August 24, 2022 • 30 mins
Ending a relationship can be a difficult process at its best, or a painful experience at its worse. This week’s callers discuss the difficulties in their relationships, from cheating to violating boundaries and the challenges in breaking up. Iyanla guides her callers to “know what they know” and do what’s right for them.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I am a Yamla. I've been very open about the
fact that I was not always good at making my
relationships work. I have been divorced three times, twice from
the same person. In other words, I have seen a
lot and failed a lot in my relationships. So I
am here to share with you what I learned along
(00:24):
the way because I did take copious notes. Welcome to
the Our Spot, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with I Heart Radio. People come into your life for
(00:49):
a reason, a season, or a lifetime. This means that
some relationships have been formed for a specific reason. Perhaps
you need to learn, earn something, or heal through something,
or grow through something as a result of the relationship itself.
So today I want to talk about relationships that come
(01:10):
to an end, whether it's an abrupt end or a
slow death process, breaking up, leaving, exiting a loving relationship,
what I call a love ship. It's hard to do. Now,
it doesn't have to be hard, but in more cases
than not, it is difficult, at best devastating in many cases.
(01:33):
Today I want to discuss why. So let's start right here.
Let's talk about it. Let's talk about a letter. Then
I received that comes from a woman named Pam. Hi, Pam,
Welcome to the Ourtspot. Today. We're talking about breaking up
being hard to do, and as I read your letter,
(01:55):
I would say, I, yeah, it's been hard, but I
thank you for your letter because it speaks to everything
we need to examine in today's topic. So tell me
a little bit about your relationship and start with your
love story. What is your love story that brought you
and your almost ex husband together in the first place.
(02:19):
So we were twenty four, Um, we met out hanging out.
I don't know, it was just an instant connection that
we had, you know, while dating, though you know we did.
There were some it was some initial some signs, Yes,
(02:41):
some signs. The signs were definitely there. Tell me about that.
Tell me about the signs. What were that? Well, you know,
with some initial deception in the relationship, you know, I
would say that, um, our foundation, you know and how
we started wasn't the greatest. And I think we built
(03:05):
on a shaky foundation. So if you were connected and
you had things in common, talk to me about what
was in the foundation or what was not in the foundation. So,
like I said, it was, the love was there, the
connection was there. But you know, there was some serious
(03:26):
deception there in the beginning of the relationship that I
think put a crack in the bond that we had
established right before you got married or after you got
married before. But because we loved each other, um, and
because I had been in a similar situation to this
(03:49):
particular one before and I chose to leave that relationship.
And then when I met him and went through the
same thing, I was like, well, maybe that's not the
right thing, that maybe maybe I should just hang in
there because I know I love him, and that's what
I did. So fast forward. Um, we were twenty four.
(04:10):
We dated for about five or six years, UM, and
then we we got married. And it was right after
the marriage was that I didn't learn the details of
the deception, additional details regarding the deception right that he
(04:30):
didn't convey before. So that was very, very hurtful. But again, um,
when you love a person and you want to be
with them and they want to be with you, you know,
your heart tells you to do things, but your mind
is sometimes telling you something else. But a lot of times,
(04:51):
as women, because we're emotional creatures, we live with our
hearts and that's what I did, ms Pam. I want
to give you an opportunity to reverse that, because you see,
the mind will lie to you. The mind will give
you all manner of reasons and excuses and rationales and suppositions.
(05:11):
But it's the heart that speaks to two. I sense
that very often people in general will blame the heart
for what their mind is telling them. Your heart probably
said run run for your life, and your mind says, well,
he's my husband and we love each other and etcetera, etcetera. Yes,
(05:33):
I also want to offer you this proposition. If you
want to know the end, look at the beginning. So
what I hear you saying is that there was deception
in the beginning of the relationship that created a crack
in the foundation. Okay, so here we are now at
the end and this thing hits you. And I'm assuming
(05:55):
that the deception you're speaking about had to do an
infidelity is accument. Yes, how long had that relationship been
going on when you found out about it? About two years?
And that wasn't the first one, wasn't. No, that was
the one I could prove prove how it was sent
(06:16):
to me? What was sent to you? A message and
explicit videos. Wow, I am really sorry about that. Yeah.
And when I say as a woman and as a wife, um,
what I received, no woman should ever No woman first
(06:39):
of all, should ever receive that, And no woman should
ever have to see their husband in that manner. Psychologically,
we're not made up that way to see that to
really be able to handle it. You know, at least
I wasn't. What's the distinction you make between knowing it
(06:59):
and seeing it? Because you knew but you hadn't seen it.
What's the distinction that you make? Knowing is one thing,
but when you see it, it's a visual. Okay, miss Pam,
I want you to own that. When I saw it,
right when I saw it, the visual was it was traumatizing.
