Speaker 1: This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
Speaker 1: medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
Speaker 1: independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
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Speaker 1: episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the
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Speaker 1: not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, I
Speaker 1: Heart Media, or their employees. You know, I'm listening to
Speaker 1: him and he's saying, I have I found you finally.
Speaker 1: I have been looking everywhere for you, all around the world,
Speaker 1: and I finally found you. And I'm gonna tell the
Speaker 1: other woman that I found you, and she's going to
Speaker 1: be so happy for me. I again, red flags were
Speaker 1: not going off, which is a sign of where I
Speaker 1: was emotionally and who was driving the bus in my psyche.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people have a life that for a while seems
Speaker 1: all figured out along marriage, children, and then over time
Speaker 1: the usual stuff may come up in a marriage, financial
Speaker 1: and employment woes, stress, and with more time what a
Speaker 1: person thinks is working well finally shows its cracks. Kirsten
Speaker 1: hathcock story is a unique journey through reinventing herself and
Speaker 1: starting a business in which she had no background, being
Speaker 1: on the cusp of a major deal, and then losing
Speaker 1: it and realizing some things about her childhood that were transformative.
Speaker 1: Into the middle of this storm came something that swept
Speaker 1: her away and changed her life forever. Kirsten's story had
Speaker 1: numerous ups and downs that we're not even be able
Speaker 1: to begin to get into here, and that are spelled
Speaker 1: out in her book Little Voices. But today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about her marriage and what happened. A reminder
Speaker 1: that toxic relationships can come up when we least expect them. Kirsten, welcome.
Speaker 1: It is so nice to have you here on Navigating Narcissism.
Speaker 1: I'm very very happy to see you here to have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to talk because I read your book. So
Speaker 1: your book was really I mean again to anyone listening,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a book with twists and turns,
Speaker 1: this is your book is called Little Voices, and you
Speaker 1: can get more information on that obviously in the show notes. Again,
Speaker 1: so many twists and turns, and because it's so complicated,
Speaker 1: I'd say to everyone, if you want to read the
Speaker 1: whole story, go read the book. You need to get
Speaker 1: her book. We're going to take on a piece of
Speaker 1: it that's most relevant to the story. Let's start with you.
Speaker 1: Your family, your marriage. Tell us about you and your
Speaker 1: relationship with your husband, Scott in those early days. So
Speaker 1: I am. I just turned forty nine, so I'm out
Speaker 1: in my age. I grew up in Ohio. My dad's
Speaker 1: a football coach, my mom's a teacher. I grew up
Speaker 1: in a very grounded family and just you know, a
Speaker 1: grounded environment, very Ohio, and I had pretty much this
Speaker 1: idyllic childhood, or so I thought. Went off to college,
Speaker 1: ended up actually meeting my husband after college. We met
Speaker 1: in a bar, which is really classy right in Charlotte,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and we hit it off and ended up
Speaker 1: getting engaged after four months. I believe I was twenty
Speaker 1: three when we got married. He was twenty five. We
Speaker 1: were what I would definitely feel was happily married for
Speaker 1: eighteen years. And at that eighteen year mark, several things happened. One,
Speaker 1: I started to recover memories of childhood sexual abuse that
Speaker 1: I endured as a kid, and I didn't even necessarily
Speaker 1: believe that that was a thing that I could recover,
Speaker 1: But there was a lot of proof that led me
Speaker 1: to understand that this indeed happened to me when I
Speaker 1: was between ages of three and six. So that eighteen
Speaker 1: year mark in our marriage and then that piece of
Speaker 1: information coming to a head, it changed things. It changed
Speaker 1: things for me, And I think, you know, I've always
Speaker 1: been a people pleaser. I've always been. I think it's
Speaker 1: pretty common for childhood abuse survivors to please because we're
Speaker 1: programmed to do that. And I think it was the
Speaker 1: first time in my life where I really kind of
Speaker 1: sat down and went, you know what, this isn't all roses.
Speaker 1: I don't feel right about everything. And that was in
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, which was our eighteen year anniversary. So
Speaker 1: happy eighteen years, yeah, yeah, happy. And then you were
Speaker 1: having experiences within yourself and things inside you were changing.
Speaker 1: How was that unfolding in the marriage, because it sounds
Speaker 1: like that was then leading to some more difficult times
Speaker 1: in your marriage. Absolutely, like I said, I was a pleaser.
Speaker 1: So for most of our Mayor Scott, who was a
Speaker 1: wonderful man, absolutely adore him, but you know, he would say, hey,
Speaker 1: let's eat outside, and I would not think do I
Speaker 1: want to eat outside? I would just say sure, absolutely.
Speaker 1: That was my pet answer for everything. So at that point,
Speaker 1: I think what what it was most interesting is I'm
Speaker 1: dealing with this, you know, memory of childhood sexual abuse
Speaker 1: and kind of dealing with healing and going to therapy
Speaker 1: and seeing you know, psychologists and in different therapists. But
Speaker 1: I'm also I'm also kind of not feeling like I'm
Speaker 1: myself anymore, because when you go into that and you're
Speaker 1: you're kind of looking back and saying, well, who am
Speaker 1: I really? I didn't even remember that, Like what what
Speaker 1: about my life? Am I also still now missing? And
Speaker 1: there it was interesting because I noticed that I started
Speaker 1: to get kind of irritated with my husband. Things just
Speaker 1: didn't feel right anymore. I was tired of being the pleaser.
Speaker 1: I was tired of feeling like I was carrying the
Speaker 1: weight of the relationship. We had been through a lot
Speaker 1: of layoffs, a lot of financial ups and downs, and
Speaker 1: because I'm a doer, a fixer, I would just jump
Speaker 1: right in and try and fix, to the point where
Speaker 1: I even built a furniture company out of our garage
Speaker 1: that ended up on shirt take. So yeah, you know
Speaker 1: that's the level at which I fixed things. So you
Speaker 1: started that furniture business. Was that in response to an
Speaker 1: actual financial need within your family? Yes, it was absolutely so.
Speaker 1: We had moved around a lot because my husband and
Speaker 1: I were both in the entertainment side, but we were
Speaker 1: on the advertising side and the marketing side, and in
Speaker 1: order to move up you typically had to move to
Speaker 1: another city. But we're also talking about two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: two thousand and four tough times. Well, it was not
Speaker 1: Scott's fault that we went through so many layoffs on
Speaker 1: his side. I was still the one sort of picking
Speaker 1: things up on my end to say, Okay, we need
Speaker 1: to pay the gas bill, how can I figure out
Speaker 1: how to do this? And I had left my job
Speaker 1: to stay home with the kids, and I was doing
Speaker 1: marketing work. I was always at work from home mom,
Speaker 1: but I had to step it up in a bigger way.
Speaker 1: So you can see how much of a fixer I
Speaker 1: was throughout. Can I ask you, did you have a
Speaker 1: background in carpentry? What did that look like? I was
Speaker 1: building it? And no, I do not have a background
Speaker 1: in carpentry. Or design. I didn't even have any money
Speaker 1: to do this, but I had my intuition and for
Speaker 1: some reason, I was very much in tune with that
Speaker 1: quiet little voice inside of me. And everyone else around
Speaker 1: me said, you're crazy, Like why do you want to
Speaker 1: build Why do you think you can build kids furniture? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. And that's exactly what I did, and
Speaker 1: I did not expect it to take off the way
Speaker 1: that it did. I needed to bring in more income
Speaker 1: than what I was actually bringing in at the time
Speaker 1: while staying home with the kids. And that was the
Speaker 1: answer for me, was to build furniture in our garage.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go and found a tangent here,
Speaker 1: and I have to tell you I had to listeners.
Speaker 1: I had sort of the glimpse in because I've already
Speaker 1: read her book to read more about this. But it
Speaker 1: is such an interesting part of your story, right because
Speaker 1: it would be you know, to not even like it
Speaker 1: was like cupcakes out of your kitchen, which I must
Speaker 1: of us gonna follow a recipe. This was furniture, right,
Speaker 1: and I I mean so this concept of being a
Speaker 1: fixer to not lost on me in some ways. Going
Speaker 1: how to use tools as a form of fixing too,
Speaker 1: but that you would take on something. Let's face it, Kirsten,
Speaker 1: there's something almost masculinized about furniture building. We don't think
Speaker 1: of women as doing it, though they're incredibly skilled, you know,
Speaker 1: wood workers out there of all genders, but it's not
Speaker 1: our sort of our our kind of stereotypical vision of it.
Speaker 1: And here you were going to your garage. Not only
Speaker 1: it's not like you're making furniture for the house to
Speaker 1: save money. You're making it that it was good enough
Speaker 1: to sell. And then it went to the next level,
Speaker 1: which I think would be I'm gonna say quirky, but
Speaker 1: that's not meant to minimize it, because it's just to me,
Speaker 1: it's like what you did, what was your furniture? So
Speaker 1: the furniture star it's selling in l a if if
Speaker 1: somebody must to see prototype of it and said, I've
Speaker 1: seen pictures of it, I get why people wanted to
Speaker 1: buy it. But still a lot of people make things
Speaker 1: in their garage and even when they are good, they
Speaker 1: don't sell them. They don't sell them right exactly. But
Speaker 1: then you took it to this whole new level and
Speaker 1: can you sort of let people know what that is
Speaker 1: and how that all happened, because that was like a
Speaker 1: big thing. It was a big thing. Yes, Um, So
Speaker 1: I spent pretty much every day covered and sawdust in
Speaker 1: and out of the garage all day long, shuttling kids
Speaker 1: back and forth to school. And I did that for
Speaker 1: about three years prior to going on Chark Tank. And
Speaker 1: it was during that time period where you know, I
Speaker 1: built the first one and it actually resembled my grandmother's
Speaker 1: old split top record player. And so all of the
Speaker 1: sudden bloggers out of New York and different design areas
Speaker 1: of the world started saying, Hey, there's a mom in
Speaker 1: a garage and Burbank, California, and she's making these things.
