November 2, 2025 • 22 mins
After DeAnna's disastrous blind date, Ben has enlisted the help of Psychologist Dr. Hillary Goldsher to do a deep dive!
In this intimate one-on-one, Dr. Hillary is bringing her expertise on divorce and dating! Even if you aren't Famously Available, this session is for anyone single and looking for love.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
iHeart podcasts, bring you the ultimate Summer of love Tree.
This is famously Available. Welcome back to Famously Available. I'm
your host, Ben Higgins, and this week I decided to
enlist some professional help for our famously available gal Dianna.
After that date didn't go so well. I'm bringing in
(00:21):
psychologist doctor Hillary gold Shure to go in deep with Diana.
Doctor Hillary does in depth work in the arena of relationships,
guiding couples and individuals in all seasons of life such
as premarital, married, separated, divorce, and high conflict divorce. I've
(00:43):
raved about my own experience with therapy, especially after a breakup,
so I think this will be really good for Deanna.
So ladies take it away.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Hi, doctor Hillary, I'm Deanna. Thanks for coming in today.
I'm here for you to fix me, heal me, and
and make me better.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
If I could do that in one therapy session, I
would be an incredibly sought after therapist.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
But I will do my best under the circumstances.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
So I am a licensed clinical psychologist, and I am
an expert in relationships stuff, and one of my areas
of expertise in particular is divorce and high conflict, divorces,
and co parenting, and so it may or may not
be relevant.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You'll have to tell me be relevant, doctor Hillary. So
under that.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Umbrella, of course, is often the world of dating and
the unfolding of a new season of relationships in the
after marriage. I like to call it the period of
time when someone is divorced. So it sounds like, from
what I understand, you are square in the middle of
that trajectory.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I was having this thought this morning. I was just
running through much of my morning and I was thinking, like,
when I talked to you, I was really scared that
you were gonna be like, Okay, well you're not healed.
You don't need to date, you don't need to do
these things. And I listen. I'm an advocate for therapy.
I believe in therapy. I believe in all of the
help that you can possibly get. I'm in therapy right
(02:13):
now and have been over the years. So I don't
believe that healing just happens that one day you wake
up and you're cured because you've done eight sessions with therapists, right.
I believe that healing is a life situation that we
are currently being refined to be our best selves, and
that is a goal of mine and always has been.
But I started running through just kind of my dating
(02:37):
history in my own brain this morning as I was
looking at have I ever really had an example of
a healthy relationship? And I don't think that I have,
Doctor Hillary. My parents divorced when I was really young,
and I would say that they were absolutely high conflict.
So one of the few things that it taught me
is what I don't want to be for my own children.
(03:00):
Oddly enough, my ex husband and I are high conflict.
We are not friends. I have a lot of bitterness, resentment,
and hatred towards him. And it was so interesting because
when we were divorcing, even though it wasn't something that
I asked for, I had that mental note that, like,
I don't want to do to my children what my
(03:22):
parents did to me. So you know, I work really
hard at not speaking negatively about their father, because the
truth is our marriage ended, we are no longer together,
and I may have my own feelings and some of
those can be valid and not, but the truth is
my children deserve to have their father and love their father.
That's what they get. I don't want them to carry
(03:43):
the burden of the unhealth that took place within myself
or with him or within our marriage. So I have
really worked very hard. And people don't talk about that
co parenting with someone that you absolutely hate, you know
what I mean, or how difficult that is with the
history between us and stuff. So long story short, I
(04:04):
started running through the gamut in my own head of relationships.
My parents divorced when I was very young, and it
was very toxic. I watched them fight a lot. I
have dated throughout my life. I am no spring chicken.
I am forty three years old, and I started looking
at some of the relationships that I have been in,
and I don't know that they were good examples of
what a healthy, loving relationship looks like. And then before
(04:26):
I got married, you know, and I have a history
on television. I literally went on a dating show, which
is a whole other session here, doctor Hillary. But I
believe that I was a securely attached woman when my
ex husband and I met. I had a very healthy
outlook on relationships and what they should be like. And
somewhere along the way I became a very anxiously attached woman.
(04:51):
I clung to a marriage on hands and knees some days,
and I don't know now looking back anxious attachment that
was triggered at the time. But it's so funny because
I have done a DSM five since and I have
been evaluated, and I actually scored really well. My anxiety
(05:11):
and my CPTSD is significantly lower. I'm no longer living
in a fight or flight, but that I also, again,
several years after my divorce, tested as a securely attached woman.
