In this episode of We Chat Divorce we are excited to welcome Sheila Tucker, MA, LAMFT.

Sheila is a licensed associate marriage and family therapist and founder of Heart Mind & Soul Counseling in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Sheila helps couples identify their unhelpful relationship patterns and create new ways of understanding themselves and one another. She also works with individuals who feel held down and held back by anxiety.

Sheila joins Catherine and Karen to talk about “the stories we tell ourselves” and offers a treasure house of information for couples that have gone through divorce, going through divorce, or thinking about divorce.

Let’s Chat –

  • Defining “the stories we tell ourselves” and what that entails
  • Co Parenting communication
  • Don’t be embarrassed! Amending your relationship with money
  • YOU do deserve to be HAPPY despite divorce
  • Change your story to Facts vs Fiction

If you have questions for us or a topic you’d like us to cover, contact us at hello@mydivorcesolution.com or visit MyDivorceSolution.com

Resources:

Instagram: @heartmindsoulcounseling

https://www.heart-mind-soul.com/about

sheila@heart-mind-soul.com
(843) 592-3998

200 Main Street
Hilton Head Island, SC 29926

Karen Chellew:
Welcome to We Chat Divorce. Hello, I’m Karen Chellew, legal liaison, here with Catherine Shanahan, CDFA. We’re the co-founders of My Divorce Solution, a company whose mission is to provide a rock solid financial premise for anyone thinking about or going through a divorce. With the development and delivery of the MDS Financial Portrait, individuals and couple can now make financially smart decisions and have clarity as to the short and long-term impact of those decisions during the divorce experience. Each podcast, we sit down with professionals who provide insight and frank discussion about real people, real situations, and real divorce.

Karen Chellew:
Today, we welcome Sheila Tucker. Sheila is a licensed associate marriage and family therapist and founder of Heart Mind & Soul Counseling in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Sheila helps couples identify their unhelpful relationship patterns and create new ways of understanding themselves and one another. She also works with individuals who feel down and held back by anxiety. Sheila, thank you for being here today to talk about stories we tell ourselves.

Sheila Tucker:
Thank you for having me.

Karen Chellew:
[crosstalk 00:01:26] very interesting.

Catherine Shanahan:
Hi, Sheila.

Karen Chellew:
We’ve put down a couple lines, I guess, and I find it very interesting, the stories we tell ourselves about grieving the loss of a relationship, the stories we tell ourself about money, the story we tell ourselves about, “So your spouse doesn’t want to go to therapy,” and this is my favorite one, even though I don’t know what you’re going to say, the space between what someone says and our response. That’s so interesting. Talk about that a little bit.

Sheila Tucker:
Yes. Typically, when we have conversations with people, and the stories that we tell ourselves, right, so we’ll have a conversation, you may say something to me, and while it’s coming to me, while the information is being received by me, I’m typically making something up about what you’re saying, and that could be a story that I’ve learned from my family of origin, or what have you, that comes up. And so that space between allows us to take a pause, right, from the time that you’re saying something and the time that I’m responding to whatever you’re saying. And so, a lot of times, couples get caught in these patterns of one person says something and the other one reacts and the distance between those is pretty immediate [crosstalk 00:03:10].

Karen Chellew:
Irrespective of the words being said, I guess. It could body language, tone, or just history of a relationship.

Sheila Tucker:
Definitely, definitely.

Karen Chellew:
What’s the first step in recognizing that?

Sheila Tucker:
It’s noticing those knee-jerk responses, right, so being able to pick out those patterns of behavior that we have or the conversations. Most couples are able to say, “Oh, yeah. We do that a lot,” or “This conversation comes up a lot,” or “This situation comes up a lot,” so being able to notice when there’s a situation or a conversation or something that’s coming up over and over and over and over again. You feel like, “We have been around this mountain before, here we are again.” And so by noticing that part of it, then we’re able to look at that and go, “Okay. Well, what could I do differently next time so I’m not completing this cycle one more time?”

Karen Chellew:
Right.

Catherine Shanahan:
Is the same-

Karen Chellew:
Go ahead

Catherine Shanahan:
… is the same conversation coming up that you’re noticing because issues have not been resolved or is it the same thing because you’re saying there’s no space in between the comment and the reaction, so that it’s never resolved there and so it just gets bypassed and then, eventually, it comes around again as another question or another circumstance for them?

