July 2, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode, Beverly tells the story of the time she reacted out of anger and frustration and did something terrible. The story leads to a discussion about addiction, disappointment, anger and hope. Is there a murderous twist to the story? What do you do when you reach the end of your rope?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Heart vs.
Head, a podcast that helpscouples communicate and fight
better.
Here are your hosts, RandiHampton and Beverly Craddock.
SPEAKER_02 (00:20):
Welcome to the Heart vs.
Head podcast.
Randi actually today isunknowing.
SPEAKER_01 (00:27):
Oh, good.
SPEAKER_02 (00:28):
what we're going to talk about.
I have full confidence in him.
I would be remiss if I didn'ttake this opportunity this week
to acknowledge something that Iwent through.
I think it would help a lot ofhearts.
What I'm talking about, firstthe story, what I'm talking
about is my ex-husband died in2019.
(00:51):
And between his death the end ofJune and the funeral, and then
his children and I spreading hisashes on the Fourth of July,
this week has always had alittle bit of a different
meaning ever since his passing.
Now, this is my ex-husband, andI don't know if you're new to
(01:13):
the podcast.
However, a brief history.
This was a high schoolsweetheart.
We dated seven years, gotmarried, had a couple of kids.
We were two hearts, people whomake decisions around other
people.
We were married for about 13years.
During that time, his name wasMark, and he had an addiction.
(01:35):
He had trouble with alcohol.
I sought out some counseling.
decided that I couldn't go anyfarther, divorced him, hoping
that he would stop drinking.
But yet he just continued downin a spiral until his death.
I want to talk about somethingthat happened during that 13
(01:57):
years.
So the first half, I'd say six,seven, maybe even eight years
was really terrific.
You know, after we got marriedand things were pretty great, we
had a couple of kids.
Life was good.
I did notice the drinking waspicking up and eventually the
drinking became the nail in thecoffin, if you will.
(02:18):
One of the things that happenedduring that time period, it was
a time in our life where we wentthrough a lot of fighting and
counseling.
He'd been through threetreatment programs, extensive
programs.
One was even an entire yearwhere he could not drink for a
year, but then come out thefollowing day and get plowed.
(02:43):
So it was a very frustratingprocess.
I often now in my coachingbusiness tell clients that I
fully understood what it's liketo forgive somebody 70 times 7
which is a reference spiritualreference about how we are to
(03:03):
forgive others when we first methigh school sweethearts and for
Christmas that year I bought hima climbing rope now he was a
rock climber and I was not butit was something that I learned
to share with him and really Andthe climbing rope brought tears
to his eyes.
(03:23):
He had never received such agenerous gift.
Climbing ropes were veryexpensive then.
I spent all of my summer savingsas a waitress for that climbing
rope for him.
As a heart, I just wanted togive him something meaningful.
I loved him so much andobviously made a good choice.
(03:45):
And so that climbing rope had alot of good years.
Then later in life, fast forwardthrough children and the
alcohol, the addiction gettingworse.
And there's this moment wheretoward the end of my time with
him, my chapter with him, whereI was kind of at the end of my
(04:06):
rope.
I had forgiven him so manytimes.
(04:37):
and he had a climbing rope.
This was not the same rope.
It had been several years, butit was a pretty new rope that he
had purchased.
And I was so mad, I went overand I just took a knife and I
cut the rope.
SPEAKER_01 (04:52):
Wow, look at you.
SPEAKER_02 (04:55):
Randy says that because it is
SPEAKER_01 (04:57):
so out of character for me.
Totally out of character forBeverly.
Totally out of character forhearts.
SPEAKER_02 (05:02):
So it's a big moment for me and not one I'm proud of
at all.
SPEAKER_01 (05:06):
And the symbolism of it.
of the climbing rope and justthat this had been this great
gift, not the same rope, butit'd been a great gift and it
really was meaningful to you.