But sometimes I wonder what is still broken because I
haven't I don't know that I know what a healthy
relationship looks like. So I'll let you take it.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Yeah, We've brought up so many important, nuanced issues that
I'm really happy I have a chance to talk about,
which is so two things can be true at the
same time, which is often the case in life. But
in this circumstance, I'm sure it's true that under certain
circumstances and in certain seasons of your life, you are
(05:54):
clearly a securely attached person. You've tested as much, and
you know yourself well enough to sort of endorse that
that has felt true at seasons in your life, and
it sounds like at other seasons it's pivoted, and that
often happens under the umbrella of trauma.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
What I mean is this, if it's true that.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
You came from a family where there was a high conflict, example,
as your primary model for a relationship, a high conflict divorce,
I imagine there was some version of and I'm careful
with this word, but some version of trauma as a
child of divorce parents and witnessing those kind of dynamics, right,
and so you'd be pulled to internalize a more anxious
(06:34):
or avoidant attachment style. It sounds like an intersection of
your own disposition, just like how you came into the
world and the therapeutic work that you have done land
in you in a place of secure attachment at least
having the skill set to show up that way. But
under stress and dress, trauma returns. Trauma responses return sometimes
(06:57):
and we're much more vulnerable to show sort of immersed
in the old patterns that are rooted in trauma. And
so for you, I think both are true that you
can and are securely it can be and are a
securely attached person, but under stress and duress, that old
pull for those old patterns and the things that you
witnessed and saw might show up without you even realizing
(07:18):
it until to your point you're add a fight or flight.
You're odd of your nervous system being so activated that
you then have an opportunity to be outside of your
feelings versus in them.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I really appreciate that, doctor Hillary, because I was afraid
I was going to leave here today and you were
going to diagnose me with borderline personality disorder, severe depression, schizophrenia,
whatever is on the gambit. You know, because there are
times where I have felt like in and I know
this now through a lot, and I've done a lot
of trauma work in particular, that I have felt nuts.
(07:50):
And I do know that women of emotional abuse or
narcissistic abuse, we tend to look at us and go, Okay,
I'm crazy, something is wrong with me. I ended up
in therapy and I kept looking at my going, what's
wrong with me? I am crazy? There's something wrong here,
Please fix me. Something is wrong. And I've done enough
work to know that it's not always me. I'm not
saying that I didn't add too. I am not perfect
(08:14):
by any means, but I do know that I don't
have to carry the responsibility of all of it anymore.
So I am joking when I say that that you
were going to leave here and tell everybody I'm famously available.
That I'm absolutely not tape. But there are pieces for
me to carry. And that is why I have done
so much work and so much therapy on myself. Is
(08:36):
because my goal in life, my prayer to my higher
power is like I want to be a good woman.
I want to be a good mother and eventually a
good partner like I do really want that. I do
really want a great, great love. And the other big piece,
Chuctor Hillary, is I don't want to make the same
(08:57):
mistakes that I have made in the past. I don't
live a life of regret. I obviously have two really beautiful,
wonderful children. There is a reason my husband and I
came together and connected. Sometimes I have a really hard
time finding those but I have two wonderful children. There
(09:20):
is a purpose in life that he and I were
supposed to be together. We were supposed to have these
really great children. And I just believe that there is
something guiding me to different things, and in order to
get to those things, I am a constant work on
myself and refinement because that is the truth. I want
to be better, I want to be healthier. I don't
want to make the same mistakes. I do not want
(09:41):
to dismiss the same red flags and a relationship.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Ever again, yes, I mean it is.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
It may seem paradoxical, but it's a very empowering stance
that you're describing, which is acknowledging that every dynamic is
co created, right, every dynastic, even if all we contributed,
I'm putting, like all we contributed quotes is to stay
longer than we should have. Right, even if that's it,
that's still a dynamic that we bring. Yes, And so
(10:11):
in your circumstance, when a relationship is painful and high
conflict and we have resentment and the history of toxicity,
being able to understand what your part is and what
you created is critical.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
It's not about blame or shame.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
It's about empowerment and self reflection and understanding. So I
really like the way that you're talking about it, and
the really nice thing about where you've arrived. And I
highlighted this earlier, but I think it's so important. It's
one of the keys in my view to psychological health,
which is the ability to be inside the feeling or
outside the feeling. And when you're looking at your therapists
(10:48):
and saying, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Why did I do that? Why did I say that?
