October 28, 2024 • 28 mins
Unlock the secrets to healthier, more satisfying relationships with insights from Judge Lynn Toler. Drawing on my years on Divorce Court, I'll help you navigate the tough question of whether to stay or leave a relationship. Through heartfelt reflections and professional stories, we’ll explore the core of communication between partners and the importance of being "consciously married." This episode is designed to give you the tools to protect your emotional well-being and build strong, open channels where both partners feel heard and valued.
Making the decision to leave an abusive relationship is incredibly complex and requires careful planning. Together, we'll discuss the nuanced nature of domestic violence and the importance of a safe exit strategy. I'll also introduce you to Bloom 365, an organization committed to teaching young people how to build healthy relationships and avoid abusive patterns. Through courtroom stories, we’ll emphasize the power of a supportive network in helping individuals make this difficult transition.
Finally, we’ll confront the societal expectations that shape decisions about marriage and explore a "third option" that focuses on personal growth and fulfillment, even in challenging times. I’ll share insights into the self-reflection needed to understand what you truly want and deserve. By breaking these challenges into manageable steps, this episode serves as a guide for navigating relationship choices with intention, prioritizing your happiness, and embracing emotional independence for a healthier future.
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Judge Lynn Toler (00:00):
You know her as the longest presiding judge
on divorce court, for more than14 years.
Marriage boot camp and manyother programs.
A graduate of Harvard, judgeLynn Toler is the author of my
Mother's Rules Making MarriageWork and Dear Sonali Letters to
the Daughter I Never had, all ofwhich are dedicated to the
proper emotion, what it is andhow to find it.
(00:20):
Remember under your skin is asovereign country.
Don't go passing out passportsall willy-nilly to people who
don't belong there.
Let me help you protect youremotional borders so we can all
start feeling on purpose.
Hey, how you doing this isJudge Lynn Tolan, another
(00:41):
episode of my podcast, feelingon Purpose, in which the podcast
dedicated to the proposition ofnot allowing the world to
dictate how you feel.
You dictate how you feel andthen, if you don't feel in a way
that makes you happy or getsyou where you want to go, we're
going to learn to feeldifferently.
So, because feeling is aprocess, it's just not something
(01:03):
that falls on you.
It's something that you canlearn to manage and control, and
that's what we're looking to dohere Now.
This one, this episode, isdedicated to love and that light
lunacy that occurs when we allfall in that particular thing,
because it makes you.
You know, there's a lot ofbiology and behind that, I mean,
(01:28):
the drive is the drive, andwhen you fall in love, there's a
light bit of lunacy that goeson.
There's the oxytocin and thevasopressin that they talk to
one another, you know, and thenthey get together, they're
exciting and it's like ooh, andyou feel like whoosh, when it
may or may not be the case.
(01:49):
Having said that, the questionsI get about love most often
because I was the judge ondivorce court was typically
should I stay or should I go?
And I would get these questionsa lot from women, and how they
would be phrased would be theywould you could tell the
emotional trajectory that theywere on, because they would
(02:10):
start slowly with one smallthing and then it would get
longer and longer and longer,just a wide range, long time of
he can't hear me, he can't, he'snot, he's.
You know, I feel this, I feelthat I feel the other thing, and
the questions that I get frommen are often about how do I
(02:33):
deal with her jealousy, but Iget that from women as well.
But today I'm going to dedicateit to should I stay or should I
go, and this is not necessarilysimply a woman's issue Should I
stay or should I go?
And this is not necessarilysimply a woman's issue Should I
stay or should I go Becausedudes go through that as well.
So I want to talk about pickingit apart, not necessarily in
terms of this is how womenbehave and act, because you know
(02:56):
, as people have always told me.
I'm a court law on estrogen.
I don't behave like most womenbehave, I don't know.
You know I was a doodly personuntil about 25.
And then I had this sudden urgeto procreate and I went and got
Eric and went and did that.
But the questions I get aboutthat from women indicate a real
(03:17):
hesitancy to make a decision.
And I also combine that withknowledge that I got from
talking to divorce attorneys whospecialize in representing men
and they used to tell me all thetime that they are always
shocked at the number of men whocome in and say they didn't see
(03:39):
it coming.
Because you know, the statisticthat goes around is that two
thirds of divorces, or 70% ofdivorces, are started by women.
And that's true and I've lookedthat up again because I don't
just take that number thateverybody's talking about.
I looked at it again and it'sinteresting who's leaving who
and why, and I'm gonna talkabout that some other time.
(04:02):
But it's that cascading.
I'm so very unhappy for so longand the question in my mind
always was did she not speak it?
Or did she speak it and he nothear it?
Or did she speak it in a waythat he couldn't hear it, or did
(04:22):
she not say anything at all,that he couldn't hear it, or did
she not say anything at all?
And then the question becomesis he someone she could talk to?
Do you make it easy for yourpartner to say the things that
they need to say?
I had this one couple in courtnicest dude in the world.
She was nice too, but she wasjust bushy and loud and I kept
(04:44):
saying is there something youwant to say to her?
Is there something you want tosay to her?
And he finally said yeah, and Isaid I'm going to stop her from
talking so you can go.
So if there's something tolearn from just those pieces of
information that I have gatheredand put together is I don't
think we're having theconversation enough.
(05:06):
Whatever that conversationneeds to be about how things are
going and how things arefeeling, you have to be
consciously married, so you justcan't let that information.
Well, I'm unhappy.
I also remember hearing indivorce court a lot he should
know.
He doesn't know, and it's notbecause he's unkind or you know
(05:28):
for the most part Now somepeople are just don't care about
you.
They can be loving andwonderful in the beginning, male
or female, and then you canmarry them and then they just
turn into, you know, a personthat you can't deal with.
But my dogs are out there,that's why I keep looking.