And then when the relationshipis going south, when things are
bad, when the frustration ishigh, when the hurt is maxed
(05:28):
out, you take it out on aclimbing rope and it just, it
makes so much sense, even thoughit seems completely irrational,
which is heart.
I mean, it is probably a heartthing.
SPEAKER_02 (05:46):
Sure.
And I don't know that I eventhought about all those things
at the time.
It was just pent up, built upanger and frustration to the
point where I needed somethingto release that.
And cutting that climbing ropefelt pretty good.
SPEAKER_01 (06:04):
Felt pretty cathartic.
SPEAKER_02 (06:06):
Until I realized You know, after I did it.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
Yeah, here comes all the other
SPEAKER_02 (06:13):
stuff.
Go ahead.
In the heat of the moment, itwas great.
Five minutes after, what have Idone is the question in my mind.
And I'm just kind of staring atit and, you know, all kinds of
dilemmas of, oh, my gosh, I'mgoing to have to tell him.
He's not going to be happy.
This is not good.
This is not like me.
Yeah.
My son had opened the garagedoor and he said, what are you
(06:36):
doing?
And I knew in that
SPEAKER_01 (06:37):
moment.
Your son was probably what?
Eight, nine years old about thattime.
SPEAKER_02 (06:44):
And he knew I was up to something because I probably
gave him the look of guilt.
And he said, what's going on?
And I said, nothing.
SPEAKER_01 (06:50):
Standing there with a knife and a bunch of cut rope.
SPEAKER_02 (06:55):
Which I'm sure the next day when Mark was sober,
I'm sure he went and told hisdad that I had cut his rope.
But it
SPEAKER_01 (07:01):
wasn't for something.
Several years.
(07:32):
some of his climbing gear andstuff.
And that then the kids ended upwith.
And so I'm sure it was in justthe conversation about the
climbing gear and all of thosethings.
And it comes up that your sonremembers that.
SPEAKER_02 (07:45):
Right.
And he remembered it as momcutting the climbing rope as
though I was trying to kill myfirst husband.
SPEAKER_01 (07:52):
He remembers it as mom tried to kill dad, which it
wasn't.
And even if the rope was was tooshort or whatever.
Mark was a skilled enoughclimber.
He wasn't going to run into thatproblem.
And quite frankly, I suspectBeverly's guilt would have kept
him from going climbing with itanyways, because you would have
(08:14):
jumped back in.
SPEAKER_02 (08:28):
But...
And I guess what I go back tothis story about is you can look
at that story, and I'm surelisteners can poke at it and
wonder, oh, I've been that madat my partner, or what about
(08:51):
forgiveness?
What about frustration?
What about the duality of evenforgiving and frustration?
And I guess one of the things Iwant to talk to hearts about is
that is forgiveness is reallynever about excusing what
someone's done or forgettingthat.
Sure, we all make mistakes.
Things happen.
(09:12):
People can apologize.
We can forgive.
But really, forgiveness is foryou.
Forgiveness is a way for you torelease some of that frustration
and knowing that you can evenforgive and still be angry
because sometimes things arejust unfair and there's hurt and
sometimes I think
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
the way that I talk to my clients about forgiveness
is kind of on an old Buddhiststory.
There's a story of the Buddhatalking about something.
He says, if a man gives you agift and you do not accept the
gift, who has the gift?
And I think that we take on somuch stuff from other people,
(09:58):
including anger and things likethat, and maybe we don't need
to.
And so I kind of look atforgiveness as that opportunity
to say, okay, look, things arescrewed up.
you didn't act right.
I didn't act right or whatever,but we don't forget about it.
We don't do all that.
We just, we're just not going tocarry it anymore because it's
(10:21):
too darn heavy.
And so that's kind of myapproach to forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02 (10:25):
And forgiveness can definitely, definitely be
helpful.
I think as a heart, one of thethings that I struggled with is,
and we've talked about onprevious podcasts that hearts
can forgive fairly easily and wecan forgive and we can move on,
and that's all well and good.