Sheila Tucker:
Yes. It’s a little bit of both, right, and it’s usually … the content can change, but it’s the undertone of things that remain the same. It’s the same conversation about maybe not being there for me or “I don’t feel like I’m being heard or understood,” and so it’s the same conversation around that that keeps happening that could look like, “You didn’t take out the trash.” I joke with my couples, there’s the whole trash phenomenon of somebody can say, “Look, the trash is full,” and that can mean to one person, “Oh, I need to take out the trash,” and to somebody else, it’s a statement of the trash is full, and so it depends. There’s that part of it where what’s really going on sometimes gets masked and so it’s never getting resolved and so we keep going around in those cycles again, the circles of things.

Sheila Tucker:
And then the other part is that we’re not slowing down enough to see that, okay, the real story isn’t about the trash going out and whether you heard it from me to mean take out the trash versus, yeah, it’s full. There’s another story that’s underneath there and so by taking that space and by slowing down, we’re able to see, “Oh, oh, this is what you really meant by that,” instead of assuming. It allows for the opportunity to be curious.

Catherine Shanahan:
Right. I know that, with my first marriage, we never had a trust. There was never a comfort or a trust and I felt like everything was coming from an accusatory positioning. If he would’ve said to me, “The trash needs to go out,” it would’ve been like, “Seriously? This is another thing you’re complaining to me about.” Fast forward, now, with my new marriage, if he said the trash wasn’t out, well, he probably wouldn’t do it because it would’ve been out, but, anyway, it’s a whole different relationship, but in this marriage, if he said the trash was full, I would just take it as, I feel so safe with him and so comfortable with him, our communication is so different, that I’d just take it as, “Oh, the trash is full.” I don’t have any story to it.

Catherine Shanahan:
I think a lot has to do with what you’re saying is it’s about the underlying story of what’s going on in your scenario. How do you trust that even? Because it took me a long time to trust that in my new relationship, that everything was coming from a good place, not from a accusatory or a pick on you or just another thing that there’s a problem with. How do you teach people to make that transition of that trust?

Sheila Tucker:
It’s in the slowing down. When people come in, we’ll go over a scenario of what’s going on, and so what we’ll do is we’ll slow it down, “Okay, so this is what happened. What did it mean for you when that was said?” This is where the story … “What was the story you told yourself about that? What’s coming up for you? What’s the feeling that gets evoked? What expression are you seeing on your partner’s face or what tone are you hearing from his or her voice that’s causing you to react or respond the way that you are?” And, usually, what will happen is something will come up along the lines of the, “Seriously, one more thing … I’ve got a list that’s 10 miles long, and why can’t you do it? Why is this coming up?” But they’ll get down to, once we can get down to it, it’s usually something along the lines of, “I feel like I’m the one doing all of the work. You’re not doing it. I feel like you’re complaining or I’m just not doing enough.” I hear a lot about not enough-ness.

Sheila Tucker:
And so, a lot of times, the other person, the partner, will hear that part of the conversation that’s never been said before because, usually, it just erupts into this explosion of, “Well, you should do it,” or somebody storms off and there’s no conversation. And so the other person gets to hear, “Oh, oh, that’s not what I meant. This is what I meant when I said that. I was just making a statement,” or “I didn’t realize that my face looked this way or that my body looked this way.” And so there’s a little bit of recognition, and it takes time. It’s not ever a one and done. It takes time and, depending on how long the couple has been together, it can take a little bit longer.

Karen Chellew:
Transition that to a couple going through divorce maybe with a family, maybe the kids are older, maybe they’re younger, whatever, but in a crisis situation, they’re not really focused on repairing the relationship, but they do have to retain the family unit as much as possible. If you were speaking to a mom or dad going through a divorce, really wanting to be the best parent or try to have the best relationship, can you reframe that on the one side to just not take things personally or respond in a different way to minimize the discourse, I guess, between the two people?

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah, and it comes down to an understanding. The way I approach things is through an attachment lens. I typically see people wanting to connect and wanting to be near one another in some way, shape, or form. And so, usually, when someone lashes out, it’s because of a fear, they’re not being seen, not being enough, and feeling as though their partner is maybe turning away from them instead of turning towards them. And so, with that scenario, there’s a lot of de-escalation that needs to be involved in order to have both partners to be able to tolerate a situation that’s coming up, otherwise, it’s just going to continue to be explosive each time.

