December 11, 2024 • 41 mins
Becky Whetstone, Ph.D. is a marriage and family therapist in private practice who specializes in trauma, codependency, and marriage crisis. A journalist and former features writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, she created a singles movement dedicated toward kindness, decency, and integrity in dating that became a south Texas phenomenon. Among the 600,000 annual divorces that transpire within the United States, almost all of them begin with a marriage crisis. Whether your partner told you they want to leave the marriage, or you are wondering how to break the news that you want out, this breaking point can be filled with overwhelming emotions, worry about children becoming collateral damage, and ill-advised counseling that make navigating this process more frightening and confusing than it has to be. These heartbreaking times can propel couples into a state of fear, panic, and uncertainty about what steps they should take, sometimes leading them to divorce when reconciliation might have been possible. Known as the “Marriage Crisis Manager,” marriage and family therapist Becky Whetstone fills in these gaps by speaking to both partners on how to manage themselves and their relationship in the healthiest of ways, regardless of the eventual outcome. In I (Think) I Want Out, Whetstone’s coaching offers clear understanding on why everyone feels crazy and overwhelmed during one of life’s most difficult experiences. By promoting peacefulness and self-care, she emphasizes the importance of both partners slowing down throughout the process. With engaging exercises and worksheets, Whetstone organizes an intelligent plan so all parties can successfully manage the crisis in a way where smart, rational decision-making can take place, and mistakes are minimized. Visit: https://doctorbecky.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, everybody, Welcome to the Best Ever You show. I'm
your host, Elizabeth Hamilton Garino here with author Becky Wetstone.
How are you, Becky.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me
on here. This is very exciting.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, I am super excited about your new book. I
think I want out which is in h is it
in pre order or did it just release?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's in pre order February fourth, it's released, and yeah,
so you can pre order it now on every book
site where you buy books.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, it's uh, most of us like to most of
us authors like to send everybody to Amazon because like,
so many of the books that are sold these days
route right through Amazon. But I'm one of those authors
who likes to point people to books a million Barnes
and Noble, Barnes and Noble and then to the independent
booksellers in your town and things like that. So just so, yeah,
(00:55):
there's so many places. So tell me, is this your
first books? It is?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It is? It's so exciting. I feel like a little
girl on Christmas morning.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I'm so excited. However, as you well know.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
It takes so much work. It takes so much work.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
You've got to have a lot of fuel in your
tank and a lot of gasoline to see a book through,
you know, and so it really was a challenge. It
took everything I had to get it out there. I
actually conceived of it almost twenty years ago, have started
writing it off and on for many years, and finally
(01:39):
just that voice in the head said, you know what,
time's of.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Wasting and you better write it before you die.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
So I dedicated myself to a two year program to
get it out and I hired an editor to keep
me on the straight and narrow, and we popped it
out and I I'm so in love with it. I'm
so proud of it.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, it's a cool book. I've got a copy of it.
I have a PDF copy of it at this point.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yes, of course that's all I have.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, So tell us about your tell us a little
bit more about your writing process and how you got
signed with HCI, because that makes you a traditionally published author,
which is a boy of that is makes you like
an MLB player almost.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
It's really hard.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, I'm in shock that I finally got a publisher,
I mean really, because of the process has been agonizing.
I went to some writing conferences, maybe eighteen years ago,
fifteen years ago, and would had a proposal for this
book back then and would walk up to agents, you know,
and tell them about my book, and they would go,
(02:54):
it's too negative.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
You know, I just got married.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Why would I write a book about divorce, you know,
represent a book about divorce. And I really got discouraged.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Talking to all these agents.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And then of course you're not famous, you don't have
enough social media back and go build that up and
all that stuff. So that kind of took the wind
out of my sales back then. Is because I sent
the thing around to I must have been one hundred
people and got rejections completely.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So I put it down for a long time.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
But luckily, in the meantime, I got more experience in
managing marriage crisis and had developed some new and better
ideas about how to do it. So I think everything
happens for a reason, you know, because I think the
content that's in it now is richer and has more
(03:47):
proven experience behind it. So after I wrote the book
two years ago, and what I did was, you know,
I broke it down into chapters.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And here's a crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Little story about how I got motivated to do it.
I got a query from some publisher out there that
said they were writing a book on I don't know,
midlife crisis workbook or something. Would I be interested in
writing it, but I would have to write it. And
they gave me like eight weeks to write this three
hundred page thing, and it sounded like it was going
(04:21):
to be a Gargangulin project. But I said, okay, I'll
do it. And I tried out for it and I
didn't get it. I did not get the gig. But
they gave me this outline that the book was going
that they were going to use for this book. So
I looked at that outline and I said, I'm going
to use that outline for my book. And so that
outline really ignited me to sit down and do this.
(04:46):
So I used the outline and popped out eight or
ten chapters over a year, with my editor giving me feedback, telling,
you know, helping me see where I was missing. The
boat perfected it, and she just had a lot of
experience in the publishing arena and she kept telling me, Becky,
(05:08):
this is phenomenal, this is amazing, this needs to.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Be out there.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
She had been divorced, so she understood the dynamic and going,
oh my god, I wish I had this, and I
want to show this to some of my friends who
need it right now. So she was really encouraging, and
I trusted her not to be blowing smoke my backside,
you know. I trusted her that she was genuinely impressed
(05:35):
with the information. So we sent around proposals once again,
and I couldn't get an agent.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I couldn't get an agent. I couldn't get an agent,
you know, the same old story.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Finally, she had worked at HCI Books herself, and she said,
you know what, I'm gonna call them and send this over.
And I mean it was like two or three days
later that they made me an offer, and I could
not believe it. So my editor was this angel who
just was what I needed to get it over the hump.
(06:07):
I totally give her credit for getting it to the publisher.
And so I got there without an agent. Well so
it can be heard of you.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Got there kind of with an agent in a way.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
That's a good point. Yeah, she's not taking a percentage.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, well, but it's hard for you as the author
to call them up and just say, hey, I've got
an idea. Usually you've got to have some door opened. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I did send the some proposals to some of the
publishers of books that I use in my therapy practice,
you know, Oh Norton Press, you know, and said, hey,
I love your you know, I use your books, I
love your many of the books in my field that
you've published. And they gave me like the quickest thumbs down.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
That's a isn't it interesting? How like you think you're
doing one thing and you're learning lessons about rejection along
the line, you know, along the way, because you know
we all have those stacks.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Of course, yes, I mean it's just it had to
you cannot.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Take it personally.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I really believed in it, I just but the one
the feedback that really made me crazy was when people
said it was too negative and they might be interested
if it had a happy ending or I saved every
marriage at the end, which is not the way it happens.
It's not reality. Not all marriages can be saved. Some
(07:41):
need to end, you know, and the and this book
is shows you how to be discerning about that, like
how to know if you've got the kind of marriage
that can be saved or you know, needs to have
a mercy killing. And then if you are going to part,
how to do it in the most graceful and amicable
way and stop ripping each other's guts out, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
And so I'm really trying to change the tone of.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Marriage crisis and take the crazy out of it and
get people to be rational.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
So I'm gonna come back to that. I'm going to
just go back to your background for a minute. What
tell me? Tell us all about you, like like, who
are you, what's your website? All those good things so
we can kind of poke our noses around while we're listening.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Oh thanks, I'm from Arkansas, if you can't tell by
the way I talk. And when I was in my twenties,
I moved to Texas to Maria, Texan man moved to
San Antonio, and I was a housewife for a while.
We had two young children, and I just did not
(08:48):
like being a housewife. I was bored out of my
burg and I had two very rambunctious, high maintenance kids.