(07:23):
So when you know something, it's not necessarily when I
knew something, because you are still externalizing this. I know,
Mr y'aller because I have been so closed off and
shut down. That's why I'm speaking about it externally because
it's really hard to internalize. The breakup will not happen
(07:47):
until you internalize it. Until then you will continue to
re traumatize yourself. Yeah, you've got to own it. Work
with this, my beloved, Knowing wasn't enough because repeat that,
knowing wasn't enough because I couldn't I couldn't prove it's right.
(08:15):
So you see indications, you see clues, you see I saw,
I saw, I saw. Okay, I got you, now I
got you. It wasn't anything that I did not see.
I saw cards, I saw letters, I saw pictures, I
saw explicit texts. Why wasn't that enough to let go?
(08:39):
Because again, it could be explained away. Not that even
the explanations made any sense. But I think for me
and I'm I'm gonna be real here. I was in
a sense of denial, like I didn't want to let
go of the family that I we had created. Why
(09:02):
and and to ask myself, why didn't I leave? It
is a dumb question. I was holding onto my family unit.
Oh no, you were holding onto the image that you
had created in your mind. And that's normal, not natural,
but it is normal. You know what else, my beloved,
(09:24):
it was familiar. You had been there before and made
up your mind. I'm not gonna walk away this time.
I'm gonna stick it out. You see, when we have
the image of what we think it is or what
we wanted to be, we just have a hard time saying, oops,
(09:45):
I was wrong. I made a mistake. And that's what
makes breaking up so hard to do. So what do
we do now? We'll talk about that right after this
break Welcome back to the our spot. We are continuing
(10:08):
our conversation about breaking up leaving a relationship. When you
are breaking up, there must be a consequence for the
behavior identified, and there must be clear boundaries that then
create the game changes or the you know, the bottom lines.
I got remorse, I got the ecology, I got flowers, candy, gifts,
(10:34):
all that. But what I didn't get was what I wanted.
I wanted the accountability. I wanted him to say, what
can I do to change this? What can I do
to make it better? How can we work together to
try to get through this situation? And I never heard
(10:55):
those words. It sounds to me like perhaps at beginning
with the deception in the foundation, you didn't have a
clear deal breakup. Would that be accurate? M h, that's
what you call boundaries. See, there are two things I
never tolerated in a relationship, and I tolerated some other
(11:18):
crazy stuff, but one thing was cheating and the other
thing was messing with my money. Don't mess with my money.
You are gone. Don't put your hand in my checking account,
don't be digging around in my purse. Those are deal
breakers for me. And then you cheat, You're gone. You
mess with my money, I'm out. So I'll tell you
(11:40):
the kind of woman I am. I had just had
my daughter. She was about six weeks old, and I
was at home with her. My two older children were
in school when the doorbell rang, maybe about one o'clock
in the afternoon. So I go to the door and
there are these two women, one older, one younger. When
I opened the door, they asked me my name, and
(12:01):
they introduced themselves, tell me who they were. Then the
older woman said to me, this is my daughter, and
we're here to find out when you are going to
let let me just give you a name, Uh, Franklin.
When you're gonna let Franklin go. We're planning his marriage
to my daughter, but he says, you won't sign the
(12:23):
divorce papers. So this woman brought her daughter to my
house to ask me when I was going to sign
the divorce papers so that her daughter could marry my husband.
But like I said, I don't tolerate cheating. So on
that bright Sunday afternoon. You know what I did. I said,
(12:46):
wait a minute, and I went back in my house
and I went to the closet. I took all of
his clothes and put them in one of those big
black trash bags. Everything I took him out of the closet,
the drawers, everything, even the wet auntry I had hanging
on the line. I pulled that in and put it
in the bag. And I carried those bags to the
front door. I said, here, here's all this closed. Then
(13:08):
I said, wait a minute. I went back inside and
I got Lady, the German shepherd. I put her leash on.
I took her to the door, and I said, here,
take the dog too. I told you I got deal breakers,
and this was my husband and I had a six
week old baby. You want him, you got him. I
gave them all of his clothes and the dog. That's
(13:32):
how you have a deal breaker, and you hold it.
But how many of us women are taught to establish
those early in the relationship. I never established boundaries. Who
taught you how beloved? No one you didn't know. And
it's unloving to ask yourself to do something you don't
(13:53):
know how to do. It's unloving. You didn't know not
to blame anybody because the people who didn't know how
to do it couldn't teach you how to do it.
So many of us don't have boundaries. The other thing
is so many of us, as women, go into relationships
and marriage without clear deal breakers. You've got to have
(14:16):
your deal breakers at the beginning, and by the time
you realize, oh damn, this isn't working. So many deals
have been broken you can't even figure out which one
is the real one, which is the most horrible one. Yeah,
that's exactly what happened. We go into relationships and by
the time they blow up, like you said, you're traumatized.
(14:38):
I am, But it's a blessing. Here's the lesson. The
universe is saying to you, know what you know, even
without evidence, the cards, the pictures, the text, the letters.
You say it wasn't evidence. I don't know how much
more evidence you want or need. So what what's next?
