fight, it's their way of connecting. It is
Speaker 1: their emotional connection. And I think that you wanted that
Speaker 1: connection with him. You didn't want the marriage to end,
Speaker 1: and even when you were lonely in the marriage, you
Speaker 1: wanted some kind of connection with him. And it seemed
Speaker 1: like the only way that you could get some kind
Speaker 1: of emotional response from him was if you started screaming,
Speaker 1: and then he would start screaming, and then you guys
Speaker 1: would be in it together. And so I look at
Speaker 1: this more as a way of you, not so much
Speaker 1: fighting the battle for the company when you would scream
Speaker 1: at him, but just engaging with him emotionally.
Speaker 3: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: And then if you were to go to court, it
Speaker 1: would not be that emotional engagement. It would be disconnection.
Speaker 1: It would be the dissolution of your marriage. So when
Speaker 1: you fought with him at home, it was about I'm
Speaker 1: trying to save this I'm trying to save this connection.
Speaker 1: And so when all these unconscious processes are going on,
Speaker 1: our behavior seems really inexplicable. But when you start to
Speaker 1: realize what it really represented, you realize I couldn't go
Speaker 1: to court because I couldn't face the end of the marriage.
Speaker 3: I think that's really true, and I've not thought of
Speaker 3: it that way, but I think it's true. I think
Speaker 3: there was always a part of me that was, for
Speaker 3: some reason, wanting him to engage and want to come
Speaker 3: back and approve. And even now, you know, seven years later,
Speaker 3: he can walk in to pick up the kids and
Speaker 3: he cannot look at me at all. It's like I
Speaker 3: don't exist. He can walk into the house and there
Speaker 3: won't be hello. Do you mind if I run upstairs
Speaker 3: to get our daughter's things? He'll just go. I think
Speaker 3: that's been for me. The most insanely painful part is
Speaker 3: that it's like I wasn't there.
Speaker 2: And do you say something to him in those moments,
Speaker 2: like please say hello to me when you come into
Speaker 2: my house or something to alert him to the fact
Speaker 2: that he's being rude.
Speaker 3: I have not. He still has the power to intimidate
Speaker 3: me a little bit. And it's a bizarre thing.
Speaker 2: It's not that bases. It has been the pattern all along.
Speaker 2: What I think happened to you is that you took
Speaker 2: your eye off you and you had your eye on him,
Speaker 2: and your eye on him was how do I get
Speaker 2: him to be interested, to give me attention, to give
Speaker 2: me appreciation. And I think that part of what happened
Speaker 2: in the divorce when you didn't fight for the company
Speaker 2: was that there was still a little bit of hope
Speaker 2: of getting that approval from him, of him looking at
Speaker 2: you and going, you know what, we're getting divorce. But
Speaker 2: you're okay, and you're smiling as I say it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know you're right, But I.
Speaker 2: Think it's going on still, and I think even seven
Speaker 2: years later, you're still wanting in some way whatever approval
Speaker 2: he can have, which is why it's very painful when
Speaker 2: he ignores you completely. But it's also why you don't
Speaker 2: call him on just manners, truly, even just manners. I mean,
Speaker 2: it would not cause a huge back to court scenario
Speaker 2: to say, you know, when you come into my house
Speaker 2: to me, it's polite even that. And I think that
Speaker 2: you don't do that because you're still wanting from him something.
Speaker 3: I think you're absolutely right. The intellectual, logical part of
Speaker 3: me says, this is not a person that's ever going
Speaker 3: to give you what you want. It wasn't happening in
Speaker 3: those marital situations and dramas that played out. It certainly
Speaker 3: didn't happen after. And I believe that now that he's
Speaker 3: getting remarried, I feel like there's almost this desire on
Speaker 3: his part to really make me disappear.
Speaker 1: You talked about him coming in, and it's almost like
Speaker 1: your marriage didn't exist, that he doesn't even acknowledge you,
Speaker 1: as though you've been erased. He just took an eraser
Speaker 1: and erased everything that happened before. And the girls are there,
Speaker 1: but that's all that's left. Yes, but I think that
Speaker 1: happened during the marriage too, that your needs, your desires,
Speaker 1: you're goals were erased. You seem almost surprised.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Every time this happens, you get rewounded. And it's like
Speaker 1: when someone goes to an empty well and they expect
Speaker 1: water to be there, and then the next day they
Speaker 1: go back to the well again, but it's empty, and
Speaker 1: they keep going back to the empty well even though
Speaker 1: they know there's no water there, they will remain thirsty.