Speaker 1: And one of them even ended up in an international
Speaker 1: design book. So you know, I felt like they're some validation, yes,
Speaker 1: in the design aspect of you know, what I was doing.
Speaker 1: You know, I think I was in such a fight
Speaker 1: or flight state because I was in fear when I
Speaker 1: was doing it. So I just had to keep going
Speaker 1: and keep growing it. So I went on Shark Tank
Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten is when I actually filmed,
Speaker 1: and it aired in two thousand and eleven, and I
Speaker 1: ended up with two offers and the second offer with Robert.
Speaker 1: Actually he was the second offer, Mr Wonderful. If you
Speaker 1: ever watched the show, he's the one who offered first,
Speaker 1: and then Robert Herschebek offered after him, and his offer
Speaker 1: was better, so I took it. I ended up not
Speaker 1: getting that deal. After we stopped filming, he basically said,
Speaker 1: I think you're still a little bit too small. Why
Speaker 1: don't you come back in a year or so. And
Speaker 1: you know, that was devastating because we were really counting
Speaker 1: on that. We were at a point where Scott had
Speaker 1: lost his job again and we needed to make that happen.
Speaker 1: And so I cried, honestly, sat down and I cried
Speaker 1: in my kitchen and then I just thought, you know what,
Speaker 1: I can do this? Yeah, so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: growing up in the Midwest and having the parents I have,
Speaker 1: who are just amazing people, they taught me to work hard.
Speaker 1: They taught me to just keep going and you know,
Speaker 1: believe in myself. And I did believe in myself, especially
Speaker 1: at that point. So about a year later I ended
Speaker 1: up getting an actual deal. An Angel investor came to
Speaker 1: me because he watched the episode on Hulu, and he said,
Speaker 1: did that deal go through, and I told him it didn't,
Speaker 1: and he offered more money and I gave away less equity.
Speaker 1: So I haven't really Yeah, I have a great ending
Speaker 1: to that story. Okay, so a lot of things were
Speaker 1: happening in your marriage. I'm gonna go back now, I'm
Speaker 1: going to switch gears again. A lot of things are
Speaker 1: happening in your marriage. Eighteen years, kids, but job loss
Speaker 1: on and off, which was the story of a lot
Speaker 1: of folks at that time too. It was a tough
Speaker 1: time and it still is, and that's a strain on
Speaker 1: the marriage. You having your own sort of psychological revelations
Speaker 1: in yourself, and you're also building this business, which is
Speaker 1: putting you in a position of going from the parent
Speaker 1: who was at home caring for kids to becoming a
Speaker 1: primary breadwinner. Right. That's a lot of trance, it is.
Speaker 1: It's a lot. When I started to actually go into
Speaker 1: the industry, that's when things got really interesting. I was
Speaker 1: being courted by a company called Stanley Furniture, and they said,
Speaker 1: you know what, we love what you're doing, and we
Speaker 1: want to hire you on as a spokesperson, and we'd
Speaker 1: like to also take on your line and will expand
Speaker 1: it into you know, all kinds of different items for kids.
Speaker 1: So they offered me a job. They offered me the
Speaker 1: spokesperson job, and then I was about to sign the
Speaker 1: licensing deal, which we were projecting five million in sales
Speaker 1: at that point, right, so you know, I really am
Speaker 1: feeling like, oh my gosh, finally, yeah, you know, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna We're gonna get to this point. And I
Speaker 1: was supposed to fly down to high Point, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: which is where all of the big trade show action
Speaker 1: goes on in the furniture industry. So I fly in
Speaker 1: and the plane stops, and I turned my phone on
Speaker 1: and it's just ding ding ding ding ding, and I'm
Speaker 1: seeing multiple messages from Scott and so naturally I got worried, thinking, maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, something had happened with ourids or whatnot. And
Speaker 1: when I finally got him, he said, did you look
Speaker 1: at the press release that just came out? No, no,
Speaker 1: I'm here. You know, I'm working for Stanley. I'm actually
Speaker 1: gonna be meeting with h G t V and all
Speaker 1: of these different people while I'm here at this trade show.
Speaker 1: He said, curious, I'm so sorry. They shut down they
Speaker 1: shut down their youth division. So I literally get off
Speaker 1: the plane and I lose my job. I lose my
Speaker 1: licensing deal. My husband had already lost his job at
Speaker 1: that point, and he had taken a job one of
Speaker 1: the only jobs that we could get in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Speaker 1: At that time, you know, he was making a quarter
Speaker 1: of what he had made before. So it wasn't just
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I can't believe this failed. Now I
Speaker 1: have to go find something else. It was I don't
Speaker 1: know how we're going to eat next. And then you know,
Speaker 1: you couple that with everything that was already kind of
Speaker 1: you know, going on within the marriage and me sort
Speaker 1: of realizing there was a lot of codependency. I felt
Speaker 1: like I was always carrying the world. And I end
Speaker 1: up at high point and friends gathered around me, and
Speaker 1: one of those friends happened to be this very charismatic
Speaker 1: man by the name of Tony, and Tony was a
Speaker 1: good friend of two of my friends, and he said,
Speaker 1: you know what, Kirsten, I'm going to help you. I
Speaker 1: think what you were doing is amazing. He just propped
Speaker 1: me up, and that's what I needed. So in that
Speaker 1: moment you said that your friends surrounded you. These were
Speaker 1: friends like you knew, like from the furniture industry. So
Speaker 1: when you were traveling to high Point, you had already
Speaker 1: been working with Stanley, like they had been producing your furniture.
Speaker 1: They had had a children's furniture division, so that was
Speaker 1: you were the spokesperson, like that was already happening. And
Speaker 1: then you take this flight. This press release comes out
Speaker 1: coincidentally while you're on the flight. You get off the
Speaker 1: plane having already worked with stan So Stanley chooses not
Speaker 1: to tell you this before putting out a press release. Yes,
Speaker 1: because they said that they're publicly traded, so they couldn't
Speaker 1: give away that. And for nation to me, I was hired.
Speaker 1: I had a salary position as a spokesperson. The only
Speaker 1: thing that they wanted me to do with regards to
Speaker 1: the licensing deal was to get there and then sign
Speaker 1: the deal. And I think it had taken eight months
Speaker 1: to get this thing where I was about to sign it.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, you know, I'm gonna just say something
Speaker 1: on the decide because it's intriging. I never even thought
Speaker 1: about this in your story, but when you're me, you
Speaker 1: see the narcissistic stuff everywhere. There's something very bit tre
Speaker 1: REIALI about you know, for eight months you were strung along.
Speaker 1: They knew this was happening eight months ago. You don't
Speaker 1: just close a division of a publicly traded company overnight.
Speaker 1: Maybe they knew three months before, we don't know, but
Speaker 1: this was not something they learned in twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: And they strung you along, and you were going there
Speaker 1: ostensibly to sign something. They knew that, and nothing was said.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting just from a straight if you will,
Speaker 1: business workplace, corporate narcissistic peace. It has that flare as
Speaker 1: though it was only their interest. And here is and
Speaker 1: this is why I think so many people get harmed
Speaker 1: by the kind of unempathic business policies that are out
Speaker 1: there that what might seem like nothing to them. We're
Speaker 1: closing a division, there won't be the licensing deal. Is
Speaker 1: a family's financial future, is a family's dinner on the table?
Speaker 1: That right there, to me is interesting how this lack
Speaker 1: of empathy sneaks up in all these different parts of
Speaker 1: our lives and we don't even frame it as such.
Speaker 1: So you now get to high point, you're devastating, You're
Speaker 1: in an absolutely vulnerable position. You see, friends, that's comforting
Speaker 1: this person. Tony comes in, who is in this vulnerable moment,
Speaker 1: saying we can figure this out, we can fix this.
Speaker 1: That must have felt very empowering, emboldening and comforting at
Speaker 1: exactly that point in your life to hear that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was just what I needed. And I
Speaker 1: had met him prior, you know, when I was starting
Speaker 1: to get to know him. It was it was all virtual.
Speaker 1: I knew these two women that were friends of mine,
Speaker 1: and I really liked them a lot. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I had gotten to know them over the last six months.
Speaker 1: One of them worked with me at Stanley and they said, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna love this guy. He's great. We have to
Speaker 1: introduce you when you come down to high Point. So
Speaker 1: I had actually already met him because we connected on
Speaker 1: Facebook and and he loved my designs and he wanted
Speaker 1: to actually partner with me, maybe do another kid's line.
Speaker 1: So he absolutely swooped in and said all the right things.
Speaker 1: And in a moment where I'm just crumbling, I really
Speaker 1: felt like everything was pulled out, you know, from beneath me.
Speaker 1: So what happened then? So I'm at high Point. I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to be there for five days I'm at high point.