But you have to be able to havethat conversation and be the
(05:56):
kind of person that can receivethat conversation, because
that's what the talking is andthe one wonderful thing my
husband and I did before we gotmarried we did a whole lot of
marriage counseling and theykept talking about how to talk.
Now, of course, during thecourse of marriage, we forgot
that like three, four times andhad some struggles and had some
difficulties and had someproblems.
And actually, looking at some ofthese women on divorce court
(06:20):
that were hollering, I'm unhappy.
Why can't he hear me me?
Taught me a lesson about my ownmarriage, about my being a
little bit voiceless, and we'llget to that in a little while.
But when the women come to me,they tell me a very, very long
story and they say should I stayor should I go?
Now I never on divorce court.
(06:43):
We have packets and packets ofinformation on them and we have
talked to other people and wealso have a psychologist on
staff and we always haverecommendations for
psychologists where they'regoing to, because we don't want
to work.
We didn't want to work folk upand just send them off.
And I know my hair looks crazy,I don't say anything about it,
it's just what it is.
(07:04):
So and we would do that.
So I would give my best adviceand go, and often people will
write me letters and ask thesame question.
They will tell me about thestress and distress and how
they're distraught, male andfemale and they'd ask me what do
I do?
Should I stay or should I go?
Those questions I neveranswered directly.
A because I only got one sideof the story.
(07:24):
I go those questions I neveranswered directly.
A because I only got one sideof the story.
And B because I don't have anybackup information.
You know, an expert I mean anopinion and a platform does not
make you an expert.
The information that you haveand the research you've done
with respect to the informationyou have makes you more
knowledgeable.
I don't want to say I'm anexpert, I am knowledgeable on
(07:44):
these issues, but I am not soknowledgeable.
I don't want to say I'm anexpert.
I am knowledgeable on theseissues, but I am not so
knowledgeable, and I don't thinkanybody really is to be able to
tell somebody exactly what theyought to do.
Based upon one side of thestory written in a moment in
time, you can get an impressionof what's occurring, but you
really don't know what isoccurring.
(08:06):
You don't know.
Sometimes they will say thingsabout what he said or what she
said, and often in divorce courtI would hear that and then I
would talk to the other person.
I said what did he just say?
And she would say somethingelse and I said you didn't hear
one another.
So the fact that a personwrites me a letter and says
their spouse, their step-in,other said A, b and C to me.
(08:29):
They may not have said that,they may have said something
else.
But sometimes you hear withyour fears and you hear with
your history.
If you get a lot of static andsomeone says something to you
wasn't meant staticky but wecould be taken as static, you
read it as static and thenyou're off to the emotional
(08:50):
races.
So you have to take, you haveto be able to have that
conversation on a regular basisand know what you're talking
about.
So on divorce card, I had theability to talk to both sides
and I had the ability.
But when this, when you askedme the question.
I can't answer it.
All I can do is meet it with aseries of questions, and here's
(09:15):
why I meet it with a series ofquestions.
If you cannot make a decision asto whether to stay in a
relationship or not in arelationship, it could be for a
variety of reasons.
Now there are always the bighulking ugly ones, the cheating
and abuse, and that is anentirely different category and
I do a lot of domestic violenceorganizations to help stem the
(09:40):
tide of that, and that is adifferent and very, very
separate inquiry and one of thereasons that I don't give like
oh this is horrible, you shouldgo advice, even if it is a
domestic violence situation.
To go without having a plan andan understanding of where the
(10:02):
other person is, male or femaleand how you are going to do that
successfully is foolish.
And I remember I saw some guyand he was a financial guy and a
wife was calling and she was intears and crying and upset Her
husband was just doing all thewrong stuff and her voice was
(10:26):
quivering and shaking and youcould hear the fear in her voice
and how little she knew aboutthe finances and the frustration
she had.
And it was a financially,emotionally abusive relationship
.
It could have been abusive inother ways, but that's not what
they were talking about.
But the guy said I'm callingthe police right now and I want
you, I want you to call or youknow, give me your number or
(10:48):
something, or I'm.
Where are you located?
You need to call the policetoday and get out.
And what my concern is aboutthat is you know, when you're a
judge and you're in a muni courtlike I was, and I was a
criminal judge so I would have alot of domestic violence cases
and what they gave us was alethality chart.
In other words, if you seethese particular things, that
(11:12):
the woman is pregnant, thenumber one cause of death for
pregnant women here in the US isthe guy that got them that way.
If you're about to leave, theodds are that there will be a
lethal outcome and about 1,800to 2,000 women a year are killed
(11:32):
in domestic violence situations.
So when you see any of thosethings as a judge, if he says I
want to kill myself, that isalso another sign that she is in
potentially a fatal situation.
So you have to understand aboutwhere is she going to go?
Where is she going to be safe?
(11:52):
What is she going to do?
Does she have money?
What kind of things thatabusers can do when a woman
leaves, messing with their money, messing with the electricity
or the lights.
There are all kinds of thingsthat have to be done.
So to say I see you're in anabusive relationship and you
ought to go right now does notacknowledge how lethal the
(12:16):
leaving can be and how much wehave to plan to do it and make
sure you do it in accordancewith people who know what
they're doing.
So I'm just going to leave thatover there and, if you're
curious about it, I belong to anorganization called Flume 365.
We go into different schoolseverywhere and teach people
about, teach young kids aboutpositive relationships.
(12:41):
In other words, we're trying tostop abusing both perpetrators
and victims from the verybeginning.
It's not just about gettingSally to know the signs of abuse
or getting Bobby to know thesigns of abuse.
It's about getting an abusiveSally and an abusive Bobby from
ever turning into an abuser.
(13:02):
I mean a regular Bobby and aregular Susie turning into an
abuser.
And it's interesting you learnso much when you go in there and
talk to those kids about what'sgoing on and what they've
already seen in their houses.
But anyway, that is a separatething.