They weren't the easy kids, and so that just really
underlined my need to do I needed a career. I
realized I was a should be a career person, and
so I started preparing a career in media because I
(09:13):
had was a journalism major a communications minor, and I've
always loved radio, TV, newspaper writing and that kind of stuff.
So I started looking for a career in that, became
an intern at a television station, and started working on
my graduate degree in communications and.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
All of that.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Meanwhile, my marriage was falling apart and I couldn't get
my husband to change. We went to a marriage therapist
who gave us terrible advice. We separated on our own,
but that the marriage therapist that he couldn't help us.
So we separated on our own. We made a big mess.
We got prematurely divorced, in my opinion, And now, you know,
(09:57):
I've had thirty years to see how that decision played
out and all the damage that was done to my children,
to us, to to other people, you know, And and
I just couldn't believe that the marriage therapist couldn't help us,
you know, I just couldn't believe that. So it kind
of lit a fire in my belly to to understand
(10:18):
marriage dynamics more and you know, marriage crisis and stuff
like that. After I got divorced, I got a job
as a newspaper reporter at the San Antonio Express News,
and then I became a columnist there and I was
sort of a Carrie Bradshaw, you know, Sex and the
City person, writing about being a single mom dating relationships.
(10:39):
And I was throwing in a little irma bomb back
in there with who's a humor who was a humor
writer for all you young'uns that don't know who she is?
And uh, doctor Joyce Brothers and.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Dear Abby, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And so yeah, I would write about the pain of
getting dumped and meeting horrible dates. And it really was
a hugely popular column in the newspaper, and I became.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Kind of a.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Phenom in relationships in San Antonio. And so I would
be on radio and TV there and the callers, some
callers would call in and go, who is this Yahoo?
She has no credentials. You need to have a real
therapist on your show instead. So a lot of the
hosts of the show said you need to go get
(11:28):
a degree, you know, and they even said if you
get a mail order degree, that will be fine. I
can shut these people up. And I said, well, if
I'm going to do this, I'm not going to have
a mail order degree.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I'm going to do it the right way.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
So I went to grad school to get my masters,
just to have credentials for my media career. And I
fell in love with grad school and went for five
years and ended up getting my PhD in marriage and
family therapy in San Antonio. And that kind of changed
everything because before I was interviewing experts for my journalism,
(12:06):
but now I was an expert, you know, and my
focus throughout my education had been marriage crisis. So I
really learned how to study serious research instead of ladies
home journal articles.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I started understanding the value and meaning of that kind
of research. And I did my own research, of course,
as part of my dissertation, and so I sort of
came out of it armed with information about marriage crisis
and saving marriages and stuff like that that no one
else was doing.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And that's you know. So I got out of grad
school and immediately wanted to write a book about this.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm like, everybody needs to know about this, this is crazy.
Why don't people know about this? And then of course
started hitting those obstacles of finding people who would published
the book. So that's my story in a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Well, yeah, no, I love it, and also the fact
that tell me about like roughly, like what year this was.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
I got divorced in ninety three ninety four, and I
got and worked at the newspaper in the late nineties,
went to grad school in my forties. I was in
my forties, and that was like the beginning of two
thousand to two thousand and six. Then I hung out
(13:35):
my shingle and I've been in private practice since two
thousand and six, in San Antonio for ten years and
then in Arkansas for like eight years. But now I
have a website called marriage Crisismanager dot com. I write
a very popular blog on Medium and it's under the
(13:58):
name doctor Becky. You have to spell out doctor d
O C t O R Becky dot com. I mean, yeah,
my handle on Medium is doctor Becky and you go
on there and and and people from all over the
world are reading these blogs. I started doing that about
two years ago, and all of a sudden, people from
(14:21):
all over the world are contacting me in they're in
marriage crisis, and I'm helping all these people from all
over the place. And I just had no idea about
the power of these blogs and and the people's hunger
for this information on this subject, you know, when your
marriage is super rocky, and so every chance I get,
(14:44):
I try to pop out more information in those blogs
and and I've it's turning into kind of a phenomenon,
and I'm hoping the book makes it more so because
the information is so needed and there's not information out
there that's real high quality that you can count on
(15:05):
on this subject.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So what are you super excited?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Well, yeah, I am too, and I'm the I am
I've Let's see, my parents were divorced when I was three,
and then my father, who I would say is my father,
Like we don't call him stepdad or anything like that.
My father was my father from age four all the
way to when he passed away in twenty eighteen. He
was a stroke survivor for a really long time. And
(15:29):
but there's you know, well there's eleven of us kids
and all this stuff, and then I myself have been
divorced once and then married after that for twenty got
how many years now, all thirty years? And so yeah,
so I mean I get it. It's great. I bet
this is great information. And when you've it's it's interesting
(15:51):
too because as you've gone through it. You got there's
like you get yeah, I like the way you put that.
You're like, I can see what I did. Can you
look back and go, I didn't do that right, or
I did that right, or probably to me, I must
did that right. It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
It makes me sick to see that there probably was
great information out there even back then. But when in
the nineteen early nineties, the the internet was extremely rare
and very new then. This was back in dial up,
you know, where you're having to pay like a dollar
a minute or something to be on that.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
But I'm even back in the seventies though with parents divorced,
there was no dial up or anything. There was just
a movie for movies like Kramer Versus Creamer, you know,
where you're.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Like exactly exactly, you know. And so there just wasn't information,
and I couldn't go on the internet and find like
the best marriage therapist in the world to help us,
you know. And so I was really mad at the
world for not having information ready to help my lovely
(16:59):
little family.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I really feel like when people try to wing it,
this is like trying to treat cancer yourself, you know,
you try to wing it and do it your way,
You're probably gonna go down.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I mean, well, it's.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Interesting because I think people I always wanted to write
a book called I Guess this is supposed to be
a war, you know, And I think people see a
lot of TV and a lot of drama and a
lot of things, and they aren't like necessarily thinking, oh,
this doesn't have to be a war.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
It definitely doesn't have to be a war. And in fact,
I want I want it to become become.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Shameful, you know, just like the war. You know, how
could you let it get ugly? How could you?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You know, like, I think we need to make that
completely unacceptable, you know, we have to change the culture.
Like and the truth is, and what I've come to
learn is that, you know, like we all just need
to do a better job of getting healthy as individual
you know, so that we're solid and we're resilient, and
(18:04):
when we get knocked down, it's easier for us to
get up when we're strong and solid ourselves. And a
lot of this, this is a lot of the problem
that I'm working with people who aren't solid, and then
when their spouse wants to leave them, they go scorched
earth and try to burn up the town, you know,
And so I'm going, okay, well, you when you entered
(18:27):
the process, you weren't solid, but we're going to do
everything in our power to get.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
You solid now.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
And so I get them in an intensive journey of
kind of growing up right now for the sake of yourself.
Whatever happens to your marriage, but if you're going to
stay married, you can't go back to how it was before.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Well, and sometimes it is sort of scorched earth, because
some things are unsafe. Absolutely, you know, there's some instances
where you're really trying to scramble to get away from somebody.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Well, when I'm dealing when I'm telling people in the
book and in my practice, you know, if we're dealing
with dangerous people, abusive people, then all bets are off.
We're not gonna you don't need marriage crisis management, you
need a divorce, you know. And unfortunately, you know, I
saw some of the people I've worked with are not
going to control themselves.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
They are going to go scorched earth, and so they
would even.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Be candidates for my amicable divorce plan that I'm trying
so hard to get people to use. What I realized
a long time ago was people would tell me they
wanted an amicable divorce. When I would check up on
them six months or a year later, No, they ended
up having a nasty divorce. Then I realized that the
(19:44):
idea of an amicable divorce is just an idea.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
People don't know how to have one. They don't know
what that means.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
So I created a plan for amicable divorce that people
can follow to make sure that what happens happens amicably. So so, yeah,
to me, as soon as you hire family lawyers, everything's
going to be shot to heck, you know. So I
have a plan to avoid that and to use other
(20:15):
people like therapists as much as you can in the process.