It's 50-50 in a lot of respects,but it is a good quality to be
(10:49):
able to forgive.
The other thing, though, is thatMark would convince me that he
was going to be successful thenext time, that there was hope.
And what I was really goingthrough is something called
false hope.
So false hope is something thata person does when they convince
(11:10):
themselves that this time willbe different.
Many times it's called falsehope because we end up
experiencing that same letdown.
And even what can come with itis feeling really bad or even
like self-blame.
So the reason that I thinkhearts do this is because first
(11:32):
of all, connection to a heart isour oxygen.
And so it's easy for a heart togive extra chances to people
because we What we really fearis being disconnected.
We fear that more than evenbeing hurt or let down again.
I'd rather hold on rather thanface the heartbreak of being
(11:55):
done forever.
SPEAKER_01 (11:56):
It's an interesting concept because heads don't do
it that way.
We just, we draw a line and whensomebody crosses the line, we
go, okay, we're done.
Does doing it that way forhearts keep hearts stuck
sometimes in a bad relationshipbecause they're too quick to
forgive?
No.
SPEAKER_02 (12:11):
I don't know.
I think people are too
SPEAKER_01 (12:17):
unique to weigh in on that.
(12:41):
And so there's definitely somebalance that has to occur there.
But yeah, I see the false hopebecause it's easy to believe the
best in people when you areconnected to them.
When you're connected tosomebody as a heart, you are
(13:04):
able to go, oh, I see yourpotential.
SPEAKER_02 (13:08):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (13:08):
Not I see who you are.
I see that who you could be.
Only a lot of times those peoplewe head a lot of times aren't
capable of the potential thathearts put on us on the
relationship.
SPEAKER_02 (13:21):
That's a little bit unfair because I think that
potential is potential.
We all have potential.
I might see different potentialthan you think your potential
is.
We could argue about potential.
I think you
SPEAKER_01 (13:37):
could take the trash out.
(14:06):
Right.
And I think that is what happenseventually in relationships is
when we're the same, we do goopposite for
SPEAKER_02 (14:29):
various reasons.
In this case, we do go oppositefor various reasons.
Because the addiction caused himto be very weak and not show up,
I had to be very strong andcarry the family.
I had to work harder, worklonger, do more things around
(14:52):
the
SPEAKER_01 (14:52):
house.
I look at you as kinder and morecompassionate and all the, and
well, you are, but I mean, Ithink we look at the heart as
(15:15):
this, this big loving thing froma head perspective.
And I think hearts often look atthe head and go, oh, well, that
person is emotionally stoic.
They're not affected by all thefeelings that I'm affected by.
Therefore they are strong andmaybe strong at suppressing our
emotions, but, but.
SPEAKER_02 (15:34):
Well, it still comes off as strong, you know, when
you have a.
If you have
SPEAKER_01 (15:40):
migraine, you'll see a client.
I could
SPEAKER_02 (16:00):
never do that.
I do see that potential.
So I do lean that directionbecause I'm a heart.
I think what would be better forhearts is, especially in this
situation with addiction, it canbe a very challenging issue to
(16:22):
deal with.
And I think it would be betterto balance potential with
reality.
I think if I had the ability tosit down with him and say, well,
give me some proof to give youthat chance, proof that you can
do it.
can and will, that this will bedifferent this time.
Because otherwise, I was justkind of overriding, ignoring
(16:43):
some of those red flags.
I think some of it had to dowith, I kept telling myself, if
my husband had cancer, would Ileave?
Of course not.
Oh, thank God.
But here he had alcoholism,which some people refer to as
like a disease.
SPEAKER_01 (17:00):
A disease, sure.
SPEAKER_02 (17:02):
Although it's difficult because you see him
choosing to drink repeatedly.
So I was caught up in that hehas cancer.
If he had cancer, I would stay.
He has this.
And is it fair to leave?