(15:01):
The video? The video was the most reasonable thing. What
else was going to happen? You were going to walk
into in a living room? The universe was teaching you something, beloved,
know what you know? It's your bad behavior too. If
you clean up your bad behavior, he will disappear. But
(15:23):
I don't know how to get there. Right now, you
are all vibrating at the same place. His bad behavior
was about his bad behavior. Your bad behavior was about
ignoring his bad behavior. So I want to send you
or give you a copy of Forgiveness forty Days to
(15:44):
forgive everyone for everything, And I want you to do
the work in that book. I want to say thank you,
and I want you to know how much I really
love you. I appreciate you, and I appreciate you being
so willing to work on your out. And if you
are a g c C member, a Global Community Connection member,
(16:04):
you've got a lot of information. You have to go
back and do some of that work. And then in
ninety days, I want you to write me and let
me know where you are. Oh yes, ma'am, I will definitely.
When you are leaving a relationship where there's money or
(16:25):
property or children involved, chances are you are going to
need some outside support, a third party, a mediator, an attorney,
even a minister or a counselor who can help you
sort through the rubble. And I know in some cases
people think they cannot afford the support they need. But
there is always away, there's legal aid, there's a friend
(16:51):
of a friend who has some experience in this area.
The point is, when it comes to leaving and asking
for what you want, you may need some help. So
be open to asking for it, be open to compromising
on your requests, and if the third party is not
(17:11):
being cooperative, step to the left and get someone involved
who can advocate on your bath. Oh lord, leaving isn't easy.
Breaking up is so hard to do, and we haven't
even scratched the surface of the challenges, the difficulties, the
ins and outs of getting out. In fact, in all relationships,
(17:36):
boundaries are absolutely essential because boundaries are the way that
you demonstrate respect, not only for yourself but for the
other person. Boundaries are the way that you keep yourself
safe and teach the other person what they can expect
from you and what you can expect from them. Now,
(17:58):
here's the problem with bad counties. Most people create a
boundary and if someone crosses the boundary, they back up
and draw another line. Well, that is very unhelpful. The
other problem with boundaries is we fail to create a
consequence for violation of the boundary. And my next caller
(18:20):
is learning all about boundaries. We'll talk to her when
we come back. Welcome back to the our Spot. We
are continuing our conversation about how to set boundaries, how
(18:42):
to hold the boundary, and how to enact the consequence
for violation of a boundary. But more important, she's learning
why she has to do it. Greetings beloved, Welcome to
the our Spot. How are you today? How are you?
Thank you? Thank you, thank you for calling today. Thank you.
(19:06):
And here at the our Spot we discuss all issues
related to relationships. So what is your issue, challenge, problem,
concern that we can dive into to that. Okay, So
my concern is that I have a my child father
is an alcoholic and I would like for my child
(19:27):
to know him. But I think I just need some
assistance on like how to set boundaries with like keeping
her safe, keeping her emotionally safe, and just everything that
comes along with the alcoholic, because um, I don't want
to come off as bitter and just keep her away
from him because I want to keep her safe, I
just don't know how to maneuver with She's my only child. Again,
(19:50):
I thank you for calling in and let me make
sure I've got this. You have a child that is
how old? Nineteen months? And you want the child to
be in a relationship with her father, but you're concerned
about whether or not she is safe with them. Okay.
So has he always been an alcoholic? He always has been,
(20:13):
and I was one before her. Well, when I had her,
I stopped drinking and he kept drinking. Okay, So you
have a shared history today and my hearing that you
don't live together, we don't. Okay, good? And what is
his current relationship like with her? He has one. He
will do that to get to me, like he really
(20:35):
wants to be with me, but it's like he almost
tries to use it, like he doesn't support her financially.
I do everything for her. And it's like if if
I would allow him to be in a relationship with me,
then he would do those things. So he sort of that,
he kind of like he will try to use our
relationships and like he doesn't really necessarily have a relationship
(20:56):
with her, But when we don't talk, he like, well
when am I going to see her? You never see here?
So I just I don't know, all right, So let's
handle some basics here. The basic is alcoholism is a disease.
So when you are dealing with him, you have to
deal with him knowing that he is not well. I'm
(21:19):
overly compassionate for him, and then I'll give him passes
for things. Compassion is not about giving him a pass.
Sympathy is about giving him a pass. Compassion is about
the elimination of his suffering, the elimination of your suffering,
and the elimination probably of your daughter suffering. And nothing
(21:42):
is going to cause her greater suffering than to see
her father in the height of his illness. He wants
to be with you, So we're going to separate that
out because I'm thinking and hearing that your relationship to
him is over. Okay, all right, so that's clear. So
(22:04):
then you're dealing with your daughter's father period. There's no
discussion about your relationship with him, and what do you
want to see in that relationship. I just want to
see them able to interact. I want to see him
want to have a relationship with her and not focus
so much on me, but focus on her, and not
(22:26):
in exciteful way. Well beloved, it's unloving to ask someone
to do something that they cannot do. That's a very
unloving thing. You're asking an alcoholic to make rational decisions
and behave in a responsible way. That is not going
to happen. Okay, you said a keyword early in your communication.