Speaker 1: They need to find a different water source. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's what you do with Derek, is that you
Speaker 1: keep expecting that there's going to be water there, and
Speaker 1: you get so wounded when there's not. And that makes
Speaker 1: me wonder about how many times you went back to
Speaker 1: the well during the marriage and wanting I guess the
Speaker 1: water then was his approval? Where did that come from?
Speaker 1: Where in your life did you have that experience where
Speaker 1: approval was so important to this external approval.
Speaker 3: When I was twelve, I got severely sick with Graves
Speaker 3: disease and it kind of went undetected. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: my pediatrician at the time was attributing some of the
Speaker 3: problems to puberty even and at the time, my father
Speaker 3: was very much grieving the loss of his brother who
Speaker 3: had died very suddenly not long before my illness began,
Speaker 3: and that was causing a lot of tension between my parents,
Speaker 3: and they were a little bit more absent than they
Speaker 3: I think they would have been. So I was really
Speaker 3: getting more and more sick. I was getting teased at school.
Speaker 3: No one wanted to be my friend.
Speaker 1: What were you getting teased for?
Speaker 3: It was my appearance because after a while being that sick,
Speaker 3: it started to show I was very skinny and I
Speaker 3: had really sunken in eyes. And what ended up happening
Speaker 3: is they said, from what is called a thyroid storm,
Speaker 3: where you can go in some organ failure, you know,
Speaker 3: and you can die. And it just got that close.
Speaker 3: And in that time I fought a lot with my mom.
Speaker 3: I don't know if she understood why she had this
Speaker 3: kid who couldn't get her act together, or couldn't wake
Speaker 3: up for school, couldn't get good grades. You know. I
Speaker 3: think to her I was really becoming a real problem.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't met with the compassion or empathy at
Speaker 3: that point. It was more anger like Derek, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: it's timely because you know, as I wrote, the wedding
Speaker 3: is coming up, the second marriage for my ex it's
Speaker 3: in six weeks, and it's really been hard, and I've
Speaker 3: been kind of denying myself that that sort of compassion,
Speaker 3: as in the in face of just saying, oh, it's fine,
Speaker 3: i'll be it's good, I can, I'm glad for you know,
Speaker 3: I'm happy for him, when really it's just it's painful
Speaker 3: on a million levels. And you know, my younger daughter
Speaker 3: will get excited and say, oh yeah, and we were
Speaker 3: getting the dresses. It's going to be a very similar
Speaker 3: kind of wedding and with a similar group, and I
Speaker 3: don't want to shut her down because this is a
Speaker 3: happy thing for her and this should be something that
Speaker 3: they celebrate. But it's hard for me.
Speaker 2: Where will you be when the wedding takes place?
Speaker 3: I was thinking that I should be out of town,
Speaker 3: like I was actually considering going someplace else. I don't
Speaker 3: think that I want to be here. I don't. I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean I thought about that. And they are going
Speaker 3: to go on a trip after all together. They're kind
Speaker 3: of doing what they're calling a family moon, so they're
Speaker 3: going to do a trip all together the following week,
Speaker 3: which is nice I think for everybody to kind of
Speaker 3: merge and assimilate. So I was thinking of either going
Speaker 3: away during that or going away the day of and
Speaker 3: just being out of town. I'm not sure where, but
Speaker 3: it would be hard to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about, as we're talking about Derek getting married,
Speaker 1: what has your romantic life been like since the divorce.
Speaker 3: So I dated some people since the divorce, and I
Speaker 3: think I have kept myself from getting seriously involved with anybody.
Speaker 3: It's been me not wanting, not feeling like I can
Speaker 3: engage that way again.
Speaker 1: Yet you know this idea of keeping distance between you
Speaker 1: and a potential romantic partner that was there before Derek.
Speaker 1: So in college you were a little bit uncertain. The
Speaker 1: boyfriend wanted you to move across the country, and there
Speaker 1: was a logistical thing about I'm too young. Then Derek
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, come meet my friends, come meet my family,
Speaker 1: and you were like, I don't know. I think that
Speaker 1: there's something in there about protecting your and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what you're protecting yourself from. Do you have any
Speaker 1: ideas about that?
Speaker 3: And that's really interesting, but you know, and I hadn't
Speaker 3: looked at the pattern like that. It could be back
Speaker 3: to that childhood thing. I mean, I just think that
Speaker 3: that sense, that incredible sense of loneliness at that time
Speaker 3: is just very hard to shake.
