Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice column for the Atlantic.
And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid, and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted. And this is Dear Therapists.
Each week we invite you into a session so you can learn more about yourself by hearing how we help other people come to understand themselves better and make changes in their lives.
So sit back and welcome to today's session.
This week we'll get updates from last season sessions to find out how our advice worked out.
A year later, Guy had said that he didn't think I understood how bad it had been, and then Laurie actually later on said that oftentimes people are hesitant to confront those painful experiences because of what it might say about them.
And I'll be honest, that was a really hard one.
But getting unstuck is also what's open myself up a lot more to finally feeling happy and hopeful.
First, a quick note, theo therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and it's not a substitute for professional healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have
regarding a medical or psychological condition. By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and clarity. And the sessions you'll hear all names have been changed for the privacy of our fellow travelers.
Hi, Guy, Hey Laurie.
So guy.
I'm really excited because today we're doing another special episode where we are hearing updates from our season one sessions and the theme of today is freeing yourself.
That is an important theme and the first person we're going to hear from is Elena. Elena, to remind our listeners, came to us to get help because she had the chronically cheating husband who she had been with for seventy years. And by chronically cheating, I literally mean could enter the Cheating Olympics with how much cheating was going on.
Yes, I remember that they would go to a therapy session and he would say, Okay, I'm not going to cheat and then within twenty four hours he would be cheating again.
Right, So let's get a reminder of what was going on for Elena in last year's session.
So it has come out that the relations have been with men. However, my husband is very closed off. He kind of just wants it to go away. He doesn't want to discuss it in detail. He acknowledges that it happened, yet he doesn't want to talk about it. He just kind of wants to forget about it. Then there's that wall built, that avoidancy of him not talking about it, shutting down, refusing to discuss it, and eventually he'll leave the home or the other side where he's angry and
super distant. The other side of it is when we're in therapy, it's like a twitch, like he'll talk about it and he'll say he feels attacked, or he feels like he's disgusting, or he feels that I find him disgusting, kind of working through how he feels.
Yeah, it was not a good situation. So I am very curious to hear where Elena is today.
Yeah, let's take a listen.
My name is Elena, and I called and spoke with Lauri and Guy in regards to my husband who was having affairs, and I was also stationed overseas, so I was isolated away from any family and friends and really any support system to confide in and deal with, you know, all that which was going on. So since I've spoken with them, it's been a little over a year. My
husband and I are no longer together. We've separated officially just a few months after I spoke with Gloria Guy, and then the divorce was finalized in October of twenty twenty. So is pretty quick.
Wow, that is very quick. That's less than a year.
Yeah, And on the one hand, I'm a little bit surprised that it was that quick because she was so reluctant to make a move when we talked. And I think it's interesting because you and I felt like he's not changing. She's been through so much with him, and he is not interested in changing. So sometimes people say, why won't this person change even though they say they
want to change. I think he knew he didn't want to change, but he wasn't willing to say that to her because of the consequence, which is that she would probably leave. And sometimes therapists, you know, we don't tell people what to stay in marriages or leave, but when they're so problematic and there is so much suffering, we hope that someone will come to that conclusion to save themselves.
And when Elena came to us, she seemed clear that she was done, but she also wasn't ready to move forward because I think she had so much grieving to be done.
Yeah, we often don't say to someone, hey, you should really leave this marriage, but we will leave a trail of bread crumbs leading them to that conclusion if it's warranted. In this case, it wasn't even bread crumbs. Loaves of bread led a trail to like, hey, Elena, get out.
And I want to be clear that we aren't there to decide for people what they should do. So when we say we leave the bread crumbs, it's not as though we think we know best for them, because there are people who they would rather be in a situation that maybe you or I guy would say, oh that's not for me, but it is for them, and even though it's not ideal, it's problematic, they would rather be
in that for whatever reason. So we want them to ask the important questions of themselves so they can come to their own conclusion about what they want to do, and that's what I think the breadcrumbs are.
The thing is about Elena is that she actually knew that this was really bad for her, that he wasn't changing, that this wasn't working. The thing she really struggled to do was to cut the cord and make the decision, and given how quickly the divorce was finalized after speaking with her, just months after we spoke with her, I am so curious to hear what happened.
Yeah, I am too.