When I'm talking about what Iused to call a whittled away
woman, it was a woman who feelslike she has no voice in the
(13:24):
relationship that she feels.
You know he's never kind to her, he's never loving she, doesn't
get anything out of it.
He says she's a waste of space.
These are the letters that Iget.
I try to say I try to askquestions that determine.
That will help that person walkthrough it.
(13:44):
Often they say I don't know whyI stay.
I'm so miserable, there's noupside.
So you got to figure out whyyou're staying.
And there's a lot of reasonswhy you could be staying.
And the reason why it'simportant for you to determine
why you're staying is then.
That is the avenue that youhave to address if you want to
(14:05):
make a decision to leave.
There's not going to be onedead bang winner decision.
My mother always used to sayLynn, you spend too much time
sitting there just ruminatingover should I do this, should I
do that, should I do this orshould I do that?
Often it's not about figuringout what the one right decision
(14:25):
is.
It's often about figuring outwhat set of problems do you want
to solve?
And I know, when my husband andI weren't getting along, she
says you've got, you can't staymarried and stay mad.
And I said, well, I don't knowwhat to do.
And then she goes, because youhave to make a decision about
what it is you're going to doand then do it.
And there's no one thing youcan do, one thing you can say,
(14:48):
one tact you can take that'sgoing to change everything.
You have to make a decisionwhether you're staying or you're
leaving, and then you have tosolve the problems that that
decision raises.
The decision to leave raisesproblems.
The decision to stay raisesproblems.
And then if you know what thoseare and you can figure them out
, you can solve them as you goalong.
(15:09):
So luckily I had her and Ialways talk about.
We had 18 months where we didn'tlike each other.
I would have given him to anywaiting woman for a dollar and
she might have got some change.
I mean, we were not gettingalong.
He'd go in the room, I'd comeout, I was flipping him the bird
behind his back because youknow I don't want to start no
(15:31):
trouble.
But we weren't getting along,but we fought our way back
because we didn't fight eachother, we fought the problem.
And the only reason we knewwhat the problem was because my
mother kept telling me and thenI was seeing it in divorce court
and then I was like, oh, oh,this is what I'm doing wrong.
(15:52):
And since I got on that subject,I might as well tell you, when
I had moved out here to go on totelevision, my husband put his
practice, he stopped hispractice and he wanted to go
into something else and we madethe move out here.
We rushed out here.
We did it way too quickly.
If you don't stop that, myDoberman is chewing on my
(16:13):
doorframe, stop, he's got like97 bones.
But anyway, and he didn't have,you know, he'd been working all
his life since he was 19.
And he was sitting in a chairtrying to figure out if you
don't stop chewing on that,trying to figure out what his
Lord, the dogs are killing me.
I'm still here, don't panic,okay.
(16:35):
So he kind of didn't.
He couldn't get started and hewas struggling a little bit,
because who he was is so muchdefined by the money he was
making and the business that heran, and it was very difficult
for him.
So I decided to respond to hislack of happy with being more
submissive and being oh,anything you want, baby, what do
(16:56):
you need?
What do you want?
What do you want?
Being making myself smaller andsmaller and smaller, and it
didn't work.
It made him madder and madderand madder and I couldn't figure
it out.
And the madder he got, thenicer I got the nicer, I got the
madder, I got the madder he got.
And then we finally figured outhe didn't need to me to be yes,
anything you want, because hewas struggling with what he
(17:19):
wanted.
It was.
He wanted that strong womanwith ideas back.
You know, baby, what we oughtto do, or what do you think
Maybe we could?
He wanted that.
He had gotten used to that.
He didn't like it in thebeginning because I got an
opinion on everything, but hehad gotten used to it.
And then he didn't know whathis problem was.
(17:40):
And I didn't know what hisproblem was.
And I made it worse with my owntrying to figure it out and
didn't know what I was doingbecause I didn't separate the
issues.
All I saw he was mad.
So I'm going to be nicer, butthat wasn't the issue.
So what I say to ladies thatwrite me about should I stay or
should I go?
I'm so miserable I don't knowwhy I stay.
(18:03):
You got to figure out the why.
Is it the social pressure?
Often, women, we've been forgenerations defined as
generations, millennia definedas whether or not we're married.
We like to get married.
There aren't shows about how toget a woman to commit.
We want you, we want to getmarried, and you went from miss
(18:26):
to missus and now there's even aretrenchment there.
Even after all the Everybody'sgoing back to the trad wife and
people are telling us to stepaside and to go back home.
We are often defined in ourvalue, told that women who don't
you know our value was oftendefined as do I have a man and
(18:46):
children in my life, and so ifthat life is unbearable but
that's how you define yourselfit makes it more difficult to
make the decision to go.
Then there's an issue of love.
Just because somebody's treatingyou badly doesn't mean you
don't love them.
You still love them, and it'shard to leave somebody in love,
even if they're not doing rightby you.
(19:08):
So you have to decide if that'sit and if that is it, you have
to make a decision to that youcan love without being with them
, and there are means andprocesses and procedures to do
that.
Then, of course, there is thehistory.
Don't nobody like change?
(19:28):
The brain does not do well withchange, and if you've been with
someone for 15 years, the firstthing is like oh my God, what is
that?
What do I do my entire life?
Because it was a we thing, itwas.
He did all of these things andI did all of those things and he
(19:52):
would find stuff for me, likehe was a Geiger counter.
I could never find anything.
I've had four or fivelocksmiths out here since he's
died because I can't keep upwith stuff and he could.
So his emotional underpinnings,which were so calm and cool,
were the best way for me to dealwith my emotional underpinnings
(20:13):
, which is, you know, half inthe bag out of my mind if
something goes wrong, and heused to tell me too he says, the
reason you can't find thingsand I can is because I start
with the notion that it's here.
You start with the notion, oh myGod, what if I never find it?
(20:35):
Look how much trouble it willcause.