Speaker 1: I'm shocked because I'm going about my business. I'm meeting
Speaker 1: with other people. I knew my job was to day
Speaker 1: there and just try and get another deal and try
Speaker 1: and get another job. I could have gone back home,
Speaker 1: which was offered to me, and I said, no, I
Speaker 1: have no choice. I need to be here. So I
Speaker 1: was taking meetings. I was running around in between Tony
Speaker 1: and my other two girlfriends were you know, hey, let's
Speaker 1: let's have a drink tonight. I know you probably you
Speaker 1: know you could use it. Let's have dinner. Tony was
Speaker 1: asking me to have dinner with him as well on
Speaker 1: his own. And what was interesting about that is I
Speaker 1: recognized it immediately as feeling and appropriate. I had had
Speaker 1: multiple dinners and business lunches with a lot of executives
Speaker 1: over the years. That was nothing new. But there was
Speaker 1: something about the way he asked to have dinner with me.
Speaker 1: So I actually said no. I said I would meet him,
Speaker 1: you know, over in the showroom. And then the next
Speaker 1: night the group of us, all of us were going
Speaker 1: out for dinner. He surprised me, in addition to being
Speaker 1: very flattering and in trying to be like, hey, I'll
Speaker 1: help you, however I can. He also confessed to me
Speaker 1: that he had a crush on me, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: It wasn't in those terms. He literally said, I just
Speaker 1: think you were the most precious soul, and I love
Speaker 1: all the volunteer work you do on the side, I
Speaker 1: love everything about you. Literally said, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: over here loving you from the side, and I know
Speaker 1: that this my You know, if this is uncomfortable, I
Speaker 1: will not go to dinner with the group. And again
Speaker 1: pleas er Kirson. Oh no, it's not uncomfortable at all. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: not at all, not at all. Also, that felt good.
Speaker 1: It was the antithesis of what I was dealing with,
Speaker 1: you know, in my real life. So it was interesting
Speaker 1: because he came on full court press. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of back and forth. He was texting me to
Speaker 1: look beautiful. I wish I could hold your hand, things
Speaker 1: that you don't say in a normal relationship or normal friendship.
Speaker 1: But I was not in my right mind. I was
Speaker 1: It was a perfect storm of all of this stuff
Speaker 1: that I had dealt with in childhood, and then all
Speaker 1: of the things that had been bubbling up in the
Speaker 1: marriage coming together at one point and I just fell
Speaker 1: head over heels in love with head over heels. What's
Speaker 1: so interesting about what you're saying about Tony is that charming, charismatic?
Speaker 1: Your friends knew him. Did you know you were married? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He said, listen, I know I have no shot. I
Speaker 1: have no shot, So he knows you're married. He does
Speaker 1: this combination of asking me to dinner. You're beautiful. I
Speaker 1: have a crush on you, but I understand if you
Speaker 1: don't want me to come. So that mishmash is confusing.
Speaker 1: But like you said, you're also acknowledging this was a vulnerable,
Speaker 1: confusing time for you. Unpacked that for us, you fell
Speaker 1: head over heels in love. Can you sort of lay
Speaker 1: that out in terms of the time frame over which
Speaker 1: that happened, what that looked like, Where did it all
Speaker 1: happen so we can understand that. So it happened faster
Speaker 1: than anything should happen. I will say that, and I
Speaker 1: know that's a marker for narcissistic abuse. Things happened very
Speaker 1: very quickly. It happened over a literally one week time period,
Speaker 1: and I think I had it was almost like a break,
Speaker 1: you know, almost a mental break that I had where
Speaker 1: I was so tired of always trying to fix everything
Speaker 1: for everyone. And it was really the first time in
Speaker 1: my life where I just said, you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't care. This feels good and I I mean, I
Speaker 1: was head to toe chills when I met him. We
Speaker 1: felt like we'd known each other forever. He's using soul
Speaker 1: mate language, and it didn't take much, you know, because
Speaker 1: the minute he looks at me and he says, are
Speaker 1: you happy? And nobody'd ever really asked me that, And
Speaker 1: what could I say, as I'm feeling drawn to him, Well, no,
Speaker 1: I'm actually not happy in my marriage right now or
Speaker 1: in my life. And so I ended up leaving about
Speaker 1: seven days later from that market, and I kept pushing
Speaker 1: my flight back. So then my husband, of course is
Speaker 1: saying are you okay? Is everything okay? And at one
Speaker 1: point he's highly in two of it as well, and
Speaker 1: at one point he said, are you having an affair?
Speaker 1: And I felt horrible, absolutely horrible. I don't want to
Speaker 1: hurt him, love him to pieces, you know, and I
Speaker 1: thought I'll deal with it when I get back. Right now,
Speaker 1: I just want to live in the high of this
Speaker 1: feels like a drug. But I felt like I was
Speaker 1: a teenager almost. It was really interesting. I was, you know, sixteen,
Speaker 1: and I was out with the Rebel, and that's that's
Speaker 1: where I was, you know, in my mind and my body.
Speaker 1: You know, He's crying as we're leaving, leaving each other,
Speaker 1: and he was heading back home, and I'm in tears,
Speaker 1: and you know, am I ever going to see him again?
Speaker 1: And oh my god, how do I how I can't
Speaker 1: let that feeling go? How am I going to do this?
Speaker 1: So I got back on that plane and I flew home,
Speaker 1: and for the first week I just tried to act
Speaker 1: like nothing happened and he was just a business acquaintance
Speaker 1: if I mentioned his name, But that's also not who
Speaker 1: I am. I have always been very transparent when I
Speaker 1: feel like I need to be, you know, like that.
Speaker 1: I did not want to do this to Scott, so
Speaker 1: I said, finally to him, can we talk? I want out.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm done, and you're right. I did have an affair.
Speaker 1: So within two weeks of knowing Tony, I fell head
Speaker 1: over heels and then left basically said to my husband,
Speaker 1: I want out. My session with Kirsten will continue after
Speaker 1: this break, Okay, I want to understand the time frame here,
Speaker 1: fly to high Point, to trade show land, get the
Speaker 1: terrible news, meet with friends, meet Tony. And in this
Speaker 1: next week, it goes from him telling you you're beautiful,
Speaker 1: join me for dinner. You even say no, but then
Speaker 1: you finally do spend more time with him. And in
Speaker 1: a one week period, this infatuation developed for you, right,
Speaker 1: and you fell in love. And then you push off
Speaker 1: your flight, you go back to home, you go back
Speaker 1: to flag Staff, and you must have stayed in touch
Speaker 1: with Tony. Yes that whole week, right, Yes, absolutely, that
Speaker 1: whole week. But you know, now that I was back
Speaker 1: in Flagstaff, I'm dealing with real life stuff again, the
Speaker 1: fact that I had lost my job. You know, what
Speaker 1: are we gonna do? So I was in that fix
Speaker 1: it mode again. Yet I was also talking to him
Speaker 1: and texting him quite a bit, and he was, you know,
Speaker 1: he was asking like, when are you going to talk
Speaker 1: to him? When are you going to tell him? He
Speaker 1: was telling me that, you know, he and his wife
Speaker 1: they would be divorced, but they couldn't afford it, so
Speaker 1: they're just living together for the kids. You know, he
Speaker 1: was talking about another woman that he had even fallen
Speaker 1: in love with, who was overseas, and it's crazy to
Speaker 1: me that none of that was a red flag. At
Speaker 1: the moment, you know, I'm listening to him and he's saying,
Speaker 1: I found you finally. I have been looking everywhere for you,
Speaker 1: all around the world, and I finally found you. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell the other woman that I found you,
Speaker 1: and she's going to be so happy for me. Again. No,
Speaker 1: like red flags were not going off, which is a
Speaker 1: sign of where I was emotionally and who was driving
Speaker 1: the bus in my psyche right, because these were beyond
Speaker 1: red flags. This is like somebody poured ten gallons of
Speaker 1: red paint. Yes, I have marched a long time ago. Yes,
Speaker 1: So may I ask how did your husband react? He
Speaker 1: was so upset, obviously, you know, so upset, so surprised.
Speaker 1: From the outside, for eighteen years, people would say, you
Speaker 1: guys are such a great couple. Gosh, you're just the
Speaker 1: perfect couple. I wish we could be like you. But
Speaker 1: really what was happening behind the scenes is you know,
Speaker 1: I was pleasing all the time, and I was feeling
Speaker 1: really suffocated because Scott just felt like his world was
Speaker 1: complete if it was just me, So not only am
Speaker 1: I you know, fixing things on all fronts and in
Speaker 1: the garage and fixing financials. But I'm also his everything.
Speaker 1: And so what was interesting about it when I came
Speaker 1: back the feeling I had, I didn't want to lose
Speaker 1: the feeling I had with Tony, but I also had
Speaker 1: this feeling of just please let me go, Please let
Speaker 1: me go, just just let me go, like I needed
Speaker 1: to just run. So you tell Scott you're feeling done?
Speaker 1: And what may I ask just what happened at that point?
Speaker 1: Did you move out? Did you know? I think we
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to, And I think he was just kind
Speaker 1: of like, what, oh my, Like what do you talk?
Speaker 1: Because we get a long We know, we really didn't fight.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of respect between both of us still,
Speaker 1: and I really truly had so much love for him,
Speaker 1: like I wanted him to find someone like I had.
Speaker 1: That was where my head was at that point. We
Speaker 1: couldn't do anything financially, so we just lived in the
Speaker 1: same house. I ended up moving into the guest room.
Speaker 1: And we were also advised by therapists not to tell
Speaker 1: our kids, who were middle school in high school, not
Speaker 1: to talk to them yet, you know, give it six
Speaker 1: months at least, which was good advice. So I just said,
Speaker 1: you know, my backs hurting or you know, we just
Speaker 1: kind of made things up because we never fought. The
Speaker 1: kids really didn't see anything different, you know, they didn't
Speaker 1: see us hugging or anything like that, really, but they
Speaker 1: just didn't see anything different. But at this point, Scott
Speaker 1: knows how you feel, and so are you now maintaining
Speaker 1: this relationship with Tony even though you're living in the
Speaker 1: same house. Scott knows that you're sort of mentally out.