What did I show up that way?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
If that's part of what you were conveying, that's you
at that moment inside the feeling. Right, we're angry, we're
we're resent full, we're sad, depressed, whatever the thing is,
we're ashamed, and we show up embodying the feeling. And
when we're in the feeling, it's really hard to make choices.
It's really hard to feel like we have a bunch
of options in terms of how we can show up.
(11:12):
We're just operating from the feeling, and often that's anger,
and then later we may have regretted about how we
showed up the skill of being able to be outside
the feeling, meaning looking at it, acknowledging it, talking about it,
advocating around it. So that doesn't mean we don't say
I don't like the way you're talking to me, I
don't like the way you're treating me. I won't let
you speak to me that way. Right, that's advocacy versus aggression.
(11:36):
So the minute we're outside the feeling, we have all
sorts of choices about how we want to show up
and how we want to communicate, what we need, what
we want, how we want to set boundaries. Inside the feeling,
we almost have no choices other than being led by
this feeling that we don't have any say in. And
so I really like to talk about this difference is
to nuance. But once you deeply understand it and you
(11:59):
have the goal to recognize when you're in and when
you're out.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
When you're in, you.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Can take a pause, you can take a break, you
can come back later after resetting, because we know when
we're in the feeling, we don't usually get anywhere that
feels good. And then we we're outside of the feeling,
we can make a plan for what we want to
do on our own behalf.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Gosh, you said so many nuggets of truth. I have
forgotten at times that we're recording a podcast because I
love therapy. I love therapy, I love the deep dive.
I love to take a hard look at me and
work on the things that I need to work on.
And what came to mind for me when you just
said that is that I have a real problem with perfectionism,
(12:48):
and I don't like for people to view me as
and I'll share some of the words that have been
used against me right difficult that I'm too difficult to
let you know in moments of pain where I didn't
feel like I could stand up for myself because I
didn't want to be too difficult. It was too difficult
(13:10):
to be loved in my marriage because I had an opinion.
And I'm not saying that I always went about my
opinion in the best way. I am a very strong personality.
I am very very passionate about the things that I
do believe in, and I have a real problem with
(13:31):
expecting people to be like me. Like, just to put
it in the dumbest terms, yeah possible. I love really hard.
I am loyal to a fault to myself, a detriment
to myself. I am that loyal. I will go to
the grave for the people that I love. My biggest
(13:53):
moments of joy and happiness was when I was together
with my ex husband and his family, and we were
together and enjoyful and laughing, and at times I chose
them over my own family. I am loyal to a
fault to myself, and what has been really difficult for me,
and a learning experience is that I expected others to
(14:15):
be that way because I was that way. I what's
it called when you put it on someone else? Yes,
I projected that. I projected that I wanted the people
around me to love me and choose me because I
did it at all costs to detriment to myself. And
then when I was viewed as being too difficult or
(14:36):
too challenging to love, I was too scared to speak
up for what I thought was right or my opinion
because I didn't want to be dubbed too difficult, too challenging.
Because there is a lot of beauty in those things.
I am not one to sweep under the rug and
pretend like it's perfect. I'm just not. That's not how
I live life. So in general, for any man that
(14:58):
wants to to jump into a relationship with me or
a dating scenario, that's not who I am. Life to
me is not perfect, and I deal with hard things
and I am willing to face them head on. But
I am not a person who can pretend that hard
things don't happen. HAVE been through a lot of hard
things in my life. I have had to endure some
(15:21):
really difficult things, and it does me personally a disservice
to stuff those I am not a stuffer. I cannot
function that way. But I share all of this with
you because I guess I'm looking for advice when it
comes to relationships and the deepness that I crave. I
do not do surface level well. I am a deep
(15:43):
lover in all relationships and all capacity of my life.
I need that deep connection, that is what I need.
I tend to project that on the other people around
me because I want them to love like I do.
And the truth is not everyone is capable of that.
So I think what I am asking you is, with
(16:05):
that little nuggative truth, what do I do in that scenario?
What am I choosing wrong? Is my picker off? Is
that what's wrong here?