So you're panicked, runningabout the room and I'm calmly
moving things.
That's an emotional lesson foryou.
Could also be the kids that arekeeping you there.
It's wonderful having atwo-parent household if that
two-parent household is anywherenear cool.
You know what I mean.
Even when I was raised in atwo-parent household, it wasn't
(20:58):
always cool because my fatherwas bipolar and unmedicated, but
he was a good dude.
And don't tell me it wasn'tbecause you didn't know him.
I got blowbacked on that.
Once when I was on thebreakfast club talking about it,
they said you didn't know thatyour father was emotionally
abusive and all that kind ofstuff.
They didn't know the guy.
(21:19):
He had lightning going on inhis head.
He did not ask God to make himemotionally unmoored, he just
was and he tried very, very hardto do his very best.
I'm sorry I got off on thattangent, but I love that man,
you know, and I can't stand itwith something bad about him.
He wasn't a perfect dude, butit was a two-parent household,
(21:40):
even with all the lightning andcarrying on.
It was a sense of safety thatyou have, and it's nice to have
that guy around because you knowthat guy isn't going to let
anybody hurt you.
So sometimes you stay with thatguy when it is no longer cool
because of the kids.
So then you have to askyourself, well, if this is the
reason that I'm staying, is thiscool for the children?
(22:04):
And what are they seeing?
Are they seeing abuse?
Are they seeing horrible?
Or would it be better to seetwo sane people in a separate
house on different days?
You can always ask yourselfthose questions.
Sometimes you think this is thebest I can do, and then my
question to you is if you thinkyou can't get anybody else, is
(22:28):
this better than being alone?
All of those things could be inplay.
None of them can be in play.
One or two of them are going tobe in play.
But the point is to askyourself specifically what are
the positives of staying?
What are the positives of going?
You list them out, you make alist and then you have to decide
which set of problems you wantto solve.
(22:50):
I remember when I was 13 yearsold.
I've been bizarre all my life.
It appears I had an.
If I could find it, I wouldshow it to you.
I typed on those one of thosetyping machines with carbon
paper, decision-making paper andit said here's the decision,
here's the conundrum that I have, here's what the powers that be
(23:10):
say about it.
That would be parents andschool and all that.
Here's why I don't want to doit or why I'm upset about it.
And then I had a sheet of paperwhere I put a line, I put the
pros over here, I put the consover there and then at the end
of the page, I put don't worryabout it too long.
Good luck, because I was one ofthese people who like to pick
things apart.
(23:31):
And when you pick it apart, youcan find the part that's not
working and you can decide to dosomething else with it.
Now, if you can't make thedecision to stay or go based
upon a delineation of what isgoing well and what is not going
well, what's working and notworking, you can always take the
(23:53):
third option.
And the third option is what myhusband and I took.
It was to stay and to change.
I identified what I didn't likeand I put on my turn signal
Click, click, click, click.
You know how, when you put onyour turn signal out in the
world, it's like I put on myturn signal in a parking lot
because I figured the morepeople who know where I'm headed
(24:16):
, the less likely I'll be towill be to run into each other
when I get there.
I want everybody to know whereI'm going.
And often what happens in amarriage?
You decide to take a new tackbut you don't tell nobody, so
they just like who is thisperson and what are they doing.
Same thing happened to me when Iwent through menopause too.
I went through menopause reallyearly, like in my 40s, and
(24:39):
neither one of us knew what wasgoing on.
And I called my mother up oneday and I said I don't know
what's happening in here we'refighting about, you know, it's
hot all the time and myhusband's gotten really stupid.
What's wrong?
And I found anyway, I'm sorry Igot in, I'm sorry I got into
(25:01):
that, but when you change,everybody has to change around
you.
Everybody had to deal with megoing through menopause.
I was going through menopause.
At the same time my kids weregoing through, my boys were
going through puberty and I tellyou it made it easier because
my hormones trumped the livingdaylights out of their hormones
and my hormones were attached toa man who would do my bidding,
and to money and to food, and to.
(25:23):
I was a crazy person.
He once had to take the kidsand leave the house In the
middle of dinner.
He said we can't stay herebecause I did not know what was
wrong with me and I could notadjust.
When I figured out what waswrong with me, I adjusted, but
anyway, when we had the bigthing, my mother was coaching me
and she was telling me okay,you go do this and he's going to
(25:44):
get mad about it, but you can'tget weak.
You can't just say, okay, fine,I don't want to have the fight,
okay, fine, you said you haveto let him get mad and you have
to stand your ground, don'traise your voice, don't get
excited, don't get ugly, andthen tell me what happens.
And then I would call and Iwould tell her what happens.
And then it would just be.
She says do you see what I'mtrying to teach you?
(26:06):
You cannot just tell him heneeds to change.
You cannot tell him what it isyou don't like.
It took you 18 years to get intothis mess.
It's going to take you time toget out and it is a process and
procedure of you deciding whatyou want in your marriage Not
revenge, not, you know, being incharge, but being happy within
(26:31):
the context of what the two ofyou got going on.
And once you make those changes, he'll be required to change,
but he's because he's got adifferent chick on his hands and
that was the third option.
The third option was difficult.
The third option I did notthink was going to work for a
great deal of time.
(26:51):
The third option took patienceand was relatively painful.
It really really was.
But the third option allowed meto have him.
And I'm not saying that thethird option is for anybody else
, I'm just saying it's there andinstead of looking at the
entire relationship but by thetime you get distressed and
(27:12):
distraught, I was just mad.
I mean, anything he did wouldsend me into the ozone.
Anything I did would send himinto the ozone.
But we had to back up off how Icall them rebound emotions, and
that's what stands in the roomAfter you guys had an argument,
(27:33):
you resolved it, but I said,yeah, okay, fine, but I wasn't
really telling him the truth, itwas a false okay.
I was telling him okay becauseI didn't want to have a fight
and I wasn't okay about it.