So what happened is so we were living in Italy overseas and March then my husband got called back to the States. Well, I and his children from a previous marriage were left in Italy. When he went back to the States and the country we went into complete shutdown. We were unable to leave the country and get back home, and that just increased the stress in our relationship at the time, but also just me being the only adult in the household with three kids depending on me. I'm
not the biological mother, but you know, the step parent. There. Further complicated things were my husband wasn't really communicating during this time. He wasn't calling us on the phone, he wouldn't answer I don't know messages. Really really kind of left alone, you know, with the stresses of going to school online and three different kids in three different grades and three different schools. You know, I was really overwhelmed.
That was something that my husband couldn't be empathetic about, and so that really hurt the marriage further.
So Wow, and there are a couple of Wow moments for me, I guess the biggest one is that we didn't know there were kids in the picture. Now, in regular psychotherapy, we get to ask a lot of background questions and we will find out very soon if there were children or any other people that are relevant in
the picture. But in the sessions we do for the podcast, we only have a very short amount of time, and there was nothing in what she was telling us to indicate that there were children there, and certainly that there were his children from a previous marriage, and even more so that she was a big part of taking care of them. That is a big surprise for me.
Yeah, that is such a surprise that we had that entire session with her and not want did it come up that he had kids from another marriage. And it's not uncommon for people to leave things out in sessions, even when we are seeing them for psychotherapy. And I think that the reason that people leave things out is because if they bring something up, it forces them to face a truth that they might not be ready to.
And so for Elena, if she had added this information that, oh, by the way, not only is he chronically cheating on me and lying to me and gaslighting me and calling me crazy, but also I'm taking care of his three kids, And if she had added that, it would be even more clear how untenable the situation was at a point when she wasn't quite ready to face it entirely.
And the fact that while he was in America and Elena was taking care of his three kids, he wasn't reaching out even to be in touch with his kids, so he was abandoning the kids as well, just shows such a complete disregard for his family relationships and how much he was incredibly focused on himself and on what he wanted and needed in that time and truly shut everyone else out, including apparently Elena, not just Elena.
And even then, even with the anxiety that she must have been experiencing to be with his kids and to be so far away, and to not know what was going on with him and to not be in any contact with him. That just incredibly anxiety provoking, and still she was not ready to leave. So let's hear what happened next.
And then, you know, I found out that while he's in America and I'm in Italy with his kids, he's having affairs still, and he was open to me about that that he was seeing someone and not just one time, but multiple times. So when it was time that we could finally leave the country to come back to America, I asked him not to pick me up at the airport. Needed some time to myself to kind of really decide
if I wanted to move forward. So I think I landed on a Tuesday, and then on that Thursday is when he told me he no longer wanted to work on the relationship. And that's something that I struggle with because I know that our marriage ended because he chose to walk away, and I don't know if that's something that I could have done eventually or maybe in six months,
maybe in a year, maybe in three years. It's something that I kind of struggle with, knowing what is in my past or what is going on internally that made me stay in that relationship for as long as I did, with as much toxicity and it that there was. You know, it was definitely something that needed to happen, and I think the timing was well when it happened. It was
just I wasn't there yet. I wasn't ready to walk away yet, and it was it was very difficult for me, So I can't take the credit of walking away from that relationship. But now I am understanding that it needed to happen and it was for the best.
So here again, even with him not being a real partner and communicating during COVID while she's alone with his three kids and telling her he was sleeping with other people, Elena still wasn't ready to leave him, and it's going to be very important for her to understand why that is.
I'm glad that she's asking herself that question. I remember in our session she mentioned that her mother had been cheated on as well, and so I'm guessing that there's some intergenerational pattern or tree trauma that's being played out here that she's going to have to understand better.
I think part of why Elena really couldn't leave and I certainly understand why it's upsetting for her that, given everything, he was the one to break up with her. But when you live with somebody who's gaslighting you so profoundly and for such a long time, doing outrageous, outrageous things, and telling you that your reactions are outrageous or out of control or you're the crazy one, it makes you
lose touch with your internal compass. You no longer know what's up and what's down, on what's right and what's wrong. And even if you think you're justified, you're just not sure because all you hear is that's an overreaction, you're out of control, you're crazy. And I think over the years what happened to Elena is she just lost all perspective. Now, we gave her an assignment to help get some of that back, but I think that loss for her was profound.
She simply couldn't trust herself, and she didn't trust herself to make that decision, especially when she was still isolated in a foreign country. I think she lost all ability to be in touch with what reality is and what's reasonable.