Sheila Tucker:
It does have to do a little bit with having one partner not take things so personally, having the other partner to be able to simmer down as well, especially when you have two explosive partners, which, by the way, is a lot more fun than the two that withdraw, just saying. But to be able to bring everybody down a couple of notches so that this isn’t an attack, this is how this is working out, and working with tone of voice has been a big game-changer for a lot of people. Usually, it’s an after, they say something and it comes out really heated and then they have to step it back and they say something to the effect of, “Okay, I know that came out heated, but I was caught up in the moment and this is what happened,” but, again, it takes a few steps to get people back to that point, to get them to pull back and to have that tolerance of being able to hear something and to not go off the handle because they’ve taken everything so personally.

Sheila Tucker:
And that takes, really, some self-reflection, again, what are the stories you’re telling yourself when you hear your partner say this to you? What are the thoughts that are coming up for you when this is said and how much of that do you believe is true about yourself?

Catherine Shanahan:
And so when you say, I think I have a hard time with this maybe even myself sometimes is, when you say don’t take this personally and, if we use Karen’s example of a couple going through a divorce and they’re trying to preserve the family, but husband or wife shows up, whoever it is, it doesn’t matter, and says, “The kids are late for school. They’re not doing their homework and the teacher is calling. The homework isn’t done and I think because they didn’t sleep well last night and maybe because they had McDonald’s for dinner again.”

Karen Chellew:
“And you signed them up for too many activities.”

Catherine Shanahan:
Right. Immediately, the one spouse is saying, “Okay, I’m taking this personally.” What is a way for someone not to take that personally if you were the one feeding them McDonald’s, involving them in too many activities, and letting them stay up way past their bedtime, because that’s the two spouses that are taking it out on each other? How do you not take that personally if that’s you?

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah. Well, and the long and short of it is you’re going to take it personally, right, and it’s how you react to taking it personally.

Catherine Shanahan:
Okay. That’s good.

Sheila Tucker:
And so it’s, “Yeah, guilty. Yeah, I was busy. I fed the kids McDonald’s. They stayed up too late. I’m tired. I had to pick my battles. That was not the one I was going to pick. This is [crosstalk 00:13:46],” right? But a lot of times, too, parents are like, “Oh, I’m just a crappy parent,” and they don’t cut themselves a break to say, “Not taking that battle on and, sorry for your luck, this is what you have to deal with today,” but, of course, in better words. But to be able to really, again, what am I telling myself about what my spouse is saying to me? Yeah, he’s lobbing or she’s lobbing some stuff at me, basically saying I’m not a good parent, maybe that’s what I’m telling myself, that I’m not a good parent.

Catherine Shanahan:
That’s a great analogy, Sheila. I have to put everything into perspective to understand something, so if you’re listening and you’re like me, that’s exactly the story that I think, in particular, I’m going to say woman because I’m a woman and we always say that we all harbor guilt and feel guilty about not doing something 100%, right? But so the example here is, if the statement is being made you took your kids to McDonald’s, you have them in too many activities, and they stayed up too late, your personal story can be, “You know what? Let me think about that. Yep, I did do that. I worked hard today. I didn’t feel like cooking. They got McDonald’s and, guess what, I fell asleep before they did. It is what it is.” Or you’re saying that you’re doubting yourself, “He’s right” or “She’s right. I’m a terrible parent. I shouldn’t be feeding my kids like that. They should be going to bed earlier. I’m a failure.” That’s the story you’re talking about. What do you say to yourself when this is happening?

Sheila Tucker:
Exactly. And a lot of times, and especially for women and some men as well, there’s this internalization of it quickly can go from, “I’m a bad parent” to “I’m a bad person.” There’s no longer any guilt in the room, it’s just now turned to shame.

Catherine Shanahan:
Right. I would like to shift gears a little bit there about money and the relationship with money because, when we do couples’ Financial Portraits, it’s always with an, excuse me, explanation from whichever side was the stay-at-home parent or didn’t involve themselves in the budgeting or the billing or what have you. Their story always is, Karen, and correct me if I’m wrong, is always, “I’m so embarrassed. I’m so sorry. Let me apologize. I don’t know where the statements are. I never looked at a statement.”

Karen Chellew:
Stupid.

Catherine Shanahan:
Yeah, “I’m stupid. I’m not this.” I’m listening to some clients right now, now I want to turn around and say to them, “Change your story,” and we do say it differently. We, of course, tell them they’re not stupid, but it’s just not anything you partaked in at that time and now you’re going to change the way you are. There’s no other reason for it than that was your role at the time, or whatever it was you were doing. But people have terrible relationships with money, and coming through divorce, I feel like it’s one of the biggest anxieties that they’re faced with, dealing with, “How am I going to do this for the rest of my life without my spouse?”