Speaker 1: You've told him like, I'm not in this with you anymore,
Speaker 1: but we're living in the same house. Now at this point,
Speaker 1: are you maintaining this relationship with Tony and what does
Speaker 1: that look like? Yes? But it was all virtual and
Speaker 1: so he was on the other side of the country.
Speaker 1: I was out here out west. He and I talked constantly,
Speaker 1: which was not something I was used to in my life.
Speaker 1: I was not used to constantly checking in with someone
Speaker 1: and constantly texting, which looking back now, of course that's
Speaker 1: a big red flag as well, but that's exactly what
Speaker 1: he wanted. So he was checking in on me constantly.
Speaker 1: I was checking on him. Scott was starting to date
Speaker 1: other people, just to sort of move forward, you know,
Speaker 1: I think he I think maybe around the four month mark.
Speaker 1: Tony and I also had to travel together because not
Speaker 1: only was he helping me rebuild MyD mom, but he
Speaker 1: was also working on building his line of furniture, and
Speaker 1: so we took those opportunities to travel to different cities,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it was a trade show or just
Speaker 1: meetings in general. So we did have time together, but
Speaker 1: most of our relationship was long distance. Okay, So how
Speaker 1: did the relationship unfold? So you had a lot of
Speaker 1: long distance, a lot of texting every so often, this
Speaker 1: travel for business. So what happened? So from the time
Speaker 1: I met him to the four month mark, he was
Speaker 1: absolutely the perfect man. If I hold you know, could
Speaker 1: have just written up who I thought I would be
Speaker 1: with in my life, it would be him. Until we're
Speaker 1: at a trade show and he says, here, do you
Speaker 1: know you have a lot of eye contact with men?
Speaker 1: Do you notice that, like as we're walking down the halls.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just I'm just noticing it. I know.
Speaker 1: I love that you're so hash. I just love that
Speaker 1: you're so welcoming of people and so warm, and but
Speaker 1: I do know that about yourself, and I grew up
Speaker 1: in a household where we do look at you know,
Speaker 1: I can take constructive criticism and I can go, huh,
Speaker 1: maybe I do and I have no idea. Maybe I
Speaker 1: am making Google eyes and I have no idea I'm
Speaker 1: doing it. So I sort of just immediately went in
Speaker 1: and started looking at myself. But he wouldn't let it go,
Speaker 1: and any time we would talk about it and I
Speaker 1: would try and defend myself, it would turn into a
Speaker 1: two hour fight. And I was not used to that.
Speaker 1: I was like, my head was spinning around, like I
Speaker 1: don't even know why this is a thing, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know why, A, you're feeling insecure about this, but
Speaker 1: B I look people in the eye because that's how
Speaker 1: I was raised. That's what you do. It's a respect thing.
Speaker 1: And it would just it would just melt into chaos.
Speaker 1: And I started to very quickly realize that the only
Speaker 1: way to fix it was to apologize. And so he
Speaker 1: was a very effectively grooming me by making that that
Speaker 1: how we operated, and I just fell, you know, I
Speaker 1: fell right into that hole. In toxic relationships, jealousy is
Speaker 1: a constant feature, however, and Kirsten story instead of him
Speaker 1: rendering himself vulnerable and sharing his own insecurities, he instead
Speaker 1: pathologizes her and her eye contact. In other relationships, it
Speaker 1: may be criticisms about people who smiled at other people
Speaker 1: or comments about how the person dresses. While jealousy is
Speaker 1: a universal human emotion, gas lighting and control are not
Speaker 1: normal and over time qualify as abuse. This is one
Speaker 1: example him sort of you're making eye contact. It's isolation.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what that is, right, So he's making
Speaker 1: that comment. It would turn into chaos. You would apologize
Speaker 1: and probably, I'm guessing stop making eye contact with anyone.
Speaker 1: Either Was this the only example or were there other
Speaker 1: patterns of behavior that we're starting to make you doubt
Speaker 1: the quality of the relationship with Tony. Yes, there were many,
Speaker 1: but I didn't want to believe it, and I was
Speaker 1: still you know, I think I was still so addicted
Speaker 1: to what the rush of what I had been feeling
Speaker 1: when I was around him and with him. He was
Speaker 1: constantly monitoring who was writing to me on Facebook. Oh,
Speaker 1: I saw this guy liked your picture. Who is he?
Speaker 1: Has he written to you privately? And that would always
Speaker 1: end up in a fight. Even if I said, oh,
Speaker 1: that's my friend from high school. He's funny. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I didn't know you left Scott, and man,
Speaker 1: that would be yeah, you should have told me first,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of as a joke, this man I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen in twenty five years. And then he would
Speaker 1: hang up on me. You know. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of hanging up, and then I'm noticing that I'm calling
Speaker 1: him back for more, and then I'm starting to shame myself.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, who wants to be yelled at like this?
Speaker 1: Like why am I calling him back? I don't even
Speaker 1: understand why I'm doing that. I would not put up
Speaker 1: with this, you know, at the lumber yard. I would
Speaker 1: not put up with this in any other part of
Speaker 1: my life because I was raised to be a very
Speaker 1: strong woman with feminist ideals and I don't take that.
Speaker 1: Yet I was taking it, and not not only was
Speaker 1: I taking it, I was actually just rolling over and saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. So I felt like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I'm just doing everything I can that
Speaker 1: then get back to that moment of the high Yet
Speaker 1: for most of the time, I you know, three quarters
Speaker 1: of the time, we were in that state where he
Speaker 1: was either starting to devalue me or it was just
Speaker 1: full on chaos. How many months was the relationship like this?
Speaker 1: I mean, how many months this relationship last? I guess
Speaker 1: question three years? Three years like this? Three years? That's
Speaker 1: a lot of stress. That's a lot during those three years?
Speaker 1: Were you always together? I mean like you just kept
Speaker 1: putting okay? So what happened? That was the other piece?
Speaker 1: You know, I we ended up breaking up I think
Speaker 1: around seven times, which you know, I know from writing
Speaker 1: my book is an average that it takes for someone
Speaker 1: to get out of an abusive relationship. I just kept
Speaker 1: getting pulled back in and pulled back in, and I
Speaker 1: kept feeling, first of all, I kept shaming myself because
Speaker 1: I kept feeling like I'm not strong enough. Why am
Speaker 1: I not strong enough? I don't understand this. I would
Speaker 1: never take this kind of abuse from anyone else. He
Speaker 1: even acted like he was going to run over me.
Speaker 1: At one point, domestic violence calls. Cops were coming to
Speaker 1: our door asking are you okay? Because the neighbors were
Speaker 1: worried that he was going to, you know, get physical
Speaker 1: with me, and I could even feel it was going
Speaker 1: that way, but I just kept giving him more leeway,
Speaker 1: and eventually I couldn't take it anymore. I had to
Speaker 1: have that drug again. You know, I had to be
Speaker 1: in contact with him, even even in the hard times.
Speaker 1: I think I was getting that hit, you know, of
Speaker 1: of dopamine and serotonin, and I didn't know that that
Speaker 1: was a thing. So I'm feeling out of control. I'm
Speaker 1: shaming myself. I'm also like, well, I made my bed,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to lie in it. This is
Speaker 1: what I did. I did this to myself. So it
Speaker 1: was really all of that was coming down on me.
Speaker 1: The time period where we finally, you know, got to
Speaker 1: that point because he was reeling me back in. It
Speaker 1: was after the seventh time we're talking three years later,
Speaker 1: he was moved back east. He had been working out
Speaker 1: west for a little while. He was moved back east,
Speaker 1: which was a gift, and in that you know, he
Speaker 1: was still doing all the same stuff that he would
Speaker 1: normally do and try and reel me back in. But
Speaker 1: at this point, you know, he's saying, I'm waiting for you,
Speaker 1: if only you'll grow up. He was a little older
Speaker 1: than me, so he's also saying, you know, I think
Speaker 1: this is your maturity level. I'm waiting for you, but
Speaker 1: it's your work to do so. Again, I'm feeling very
Speaker 1: ashamed out of nowhere. One day he's actually sending me
Speaker 1: pictures and saying, I'm waiting for you. I love you
Speaker 1: so much. I get a ding on my computer and
Speaker 1: it's a woman from back East and she said, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I should be reaching out to you
Speaker 1: or not, but I I found you basically because I
Speaker 1: had been vocal about one of our our fights and
Speaker 1: our relationship. I finally got to that point, and so
Speaker 1: I had written about it on my blog and she said,
Speaker 1: I found you. And I was with him last month
Speaker 1: and I said, wait, um with him? With him? With him? Yeah, us,
Speaker 1: we were together and he wooed me and he used
Speaker 1: these songs and he said these things, and it was
Speaker 1: all exactly the same. I couldn't believe it. And it
Speaker 1: was at that point that I really truly felt like
Speaker 1: someone took the heroin needle out of my arm, because
Speaker 1: I needed to have this in front of me. And
Speaker 1: so I, being, you know, someone who relies on empirical
Speaker 1: research and I'm very data driven, I said, would you
Speaker 1: mind sharing with me? You know, your match dot com
Speaker 1: communication and so she said, yeah, well, absolutely so. She
Speaker 1: sent screenshots and I couldn't believe it. What I was
Speaker 1: reading was was the stuff of a predator. Do you
Speaker 1: felt like he did to her exactly what he did
Speaker 1: to you? Yes, yes, absolutely. It's an interesting question to
Speaker 1: me because the things he had done during the relationship
Speaker 1: the three years you were together, were unforgivable, you know,
Speaker 1: the name calling, the isolation, on and on and on,
Speaker 1: and all perfectly good reasons to end of relation and chip, right,
Speaker 1: what was it about this new person rolling up? You know,
Speaker 1: met him match dot com, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: As you you put it, it's the heroine needle coming
Speaker 1: out of the arm. What was it about this? Why
Speaker 1: was it this that finally opened your eyes? And not
Speaker 1: the three years of really what was abuse? Right? Absolutely so,
Speaker 1: I feel very strongly two things collided here. One it
Speaker 1: was proof that what he was saying to me was
Speaker 1: not true, because I think, you know, in the beginning,
Speaker 1: I was very much groomed to believe he was a
Speaker 1: good guy, to believe what he was saying, and he
Speaker 1: was really really convincing, and my entire life I pretty
Speaker 1: much just took people at face value in a way.