Yeah, the isolation was a big part of it, and that's why we had her tell her friends what was going on, so she could get a reality check on that. And we also had her write down every incident that happened so that she could see it on the page, which also helps with reality checking. But then you still have him coming in saying, Oh, you're getting upset about
this thing. You're overreacting what's happening. You're crazy, And you know that goes on for years and years, and it becomes very hard to locate your internal compass.
And I guess in that way, his leaving was a gift for help because she wasn't able to and maybe she would have become more able to once she got back, but him leaving and doing it so abruptly and so much in line with his other inconsiderate, really selfish actions, I think was nonetheless a gift. Because she wasn't able to push the check button, he pushed it for her.
Yeah, and I think she needs to reframe it that way. I think a lot of people feel like, I've been through all of this with you, and you're the one who's dumping me, which is I think what she kind of grapples with a little bit here, and what I want to say to Elena is this absolutely was a gift to her. I hope that she will consider it that and especially moving forward when she experiences and tastes her freedom, I think she's going to see it more and more as a gift.
So let's here's the more. There's more from Elena Lettier. What happens next?
So yeah, so he still oversees and I am a stateside in a city with friends and family. When I got back to the States, my family and friends threw me a big welcome home party. I just broke down in tears with the amount of love that was shut on me. They're at that party. Since all of this, I've met someone super wonderful and great. They've been really patient with mine a healing process of everything.
I love hearing this because once you leave a situation like that, you often find the people who are there for you and who want to meet your needs. So that great reception and homecoming from family and friends and now a new boyfriend who's there for her and having that understanding with her healing process, I'm just so delighted to hear this.
And I think it's not a coincidence that once she was able to receive in person and true love and care from the people around her. Then it opened her up and allowed her to receive it from a romantic partner as well.
That's right. There's a two way dynamic going on, which is not only when you're in that situation can you not see things clearly, but you're not open to the kind of person who's going to give you what you want and what you need. And once she was out of that situation, that opened her up to the possibility of something new, and Elena had a little bit more to say. Let's hear what that is.
Some of the things that I took away were at one point they said that I was having these big emotional reactions to traumatic events, and that validated my feelings of like, yeah, these are big traumatic events, and you know, having an emotional reaction is okay. Because at that point, I'd been called crazy. I'd been called out of control so often that I felt that, well, maybe I am irrational, maybe I am crazy. But when they kind of said that, that really helped validate my feelings.
You know.
Also, with my husband calling me out of control all the time, you're out of control, you know, guy said, well, aren't his actions out of control? And so that really validated for me those feelings.
Yes, this is exactly what we were talking about. I'm so glad she can see that.
Absolutely. That's really good to hear that she's clear about those things. So there's just one last piece I think that we haven't heard yet. Let's hear the end and have things are really in now.
The other thing that I've done, I guess, is create boundaries in my life and other relationships. So with family members that I needed to have boundaries, and then also with friendships even I've had to put some boundaries. And then even as far as getting back into dating after the divorce, I would see those all too familiar red flags and know like, okay, I've been here, done that. No, thank you, this is a boundary for me, and this isn't acceptable.
So that's really you know.
I can't thank Glory and Guy enough for what they've done in my life and hopefully my story has had some impact on someone else's life. And I just really appreciate this avenue here for people to listen or to hear from you guys in something that they might really be struggling with. So thank you so much, Lori and Guy.
Right so here again once you become aware of what you need, you feel empowered to ask for that in relationships going forward, and you won't settle for less. And she found someone who seems to meet those desires that she has about how she wants to be treated, about honesty, about presence, about connection. And the reason that we do this podcast is that we feel that each person's story
in session does impact someone else's life. And there are many Elena's out there who have been lied to, are gaslighted, and we really hope that this session is helpful to them.
So thank you Elena for coming on and sharing your story with us and with our listeners. And you know that exercise we gave you to think about a good life you might have in five years time. We actually think it might be quite good.
Now.
Absolutely, you're listening to Deo Therapists from iHeartRadio.
We'll be back after a quick break.
I'm Lori Gottlieb and.
I'm Guy Wench and this is Deo Therapist.
So let's hear our next update. Our next fellow traveler from season one also had to free herself, but this time it was from the pressure that she was putting on herself. And I love this one because Libby was only sixteen, but she knew something had to change.