Karen Chellew:
Right. And we even deal with the spouses who are the breadwinner and they take a position that the other party truly is not adept at managing their finances because they’ve stayed at home and they take this air of, “Well, you’re going to have to help her,” or “She’s going to have to figure this out,” when the roles were clearly defined. That doesn’t mean she’s not adept, it just means that wasn’t her role, so she’s got to flex those muscles again. And I think sometimes neither party will realize that until we get a little bit further into discussing their finances.

Sheila Tucker:
Sure. And it’s such a raw and vulnerable time, right? If you have your spouse, the person that was supposed to have your back at some point in time and supposed to be your person, your attachment person, right, is telling you that you don’t have the skills to balance your own checkbook or to deal with money in any capacity, you start to believe it.

Karen Chellew:
Yeah, that’s really true, but on the other hand, someone learning, all of a sudden, how to cook and take care of the kids and keep up with the schedules and all of that, it doesn’t mean that they’re not adept, it’s just something that they haven’t done for a long time and you’ve got to, again, flex your muscles.

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah, it’s a learning curve, right? I joke all the time, I’m not a fan of the learning curve, but it is there for a reason. You start at the bottom and you work your way up and you figure it out along the way, and that means also cutting yourself some breaks because we’re not going to, usually, do it right the first time out of the gate. We’re going to stumble a little bit, try to get our footing, maybe make a mistake or two, which is great because then you just learn something else and then you can do it differently the next time. It’s information. Every mistake or failure is just information for doing it a little bit differently and finessing it the next time around.

Catherine Shanahan:
Yeah. What is the comfort level that you think people feel? What do you find their comfort is, is when they always have that story that they keep in their mind that, “I’m a failure,” or “I can’t do this,” why do people hold on to that?

Sheila Tucker:
I think for a couple of reasons. We learn these stories when we’re younger. When we’re going through life as little kids, we somehow pick these stories up and they may … and usually aren’t overt messages given by parents, right? They’re just something that happened this one little time and somehow we’ve internalized it to mean that we’re not good enough, and that’s the one I hear the most, so that’s the one I usually stick with. There’s that, and then it becomes a little bit habitual. We start to look through the lens of not being good enough and so we find what we’re looking for, like shining a flashlight on something, you’re going to only see what’s in that little spot, and we just start to keep looking for those times and looking for occasions where, “See? That’s right, I’m not good enough. There’s another thing where I’m not enough. That’s another …”

Sheila Tucker:
Couples do this in their relationships too, “There’s another reason he doesn’t have my back,” or “There’s another reason she’s not there for me.” And so we just start playing into it, and even though it doesn’t feel good, we know it and so there’s something comfortable about the uncomfortableness of it. We know how the equation begins and ends, then we know what we’re going to find. But if we change it, then we’re rocking the boat a little bit, right, and now, all of a sudden, it’s unknown and it becomes a little bit of a what if. Does that make sense?

Karen Chellew:
Yeah.

Catherine Shanahan:
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It’s very interesting.

Karen Chellew:
It does. Yeah. And then what about, if you have a perspective or you’re just very reticent to be accountable for all of the information that you may or may not know? And this definitely happens when it comes to money. We have a lot of clients who don’t really want to know. They want to turn their head. They don’t want to know about their debt or they don’t want to balance a checkbook. They don’t want to do that and I don’t think it has anything to do with not being good enough. I think it’s just, “I don’t want to do it.” I would think that would be a money story too.

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah, and it’s interesting. I was just in a class recently with a woman by the name of Megan Hale and she has a great way of putting your money story together with your attachment style, right, which is right up my alley. And so with the people that tend to ostrich, right, put your head in the sand, don’t want to look at it, and they’re like, “I have a check. There’s enough in the account,” those people, or just don’t want to touch it, don’t want to do it because they’re afraid of it, maybe they just don’t want to do it, seem to also be similar people that are avoidant in other areas of their lives as well. Those might be the people that are going to walk away from maybe conflict or just other similar issues.