Speaker 2: And yet you were in a marriage for many years
Speaker 2: in which you were lonely.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I wonder if I keep people at arm's length
Speaker 3: in general.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be really important for you
Speaker 1: to understand more about how and why you keep people
Speaker 1: at arm's length. I don't think it's a coincidence that
Speaker 1: you married Derek because you couldn't get close to him.
Speaker 1: He wasn't someone who was available in that way with you,
Speaker 1: and so it was very convenient because you weren't going
Speaker 1: to get tested in that way. You weren't going to
Speaker 1: have someone come to you and say, hey, I needed
Speaker 1: to show up more here.
Speaker 3: That's a good point. I've been looking at what happens
Speaker 3: when my daughters go off to school, you know, and
Speaker 3: that's not so far away. One who's two years away,
Speaker 3: and the other will be quickly following. And I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: what is my life going to look like at this point,
Speaker 3: you know, And what do I have to do to
Speaker 3: kind of build a life because I'm starting to think
Speaker 3: I've put myself in a bit of a box here.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that a lot of the friends ended up
Speaker 1: staying friends with Derek, and that you lost some of
Speaker 1: those connections. What has happened in the last seven years
Speaker 1: around rebuilding or building new friendships.
Speaker 3: I have a good group of five women in particular
Speaker 3: that are very close to me. But I will tell
Speaker 3: you one thing I have not done since the divorce
Speaker 3: is entertain in my house at all. So I feel
Speaker 3: like I need to be better about that. I've been
Speaker 3: nervous and making excuses like, oh, I need to paint,
Speaker 3: or I should buy some different furniture, I should fix
Speaker 3: this or fix that. I can't entertain until I do that.
Speaker 3: But I really think that's just me keeping again the distance,
Speaker 3: because entertaining and bringing people into your space creates bonds.
Speaker 3: And even when I dated people, I was very reluctant
Speaker 3: to have people in my space. I just kept people out.
Speaker 3: And I think it's going to be really important to
Speaker 3: try and get past that.
Speaker 1: What happened to your photography? What would prevent you from
Speaker 1: going and taking the pictures?
Speaker 3: You know? There's always just part of me that looks
Speaker 3: back and thinks, Wow, so much time has gone by,
Speaker 3: Could I be anything resembling what I was before? This
Speaker 3: whole marital thing happened, and I think I've kind of
Speaker 3: resisted getting back to some of those things I did prior,
Speaker 3: but I would probably enjoy it and enjoy all of
Speaker 3: the artistic things I used to do.
Speaker 1: He said, you've dated a few people. Can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about how long those relationships lasted
Speaker 1: and what happened.
Speaker 3: The first person I dated after this split up was
Speaker 3: probably about four months down the line, and we met
Speaker 3: because our kids were at the same school and had
Speaker 3: a really good relationship. The funny thing is, I felt
Speaker 3: like he wanted so much of my free time. I
Speaker 3: think he was ready to take that relationship to the
Speaker 3: next level. We dated for two and a half years.
Speaker 3: He was looking at possibly looking at moving in together.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting the two and a half
Speaker 1: years Withven how you described it. And the reason I
Speaker 1: say that is that he was asking for your time
Speaker 1: because he was trying to create a life with you.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I was really struggling.
Speaker 1: We're laughing with you because you're laughing as well, because
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say yeah, two and
Speaker 1: I thought months was going to follow that, not two
Speaker 1: and a half years. And when people get to that
Speaker 1: point they want to integrate their lives, and it sounds
Speaker 1: like you are really reluctant. And the irony of this
Speaker 1: is that when you were married to Derek, your big
Speaker 1: complaint was I never see you. I don't have enough
Speaker 1: of your time. I want more of you because you
Speaker 1: wanted what this boyfriend wanted, which is a very reasonable request.
Speaker 1: And so do you see it now that what he
Speaker 1: was asking for was probably quite reasonable given the length
Speaker 1: of the relationship and where he wanted it to go.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I do as you say this. It's like I
Speaker 3: can feel that block. Interestingly, the second person I dated
Speaker 3: after that relationship ended was a person who was in
Speaker 3: a situation where he was still married though being in
Speaker 3: separate parts of the house.
Speaker 1: And that works great for you.
Speaker 3: Unacceptable to most people, including my friends, right, but it's
Speaker 3: perfect for you.