Speaker 1: What Kirsen is talking about here is something that actually
Speaker 1: turns the gas light off. She had enough red flags
Speaker 1: to literally paint the town red. But sometimes it takes
Speaker 1: something from the outside, a piece of information that tells
Speaker 1: us that our intuition was right, that there is not
Speaker 1: something wrong with us, that we did see something. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: by the time something like this turns up so much
Speaker 1: harm may have occurred. If you say you're going to
Speaker 1: do something, you do it. That is how I was raised.
Speaker 1: That is my Midwestern you know value, and that's what
Speaker 1: I extended to him as well. And this was different.
Speaker 1: This was a full on you know, I am absolutely
Speaker 1: having an affair on this side, and I'm not just
Speaker 1: waiting for you, Kirsten. I actually have multiple women. The
Speaker 1: other piece of it, I believe was at the time,
Speaker 1: and I know we've talked about how my story is
Speaker 1: is a little even more complicated. At the time, you know,
Speaker 1: my intuitive gifts lend to working with cops, and I
Speaker 1: was actually working on a few cases that involved children
Speaker 1: who had been killed by predators, pedophiles, and so I
Speaker 1: would really information that I would hear and see. So
Speaker 1: my intuition was very strong, and it was at that
Speaker 1: moment that I went, oh my god, this is what this?
Speaker 1: Oh my god. We okay. So I'm a childhood sexual
Speaker 1: abuse survivor. I'm working with cops on cases that involve
Speaker 1: kids have been killed by predators pedophiles, and now I've
Speaker 1: fallen them. I fell in love with a predator? Are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? Like the full it was the full
Speaker 1: circle realization that just almost knocked the wind out of me.
Speaker 1: It's a lot. There's that moment in these relationships. The
Speaker 1: statistic is that you know, people will attempt to leave
Speaker 1: an abusive relationship seven times on average before they go.
Speaker 1: Some people it's fifteen, some people it's two. And some
Speaker 1: people get killed before they can actually finally leave. And
Speaker 1: so that you know that number seven has its power
Speaker 1: in the sense of what it speaks to is that
Speaker 1: cycle of being devalued, discarded, hoovered, and the hoover ing
Speaker 1: is the sucking back end the things that they know
Speaker 1: that they can say to you to get you back in.
Speaker 1: And that's going to be different for everyone. What kind
Speaker 1: of thing needs to be said? Does a play off,
Speaker 1: for example, and you're being a fixer some in some
Speaker 1: cases it plays on empathy, In some cases it plays
Speaker 1: on guilt. It's a different hoovering game that's sucking back
Speaker 1: in based on every relationship. When you were with Tony,
Speaker 1: when you were in that three year relationship, did the
Speaker 1: two of you talk about a future like a marriage
Speaker 1: and the whole thing together? You did, Yes, we did.
Speaker 1: And that was from day one. That was day one,
Speaker 1: you know. He was saying, I want to come out
Speaker 1: to you know, Flagstaff, and we'll have a house that's
Speaker 1: big enough for all of our kids. And we were
Speaker 1: just plodding forward like this is we found each other.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, we found each other and we're soul mates
Speaker 1: and this is what we're gonna do. And what I
Speaker 1: also thought was interesting is about a year and a
Speaker 1: half in that would shift and then I would be
Speaker 1: blamed for well, why wouldn't you want to come to
Speaker 1: the East coast? Because I said to him, like, my
Speaker 1: kids are my kids are? I cannot leave the West.
Speaker 1: I cannot leave. I can travel, but I cannot leave
Speaker 1: in the minute there was an opportunity on the business
Speaker 1: front to be closer to a manufacturer than He used
Speaker 1: that and said to me, well, I can't believe I
Speaker 1: would do this for you, but you wouldn't do that
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah. Yeah, that's a classic manipulation And the
Speaker 1: only thing I can say, you know, my intuition was
Speaker 1: definitely working during the you know that time period, but
Speaker 1: it was working in a different way. And I think
Speaker 1: because my head couldn't hear and it couldn't wrap itself
Speaker 1: around what was happening to me, and my heart certainly
Speaker 1: couldn't as well. My physical intuition was on fire. So
Speaker 1: what I also started to notice is that in that
Speaker 1: moment where he's trying to get me to come and
Speaker 1: live part time across the country, I'm starting to have
Speaker 1: kick in the gut feelings. I'm starting to get a
Speaker 1: vibration on my right hip that said don't do this,
Speaker 1: don't do this, don't do this, and that that was
Speaker 1: thank goodness for that, because innately I knew if I
Speaker 1: got over there, I was going to be isolate did
Speaker 1: and I would have no money to get back. And
Speaker 1: we're talking about my kids. What you're describing, the confusion,
Speaker 1: the knowing, the not knowing, hard head body. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people feel like I there was something
Speaker 1: wrong with me, and I think that what we've learned
Speaker 1: now about what narcissistic abuse and antagonistic abuse looks like
Speaker 1: is there's actually nothing wrong with you because there are
Speaker 1: Like you said, you were giving the ratio of seventy
Speaker 1: percent of the time. It was this chaos that meant
Speaker 1: at the time it was actually good. And when things
Speaker 1: are sometimes good and good in a way that's exactly
Speaker 1: the way we want them to be good, that becomes
Speaker 1: like a magic eraser. And even though that stuff doesn't
Speaker 1: get forgotten, you could buy another two weeks, one month,
Speaker 1: three months out of that. And this is the paradox
Speaker 1: of anyone who's surviving these relationships. If the person was
Speaker 1: behaving like seven every day, most people would burn out
Speaker 1: on this. If they were behaving like this in front
Speaker 1: of other people, other people would take you aside and say,
Speaker 1: are you okay that ability to be charming and charismatic
Speaker 1: in front of the right people, in front of your friends.
Speaker 1: I mean, after all, he won over those mutual friends
Speaker 1: you had thought he was terrific, And then give you
Speaker 1: what you need and exactly the moment you need. It
Speaker 1: is enough to keep you in the game. And so
Speaker 1: really you're sort of living this relationship weeks months at
Speaker 1: a time. But I mean the fact of the matter
Speaker 1: is cres In. Some people, these weeks, months at a
Speaker 1: time can add up to thirty, forty fifty year relationships.
Speaker 1: So when we come back, I really want to talk
Speaker 1: about the end of your relationship with Tony, how that
Speaker 1: all ended, how you got yourself out of it. Before
Speaker 1: I get to that, I mean to ask you a question, Creson.
Speaker 1: I know it's going to be difficult, and so take
Speaker 1: a minute if you don't want to answer, to understand it.
Speaker 1: But it was something that struck me when I read
Speaker 1: the book. People listening to this podcast, they're gonna hear
Speaker 1: you were you were unfaithful. Okay, you were unfaithful, And
Speaker 1: a lot of folks will listen to this present company, included,
Speaker 1: have been significantly betrayed in relationships, and there's often this
Speaker 1: sense of, well, Kirsten, you did the bad thing. You
Speaker 1: you were unfaithful, and we're seeing as the story is
Speaker 1: rolling out. It's complicated, but it's devastating to have that
Speaker 1: happened to you. You You start, you've learned this now we
Speaker 1: see in the relationship with Tony had happened to you?
Speaker 1: What did it feel like? I think that my bigger
Speaker 1: question to you then, is what did it feel like
Speaker 1: to share in something as public as a book that
Speaker 1: you betrayed your husband? You know, it was a one
Speaker 1: week affair, but people are going to say, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a matter of semantics. Whether someone chees for a week,
Speaker 1: a day or twenty years, you still betrayed the trust
Speaker 1: of someone who trusted you. What did it feel to
Speaker 1: take that part of your story and share it not
Speaker 1: just a therapist office o with a close friend, but
Speaker 1: with the entire world. Can you share that with us?
Speaker 1: Because like, I know, I know some listeners are imagining
Speaker 1: I'm sort of looking a little sideways at this podcast
Speaker 1: saying she did do this, and they might even be
Speaker 1: taking a karmic stance on this, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm being I'm being brutally honest. So what did if
Speaker 1: you like to share this with the world? And also
Speaker 1: for Scott, what did it feel like? It was? It
Speaker 1: was very scary to be honest with you, and I knew,
Speaker 1: you know, I I know I will get backlash for it.
Speaker 1: I also know that I'm not alone. And what was
Speaker 1: interesting when I did come out because the thing that
Speaker 1: I felt when I was finally kind of recovering myself again.