(22:51):
You said boundaries. So what are the current boundaries that
you have with him? I don't really have any, that's
the problem. So let's start with some boundaries. What is
the first boundary that you would like to create with him?
(23:11):
And I have a little voice, so I instantly you
just sit down and just like whatever, he's like a
roaring lion, like that's how he is. Yeah, well, you've
got to put that in check and let him know.
I'm asking you not to speak to me in that way,
and if you do, I will end the communication. Whether
(23:32):
you hang up the phone or walk away, you've got
to announce this. So the first boundary is how he
speaks to you. That's number one. That doesn't have anything
to do with your daughter. That has to do with
the fact that you are your daughter's mother, and there's
a way that you can receive people. But chances are
(23:54):
he's going to violate that boundary and then there must
be a consequence. Okay, I'm going to walk away or
hang up. I want you to know that there's a
consequence to how you speak to me and how you behave.
See when you first announced the boundary and you tell
him the consequence, trust me, he is going to violate it.
(24:18):
So the next time he speaks to you, he'll probably
yell or curse or whatever. That's when you say to him, Remember,
I asked you not to speak to me like that.
I told you. If you do, I'm going to walk away,
or I'm going to hang up the phone. I'm going
to end the communication. So you're doing it right now again,
(24:40):
I'm going to ask you to stop. That's how you
hold the boundary and how long do I hold it?
How long do I with Well, I'm not asking you
to withhold conversations because you may hang up. He might
call you right back. That's when you say, I have
asked you not to yell at me. You're yelling, So
(25:01):
I'm not going to take any more calls from you today.
Call me back when you can speak to me without
yelling or cursing or whatever. But you are announcing the boundary.
You are making it clear. I've asked you not to
speak to me in that way. If you do, here's
the consequence. Because you have violated a boundary. You see,
(25:25):
you can have another conversation with him later on, but
right now a boundary has been violated. A consequence must
be enacted, because a boundary without a consequence just doesn't
work right. So the first boundary is how he speaks
to you. What's the second boundary you need to set
(25:48):
with him? Um, how we can co parent? Um, Because
he'll use that because he knows that I'm not comfortable
with her going with him without me, and neither she
She'll cry. So what he'll do is say, I'm coming
to get her and we don't need you, So I
don't know how to let her be without me with him.
(26:10):
So the second boundary I'm hearing you say you have
to create is about his mind. You are dealing with
a diseased mind. Now that doesn't make him bad, doesn't
make him a bad person, but you have to tell
yourself the truth about that. So the second boundary are
(26:31):
the visitation parameters for him and your daughter, and you
have to tell him the truth. It may be like,
I know you are her father, but you are also
an alcoholic and I don't feel she's safe with you.
So here are the boundaries for your visitation. You cannot
take her anywhere without me, and you cannot be in
(26:55):
my house to visit her. You'll have to meet him
somewhere else. Telling that will have to meet and that's
the boundary, beloved. You want him to be a nice,
normal father that's coming to take the kid to the
circus and bring him back on time. No, that is
not going to happen as long as his mind is disease.
(27:18):
And you can even say that to him. As long
as you are drinking, and I'm not clear that you
can control your drinking. She cannot be alone with you.
You've got a problem with that, then let's go to court, right, Okay,
I can do that. I just gotta build my back
phone up with him, because, like I said, I got
(27:40):
a soft spot for him, and you don't have a
soft spot for him. You've got a weak spot for yourself.
There's a distinction having a soft spot for him is this.
I'm making sure that I keep you and our daughter
is safe because I understand that you're not well. So
I'm not going to expect you to do all the
(28:02):
things that are normal co parent would do. I'm not
going to put those things on you. But these are
the requirements that I am making of you. You cannot
speak to me in a disrespectful, dishonorable way, and you
cannot be alone with our daughter as long as you
are drinking. See now, that's a strong spot for you,
(28:25):
because if he can come into your life and run
him up, he's not the problem. You are the problem.
Hold your line, don't draw your line in the sand,
and when he crosses the line, you step back and
draw another line. And when he crosses that, that's when
(28:47):
you've got to enact the consequence. Because that's exactly what
I've been doing, backing up and drawing up. Well. Well,
like I said, it's not about a soft spot for him.