Speaker 2: We have to laugh, right, I'm laughing at how well
Speaker 2: you know yourself in that way?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, But and yet you know that worked.
Speaker 1: Right because the arm's length was built into the relationship
Speaker 1: it was, So how did that stop working?
Speaker 3: I seem to have this inner conflict where it works
Speaker 3: and then it doesn't, and then I fight for it
Speaker 3: being different. So it's this sort of dance where I
Speaker 3: would say, you know, this is taking too long. You
Speaker 3: really need to adjust the situation. And we went back
Speaker 3: and forth a little bit. We would end the relationship
Speaker 3: and then we would resume the relationship, and end the
Speaker 3: relationship and resume it. In one of those periods where
Speaker 3: we ended the relationship, I dated another person and the
Speaker 3: same thing happened. He was so available I couldn't take it,
Speaker 3: and I ended that. So definitely, seeing the pattern, I
Speaker 3: still get together with the person who is married. We're
Speaker 3: in more of a friendship place, and we kind of
Speaker 3: try to keep it on a friendship level until he
Speaker 3: does make a significant move out of the situation he's in.
Speaker 3: And he's even said to me, I'm afraid that you're
Speaker 3: not going to want me when I do that. And
Speaker 3: you know, I don't have the heart to say, well,
Speaker 3: that's not, you know, unfounded.
Speaker 1: But and you can say you're right, you could say
Speaker 1: that may be true.
Speaker 2: I won't afraid you shouldn't.
Speaker 3: Be my God, I don't want to go down that
Speaker 3: path continuously.
Speaker 1: We call what you're doing creating your own abandonment.
Speaker 3: YEP. I think that makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: So Audrey we have some advice for you, and we
Speaker 1: were thinking about how much time you spend and how
Speaker 1: much energy you spend going to the well that is dry,
Speaker 1: and like you to go where the water is, and
Speaker 1: so we have a few tasks that we think will
Speaker 1: help accomplish that. And the first one is this guy
Speaker 1: that you were dating that you are now in this
Speaker 1: friendship with, the sort of friends with benefits relationship with.
Speaker 1: We think that that's a dry well, and we think
Speaker 1: that spending time with him might help you with some
Speaker 1: of your loneliness in a moment when you want some companionship,
Speaker 1: but it takes away from the energy that you're going
Speaker 1: to need to go where the water is, in other words,
Speaker 1: to find a relationship where the person is available and
Speaker 1: that you're willing to show up for that. So we
Speaker 1: think that you should not be in contact with him
Speaker 1: at this time. So that's the first task understood. The
Speaker 1: second thing is that you spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: thinking about Derek and what he thinks about you, how
Speaker 1: he thinks about you, whether he thinks about you, and
Speaker 1: still kind of looking for his approval, and we think
Speaker 1: again that that is a dry well. It doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter what he thinks. What he's not thinking, we'll never know.
Speaker 1: But most important, it's not that relevant. And so you
Speaker 1: were talking about how you've never entertained in your home
Speaker 1: and how you'd like to be doing that, and we
Speaker 1: think that a really great idea is to make your
Speaker 1: first dinner party be the night of the wedding, so
Speaker 1: that you have lots of water around you that night.
Speaker 1: It can be whatever you want it to be. It
Speaker 1: can be two people, it could be five people, but
Speaker 1: it will be the first time that you are entertaining
Speaker 1: in your space with people who are symbolically water for you.
Speaker 1: And what we'd like you to do this week, since
Speaker 1: that's six weeks away, is we'd like you to start
Speaker 1: the planning. Who are you going to what will it
Speaker 1: be like, what's the menu going to be? And report
Speaker 1: back to us, okay, And then while Derek is off
Speaker 1: on his family moon, we would like you to pick
Speaker 1: a friend that you would like to travel with, and
Speaker 1: we would like you to get a camera, and we'd
Speaker 1: like you to go someplace. You said you do travel photography.
Speaker 1: We'd like you to go someplace where you would like
Speaker 1: to be a photographer, so that you have the company
Speaker 1: of someone that you enjoy and who gives you the
Speaker 1: space that you need, because we know that that's important
Speaker 1: to you. So someone that you're really comfortable with in
Speaker 1: that way and gives you the space to go and
Speaker 1: take the pictures that you want to take and somewhere
Speaker 1: where you're really excited to do this, the way you
Speaker 1: were excited in your twenties to go someplace and take pictures.