And I stayed not okay about itand I revved that up in my head
and the next thing you know wewere having another problem.
So when you break it up intopieces so you can see the pieces
and parts of the pain thatyou're in, you might be able to
figure out.
(27:53):
Either you can stay and make itokay, you can go and survive
and be happy, or you can do athird option and just and it's
not always available, but themore you know and the more
detailed and precise you get onwhat's going on, the more
options you have.
(28:14):
That's my 20 cent opinion.
Y'all have a good day andremember under your skin is
sovereign country.
Do not go handing out passportsall willy nilly to people who
don't belong there and most ofthe world does not.
Bye.
You know her as the longest presiding judge
on divorce court, for more than14 years.
Marriage boot camp and manyother programs.
A graduate of Harvard, judgeLynn Toler is the author of my
Mother's Rules Making MarriageWork and Dear Sonali Letters to
the Daughter I Never had, all ofwhich are dedicated to the
proper emotion, what it is andhow to find it.
(00:20):
Remember under your skin is asovereign country.
Don't go passing out passportsall willy-nilly to people who
don't belong there.
Let me help you protect youremotional borders so we can all
start feeling on purpose.
Hey, how you doing this isJudge Lynn Tolan, another
(00:41):
episode of my podcast, feelingon Purpose, in which the podcast
dedicated to the proposition ofnot allowing the world to
dictate how you feel.
You dictate how you feel andthen, if you don't feel in a way
that makes you happy or getsyou where you want to go, we're
going to learn to feeldifferently.
So, because feeling is aprocess, it's just not something
(01:03):
that falls on you.
It's something that you canlearn to manage and control, and
that's what we're looking to dohere Now.
This one, this episode, isdedicated to love and that light
lunacy that occurs when we allfall in that particular thing,
because it makes you.
You know, there's a lot ofbiology and behind that, I mean,
(01:28):
the drive is the drive, andwhen you fall in love, there's a
light bit of lunacy that goeson.
There's the oxytocin and thevasopressin that they talk to
one another, you know, and thenthey get together, they're
exciting and it's like ooh, andyou feel like whoosh, when it
may or may not be the case.
(01:49):
Having said that, the questionsI get about love most often
because I was the judge ondivorce court was typically
should I stay or should I go?
And I would get these questionsa lot from women, and how they
would be phrased would be theywould you could tell the
emotional trajectory that theywere on, because they would
(02:10):
start slowly with one smallthing and then it would get
longer and longer and longer,just a wide range, long time of
he can't hear me, he can't, he'snot, he's.
You know, I feel this, I feelthat I feel the other thing, and
the questions that I get frommen are often about how do I
(02:33):
deal with her jealousy, but Iget that from women as well.
But today I'm going to dedicateit to should I stay or should I
go, and this is not necessarilysimply a woman's issue Should I
stay or should I go?
And this is not necessarilysimply a woman's issue Should I
stay or should I go Becausedudes go through that as well.
So I want to talk about pickingit apart, not necessarily in
terms of this is how womenbehave and act, because you know
(02:56):
, as people have always told me.
I'm a court law on estrogen.
I don't behave like most womenbehave, I don't know.
You know I was a doodly personuntil about 25.
And then I had this sudden urgeto procreate and I went and got
Eric and went and did that.
But the questions I get aboutthat from women indicate a real
(03:17):
hesitancy to make a decision.
And I also combine that withknowledge that I got from
talking to divorce attorneys whospecialize in representing men
and they used to tell me all thetime that they are always
shocked at the number of men whocome in and say they didn't see
(03:39):
it coming.
Because you know, the statisticthat goes around is that two
thirds of divorces, or 70% ofdivorces, are started by women.
And that's true and I've lookedthat up again because I don't
just take that number thateverybody's talking about.
I looked at it again and it'sinteresting who's leaving who
and why, and I'm gonna talkabout that some other time.
(04:02):
But it's that cascading.
I'm so very unhappy for so longand the question in my mind
always was did she not speak it?
Or did she speak it and he nothear it?
Or did she speak it in a waythat he couldn't hear it, or did
(04:22):
she not say anything at all,that he couldn't hear it, or did
she not say anything at all?
And then the question becomesis he someone she could talk to?
Do you make it easy for yourpartner to say the things that
they need to say?
I had this one couple in courtnicest dude in the world.
She was nice too, but she wasjust bushy and loud and I kept
(04:44):
saying is there something youwant to say to her?
Is there something you want tosay to her?
And he finally said yeah, and Isaid I'm going to stop her from
talking so you can go.
So if there's something tolearn from just those pieces of
information that I have gatheredand put together is I don't
think we're having theconversation enough.
(05:06):
Whatever that conversationneeds to be about how things are
going and how things arefeeling, you have to be
consciously married, so you justcan't let that information.
Well, I'm unhappy.
I also remember hearing indivorce court a lot he should
know.
He doesn't know, and it's notbecause he's unkind or you know
(05:28):
for the most part Now somepeople are just don't care about
you.
They can be loving andwonderful in the beginning, male
or female, and then you canmarry them and then they just
turn into, you know, a personthat you can't deal with.
But my dogs are out there,that's why I keep looking.
But you have to be able to havethat conversation and be the
(05:56):
kind of person that can receivethat conversation, because
that's what the talking is andthe one wonderful thing my
husband and I did before we gotmarried we did a whole lot of
marriage counseling and theykept talking about how to talk.
Now, of course, during thecourse of marriage, we forgot
that like three, four times andhad some struggles and had some
difficulties and had someproblems.
And actually, looking at some ofthese women on divorce court
(06:20):
that were hollering, I'm unhappy.
Why can't he hear me me?
Taught me a lesson about my ownmarriage, about my being a
little bit voiceless, and we'llget to that in a little while.
But when the women come to me,they tell me a very, very long
story and they say should I stayor should I go?
Now I never on divorce court.