Am I bailing?
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
At some point, there were things in the relationship
that said, no, it's better togo.
There were moments, and you'vetalked about them to me, and the
listeners certainly don't know,but there were things where it
got a little physical.
It wasn't an over-the-top kindof thing, but it certainly
reached a point of not quite assafe as it should be, and that
(17:39):
was part of an escalation of agrowth of the disease of
alcoholism in Mark's world.
You got out, and you can sit andyou can look back at all those
things that happen andsecond-guess it all you want.
As a head, I would go, that's awaste of energy.
Don't bother.
As a heart, that's not quite theway it works.
SPEAKER_02 (18:01):
I think that at the end of the day, I obviously did
the right thing, especially nowthat I have the hindsight of
knowing that he was going tocontinue down that path and
eventually die from the autopsysaid that multiple systems and
organs failed due to alcohol.
I guess what I'm hoping thathearts will learn from This
(18:23):
podcast would be that you canlove someone and you can also
love yourself from thestandpoint of protecting
yourself.
You can love someone and stillsay no.
You can be kind to them andcheer them from a distance, but
you can still walk away.
(18:45):
And I think these are thingsthat if I had known that way
back then, so much younger then,then I feel like maybe that last
chapter didn't have to go on forso long or so difficult.
I wouldn't have maybe reachedthe point of that rope, the end
of my rope.
SPEAKER_01 (19:05):
The end of your rope, metaphorically, and
physically standing in thegarage with a knife cutting it.
I love that story.
And that story actually cameabout recently.
We had been watching Jenny andGeorgia on Netflix, which is a
fascinating series.
And probably in the next fewweeks, Beverly and I will do a
(19:26):
podcast and we will break downsome of Jenny and Georgia just
because the relationshipdynamics in some of that show
are phenomenal, at leastphenomenal to talk about.
Doesn't make them healthy.
And so that kind of came up aswe looked at Georgia with her
maybe murderous past.
(19:49):
And so we were talking aboutthat and the rope story came up.
So I love the rope story.
Beverly is very, very, very muchnot a cold-blooded killer.
She's the most kind.
She can't hurt animals.
She can't step on bugs.
(20:09):
She's just the nicest humanbeing.
Well, yeah, the
SPEAKER_02 (20:18):
conversation was, I was saying that I really could
relate to Georgia, that therewere so many instances, so many
times where I felt that way.
Her character was resonating somuch with me, so much pain and
frustration and-
SPEAKER_01 (20:41):
But
SPEAKER_02 (20:42):
then it was good at the end of that to say to Randy,
but I never killed anyone.
And then I went,
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
well,
SPEAKER_02 (20:50):
there
SPEAKER_01 (20:50):
was this one time.
Maybe I could have, had I not.
Yeah.
My son thought I did.
Well, yeah.
And certainly thought you weretrying to.
And had Mark gone climbing withthe rope and something bad
happened, ooh, maybe Beverlycould.
Oh, that would have been bad.
All right.
That's it for this time around.
Beverly and the cutting therope.
(21:11):
We will, like I said, we'll talkabout Jenny and Georgia a bit in
a future episode soon.
If you have not seen the series,maybe go watch a couple
episodes.
It's actually really, reallykind of funny and interesting
and kind of a, it's a prettywell-written show, but we'll
chat about that some other time.
And if you don't watch Jenny andGeorgia, that's okay too.
And you can skip that episodewhen we get to it.
SPEAKER_02 (21:33):
My last thing for hearts is don't give up on hope.
Hope is extremely important inour life.
Just balance it between betweenhope and reality.
SPEAKER_01 (21:44):
Reality.
SPEAKER_02 (21:44):
Taking care of your own self, too.
SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
Aloha.
Thank you, everybody.
We'll talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_00 (21:53):
Thanks for listening to Heart vs.
Head.
You can learn more atheartandheadcoaching.com and
check out new podcast episodesevery Wednesday.