And I love it because that same insight took me probably a couple of decades longer than Libby to figure out me too. So just as a reminder, Libby was a junior in high school and she was putting a lot of pressure on herself to do super well, so much so that she really didn't have much of life and she was feeling very stressed out. And we helped Leby see that real success means having ambition but also having a life.
My course load is pretty heavy. I'm on the leadership I think five different clubs at my school, and two of them are extremely prominent, so I usually have about like three meetings a week with that, and I also volunteer at the food bank eight hours every Saturday. I really do try to like put a lot of effort
into my school work. I do feel like the way that like the college system and everything is kind of set up is that you kind of have to go through this in your teenage years, like there's not really much time for taking it easier, just like taking a step back, and especially because I know so many other kids are competing It's just I do think I'd saying that makes me happy. I just I don't know if I'm able to do that to reach my goals.
She had put a lot of our advice into practice that very first week and seemed to be doing better. I'm curious to hear how she's doing now about a year later.
Hi, guys, it's Libby here.
I just finished up junior year, and I can definitely see improvement in myself, not just in grades in my resume, but ultimately in my sense of self. School did get a lot more stressful, and I did of those weeks.
Of crunch time.
But the biggest change I made was just letting my brain chill out by scheduling and time to relax.
None mind.
I taught myself that this rest was a given, not something I should feel guilty about. I tried to listen to my body in my brain, and I recognized and I was just tired and needed that rest. I began treating myself like a friend who I wanted to help succeed.
Wow. That was great to hear. There's so many key elements that are important in what Libby said. First of all, she switched from self criticism when she felt the urge to take a break to self compassion, which was a very important move because then she's able to actually take a break and not feel bad about it. She's also paying attention to her body and how she's feeling, and she's using that to signal her when she might need to take a break, which is also another great move.
And the last thing, which I think is crucial for so many people, is she's scheduling downtime. And for people who have a lot on their plate, who tend to be busy and overstressed, if you don't schedule downtime, if you don't schedule me time or we time, it often just doesn't happen.
That's right.
And she also reframed downtime as essential as opposed to wasting time. So I think before she felt like, oh if I do something that is relaxing, that I'm not being productive, And you think that that reframe helped to minimize her guilt around taking the downtime and also being able to benefit from it. And this is something that highly driven people tend to struggle with.
Absolutely they do, and I'm one of them, and we all need those reminders we do.
We do sometimes here's a confession. Sometimes I actually listened to this episode because I need the reminders myself in my own life.
Right we called her Libby two. Libby Too was the version that actually was more integrated and recognized the importance of having a personal life. And sometimes I'll say to myself, don't be Guy one, be Guy too. Right now, you know and.
Schedules same.
Yeah, let's see what else we can done from Libby.
My life was a lot of school and extracurriculars, yes, but I can also pinpoint a lot of fun in the last six months, dinner with an old friend or a day out getting ice cream and driving with my little brother. I feel more outgoing, more capable, and more nuanced as an individual after making my life less black and white of things I had to do and making
it more contechnicolor of things I wanted to do. Instead of viewing this practice as self indulgent, I thought of Luring Guy's advice that this balance was the most important thing. Thank you so much, Louriing Guy. I'm going to try and continue this path. I lot my best be shine through.
Well.
The best Libby is definitely shining through. And I love that she mentioned the word fun, because I think so many of us, as we get older, forget to have fun, We forget that fun is an essential part of our lives. We think I don't have time for that, and we think it's optional. But it's not optional. And so I think when we suggest a different perspective and a way to reframe something, we can tell when somebody really gets it. And it was clear in this episode that Libby really
got it. She said, you know, it clicked, And once it does, then someone can make a whole bunch of meaningful changes in lots of areas of their lives. And you can see that Libby did that. And I want our listeners to think this week about fun and when they have fun, and if they're not having fun, what can they do to have fun? And how can they do it in the way that we suggested to Libby. So it's not that you're dropping all of your responsibilities.
It's that one of your responsibilities is to have fun. And I hope they'll re listen to the episode.
That's so important because while they're people who throughout their lives can have fun, naturally, most of us do get busy, do have responsibilities, and there has to be a certain intentionality about clearing the space and having the mindset for just letting loose and having fun. And I am so glad that Livy has that in mind. And I urge all our listeners who have high pressure or high stressed situations or lots of responsibilities to really make time and have the intention to truly have fun.
And while we're talking about fun, our next update of a fellow traveler from season one is from Liam, and we really wanted Liam to have fun at his sister's wedding, but he also was really struggling with this concept of freedom.
