Episode 10: Dr. Lynda Spann; Red Flags and When to Call it Quits
In this compelling episode of the Queer Divorce Club, Tera had the privilege of talking with Dr. Lynda Spann, the founder of the Lesbian Couples Institute. They delve into the crucial topic of recognizing red flags in relationships and navigating the difficult decision of when to call it quits or persevere to strengthen your marriage. Additionally, they explored the concept of consciously uncoupling and discussed how to embrace self-compassion and understanding when making the choice to get divorced.
Music in this episode is from Bungalow Heaven. You can find more music from Bungalow Heaven and singer/songwriter Gretchen DeVault at gretchendevault.com.
Dr. Lynda Spann
Dr. Lynda Spann is the founder of the Lesbian Couples Institute (LCI). Lynda and her wife, Lisa Yaeger, live in the Denver, Colorado area.
LCI, which she founded in 2018, offers personal in person therapy and online coaching to lesbian couples by a lesbian
couple.
Lynda’s parents were Baptist missionaries from Texas, however she was born and raised in Uruguay, South America. She spent her childhood and teen years living in Uruguay much of the time and in Texas some of the time.
Dr. Spann has a BA in Psychology from Baylor University. Her MA in Family Studies & PhD Marriage Family Therapy were earned at Texas Tech University.
After completing her Doctorate in 1996, Lynda moved to Pueblo Colorado and started her private counseling practice.
Lynda and her wife, Lisa have been a couple since 2005. Outside of work, they love to travel, make homemade raviolis, hike, spend time with their 3 grandkids, throw great Halloween parties, & go to concerts.
The combination of having a doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy, years of practice as a couples counselor, and her own challenges in learning how to create a truly healthy intimate relationship, is what enables Dr. Spann to guide her clients at LCI to build thriving relationships that last. In her 25 years as an expert licensed marriage therapist, Dr. Spann has helped hundreds of couples.
You can find Dr. Lynda online at lesbiancouplesinstitute.com, on Instagram @lesbian_couples_institute, and on TikTok @lesbiancouplesinstitute.
Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Dr. Lynda, welcome to the Queer Divorce Club. So happy to have you today. Thank you. Yes, thanks for having me. I'm super excited and jazzed about this. I am too. I've been following you on TikTok and I love all you talk about for with couples, and I'm interested in kind of turning it on set today. So I'm excited about that.
Me too. To get us started, can you give us our listeners a little glimpse at your background, how you work with couples, and any experience you've had with Queer Divorce? Sure. Happy to. Yeah, so on a personal side, I've, I came out when I was in college, so I'm one of the, I don't know, lifelong lesbians.
And Got my doctorate way back in 1996 and since then I've been doing couples therapy and started out kind of a general population and for the last five years I've concentrated on lesbian and queer relationships. I founded the Lesbian Couples [00:01:00] Institute. About five years ago. Yeah, in August of 2018.
And my wife is also a therapist. Lisa and I work together at L C I for short. I have. So primary work on saving relationships. And I also work at helping couples have conscious uncoupling if they decide they need to go their separate ways. I've even done some private, like one or two day retreats specifically for uncoupling so that couples can, you know, just be super conscious about the process and, and It is just a really nice transition from, we're a couple to, okay, now we're not going to be.
And to do it in a really heartfelt and positive way. So those are some of my experiences professionally. I, I ended a 10 year relationship. We weren't legally married. It wasn't, it wasn't legal at the time.[00:02:00] So I've been through a significant breakup after a long relationship. And my wife was previously married to a man and went through a divorce.
And so I got to witness the aftermath of that. We were friends long before we became partners, and so we were on that journey together. Yeah. So both professionally and personally, seen all sides. I'm familiar with divorce. Seen, yeah. Yep. Yeah, and I like how you mentioned, I mean, big breakups and we're talking a little bit before we got on just how new queer divorce legally is.