And then there's actually certain lawyers out there that you
can hire at the end to make sure that's all
legal and the way it should be that are dedicated
to not being adversarial.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
So there is a way to do this better.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
But when you're dealing with somebody that's unbalanced and probably
has a serious mental disorder, you might have to have
a nasty divorce.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And I do hate that.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I wish it was unavoidable, but those people aren't going
to be cooperative, you know. They're not going to do
the right thing because there's something wrong with them.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Can you so to tell a little bit more about
the book. So it provides comprehensive inform answers and guidance
on how to navigate a marriage crisis. But what do
you mean by a marriage crisis?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, most marriage crisis happens actually marriages dying stages. Okay,
it's like cancer. You get stage one, two, three, four, five,
Well it's stage four.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
It's called the straw.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
That's that when that straw that breaks the camel's back.
When your spouse does or says something, you're already upset. Mine,
you're already unhappy, right, but they do this one thing,
whether it's small or big, and you just say, that's it.
I can't be with a person that would do this thing.
So they either make immediate or coming up very soon
(21:40):
plans to tell the person I'm very unhappy and I'm
pretty sure I want a divorce, right, I think I
want a divorce. So when the person who I call
the decider tells their spouse, I think I want a
divorce or I think I'm very unhappy in this marriage
and I may want to separate. That is moment one
of marriage crisis right there, that the marriage will never
(22:01):
be the same after that. It ignites a process that
can't be undone, and both spouses get activated. Their nervous
systems get activated. They're in fight flight or freeze. And
this is where so many dreadful mistakes are made because
people are frightened, they're hyped up, and when your nervous
(22:25):
system is activated like that, you cannot think rationally. So
and I like to joke that your IQ drops by
twenty points.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
And you know, you.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Shut off somebody's credit card and you take their car
keys away, you know, do all these crazy things that
just make things worse. But if people will come to
me when the marriage crisis begins, I become their marriage
crisis manager, and I coach them. I tell them, I
educate them about what's going on. We diagnose their marriage
(22:56):
to see, you know, where they are in the process,
and I help them diagnose it and come up with
a treatment plan for their marriage based on their unique situation.
But the first order of business is to get them
stabilized so they stop trying to burn up the town,
you know. Just we're going to focus on stabilization here.
(23:18):
And sometimes that means spending some time apart. So if
they separate, then I'm going to manage that. Some people
that separate on their own, they do it without a
rhyme or reason and they end up in separation limbo.
And so I make sure it has a purpose, a reason,
and a timeline. And of course it involves having to
(23:40):
work on yourself during the process, because you can't go
back to how it was before. It's never going to
be the same. It can't be the same. If you
want to reconcile, you're going to have to do the work,
you know.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So my plan involves all of that.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
And then depending on whether they're going to separate, have
an amicable divorce, or reconcile, we have to have a
plan for that because all the research shows that if
you don't, you know, clean up the messages that got
you in the situation in the first place, you're going
to you're reconciles. Reconciliation is not going to work. So
(24:15):
we make sure you do a solid reconciliation. And then
if you go through a divorce, you know, I see
you through all of that and then out the backside
and coach you as a as co parents or newly
single people out there in the dating world. And then
step parenting, you know, if you decide to remarry, step
parenting dynamics or another thing that we teach people about
(24:37):
because there is a way to do it successfully and
a way to blow it and end up divorced all
over again.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
How hard? How hard have you worked to not be
the counselor who you don't think did a good job
with you and your marriage?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
How do I how hard do I work to not
be that person?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah? Like what are the things that you've done different?
I mean I can tell it's like, yeah, I'm not
going to be that person.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Well, that person you know, said Becky, how motivated are
you to work on your marriage right now?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And I said zero?
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And he goes, well, I can't help you. Then, way
you come back when you're at least a five or six? Okay,
So you would never hear those words out of my
mouth if I was there of this, you know. So
that's a one eighty right there. You know, I'm gonna
go all right, you know, here's what we need to do.
I've got a plan for you, you know, like I'm
I am going to hold your hand through this and
(25:35):
make sure you don't make any mistakes and you don't
have any regrets. Every person in a marriage crisis will
tell me, especially that a cider who's thinking of.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Pulling the plug on the marriage.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I want to make sure I did everything I could
to save the marriage before I decide to leave it.
And this process gives people that peace of mind that
you know what, I did everything I could. And so
I've studied the dynamic backwards and forwards. I've had tons
(26:06):
of experiences with hundreds of not thousands of different couples.
So I've seen about everything now and there's really nothing
that I can't probably help you with when.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It comes to marriage crisis.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
So ye, my goal is to help you not make
mistakes that you'll regret, and to do a thoughtful, intelligent,
respectful process that ultimately will benefit everyone in the family
as a whole.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Do you recommend any kind of counseling before I just
using counseling as just a generalized word before you get
married to the Lord. Let's go there for a minute.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, you know, I just I meet all these people
that are forty fifty sixty, never had counseling in their life,
and I tell them, you know, I would have been
in a padded sell somewhere if I had not started
therapy in my twenties. And I was really headed on
a major path of dysfunction. I came from a narcissistic family,
and it's just you know, I was the youngest child
(27:13):
and I was just starting on an awful path. And
there was a voice in my head that said, your
life's not going to be this way for you. You're
going to figure this out and you're going to get
out of this mess. And so I went to a
counselor and I was sent to the right place because
this woman was I needed this. My mother was a
very weak role model, and this woman was strong as
(27:35):
heck man and she taught me how to set boundaries
and not to take crap from people, and you know,
just really had me grow up and become confident. And
I couldn't believe I could change so much. I just
couldn't believe it. My life was totally transformed, and I
kept on the path for decades, which ultimately led me
(27:56):
to grad school. You know, the marriage crisis propelled me
to become a marriage therapist, and just you know, the transformation,
I just can't believe people don't go to therapy starting
in their twenties or thirties or as soon as they can,
because here's the thing I tell people all the time.
(28:19):
You can be a Men's A graduate, you can be
a physician, a rocket scientist, the smartest person in the
world degrees. You can be a psychiatrist or a therapist.
And I promise you you probably know next to zilch
about healthy relationship dynamics. So I believe people should go
to relationship school. I believe people need to learn how
(28:41):
to have healthy relationships with themselves and other people.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
So that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I told a couple this morning, you are at the
remedial level of relationship skills, and I'm getting ready to
teach you from preschool level and then will graduate you
from high school over time, and then you will understand
what it is to be healthy in a relationship.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
So you know, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Is the reason people are so unhappy in their lives
is because they're trying to wing it. And I think
maybe their goal in life is to be a good person.
I will That's what I'm shooting for, to be a
good person, and.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
That's about it.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And there's so much more too, healthy relationship dynamics, you know,
learning self esteem and boundaries and appropriate control and appropriate
dependency and the big one perception, learning how to perceive
things accurately. Excuse me, and so so you know the
(29:42):
fact that people are out there without this knowledge scares me, Elizabeth,
it scares me.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, it's yeah, you know. I that's what best ever
you is. I just sort of went on a quest
to learn as much as I could about every topic
known to mankind and become a little self talk because
I knew I probably wasn't going to be able to
go back to school because I have I have four boys.