Speaker 4 (16:16):
You know?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Maybe maybe not.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
I think there's sort of a macro theme here and
then like in the weeds of being in a real
relationship and what it's like to show up when you
have conflict or misalignment. So on a macro basis, it
seems like you need to find someone who is interested
in that kind of growth, that kind of expansion, that
(16:39):
a thematic notion of like I'm a person who likes
to think about things, process things, and I consider it
intimate to work through conflict with my partner, Like you
should find someone who has an interest around that, a
language around that, an ability.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
You were doctor Hillary, I should.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Well, I mean, because I mean look at if we
get unemotional about it an objective. We can even say
that it's not about right or wrong or good or bad.
Maybe your way isn't right and another guy's way of
like I don't like to do those things. I like
to kind of skate on the surface. We don't have
to call it right or wrong, but they should be
somewhat aligned. You should have sort of a mutual goal
(17:21):
of like, yes, that's something, that's a language I'm interested in,
that's something I'm looking for. Is that kind of depth,
that kind of intimacy, that kind of passion, Because certainly,
in my experience from a clinical standpoint, when you have
a relationship that that includes those aspects, it's intimacy building.
It's bonding to be able to work through hard things
and share vulnerable feelings and get to know your partners
(17:43):
like pain points and care about them. Not everyone wants
to have relationships like that. But if you do, you
want at least find someone that's up for that or
interested in it.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Man, I'm going to reapt you real quick because I
like that that's the way that you labeled it, and
I just have this like epiphany believe that is what
I crave, is the emotional intimacy in a relationship. And
I've never used those words to describe it that way,
but I think you hit the nail on the head.
That's what I want. I want emotional intimacy.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
People don't often conceptualize working through conflict and difficulty as that,
but as a couple's therapist, when you guide and support
couples to work through hard things in like a caring,
invested way, even when it's conflictual and painful, when they
come out the other end, it's intimacy building, it's bonding,
(18:36):
and it's lovely. I mean, that kind of depth can
be reached myriad of ways, but that's certainly one of them.
And if that resonates with you, it's good to know,
and it's a good way to be able to talk
about it and like put words to it when you
get into that relationship, when you have a candidate that's
at least somewhere like in the ballpark of interest and
emotional intimacy a couple of things one and you already
(18:58):
acknowledge this. It doesn't have to look like your version
of emotional intimacy. You have to broker something that mutually resonates, right,
And we'll get into that. But it's a good thing
to know about yourself that if you look for it
to be exactly like how you do it, that might
get you in trouble because people have different ways to
(19:18):
get there and different needs to have and seek support
to get there, and so the goal of emotional intimacy
can be reached a plethora of ways, and so being
open to how you get there versus how a partner
gets there and kind of co creating something that works
for both. And I want to say this to allude
to some of the things you brought up, which is
that you know it's all in my view about the messaging, right,
(19:44):
and so your interest in not sweeping things under the
rug and calling things out and being truthful about your
emotions and a relationship, I think is an appropriate way
to move through relationships in general. Unless two people agree
like that's just not how we're going to do it,
and that's good for us. But in general, that is
my recommendation because the more we suppress, the more we
(20:07):
have symptoms, and symptoms in a relationship look like disconnection,
lack of intimacy, agitation, irritation, disconnection, all the things right,
And so the more we suppress, there.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Is going to be emotional rent to pay it.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Just this.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
And so if you suppress, like it sounds like you
did at some point in your previous relationship.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I never never suppressed. Maybe that's wrong.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Well it comes out some other way. So either you're
you're not curating how you're you're communicating it and it's
hard to digest, or one is suppressing and there's symptoms
that arise.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
So you have to figure out.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
A delivery system that works right, that is that is
digestible to the other. And I think that's where we
can get creative and have a lot of growth. Is
that I often say in my own relationships with my
own young children, you know my message is on point,
you know my delivery might have been off that time, right,
And so the message is something we want to be
(21:09):
deeply you know, committed to invested in precious sacred with right,
but how we deliver it. We should co create what
works for our partner. Is there a certain tone that
doesn't feel supportive? Is there a certain time of day
that feels like it's too overwhelming? Is there a way
to move into a conversation about someone like asking them
(21:30):
if they're available for a hard time that gets them
more grounded?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Right?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
That we should try to broker and negotiate. How do
you want to have a conversation that's tricky? And that
doesn't mean we adhere to everything our partner asks for
and barry who we are, but we should be in
the business of like brokering, negotiating and co creating something
that works. And in the absence of that, I often
see couples sort of like, you know, intense misalignment. They're
(21:58):
just like missing each other constantly because the delivery system
that tell them the words, the approach that they're using
to communicate what's happening with them is not resonant, is
not digestible.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
It's been jumping back in here. This conversation with doctor
Hillary and Deanna is getting really good. But I think
this is the perfect place for us to take a
pause and we'll come back for more very soon.
iHeart podcasts, bring you the ultimate Summer of love Tree.