It's about a weak spot for yourself. And that, my beloved,
is what you have to build up. Okay, thank you
(29:08):
so much. You are so welcome. This is a topic
that many of us have faced and are still suffering
the impact of. It's a situation that many of us
will face. So we also know that you must ask
(29:29):
for what you want, being willing to compromise, but you
must create and whold clear boundaries about how you want
to move forward. I am Yamla and thank you for
tuning in. If you have questions insights about this or
any other relationship issue and you would like to explore
(29:51):
it here on the our spot, you can call me
live at seven seven five three zero seven seven seven
six eight and be sure to follow on social media
for the call in times. In the meantime, stay in peace,
not pieceless. The R Spot is a production of Shondaland
(30:12):
Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
I am a Yamla. I've been very open about the
fact that I was not always good at making my
relationships work. I have been divorced three times, twice from
the same person. In other words, I have seen a
lot and failed a lot in my relationships. So I
am here to share with you what I learned along
(00:24):
the way because I did take copious notes. Welcome to
the Our Spot, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with I Heart Radio. People come into your life for
(00:49):
a reason, a season, or a lifetime. This means that
some relationships have been formed for a specific reason. Perhaps
you need to learn, earn something, or heal through something,
or grow through something as a result of the relationship itself.
So today I want to talk about relationships that come
(01:10):
to an end, whether it's an abrupt end or a
slow death process, breaking up, leaving, exiting a loving relationship,
what I call a love ship. It's hard to do. Now,
it doesn't have to be hard, but in more cases
than not, it is difficult, at best devastating in many cases.
(01:33):
Today I want to discuss why. So let's start right here.
Let's talk about it. Let's talk about a letter. Then
I received that comes from a woman named Pam. Hi, Pam,
Welcome to the Ourtspot. Today. We're talking about breaking up
being hard to do, and as I read your letter,
(01:55):
I would say, I, yeah, it's been hard, but I
thank you for your letter because it speaks to everything
we need to examine in today's topic. So tell me
a little bit about your relationship and start with your
love story. What is your love story that brought you
and your almost ex husband together in the first place.
(02:19):
So we were twenty four, Um, we met out hanging out.
I don't know, it was just an instant connection that
we had, you know, while dating, though you know we did.
There were some it was some initial some signs, Yes,
(02:41):
some signs. The signs were definitely there. Tell me about that.
Tell me about the signs. What were that? Well, you know,
with some initial deception in the relationship, you know, I
would say that, um, our foundation, you know and how
we started wasn't the greatest. And I think we built
(03:05):
on a shaky foundation. So if you were connected and
you had things in common, talk to me about what
was in the foundation or what was not in the foundation. So,
like I said, it was, the love was there, the
connection was there. But you know, there was some serious
(03:26):
deception there in the beginning of the relationship that I
think put a crack in the bond that we had
established right before you got married or after you got
married before. But because we loved each other, um, and
because I had been in a similar situation to this
(03:49):
particular one before and I chose to leave that relationship.
And then when I met him and went through the
same thing, I was like, well, maybe that's not the
right thing, that maybe maybe I should just hang in
there because I know I love him, and that's what
I did. So fast forward. Um, we were twenty four.
(04:10):
We dated for about five or six years, UM, and
then we we got married. And it was right after
the marriage was that I didn't learn the details of
the deception, additional details regarding the deception right that he
(04:30):
didn't convey before. So that was very, very hurtful. But again, um,
when you love a person and you want to be
with them and they want to be with you, you know,
your heart tells you to do things, but your mind
is sometimes telling you something else. But a lot of times,
(04:51):
as women, because we're emotional creatures, we live with our
hearts and that's what I did, ms Pam. I want
to give you an opportunity to reverse that, because you see,
the mind will lie to you. The mind will give
you all manner of reasons and excuses and rationales and suppositions.
(05:11):
But it's the heart that speaks to two. I sense
that very often people in general will blame the heart
for what their mind is telling them. Your heart probably
said run run for your life, and your mind says, well,
he's my husband and we love each other and etcetera, etcetera. Yes,
(05:33):
I also want to offer you this proposition. If you
want to know the end, look at the beginning. So
what I hear you saying is that there was deception
in the beginning of the relationship that created a crack
in the foundation. Okay, so here we are now at
the end and this thing hits you. And I'm assuming
(05:55):
that the deception you're speaking about had to do an
infidelity is accument. Yes, how long had that relationship been
going on when you found out about it? About two years?
And that wasn't the first one, wasn't. No, that was
the one I could prove prove how it was sent
(06:16):
to me? What was sent to you? A message and
explicit videos. Wow, I am really sorry about that. Yeah.
And when I say as a woman and as a wife, um,
what I received, no woman should ever No woman first
(06:39):
of all, should ever receive that, And no woman should
ever have to see their husband in that manner. Psychologically,
we're not made up that way to see that to
really be able to handle it. You know, at least
I wasn't. What's the distinction you make between knowing it
(06:59):
and seeing it? Because you knew but you hadn't seen it.
What's the distinction that you make? Knowing is one thing,
but when you see it, it's a visual. Okay, miss Pam,
I want you to own that. When I saw it,
right when I saw it, the visual was it was traumatizing.
(07:23):
So when you know something, it's not necessarily when I
knew something, because you are still externalizing this. I know,
Mr y'aller because I have been so closed off and
shut down. That's why I'm speaking about it externally because
it's really hard to internalize. The breakup will not happen
(07:47):
until you internalize it. Until then you will continue to
re traumatize yourself. Yeah, you've got to own it. Work
with this, my beloved, Knowing wasn't enough because repeat that,
knowing wasn't enough because I couldn't I couldn't prove it's right.