Speaker 1: We want you to pick that place, okay, and so
Speaker 1: that will be you creating your own wells that have
Speaker 1: water in them.
Speaker 2: We were also thinking about that year when you were
Speaker 2: sick as a kid between twelve and thirteen and undiagnosed,
Speaker 2: and he thought about how lonely that must have been,
Speaker 2: and we think that probably a lot of scars there
Speaker 2: that haven't fully healed, and so we would like you
Speaker 2: to go back to therapy. We want you to do
Speaker 2: some work around that year and its impact so that
Speaker 2: you can heal from that fully. And we also think
Speaker 2: that if you were dating around that time, it would
Speaker 2: be really helpful to be in therapy for that as well,
Speaker 2: because you could talk through some of those visceral blocks
Speaker 2: that you feel at the idea of getting too close
Speaker 2: of moving it to a more serious relationship.
Speaker 1: And the thing that therapy can help you with is
Speaker 1: this idea of I'm lonely, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: get too close. And that's a real internal conflict for you.
Speaker 1: Trying to protect myself here in a way that maybe
Speaker 1: isn't protective, but that will leave me feeling even lonelier.
Speaker 1: And so this week, do a little research and see
Speaker 1: if you can make an appointment with a therapist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm willing to do all those things. Wonderful, Absolutely will.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I really appreciate it. And an incredible talk
Speaker 3: and just already so many insights that I just hadn't
Speaker 3: thought about, So very very appreciative, thank you.
Speaker 2: I think this is one of these situations where Audrey
Speaker 2: walked in with one narrative in her head about her
Speaker 2: story and truly walked out with another one. It makes
Speaker 2: me really believe that she will follow through on these
Speaker 2: assignments and she will do so well because I think
Speaker 2: she really got it.
Speaker 1: What happens is people get stuck in the story. They
Speaker 1: get stuck in the faulty narrative, and that's why they
Speaker 1: can't move forward. And once she was able to see
Speaker 1: there might be more to this story that I'm not seeing.
Speaker 1: There might be other ways of looking at this. In fact,
Speaker 1: I might have a role in this too, and to
Speaker 1: be able to hold that without saying and it's all
Speaker 1: my fault, but to be able to say Derek had
Speaker 1: a role in this, but I brought something to this
Speaker 1: marriage as well. And if I'm going to move forward,
Speaker 1: I need to understand what has been holding me up,
Speaker 1: not only when I was married to Derek, but before then,
Speaker 1: and then also since then, in the seven years that
Speaker 1: have passed. Often, as therapists, we're curious to know when
Speaker 1: we meet someone, not just why are you here, but
Speaker 1: why now? And I think for Audrey it might seem
Speaker 1: like the reason she was writing to us now was
Speaker 1: because of Derek's upcoming wedding, and maybe that was the
Speaker 1: impetus for her to write to us. But I also
Speaker 1: think internally there was a readiness for her to say,
Speaker 1: what might be going on here? How can I move
Speaker 1: past this in a way that maybe she wasn't ready
Speaker 1: for earlier. So I think she was ready, and I
Speaker 1: think she's going to be very motivated to try some
Speaker 1: of the advice that we gave her this week.
Speaker 2: You're listening to deotherapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back after
Speaker 2: a quick break.
Speaker 1: Well, guy, we heard back from Audrey and we gave
Speaker 1: her some tasks that would help her to take her
Speaker 1: focus away from all of that rumination about her ex
Speaker 1: husband and to focus instead on herself.
Speaker 3: Hi, Guy and Laurie. This is Audrey. I was kind
Speaker 3: to follow up on the assignments you gave me last
Speaker 3: week after our talk. So first, let me tell you
Speaker 3: that I have a therapist appointment scheduled for this coming Friday.
Speaker 3: I'm really looking forward to that, so it felt good
Speaker 3: to make that appointment. Second was the talk with my
Speaker 3: married friend that went pretty well because I tried to
Speaker 3: focus mostly on me and my patterns, and I didn't
Speaker 3: want to go into it and make it feel like
Speaker 3: an attack on his situation, because I really thought the
Speaker 3: important thing was to express that my own patterns have
Speaker 3: been ones that don't necessarily get me to a place
Speaker 3: of complete and full relationships, and that that has been
Speaker 3: unhealthy for me, and that what I'm really trying to
Speaker 3: do going forward is pave the way for complete relationships
Speaker 3: where I can give one hundred percent and get it.