This is famously Available. Welcome back to Famously Available. I'm
your host, Ben Higgins, and this week I decided to
enlist some professional help for our famously available gal Dianna.
After that date didn't go so well. I'm bringing in
(00:21):
psychologist doctor Hillary gold Shure to go in deep with Diana.
Doctor Hillary does in depth work in the arena of relationships,
guiding couples and individuals in all seasons of life such
as premarital, married, separated, divorce, and high conflict divorce. I've
(00:43):
raved about my own experience with therapy, especially after a breakup,
so I think this will be really good for Deanna.
So ladies take it away.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Hi, doctor Hillary, I'm Deanna. Thanks for coming in today.
I'm here for you to fix me, heal me, and
and make me better.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
If I could do that in one therapy session, I
would be an incredibly sought after therapist.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
But I will do my best under the circumstances.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
So I am a licensed clinical psychologist, and I am
an expert in relationships stuff, and one of my areas
of expertise in particular is divorce and high conflict, divorces,
and co parenting, and so it may or may not
be relevant.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You'll have to tell me be relevant, doctor Hillary. So
under that.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Umbrella, of course, is often the world of dating and
the unfolding of a new season of relationships in the
after marriage. I like to call it the period of
time when someone is divorced. So it sounds like, from
what I understand, you are square in the middle of
that trajectory.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I was having this thought this morning. I was just
running through much of my morning and I was thinking, like,
when I talked to you, I was really scared that
you were gonna be like, Okay, well you're not healed.
You don't need to date, you don't need to do
these things. And I listen. I'm an advocate for therapy.
I believe in therapy. I believe in all of the
help that you can possibly get. I'm in therapy right
(02:13):
now and have been over the years. So I don't
believe that healing just happens that one day you wake
up and you're cured because you've done eight sessions with therapists, right.
I believe that healing is a life situation that we
are currently being refined to be our best selves, and
that is a goal of mine and always has been.
But I started running through just kind of my dating
(02:37):
history in my own brain this morning as I was
looking at have I ever really had an example of
a healthy relationship? And I don't think that I have,
Doctor Hillary. My parents divorced when I was really young,
and I would say that they were absolutely high conflict.
So one of the few things that it taught me
is what I don't want to be for my own children.
(03:00):
Oddly enough, my ex husband and I are high conflict.
We are not friends. I have a lot of bitterness, resentment,
and hatred towards him. And it was so interesting because
when we were divorcing, even though it wasn't something that
I asked for, I had that mental note that, like,
I don't want to do to my children what my
(03:22):
parents did to me. So you know, I work really
hard at not speaking negatively about their father, because the
truth is our marriage ended, we are no longer together,
and I may have my own feelings and some of
those can be valid and not, but the truth is
my children deserve to have their father and love their father.
That's what they get. I don't want them to carry
(03:43):
the burden of the unhealth that took place within myself
or with him or within our marriage. So I have
really worked very hard. And people don't talk about that
co parenting with someone that you absolutely hate, you know
what I mean, or how difficult that is with the
history between us and stuff. So long story short, I
(04:04):
started running through the gamut in my own head of relationships.
My parents divorced when I was very young, and it
was very toxic. I watched them fight a lot. I
have dated throughout my life. I am no spring chicken.
I am forty three years old, and I started looking
at some of the relationships that I have been in,
and I don't know that they were good examples of
what a healthy, loving relationship looks like. And then before
(04:26):
I got married, you know, and I have a history
on television. I literally went on a dating show, which
is a whole other session here, doctor Hillary. But I
believe that I was a securely attached woman when my
ex husband and I met. I had a very healthy
outlook on relationships and what they should be like. And
somewhere along the way I became a very anxiously attached woman.
(04:51):
I clung to a marriage on hands and knees some days,
and I don't know now looking back anxious attachment that
was triggered at the time. But it's so funny because
I have done a DSM five since and I have
been evaluated, and I actually scored really well. My anxiety
(05:11):
and my CPTSD is significantly lower. I'm no longer living
in a fight or flight, but that I also, again,
several years after my divorce, tested as a securely attached woman.