Sheila Tucker:
Now the people that are the ones that are checking their bank account two, three, four, five times a day and are always like, “Okay, what’s going on, what’s going on, what’s going on?” tend to be a little bit more anxiously attached to their accounts and probably a little bit more anxiously attached in their relationship. It may look like, if they feel like a partner is ignoring them, they’re going to come at the partner and they’re going to do whatever they can to get some kind of attention, whereas the avoidant partner is going to see this person come and then is going to be like, “Oh, no,” and is going to start moving in the other direction and do more of a withdrawal away. That’s what it reminds me of, too, with bank accounts and with money in general, you have a couple of different camps of checking the accounts all the time or the people that it’s just too much, they become flooded and overwhelmed and just, “I can’t handle it.”

Karen Chellew:
Yeah. That’s very interesting that it’s so consistent across the board. And then we have plenty of clients who, I’ve said this a couple times, but just and to flex their muscles. If you just give them one step, then they’ll take the next step and then they’ll take the next step and they look back and they see how far they’ve come and, all of a sudden, they’re empowered and they’re free and they’re really enjoying their new, independent life. Maybe that’s just the universe coming together for them.

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah. And so for the people that typically put their head in the sand with money, one of the steps is to start to make friends with it, start to make friends with your account, make friends with the money, and what that looks like is check into your account, do it once a week, just check in, see what’s there. You don’t have to do anything about it, but just check in and see what’s going on so that you get used to doing it, so you become a little bit more accustomed to doing it or almost a little bit desensitized to thinking that it’s scary. And then for the over-checkers to cut it down, maybe only look at it three times today instead of 15 and so to dial it back just a little bit.

Catherine Shanahan:
Yeah. I like that a lot.

Karen Chellew:
I do too.

Catherine Shanahan:
[crosstalk 00:25:07]. And I also think it’s great to turn down that inner story you’re telling yourself. I never looked at it like that. I, obviously, have done it to myself and I probably will continue to be hard on myself, that’s just who I am basically, but it’s nice if you can just … I hate to say this, but I always remember from when I was a kid that … do you remember the fire drill, stop, drop, and roll?

Sheila Tucker:
Oh, yeah.

Catherine Shanahan:
I have that dialogue that I keep in my head about things when I feel like I’m getting a little bit … I’m like, “Stop, pause, slow down, think about it and then go,” and I think of stop, drop, and roll. I don’t know why. It’s probably one of the things that just stuck in my head. I think it’s really interesting now to stop when you’re telling yourself these things, “I don’t know how to budget,” or “I don’t know how to communicate,” or “I’m being a terrible or mother or a terrible spouse,” and say why are you saying that to yourself and then stop and do something. Check in with your bank account once a week or try to live on a budget for a day or just try taking these little steps, I think, is such an important lesson for all of us to listen to. I just never looked at it that way. It’s just another way to look at it.

Catherine Shanahan:
And I also love your flashlight, that you’re shining a flashlight on one thing, you can’t see the whole picture. Even with us, when we hand you your Financial Portrait, pick one of those assets or one of those debts and just check in with that one, not the whole thing. I love this. I love this whole dialogue.

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah. And then, for me, even if that’s too much, even if picking that one spot is too much, narrow it down a little bit more. Maybe that means the step was too big, right? It doesn’t mean that you’ve failed or it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it or the learning curve is too steep. That just means maybe you took too big of a step and we need to dial it back a little bit and find a step that’s a little bit more appropriate. You’ll get there in all due time, you just might need to take a few more steps than you maybe thought that you would.

Karen Chellew:
Right. And I guess the important piece is taking the step, whether you’re, like you said, checking the bank account 10 times or not checking it at all, you can just choose to, like you said at the beginning of the conversation, just pulling it down, so just going the other way just a tiny bit and seeing how that feels and then continuing that. That’s really, really good because, in crisis modes, you’ve got the crisis to deal with. To do anything beyond that seems unattainable, but you can do one thing.

Sheila Tucker:
Totally. Totally. And there’s also the case, too, of there’s the overwhelm of it all, but, yeah, the being able to narrow down, to just do the one thing, to be able to take action. And a lot of times, and I’m sure you both have probably heard it a time or two, people will hem and haw a little bit, right, on to taking action. They’re a little bit resistant maybe to taking some action, and so one thing I try to impart in my clients is you’re not always going to feel like it, right? You’re not always going to feel like doing that next step or that next thing, even if it’s a tiny, tiny step, and that’s okay.