Oh I mean, I have a degree in journalism. I'm
(30:10):
with you on that, but I don't have advanced degrees,
but I kind of do through experience and everything at
this point. So I've been thinking about going back to
school and getting my master's degree, but all my kids
just got theirs, so.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
We're oh, yeah, yes, I only did it to shut
people up, you know, because they would call in and
complain about it. But in retrospect, I'm thankful I did
it because now people don't ever question it anymore.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
And I just I love that I can speak with authority.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Do you ever find it's hard to speak with authority
without the credit credentials?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Or do people just.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I've written so many books. I mean, I'm on my
fourth book on the topics have changed success and peace.
So I'm I'm I feel like I'm pretty good. I've
written that master's thesis four times.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Now, and you know what it is doing a book.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Doing a nonfiction book is very much like doing a thesis.
Just so you know, So you do deserve an honorary PhD.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I would like an honorary PhD. However, I'm always I
love learning. I'm always learning, and I'm learning from you
right now. So I'm, you know, kind of just one
of those people who just loves to learn all the time.
So whatever, and this is yeah, this is the first
moment since twenty thirteen where we haven't had a child
(31:31):
in college. Yeah, and then mostly all four from college
at once. And then today our son got a master's degree. Nod, congratulations, Quaid,
come in, we invite you in to look at our
master's degree program in biomedical blah blah blah. I'm like,
oh my god, here we go again. But it's different
(31:53):
because they pay you to do that, but it's still
it's still pretty funny. So we have one going back
into school at some point here. But yeah, no, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
You have a very busy life with four boys.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I can't even imagine the stories you have to tell.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Oh my god, yeah they're in the books. It's pretty funny. Yeah,
they're twenty three, twenty five, twenty seven, and twenty nine
right now.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And oh oh oh all squnched together.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Oh yeah, I know how that is.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
I'm picturing I'm picturing monkeys hanging from the ceiling fans,
you know.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, I used to look up and I'm like, what
is that hanging from my lamp? And it's like a
g I jo with a parent could And yeah, I
got all sorts of stories, but so much fun. All right,
back to you. Tell us your website one more time.
I know we're going to run out of time here,
but what.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Wud be a ww dot marriage crisismanager dot com got it?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
And what a what a timely book, what a needed book.
This is such a I've always I've always thought you
can't get enough books on this topic of peaceful co parenting,
peaceful urge, dissolution and anything because I grew up in
a you know, a war zone and then and then
(33:08):
it peacefuled out, but there were moments where it's like,
holy moly, they're gonna kill each other kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Of course. Well, I'm just you know, I have to
do a shout out to HCI Books for you know,
taking on this subject that so many other people, you know,
told me was too negative and didn't have a happy
ending and all that kind of stuff, you know, And
so you know, I'm just grateful that they've given me
the opportunity to get this good information out there the
(33:37):
way that it is and the way that it should
be presented.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So it's such a complicated topic because and it's changed
over the years too, because I you know, you remember
those moments way back when it was like, Okay, men
don't have any rights. Now men have right now? You
just go through the history of it. What's before you
go sort of what's the lay of the land now?
Is it equal parenting? Are their less marriages? Is it
(34:02):
women don't need to be married anymore?
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Because my philosophy, my philosophy as marriage should be rare.
I think that honestly, based on what you and I
were just talking about before that people are winging it
out there in life and just trying to be a
good person, and they have no relationship skills, and their
self esteem is on the floor, or their self esteem
is too high. There's so many and people with terrible
(34:28):
boundaries and all that stuff, you know. So in my view,
most people truly are not healthy.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Enough for marriage.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
And that's probably controversial subject, but no, I think, I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Not married forever, and I agree with you. I look
around and there, you know it was. I wrote this
in my last book, Like the second everybody our kids
started graduating from high school, you would see all their
friends get all that, friends' parents get divorced, yes, and
just I mean, it's just like a serious drop off
in marriages and you'd be like, wow, and out of
(35:05):
all the kids' friends, I think, I'm thinking, like two
are still I'm like trying to think in my head.
Pardon me if I get this totally wrong, but there's
not a lot still married. Our sons, Beyonce's parents are
married like we are for a real long time and
things like that. So yeah, it's kind of all over
the map, but it you know, if you truly want
(35:27):
to be married for a really long time. Stuff changes
and you grow, and you you really have to learn
how to navigate change you do.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
And yes, the model these days is fifty to fifty
for sure, that's what most people want. Every now and
then I get somebody, though, that's willing to give their
child up, which just blows my mind.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I'm not sure I'll ever understand that.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, it's it's rare, but most people are about fifty
to fifty and those that start, you know, in my book,
I'm telling people, if you think that you know, because
your spouse has had an affair, you're going to take
the kids away, you can forget that right now. That's
how you start having nasty divorces is start threatening people, going,
I'm going to tell your family that you fool around
(36:13):
on me, and I'm going to go to your workplace
and I tell people, you're just gonna cut that right now,
and you're going to hand over the fifty percent custody
because it's in the best interest of your children. And
the huge focus of my book is is if you
want to stay married to your partner, then the couple's
relationship comes.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Before the kids.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
But if you're going to foist divorce, on kids, because kids,
most kids don't want divorce. They want their family to
stay intact. And if you're going to foist this on
them so you can be happy, then you're going to
now change and put your children's best interest at heart
first and get them raised and put yourselfself in your
needs second.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yeah, so over people to handle. Yeah, we have an
organization here in Man called Kids First, and I think
it's pretty mandatory if you get divorced, you have to
go through it if you have kids.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
A lot of states have post divorce parenting classes. Now,
whether they're effective or not, I can't. Yeah, but I
work with a lot of people who are divorced, you know,
that are having X and co parenting problems. That's extremely common.
And that's the other thing is is there's so much
(37:28):
wonderful information on healthy step parenting dynamics and step family
blended family dynamics, and I think people should be forced
to read it if they're going to be divorced, just
forced to choke it down, because if you understood these dynamics,
we could prevent a lot of the misery and suffering
(37:49):
that goes on in blended families. But yeah, that's the
thing is you know, people need to be informed, they
need to be educated, and they need to do the work,
you know, to be a healthy person, healthy in relationship
and healthy and blended families.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
That sometimes that's an interesting thing because because sometimes you
have to go back and actually like work on your
that this is going to come out so choppy, but
you've entered it broken, then it breaks, and then you've
got to go back and fix what was broken. And
it at this like there's a lot of work you've
got to do on yourself. If you it takes a
(38:27):
broken quotes.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
You know, it takes a lot.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Of work to be a healthy adult. It takes a
lot of work to be a healthy, healthy in your relationship.
You know, I have found that a lot of people,
a lot of adults are they're adults, their bodies are adult,
and they have jobs and all that stuff, but they're
not mental and emotional adults, and they don't have the
(38:54):
the stick to itness of a long term relationship, of
keeping your focus on your own health and your relationship health.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
You know, wish I could.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I would love for you, me and my pal doctor
Katie Eastman to write a like a three thousand, five
hundred word blog on I just made that number up
about what is a healthy adult?
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Oh, wouldn't that be fun?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
It's my favorite.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Subject, I think. I think that there's so much learning
right there that just about sums it up, because like,
if you enter not a healthy adult into a marriage,
guess what.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Oh this is what I see constantly, and I'm thinking, like, like,
you know what, someone will send me. One of my
clients sent me a video this morning of her husband
yelling all these awful things to her and stuff and
and mind you, they've already divorced once and they're back
together again.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And I saw them in.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Their first marriage and now I'm seeing them again and I'm.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Telling her, I'm like, you knew this.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
And signs for your fast.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Benny Hill, who did not go You worked on being
a healthy.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah, and you got back together and now it's got
a bit again.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
And I know what to tell you.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Your your phone's cutting out. I don't know why. Yeah,
your phone is. But it's okay because we're out of time.
