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