(08:15):
So you see indications, you see clues, you see I saw,
I saw, I saw. Okay, I got you, now I
got you. It wasn't anything that I did not see.
I saw cards, I saw letters, I saw pictures, I
saw explicit texts. Why wasn't that enough to let go?
(08:39):
Because again, it could be explained away. Not that even
the explanations made any sense. But I think for me
and I'm I'm gonna be real here. I was in
a sense of denial, like I didn't want to let
go of the family that I we had created. Why
(09:02):
and and to ask myself, why didn't I leave? It
is a dumb question. I was holding onto my family unit.
Oh no, you were holding onto the image that you
had created in your mind. And that's normal, not natural,
but it is normal. You know what else, my beloved,
(09:24):
it was familiar. You had been there before and made
up your mind. I'm not gonna walk away this time.
I'm gonna stick it out. You see, when we have
the image of what we think it is or what
we wanted to be, we just have a hard time saying, oops,
(09:45):
I was wrong. I made a mistake. And that's what
makes breaking up so hard to do. So what do
we do now? We'll talk about that right after this
break Welcome back to the our spot. We are continuing
(10:08):
our conversation about breaking up leaving a relationship. When you
are breaking up, there must be a consequence for the
behavior identified, and there must be clear boundaries that then
create the game changes or the you know, the bottom lines.
I got remorse, I got the ecology, I got flowers, candy, gifts,
(10:34):
all that. But what I didn't get was what I wanted.
I wanted the accountability. I wanted him to say, what
can I do to change this? What can I do
to make it better? How can we work together to
try to get through this situation? And I never heard
(10:55):
those words. It sounds to me like perhaps at beginning
with the deception in the foundation, you didn't have a
clear deal breakup. Would that be accurate? M h, that's
what you call boundaries. See, there are two things I
never tolerated in a relationship, and I tolerated some other
(11:18):
crazy stuff, but one thing was cheating and the other
thing was messing with my money. Don't mess with my money.
You are gone. Don't put your hand in my checking account,
don't be digging around in my purse. Those are deal
breakers for me. And then you cheat, You're gone. You
mess with my money, I'm out. So I'll tell you
(11:40):
the kind of woman I am. I had just had
my daughter. She was about six weeks old, and I
was at home with her. My two older children were
in school when the doorbell rang, maybe about one o'clock
in the afternoon. So I go to the door and
there are these two women, one older, one younger. When
I opened the door, they asked me my name, and
(12:01):
they introduced themselves, tell me who they were. Then the
older woman said to me, this is my daughter, and
we're here to find out when you are going to
let let me just give you a name, Uh, Franklin.
When you're gonna let Franklin go. We're planning his marriage
to my daughter, but he says, you won't sign the
(12:23):
divorce papers. So this woman brought her daughter to my
house to ask me when I was going to sign
the divorce papers so that her daughter could marry my husband.
But like I said, I don't tolerate cheating. So on
that bright Sunday afternoon. You know what I did. I said,
(12:46):
wait a minute, and I went back in my house
and I went to the closet. I took all of
his clothes and put them in one of those big
black trash bags. Everything I took him out of the closet,
the drawers, everything, even the wet auntry I had hanging
on the line. I pulled that in and put it
in the bag. And I carried those bags to the
front door. I said, here, here's all this closed. Then
(13:08):
I said, wait a minute. I went back inside and
I got Lady, the German shepherd. I put her leash on.
I took her to the door, and I said, here,
take the dog too. I told you I got deal breakers,
and this was my husband and I had a six
week old baby. You want him, you got him. I
gave them all of his clothes and the dog. That's
(13:32):
how you have a deal breaker, and you hold it.
But how many of us women are taught to establish
those early in the relationship. I never established boundaries. Who
taught you how beloved? No one you didn't know. And
it's unloving to ask yourself to do something you don't
(13:53):
know how to do. It's unloving. You didn't know not
to blame anybody because the people who didn't know how
to do it couldn't teach you how to do it.
So many of us don't have boundaries. The other thing
is so many of us, as women, go into relationships
and marriage without clear deal breakers. You've got to have
(14:16):
your deal breakers at the beginning, and by the time
you realize, oh damn, this isn't working. So many deals
have been broken you can't even figure out which one
is the real one, which is the most horrible one. Yeah,
that's exactly what happened. We go into relationships and by
the time they blow up, like you said, you're traumatized.
(14:38):
I am, But it's a blessing. Here's the lesson. The
universe is saying to you, know what you know, even
without evidence, the cards, the pictures, the text, the letters.
You say it wasn't evidence. I don't know how much
more evidence you want or need. So what what's next?