Speaker 3: And he was supportive because I didn't try to make
Speaker 3: it about blaming him or again honing in on his situation.
Speaker 3: So that was difficult because I really care about this person,
Speaker 3: but I feel good about it. The fun thing things.
Speaker 3: The first thing was the dinner party, and that took
Speaker 3: a little thought because I had to really think about
Speaker 3: the friends that I wanted to include and who I
Speaker 3: thought would work well together. But I think the most
Speaker 3: important thing about it was how nice it felt to
Speaker 3: envision people in my home that I was hosting. So
Speaker 3: as I sort of narrowed my list, this first christening
Speaker 3: of my house, again is a knee house, I thought
Speaker 3: about how nice it's going to be to have people
Speaker 3: in my home, and that has felt good ever since
Speaker 3: starting the planning. So I've been sending out invitations to
Speaker 3: see who's available, and we're looking forward to making more plans.
Speaker 3: The trip is pretty exciting. Right away. I kind of
Speaker 3: thought that my sisters would be people I'd like to
Speaker 3: travel with. They're not both.
Speaker 4: Available for this particular data I'm looking at, but my
Speaker 4: older sister is, and so we're talking about doing a
Speaker 4: mutual photo trip and writing trip to the mountainous part
Speaker 4: of North Carolina.
Speaker 3: It's a place we both really want to go to
Speaker 3: and see, and we're really kind of getting excited about
Speaker 3: rekindling both of our artistic loves. In that place, I'm
Speaker 3: thinking a lot less about the wedding and a lot
Speaker 3: more about things I can be doing and living my
Speaker 3: own life and getting healthier. It's already starting to shift
Speaker 3: my perspective and get myself focused much more on me.
Speaker 3: So thank you so much, because I really think that
Speaker 3: this was a terrific starting point for me, and I'm
Speaker 3: really looking forward to beginning that therapy and putting my
Speaker 3: attention in the right places, surrounding myself with water. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I love how Audrey brought back the metaphor of the
Speaker 1: dry well and the water. I think that really helped
Speaker 1: her to realize that she had been thirsty for all
Speaker 1: of these things for so long, and she really just
Speaker 1: dived right into our assignment.
Speaker 2: And what I love is that she decided to reconnect
Speaker 2: with her home by entertaining, to reconnect with friends like
Speaker 2: the hub of a social activity in the dinner that
Speaker 2: she's doing, and to go away on that creative retreat
Speaker 2: with her sister. It's a great reminder you don't have
Speaker 2: to go away with another photographer. If you're a photographer,
Speaker 2: another writer, if you're a writer, you can just go
Speaker 2: away with someone in which you both do the creative thing.
Speaker 2: I think she planned a perfect vacation and the dinner
Speaker 2: sounds like it's going to be great.
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of letting go that we
Speaker 1: asked her to do. Part of it was how are
Speaker 1: you going to manage the remarriage of your ex? And
Speaker 1: part of it is how are you going to let
Speaker 1: go of this person who's been your crutch while you're
Speaker 1: trying to date and meet someone yourself. And that's a
Speaker 1: really hard thing to do. But I think she's realizing
Speaker 1: that she needs to focus on herself and that will
Speaker 1: help her to find a new romantic partner in her life.
Speaker 2: And I love the way she did it too, because
Speaker 2: she did it with honesty and with vulnerability, and I
Speaker 2: love that she's finding her voice.
Speaker 1: Next week, a young man finds himself at odds with
Speaker 1: his boss and her lack of boundaries outside the workplace.
Speaker 5: She would kind of contact me outside of work to
Speaker 5: keep that conversation going. I would just see my phone
Speaker 5: light up and it'd be a text message, and I said, hey,
Speaker 5: if this is work related and I'm not at work.
Speaker 5: I really would like if you could just email me instead.
Speaker 5: She didn't really do that.
Speaker 1: Hey, fellow travelers, if you're enjoying our podcast each week,
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't
Speaker 1: miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by
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Speaker 2: If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Speaker 2: Big O Smooth, email us at Lorian Guy at iHeartMedia
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Noel Brown. Were produced and edited
Speaker 1: by Mike Johns, Josh Fisher, and Chris Childs. Our interns
Speaker 1: are Dorit Corwin and Silver Lifton. Special thanks to Alison
Speaker 1: Wright and to our podcast fairy Godmother Katie Couric. We
Speaker 1: can't wait to see you at next week's session.
Speaker 2: Deotherapist is a production of iHeartRadio.