But sometimes I wonder what is still broken because I
haven't I don't know that I know what a healthy
relationship looks like. So I'll let you take it.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Yeah, We've brought up so many important, nuanced issues that
I'm really happy I have a chance to talk about,
which is so two things can be true at the
same time, which is often the case in life. But
in this circumstance, I'm sure it's true that under certain
circumstances and in certain seasons of your life, you are
(05:54):
clearly a securely attached person. You've tested as much, and
you know yourself well enough to sort of endorse that
that has felt true at seasons in your life, and
it sounds like at other seasons it's pivoted, and that
often happens under the umbrella of trauma.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
What I mean is this, if it's true that.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
You came from a family where there was a high conflict, example,
as your primary model for a relationship, a high conflict divorce,
I imagine there was some version of and I'm careful
with this word, but some version of trauma as a
child of divorce parents and witnessing those kind of dynamics, right,
and so you'd be pulled to internalize a more anxious
(06:34):
or avoidant attachment style. It sounds like an intersection of
your own disposition, just like how you came into the
world and the therapeutic work that you have done land
in you in a place of secure attachment at least
having the skill set to show up that way. But
under stress and dress, trauma returns. Trauma responses return sometimes
(06:57):
and we're much more vulnerable to show sort of immersed
in the old patterns that are rooted in trauma. And
so for you, I think both are true that you
can and are securely it can be and are a
securely attached person, but under stress and duress, that old
pull for those old patterns and the things that you
witnessed and saw might show up without you even realizing
(07:18):
it until to your point you're add a fight or flight.
You're odd of your nervous system being so activated that
you then have an opportunity to be outside of your
feelings versus in them.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I really appreciate that, doctor Hillary, because I was afraid
I was going to leave here today and you were
going to diagnose me with borderline personality disorder, severe depression, schizophrenia,
whatever is on the gambit. You know, because there are
times where I have felt like in and I know
this now through a lot, and I've done a lot
of trauma work in particular, that I have felt nuts.
(07:50):
And I do know that women of emotional abuse or
narcissistic abuse, we tend to look at us and go, Okay,
I'm crazy, something is wrong with me. I ended up
in therapy and I kept looking at my going, what's
wrong with me? I am crazy? There's something wrong here,
Please fix me. Something is wrong. And I've done enough
work to know that it's not always me. I'm not
saying that I didn't add too. I am not perfect
(08:14):
by any means, but I do know that I don't
have to carry the responsibility of all of it anymore.
So I am joking when I say that that you
were going to leave here and tell everybody I'm famously available.
That I'm absolutely not tape. But there are pieces for
me to carry. And that is why I have done
so much work and so much therapy on myself. Is
(08:36):
because my goal in life, my prayer to my higher
power is like I want to be a good woman.
I want to be a good mother and eventually a
good partner like I do really want that. I do
really want a great, great love. And the other big piece,
Chuctor Hillary, is I don't want to make the same
(08:57):
mistakes that I have made in the past. I don't
live a life of regret. I obviously have two really beautiful,
wonderful children. There is a reason my husband and I
came together and connected. Sometimes I have a really hard
time finding those but I have two wonderful children. There
(09:20):
is a purpose in life that he and I were
supposed to be together. We were supposed to have these
really great children. And I just believe that there is
something guiding me to different things, and in order to
get to those things, I am a constant work on
myself and refinement because that is the truth. I want
to be better, I want to be healthier. I don't
want to make the same mistakes. I do not want
(09:41):
to dismiss the same red flags and a relationship.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Ever again, yes, I mean it is.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
It may seem paradoxical, but it's a very empowering stance
that you're describing, which is acknowledging that every dynamic is
co created, right, every dynastic, even if all we contributed,
I'm putting, like all we contributed quotes is to stay
longer than we should have. Right, even if that's it,
that's still a dynamic that we bring. Yes, And so
(10:11):
in your circumstance, when a relationship is painful and high
conflict and we have resentment and the history of toxicity,
being able to understand what your part is and what
you created is critical.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
It's not about blame or shame.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
It's about empowerment and self reflection and understanding. So I
really like the way that you're talking about it, and
the really nice thing about where you've arrived. And I
highlighted this earlier, but I think it's so important. It's
one of the keys in my view to psychological health,
which is the ability to be inside the feeling or
outside the feeling. And when you're looking at your therapists
(10:48):
and saying, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Why did I do that? Why did I say that?
What did I show up that way?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
If that's part of what you were conveying, that's you
at that moment inside the feeling. Right, we're angry, we're
we're resent full, we're sad, depressed, whatever the thing is,
we're ashamed, and we show up embodying the feeling. And
when we're in the feeling, it's really hard to make choices.