Speaker 1: After I had gotten out and understood really who I
Speaker 1: had been with for three years. All I knew is
Speaker 1: that in order to move forward, I just had to
Speaker 1: completely come clean. I have to just air it all
Speaker 1: out there, and that was something that was hard to do.
Speaker 1: I remember tearing up because I love Scott, I love
Speaker 1: our kids. I was not looking to get out of
Speaker 1: my marriage. When I'm at Tony. I knew that there
Speaker 1: were some things that were wrong with it, and it's
Speaker 1: just not in my nature. So I remember there were
Speaker 1: tears falling when I actually published it. I published a
Speaker 1: blog post that was called I had an Affair. I
Speaker 1: was like, I just have to I just have to
Speaker 1: do this now. Of course, Tony on his side is
Speaker 1: slandering me horribly in the industry, and so I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I have nothing to lose. I need to do this.
Speaker 1: So I did. So many people came forward, so many people,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't you know, just the women that came
Speaker 1: forward that had been in relationships with Tony all over
Speaker 1: the world. It was women who in men who have
Speaker 1: said I had an affair. This is what I did too,
Speaker 1: And I'm so ashamed, and I don't you know, I'm
Speaker 1: never going to come out and talk about it, but
Speaker 1: thank you for talking about it. And then on Scott's end,
Speaker 1: you know, thank god he is. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: absolutely adore him. We've been back together since two thousands seventeen,
Speaker 1: which is that's the best part of the book. It's
Speaker 1: a love story. I'm really lucky and that he is
Speaker 1: who he is. And you know, I we look at
Speaker 1: those three years as you know, obviously I was healing
Speaker 1: from the childhood wounds, right, so I you know, I
Speaker 1: had a chance to stand up to abuse that I
Speaker 1: couldn't stand up to as a kid. Because Tony pretty
Speaker 1: much replicated my uncle, like they're kind of the same person,
Speaker 1: so he hadn't under Scott had an understanding of what
Speaker 1: was happening there. He was still hurt and he didn't
Speaker 1: want to go through it and he didn't want to
Speaker 1: see me go through it. But he took a different
Speaker 1: road and instead of, you know, what we do in
Speaker 1: society most of the time is say, well, she's bad
Speaker 1: and he's good, and we had a lot of friends
Speaker 1: do that. I lost a lot of friends instead of, Wow,
Speaker 1: what happened in that first eighteen years of that marriage.
Speaker 1: You know, and looking at, well, when these types of
Speaker 1: things happen, unless you're dealing with a serial while narcissist, basically,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody's having multiple affairs. There's something going on
Speaker 1: in that marriage, and that's you know, that was the
Speaker 1: thing that he understood. So he took it and he
Speaker 1: internalized it and said, you know, during those three years,
Speaker 1: he started reading a lot of books. He started, you know,
Speaker 1: looking internally at oh my gosh, okay, how can I
Speaker 1: be a better person? How could I be a better husband,
Speaker 1: How can I be a better dad? Oh my gosh my,
Speaker 1: you know, I've put so much on Kirsten and started
Speaker 1: to realize that. He openly talks about how he finally
Speaker 1: realized he had like Peter Pan syndrome. So I was
Speaker 1: running around pleasing and fixing everything while he was just
Speaker 1: running around having fun, you know and obviously very caring person,
Speaker 1: great dad, all of that. But he grew up and
Speaker 1: he admits that, and I think that's the key. You know,
Speaker 1: we both we had these conversations after we got back
Speaker 1: together and we would just lay there and he would
Speaker 1: tell me, oh, yeah, I had this one date. It
Speaker 1: was crazy and you know, like this holy cow and
Speaker 1: it's just so weird to be with other people after,
Speaker 1: you know, we've been together for so long, and then
Speaker 1: and I would slowly reveal the depth of the abuse
Speaker 1: because I hit a lot of that from him too.
Speaker 1: You know, he knew I was being abused, but he
Speaker 1: had no idea the depth of it. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I think, and just bearing both of us, bearing our souls,
Speaker 1: we could we could come back together even stronger because
Speaker 1: of it. Thank you for sharing that and answering that,
Speaker 1: because I know that that's a tough question, and I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you sort of giving context to that. We
Speaker 1: will be right back with this conversation with Kirston. So, Kirsten,
Speaker 1: it's three years of a very toxic relationship and made
Speaker 1: i'm sure much harder by having to co parent your children.
Speaker 1: I'd imagine by now you've obviously during the relationship you
Speaker 1: moved out from Scott so you had your own place.
Speaker 1: But it's not it's not easy to co parent, even
Speaker 1: with a healthy, healthy co parent, which is you sounds
Speaker 1: like you had in Scott. Yes, you're in this abusive,
Speaker 1: toxic relationship, breaking up, making up, long distance, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Three years in you find out that there have been
Speaker 1: other women in one in particular, reaches out to you,
Speaker 1: shares with you what happened on match dot com, and
Speaker 1: that feels like the end to you, the end of
Speaker 1: the rush, as it were, what happens at that point
Speaker 1: three years in when you decide, yeah, I'm done. So
Speaker 1: at that point, you know, I felt like I was
Speaker 1: starting to get Kirsten back, and thankfully Scott was there
Speaker 1: with me, like I've got you, I'll hold your hand.
Speaker 1: He wasn't pushed me. There was no expectation of us
Speaker 1: getting back together at that point, but he was there
Speaker 1: as a friend. And I had a lot of people
Speaker 1: that were surrounding me, and folks who were really scared
Speaker 1: for me because they thought, you know, I was going
Speaker 1: to die and I would have died in that relationship,
Speaker 1: whether it be by his hand or my own. I
Speaker 1: had lost so much weight. I was smoking two packs
Speaker 1: of cigarettes just to deal with all of with all
Speaker 1: of the stress, and my hair was falling out. I
Speaker 1: was having heart issues. I was a disaster. So after
Speaker 1: I finally was able to get out, he of course
Speaker 1: was trying to combat it. Tony was on his end
Speaker 1: and he was lashing out because I finally put my
Speaker 1: foot down. I felt so much shame from all of it.
Speaker 1: I felt like, God, I had it all together, you know,
Speaker 1: and then look what I did, so much shame to
Speaker 1: be in that situation and what it was. What struck
Speaker 1: me and why I advocate so strongly for abuse survivors
Speaker 1: now as well, is that while the judge granted the
Speaker 1: restraining order, he also was fairly shaming. What did he say?
Speaker 1: He said, why, uh, why did you get into this?
Speaker 1: And you do realize that this is not going to
Speaker 1: protract you, right and every you know, his tone was condescending.
Speaker 1: Everything about him felt like he was saying, oh, stupid girl.
Speaker 1: It was interesting to be in that place, and I
Speaker 1: knew I needed to do it alone, so I did
Speaker 1: it alone. That was really it was really hard. And
Speaker 1: I also had one tiny moment which I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I now look back at as trauma bonding, where I
Speaker 1: actually felt bad for Tony. I had a moment which
Speaker 1: then made me feel even more shame. And yet it's
Speaker 1: so normal. I mean, you nailed it, That's exactly what
Speaker 1: it is. And the trauma bonding, there is this sense
Speaker 1: of guilt and responsibility for this person and pity and
Speaker 1: for many survivors and they finally get themselves over that
Speaker 1: wall and say I'm out, you know, which is you know,
Speaker 1: absolutely super human an effort once they get out. That
Speaker 1: reaction of pity is so universal among survivors of these
Speaker 1: toxic relationships that I can't make enough emphasis on that.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting. You've got a restraining order, you know,
Speaker 1: And I want to come back to that, because a
Speaker 1: lot of people who have been in these relationships can't
Speaker 1: get them. Were the nature of his threats such that
Speaker 1: that it felt like it was a there was a
Speaker 1: potential threat to of harm, to property, to that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, so that he was articulating like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna harm you. I'm going
Speaker 1: to come to this or that place where you're at. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: And you know, i'd known that he had been violent
Speaker 1: before later found out. He's a wall puncher, right like
Speaker 1: he knows, he knows just how much to push it.
Speaker 1: He's a hothead, he is, he has road rage. And
Speaker 1: I was the only person thus far in his life
Speaker 1: that I could tell who stood up to him, and
Speaker 1: so I knew that I was at greater risk most
Speaker 1: likely it wouldn't be you know, surprising at all if
Speaker 1: he were driving across the country all night long and
Speaker 1: you know, showing up at my apartment. And what was
Speaker 1: interesting about that is after I get the restraining order,
Speaker 1: my husband and I we actually lived in the same
Speaker 1: apartment complex at the time, and we found out and
Speaker 1: this is when we had already decided we were going
Speaker 1: to get back together and we were supporting each other,
Speaker 1: and so we went to the management of the apartment
Speaker 1: complex and we explained the situation, and the woman was
Speaker 1: just incredibly incredibly supportive, like more like to the point
Speaker 1: where I it was intuitively thinking she's been through this.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, okay, great, so we can we
Speaker 1: can move in together into the same apartment, which would
Speaker 1: be Scott's apartment for the time being, because I could
Speaker 1: technically get out of my lease because I had a
Speaker 1: restraining order protective order, so they allow that to happen.
Speaker 1: For any of you listening out there, please know that.
Speaker 1: So I ended up moving up to Scott's. But what
Speaker 1: she said to me right before we signed that paperwork
Speaker 1: is I'm glad you're doing this. I was in an
Speaker 1: abusive relationship and my boyfriend he out into my apartment,
Speaker 1: and I happened to be on the first floor just
Speaker 1: like she was, and he got in somehow and hid
Speaker 1: under her bed and then attacked her in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. And so she understood first person the
Speaker 1: type of risk that I had taken, just even publicly
Speaker 1: standing up to him. So that was nice to have.