(06:43):
We have packets and packets ofinformation on them and we have
talked to other people and wealso have a psychologist on
staff and we always haverecommendations for
psychologists where they'regoing to, because we don't want
to work.
We didn't want to work folk upand just send them off.
And I know my hair looks crazy,I don't say anything about it,
it's just what it is.
(07:04):
So and we would do that.
So I would give my best adviceand go, and often people will
write me letters and ask thesame question.
They will tell me about thestress and distress and how
they're distraught, male andfemale and they'd ask me what do
I do?
Should I stay or should I go?
Those questions I neveranswered directly.
A because I only got one sideof the story.
(07:24):
I go those questions I neveranswered directly.
A because I only got one sideof the story.
And B because I don't have anybackup information.
You know, an expert I mean anopinion and a platform does not
make you an expert.
The information that you haveand the research you've done
with respect to the informationyou have makes you more
knowledgeable.
I don't want to say I'm anexpert, I am knowledgeable on
(07:44):
these issues, but I am not soknowledgeable.
I don't want to say I'm anexpert.
I am knowledgeable on theseissues, but I am not so
knowledgeable, and I don't thinkanybody really is to be able to
tell somebody exactly what theyought to do.
Based upon one side of thestory written in a moment in
time, you can get an impressionof what's occurring, but you
really don't know what isoccurring.
(08:06):
You don't know.
Sometimes they will say thingsabout what he said or what she
said, and often in divorce courtI would hear that and then I
would talk to the other person.
I said what did he just say?
And she would say somethingelse and I said you didn't hear
one another.
So the fact that a personwrites me a letter and says
their spouse, their step-in,other said A, b and C to me.
(08:29):
They may not have said that,they may have said something
else.
But sometimes you hear withyour fears and you hear with
your history.
If you get a lot of static andsomeone says something to you
wasn't meant staticky but wecould be taken as static, you
read it as static and thenyou're off to the emotional
(08:50):
races.
So you have to take, you haveto be able to have that
conversation on a regular basisand know what you're talking
about.
So on divorce card, I had theability to talk to both sides
and I had the ability.
But when this, when you askedme the question.
I can't answer it.
All I can do is meet it with aseries of questions, and here's
(09:15):
why I meet it with a series ofquestions.
If you cannot make a decision asto whether to stay in a
relationship or not in arelationship, it could be for a
variety of reasons.
Now there are always the bighulking ugly ones, the cheating
and abuse, and that is anentirely different category and
I do a lot of domestic violenceorganizations to help stem the
(09:40):
tide of that, and that is adifferent and very, very
separate inquiry and one of thereasons that I don't give like
oh this is horrible, you shouldgo advice, even if it is a
domestic violence situation.
To go without having a plan andan understanding of where the
(10:02):
other person is, male or femaleand how you are going to do that
successfully is foolish.
And I remember I saw some guyand he was a financial guy and a
wife was calling and she was intears and crying and upset Her
husband was just doing all thewrong stuff and her voice was
(10:26):
quivering and shaking and youcould hear the fear in her voice
and how little she knew aboutthe finances and the frustration
she had.
And it was a financially,emotionally abusive relationship
.
It could have been abusive inother ways, but that's not what
they were talking about.
But the guy said I'm callingthe police right now and I want
you, I want you to call or youknow, give me your number or
(10:48):
something, or I'm.
Where are you located?
You need to call the policetoday and get out.
And what my concern is aboutthat is you know, when you're a
judge and you're in a muni courtlike I was, and I was a
criminal judge so I would have alot of domestic violence cases
and what they gave us was alethality chart.
In other words, if you seethese particular things, that
(11:12):
the woman is pregnant, thenumber one cause of death for
pregnant women here in the US isthe guy that got them that way.
If you're about to leave, theodds are that there will be a
lethal outcome and about 1,800to 2,000 women a year are killed
(11:32):
in domestic violence situations.
So when you see any of thosethings as a judge, if he says I
want to kill myself, that isalso another sign that she is in
potentially a fatal situation.
So you have to understand aboutwhere is she going to go?
Where is she going to be safe?
(11:52):
What is she going to do?
Does she have money?
What kind of things thatabusers can do when a woman
leaves, messing with their money, messing with the electricity
or the lights.
There are all kinds of thingsthat have to be done.
So to say I see you're in anabusive relationship and you
ought to go right now does notacknowledge how lethal the
(12:16):
leaving can be and how much wehave to plan to do it and make
sure you do it in accordancewith people who know what
they're doing.
So I'm just going to leave thatover there and, if you're
curious about it, I belong to anorganization called Flume 365.
We go into different schoolseverywhere and teach people
about, teach young kids aboutpositive relationships.
(12:41):
In other words, we're trying tostop abusing both perpetrators
and victims from the verybeginning.
It's not just about gettingSally to know the signs of abuse
or getting Bobby to know thesigns of abuse.
It's about getting an abusiveSally and an abusive Bobby from
ever turning into an abuser.
(13:02):
I mean a regular Bobby and aregular Susie turning into an
abuser.
And it's interesting you learnso much when you go in there and
talk to those kids about what'sgoing on and what they've
already seen in their houses.
But anyway, that is a separatething.
When I'm talking about what Iused to call a whittled away
woman, it was a woman who feelslike she has no voice in the
(13:24):
relationship that she feels.
You know he's never kind to her, he's never loving she, doesn't
get anything out of it.
He says she's a waste of space.
These are the letters that Iget.
I try to say I try to askquestions that determine.
That will help that person walkthrough it.
(13:44):
Often they say I don't know whyI stay.
I'm so miserable, there's noupside.
So you got to figure out whyyou're staying.
And there's a lot of reasonswhy you could be staying.
And the reason why it'simportant for you to determine
why you're staying is then.
That is the avenue that youhave to address if you want to
(14:05):
make a decision to leave.