Yes. But that doesn't mean that You didn't, there hasn't been these big breakups over time in queer couples that are Yes. That's just like a divorce. That's right. Yeah. Through the work that you do, you help, you just mentioned a little bit, you have Lesbian Couples Institute, you help, you know, build stronger habits, but you also do some conscious uncoupling too.
I'm intrigued though. What would you say are the cornerstones of like a long-term healthy relationship? Hmm. I [00:03:00] love that. So I think the, what I like people to get their head around is that what you're going for is creating a very secure relationship, right? So that you wanna create secure attachment within your couple relationship.
And requires that you really take time to get to know each other yourself and your partner that you get really good at communication. That seems to be something that's missing in a lot of relationships. All relationships. I would say at least 99% of the ones that I have gotten to work with I believe it's really important to prioritize the relationship and make it at least as important as, as your parenting role for sure, as important as your careers.
And so really putting relationship first is a cornerstone. I also believe that. That discussing and coming up with very explicit agreements that protect your [00:04:00] relationship beyond like vows. I'm not talking about marriage vows, I'm talking about personal agreements within the relationship.
They're designed to protect the relationship over time. And most we don't learn that either. Not, not usually from our own parents. And for sure not from school. And I don't, I don't think I mentioned quick repair. So something that's really important for, for building security and safety is that when you mess up, that you are willing to approach your partner and make a, a quick repair, a heartfelt apology.
What that does is it keeps the, the mistake or the oops, or even the unintentional pain from landing in long-term memory. And so a quick repair is really important to keep that the, that balance of more positives than negatives in the relationship. John Gottman talks about, yeah, I repair has been on my mind a lot.[00:05:00]
Had a little sidetrack, but it keeps coming up I think. Doesn't Gottman say that 70% of your relationship needs. 30% you'll get it right the first time and 70% is, takes all that repair. I'm getting those stats right. But I'm like, oof. That's a lot of repair. That's probably right. Repair is just really crucial 'cause we're human and we're gonna get our feelings hurt when our partner didn't mean to.
And sometimes we're going to inadvertently do something that's hurtful. And so repairing that quickly is super important. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if I'm thinking there, you just said building security is really important and you can do that through communication is number one, healthy communication.
Re quick repair putting your relationship first. There's another one I'm missing. What's the other one I. Remind me. Explicit agreements. Explicit agreements, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and taking time. And I think, at least for my, my experience with lesbian couples is that sometimes there's [00:06:00] such an urgency to the urge to merge.
You've heard of that probably? That, that we as a group tend to like move so quickly into moving in together and, and that sort of thing. And so take a deep breath and there's plenty of time use it to get to know each other. I love that. So if we're going through this relationship, we're merging quickly not to stay healthy over time.
We're getting to, I know you've worked with couples that are consciously uncoupling. What do you think are the biggest hurdles throughout those healthy relationships? I think communication, number one, able to speak for yourself, yourself, communications, right? Yes. Communication is a really big one.
I, I think, you know, another, Another big hurdle point is after the honeymoon stage is over, and that can last anywhere from 12 to 18 months. And, and then the second stage of a relationship, people call it different things. I call it the powers trouble stage, [00:07:00] and. You wanna move out of that pretty quickly.
And so that third stage, technically the term is differentiation. And basically it's where you, you strike the balance between the, the we as a couple and the, the two mes that, so, so you move back into a state of, of that balance recognizing, you know, we are different, we have differences. How are we gonna, how are we gonna handle our differences?
A big hurdle is learning to speak up. So, you know, for, for many people, especially women, we're socialized to, to be people pleasers, to keep the peace. And so often we, we kind of shut down our voice because we don't wanna rock the boat. That is, that's a a no-no. If you want long-term healthy relationship, you have to, you have to not avoid, right.
So you have to stop the avoidance of [00:08:00] vulnerability or tough conversations or, you know, the fear that we're gonna end up fighting sometimes stops people from speaking up. Intrigued by those stages of relationship. So you said the power struggle stage is the stage after the, the honeymoon stage.
Is that the, the time in which you're like navigating the building of security, what is that stage? Yes. I, I think so. And, and really navigating, kind of coming out from under the, the. Influence of, of love hormones that have us all hopped up. And in that first stage, we're so focused on our similarities.
And you know, that feeling of we can finish each other's sentences and that soulmate kind of feeling of really, really focused on similarities. And then in that next stages we start. Coming into view is, oh, well actually we're different and we have differences. And this is where our attachment [00:09:00] style differences may start to show up.
And, and that can become challenging in terms of that sense of security. So yes, it is a. The, the security is, starts to feeling at risk usually in that stage. And so you wanna quickly move into, okay, we, we can still be secure and different. We can, we don't have to have the same attachment style, we don't have to have the same interest or personality.
And we can still have an amazing relationship. What it requires is that you learn to talk about everything. Yeah, anything. And to do it in a way where you stay right set up and you don't, you know, dul spiral into an argument or. A standoff silent standoffs will never get you anywhere. They do not.
They do not. One of you ends up feeling relief and one of you probably ends up feeling pain, so Yeah. Not a very good combo. Yeah. So when you're thinking about those hurdles as you go through, [00:10:00] like moving through it, it's just, You know, one couple avoiding avoiding communication. What are some other like big red flags as if you're thinking about, I dunno, as I'm thinking about this, as I structured our conversation today, I was thinking about couples who may be thinking about divorce or, I mean mm-hmm.
In my divorce, I was in that space where in my marriage, probably, I don't know, seven years in, and I got divorced at 12 years of marriage, like thinking about. Is this repairable or not? Is this a, is this relationship hurdle one I can get over or not? You know? What space, you know, those trade-offs.
So when I think about those hurdles, you know, what do you think are the, how do you know if your relationship isn't gonna make it past that hurdle? What do you know? You know, when is it not gonna be fixed? How do you know the difference? Yeah. Yes. When's it time to? Is it time to stay or go? That's always a big question.
So I, you know, I think that a big obvious one, and I I need to mention it, is [00:11:00] it if there's abuse happening in the relationship and you're, and, and a person is the victim of that, and there's no change in sight, you gotta get out just for your own health and wellbeing and mental health and for the security of your, if you have kids Another, you know, contempt is a big thing.
If, if you, if there's not friendliness and every time you start talking to each other, there's just kind of nasty attitudes. Not necessarily verbal, but just, just a, an air of contempt and Un unfriendliness that that's a big sign that it's time to move on. For some people listening, you know, may, maybe it is that if you're in a heterosexual marriage and you're recognizing that maybe you have a different sexual orientation that could be.
A, time to, to end a marriage if what you long for is to explore a relationship, a [00:12:00] same-sex relationship. Another thing, this is something that happened to my, my wife Lisa, when she, prior to her divorce, was it, she said, I started having these looping exit strategy. Sessions in my head. And so she, what she meant by exit strategy sessions was like, I just kept thinking about ways to end this and how to get out and.
So I kind of like that term if you're having exit strategy sessions in your own head that's a, so if I'm Googling how to get divorced every couple years, every couple of months, then maybe Yes. Yes. If you're on Google, absolutely. Can I survive a divorce? I don't know. Or asking your friends for a family, lawyers, divorce attorneys.
You know, and, and the other thing is if if your, if your partner is making promises that they continue to break, so it could be something as serious as they're having an affair and they, and they promise they're gonna stop and that's not happening. Or some other type of betrayal, like [00:13:00] ongoing addiction that, you know, there's a promise of changing and it's just not happening.
The main thing is to trust your gut. Your, your gut will. Will be the one to tell you if it's time. And, and that doesn't mean that you don't have fear, right? Right. So fear is a normal emotion when you're going through moving toward ending a relationship. So don't look for the absence of fear.
That's, that's that's not a necessary part of the equation. It does take courage. Yeah. You can have courage and fear at the same time. Right, right. It takes courage to both stay in the relationship and to repair the relationship and leave the relationship in the same way. That's right. That's right.
Yeah. I'm just thinking about, I was thinking back into the moments when I was trying to de decide in my relationship what with my ex-husband, what moments I was like, Okay, this is divorce worthy, or I can keep repairing through this, or I can keep, yeah. You know, like how many times do you. [00:14:00] I know you can't just be like, try 10 times and then you're good like that following your gut.
How do you affirm to yourself confirm over time that this relationship isn't going to be fixed? You know? Yeah. You just said if they continue to do the same thing over and over, you know what? What can you do as an individual in that relationship to affirm your gut and to support yourself when, yeah, and so I, I'm a proponent of therapy probably 'cause I'm a therapist and I've done a lot of personal therapy and so I, I think giving, if you're not certain, you know, if you're on that brink and not certain, then I think working with an L G B T Q.
They're couples, therapists, it's really training in couples therapy can that, that can help you and not just to check the box of, okay, I tried therapy, now I, I'm free to go. Rather, let's really see if this, if there's a way to make this okay for both of us. So I do recommend that. And the other thing is, you know, if you have a partner that's not willing or [00:15:00] you just need to be able to process individually, then then finding an individual therapist or a coach Can can be super helpful as well.
Yeah. Do you think that there's specific signs that you might be able to see in your, I know I've been kind of going on this journey of like, can I feel it in my body? And then I think back to the moments where I was like making these big choices. So I'd be, I was feeling sicker or more tired, or like we just said, like in the middle of the night, Googling, could I survive mm-hmm.
Without my husband, you know, like, yeah, those are signs, whatever. Of course, you know, I, I think wake waking up worried. Having some physical symptoms, like a change in appetite, maybe you feel like you have a pit in the, you know, a, a rock in the pit of your stomach or your throat is feeling constrained.
Or tight all the time. I, I do think that, that our body speaks to us and so paying attention to that, that's, you're just not enjoying life too much anymore the way it is.[00:16:00] There's a couple of tracks that I'm thinking about as we talk about this, and one of them is the idea that as we talk through this as you're, we talked, we started out talking about like what are the cornerstones of a healthy relationship?
And I brought that up because I wanna, you know, everybody think about, okay, what would be a. Good, strong relationship. And then if I'm going through that, what are some hurdles I'm running into? But then now if I get to the point where I'm seeing those hurdles, my relationship isn't no longer healthy for either of us, and then I have to choose divorce, like choosing the divorce and making that selfish thing decision is really hard.
And I wanna know from your perspective I've been asking actually all my guests, this is like, do you see is. Divorce isn't a failure, right? It's not from your perspective, is it a failure of relationships? You're a relationship expert, you're supposed to have these great relationships. So if I get divorced, is that a failure in my mind or is that something that, well, I hope that all of your podcast guests have [00:17:00] had a resounding no, it's not a failure.
Is that, that's certainly my belief is that divorce, No, divorce is not a failure. It is. It is the closing of a chapter. So, you know, if we think of chapters of life or seasons of life and that that, that. Sometimes we are at the end of a season or at the end of a chapter, and that is okay, and you can look back over the relationship that's ending and let yourself identify the things that were valuable, that were good, that taught you lessons that, that you enjoyed.
It's okay to go into the space of even gratitude about what, you know, the, the. As the relationship was before this point, you can have gratitude for that. And it can still be the right thing. And not a failure at all. It's an opportunity for growth and and opportunity, like you were saying, sometimes [00:18:00] people get symptomatic, like they start.
Their health is, is compromised when the relationship is going so badly. So it's an opportunity to feel better and have better health and wellbeing and, and to rediscover yourself. So if you're, if you do choose and you're in that space, and I will say, everybody has said it's not a failure, but I wanted to think about Good.
Yes, you're correct. But I think that there's just this cultural understanding that we have around Yeah, the shame of choosing yourself and the shame of breaking down a relationship. And, you know, you know, getting married is the, Like biggest decision of our lives and like all of that sort of stuff that is like, mm-hmm.
Whew. It's so exhausting. I think once you've gone through a divorce, you're like, you finally realize that all of that is a bunch of crap, but it really takes some time. It takes some time to get there. I'm wondering as you, so if you do choose yourself and you're in this space, how do you keep yourself from.
Making the [00:19:00] same bad relationship habits in the next relationship. How do you, you know, you do your uncoupling, whether it's conscious with your partner or not. You're in this new space where you're rebuilding. How do you keep yourself in healthy relationships and what are the signs of you know that you're doing the right thing?
Forward. Yeah, no, that's a wonderful question. I, you know, I think one thing is to get support through the process and I think you have, in fact you have a, a support group for people going through the process and something like, that's just a wonderful opportunity so that you're not alone, you're adjusting to, and, and sort of accepting that that you're going to be alone for a while and that that's okay.
And, and so, so really work on the shame and the blame. Right. Not self blame or blame of your ex, because blame keeps us stuck. And what you want is to free yourself [00:20:00] up so that you can be really open to another relationship in time that that requires that you kind of unpack the baggage that got created.
So support groups, coaching therapy can help with that. If a person enjoys and gets something out of journaling, I think it can be really great exercise to write down, okay, these, these are the things that I would not want in my next relationship. And, and so that your, your subconscious mind can start thinking about, okay, how am I gonna prevent that?
Next time around. Moving into a lot of self care, both. You know, in terms of physical, like exercise and meditation, healthy eating and doing things that, that you stop doing that, that really were nourishing to you individually. C creativity's a great place to put energy. You can rediscover a lot about yourself and, and who [00:21:00] you are now, right there, the learning who you are at this point in your life.
And then I think, I think for a lot of people that have been through a divorce or a major breakup, it's scary to get into another relationship. That fear of, am I going to is, is the same thing gonna happen again? Here, here's the warning. The same thing will probably happen again unless you do some work.
Yeah, yeah. And that can come in so many forms. I mean, it can come by reading blogs or getting a couple of good books on, on relationships watching experts on TikTok, getting into therapy, be, you know I have a. I have a coaching program that's designed for, for lesbian and queer couples, and it, it's, it's a five week program that teaches people how to have a healthy relationship.
So something like that being willing to have the mind of a beginner, like, okay, I'm, I wanna learn what it takes to create [00:22:00] an amazing relationship and that information is out there. So that sometimes takes a little humility to say, I don't know everything. I think those things can help. And then take your time.
Don't, don't rush. You know, you rebound relationships. They can be fun. And it, and they're problematic sometimes. So take time, enjoy focusing on yourself and friends and family and kids and, yeah. So take time to get healthy. And I do think that it is possible. I mean, I'm in a relationship where, The divorce and the relationship were all happening at the, the same time in this new relationship space.
So it is possible, but only if both. Again, like as we were talking about insecure relationships. Yes. If both couples, both people and the couple are willing to do the work. Yes. Work towards security. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's right. And, and for many of us, I'll raise my hand to this. We're, we're so wired to be in a relationship that it, it happened, it can happen really quick to [00:23:00] that.
You go from one to the other, and, and that's, that's okay too. As long as you're mindful, as you say about, okay, what's the work we need to put in here doing the work? Doing the work and the play. It's not all about work. Yeah. No, no. It's not all about work. No. I mean, I, divorce is a lot of work though. You're right.
Like you're, if you're making this big choice to choose yourself and you wanna live a healthier life outside of that relationship, it makes sense to do the work, to build yourself up. Like this is a moment to do that. Why not do that? I mean, it's hard. You have the grief of. The shift in everything in your past relationship, but it makes so much sense now to move beyond that, to to build yourself up, to bring yourself to this new space that is for you, whether that's in a new relationship or not.
Yeah. I like that. Do you think just thinking about unconscious coupling or conscious coupling, unconscious, maybe that those are for [00:24:00] the people that didn't get to choose, I mean, I get it, but are there couples in types of relationships that are better suited for conscious coupling than others?
You know, what is you, if you're going into that process, you know, what should you look for in your partner as you're doing it? Consciously together versus like one of you, you know, making all the decisions apart. Yeah. So I think a, a partner that's open to to, to self-discovery that's open to, to, you know, just acknowledging that this is something we're going through together, why let's do it in the best way.
If there's a desire to have some kind of. Chemical amicable connection or friendship after, or if you share kids or pets that you, that you're gonna have interaction around. That's another reason to do it. But, but I, I think what it takes is an openness from both partners [00:25:00] and, and possibly the de you know, ha having the awareness and desire that we.
We're taking ourselves into the next relationship, and so let's learn what we can from this one and, and go through this process in a way that we feel. Good about ourselves and we can learn some things and, and acknowledging that it also sets us up to be more successful in the, a next relationship.
I feel like I'm rambling. I hope that held together. No, you're not rambling. I think that I think let's go back on that. So I think what you're saying is if both couples are in it and both couples want to. Acknowledge, I think, whether you have kids or not, right? If you're, yes, you've been in, maybe you've been married for 10 years and you haven't had kids, or you've been in this long-term relationship and you're looking at separating.
I mean, there's some stuff you share, whether that's friends family members, you're I mean, one of the biggest [00:26:00] losses that I feel like I felt in my marriage, I didn't, my divorce I didn't see coming, was like the loss of my ex-husband's family and what that looks like. So no matter if I had kids or not, there's.
Some sort of new relationship that needs to be created outside of that. Yes. And sometimes it's healthy to do that and sometimes it's not depending on That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. The person is abusive or not abusive. Well, that's in one thing or if you're not in it together, but so if you're both in it and wanna create something, New, even if it's hard, conscious and coupling could be a way to do that.
So you both are on a good setting, a good footing. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I'm trying to think about some, I don't know. It seems so hard now I'm thinking about when I went through my divorce, and I've heard from others too, that you get to this point where it's so messy and so hard and the motions are so high that constant and coupling seems impossible.
Like maybe you've gone down. That doesn't happen for everybody, right? So what if you miss the boat though? Can you go [00:27:00] back and fix it or. If you, if you miss a note on Yeah. Because you're right. Conscious uncoupling would be done sort of early on in the process, not after you've gotten into divorce wars with attorneys Yeah.
Sort of thing. A and probab possibly even before you each hire an attorney, which is a good idea by the way. If you miss that vote If both people are open to having some conversation I think some of that can be retrofitted. It does, it requires an openness from both. Both parties. And a desire to, you know, part of the conscious uncoupling process that I do is to help couples be reflective over like, okay, this isn't a failure, and here are the, here are the things that I will always hold dear.
Here are the things that I love about you. What I'll miss and, and talk through those things as well as, and here's, [00:28:00] you know, here's what I'm grateful for, here's what I'm looking forward to. Here's how I hope we can remain connected over time or not. So both, in both some reflection and some looking forward conversation.
I was just thinking about the point where if you weren't able to do that and you've argued through everything, and then in the end you're maybe you're legally divorced already and you have kids, and then all of a sudden you're both in this space where you feel like you can finally do that.
It's never too late. Right. It's never too late. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You just mentioned you both should, every, you should have an attorney. What why is that? I. You know, I, I think that when you we're in the middle of a, a divorce, we are not at our best selves and we're not. You know, our, our executive functioning may not be at its best.
And so having an attorney helps us think through [00:29:00] things and, and things that maybe we, you know, just haven't considered it. So it's a, it's a protection for for. For each individual and, and for the future. And, you know, in terms of some, you know, whether it's custody or financial agreements or retirements or mm-hmm.
Any of those things. And I, I just think it's very helpful to have a knowledgeable person guiding that, that ship. I agree. I agree. I think I've done it. I had experience both ways. I've obviously in this community, seeing it done in both way in lots of various ways. And people can do it without attorneys.
I think it takes a very, I. Special person to be able to do that, you know, in this way that they feel good enough and, you know, trust each other enough even though they're getting divorced and separating to be able to do it without attorneys or somebody on their side. And that's pretty amazing to have, be able to have.
If you can do that, but, [00:30:00] Back yourself up. Support yourself. Even if you're, even if you're coupling, uncoupling in a space where you both agree that you need to be uncoupled, that the relationship isn't working, that is still important to have either a mediator or somebody to help guide you through how that process works.
'cause there's so many legal ramifications, financial ramifications over time. Yes. Yeah, for sure. What do you think if you were talking to somebody who was just thinking about getting divorced? Or maybe let's, let's ask both questions. What do you, if somebody's thinking about getting divorced, what do you think is the most important thing for them to think about, to keep in mind as they make that decision for themselves?
Well, I, I think there's long-term effects and it's important to, to think through those, particularly if there's, if you have kids and, and not exclusively, right? Like, okay, let me, let me think through the long-term effects of this. Keep in mind that it, even, even when it's the right thing, it's, it's a [00:31:00] painful process and it is a grief process.
And so even, even when it, even when you know, you know, you know that it's right, you gotta anticipate that there will be some hard days and some sad moments and and maybe even some doubt. So just to know that that's normal Of my head. I'm curious what you. You would add to that too? What I would add to that, I mean, I think that's straight on when you think about it.
I think I always say trusting yourself is probably the Yeah. The number one thing to do, but it's the hardest thing to do. It's the hardest thing. Yeah, no, I love that. Yeah. Especially when you're in this painful. Spot, right? Like you just mentioned it, and I think it brings up emotion every time I think about it.
But I can like specifically feel what I felt like when I was making the final decisions about getting divorced. Like there was these moments where I'd be like, should I, shouldn't I Googling in the middle of the night figuring, you know, should I do it or not? And then the final moment of the decision [00:32:00] too, it's like from that moment of saying it out loud to the actual like physical mm-hmm.
Legal divorce, that space. Is a whirlwind of mess. Yeah. And anxiety and grief. Lots of pain. That's right. So much pain. Yeah. I dunno how many times I found myself on the floor being like, I can't go any further down than here. It feels like. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's when you reaching out for support is so important.
Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't have done it without a therapist. Trust. I love that. Yeah. But sometimes you need people to remind you that you're trustworthy. That you're worthy. Yeah, that's right there. That's right. But it's your best friend, your mom, you know, all whoever's supportive of you in that space.
That's right. How about on the other side? So once you've made the decision, you're rebuilding, you're out in the world. Looking at, I mean, you've mentioned quite a few of these already, but like looking at, you know, taking the time to heal, all that sort of stuff. But like, what do you think is the most important thing as you're [00:33:00] rebuilding, focusing on the future?
I, I think that, that getting to know yourself again is really important. So that, and, and that, that doesn't take like months and months, but really having the spirit of the, the mindset of, okay, who, who am I? What do I like? What are my desires, my hopes, my dreams, my. You know, deal breakers, my bottom lines all of that and spend, just spend time with you.
Because the, the number one, one of the number one things aside from communication and all the things we talked about that makes a relationship re really healthy and lasting is if you can show up as your. Your authentic, best self. And the only way to do that is if you get clear about that. Mm-hmm.
And we develop over our adulthood and we change. And so taking, taking some time, you know, if you were [00:34:00] in a marriage for seven to plus years, you've changed a lot, and so take time to know who you are now. I, I think there can be some risk of self-medicating to kind of numb the, the pain and the, the grief.
And so that, that's, keep an awareness around that. And we self-medicate in lots of ways. It's not just drugs and alcohol. It can be food or, you know, scrolling on social media sleeping more there, there any way that we numb out. So, That's something to be on the lookout for and you wanna avoid that. Yeah.
I think there's this debate I've had with myself is, and if I talked to others about is when you get to the. That space where you avoid it or where you're self-medicating exhausted. It actually draws out the feeling. Right. It makes it last longer. Yes. You're, you're in it longer. Yes. Instead of just feeling [00:35:00] it like That's right.
Something I've learned, like if I just let myself feel it, I just sit in it for a minute, it's actually gonna pass away more quickly than if I didn't, if I avoided it. That's right. That's hard to do. Yeah. So hard to do and you make it sound so easy just to figure yourself out after you get divorced. It's not that easy, is it?
It is not that easy. No. You, you get help. Right. Let some of that people that, that know you can trust yourself or support group or therapy or, or you know, getting a journal for home, doing journaling. There's lots of ways for that. Self-discovery. Yeah. And you can't do it alone. Right. That's impossible.
I don't think so. No connection's key, whether that's through Yeah. All the things that you were saying. Yeah, that's very important. And I'm thinking about my, I just keep reflecting on every time, this is what happened to me when I was going through divorce or whatever's I'm in that [00:36:00] space of rebuilding now and how often I'm like my partner was asking me the other night like, How do you want the air conditioning to work this summer?
Like how's your, you know, do you get cold at night? Do you get hot at night? And I was like, I don't even know. Like I'm in this, everything is brand new. Everything is brand new. I don't even know, am I cold at night, hot at night? I don't even know anymore. It's so wild. It's like, yeah, wild transition phase of these like little things that pop up over time that you just have to pay attention to and be okay with the fact that it's changed.
I think that's, As you were saying that like we always are growing and changing. I think for some reason there that's been hard for me to believe. Like I'm always the same person I've been, but no, it's not true. Well, and parts of you are the same, right? We have both. We have. We have things that stay the same across life, and then there are many things that changed.
So there are core things about you that are the same. And you've grown and changed that. Both are [00:37:00] true. Yeah. Are true. Well thank you so much for walking through. I don't know, we talked about so many things, healthy relationships and red flags in relationships, and talked about what's the most important thing to think about.
I don't know. I think it still feels like a little bit like I want to want to hear from you one more time. If I'm thinking about. Getting divorced and I don't know if my relationship's healthy or not anymore. What are some of, what can we leave our listeners with to think about? What would you say to them?
Signs to look at or things to think about. Yeah. So if there's, if you're being abused, get out. If, if there is so much conflict. You find yourself like in this hostile environment, and there's so much fighting and unfriendliness and contempt and particularly if you've made efforts to change that and [00:38:00] it's not changing that that's a really big red flag.
If in the pit of your gut, you just keep waking up feeling like, I'm not in the right relationship. This is not right for me. You can honor that and if, if you're uncertain, then go talk to somebody to, to help you sort through. What does that mean? Am I missing something? No, I think that's great.
I think that's great. I think that is like pay attention to your all you're feeling. Get help if you need it. People are out there and Yeah. And if you're thinking about it, then that's probably what needs to happen and you can figure out a way to get through it. Yeah, that's what I'm. I think that's great for our listeners.
I just wanna, if they wanna find out more of the stuff you're doing and the work that you're doing, you can check out your website, lesbian Couples Institute. You're also on TikTok and Instagram. We'll put all these links in the show notes that I appreciate you taking this time with us to talk through how to.
See the [00:39:00] red flags in our relationships and uncouple. You're so welcome. It's been fun talking with you and, yeah, lesbian Couples Institute. There's a, there's a little free gift there for for people that pop onto the website if, if they're looking for, for a resource for, for their relationship, either now or in the future.
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.