Sheila Tucker:
Part of gaining the confidence and just part of feeling better about what’s going on is to take some kind of a step forward, itty-bitty, tiny, tiny. It can be you get out your computer, you open it up, that’s all you do. And then, the next day, maybe you get out your computer, open it up, turn it on, and go the bank’s website, that’s all you do. And so it’s just taking a step, any step, in the direction of your goal that’s going to help you to increase confidence. It’s those little baby wins that’ll help increase your [crosstalk 00:29:14].

Catherine Shanahan:
It’s me with working out. My daughter said, “Just try 10 minutes a day. You don’t need the hour.” I think, “Okay, I could do 10 minutes, maybe not an hour, but I could do 10 minutes,” and then 10 minutes leads to 20 minutes and then 20 minutes gets you to your hour. Yeah. Yeah. Then I have to start over again. Yeah. That’s really good because we constantly find that there’s only so much that we can do and then, of course, we have to send our clients to you and other professionals, but when they keep coming back, and Karen hit it earlier, the turn away, “I just don’t want to do it.” We know that they can do it. We know that they should do it. They know they have to, but they don’t want to do it. Hearing that same story when they keep coming back to you, and I assume people stay with you For a long time, how do you … if they come back, let’s say, every week for two months and they’re telling you that same story-

Karen Chellew:
They only got the computer out, that was it.

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah. Yeah, right? And there are some clients that want to stay in the same story because it’s comfortable, right? It’s comfortable being there. They know they can do that part. It’s uncomfortable doing the next step of turning it on. It’s uncomfortable doing anything else that stretches and so, at that point, it’s helping them to find smaller wins maybe in other areas of their life that they can work with so they can parallel it over to the goal that they really want to do, because if we can just get some kind of forward motion somewhere, we can do that. At the same time, I can’t make anybody do anything, so they’ve got to have it within themselves to want to make some changes and to want to do the thing and, if they don’t want to, then they don’t want to. Yeah.

Catherine Shanahan:
But I like that, though, Sheila. If they can only get their computer and they can only open it up, but they can’t get to the website, it’s just too fearful and they just don’t want to do it, pick something else in your life and try to do the same exercise, but do it in a different way [crosstalk 00:31:35] to start the pattern of knowing that it’s okay to get out of your comfort zone.

Karen Chellew:
Yeah. That’s very interesting that we’re saying that, or find a way that you can deal with it that’s comfortable. You’re saying, “Get out your computer and turn it on,” well, what if they just want to touch the paper or they want to get the bank statement? When I’m tasked with meeting clients and helping them with their budgets, once they become clients, so that’s my first conversation with them. I like to hear how they think about money, I like to hear how they process money, and I like to hear what’s comfortable for them, and some people are full-on technology and some people, to your point, the thought of a computer is immediately no. But if I can say, “Well, how about just get envelopes and get your little checkbook?”, you get to the same result and, to your point, they can still get to the same end goal.

Karen Chellew:
I love that you said that because that’s so true. We all process information and more comfortable just in different environments, even with myself and Catherine, we’re very different in how we process information and so, as partners, we have to acclimate the way we communicate with each other so that it’s comfortable for both of us. Yeah. That’s great.

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah. It’s finding what works, whatever that looks like, for you. Exactly. And making-

Karen Chellew:
That’s our story too, right?

Catherine Shanahan:
Yeah. The other thing is we hear a lot when we’re going through it and the stories that people tell themselves that they don’t deserve to be happy. There is no reason they want a divorce, there’s nothing wrong with their spouse as a whole, but the spouse just isn’t for them anymore, and that’s another story. When do you start telling yourself that you have a right to get a divorce and you have a right to be happy if you’re not happy? Of course, I believe in marriage and I love marriage, but I don’t believe in people living unhappily. But, again, it’s that comfort zone. That’s the known. They can deal with the known and they’ve doing it for 20 years, they might as well just do it for another 20, and so it’s the same exercise, I would assume, talking to yourself differently?

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah, it’s finding out … and one more thing what we were just talking about, give yourself rewards. When you’re taking these small baby steps, make sure you reward yourself. It could be a chai latte, it could be a nap, whatever, but just make sure you give yourself a little bit of reward every time you meet that milestone. If you gather your statements together, you get a reward for that.

Catherine Shanahan:
I love that.

Karen Chellew:
I love that.

Catherine Shanahan:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:34:41]-

Sheila Tucker:
That way [crosstalk 00:34:42]-

Catherine Shanahan:
… rewards.

Sheila Tucker:
It becomes something you want to do. It makes it a little bit better able to handle.

Karen Chellew:
It should be rewarding. It’s a big deal. Yeah. I love that.