Liam was transitioning from female to male, but he was very early on in his transition, and it brought up the question of what does he wear to his sister's wedding because it had gotten postponed because of COVID and was supposed to happen before the transition began, but now that it had, and now that it was still very early, what does he wear that would make him comfortable that his sister would be comfortable with. And that was the conflict that he came.
To us with, right, so let's hear what was happening with him last year.
As much as my family is very accepting. I think that this issue really it shows that they aren't as accepting as they think they are. Like my mother will go march for gay rights and all of these things, but you know, as soon as her son comes out to her that he is part of the transgender community, that's where issues start arising. And then it's like, Okay, well maybe you're not as accepting as you think that you are. And I think that that is showing a
little bit. With my sister, she has traditional values. It's harder for me to fit those traditional values and still be true to myself.
So let me ask you this, what would it look like to be true to yourself at Sarah's wedding?
What would make me feel comfortable? Would be wearing men's formal wear. The day of her wedding, I will be taking my seventh testosterone shot, So my mind is somewhere, and then my outer appearance is I feel is being stuffed back into a closet.
A lot of people said to us after they heard this episode that even though a lot of the situations in our podcast might not apply to them, that what they heard in the podcast applied so much to their own lives. So let's hear what happened with Liam, because I think that it's going to be really relevant to people who are both in Liam's situation and people who maybe need to free themselves, both externally and internally in various ways.
Hy Laurie Guy.
When I first came on the show, I think I was about one month on testosterone. Now I'm about eight months on testosterone. I'm constantly feeling better and better about myself every day, emotionally and physically, so that's been really nice. I do have more trans friends as well. It's really nice having friends within my community that can really understand the problems that I face. Just really nice to be able to talk to somebody. And I also am pretty
much out at work. Everybody pretty much uses my real name, which is really nice.
So I did follow the advice.
The first bit I've actually failed to mention when I did my initial callback, which was to sit down with Sarah and just say, hey, I am really excited for you. Sorry if that got lost in translation. The outfit is not the focus. The focus is celebrating you and your husband on your day. We did have that talk, and I think it was a big sigh of relief for her. I think it was really great that you guys pointed out that she probably needed to hear that, because I think she really did.
So I'm smiling because what Liam was referring to is that his homework was to talk to his sister about what he would wear, but to tell her that he was actually really excited about the wedding and excited for her and all that stuff. And in the voicemail he left us with the update that was included in that episode, he forgot to mention that he did have that part of the conversation, and he felt so bad about it. He reached out to me on social media and said,
you know, I did tell her I was excited. I did tell her that was the most important thing, and I didn't mention that, And people are going to think I'm terrible, and I'm like, no, no, no, I think people know you really care about your sister. But I'm so glad we gave him this opportunity now to correct the record and let people know that he was very focused on the sister and her happiness and her husband, and in that conversation we absolutely emphasize those things.
Yeah, and one thing I loved about that episode was it was so clear how much Liam and his sister cared about each other and loved each other and were trying to be so respectful of one another, and they both wanted the other person to be comfortable, and they were sort of in a gridlock because of that, So it was it was great that they were able to have that conversation. And also going back to what Liam said about finding a support network of other trans people,
which was another assignment that we had given him. We had suggested virtual groups at the time, but he actually went and found people in his community, which is of course much better. Having that support as well as the support in his family probably helped him to come out at work as well, and so now that he's out everywhere, that's such an important step in this process for him.
And also the reminder that the two things that are really important and way more than too frankly, but two things that are important is the corrects and the correct name. And the fact that he said people are using his name at work his correct name at work was also great to hear because that's a very meaningful thing. So let's hear some more about what's happening with Liam.
You guys touched upon two things that have since stayed with me. The first, I think Laurie was the one that said, how I externalize an internal conflict, and I think I have done that so much in the past. I'm so grateful that she mentioned that because I've been way more vigilant about it. It's just something that I can see a past pattern that I've had, so I've definitely been working on that and figuring that out. And the second bit that sometimes I'm so empathetic that I
don't prioritize myself enough. That is also something I've seen a pattern in my past about tremendously. I'm not going to lose that empathy that I have for others, but I'm also not going to allow it to be prioritized in front of things I need to do for myself. So those two things have really stayed with me.