(15:01):
The video? The video was the most reasonable thing. What
else was going to happen? You were going to walk
into in a living room? The universe was teaching you something, beloved,
know what you know? It's your bad behavior too. If
you clean up your bad behavior, he will disappear. But
(15:23):
I don't know how to get there. Right now, you
are all vibrating at the same place. His bad behavior
was about his bad behavior. Your bad behavior was about
ignoring his bad behavior. So I want to send you
or give you a copy of Forgiveness forty Days to
(15:44):
forgive everyone for everything, And I want you to do
the work in that book. I want to say thank you,
and I want you to know how much I really
love you. I appreciate you, and I appreciate you being
so willing to work on your out. And if you
are a g c C member, a Global Community Connection member,
(16:04):
you've got a lot of information. You have to go
back and do some of that work. And then in
ninety days, I want you to write me and let
me know where you are. Oh yes, ma'am, I will definitely.
When you are leaving a relationship where there's money or
(16:25):
property or children involved, chances are you are going to
need some outside support, a third party, a mediator, an attorney,
even a minister or a counselor who can help you
sort through the rubble. And I know in some cases
people think they cannot afford the support they need. But
there is always away, there's legal aid, there's a friend
(16:51):
of a friend who has some experience in this area.
The point is, when it comes to leaving and asking
for what you want, you may need some help. So
be open to asking for it, be open to compromising
on your requests, and if the third party is not
(17:11):
being cooperative, step to the left and get someone involved
who can advocate on your bath. Oh lord, leaving isn't easy.
Breaking up is so hard to do, and we haven't
even scratched the surface of the challenges, the difficulties, the
ins and outs of getting out. In fact, in all relationships,
(17:36):
boundaries are absolutely essential because boundaries are the way that
you demonstrate respect, not only for yourself but for the
other person. Boundaries are the way that you keep yourself
safe and teach the other person what they can expect
from you and what you can expect from them. Now,
(17:58):
here's the problem with bad counties. Most people create a
boundary and if someone crosses the boundary, they back up
and draw another line. Well, that is very unhelpful. The
other problem with boundaries is we fail to create a
consequence for violation of the boundary. And my next caller
(18:20):
is learning all about boundaries. We'll talk to her when
we come back. Welcome back to the our Spot. We
are continuing our conversation about how to set boundaries, how
(18:42):
to hold the boundary, and how to enact the consequence
for violation of a boundary. But more important, she's learning
why she has to do it. Greetings beloved, Welcome to
the our Spot. How are you today? How are you?
Thank you? Thank you, thank you for calling today. Thank you.
(19:06):
And here at the our Spot we discuss all issues
related to relationships. So what is your issue, challenge, problem,
concern that we can dive into to that. Okay, So
my concern is that I have a my child father
is an alcoholic and I would like for my child
(19:27):
to know him. But I think I just need some
assistance on like how to set boundaries with like keeping
her safe, keeping her emotionally safe, and just everything that
comes along with the alcoholic, because um, I don't want
to come off as bitter and just keep her away
from him because I want to keep her safe, I
just don't know how to maneuver with She's my only child. Again,
(19:50):
I thank you for calling in and let me make
sure I've got this. You have a child that is
how old? Nineteen months? And you want the child to
be in a relationship with her father, but you're concerned
about whether or not she is safe with them. Okay.
So has he always been an alcoholic? He always has been,
(20:13):
and I was one before her. Well, when I had her,
I stopped drinking and he kept drinking. Okay, So you
have a shared history today and my hearing that you
don't live together, we don't. Okay, good? And what is
his current relationship like with her? He has one. He
will do that to get to me, like he really
(20:35):
wants to be with me, but it's like he almost
tries to use it, like he doesn't support her financially.
I do everything for her. And it's like if if
I would allow him to be in a relationship with me,
then he would do those things. So he sort of that,
he kind of like he will try to use our
relationships and like he doesn't really necessarily have a relationship
(20:56):
with her, But when we don't talk, he like, well
when am I going to see her? You never see here?
So I just I don't know, all right, So let's
handle some basics here. The basic is alcoholism is a disease.
So when you are dealing with him, you have to
deal with him knowing that he is not well. I'm
(21:19):
overly compassionate for him, and then I'll give him passes
for things. Compassion is not about giving him a pass.
Sympathy is about giving him a pass. Compassion is about
the elimination of his suffering, the elimination of your suffering,
and the elimination probably of your daughter suffering. And nothing
(21:42):
is going to cause her greater suffering than to see
her father in the height of his illness. He wants
to be with you, So we're going to separate that
out because I'm thinking and hearing that your relationship to
him is over. Okay, all right, so that's clear. So
(22:04):
then you're dealing with your daughter's father period. There's no
discussion about your relationship with him, and what do you
want to see in that relationship. I just want to
see them able to interact. I want to see him
want to have a relationship with her and not focus
so much on me, but focus on her, and not
(22:26):
in exciteful way. Well beloved, it's unloving to ask someone
to do something that they cannot do. That's a very
unloving thing. You're asking an alcoholic to make rational decisions
and behave in a responsible way. That is not going
to happen. Okay, you said a keyword early in your communication.