But I would love to have you. Maybe you could
come back and we can do a show call in
the new year called what is a Healthy Adult? And
let's do it? Okay, cool? All right, so your best
ever used new best friend. We yeah, what what? I'll
(40:40):
go back and tell h c I how much I
love chatting with you too, because it's it's been nice
to have new authors. Congratulations on your first book, everybody,
big sister and off of ship. Yeah, definitely, I've got
I've been around the block a little bit on that score.
You everybody listening, please doctor Becky Whetstone's book is called
(41:02):
I Think I Want Out Great book. It's due out
in February. You can go anywhere right now and pre
order it. And Beckham and have you read your website
off one more time to us.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
It's just manager dot com.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Got it? Okay, we'll put a link up. Becky, thank
you so much for being here.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
And thank you so much, so much fun.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening. Take
care and visit us at best ever you dot com.
Take care, everybody,
Hi, everybody, Welcome to the Best Ever You show. I'm
your host, Elizabeth Hamilton Garino here with author Becky Wetstone.
How are you, Becky.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me
on here. This is very exciting.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, I am super excited about your new book. I
think I want out which is in h is it
in pre order or did it just release?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's in pre order February fourth, it's released, and yeah,
so you can pre order it now on every book
site where you buy books.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, it's uh, most of us like to most of
us authors like to send everybody to Amazon because like,
so many of the books that are sold these days
route right through Amazon. But I'm one of those authors
who likes to point people to books a million Barnes
and Noble, Barnes and Noble and then to the independent
booksellers in your town and things like that. So just so, yeah,
(00:55):
there's so many places. So tell me, is this your
first books? It is?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It is? It's so exciting. I feel like a little
girl on Christmas morning.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I'm so excited. However, as you well know.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
It takes so much work. It takes so much work.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
You've got to have a lot of fuel in your
tank and a lot of gasoline to see a book through,
you know, and so it really was a challenge. It
took everything I had to get it out there. I
actually conceived of it almost twenty years ago, have started
writing it off and on for many years, and finally
(01:39):
just that voice in the head said, you know what,
time's of.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Wasting and you better write it before you die.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
So I dedicated myself to a two year program to
get it out and I hired an editor to keep
me on the straight and narrow, and we popped it
out and I I'm so in love with it. I'm
so proud of it.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, it's a cool book. I've got a copy of it.
I have a PDF copy of it at this point.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yes, of course that's all I have.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, So tell us about your tell us a little
bit more about your writing process and how you got
signed with HCI, because that makes you a traditionally published author,
which is a boy of that is makes you like
an MLB player almost.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
It's really hard.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, I'm in shock that I finally got a publisher,
I mean really, because of the process has been agonizing.
I went to some writing conferences, maybe eighteen years ago,
fifteen years ago, and would had a proposal for this
book back then and would walk up to agents, you know,
and tell them about my book, and they would go,
(02:54):
it's too negative.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
You know, I just got married.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Why would I write a book about divorce, you know,
represent a book about divorce. And I really got discouraged.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Talking to all these agents.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And then of course you're not famous, you don't have
enough social media back and go build that up and
all that stuff. So that kind of took the wind
out of my sales back then. Is because I sent
the thing around to I must have been one hundred
people and got rejections completely.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So I put it down for a long time.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
But luckily, in the meantime, I got more experience in
managing marriage crisis and had developed some new and better
ideas about how to do it. So I think everything
happens for a reason, you know, because I think the
content that's in it now is richer and has more
(03:47):
proven experience behind it. So after I wrote the book
two years ago, and what I did was, you know,
I broke it down into chapters.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And here's a crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Little story about how I got motivated to do it.
I got a query from some publisher out there that
said they were writing a book on I don't know,
midlife crisis workbook or something. Would I be interested in
writing it, but I would have to write it. And
they gave me like eight weeks to write this three
hundred page thing, and it sounded like it was going
(04:21):
to be a Gargangulin project. But I said, okay, I'll
do it. And I tried out for it and I
didn't get it. I did not get the gig. But
they gave me this outline that the book was going
that they were going to use for this book. So
I looked at that outline and I said, I'm going
to use that outline for my book. And so that
outline really ignited me to sit down and do this.
(04:46):
So I used the outline and popped out eight or
ten chapters over a year, with my editor giving me feedback, telling,
you know, helping me see where I was missing. The
boat perfected it, and she just had a lot of
experience in the publishing arena and she kept telling me, Becky,
(05:08):
this is phenomenal, this is amazing, this needs to.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Be out there.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
She had been divorced, so she understood the dynamic and going,
oh my god, I wish I had this, and I
want to show this to some of my friends who
need it right now. So she was really encouraging, and
I trusted her not to be blowing smoke my backside,
you know. I trusted her that she was genuinely impressed
(05:35):
with the information. So we sent around proposals once again,
and I couldn't get an agent.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I couldn't get an agent. I couldn't get an agent,
you know, the same old story.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Finally, she had worked at HCI Books herself, and she said,
you know what, I'm gonna call them and send this over.
And I mean it was like two or three days
later that they made me an offer, and I could
not believe it. So my editor was this angel who
just was what I needed to get it over the hump.
(06:07):
I totally give her credit for getting it to the publisher.
And so I got there without an agent. Well so
it can be heard of you.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Got there kind of with an agent in a way.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
That's a good point. Yeah, she's not taking a percentage.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, well, but it's hard for you as the author
to call them up and just say, hey, I've got
an idea. Usually you've got to have some door opened. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I did send the some proposals to some of the
publishers of books that I use in my therapy practice,
you know, Oh Norton Press, you know, and said, hey,
I love your you know, I use your books, I
love your many of the books in my field that
you've published. And they gave me like the quickest thumbs down.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
That's a isn't it interesting? How like you think you're
doing one thing and you're learning lessons about rejection along
the line, you know, along the way, because you know
we all have those stacks.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Of course, yes, I mean it's just it had to
you cannot.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Take it personally.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I really believed in it, I just but the one
the feedback that really made me crazy was when people
said it was too negative and they might be interested
if it had a happy ending or I saved every
marriage at the end, which is not the way it happens.
It's not reality. Not all marriages can be saved. Some
(07:41):
need to end, you know, and the and this book
is shows you how to be discerning about that, like
how to know if you've got the kind of marriage
that can be saved or you know, needs to have
a mercy killing. And then if you are going to part,
how to do it in the most graceful and amicable
way and stop ripping each other's guts out, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
And so I'm really trying to change the tone of.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Marriage crisis and take the crazy out of it and
get people to be rational.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
So I'm gonna come back to that. I'm going to
just go back to your background for a minute. What
tell me? Tell us all about you, like like, who
are you, what's your website? All those good things so
we can kind of poke our noses around while we're listening.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Oh thanks, I'm from Arkansas, if you can't tell by
the way I talk. And when I was in my twenties,
I moved to Texas to Maria, Texan man moved to
San Antonio, and I was a housewife for a while.
We had two young children, and I just did not
(08:48):
like being a housewife. I was bored out of my
burg and I had two very rambunctious, high maintenance kids.
They weren't the easy kids, and so that just really
underlined my need to do I needed a career. I
realized I was a should be a career person, and
so I started preparing a career in media because I
(09:13):
had was a journalism major a communications minor, and I've
always loved radio, TV, newspaper writing and that kind of stuff.
So I started looking for a career in that, became
an intern at a television station, and started working on
my graduate degree in communications and.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
All of that.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Meanwhile, my marriage was falling apart and I couldn't get
my husband to change. We went to a marriage therapist
who gave us terrible advice. We separated on our own,
but that the marriage therapist that he couldn't help us.
So we separated on our own. We made a big mess.
We got prematurely divorced, in my opinion, And now, you know,
(09:57):
I've had thirty years to see how that decision played
out and all the damage that was done to my children,
to us, to to other people, you know, And and
I just couldn't believe that the marriage therapist couldn't help us,
you know, I just couldn't believe that. So it kind
of lit a fire in my belly to to understand
(10:18):
marriage dynamics more and you know, marriage crisis and stuff
like that. After I got divorced, I got a job
as a newspaper reporter at the San Antonio Express News,
and then I became a columnist there and I was
sort of a Carrie Bradshaw, you know, Sex and the
City person, writing about being a single mom dating relationships.
(10:39):
And I was throwing in a little irma bomb back
in there with who's a humor who was a humor
writer for all you young'uns that don't know who she is?
And uh, doctor Joyce Brothers and.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Dear Abby, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And so yeah, I would write about the pain of
getting dumped and meeting horrible dates. And it really was
a hugely popular column in the newspaper, and I became.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Kind of a.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Phenom in relationships in San Antonio. And so I would
be on radio and TV there and the callers, some
callers would call in and go, who is this Yahoo?
She has no credentials. You need to have a real
therapist on your show instead. So a lot of the
hosts of the show said you need to go get
(11:28):
a degree, you know, and they even said if you
get a mail order degree, that will be fine. I
can shut these people up. And I said, well, if
I'm going to do this, I'm not going to have
a mail order degree.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I'm going to do it the right way.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
So I went to grad school to get my masters,
just to have credentials for my media career. And I
fell in love with grad school and went for five
years and ended up getting my PhD in marriage and
family therapy in San Antonio. And that kind of changed
everything because before I was interviewing experts for my journalism,
(12:06):
but now I was an expert, you know, and my
focus throughout my education had been marriage crisis. So I
really learned how to study serious research instead of ladies
home journal articles.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I started understanding the value and meaning of that kind
of research. And I did my own research, of course,
as part of my dissertation, and so I sort of
came out of it armed with information about marriage crisis
and saving marriages and stuff like that that no one
else was doing.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And that's you know. So I got out of grad
school and immediately wanted to write a book about this.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm like, everybody needs to know about this, this is crazy.
Why don't people know about this? And then of course
started hitting those obstacles of finding people who would published
the book. So that's my story in a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Well, yeah, no, I love it, and also the fact
that tell me about like roughly, like what year this was.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
I got divorced in ninety three ninety four, and I
got and worked at the newspaper in the late nineties,
went to grad school in my forties. I was in
my forties, and that was like the beginning of two
thousand to two thousand and six. Then I hung out
(13:35):
my shingle and I've been in private practice since two
thousand and six, in San Antonio for ten years and
then in Arkansas for like eight years. But now I
have a website called marriage Crisismanager dot com. I write
a very popular blog on Medium and it's under the
(13:58):
name doctor Becky. You have to spell out doctor d
O C t O R Becky dot com. I mean, yeah,
my handle on Medium is doctor Becky and you go
on there and and and people from all over the
world are reading these blogs. I started doing that about
two years ago, and all of a sudden, people from
(14:21):
all over the world are contacting me in they're in
marriage crisis, and I'm helping all these people from all
over the place. And I just had no idea about
the power of these blogs and and the people's hunger
for this information on this subject, you know, when your
marriage is super rocky, and so every chance I get,
(14:44):
I try to pop out more information in those blogs
and and I've it's turning into kind of a phenomenon,
and I'm hoping the book makes it more so because
the information is so needed and there's not information out
there that's real high quality that you can count on
(15:05):
on this subject.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So what are you super excited?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Well, yeah, I am too, and I'm the I am
I've Let's see, my parents were divorced when I was three,
and then my father, who I would say is my father,
Like we don't call him stepdad or anything like that.
My father was my father from age four all the
way to when he passed away in twenty eighteen. He
was a stroke survivor for a really long time. And
(15:29):
but there's you know, well there's eleven of us kids
and all this stuff, and then I myself have been
divorced once and then married after that for twenty got
how many years now, all thirty years? And so yeah,
so I mean I get it. It's great. I bet
this is great information. And when you've it's it's interesting
(15:51):
too because as you've gone through it. You got there's
like you get yeah, I like the way you put that.
You're like, I can see what I did. Can you
look back and go, I didn't do that right, or
I did that right, or probably to me, I must
did that right. It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
It makes me sick to see that there probably was
great information out there even back then. But when in
the nineteen early nineties, the the internet was extremely rare
and very new then. This was back in dial up,
you know, where you're having to pay like a dollar
a minute or something to be on that.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
But I'm even back in the seventies though with parents divorced,
there was no dial up or anything. There was just
a movie for movies like Kramer Versus Creamer, you know,
where you're.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Like exactly exactly, you know. And so there just wasn't information,
and I couldn't go on the internet and find like
the best marriage therapist in the world to help us,
you know. And so I was really mad at the
world for not having information ready to help my lovely
(16:59):
little family.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I really feel like when people try to wing it,
this is like trying to treat cancer yourself, you know,
you try to wing it and do it your way,
You're probably gonna go down.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I mean, well, it's.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Interesting because I think people I always wanted to write
a book called I Guess this is supposed to be
a war, you know, And I think people see a
lot of TV and a lot of drama and a
lot of things, and they aren't like necessarily thinking, oh,
this doesn't have to be a war.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
It definitely doesn't have to be a war. And in fact,
I want I want it to become become.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Shameful, you know, just like the war. You know, how
could you let it get ugly? How could you?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You know, like, I think we need to make that
completely unacceptable, you know, we have to change the culture.
Like and the truth is, and what I've come to
learn is that, you know, like we all just need
to do a better job of getting healthy as individual
you know, so that we're solid and we're resilient, and
(18:04):
when we get knocked down, it's easier for us to
get up when we're strong and solid ourselves. And a
lot of this, this is a lot of the problem
that I'm working with people who aren't solid, and then
when their spouse wants to leave them, they go scorched
earth and try to burn up the town, you know,
And so I'm going, okay, well, you when you entered
(18:27):
the process, you weren't solid, but we're going to do
everything in our power to get.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
You solid now.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
And so I get them in an intensive journey of
kind of growing up right now for the sake of yourself.
Whatever happens to your marriage, but if you're going to
stay married, you can't go back to how it was before.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Well, and sometimes it is sort of scorched earth, because
some things are unsafe. Absolutely, you know, there's some instances
where you're really trying to scramble to get away from somebody.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Well, when I'm dealing when I'm telling people in the
book and in my practice, you know, if we're dealing
with dangerous people, abusive people, then all bets are off.
We're not gonna you don't need marriage crisis management, you
need a divorce, you know. And unfortunately, you know, I
saw some of the people I've worked with are not
going to control themselves.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
They are going to go scorched earth, and so they
would even.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Be candidates for my amicable divorce plan that I'm trying
so hard to get people to use. What I realized
a long time ago was people would tell me they
wanted an amicable divorce. When I would check up on
them six months or a year later, No, they ended
up having a nasty divorce. Then I realized that the
(19:44):
idea of an amicable divorce is just an idea.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
People don't know how to have one. They don't know
what that means.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
So I created a plan for amicable divorce that people
can follow to make sure that what happens happens amicably. So so, yeah,
to me, as soon as you hire family lawyers, everything's
going to be shot to heck, you know. So I
have a plan to avoid that and to use other
(20:15):
people like therapists as much as you can in the process.
And then there's actually certain lawyers out there that you
can hire at the end to make sure that's all
legal and the way it should be that are dedicated
to not being adversarial.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
So there is a way to do this better.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
But when you're dealing with somebody that's unbalanced and probably
has a serious mental disorder, you might have to have
a nasty divorce.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And I do hate that.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
I wish it was unavoidable, but those people aren't going
to be cooperative, you know. They're not going to do
the right thing because there's something wrong with them.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Can you so to tell a little bit more about
the book. So it provides comprehensive inform answers and guidance
on how to navigate a marriage crisis. But what do
you mean by a marriage crisis?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, most marriage crisis happens actually marriages dying stages. Okay,
it's like cancer. You get stage one, two, three, four, five,
Well it's stage four.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
It's called the straw.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
That's that when that straw that breaks the camel's back.
When your spouse does or says something, you're already upset. Mine,
you're already unhappy, right, but they do this one thing,
whether it's small or big, and you just say, that's it.
I can't be with a person that would do this thing.
So they either make immediate or coming up very soon
(21:40):
plans to tell the person I'm very unhappy and I'm
pretty sure I want a divorce, right, I think I
want a divorce. So when the person who I call
the decider tells their spouse, I think I want a
divorce or I think I'm very unhappy in this marriage
and I may want to separate. That is moment one
of marriage crisis right there, that the marriage will never
(22:01):
be the same after that. It ignites a process that
can't be undone, and both spouses get activated. Their nervous
systems get activated. They're in fight flight or freeze. And
this is where so many dreadful mistakes are made because
people are frightened, they're hyped up, and when your nervous
(22:25):
system is activated like that, you cannot think rationally. So
and I like to joke that your IQ drops by
twenty points.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
And you know, you.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Shut off somebody's credit card and you take their car
keys away, you know, do all these crazy things that
just make things worse. But if people will come to
me when the marriage crisis begins, I become their marriage
crisis manager, and I coach them. I tell them, I
educate them about what's going on. We diagnose their marriage
(22:56):
to see, you know, where they are in the process,
and I help them diagnose it and come up with
a treatment plan for their marriage based on their unique situation.
But the first order of business is to get them
stabilized so they stop trying to burn up the town,
you know. Just we're going to focus on stabilization here.
(23:18):
And sometimes that means spending some time apart. So if
they separate, then I'm going to manage that. Some people
that separate on their own, they do it without a
rhyme or reason and they end up in separation limbo.
And so I make sure it has a purpose, a reason,
and a timeline. And of course it involves having to
(23:40):
work on yourself during the process, because you can't go
back to how it was before. It's never going to
be the same. It can't be the same. If you
want to reconcile, you're going to have to do the work,
you know.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So my plan involves all of that.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
And then depending on whether they're going to separate, have
an amicable divorce, or reconcile, we have to have a
plan for that because all the research shows that if
you don't, you know, clean up the messages that got
you in the situation in the first place, you're going
to you're reconciles. Reconciliation is not going to work. So
(24:15):
we make sure you do a solid reconciliation. And then
if you go through a divorce, you know, I see
you through all of that and then out the backside
and coach you as a as co parents or newly
single people out there in the dating world. And then
step parenting, you know, if you decide to remarry, step
parenting dynamics or another thing that we teach people about
(24:37):
because there is a way to do it successfully and
a way to blow it and end up divorced all
over again.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
How hard? How hard have you worked to not be
the counselor who you don't think did a good job
with you and your marriage?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
How do I how hard do I work to not
be that person?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah? Like what are the things that you've done different?
I mean I can tell it's like, yeah, I'm not
going to be that person.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Well, that person you know, said Becky, how motivated are
you to work on your marriage right now?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And I said zero?
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And he goes, well, I can't help you. Then, way
you come back when you're at least a five or six? Okay,
So you would never hear those words out of my
mouth if I was there of this, you know. So
that's a one eighty right there. You know, I'm gonna
go all right, you know, here's what we need to do.
I've got a plan for you, you know, like I'm
I am going to hold your hand through this and
(25:35):
make sure you don't make any mistakes and you don't
have any regrets. Every person in a marriage crisis will
tell me, especially that a cider who's thinking of.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Pulling the plug on the marriage.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I want to make sure I did everything I could
to save the marriage before I decide to leave it.
And this process gives people that peace of mind that
you know what, I did everything I could. And so
I've studied the dynamic backwards and forwards. I've had tons
(26:06):
of experiences with hundreds of not thousands of different couples.
So I've seen about everything now and there's really nothing
that I can't probably help you with when.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It comes to marriage crisis.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
So ye, my goal is to help you not make
mistakes that you'll regret, and to do a thoughtful, intelligent,
respectful process that ultimately will benefit everyone in the family
as a whole.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Do you recommend any kind of counseling before I just
using counseling as just a generalized word before you get
married to the Lord. Let's go there for a minute.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, you know, I just I meet all these people
that are forty fifty sixty, never had counseling in their life,
and I tell them, you know, I would have been
in a padded sell somewhere if I had not started
therapy in my twenties. And I was really headed on
a major path of dysfunction. I came from a narcissistic family,
and it's just you know, I was the youngest child
(27:13):
and I was just starting on an awful path. And
there was a voice in my head that said, your
life's not going to be this way for you. You're
going to figure this out and you're going to get
out of this mess. And so I went to a
counselor and I was sent to the right place because
this woman was I needed this. My mother was a
very weak role model, and this woman was strong as
(27:35):
heck man and she taught me how to set boundaries
and not to take crap from people, and you know,
just really had me grow up and become confident. And
I couldn't believe I could change so much. I just
couldn't believe it. My life was totally transformed, and I
kept on the path for decades, which ultimately led me
(27:56):
to grad school. You know, the marriage crisis propelled me
to become a marriage therapist, and just you know, the transformation,
I just can't believe people don't go to therapy starting
in their twenties or thirties or as soon as they can,
because here's the thing I tell people all the time.
(28:19):
You can be a Men's A graduate, you can be
a physician, a rocket scientist, the smartest person in the
world degrees. You can be a psychiatrist or a therapist.
And I promise you you probably know next to zilch
about healthy relationship dynamics. So I believe people should go
to relationship school. I believe people need to learn how
(28:41):
to have healthy relationships with themselves and other people.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
So that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I told a couple this morning, you are at the
remedial level of relationship skills, and I'm getting ready to
teach you from preschool level and then will graduate you
from high school over time, and then you will understand
what it is to be healthy in a relationship.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
So you know, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Is the reason people are so unhappy in their lives
is because they're trying to wing it. And I think
maybe their goal in life is to be a good person.
I will That's what I'm shooting for, to be a
good person, and.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
That's about it.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And there's so much more too, healthy relationship dynamics, you know,
learning self esteem and boundaries and appropriate control and appropriate
dependency and the big one perception, learning how to perceive
things accurately. Excuse me, and so so you know the
(29:42):
fact that people are out there without this knowledge scares me, Elizabeth,
it scares me.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, it's yeah, you know. I that's what best ever
you is. I just sort of went on a quest
to learn as much as I could about every topic
known to mankind and become a little self talk because
I knew I probably wasn't going to be able to
go back to school because I have I have four boys.
Oh I mean, I have a degree in journalism. I'm
(30:10):
with you on that, but I don't have advanced degrees,
but I kind of do through experience and everything at
this point. So I've been thinking about going back to
school and getting my master's degree, but all my kids
just got theirs, so.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
We're oh, yeah, yes, I only did it to shut
people up, you know, because they would call in and
complain about it. But in retrospect, I'm thankful I did
it because now people don't ever question it anymore.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
And I just I love that I can speak with authority.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Do you ever find it's hard to speak with authority
without the credit credentials?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Or do people just.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I've written so many books. I mean, I'm on my
fourth book on the topics have changed success and peace.
So I'm I'm I feel like I'm pretty good. I've
written that master's thesis four times.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Now, and you know what it is doing a book.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Doing a nonfiction book is very much like doing a thesis.
Just so you know, So you do deserve an honorary PhD.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I would like an honorary PhD. However, I'm always I
love learning. I'm always learning, and I'm learning from you
right now. So I'm, you know, kind of just one
of those people who just loves to learn all the time.