If you have a question for Randyand Beverly, send an email to
info atheartandheadcoaching.com.
Welcome to Heart vs.
Head, a podcast that helpscouples communicate and fight
better.
Here are your hosts, RandiHampton and Beverly Craddock.
SPEAKER_02 (00:20):
Welcome to the Heart vs.
Head podcast.
Randi actually today isunknowing.
SPEAKER_01 (00:27):
Oh, good.
SPEAKER_02 (00:28):
what we're going to talk about.
I have full confidence in him.
I would be remiss if I didn'ttake this opportunity this week
to acknowledge something that Iwent through.
I think it would help a lot ofhearts.
What I'm talking about, firstthe story, what I'm talking
about is my ex-husband died in2019.
(00:51):
And between his death the end ofJune and the funeral, and then
his children and I spreading hisashes on the Fourth of July,
this week has always had alittle bit of a different
meaning ever since his passing.
Now, this is my ex-husband, andI don't know if you're new to
(01:13):
the podcast.
However, a brief history.
This was a high schoolsweetheart.
We dated seven years, gotmarried, had a couple of kids.
We were two hearts, people whomake decisions around other
people.
We were married for about 13years.
During that time, his name wasMark, and he had an addiction.
(01:35):
He had trouble with alcohol.
I sought out some counseling.
decided that I couldn't go anyfarther, divorced him, hoping
that he would stop drinking.
But yet he just continued downin a spiral until his death.
I want to talk about somethingthat happened during that 13
(01:57):
years.
So the first half, I'd say six,seven, maybe even eight years
was really terrific.
You know, after we got marriedand things were pretty great, we
had a couple of kids.
Life was good.
I did notice the drinking waspicking up and eventually the
drinking became the nail in thecoffin, if you will.
(02:18):
One of the things that happenedduring that time period, it was
a time in our life where we wentthrough a lot of fighting and
counseling.
He'd been through threetreatment programs, extensive
programs.
One was even an entire yearwhere he could not drink for a
year, but then come out thefollowing day and get plowed.
(02:43):
So it was a very frustratingprocess.
I often now in my coachingbusiness tell clients that I
fully understood what it's liketo forgive somebody 70 times 7
which is a reference spiritualreference about how we are to
(03:03):
forgive others when we first methigh school sweethearts and for
Christmas that year I bought hima climbing rope now he was a
rock climber and I was not butit was something that I learned
to share with him and really Andthe climbing rope brought tears
to his eyes.
(03:23):
He had never received such agenerous gift.
Climbing ropes were veryexpensive then.
I spent all of my summer savingsas a waitress for that climbing
rope for him.
As a heart, I just wanted togive him something meaningful.
I loved him so much andobviously made a good choice.
(03:45):
And so that climbing rope had alot of good years.
Then later in life, fast forwardthrough children and the
alcohol, the addiction gettingworse.
And there's this moment wheretoward the end of my time with
him, my chapter with him, whereI was kind of at the end of my
(04:06):
rope.
I had forgiven him so manytimes.
(04:37):
and he had a climbing rope.
This was not the same rope.
It had been several years, butit was a pretty new rope that he
had purchased.
And I was so mad, I went overand I just took a knife and I
cut the rope.
SPEAKER_01 (04:52):
Wow, look at you.
SPEAKER_02 (04:55):
Randy says that because it is
SPEAKER_01 (04:57):
so out of character for me.
Totally out of character forBeverly.
Totally out of character forhearts.
SPEAKER_02 (05:02):
So it's a big moment for me and not one I'm proud of
at all.
SPEAKER_01 (05:06):
And the symbolism of it.
of the climbing rope and justthat this had been this great
gift, not the same rope, butit'd been a great gift and it
really was meaningful to you.
And then when the relationshipis going south, when things are
bad, when the frustration ishigh, when the hurt is maxed
(05:28):
out, you take it out on aclimbing rope and it just, it
makes so much sense, even thoughit seems completely irrational,
which is heart.