I remember exactly when I said that to Liam in
the session. I was talking about how sometimes what we think is an external conflict actually becomes an internalized conflict, Meaning our culture tells us one thing, and we think that we're fighting the culture, which we are, but then we have bought into that so much that we're fighting ourselves at the same time, and so now he was dealing with not just this outside conflict, but the one that he had brought into himself, into his own psyche, and he had to really tackle both of those things
at the same time.
That's absolutely true, and it's true for anyone who was living their lives and their identities go against whatever culture is that they were raised in, because we tend to internalize the cultures we were raised in, messaging we've got for many, many formative years. When we go against it, it actually takes a while to confront those differences, both externally and especially internally.
When we talk about external we also are talking about our families. So sometimes we'll get messages from our families about who we are that we internalize, You're the sensitive one in the family, you're the difficult one in the family,
whatever that identity is. And then we start to think, oh, maybe I'm too sensitive, maybe I'm too difficult, And so we're fighting not just this perception that somebody else has about us, but we're fighting the perception that now we start to believe about ourselves as well.
And it's an interesting exercise to sometimes take notes for yourself about what was your role in your family, how were you known quote in your family, how are you known in school? What was your role or your identity? And how much of that are you holding onto? How much of that do you still want to hold on to, and how much of that is still even correct?
And I think sometimes that does make us more empathetic, because when we have experienced something, we feel for other people, but we forget to feel enough for ourselves.
Empathy can indeed be a double edged sword, and especially for people who have it very automatically. For some people, empathy is a thought exercise. They have to pause and put themselves in the other person's shoes and figure it out. For others, it comes very automatically. And when it comes very automatically that I get what the other person is thinking or feeling, then sometimes your own needs and thoughts
and feelings can come second. And we both see that in our offices when we talk to someone who's very very empathetic and we're talking about a relationship and we ask them what they feel, and they keep going to what the other person feels, and we have to keep saying, no, I'm asking you what you feel, and you keep talking
about the other person. It's an example of people who are very high in empathy, and Liam was at risk for that, so I'm glad that he is aware of it, because you literally have to consciously remind yourself not to not think of the other people because that comes automatically, but to push up your own priority in that order of things.
And I think there's one last piece Lee and wanted to share with us.
Most importantly would have gained about myself is that there's a lot more love and support in my family than I had initially thought. Sad to say, but I would have never described my family as very close knit or very emotional before that. But listening to that conversation again, it is so apparent how much love and support I get from them. The love between my sister and I
specifically is just so apparent and limitless. Getting to listen to it almost from an outsider perspective, made me realize that it was in front of my face the whole time. This is probably an issue that is faced every day by somebody somewhere. It's really hard to be true to yourself.
I hope that other people dealing with this.
Do get the support and the love that I receive from my family, and even if they don't, I hope they have the strength in them to be true to themselves.
There's any trance people listening to this.
I just wanted to say that you are valid and you are loved, and that does not depend on whether your family or friends accept you or not, and most importantly, you are not alone. Thank you so much, Guy and Laurie. It has been such an honor and getting such helpful feedback. You have absolutely changed my life for the better. I can't even put into words what this has meant to me, so thank you so much.
I really appreciate you guys.
There really is a lot of love in that family, and sometimes it's hard to see it. I remember with Liam's mom. At first, she was very supportive when he told her that he was going to be transitioning, and then the next time they spoke, she had kind of changed a little bit in terms of how accepting she was of that and how on board she was. And I think that sometimes that can be confused with a
lack of love. But we have to remember that when somebody in a family system changes, no matter what kind of change it is, it takes a beat for other people in the family to process that change, and when the love is there in that way, people generally do come around. There are so many times that we hear about unfortunately where people don't come around, where people don't
embrace the person for who they really are. But in this case, just from everything Liam was saying, it felt like there was so much love in that family, not just between the sisters but amongst all of them in different ways. Is that it's so beautiful to hear how it's all coming together now a year later.
It is really lovely to hear, you know. The thing I'm thinking, Laurie, is that when somebody has a change in identity, then they've been thinking about it for a long time before they really come out and talk to their family about it. And by the time they do, they're often so impatient to get going and to move on with this next phase of their life that they want their family to come around immediately, and they forget sometimes that you've been thinking about this for many years.
For some members of your family, it's very new and it will take them time. Not that they won't get there, but they still have to go through a little bit of an adjustment, a little bit of a transition, and I think the benefit of hearing from Liam now is that enough time has passed and it's just lovely to hear that. That's something that's so much coming to the surface now.