It's really hard to feel like we have a bunch
of options in terms of how we can show up.
(11:12):
We're just operating from the feeling, and often that's anger,
and then later we may have regretted about how we
showed up the skill of being able to be outside
the feeling, meaning looking at it, acknowledging it, talking about it,
advocating around it. So that doesn't mean we don't say
I don't like the way you're talking to me, I
don't like the way you're treating me. I won't let
you speak to me that way. Right, that's advocacy versus aggression.
(11:36):
So the minute we're outside the feeling, we have all
sorts of choices about how we want to show up
and how we want to communicate, what we need, what
we want, how we want to set boundaries. Inside the feeling,
we almost have no choices other than being led by
this feeling that we don't have any say in. And
so I really like to talk about this difference is
to nuance. But once you deeply understand it and you
(11:59):
have the goal to recognize when you're in and when
you're out.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
When you're in, you.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Can take a pause, you can take a break, you
can come back later after resetting, because we know when
we're in the feeling, we don't usually get anywhere that
feels good. And then we we're outside of the feeling,
we can make a plan for what we want to
do on our own behalf.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Gosh, you said so many nuggets of truth. I have
forgotten at times that we're recording a podcast because I
love therapy. I love therapy, I love the deep dive.
I love to take a hard look at me and
work on the things that I need to work on.
And what came to mind for me when you just
said that is that I have a real problem with perfectionism,
(12:48):
and I don't like for people to view me as
and I'll share some of the words that have been
used against me right difficult that I'm too difficult to
let you know in moments of pain where I didn't
feel like I could stand up for myself because I
didn't want to be too difficult. It was too difficult
(13:10):
to be loved in my marriage because I had an opinion.
And I'm not saying that I always went about my
opinion in the best way. I am a very strong personality.
I am very very passionate about the things that I
do believe in, and I have a real problem with
(13:31):
expecting people to be like me. Like, just to put
it in the dumbest terms, yeah possible. I love really hard.
I am loyal to a fault to myself, a detriment
to myself. I am that loyal. I will go to
the grave for the people that I love. My biggest
(13:53):
moments of joy and happiness was when I was together
with my ex husband and his family, and we were
together and enjoyful and laughing, and at times I chose
them over my own family. I am loyal to a
fault to myself, and what has been really difficult for me,
and a learning experience is that I expected others to
(14:15):
be that way because I was that way. I what's
it called when you put it on someone else? Yes,
I projected that. I projected that I wanted the people
around me to love me and choose me because I
did it at all costs to detriment to myself. And
then when I was viewed as being too difficult or
(14:36):
too challenging to love, I was too scared to speak
up for what I thought was right or my opinion
because I didn't want to be dubbed too difficult, too challenging.
Because there is a lot of beauty in those things.
I am not one to sweep under the rug and
pretend like it's perfect. I'm just not. That's not how
I live life. So in general, for any man that
(14:58):
wants to to jump into a relationship with me or
a dating scenario, that's not who I am. Life to
me is not perfect, and I deal with hard things
and I am willing to face them head on. But
I am not a person who can pretend that hard
things don't happen. HAVE been through a lot of hard
things in my life. I have had to endure some
(15:21):
really difficult things, and it does me personally a disservice
to stuff those I am not a stuffer. I cannot
function that way. But I share all of this with
you because I guess I'm looking for advice when it
comes to relationships and the deepness that I crave. I
do not do surface level well. I am a deep
(15:43):
lover in all relationships and all capacity of my life.
I need that deep connection, that is what I need.
I tend to project that on the other people around
me because I want them to love like I do.
And the truth is not everyone is capable of that.
So I think what I am asking you is, with
(16:05):
that little nuggative truth, what do I do in that scenario?
What am I choosing wrong? Is my picker off? Is
that what's wrong here?
Speaker 4 (16:16):
You know?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Maybe maybe not.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
I think there's sort of a macro theme here and
then like in the weeds of being in a real
relationship and what it's like to show up when you
have conflict or misalignment. So on a macro basis, it
seems like you need to find someone who is interested
in that kind of growth, that kind of expansion, that
(16:39):
a thematic notion of like I'm a person who likes
to think about things, process things, and I consider it
intimate to work through conflict with my partner, Like you
should find someone who has an interest around that, a
language around that, an ability.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
You were doctor Hillary, I should.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Well, I mean, because I mean look at if we
get unemotional about it an objective. We can even say
that it's not about right or wrong or good or bad.