(22:51):
You said boundaries. So what are the current boundaries that
you have with him? I don't really have any, that's
the problem. So let's start with some boundaries. What is
the first boundary that you would like to create with him?
(23:11):
And I have a little voice, so I instantly you
just sit down and just like whatever, he's like a
roaring lion, like that's how he is. Yeah, well, you've
got to put that in check and let him know.
I'm asking you not to speak to me in that way,
and if you do, I will end the communication. Whether
(23:32):
you hang up the phone or walk away, you've got
to announce this. So the first boundary is how he
speaks to you. That's number one. That doesn't have anything
to do with your daughter. That has to do with
the fact that you are your daughter's mother, and there's
a way that you can receive people. But chances are
(23:54):
he's going to violate that boundary and then there must
be a consequence. Okay, I'm going to walk away or
hang up. I want you to know that there's a
consequence to how you speak to me and how you behave.
See when you first announced the boundary and you tell
him the consequence, trust me, he is going to violate it.
(24:18):
So the next time he speaks to you, he'll probably
yell or curse or whatever. That's when you say to him, Remember,
I asked you not to speak to me like that.
I told you. If you do, I'm going to walk away,
or I'm going to hang up the phone. I'm going
to end the communication. So you're doing it right now again,
(24:40):
I'm going to ask you to stop. That's how you
hold the boundary and how long do I hold it?
How long do I with Well, I'm not asking you
to withhold conversations because you may hang up. He might
call you right back. That's when you say, I have
asked you not to yell at me. You're yelling, So
(25:01):
I'm not going to take any more calls from you today.
Call me back when you can speak to me without
yelling or cursing or whatever. But you are announcing the boundary.
You are making it clear. I've asked you not to
speak to me in that way. If you do, here's
the consequence. Because you have violated a boundary. You see,
(25:25):
you can have another conversation with him later on, but
right now a boundary has been violated. A consequence must
be enacted, because a boundary without a consequence just doesn't
work right. So the first boundary is how he speaks
to you. What's the second boundary you need to set
(25:48):
with him? Um, how we can co parent? Um, Because
he'll use that because he knows that I'm not comfortable
with her going with him without me, and neither she
She'll cry. So what he'll do is say, I'm coming
to get her and we don't need you, So I
don't know how to let her be without me with him.
(26:10):
So the second boundary I'm hearing you say you have
to create is about his mind. You are dealing with
a diseased mind. Now that doesn't make him bad, doesn't
make him a bad person, but you have to tell
yourself the truth about that. So the second boundary are
(26:31):
the visitation parameters for him and your daughter, and you
have to tell him the truth. It may be like,
I know you are her father, but you are also
an alcoholic and I don't feel she's safe with you.
So here are the boundaries for your visitation. You cannot
take her anywhere without me, and you cannot be in
(26:55):
my house to visit her. You'll have to meet him
somewhere else. Telling that will have to meet and that's
the boundary, beloved. You want him to be a nice,
normal father that's coming to take the kid to the
circus and bring him back on time. No, that is
not going to happen as long as his mind is disease.
(27:18):
And you can even say that to him. As long
as you are drinking, and I'm not clear that you
can control your drinking. She cannot be alone with you.
You've got a problem with that, then let's go to court, right, Okay,
I can do that. I just gotta build my back
phone up with him, because, like I said, I got
(27:40):
a soft spot for him, and you don't have a
soft spot for him. You've got a weak spot for yourself.
There's a distinction having a soft spot for him is this.
I'm making sure that I keep you and our daughter
is safe because I understand that you're not well. So
I'm not going to expect you to do all the
(28:02):
things that are normal co parent would do. I'm not
going to put those things on you. But these are
the requirements that I am making of you. You cannot
speak to me in a disrespectful, dishonorable way, and you
cannot be alone with our daughter as long as you
are drinking. See now, that's a strong spot for you,
(28:25):
because if he can come into your life and run
him up, he's not the problem. You are the problem.
Hold your line, don't draw your line in the sand,
and when he crosses the line, you step back and
draw another line. And when he crosses that, that's when
(28:47):
you've got to enact the consequence. Because that's exactly what
I've been doing, backing up and drawing up. Well. Well,
like I said, it's not about a soft spot for him.
It's about a weak spot for yourself. And that, my beloved,
is what you have to build up. Okay, thank you
(29:08):
so much. You are so welcome. This is a topic
that many of us have faced and are still suffering
the impact of. It's a situation that many of us
will face. So we also know that you must ask
(29:29):
for what you want, being willing to compromise, but you
must create and whold clear boundaries about how you want
to move forward. I am Yamla and thank you for
tuning in. If you have questions insights about this or
any other relationship issue and you would like to explore
(29:51):
it here on the our spot, you can call me
live at seven seven five three zero seven seven seven
six eight and be sure to follow on social media
for the call in times. In the meantime, stay in peace,
not pieceless. The R Spot is a production of Shondaland
(30:12):
Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Iyanla Vanzant
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