Speaker 1: You know, those sort of angels right that are around
Speaker 1: you that you don't even realize, like, wow, I can't
Speaker 1: believe that she was in that same position, absolutely, because
Speaker 1: you know what you're experiencing as a phenomenon that has
Speaker 1: been termed post separation abuse, which is an escalation and
Speaker 1: abuse at the point that the relationship is called done
Speaker 1: and typically called done by the person enduring the abuse,
Speaker 1: and and then everything escalates and can actually be quite
Speaker 1: quite dangerous at that point. What the judge did that shaming.
Speaker 1: It's such a common thing that happens, not just by
Speaker 1: judges and other people in positions of power, but even
Speaker 1: ordinary people, or even people should know better, like therapists,
Speaker 1: who will just take the stance of like what were
Speaker 1: you thinking, why did you get into this? Why did
Speaker 1: you put up with us? And yet you know it's
Speaker 1: sort of trauma one oh one, and to understand and
Speaker 1: why somebody nodding would get into this and stay in this,
Speaker 1: which is why it speaks to the whole need for education.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that judge said shaming, though it was,
Speaker 1: it was also sadly right, which is this is not
Speaker 1: going to protect you. You know. I think that's the
Speaker 1: agony of restraining orders that in the majority of cases
Speaker 1: they escalate the likelihood of violence. All it does is
Speaker 1: it it creates the ability to get law enforcement involvement
Speaker 1: for things that usually wouldn't require a response, like somebody
Speaker 1: has come within a hundred feet of you. But the
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is for many people because in
Speaker 1: restraining order is something that has to be formally served
Speaker 1: to someone that agitates them, because these are people who
Speaker 1: don't like being told no. And you also brought up
Speaker 1: a couple of patterns. He was a wall puncher, he
Speaker 1: was a hothead, he was a road rage. What I'm
Speaker 1: not hearing about is violence towards you. There's no violence.
Speaker 1: He was did not hit you. But wall puncher is
Speaker 1: Actually it's an interesting term. I haven't heard anyone say it,
Speaker 1: but obviously I don't know people punching walls, but that
Speaker 1: wall puncher, road rage, hothead kind of phenomenology, that right
Speaker 1: there is sort of signature of these toxic relationships and
Speaker 1: that wall punching and Hovens may maybe more, which is
Speaker 1: not just not that she wants people to want people
Speaker 1: to sadly, but sad people find that people find that
Speaker 1: they can't do until they until they I have often
Speaker 1: sold people watch how somebody drives, Watch how they behave
Speaker 1: on the road, because that right there is giving you
Speaker 1: a whole ton of information. And if it happens early enough,
Speaker 1: that should really be your sign to get out that
Speaker 1: because that really speaks to an entitlement and a lack
Speaker 1: of empathy. You you get the restraining order, you move
Speaker 1: back in with Scott. Did it end at that point?
Speaker 1: Did his behavior end at that point? No, it didn't.
Speaker 1: He would reach out in different subtle ways, and even
Speaker 1: the police detective that I was working with and flagstaff
Speaker 1: said he's not going to stop just because you have
Speaker 1: this restraining order. He will find other ways. And so
Speaker 1: what I thought was interesting is that I hadn't planned
Speaker 1: or hadn't even thought through that he would have fake
Speaker 1: profiles on Facebook, which I should have that seems like that's,
Speaker 1: you know, an easy thing to deduce, right that that
Speaker 1: he would do this. But he was literally crafting fake profiles,
Speaker 1: one of a man and one of a woman, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are many more. And those people would
Speaker 1: reach out to me and they would say, you're really
Speaker 1: embarrassing yourself. I can't believe you're talking about this stuff
Speaker 1: publicly and things like that. So, you know, initially you
Speaker 1: get the gut punch feeling, and then you're like, what, why, why?
Speaker 1: Who is this? Who is this person? So then Detective
Speaker 1: Kirsten goes in and starts looking, Okay, where are they from? Oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's weird. They're they're supposedly married, but one lives in
Speaker 1: New Jersey and the other lives in Florida. So all
Speaker 1: of those red flags were going off for me finally,
Speaker 1: and I was understanding that, oh my gosh, he's violating
Speaker 1: the restraining order just by doing this. Wrecked correct. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: because it is Facebook, that's a really difficult thing to
Speaker 1: get them to hand over IP information and they did not,
Speaker 1: so there was nothing I could do on that end.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think it's pretty common and I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know all your years of work like that.
Speaker 1: It kept going up until a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I know he was still shaming friends and and different
Speaker 1: people that he would find out we're supporting me. It
Speaker 1: sounds like that, And I will never ever soft pedal
Speaker 1: these these threats and these these messages that come in
Speaker 1: these online spaces. They're very triggering, they're very affecting, they're
Speaker 1: very upsetting. So to me, that's ongoing abuse. So that
Speaker 1: went on and has that now really abated and slow? Okay,
Speaker 1: so he's he's likely moved on to a new target.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's really what ends up happening. They get
Speaker 1: new supply from a new target, and there's probably yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So then you and Scott had already started working towards
Speaker 1: getting back together because you've moved into his upstairs unit.
Speaker 1: So what happened at that point that was a lot
Speaker 1: for everyone to witness. And so what happened to all
Speaker 1: of it, to your to your marriage, to your furniture business,
Speaker 1: and above all else to you, Well, you know what
Speaker 1: what was interesting about those three years that I was
Speaker 1: in that abuse. No matter what I tried, even on
Speaker 1: the business side, it wasn't working. Nothing would grow it
Speaker 1: was as if, you know, the soil was just dried, cracked,
Speaker 1: you know, awful. I was not in a place where
Speaker 1: anything could grow, and that's one of the things I
Speaker 1: noticed that as soon as I got out, I went
Speaker 1: immediately to see one therapist and another psychologist. I did
Speaker 1: a lot of inner child healing work. I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: when Scott and I got back together, he was so
Speaker 1: wonderful and he understood, he understood, and he obviously, like
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, he saw what it was that he
Speaker 1: wanted to work on on his end. We both had
Speaker 1: a very frank conversation and said our marriage can't be
Speaker 1: what it was for the first eight in years, like
Speaker 1: we were both codependent, you know. Obviously he understood that
Speaker 1: a lot of what I had gone through how to
Speaker 1: do with this revelation of childhood sexual abuse. But he
Speaker 1: had healing to do too. So once we had that
Speaker 1: ground on which to stand, it was just easy and
Speaker 1: loving and I didn't feel suffocated. I did still have
Speaker 1: triggers from the abuse, which I thought was interesting. I
Speaker 1: remember going out for dinner with Scott and we went
Speaker 1: to an Italian restaurant, and I don't think we had
Speaker 1: formally gotten back together. At that point, we were just
Speaker 1: sort of we were doing things together, you know, caring
Speaker 1: for each other and supporting each other. So we went
Speaker 1: out for dinner and I sit down in the booth
Speaker 1: and I sat down so that I couldn't see the door.
Speaker 1: And I sat there and I looked at Scott and
Speaker 1: I said, oh my god, I'm doing it. He said,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? I said, I just realized,
Speaker 1: And you're not even You're not him, obviously, but I
Speaker 1: am purposely like I was groomed to not want to
Speaker 1: sit where I could see the door, because multiple times
Speaker 1: in the relationship with Tony, if we were at a
Speaker 1: restaurant and the door swung open and a man came
Speaker 1: in and I maybe the light hit my eye and
Speaker 1: I looked up to see he would say, why aren't
Speaker 1: you paying attention to me? Are you? Are you looking
Speaker 1: at him? Why are you looking at him? So it
Speaker 1: became another one of those things I did, keep her
Speaker 1: head down, turn your ringer off on your phone. If
Speaker 1: Scott texted too much, he was texting me too much,
Speaker 1: and and Tony would get mad if he was not
Speaker 1: text texting enough. Then Scott and I weren't good co parents.
Speaker 1: Like I could not win on any level. So those
Speaker 1: triggers I found that it took about a year for
Speaker 1: those to subside. You know, it's funny you say that,
Speaker 1: is that I think that there's a stance that people take,
Speaker 1: especially after they've been through really a malignantly narcissistically abusive
Speaker 1: relationship like you'd been, is sort of that head down.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a defeat posture of person takes and
Speaker 1: all those microadjustments. Take the seat that doesn't look at
Speaker 1: the door, keep your head down, don't make eye contact,
Speaker 1: even how people dress, goes through the world, all of that.
Speaker 1: It changes people in many, many, almost imperceptible ways. But
Speaker 1: you then you notice it and it hurts you recognize
Speaker 1: that this isn't just the simplest getting out of the relationship.
Speaker 1: That many of these scars come out in our feelings
Speaker 1: and in our behaviors for a long time afterwards. So
Speaker 1: is the furniture business still going? It is? Yes, it
Speaker 1: is okay. You know, everything started to blossom, to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, fully fascinating a week. A week into
Speaker 1: me thinking okay, now I'm going to try and resurrect
Speaker 1: mod mom. A licensing partner emailed me and said we
Speaker 1: would love to partner with you. I just noticed that
Speaker 1: things were starting to come together again in ways that
Speaker 1: they hadn't before. Curis if I had a dollar for
Speaker 1: every time a survivor told me like things didn't work,
Speaker 1: things didn't work, this relationship goes away, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: It's not even just an intimate relationship. It could be
Speaker 1: a family relationship, workplace narcissistic relationship. In your case, it
Speaker 1: was kind of both. There's both workplace and intimate relationship.