Maybe your way isn't right and another guy's way of
like I don't like to do those things. I like
to kind of skate on the surface. We don't have
to call it right or wrong, but they should be
somewhat aligned. You should have sort of a mutual goal
(17:21):
of like, yes, that's something, that's a language I'm interested in,
that's something I'm looking for. Is that kind of depth,
that kind of intimacy, that kind of passion, Because certainly,
in my experience from a clinical standpoint, when you have
a relationship that that includes those aspects, it's intimacy building.
It's bonding to be able to work through hard things
and share vulnerable feelings and get to know your partners
(17:43):
like pain points and care about them. Not everyone wants
to have relationships like that. But if you do, you
want at least find someone that's up for that or
interested in it.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Man, I'm going to reapt you real quick because I
like that that's the way that you labeled it, and
I just have this like epiphany believe that is what
I crave, is the emotional intimacy in a relationship. And
I've never used those words to describe it that way,
but I think you hit the nail on the head.
That's what I want. I want emotional intimacy.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
People don't often conceptualize working through conflict and difficulty as that,
but as a couple's therapist, when you guide and support
couples to work through hard things in like a caring,
invested way, even when it's conflictual and painful, when they
come out the other end, it's intimacy building, it's bonding,
(18:36):
and it's lovely. I mean, that kind of depth can
be reached myriad of ways, but that's certainly one of them.
And if that resonates with you, it's good to know,
and it's a good way to be able to talk
about it and like put words to it when you
get into that relationship, when you have a candidate that's
at least somewhere like in the ballpark of interest and
emotional intimacy a couple of things one and you already
(18:58):
acknowledge this. It doesn't have to look like your version
of emotional intimacy. You have to broker something that mutually resonates, right,
And we'll get into that. But it's a good thing
to know about yourself that if you look for it
to be exactly like how you do it, that might
get you in trouble because people have different ways to
(19:18):
get there and different needs to have and seek support
to get there, and so the goal of emotional intimacy
can be reached a plethora of ways, and so being
open to how you get there versus how a partner
gets there and kind of co creating something that works
for both. And I want to say this to allude
to some of the things you brought up, which is
that you know it's all in my view about the messaging, right,
(19:44):
and so your interest in not sweeping things under the
rug and calling things out and being truthful about your
emotions and a relationship, I think is an appropriate way
to move through relationships in general. Unless two people agree
like that's just not how we're going to do it,
and that's good for us. But in general, that is
my recommendation because the more we suppress, the more we
(20:07):
have symptoms, and symptoms in a relationship look like disconnection,
lack of intimacy, agitation, irritation, disconnection, all the things right,
And so the more we suppress, there.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Is going to be emotional rent to pay it.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Just this.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
And so if you suppress, like it sounds like you
did at some point in your previous relationship.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I never never suppressed. Maybe that's wrong.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Well it comes out some other way. So either you're
you're not curating how you're you're communicating it and it's
hard to digest, or one is suppressing and there's symptoms
that arise.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
So you have to figure out.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
A delivery system that works right, that is that is
digestible to the other. And I think that's where we
can get creative and have a lot of growth. Is
that I often say in my own relationships with my
own young children, you know my message is on point,
you know my delivery might have been off that time, right,
And so the message is something we want to be
(21:09):
deeply you know, committed to invested in precious sacred with right,
but how we deliver it. We should co create what
works for our partner. Is there a certain tone that
doesn't feel supportive? Is there a certain time of day
that feels like it's too overwhelming? Is there a way
to move into a conversation about someone like asking them
(21:30):
if they're available for a hard time that gets them
more grounded?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Right?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
That we should try to broker and negotiate. How do
you want to have a conversation that's tricky? And that
doesn't mean we adhere to everything our partner asks for
and barry who we are, but we should be in
the business of like brokering, negotiating and co creating something
that works. And in the absence of that, I often
see couples sort of like, you know, intense misalignment. They're
(21:58):
just like missing each other constantly because the delivery system
that tell them the words, the approach that they're using
to communicate what's happening with them is not resonant, is
not digestible.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
It's been jumping back in here. This conversation with doctor
Hillary and Deanna is getting really good. But I think
this is the perfect place for us to take a
pause and we'll come back for more very soon.
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Lauren Zima
Chris Harrison
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