And what's so important here is that no matter what I think, what Liam is saying to people is you need to be true to yourself. People will have reactions, people will do what they're going to do, But at the end of the day, how do you free yourself? You need to be true to yourself. You're listening to Dear Therapists for my Heart Radio. We'll be back after
a short break. So guy, the last person we're going to hear from today also is struggling to free herself and also has an issue with her sister.
Yeah, that was Hailey. Hailey lived by her parents and was the only one taking care of them. She had two sisters who lived further away, so it all kind of fell on her and had for years. And Hailey was really resentful because her parents kind of took her for granted. She didn't feel seen or heard, and then one of the sisters would fly in once a year and the parents treated it like a visit. For Mary Poppins and Hailey had a lot of feelings about it. Let's get a reminder of that session.
I think that there's still a yearning for you to have them appreciate who you are as a person. And so when your sister comes in and you said, like Mary Poppins, and what they see is not just everything she's doing that week, but I think that you have a sense they see something else in her that they haven't really looked hard enough to.
See in you.
Sometimes I think I should ask them more questions, because that's what Jill does when she's there. She writes questions for the night and has people discuss memories and labels the antiques and oh.
My goodness, she is Mary Puppins.
Yeah.
I can't compete with that. I don't know how to do that. I remember.
One of the things we talked about with Hailey was the fact that sometimes when people don't appreciate you, you don't realize that you have that right in front of you, and sometimes you take that for granted. And so one of the things we asked about was where she was getting that in her life. And she started talking about her husband that he was very supportive of her and she also wanted to feel closer with him, and I remember we gave her that exercise to really share with
each other what they appreciated about one another. And after the first week she was so excited about that. She said it had gone very well. It made her feel so good, and it made him feel so good. And let's hear now where Haley is with everyone in her family.
Hi, Laurie and Guy, it's Haley.
Your invitation to reconnect could not have come at a better time.
Mostly it's with my husband.
I have not followed through on your advice of appreciating him having him tell me what he appreciates about me.
And I realized the assignment. It was only for.
A week, and hey, that was a great week. I think I have said to him several times, you know, we need to work on this. I want to feel closer to you. Let's at least start doing this thing that Guy and Laurie suggested I do and tell each other what we appreciate about each other, because I really do need to hear that from him, and I would really like to feel comfortable with feeling intimate with my husband,
which is it's work. I'll admit that's work. Because I was not trained in this way, you know, Laurie.
It's so common and we see this all the time with couples we work with that couples will try something that works for them and they'll say, wow, that really worked, But then they'll fall out of the hat really quickly and go back to something that didn't work and created more distance. And people might think, but if Haley felt that that was really useful, why didn't you just keep
doing it? And there are many reasons people fall back into the world have its First, as Haley mentioned, you're doing something that doesn't come naturally, so it requires some kind of emotional effort and the cooperation of the other person in this case, so it's not that easy. And the other part is that once we get our partner to do something that is better for us, we often have this fantasy that, well, they see it's better for us, they should keep doing it naturally because they know it
makes me happy. But it's just as hard for Hade's husband to keep it up as it is for Hayley, because again, it's not something that comes naturally, either to them individually or to them in their couple dynamic.
Right now, right I don't see this as discouraging it all for those reasons, because I think it's hard to go out of our comfort zones, and here you have two people who are trying to do that. And I remember when she reported back after the first week, they both really enjoyed the appreciation exercise. They both seem to have gotten a lot out of it, and her husband sounded so willing. You know, it wasn't like she had to force him to do it or try to convince
him to do it. And so I'm glad that she is continuing to voice this to him because he does seem willing, and she realizes that she needs to take an active role in this request.
And one way to take an active role is to schedule the exercise and do it at specific times, like I don't know, every Friday and Monday, say to end and start the week, because then it becomes more automatic and something they can both look forward to.
One of the nice things about this appreciation exercise is that we're not saying, go have a heavy talk about everything that's not working in your relationship, which you know some couples are needing to deal with. They actually have a really nice relationship. What they want is they want more closeness. And I think that that appreciation piece and not feeling alone is really important to Haley. So this
isn't a talk that people dread. This is a we're going to schedule twice a week at the beginning and end of the week where we have a time where someone's going to tell me some really nice things about me. That's something that people look forward to.
Absolutely, let's hear some more from Haley.
So on to my parents.