I mean, it is probably a heartthing.
SPEAKER_02 (05:46):
Sure.
And I don't know that I eventhought about all those things
at the time.
It was just pent up, built upanger and frustration to the
point where I needed somethingto release that.
And cutting that climbing ropefelt pretty good.
SPEAKER_01 (06:04):
Felt pretty cathartic.
SPEAKER_02 (06:06):
Until I realized You know, after I did it.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
Yeah, here comes all the other
SPEAKER_02 (06:13):
stuff.
Go ahead.
In the heat of the moment, itwas great.
Five minutes after, what have Idone is the question in my mind.
And I'm just kind of staring atit and, you know, all kinds of
dilemmas of, oh, my gosh, I'mgoing to have to tell him.
He's not going to be happy.
This is not good.
This is not like me.
Yeah.
My son had opened the garagedoor and he said, what are you
(06:36):
doing?
And I knew in that
SPEAKER_01 (06:37):
moment.
Your son was probably what?
Eight, nine years old about thattime.
SPEAKER_02 (06:44):
And he knew I was up to something because I probably
gave him the look of guilt.
And he said, what's going on?
And I said, nothing.
SPEAKER_01 (06:50):
Standing there with a knife and a bunch of cut rope.
SPEAKER_02 (06:55):
Which I'm sure the next day when Mark was sober,
I'm sure he went and told hisdad that I had cut his rope.
But it
SPEAKER_01 (07:01):
wasn't for something.
Several years.
(07:32):
some of his climbing gear andstuff.
And that then the kids ended upwith.
And so I'm sure it was in justthe conversation about the
climbing gear and all of thosethings.
And it comes up that your sonremembers that.
SPEAKER_02 (07:45):
Right.
And he remembered it as momcutting the climbing rope as
though I was trying to kill myfirst husband.
SPEAKER_01 (07:52):
He remembers it as mom tried to kill dad, which it
wasn't.
And even if the rope was was tooshort or whatever.
Mark was a skilled enoughclimber.
He wasn't going to run into thatproblem.
And quite frankly, I suspectBeverly's guilt would have kept
him from going climbing with itanyways, because you would have
(08:14):
jumped back in.
SPEAKER_02 (08:28):
But...
And I guess what I go back tothis story about is you can look
at that story, and I'm surelisteners can poke at it and
wonder, oh, I've been that madat my partner, or what about
(08:51):
forgiveness?
What about frustration?
What about the duality of evenforgiving and frustration?
And I guess one of the things Iwant to talk to hearts about is
that is forgiveness is reallynever about excusing what
someone's done or forgettingthat.
Sure, we all make mistakes.
Things happen.
(09:12):
People can apologize.
We can forgive.
But really, forgiveness is foryou.
Forgiveness is a way for you torelease some of that frustration
and knowing that you can evenforgive and still be angry
because sometimes things arejust unfair and there's hurt and
sometimes I think
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
the way that I talk to my clients about forgiveness
is kind of on an old Buddhiststory.
There's a story of the Buddhatalking about something.
He says, if a man gives you agift and you do not accept the
gift, who has the gift?
And I think that we take on somuch stuff from other people,
(09:58):
including anger and things likethat, and maybe we don't need
to.
And so I kind of look atforgiveness as that opportunity
to say, okay, look, things arescrewed up.
you didn't act right.
I didn't act right or whatever,but we don't forget about it.
We don't do all that.
We just, we're just not going tocarry it anymore because it's
(10:21):
too darn heavy.
And so that's kind of myapproach to forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02 (10:25):
And forgiveness can definitely, definitely be
helpful.
I think as a heart, one of thethings that I struggled with is,
and we've talked about onprevious podcasts that hearts
can forgive fairly easily and wecan forgive and we can move on,
and that's all well and good.
It's 50-50 in a lot of respects,but it is a good quality to be
(10:49):
able to forgive.