There's not going to be onedead bang winner decision.
My mother always used to sayLynn, you spend too much time
sitting there just ruminatingover should I do this, should I
do that, should I do this orshould I do that?
Often it's not about figuringout what the one right decision
(14:25):
is.
It's often about figuring outwhat set of problems do you want
to solve?
And I know, when my husband andI weren't getting along, she
says you've got, you can't staymarried and stay mad.
And I said, well, I don't knowwhat to do.
And then she goes, because youhave to make a decision about
what it is you're going to doand then do it.
And there's no one thing youcan do, one thing you can say,
(14:48):
one tact you can take that'sgoing to change everything.
You have to make a decisionwhether you're staying or you're
leaving, and then you have tosolve the problems that that
decision raises.
The decision to leave raisesproblems.
The decision to stay raisesproblems.
And then if you know what thoseare and you can figure them out
, you can solve them as you goalong.
(15:09):
So luckily I had her and Ialways talk about.
We had 18 months where we didn'tlike each other.
I would have given him to anywaiting woman for a dollar and
she might have got some change.
I mean, we were not gettingalong.
He'd go in the room, I'd comeout, I was flipping him the bird
behind his back because youknow I don't want to start no
(15:31):
trouble.
But we weren't getting along,but we fought our way back
because we didn't fight eachother, we fought the problem.
And the only reason we knewwhat the problem was because my
mother kept telling me and thenI was seeing it in divorce court
and then I was like, oh, oh,this is what I'm doing wrong.
(15:52):
And since I got on that subject,I might as well tell you, when
I had moved out here to go on totelevision, my husband put his
practice, he stopped hispractice and he wanted to go
into something else and we madethe move out here.
We rushed out here.
We did it way too quickly.
If you don't stop that, myDoberman is chewing on my
(16:13):
doorframe, stop, he's got like97 bones.
But anyway, and he didn't have,you know, he'd been working all
his life since he was 19.
And he was sitting in a chairtrying to figure out if you
don't stop chewing on that,trying to figure out what his
Lord, the dogs are killing me.
I'm still here, don't panic,okay.
(16:35):
So he kind of didn't.
He couldn't get started and hewas struggling a little bit,
because who he was is so muchdefined by the money he was
making and the business that heran, and it was very difficult
for him.
So I decided to respond to hislack of happy with being more
submissive and being oh,anything you want, baby, what do
(16:56):
you need?
What do you want?
What do you want?
Being making myself smaller andsmaller and smaller, and it
didn't work.
It made him madder and madderand madder and I couldn't figure
it out.
And the madder he got, thenicer I got the nicer, I got the
madder, I got the madder he got.
And then we finally figured outhe didn't need to me to be yes,
anything you want, because hewas struggling with what he
(17:19):
wanted.
It was.
He wanted that strong womanwith ideas back.
You know, baby, what we oughtto do, or what do you think
Maybe we could?
He wanted that.
He had gotten used to that.
He didn't like it in thebeginning because I got an
opinion on everything, but hehad gotten used to it.
And then he didn't know whathis problem was.
(17:40):
And I didn't know what hisproblem was.
And I made it worse with my owntrying to figure it out and
didn't know what I was doingbecause I didn't separate the
issues.
All I saw he was mad.
So I'm going to be nicer, butthat wasn't the issue.
So what I say to ladies thatwrite me about should I stay or
should I go?
I'm so miserable I don't knowwhy I stay.
(18:03):
You got to figure out the why.
Is it the social pressure?
Often, women, we've been forgenerations defined as
generations, millennia definedas whether or not we're married.
We like to get married.
There aren't shows about how toget a woman to commit.
We want you, we want to getmarried, and you went from miss
(18:26):
to missus and now there's even aretrenchment there.
Even after all the Everybody'sgoing back to the trad wife and
people are telling us to stepaside and to go back home.
We are often defined in ourvalue, told that women who don't
you know our value was oftendefined as do I have a man and
(18:46):
children in my life, and so ifthat life is unbearable but
that's how you define yourselfit makes it more difficult to
make the decision to go.
Then there's an issue of love.
Just because somebody's treatingyou badly doesn't mean you
don't love them.
You still love them, and it'shard to leave somebody in love,
even if they're not doing rightby you.
(19:08):
So you have to decide if that'sit and if that is it, you have
to make a decision to that youcan love without being with them
, and there are means andprocesses and procedures to do
that.
Then, of course, there is thehistory.
Don't nobody like change?
(19:28):
The brain does not do well withchange, and if you've been with
someone for 15 years, the firstthing is like oh my God, what is
that?
What do I do my entire life?
Because it was a we thing, itwas.
He did all of these things andI did all of those things and he
(19:52):
would find stuff for me, likehe was a Geiger counter.
I could never find anything.
I've had four or fivelocksmiths out here since he's
died because I can't keep upwith stuff and he could.
So his emotional underpinnings,which were so calm and cool,
were the best way for me to dealwith my emotional underpinnings
(20:13):
, which is, you know, half inthe bag out of my mind if
something goes wrong, and heused to tell me too he says, the
reason you can't find thingsand I can is because I start
with the notion that it's here.
You start with the notion, oh myGod, what if I never find it?
(20:35):
Look how much trouble it willcause.
So you're panicked, runningabout the room and I'm calmly
moving things.
That's an emotional lesson foryou.
Could also be the kids that arekeeping you there.
It's wonderful having atwo-parent household if that
two-parent household is anywherenear cool.
You know what I mean.
Even when I was raised in atwo-parent household, it wasn't
(20:58):
always cool because my fatherwas bipolar and unmedicated, but
he was a good dude.
And don't tell me it wasn'tbecause you didn't know him.
I got blowbacked on that.
Once when I was on thebreakfast club talking about it,
they said you didn't know thatyour father was emotionally
abusive and all that kind ofstuff.
They didn't know the guy.
(21:19):
He had lightning going on inhis head.