Sheila Tucker:
The non-lovable part, I have found sometimes with clients that it comes back to, for some people, a sense of failure because their relationship isn’t working out, and so they immediately will spiral into the, “Well, I just don’t deserve to have love” or it’s the staying in the relationship because of the what-ifs, the big what-ifs, “”Well, what if we get divorced, then what am I …” the money issues, the kids, the house, all of the things, having to untangle all of the things, and it’s just easier to stay in this marriage, like, “I’ll just stuff everything down and just pretend like I’m okay and I’ll act like I’m the good wife,” or the good husband, “just for the sake of the family and we’ll just go about our business this way. I don’t need to feel anything. It’s fine. And if I do something, it’s going to make my partner upset and I would rather be the one that lives in resentment than worrying about what this other person is feeling.”

Sheila Tucker:
And so I definitely see that in here with people that are doing that and, again, it’s another story. It’s untangling what’s the fear, what’s underneath all of what’s going on there because there’s something going on with the what-ifs. What’s it going to look like for you if you split up? What is that story that you’re telling yourself?

Karen Chellew:
Yeah. It sounds like you break it down for them and then help them build a new story or a different story based on their self-worth or empowerment or whatever it may be.

Catherine Shanahan:
Like what we do, in a way, Karen, but only financially speaking, not what you do, but we don’t know if you need to get a job or not get a job if you haven’t been working, we don’t know. We don’t know if you can keep the house that you want to keep or not keep, and we don’t know if a pension plan is marital or not marital til we gather the information that we need to gather. And so, when we’re gathering that and then we get to review this information with our clients, you can see that their demeanor changes, like, “That inheritance that my mom gave me, I don’t have to give it to him? I didn’t commingle it, I’ll get to keep it myself? Okay, maybe I will be okay,” or “That pension is marital? Oh, my gosh, now I can see what I live on.”

Catherine Shanahan:
You could see their demeanor changing by just gaining a little bit of knowledge. Their story in their own head is saying, “Maybe I can do this,” or maybe it’s saying the other thing, “What do you mean I’m going to have to go get a job? I don’t want to get a job. I’d just rather live like this,” or “You know what? Maybe we have more money than I thought and he was better to me than I thought he was,” or “She was better to me than I thought she was and maybe I just need to change the way I think about money.” You can really see the transformation with somebody, the power that they feel, just by gaining some of this knowledge that they just never really had before.

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah, it’s seeking the facts, right? When we’re in a state of high stress and overwhelm, our body kicks into this find the worst-case scenario. That’s just the way we’re geared. That’s the way we’re all geared. Nobody’s extra special because you think that way. We all do it, and so thank you, caveman. We’re preparing ourselves to be face to face with the tiger or the bear, the whatever, and so we’re going to look for that worst-case scenario because we have to protect ourselves and we have to thwart off danger. And so when we’re in that stress relief, we’re going to look for the worst-case scenario in what’s going on. And so it’s being able to take a step back, right, and look at the facts, what are the actual facts, because we can get all wrapped up in the what-ifs over here, but what’s going on, what’s the actual facts, which is what you do is you are like, “Here are all the facts. This is what we know, so now we can make some decisions.”

Karen Chellew:
“What about my friends? My friend said this or my husband is saying this or …” But when you have facts right in front of you, they are what they are.

Sheila Tucker:
And then it becomes easier to make decisions because now we have the facts of what’s going on. It’s not based on feeling, it’s not based on thoughts, because all of that stuff changes and moves around, and you can be having a thought about a donut and run into the wall walking through the doorway and now you’re having a whole different thought, right, whole different feelings. They change just that quick, right?

Karen Chellew:
Oh, my gosh.

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah, having those facts, you’re able to go, “Okay, that doesn’t change.” You run into the doorframe, it’s still the same facts, that part doesn’t change, and so it does make it easier to make a decision. There’s still the feelings and there’s still the thoughts and things that come up and it’s also easier to make a decision based on what the actual facts of the matter are.

Catherine Shanahan:
That’s really another funny thing, too, because Karen and I, Karen’s going to laugh, we get a little frustrated because we can’t imagine why somebody would ever go to an attorney consult without having our Financial Portrait in their hands because they are the facts and that’s what the premise of your divorce is going to be, financially speaking. When you have somebody that doesn’t have that and they go into their attorney consult, the question from the attorney is, “What do you want?” This person is only thinking, “I want to beat him or her up emotionally because they cheated on me or they did this to me or they do that,” and they have none of the facts, so the attorney is saying, “Okay, well, that’s what we’ll do,” and the fight ensues, right?