The other thing, though, is thatMark would convince me that he
was going to be successful thenext time, that there was hope.
And what I was really goingthrough is something called
false hope.
So false hope is something thata person does when they convince
(11:10):
themselves that this time willbe different.
Many times it's called falsehope because we end up
experiencing that same letdown.
And even what can come with itis feeling really bad or even
like self-blame.
So the reason that I thinkhearts do this is because first
(11:32):
of all, connection to a heart isour oxygen.
And so it's easy for a heart togive extra chances to people
because we What we really fearis being disconnected.
We fear that more than evenbeing hurt or let down again.
I'd rather hold on rather thanface the heartbreak of being
(11:55):
done forever.
SPEAKER_01 (11:56):
It's an interesting concept because heads don't do
it that way.
We just, we draw a line and whensomebody crosses the line, we
go, okay, we're done.
Does doing it that way forhearts keep hearts stuck
sometimes in a bad relationshipbecause they're too quick to
forgive?
No.
SPEAKER_02 (12:11):
I don't know.
I think people are too
SPEAKER_01 (12:17):
unique to weigh in on that.
(12:41):
And so there's definitely somebalance that has to occur there.
But yeah, I see the false hopebecause it's easy to believe the
best in people when you areconnected to them.
When you're connected tosomebody as a heart, you are
(13:04):
able to go, oh, I see yourpotential.
SPEAKER_02 (13:08):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (13:08):
Not I see who you are.
I see that who you could be.
Only a lot of times those peoplewe head a lot of times aren't
capable of the potential thathearts put on us on the
relationship.
SPEAKER_02 (13:21):
That's a little bit unfair because I think that
potential is potential.
We all have potential.
I might see different potentialthan you think your potential
is.
We could argue about potential.
I think you
SPEAKER_01 (13:37):
could take the trash out.
(14:06):
Right.
And I think that is what happenseventually in relationships is
when we're the same, we do goopposite for
SPEAKER_02 (14:29):
various reasons.
In this case, we do go oppositefor various reasons.
Because the addiction caused himto be very weak and not show up,
I had to be very strong andcarry the family.
I had to work harder, worklonger, do more things around
(14:52):
the
SPEAKER_01 (14:52):
house.
I look at you as kinder and morecompassionate and all the, and
well, you are, but I mean, Ithink we look at the heart as
(15:15):
this, this big loving thing froma head perspective.
And I think hearts often look atthe head and go, oh, well, that
person is emotionally stoic.
They're not affected by all thefeelings that I'm affected by.
Therefore they are strong andmaybe strong at suppressing our
emotions, but, but.
SPEAKER_02 (15:34):
Well, it still comes off as strong, you know, when
you have a.
If you have
SPEAKER_01 (15:40):
migraine, you'll see a client.
I could
SPEAKER_02 (16:00):
never do that.
I do see that potential.
So I do lean that directionbecause I'm a heart.
I think what would be better forhearts is, especially in this
situation with addiction, it canbe a very challenging issue to
(16:22):
deal with.
And I think it would be betterto balance potential with
reality.
I think if I had the ability tosit down with him and say, well,
give me some proof to give youthat chance, proof that you can
do it.
can and will, that this will bedifferent this time.
Because otherwise, I was justkind of overriding, ignoring
(16:43):
some of those red flags.
I think some of it had to dowith, I kept telling myself, if
my husband had cancer, would Ileave?
Of course not.
Oh, thank God.
But here he had alcoholism,which some people refer to as
like a disease.
SPEAKER_01 (17:00):
A disease, sure.
SPEAKER_02 (17:02):
Although it's difficult because you see him
choosing to drink repeatedly.
So I was caught up in that hehas cancer.
If he had cancer, I would stay.
He has this.
And is it fair to leave?
Am I bailing?
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
At some point, there were things in the relationship
that said, no, it's better togo.