One of the things I found most valuable in re listening to the podcast was that metaphor that I made up about this currency that I have and maybe my dad doesn't appreciate this currency, like I'm a Euro and he's a rupee and he doesn't value my currency, And that was just such a great reminder about my own worth.
So in that way it was very helpful.
And just hearing your kind voices again and all of your praise about that I'm a great listener and then I write good metaphors, that was just very nice to hear. On a final note, the whole thing makes me realize how often I kind of walk around with my hand out like, oh please like me, oh please like me, Oh, please like me? Overdoing things for people, over you know, like I said.
With my parents, entertaining.
Like I'm a fool with a juggling ball and plates everywhere I go to get people to like me.
And I really shouldn't have to try that hard.
I should really value my own currency and see my own.
Worth, which I think speaks to the whole issue, like how do you.
Survive growing up in a house where people didn't value your currency and then become an adult and learn how to value your currency, which is why it hurts so bad when you know, Mary Poppins comes in and everybody loves Mary Poppins.
So I think what we see with Haley here is how strong the pull of our own history can be, where our old habits and our old dynamics come back in, and how often what we do is we take a few steps forward and then we slip back. And I think that the lesson here is that when you are making a change, you should know that you will slip back sometimes, that it's not a linear progression, and that you have to have a lot of compassion for yourself and say, okay, so I slip back, and now now
I'm going to get back on track. And I think that it's not a sign that a lot of people take of well, I slip back, so I can't do this. You absolutely can do this, and this is just part of the process.
And you know what I say to people all the time, and they don't believe me until they're right, and then they go, oh yeah, right. Is that the same ease and the same quickness with which you can slip off track, with which you can go back to the old habits. It's true that you can then slip back on the right path that quickly as well, because we know for Haley that one week of doing the appreciation exercise with her husband and changing the dynamics with her parents made
a real difference. It took her a week to make that change. It will take less than a week to change back into that way of thinking and doing. And so the message to all our listeners is, if you started a new habit, a new dynamic with your partner or with your family, and you slip out of it, it's just as easy to slip back in. So let's hear the end of Haley's update.
I am probably going to listen to this podcast now every other month just the advice part to make sure that I stay on track, to make sure that I remember this feeling of self worth I guess is what that currency thing gets down, and to staying there, and also to working on the relationship with my husband and feeling more comfortable being intimate.
And I want to thank.
You both again for your time and your insight and choosing my letter out of all the ones I'm sure you get, because if I let it, it really could.
Change my life.
So this is exactly what we were saying that as therapists, we assume that repetition will be required, and that when you don't have a therapist to keep you on track and remind you that you're going off track, you have to find other reminders. And for Haley, listening to the podcast a month is a great way for her to do that.
And for our listeners who are dealing with creating change in their own lives, schedule a monthly check in your calendar in which you ask yourself, have I been keeping up with my new habit or my new intention or my new form of communicating the new dynamic whatever it is you're trying to change. Have you been keeping up
with it? Have you been keeping up with all the necessary support systems you have in place to facilitate that check in with yourself, because you've had decades of establishing sometimes poor habits, and to free yourselves from those, you really need to check in regularly, at least at the beginning, to make sure you're developing the new habits that are best for your emotional health.
We've heard a lot about freedom in today's updates, and it's so great to hear how people are doing a year later. We become very attached to the people that we talk to in their sessions, and we think about them and we wonder how they're doing. And I know that our listeners do too, and I hope that our listeners are gaining something from hearing these updates, just like they do when they hear our initial sessions.
And that's why I'm so grateful to Haley, also, because she reminded us all of something very important. That change requires maintenance, and that's something we should all keep in mind.
I love hearing these updates a year later, So we will be bringing more updates later in the season. But next week we will be back to our regular sessions and we'll be hearing from a woman who comes to us to talk about her ex husband, who she believes is a narcissist.
And he said, so, I have four major stressors in my life. My marriage, my health, my work, and that I'm a father. He said, one of those things is on the chopping block, and that's the marriage.
Hey, fellow travelers, if you're enjoying our podcast each week, don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by telling your friends about it and leaving a review on apple podcas. Your reviews really help people to find the show.
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us, Bigo Smooth, email us at Lorian Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited by Mike Johns, Josh Fisher, and Chris Childs. Our interns are Dorit Corwin and Silver Lifton. Special thanks to Alison Wright and to our podcast fairy Godmother Katie Couric.
We can't wait to see you at next week's session.
Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio