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In this episode, we talk candidly with the ladies from the podcast "Girls Who Do Stuff" about their marriages and why they choose to stay. Jenny Midgley is a content marketer and Sarah Madras is a therapist and coach.
Your no bullsh$t guide to divorce with experienced attorneys from New Direction Family Law and guests and professionals who have been there. Unfiltered discussions to help you move from victim to victorious and from bitter to better.
[00:00:00] I wish he would just Ram his car.
the vision is there of the, you get the immediate visual of what your life's going to be like. And then you're like, I feel like it would be so much easier if you just didn't exist. Can you just disappear? And it's not, you don't want him to die. You just don't want them to vaporize.
I just don't want to share my, you want it to be like Vanos. Exactly. Yeah.
Hello everyone. It's Elizabeth Stephenson and Sarah Henke. We're the partners and attorneys at new direction. Family law. Thank you for joining us today. We have some great guests today to join us. We have Jenny and Sarah. They have a podcast. It's girls that do stuff and it is they're [00:01:00] local here with us.
And we got to know about them and we're all about some women empowerment. And I think some of our listeners out there might be going through some changes themselves through separation and divorce, or even. Not through their relationship, but needing a change. And I think there's a lot that we can talk about together about those certain situations.
So thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having us. And before we get into deep talk about all those changes and what you can do to work on your marriage and make sure that you're taking care of yourself. You give us a little background on your podcast and how you guys came together.
I was like, who's going to go I'll give you the short version. I was like, cause that's probably a better we'll do the long one. I was like, this is not the first time this has happened. And that's Sarah, by the way, Sarah talking. Yes. So we met through a networking group and became friends that way.
And then Jenny had the idea to do a podcast and she presented it to Joe and. Joe was like [00:02:00] who do you want to be your co-host? And she was like, I don't know. I wasn't prepared for that question. But Sarah is the first person that comes to my mind. So then she approached me and I was like, yo, I'm not so sure about this.
I was like, I got a lot on my plate. I still got littles at home and two businesses. I was like, I don't know. Can I just show up? And then do the interview and she was like, sure. And I was like, okay, then I'm in. Yep. That's pretty much it. And then we started a month later and it's been year and a half.
. So the girls who do stuff has grown with us over the course, especially like we released we launched the beginning of February of 2020, and then. Six weeks later the world shut down. So that was fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was our joy during that time period. They really was. Yep.
Understood. Yeah. And where did the idea come from now? We're in a marriage. Yeah. And I think that there's something to be said for like the [00:03:00] work wives and the work husbands, like as long as it doesn't like. It's one of the things that we look forward to, we notice, we feel the energy shift when there's Fridays that stretch on that we are not recording.
And it, yeah.
We have, when we all look back like 10 women share one, it's what is it though? What's the show sister wife. Oh my God. It really does take a village. Cause it was funny. Cause I even joke with Joe here, I'm like the first thing, one of the first things I said to him when he was, I was away and then he was away and I was , he came when we finally, reunited and we're in the same space after almost three weeks. I was like, I have to say I'm not going to say I missed you, but I must say that my creative energy definitely took the hit without you being across the hall. And now we need to like, get back in the groove of things. So we're going to talk about something really. A little different today.
People think of the divorce lawyers, family, lawyers that we advocate for [00:04:00] divorce. We do not go on the record about that. There's circumstance. It's not like you're advocating for like the best resolution of the situation. We're not like cheering people on, oh, you need to get divorced if it's right for you.
That's great. And we can help you make those decisions, but it's not like we're going to steer you that way because that's not what you want. I just wanted to put that in there. It's so true.
No I'm saying there are some times, but it's not like what we advocate if there's not, or you're thinking about it. If you come in and see me. Here's what I'm thinking. Should I do this? It's not like you just said in the last one, it's not our job to tell you to stay or go. It's just our job to tell you what your options are, what your legal rights and options.
Sure. Yeah. This is your road in the future. This is what your life will look like at least financially. And I always tell them your life will get better if you leave. And I don't know if that's advocating. There were times when I was working with couples where, because we're not allowed to do that as therapist either.
Like I'm not allowed to text. [00:05:00] Yeah. But there is times when in my head I was like, please, for the love of God and run away. I know I just presented you with doors, a, B, and C, but please just choose Dorsey. And you're done with it. I always mentioned to them too. Like I've seen this pattern before and often times they end up right back here, wink, wink.
Like how long do you want to keep this cycle going? Okay. Okay. I'll walk back what I said. Again, , I'm going to restate, restate, cause it's the same thing that, a therapist would say, we want the best outcome for you in your situation, whatever. However you define that. So you two are married, not to each other, but wow.
That's right. Elizabeth is always weird about introduce me as her partner. She doesn't want anyone to get confused. It just makes me laugh. When I think it's like a little disowned me. Like why not that there's anything wrong with that. Exactly. I think we all [00:06:00] go into our mayor.
thinking that this is a fairy tale, it's all going to be, puppies and hearts, and everything's going to be the same way it is on our wedding day. And that's, where's that twinkle in your eye. I think that one of the biggest favors you can do for yourself, like one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself is to recognize that Even in the best of situations, like you're always going to be better off not looking at things through the rosy glasses.
The rose colored glasses are not real life. And I just had this conversation with my son's teacher yesterday because she was like, do you have any thing else that I need to know? And I was like I sent you the Google form. Oh my God. Yeah. And I said, so I'm not going to cause it's like a room full of parents.
It was meet the teacher. So I was like, I sent him the Google. So do you have any questions for me? Did you read them? And she was like, no crazy moms and , but that's what I said. I was like, look, we have zero. Zero qualms about saying, [00:07:00] this is our kid and we totally know him and we know where his strengths are and we know where he is going to challenge you.
So please, we are here to support you, let us know how however we can do that. You know what I mean? It would do us and him a disservice. If we looked at it from the lens of he's this perfect child and can never do any wrong it's the same thing in a marriage, right? If you're looking at your spouse, like they can do no wrong and they're literally hurting you.
With their words with their actions, with whatever, like you are doing yourself and everyone around you, a disservice. Yep. Correct. And no, one's perfect. And and I'm not perfect. Your partner. Isn't perfect. So that's a lie majority. Yeah. The majority of the time you're, they're going to hurt you at some point in some way.
Because they're human and they're going to make a mistake that mistakes are okay. Mistakes are expected. Like it's the human condition. We are built to make mistakes. Yeah. But but I think what makes the difference as you own up to those [00:08:00] mistakes and you acknowledge them and you try to move that forward.
That's, the human condition is struggles with that. We are.
mama. Ain't happy. Ain't nobody. Sometimes I didn't make the mistake. I don't give a flying, whatever that no, I was the right one to have that. And there's what's the other one? No, screw that. I'm so sorry, Joe. You might have to edit this out, but I'm always got, and here we're complaining. But that's been, I think there are some women, some wives who feel that way.
And I think that's a marriage that's never going to work because one person is, it's an imbalance. I think it came from the time when there was expected to be a balance of life at home, keeping the home as the homemaker man as the provider. So if you're out providing and doing your thing and the wife is at home, and if she's happy, your dinner's going to be hot.
When you get home, [00:09:00] how long have you. Oh, cramp 12, 13. I don't know. What year did you get married? That's always, what year did you get married? Oh, nine. 12. Yeah. Yep. Then in 14 years, that's a hard one together for 18. We always ask that question, if you're on the stand or something and what's your date of marriage?
It's the hardest question that anybody I've been trying to forget that no, I do. I have to do the math in my head. I'm like, I don't remember how old I am, because I'll be like, so tell us about your wet with, did you have the big glamorous wedding? I girlfriend, you have your wedding dress on display outside your bedroom.
say you did not have the grand scheme of like comparison of the spectrum of weddings. I did not have a, MTV lake celeb. Is there [00:10:00] a dress? Glass frame outside of your door, freaking piece of artwork. It is, and they have pictures. They have pictures of them and they have you have something on the wall.
beautiful. It's beautiful. So when he compliments, I just on Sunday from when everybody was over, she was, Jillian was like, oh my God, that's so smart because you spend all this money and then you, Scott was like, why don't you have your dress hanging out? I was like, and I can't even shut mine. I have two boys.
Ain't nobody wearing that shit. So I'm putting it on. Cause I have a girl
our listeners are now looking for the mannequin to put the dress on because when they make money out, you need to do something on eBay or start your own bit. You need to find a cool name. She doesn't need another business. we're putting that on pause for, when you think about that. [00:11:00] Like it's all about designing your desire and designing your environment.
And so in the hallway to our room, that is, it's okay, now this is about us as a couple designing the memories of that day. We're designing. The commitment that we made in our room is framed a picture from the engagement. Cause he took me horseback riding before when he proposed and it's me and the sunrise with the horse.
So it is all very much intentional. Photos in our room. It's just us, the marriage, because that's what that is. Is there like a tux what's of him in the photos? Photos of him seeing me in the dress for the first time is what's. I am a big believer of bedrooms shouldn't have like TV or like anything.
It should just be for like sleeping and stuff. I'm the no, I guess photos. Wedding photos. A couple. Yeah. It's a couple space. No, I did that couple of space. We did the when we moved, I had to redistribute all the photos. So we only [00:12:00] have the Ikea. Framed thing. So I'm
but but yeah, no it's, we certainly have a TV because I need to be able to close my door and ignore the kids for eight hours at a time. So that's one way to do it. That's true.
Here's my phone get under the covers. That's the other, like I'll just pass off my phone and tell her to get some made like wedding porn. You could watch that in your wedding room.
Let's see. She just went, she just
from romantic and oh, how beautiful your debt now if that's you want. Sex on your wedding in order to create wedding? Yeah, we didn't have sex on our wedding night was too tired. Oh my God. We weren't even together. Like he was still downstairs partying and I went to sleep. already doing it yet.
Just don't oh my God. [00:13:00] You care more about having the party and we, yeah, we were, he was still downstairs drinking with all her friends. And I was like, I can't keep my eyes open anymore. They'd sent me with a, to go container of so I could. Dinner. Cause I ate, believe me.
I ate at my wedding because we had an amazing, we had a mashed potato bar. We had six different kinds of mashed potatoes and mashed potatoes. I love it. And so like they sent me home with Dakota containers and thankfully somebody grabbed them and brought them back to the house. I was double fisting all night and we had a sangria fountain and like the wedding coordinator would, was like, keeping me, like I had my sangria plus I was too deep with vodka sevens.
So like I was set. All right. You're just lucky you didn't puke in your dress, right? I was just happy. Like I was euphoric. I was happy. I was so hung over the next day. Okay. Let's fast forward a couple of years. You still feeling that way? Like I just [00:14:00] got into the marriage. For our clients say that, they have lovely weddings and they never pictured themselves and they get sad about it.
And I never thought I get divorced. Of course you've done. You have to grieve that. But Scott lost his job four months before. Before we got married, that was our first. And then the he lost his job. We lost the rabbi, not like she died, she had to back out because there's like a family member that she was asked to officiate for and they were getting married in Reykjavik and she couldn't manage my wedding and Delaware and the wedding and Reiki the same weekend.
I don't know why. And so we were already like dealing with. Him not being able to find another job. And then we got married. Everything has been like until the next thing. I feel like over the course of our, we're going to need to unpack that married life, not in a bad way, but it's just if I look back on it, if I exactly, but that's where it's everyone thinks, oh, if I just didn't have any problems in my life that's a whole life.
No. And then if you have problems and you have problems and then you [00:15:00] automatically blame your spouse, that's a huge problem. It's not that you got to work on yourself. You can't just say I'm unhappy. Why am I unhappy? This motherfucker over here, didn't pick up his dishes. That's why I'm not happy.
More than that. It's not about picking up the dishes. No. And little bit about the damage
it's about, but what it is about the dishes is that when you bring up the dishes. And then those dishes are ignored consistently over time. That's the issue it's that they're not respecting met needs unmet needs, right? Yeah. And we, yeah, we should also probably mention that our in our former careers, we were both social workers, as a therapist and I did not do that. I got social work really cool again, but I think it, it gives you the foundation, right? For if you're actually going to pay attention to what you learned, because we know that, there's people that don't pay attention to what they learn, no matter what their [00:16:00] industry, but it also, that helps us in the reframe it in the moment.
I've said some really mean things to my husband. Yeah. Not that I've heard them. I'm just like, I made her I remember when it, this was a baby. So we leave in married for what'd I say 14 years. Yep. All right. Yeah. 14 years. Our son's 10. So when he was a baby, we'd been, we've been in it for awhile.
We didn't just like immediately jump into it and have a. He wasn't even sure he wanted kids and we just one day he came up to me, he was like, okay. Yeah, let's have a kid. I was like, Let's get right on that. And literally I was pregnant two months later. And, but when it goes to a bit like we were not working well together at all, when we were dealing with he was really unhappy in his job money.
It was in 2010. So it was post recession. Everything was tight. Our, we were underwater because literally the week after two weeks after we closed on our condo in DC, the bubble burst, and it was like, why was I a hot mess everywhere? And we were unhappy. There was scarcity issues. There was [00:17:00] like, We were just surviving.
And I remember one day, like I looked at him and I was like, I still love you. Like to my core. I love you. I do not like you right now. And you need to like that hit him in such a way. Like he was crying. And I was like, I did not mean to make you cry. It's okay. That he was crying and I'm sorry for hurting your feet.
But I felt like I felt deeply that I hurt him. And that I thought I was saying something that was like in my social work frame of reference by this is a kind thing to say, right? Like I'm unhappy with you right now, but you can go fuck the hell off. And I'm still gonna love you. And that's okay.
And I really that's honestly a healthy way to deal with that situation. I don't think there's any apologies needed to be had for that. Because if you don't and if you're like, I'm just going to sit here and swallow this shit, that means you're swallowing resentment. And Keyscan they, 10 years later you got all the freaking [00:18:00] cancer cells.
I was sad that I hurt his feelings like that hurt, and like I spoke my truth, but it wasn't with the intention of. Think about your alternatives, my marriage, and my husband does so and we've talked about it on our show, right?
Like my husband does all the cooking, all of the grocery shopping. He does the laundry, he does the ferrying, the kids around their activities. And sometimes people look at me, they're like what do you do? And I'm like, did you really just ask me that question? We're good. We still have a division that works for us.
That's all it matters. It's I don't need to justify anything that I do or don't do to you. And I think that's a stress on a lot of marriages in the past, like decade as these like reversal of the roles at home and, women being out in the workforce more. And then for the longest time still needing to work.
Take care of the kids do everything. So yeah, you're working, but you also need to do all the things that women are supposed to do at home to build resilience. When you have a [00:19:00] job and you're building it like a job and building a business and managing, household things and doing that, and you're, , he has a startup, like there's a lot of things, he had to learn a lot, like he had to learn to let a lot of shit. And get out of his little corner. That was all nice and neat and organized. And I'm like, we have kids who are disorganized. If somebody were to say, what is the one key factor of success?
That is, it is the willingness to grow that willingness to expand. Yeah. Because if my husband did not have that willingness, I'd have been at your office and been like, and here we are. And Sarah, and here we are trying to go move somewhere together because obviously we get along and our kids get along.
Great. But how do we get rid of that? I'm like, that was, that would literally probably be the conversation that people should. Let's say you're in a dating relationship. You're talking about getting married. What would be a red flag for you? That person isn't going to grow. Unwillingness to talk about the future and have those hard conversations beforehand, [00:20:00] people are scared to do.
They don't want to hear the answers, so they don't ask the question unwillingness to accept, influence. , and then maybe that's why I got all rolled up. Your question is because so many times I see people saying, oh I can't, they're saying it to me. They're not saying it to their spouse.
And I'm like, your spouse is the one who actually needs to hear that because then you need to own that, that you are not telling them. So they are completely unaware. Yep. They beat you. He should know, knowing is half the battle, right? You are now creating this dynamic because you are not saying anything so you can be pissed at, as yourself.
So that's what I would say is that you have to be. feel secure enough that you can have those conversations and bring those things up. I'm going to amend what I said before. Now I'm going to take this one and I'm going to say that it's about not only though, willingness to expand, but the willingness to communicate and receive as well as given, if you need help with it.
It's totally cool to go ask for help beforehand. [00:21:00] That's one of the things, that's the only reason why we're still married. Catholic marriage therapy premarital after my son was born. That was a hot shit. Yes. It's what I call the, oh my God. What the fuck phenomenon? Because the woman is oh my God.
And then. And then it's not, and the guy goes, what the fuck we ended up here, then that's good to hear because I people ask my opinion on marriage therapy. And I say I don't think it's good, but I only hear from the divorcing people. I don't hear any of my clients are right. Cause then we, so premarital, Landon was born after a little bit after Lennon.
What is that three times, at least. Yeah. In a 14, 12 year marriage, that's not right. And to me I'm like, yo, why am I going to sit there and suffer and try to fix some shit on my own? I can't fix it. No problem. It's not a [00:22:00] hundred percent. It's only one's problems. And so we need to do this, both done individual work of cause that's the only thing.
If I could not. That's the growth. If you're like, no, I'm not willing to accept influence. I'm not willing to learn that John Gottman weekend that we did completely transformed our marriage. Talk about that. So John Gottman is a researcher, 40 plus years of research. All evidence-based and literally had cameras and houses and had them living in the houses and watch them.
That's where all this it's bananas. I thought you meant Washington. You
me, all the things. Yes. And, came up, learn all these things and then now teaches these skills. And so we went to the weekend retreat when we were on the break and I was like, either where this is happening this weekend or we're right there on the break of me coming to your office and it, and we use those [00:23:00] of you to buy into that.
Yeah , if he was here, he would even tell you those skills. We use them every day. It makes things a hell of a lot easier. Cause the first thing he gets is oh my God, your wife's a therapist that has to suck to be you. And he's no, it's so much easier. Now. He's like who I am as a person life.
Our marriage is so much easier because. We have those set of skills and it helps you in all relationships, too. Sure. For sure communication. And I'm a huge supporter of those who go to marriage. , there've been several reasons throughout the course of our relationship where we've had like the outside help.
But it's come in different forms. So like for us, a lot that we saw. Several of our friend groups on both sides, dealing with the, in the midst of, and after effects. And we would have open conversations about that and say, cause I would come and be like I need help [00:24:00] processing this. And cause I want to do what I can to support my friend or, he would be like, oh, did you hear about, I just got a text file and I'm like, okay.
We would talk about it and we would jokingly be like, see, this is why like you are in this forever. I don't care if we end up as war, the roses, like you, we are in this shit now and forever. But it's also like it, it was joking, but at the same time, we, it would open up those lines of communication.
We would talk about it and we would have the hard conversations and we got, I go to this cycle of there's buildup, blow up. Conversations, another blow up more conversations and then we're cool. Like it's just our little it's our way of being able to cope with having those conversations and respecting one another and have to have them with our sat with each other versus going and talking outside and complaining and venting and bitching and moaning, there's space for that.
But sure. You talked about, you have these Fred's groups and some are going through a divorce. , what would you say to people, that they [00:25:00] chose him as a friend to not be, is there a way to continue to nurture those relationships with both if they're divorced, because I think that's one to have support yeah.
When you're going through that. But it also starts with like the way. I'm a break this down. Okay. So there is, are you couples, friends, and if you're a couples friends, then you're gonna, there's going to be a different answer than if they're friends first. And then the marriage came in. When Matt and I were during our time period, when we had separated, he.
Very clearly you see, and you will have the friends that circle the wagons and it wasn't a team, Matt or a team. Sarah. It was a pro-marriage. And so that is who actually circled the wagons, the people who come in and our team matter team, Sarah, they're actually creating a device. And so that's how you see where it's coming.
Like where is that? And so that's when those people fell [00:26:00] off love, that we're team one or the other, the people that stayed and circled the wagons and we're protecting the union. Those are the people. Stuck around. Yeah. And I think that there's also something to be said for as the outsider looking in.
Like I could never tell my friends, , or we would never think to say to one of them did you know, you're married to a narcissistic alcoholic? Did you know that did you realize that beforehand, like I'm not going to go up and have that conversation. I'm just going to be there.
Like when she says, oh my God, I'm so frustrated. There's a space for judgment and it's not when you're trying to support somebody. But I would say Hey, do you want to talk about that more? Or they're talking about something and be like, are there other ways that you think you can handle.
Like, how are you feeling? How can I support you? You have those conversations, but privately between the two of us, we're like, why are they still together? I wanna I, and that's where the support for each other in the [00:27:00] marriage comes in because it's gotten, I'll be like, oh my God, like we can see it so clearly.
And you're so bad for each other. Keep reiterating, validate the feelings, reiterate, please go to a therapist, right? Because let that person tell them right now and really tell them to leave their marriage, but they will highlight some concerns and they'll help that person realize for themselves. Honestly, so as the marriage therapist in the room, it wasn't even that it was making that person stronger.
It was building their self-esteem building their confidence, building their own. Yep, because then they felt strong enough to make those right, to speak their voice. . This current system is no longer working for me anymore. We need to alter the system. Like they could go through those steps.
So we do too, when they come and they're not on the fence about whether or not they're going to separate, if it's a fear of, financial issues, a fear of just being alone, those are things we can tell them. It's this is what life will look at, like financially. And let me also tell you that.
We [00:28:00] work with clients sometimes well over a year. And we can tell you that they're so much better off at the end. So if you want to do this and you're not doing it because you're scared, you're going to be okay. And this is a plan that's going to work for you. You've got to make that decision, but don't let fear and fear of the unknown being, keep you in a relationship that's not healthy for you.
And at the end of the day, what I would always say, I was like, pick your own. Yep. I was like, staying is going to be hard because obviously a lot of stuff would come from betrayals, whether that was infidelity or financial betrayals or substance use things, whatever. But that's all betrayals.
Yeah. And so staying is hard because you have to rebuild the trust. You have to learn to communicate. You have to learn how to make it through the different seasons of the marriage. Staying as hard, the concept of being with one person every day for the rest of your life, when you really think about it, that shit is the stupidest damn shit you've ever heard of [00:29:00] terrifying, but it's also, I think to your point, hard, pick your heart hard, too, nothing wrong with having some, daydreaming, like what would my life be like?
What would. We know, that the grass isn't always greener, but there's nothing wrong with imagining yourself as Claire in 1771 and North Carolina. I don't want to be, or you want to be, no, I don't want to be here either. Oh, can I share an imaginary? So are you asking me it's better show for my 40th birthday this year, my girlfriends and I went to okay.
This is a good story. Yeah. And so the whole time, my single friend and we're like trying, and we didn't see any hot guys at the resort where yeah. It was really weird. It had to be because of COVID and we were just so disappointed. We mix all guys. It was, there were no single guys there. They were all there weren't any, because we weren't actually going to do anything.
It was just pointing oh, there's my type. And I didn't find anybody like, not a single soul. [00:30:00] So then we're sitting at the airport. We're getting ready to board. Like literally they are getting ready to call the people and this guy walks up and it was something out of a, and there was literally was like I think my mouth dropped.
I think I stopped breathing for a minute and I w I put my hand on my girlfriend next to me. Yeah. There he is fair. And like he checks in, he sits directly behind us and I'm literally like leading back to the chair to like smell. I was like, he was going on. He was flying back to Raleigh too. And I was like, oh my God, he lives in Raleigh.
So we're like writing all these stories and we're like, oh, maybe he's lying. A volunteer and he was here like, a doctor and he's gimmick, immunizations to children who are dying. He's found the cure for cancer, but it's not, and he works with Dr. Fowchee and he, amazing.
And obviously I love my husband and it's not like a [00:31:00] knock off cause you find him to stalk him. So cause they were trying to look at his boarding pass and be like, what is his name? So then I. Stalk you on social media now could not see the damn thing we're loaded. He is sitting in the seat because it was me and my girlfriend and then a third.
And she was, he was sitting next to her and I was like, oh my God. Oh my God. It's meant to beat. And she was the single one. And so we're like, Katie, you better get on it. I want details. I want his name. I want to stalk him. Literally before the flight takes off, he was like, is there any extra seats that I can stretch out in the back of the plane and lay down bed?
That was the universe say, see, it's fun to imagine, but here's real life. That man is not in your grasp. And that's Hey, he could have been, if you were not married, you mentioned seasons of marriage. What'd you mean. Oh yeah, there's some hard too. I think [00:32:00] everything's a season though.
So the way that I look at it is I'm having, COVID was the season, right? Like the pan, everything that was shutting down the world was shut down that you couldn't go out nothing. It's a seasoned people. Like it's going to end, right? If you are able to look at your life from not a victim mentality, that you are, it is not happening to you. You are in it and it is happening, then you are more able, you're more capable. You have more skills to be able to be like, oh, this is a season and it's going to end eventually. And I will, I, if I, that's what I, that's what I meant. And that's kinda what I meant at the beginning of it's just so like the next as we're getting through, right?
It's more of these are the seasons, right? , again, if you go. Through and look at things and everything is supposed to be perfect and Pinterest ready and suppose your kids aren't supposed to make noise and your husband's always supposed to be smiling and only want to spend time with, you or that he's not going to sacrifice time [00:33:00] with you to go be with his friends.
Oh my God. Wait, like your own feelings, like talk about COVID. I lived alone for five plus years and then my boyfriend moves in. In COVID. So not only he and he's at home 24 7 doing his work from home, everything. So I went from being alone, my house, I loved it. It was great. And he moved in, I was excited about it, the next step in our relationship, but he's here all the time.
Whenever I would get super annoyed and be like, oh my God, I can't stand this. Stand him in this room with me. And I'm like, Sarah, this is not a him thing. This is you going through this. It's a huge agenda. It just has to be the fact that it's in the middle of a pandemic and that you both have to stay home all the time and that's it.
So you will be allowed to live in her house, equal responsibility that most people don't like, you have to stop and think about your feelings that you are reacting to. Why am I reacting to this? What is it is something I need to actually address with this other person? [00:34:00] Or is this something I need to address with myself and like really check out everything before reacting and when you're in it, it's really hard.
Like when you're, especially when you're not even able to recognize bright light, That it's what's happening because you're escalating and you're in it. And you're just, your emotions need to go somewhere. Changing the behavior. It's oh, we're in this season. This season will end.
And I'm like that's because you're not doing anything. You're not doing anything different. You're not thinking anything different. You're not creating different stories in your head. Of course the season keeps going because there is no change agent. That's the, you have to be able to step in.
Eventually you were able to leave and you were able to go, I totally feel this right. Cause I, if any family was the like ideal family to have to be shut in, it was ours. We both worked remotely. We had one only one kid in school. The other one was home. But the difference was you couldn't leave.
It was [00:35:00] let's see. So end of towards the end of may. So everything shut down in March, right? So then at the end of may I was lamenting something to somebody who ran the coworking space, where we used to be. And she was like, oh, nobody's here. Why don't you bring Nicholas with you and he can do his online school and you can get some work done.
And I was like, okay, if you don't mind, and literally nobody was there. So she would just wanted people there. And I said, okay. And within two weeks, I was like how much for an office, because it was mind blowing to me that someone who had worked so hard through a career in healthcare, to be able to get the opportunity to work remotely.
And here I was working remotely and begging to go to an office, but my, our marriage is better. My relationship with my kids is better. The fact that I can leave means that I get to structure my day, according to my needs. As well as look at but after first looking and seeing what's on the calendar, right?
[00:36:00] Yeah. And the thing, that's the difference. It's some people like a relationship where they're together, 24 7 in my marriage, my husband still worked in Charlotte three days a week, he would leave on Sunday night, come back on Thursday morning. It was like, oh, it was like a honeymoon period.
Every week, if we didn't call it, we didn't have to call each other every day. But that was the work for us. And then a lot of people that wouldn't work, you need to find that out. Like you say, ask the tough questions a lot and relationships don't find it out for a long time.
You all want to be up in each other. Remember that? I think it's less questions and more watching. Yeah. Seeing how they respond to certain things like how are they going to respond to the traffic jam? Or how are they going to respond to, how do they treat the servers at our restaurant? That's the first day, how do they treat servers at a restaurant?
And how do they treat pets? How do they speak to their parents or siblings? And if not, why not? Yeah. Was there a trauma except feedback is [00:37:00] right. One for me. Are they willing to receive it? Yeah. Are they willing to have the conversation or are they going to get mad? Do they feel like you're being overly critical with everything you say when you're.
Hey, I'm good. I don't even know where this is coming from, right? Yeah. If you're on, if they're like, oh, my boss said this and my boss that I did this, isn't this wrong. My boss is such an idiot, blah, blah, blah, red flag. Red flag. Yeah exactly. And do they, if they play the victim, like that's a huge one.
Like again, is it happening to me? Was every light red on my way to work, making me 20 minutes late. Damn the universe sending me all the red lights or was it like, shit, I should really wake up a half hour earlier. That's the problem? Is he getting of those Rosie Gordon that stop for breakfast? Because it's the stories you create.
So at the beginning you're like, you're creating this oh, they're so loud. It's all neurochemical. Like people, it is literally the chemicals in your brain telling you that you were like in lust with [00:38:00] these people. Yeah. Somebody told me once you need that, for sure.
children with you. What I pay bills with you? What I would, I invest in things with you when I want to like. Do you labor? Do I want to bring you on family vacations or a friend of vacation? Let me run your credit scores, but I could see that, but it's about being and the openness to have those conversations and the willingness to say Hey, This may not be like, you're a lovely person.
I don't know if you're the right person for me. I texted you last night. Oh. I was like, oh,
it was about your boyfriend though, wasn't it? No, my boyfriend's really kind. And like [00:39:00] another thing I want to add to that is like seeing how they react to when you have an emotional response that maybe you're not so polished. And so there's plenty of times where I react poorly and I have to, Address that and ask for forgiveness and seeing how they respond to that.
And I wouldn't even go a step further. It's not even about asking for forgiveness. It's and I do this all the time. Like I yell at the kids and I'll be like, sorry, I could have handled that better. I'm not gonna ask you, like I did something wrong. I'm not, but I do want you to have to hold space for me to be able to be a human.
Like I recognize that. I would respond that the best way I could have, I've been in a bad mood, which is a Waco classic way to just whatever, just it's a whole ball of things, but to have, be able to talk about that and the person say, I understand, yeah, your rights and you are stuck with, but you gotta be able to do that and vice versa, but just not completely attacking you for whatever your situation is at the moment, feelings, what are they willing to watch Disney movies with you?
Or do you both hate Disney movies together? [00:40:00] Yeah, I, so Scott watched the Incredibles with me. That was his first But the first time that he like willingly watched like a cartoon with a date. And he was like, that was really good. And I was like, see, I told you I think that there's some kind of like, how are they reacting to you when you want to, when you want to do something, that's maybe, their comfort zone, but you want to do it.
Yeah. So as we wrap this up and it's hard to do, but what would you say to folks. About what makes you. No. What made you guys successful? What makes sure, like, why do we stay? Yeah, I was gonna say that's a better, cause I don't know if everybody would qualify it as how you define success. What is successful is, success to me is we're still committed.
Yep. Success to me is we're both all in and we're both, not just all in on the marriage. We're both all in on ourselves as individuals of willing to continue to do the individual work all in on building. Yes. [00:41:00] And I think what can get lost in times when you're doing the work is you feel like, oh, we're supposed to be working on the marriage all the time.
No. You've got to have fun to play and laugh and have fun working on the marriage. That's like seeing, again, like what I was saying before, seeing our friends and our various friends group go through these things made up. Reevaluate where we were in the moment and say, you know what, maybe we should Institute we need to have more connectedness times.
We need to make sure that we invest in, making sure we have the babysitter booked every month so that we can do the date nights that we can do the things that we enjoy. But that we're being much more intentional about it. And I think for me, that's the biggest part is being intentional and willingness to communicate and share And let people it's a huge, like you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable.
These people are going to pick you up off the floor when you slip and fall. Yeah. Like literally clean your poop. Yes. You gotta hold your hair back. When you, they're going to hold your hair back, you're going to help you pee. After having a child, they're going to, [00:42:00] they're going to look at that weird thing that's growing and yeah.
To be like, does this what do you think, is this an ingrown hair? Do you think I have a hemorrhoid? Like we don't know because it's part of building, if you're look, if you're going to have babies, that's what's going to happen. I'm just going to let you know
but it's, it's being open to somebody like seeing you, I see some of these things in these posts, in these groups, like there are these guys that are like, you shouldn't you shouldn't fart in front of your kids and I'm like, it's who are you? People like our people, they're not our people, but it's like that idea that you can't just be open, that you can't just be you.
It's okay. It will all be. Yeah. And don't not be you because when the real you comes out, they might be like, oh no, I didn't sign up for this or vice versa. It's a really, I think as a Schitt's Creek is a great example of [00:43:00] building a I know that you guys haven't finished, not haven't finished it yet.
But Matt and I had a conversation about it, cause he was like, all right, let's just get better. And I'm like, how far in are you? It was like six episodes. I was like, what? And it's not already better for you. What the fuck, man? But like just keep watching. It's fine. Do you have to watch all of it?
But they I really do a good job of representing like hard. Topics that maybe most couples wouldn't have to talk about, but y'all real life. You're going to have to talk about that shit. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And that will say I wasn't quite sure where this episode would go, but as I listened to, no, but as I listened to you, I know you're all like, how did it relate to.
But here's the other thing, too, people get separated and divorced. And my hope for them is that they do find somebody and have a better life. And so listening to this podcast can help them. I hope avoid the mistakes they made the first time. If other, you choose to never get married is the choice you're making.
And that's going to be hard. It's going to have its own challenges. In seeing other people [00:44:00] get married and wondering if that's what you should do and why, blah, blah, blah, relationships in general are hard and deciding to leave a relationship is also very hard. Correct. And just living in that reality that these are things that are going to have to face.
you say, seasons, we say it as the victim to victorious and you're going to move to the other side. You're going to be better and it's not always going to be like that. And just, if you're in a relationship. You can't stay and only be doing the work. That's one thing. So if you're choosing, if you're choosing that hard, then you gotta make sure you're not the only one choosing it.
That's really hard. And the other person's already one foot out the door and not working and committing whatsoever. There's really asking yourself, what am I? Okay. Yeah, and it's a personal, it is truly a person and it's okay. And it's also saying to yourself, I am not okay with being treated that way and you're okay with can change and evolve over time and it's going [00:45:00] to, and people think.
We started this way. And so now I'm afraid to change the rules of the game, so to speak. And I'm like how is it working out for you now? And they're like I've been miserable for the last four years. And I'm, on the verge. Yeah. Then why not just change the rules and be like, we are now evolving.
Can't be any worse. always involved. And then you're going to do it together. You can do it separately. Sometimes you evolve separately, but together at the same time, Because I know I felt that way. And I've even said that to Jenna, where I'm like, my God, is Matt going to catch up? Like it is, it doesn't have to be at the same time or the same page.
It's just as long as there is movement. It's as long as you are okay with the way that it is. And when you're not start asking yourself, what do I want? What do I believe in what do you think is causing it and what do you think you can do to change it? And if you can't figure it out, go ask for help.[00:46:00]
Y'all asking for help does not mean that you can't do it. It just means that you need help to get it done. And it'll be easier to do God, what is it? Light hand or many hands make light work
that like some kind of proper or something. Yes, Joseph, Joe, the pastor is confirming to Jenny, the Jewish girl that's a proper guys. Thank you so much. This has just been really fun and informative. And I don't know. I thought, I think it's great. Yeah. Whether you stay or you go, it is. He does some