There were moments, and you'vetalked about them to me, and the
listeners certainly don't know,but there were things where it
got a little physical.
It wasn't an over-the-top kindof thing, but it certainly
reached a point of not quite assafe as it should be, and that
(17:39):
was part of an escalation of agrowth of the disease of
alcoholism in Mark's world.
You got out, and you can sit andyou can look back at all those
things that happen andsecond-guess it all you want.
As a head, I would go, that's awaste of energy.
Don't bother.
As a heart, that's not quite theway it works.
SPEAKER_02 (18:01):
I think that at the end of the day, I obviously did
the right thing, especially nowthat I have the hindsight of
knowing that he was going tocontinue down that path and
eventually die from the autopsysaid that multiple systems and
organs failed due to alcohol.
I guess what I'm hoping thathearts will learn from This
(18:23):
podcast would be that you canlove someone and you can also
love yourself from thestandpoint of protecting
yourself.
You can love someone and stillsay no.
You can be kind to them andcheer them from a distance, but
you can still walk away.
(18:45):
And I think these are thingsthat if I had known that way
back then, so much younger then,then I feel like maybe that last
chapter didn't have to go on forso long or so difficult.
I wouldn't have maybe reachedthe point of that rope, the end
of my rope.
SPEAKER_01 (19:05):
The end of your rope, metaphorically, and
physically standing in thegarage with a knife cutting it.
I love that story.
And that story actually cameabout recently.
We had been watching Jenny andGeorgia on Netflix, which is a
fascinating series.
And probably in the next fewweeks, Beverly and I will do a
(19:26):
podcast and we will break downsome of Jenny and Georgia just
because the relationshipdynamics in some of that show
are phenomenal, at leastphenomenal to talk about.
Doesn't make them healthy.
And so that kind of came up aswe looked at Georgia with her
maybe murderous past.
(19:49):
And so we were talking aboutthat and the rope story came up.
So I love the rope story.
Beverly is very, very, very muchnot a cold-blooded killer.
She's the most kind.
She can't hurt animals.
She can't step on bugs.
(20:09):
She's just the nicest humanbeing.
Well, yeah, the
SPEAKER_02 (20:18):
conversation was, I was saying that I really could
relate to Georgia, that therewere so many instances, so many
times where I felt that way.
Her character was resonating somuch with me, so much pain and
frustration and-
SPEAKER_01 (20:41):
But
SPEAKER_02 (20:42):
then it was good at the end of that to say to Randy,
but I never killed anyone.
And then I went,
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
well,
SPEAKER_02 (20:50):
there
SPEAKER_01 (20:50):
was this one time.
Maybe I could have, had I not.
Yeah.
My son thought I did.
Well, yeah.
And certainly thought you weretrying to.
And had Mark gone climbing withthe rope and something bad
happened, ooh, maybe Beverlycould.
Oh, that would have been bad.
All right.
That's it for this time around.
Beverly and the cutting therope.
(21:11):
We will, like I said, we'll talkabout Jenny and Georgia a bit in
a future episode soon.
If you have not seen the series,maybe go watch a couple
episodes.
It's actually really, reallykind of funny and interesting
and kind of a, it's a prettywell-written show, but we'll
chat about that some other time.
And if you don't watch Jenny andGeorgia, that's okay too.
And you can skip that episodewhen we get to it.
SPEAKER_02 (21:33):
My last thing for hearts is don't give up on hope.
Hope is extremely important inour life.
Just balance it between betweenhope and reality.
SPEAKER_01 (21:44):
Reality.
SPEAKER_02 (21:44):
Taking care of your own self, too.
SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
Aloha.
Thank you, everybody.
We'll talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_00 (21:53):
Thanks for listening to Heart vs.
Head.
You can learn more atheartandheadcoaching.com and
check out new podcast episodesevery Wednesday.
If you have a question for Randyand Beverly, send an email to
info atheartandheadcoaching.com.
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