Catherine Shanahan:
And, meanwhile, they end up for something that they don’t even have [crosstalk 00:41:22]. Why didn’t they come here first to get the real opinion? “This is what I have. What’s the most I can get because I really want to screw him over? Just tell me what’s the most I can get.” At least, they’ll be making this decision on a factual premise, rather than this emotional, where you’re getting promised stuff that you’ll never get and it only would make it worse for you to heal or to move forward.

Karen Chellew:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:41:49] that, “I want you to hurt more than you hurt me” mentality.

Catherine Shanahan:
Right. But if people would just have this knowledge, then the dialogue in their head will change a little bit. Yeah, you could still be aggressive and go after the other side, but you can only go within this limitation because that’s all you have, not what your friend had, as Karen said, or what somebody else told you that they got because that’s not what you’re getting. You have a different factual background. Yeah.

Karen Chellew:
That’s so true and there are some people who say, “Well, I don’t want to take him to the cleaners, I just want to make sure I can pay my bills,” or “I just need to know if I can live on that much or not,” to Catherine’s point, “Will I have to go get a job?” But all of that can be known right out of the gate and it just makes decision-making so much easier and it makes the stories that people could be telling themselves easier to reframe because they’re not [inaudible 00:42:50], they’re not in emotional jail, as I would say, and they would realize maybe the other person isn’t the enemy, it’s just the relationship that was created. That’s very [inaudible 00:43:05].

Sheila Tucker:
Yeah. And that is the enemy, right? It’s the pattern. It’s that relationship. It’s the way that they’re interacting. It’s not, typically, this person or this person, it’s that part in between them, right? It’s that space in between the two of them that’s causing the problem.

Catherine Shanahan:
Yeah. I love that, and that space in between could be the space that you have with your children and your spouse, the space you have with your money and your spouse, and the space that you are creating around your own self by the stories that you’re telling yourselves. Those are really three great things to keep thinking about as you’re moving through this journey. I love this. This is really very good, very helpful.

Karen Chellew:
This was a goldmine of information.

Catherine Shanahan:
Yeah, [crosstalk 00:43:56].

Karen Chellew:
[crosstalk 00:43:56] going to have so much fun pulling all these nuggets out.

Sheila Tucker:
Thank you.

Catherine Shanahan:
I’ll be asking people, “What’s your …” Well, I do ask their … because I do believe that there’s an emotional value to a financial decision and to all the finances that you have, whatever they are, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, cash, or what have you, just your house, there’s an emotional attachment by one side or the other to that, and we provide a space where that gets to be heard. It’s not heard anywhere else that I know of, other than the space that we provide. And it’s so valuable and now I’m seeing why, basically, because it’s the stories that these people are telling themselves as they move through this. I’m always going to be reframing that, “What’s the story you’re telling yourself?” because it’s very easy for people to look at it like that, right?

Sheila Tucker:
And then it becomes validating too, right, because they’re recognizing that, “Oh, she understands what’s going on here,” and so it becomes validating and then a space where you’re reacting so quickly instead of actually pausing to respond to something, it gives somebody a chance to be seen and to be heard and to get all of that yummy goodness they don’t think that they’re getting from their spouse.

Catherine Shanahan:
Right. Wow.

Karen Chellew:
Well, thank you, Sheila. This has been great.

Catherine Shanahan:
You’re in Hilton Head, but you do, I assume, virtual consultations as well?

Sheila Tucker:
I do. I am seeing clients in person and I’m also seeing clients online, and I’m licensed in the state of South Carolina, so I can see anybody in the state of South Carolina online.

Catherine Shanahan:
Okay. Great.

Karen Chellew:
What a valuable offering, resource you are for so many people. Thank you. This has been great. And let’s continue our conversations, and we really, really enjoyed every minute today. Thank you again.

Sheila Tucker:
Thank [crosstalk 00:45:52].

Catherine Shanahan:
Thank you, Sheila. Thank you so much.

The We Chat Divorce Podcast brings you conversations about real people, real situations, and real divorce. Your hosts, Karen Chellew and Catherine Shanahan, co-founders of My Divorce Solution, are here to demystify the big business of divorce. Karen and Catherine will share their lives both personally and professionally, keeping it real while giving you clarity and hopefully even a laugh or two.