He did not ask God to make himemotionally unmoored, he just
was and he tried very, very hardto do his very best.
I'm sorry I got off on thattangent, but I love that man,
you know, and I can't stand itwith something bad about him.
He wasn't a perfect dude, butit was a two-parent household,
(21:40):
even with all the lightning andcarrying on.
It was a sense of safety thatyou have, and it's nice to have
that guy around because you knowthat guy isn't going to let
anybody hurt you.
So sometimes you stay with thatguy when it is no longer cool
because of the kids.
So then you have to askyourself, well, if this is the
reason that I'm staying, is thiscool for the children?
(22:04):
And what are they seeing?
Are they seeing abuse?
Are they seeing horrible?
Or would it be better to seetwo sane people in a separate
house on different days?
You can always ask yourselfthose questions.
Sometimes you think this is thebest I can do, and then my
question to you is if you thinkyou can't get anybody else, is
(22:28):
this better than being alone?
All of those things could be inplay.
None of them can be in play.
One or two of them are going tobe in play.
But the point is to askyourself specifically what are
the positives of staying?
What are the positives of going?
You list them out, you make alist and then you have to decide
which set of problems you wantto solve.
(22:50):
I remember when I was 13 yearsold.
I've been bizarre all my life.
It appears I had an.
If I could find it, I wouldshow it to you.
I typed on those one of thosetyping machines with carbon
paper, decision-making paper andit said here's the decision,
here's the conundrum that I have, here's what the powers that be
(23:10):
say about it.
That would be parents andschool and all that.
Here's why I don't want to doit or why I'm upset about it.
And then I had a sheet of paperwhere I put a line, I put the
pros over here, I put the consover there and then at the end
of the page, I put don't worryabout it too long.
Good luck, because I was one ofthese people who like to pick
things apart.
(23:31):
And when you pick it apart, youcan find the part that's not
working and you can decide to dosomething else with it.
Now, if you can't make thedecision to stay or go based
upon a delineation of what isgoing well and what is not going
well, what's working and notworking, you can always take the
(23:53):
third option.
And the third option is what myhusband and I took.
It was to stay and to change.
I identified what I didn't likeand I put on my turn signal
Click, click, click, click.
You know how, when you put onyour turn signal out in the
world, it's like I put on myturn signal in a parking lot
because I figured the morepeople who know where I'm headed
(24:16):
, the less likely I'll be towill be to run into each other
when I get there.
I want everybody to know whereI'm going.
And often what happens in amarriage?
You decide to take a new tackbut you don't tell nobody, so
they just like who is thisperson and what are they doing.
Same thing happened to me when Iwent through menopause too.
I went through menopause reallyearly, like in my 40s, and
(24:39):
neither one of us knew what wasgoing on.
And I called my mother up oneday and I said I don't know
what's happening in here we'refighting about, you know, it's
hot all the time and myhusband's gotten really stupid.
What's wrong?
And I found anyway, I'm sorry Igot in, I'm sorry I got into
(25:01):
that, but when you change,everybody has to change around
you.
Everybody had to deal with megoing through menopause.
I was going through menopause.
At the same time my kids weregoing through, my boys were
going through puberty and I tellyou it made it easier because
my hormones trumped the livingdaylights out of their hormones
and my hormones were attached toa man who would do my bidding,
and to money and to food, and to.
(25:23):
I was a crazy person.
He once had to take the kidsand leave the house In the
middle of dinner.
He said we can't stay herebecause I did not know what was
wrong with me and I could notadjust.
When I figured out what waswrong with me, I adjusted, but
anyway, when we had the bigthing, my mother was coaching me
and she was telling me okay,you go do this and he's going to
(25:44):
get mad about it, but you can'tget weak.
You can't just say, okay, fine,I don't want to have the fight,
okay, fine, you said you haveto let him get mad and you have
to stand your ground, don'traise your voice, don't get
excited, don't get ugly, andthen tell me what happens.
And then I would call and Iwould tell her what happens.
And then it would just be.
She says do you see what I'mtrying to teach you?
(26:06):
You cannot just tell him heneeds to change.
You cannot tell him what it isyou don't like.
It took you 18 years to get intothis mess.
It's going to take you time toget out and it is a process and
procedure of you deciding whatyou want in your marriage Not
revenge, not, you know, being incharge, but being happy within
(26:31):
the context of what the two ofyou got going on.
And once you make those changes, he'll be required to change,
but he's because he's got adifferent chick on his hands and
that was the third option.
The third option was difficult.
The third option I did notthink was going to work for a
great deal of time.
(26:51):
The third option took patienceand was relatively painful.
It really really was.
But the third option allowed meto have him.
And I'm not saying that thethird option is for anybody else
, I'm just saying it's there andinstead of looking at the
entire relationship but by thetime you get distressed and
(27:12):
distraught, I was just mad.
I mean, anything he did wouldsend me into the ozone.
Anything I did would send himinto the ozone.
But we had to back up off how Icall them rebound emotions, and
that's what stands in the roomAfter you guys had an argument,
(27:33):
you resolved it, but I said,yeah, okay, fine, but I wasn't
really telling him the truth, itwas a false okay.
I was telling him okay becauseI didn't want to have a fight
and I wasn't okay about it.
And I stayed not okay about itand I revved that up in my head
and the next thing you know wewere having another problem.
So when you break it up intopieces so you can see the pieces
and parts of the pain thatyou're in, you might be able to
figure out.
(27:53):
Either you can stay and make itokay, you can go and survive
and be happy, or you can do athird option and just and it's
not always available, but themore you know and the more
detailed and precise you get onwhat's going on, the more
options you have.
(28:14):
That's my 20 cent opinion.
Y'all have a good day andremember under your skin is
sovereign country.
Do not go handing out passportsall willy nilly to people who
don't belong there and most ofthe world does not.
Bye.
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In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com