So whatever, and this is yeah, this is the first
moment since twenty thirteen where we haven't had a child
(31:31):
in college. Yeah, and then mostly all four from college
at once. And then today our son got a master's degree. Nod, congratulations, Quaid,
come in, we invite you in to look at our
master's degree program in biomedical blah blah blah. I'm like,
oh my god, here we go again. But it's different
(31:53):
because they pay you to do that, but it's still
it's still pretty funny. So we have one going back
into school at some point here. But yeah, no, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
You have a very busy life with four boys.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I can't even imagine the stories you have to tell.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Oh my god, yeah they're in the books. It's pretty funny. Yeah,
they're twenty three, twenty five, twenty seven, and twenty nine
right now.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And oh oh oh all squnched together.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Oh yeah, I know how that is.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
I'm picturing I'm picturing monkeys hanging from the ceiling fans,
you know.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, I used to look up and I'm like, what
is that hanging from my lamp? And it's like a
g I jo with a parent could And yeah, I
got all sorts of stories, but so much fun. All right,
back to you. Tell us your website one more time.
I know we're going to run out of time here,
but what.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Wud be a ww dot marriage crisismanager dot com got it?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
And what a what a timely book, what a needed book.
This is such a I've always I've always thought you
can't get enough books on this topic of peaceful co parenting,
peaceful urge, dissolution and anything because I grew up in
a you know, a war zone and then and then
(33:08):
it peacefuled out, but there were moments where it's like,
holy moly, they're gonna kill each other kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Of course. Well, I'm just you know, I have to
do a shout out to HCI Books for you know,
taking on this subject that so many other people, you know,
told me was too negative and didn't have a happy
ending and all that kind of stuff, you know, And
so you know, I'm just grateful that they've given me
the opportunity to get this good information out there the
(33:37):
way that it is and the way that it should
be presented.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So it's such a complicated topic because and it's changed
over the years too, because I you know, you remember
those moments way back when it was like, Okay, men
don't have any rights. Now men have right now? You
just go through the history of it. What's before you
go sort of what's the lay of the land now?
Is it equal parenting? Are their less marriages? Is it
(34:02):
women don't need to be married anymore?
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Because my philosophy, my philosophy as marriage should be rare.
I think that honestly, based on what you and I
were just talking about before that people are winging it
out there in life and just trying to be a
good person, and they have no relationship skills, and their
self esteem is on the floor, or their self esteem
is too high. There's so many and people with terrible
(34:28):
boundaries and all that stuff, you know. So in my view,
most people truly are not healthy.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Enough for marriage.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
And that's probably controversial subject, but no, I think, I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Not married forever, and I agree with you. I look
around and there, you know it was. I wrote this
in my last book, Like the second everybody our kids
started graduating from high school, you would see all their
friends get all that, friends' parents get divorced, yes, and
just I mean, it's just like a serious drop off
in marriages and you'd be like, wow, and out of
(35:05):
all the kids' friends, I think, I'm thinking, like two
are still I'm like trying to think in my head.
Pardon me if I get this totally wrong, but there's
not a lot still married. Our sons, Beyonce's parents are
married like we are for a real long time and
things like that. So yeah, it's kind of all over
the map, but it you know, if you truly want
(35:27):
to be married for a really long time. Stuff changes
and you grow, and you you really have to learn
how to navigate change you do.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
And yes, the model these days is fifty to fifty
for sure, that's what most people want. Every now and
then I get somebody, though, that's willing to give their
child up, which just blows my mind.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I'm not sure I'll ever understand that.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, it's it's rare, but most people are about fifty
to fifty and those that start, you know, in my book,
I'm telling people, if you think that you know, because
your spouse has had an affair, you're going to take
the kids away, you can forget that right now. That's
how you start having nasty divorces is start threatening people, going,
I'm going to tell your family that you fool around
(36:13):
on me, and I'm going to go to your workplace
and I tell people, you're just gonna cut that right now,
and you're going to hand over the fifty percent custody
because it's in the best interest of your children. And
the huge focus of my book is is if you
want to stay married to your partner, then the couple's
relationship comes.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Before the kids.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
But if you're going to foist divorce, on kids, because kids,
most kids don't want divorce. They want their family to
stay intact. And if you're going to foist this on
them so you can be happy, then you're going to
now change and put your children's best interest at heart
first and get them raised and put yourselfself in your
needs second.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yeah, so over people to handle. Yeah, we have an
organization here in Man called Kids First, and I think
it's pretty mandatory if you get divorced, you have to
go through it if you have kids.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
A lot of states have post divorce parenting classes. Now,
whether they're effective or not, I can't. Yeah, but I
work with a lot of people who are divorced, you know,
that are having X and co parenting problems. That's extremely common.
And that's the other thing is is there's so much
(37:28):
wonderful information on healthy step parenting dynamics and step family
blended family dynamics, and I think people should be forced
to read it if they're going to be divorced, just
forced to choke it down, because if you understood these dynamics,
we could prevent a lot of the misery and suffering
(37:49):
that goes on in blended families. But yeah, that's the
thing is you know, people need to be informed, they
need to be educated, and they need to do the work,
you know, to be a healthy person, healthy in relationship
and healthy and blended families.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
That sometimes that's an interesting thing because because sometimes you
have to go back and actually like work on your
that this is going to come out so choppy, but
you've entered it broken, then it breaks, and then you've
got to go back and fix what was broken. And
it at this like there's a lot of work you've
got to do on yourself. If you it takes a
(38:27):
broken quotes.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
You know, it takes a lot.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Of work to be a healthy adult. It takes a
lot of work to be a healthy, healthy in your relationship.
You know, I have found that a lot of people,
a lot of adults are they're adults, their bodies are adult,
and they have jobs and all that stuff, but they're
not mental and emotional adults, and they don't have the
(38:54):
the stick to itness of a long term relationship, of
keeping your focus on your own health and your relationship health.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
You know, wish I could.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I would love for you, me and my pal doctor
Katie Eastman to write a like a three thousand, five
hundred word blog on I just made that number up
about what is a healthy adult?
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Oh, wouldn't that be fun?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
It's my favorite.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Subject, I think. I think that there's so much learning
right there that just about sums it up, because like,
if you enter not a healthy adult into a marriage,
guess what.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Oh this is what I see constantly, and I'm thinking, like, like,
you know what, someone will send me. One of my
clients sent me a video this morning of her husband
yelling all these awful things to her and stuff and
and mind you, they've already divorced once and they're back
together again.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And I saw them in.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Their first marriage and now I'm seeing them again and I'm.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Telling her, I'm like, you knew this.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
And signs for your fast.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Benny Hill, who did not go You worked on being
a healthy.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah, and you got back together and now it's got
a bit again.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
And I know what to tell you.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Your your phone's cutting out. I don't know why. Yeah,
your phone is. But it's okay because we're out of time.
But I would love to have you. Maybe you could
come back and we can do a show call in
the new year called what is a Healthy Adult? And
let's do it? Okay, cool? All right, so your best
ever used new best friend. We yeah, what what? I'll
(40:40):
go back and tell h c I how much I
love chatting with you too, because it's it's been nice
to have new authors. Congratulations on your first book, everybody,
big sister and off of ship. Yeah, definitely, I've got
I've been around the block a little bit on that score.
You everybody listening, please doctor Becky Whetstone's book is called
(41:02):
I Think I Want Out Great book. It's due out
in February. You can go anywhere right now and pre
order it. And Beckham and have you read your website
off one more time to us.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
It's just manager dot com.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Got it? Okay, we'll put a link up. Becky, thank
you so much for being here.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
And thank you so much, so much fun.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening. Take
care and visit us at best ever you dot com.
Take care, everybody,
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It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.