Speaker 1: Then once I start lifting these sort of toxic blockages,
Speaker 1: things just started to flow. And I do I do
Speaker 1: sometimes wonder if it's sort of this kar mcdarmic block
Speaker 1: where it's like, no, this is not you know, it's
Speaker 1: not it's not your time. We have to get you
Speaker 1: out of this situation, and then that energy will flow,
Speaker 1: because I see this blockage for people all the time,
Speaker 1: and then they get out of it and they're sort
Speaker 1: of devastated by what they've just been through. But there's
Speaker 1: a clarity of vision that has come back before you
Speaker 1: got back with Scott, because you kind of went right
Speaker 1: back in with Scott. Did you feel like you had
Speaker 1: a chance to even heal or even begin to heal
Speaker 1: before you got back what Scott did. The healing happened
Speaker 1: while you were with Scott, did all That's that's a
Speaker 1: great question. I'm glad you brought that up. So I
Speaker 1: actually I think there were probably four months or so
Speaker 1: that I made sure he understood, like I just I
Speaker 1: need to heal me right now. I can't even think
Speaker 1: about like what we're gonna do here. I could tell
Speaker 1: that he wanted to get back together, but he also
Speaker 1: knew that because of our past relationship, and I felt
Speaker 1: suffocated that he was definitely trying to be careful about that.
Speaker 1: I felt like I definitely healed while I was by myself,
Speaker 1: but also while I was with Scott. I have always
Speaker 1: been such an independent person and felt like I could
Speaker 1: take care of myself, you know, and made things happen.
Speaker 1: And just like I got this, I got this, And
Speaker 1: it was the first time I remember when Scott and
Speaker 1: I did get back together, I just wanted to cuddle.
Speaker 1: And as a childhood sexual abuse revivor and and probably
Speaker 1: many that are out there listening, no, I'm not that
Speaker 1: I'm not a cuddly person. Earlier on, when you know,
Speaker 1: the memories were coming back, and I was with Scott.
Speaker 1: I was having panic attacks during sex, and I was
Speaker 1: trying to kind of figure out why am I having
Speaker 1: panic attacks? You know, why is this happening? So I
Speaker 1: have always been I've always been wired to yeah, hug
Speaker 1: and then back off because of the childhood stuff. And
Speaker 1: all I wanted to do was cuddle. I just like
Speaker 1: needed that safety, that security, and he provided that he
Speaker 1: knew I needed it too. So I feel like it
Speaker 1: was actually, you know, to answer your question, it was both.
Speaker 1: It was while I was alone, it was while I
Speaker 1: was doing a lot of intensive therapy work, and then
Speaker 1: it was also with him. Okay, So I mean again,
Speaker 1: it's like you said, I think in some ways you
Speaker 1: framed it well. You said that this is a love
Speaker 1: story and a convoluted, twisted, difficult love story. But the
Speaker 1: strong love stories are often quite messy. So I want
Speaker 1: to do ask this, Yes, how Scott doing? Is Scott? Okay?
Speaker 1: Because Scott went through something too, it was a different
Speaker 1: journey than yours. But you know a reminder that there
Speaker 1: are other sort of fellow travelers on these stories with us.
Speaker 1: How is he doing? He's great? Yeah, he obviously went
Speaker 1: through a lot too, and I have tried to be
Speaker 1: very cognizant of that as well, and he's very open.
Speaker 1: Like the way that this works now in our relationship
Speaker 1: is we're very open. Whereas before he said do you
Speaker 1: want to go do something? I had to be trained
Speaker 1: by my therapist to actually literally say to myself, do
Speaker 1: I want to go do that? Instead of just give
Speaker 1: the pet appeasing answer. So I worked on that side
Speaker 1: of things, and so I would speak up, And now
Speaker 1: he speaks up and he doesn't have triggers much anymore.
Speaker 1: But in the first year, because we got back together
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seventeen, I remember in the first year,
Speaker 1: if I would get a text on my phone and
Speaker 1: I looked at it, I could kind of see him
Speaker 1: bristol a little bit because he's having his own triggers
Speaker 1: from the time that we had together. So we both
Speaker 1: just try and be really open with each other and
Speaker 1: really supportive and understanding, and you know, the most important
Speaker 1: thing to both of us is our family and being
Speaker 1: able to come back together and to support the kids
Speaker 1: in their journey too. We've been very open with them,
Speaker 1: and I have always been open with them, but it
Speaker 1: also required sitting there and letting them say I can't
Speaker 1: believe you brought that guy into our life. Mom, I'm
Speaker 1: so angry at you. And I said, I know, honey,
Speaker 1: I am so sorry. If I could do this over again,
Speaker 1: you please know that you know it would never be
Speaker 1: this way. I'm so glad you're holding space for your
Speaker 1: children's anger, because that was something that was going through
Speaker 1: my mind. Is your children must have been so angry
Speaker 1: because you disrupted their lives and brought a dangerous person
Speaker 1: into their lives. And I know that this is such
Speaker 1: a complicated space for survivors who may have actually many
Speaker 1: many people and in some stories different than yours, where
Speaker 1: their their their spouse was the narcissistic person, and the
Speaker 1: shame and the self blame and the guilt about having
Speaker 1: this child be stuck with the narcissistic parents is something
Speaker 1: that will stick with them all their lives. But even
Speaker 1: in a situation like yours, where there may have been
Speaker 1: a relationship that the person went on to have after,
Speaker 1: you know, for whatever reason, and to be able to
Speaker 1: hold space for your children's anger, which is actually going
Speaker 1: to play out in waves, probably for the rest of
Speaker 1: their lives, and that's that's that's not an easy thing.
Speaker 1: But your role is to hold space for that anger
Speaker 1: as we're coming to an end. Where can people find
Speaker 1: you and what do you want people to take from
Speaker 1: your story? So people can find me at kirston halfcock
Speaker 1: dot com that's probably the easiest or mod mom Furniture
Speaker 1: dot com either one. Again, Thank you your your stories
Speaker 1: again so compelling in so many ways that the toxic
Speaker 1: relationship what the human heart can survive. Though. You know,
Speaker 1: people can find you at your website. They can find
Speaker 1: your book Little Voices. You can read the entire story
Speaker 1: there and they can really get understand all the nuances
Speaker 1: of which there are many in this story. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I am so blessed to know you and I just
Speaker 1: want you to know that Thank you, Kirston, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Kirston. First,
Speaker 1: Infatuation is fun. It's dopamine meets the fairy tale, the
Speaker 1: preoccupation day dreaming, text messages and believing you are in
Speaker 1: something special and in your own happiness cocoon. Lots of
Speaker 1: things block us from seeing red flags, but infatuation is
Speaker 1: a big one, and it's so challenging because it feels
Speaker 1: so good. I don't even know how to teach people
Speaker 1: on how to stay on top of red flags when
Speaker 1: they are infatuated. It's like teaching people how to do
Speaker 1: their homework during their birthday party. But it's crucial that
Speaker 1: all of us regularly check in with ourselves, no matter
Speaker 1: how happy we are. For my next takeaway, infidelity is complicated,
Speaker 1: and Kirsten was aware of what her behavior did to
Speaker 1: her husband. There are differences between narcissistic infidelity, where there
Speaker 1: is entitlement and blaming and little self reflection, and infidelity
Speaker 1: that happens for a person who, for a range of reasons,
Speaker 1: drift away from their relationships. The world isn't so simple
Speaker 1: as all cheating is bad cheating, and many relationships can
Speaker 1: come back after what I can only term non toxic cheating,
Speaker 1: but it does hurt the person who is betrayed nonetheless,
Speaker 1: and the relationship that emerges from the breach of trust
Speaker 1: may even be stronger than the one before, but it
Speaker 1: will never be the same. For my next takeaway, Survivors
Speaker 1: are so often shamed in numerous situations. They are asked,
Speaker 1: why did you stay, why did you get into this
Speaker 1: in the first place, What were you thinking? If stakeholders
Speaker 1: ranging from judges to therapists two cops could understand basic
Speaker 1: elements of trauma, bonding and trauma, the why of these
Speaker 1: relationships would seem elementary. However, even the fear of being
Speaker 1: shamed by these systems can lead survivors to not seek help.
Speaker 1: Finding safe, non shaming, non judgmental spaces is critical to
Speaker 1: healing and finding your voice when you are in a
Speaker 1: toxic relationship. For my next take way, post separation abuse
Speaker 1: is real and something we have discussed on this podcast before.
Speaker 1: In an antagonistic and toxic relationship, the period after a
Speaker 1: break off is often the most dangerous. Stalking, menacing, showing
Speaker 1: up places, and even overt threats are not unusual and
Speaker 1: are a manifestation of the control scene in these relationships.
Speaker 1: Working with therapists who understand domestic violence and intimate partner abuse,
Speaker 1: domestic violence programs, and other advocacy are essential at these times.
Speaker 1: Kirsten had some angels along the way, such as her
Speaker 1: apartment manager, but not all survivors will have that do
Speaker 1: not hesitate to seek out help and resources. Resources will
Speaker 1: also be available in the show notes. A big thank
Speaker 1: you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valan Jeth
Speaker 1: Ellen Rakaton and Dr Rominey Dr Vassila. And thank you
Speaker 1: to our producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa
Speaker 1: and consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our
Speaker 1: editors and sound engineers Devin Donnaghe and Calvin Bailiff