Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Ready to lose 40 plus pounds without giving up happy hours, weekend brunches, or date nights. Then it's time to uncover the hidden link between binge eating and toxic relationships. And finally break free from both. Welcome to the Hungry for Love podcast with Jillian Scott. Y' all ready? Let's go.
[00:00:24] Hey. Hey. Welcome back and welcome to a very juicy topic. Feeling proud of divorce?
[00:00:31] Even as a Christian, I ruffle some feathers when I say that, y'. All. I have started introducing myself as a divorce coach for Christians just to see what kind of response I get. And sometimes it's a look, sometimes it's like eyes, right? Sometimes it's somebody's face where you can tell their face is neutral and blank. But on the inside it's like, you know, there's a lot going on inside.
[00:00:58] But really the full explanation is a divorce coach for Christians who are ready to leave their toxic marriage.
[00:01:05] And I think this is where a lot of people really downplay and they don't understand, right? It's like they want to make divorce about somebody's leaving because they're unhappy. Women are just leaving because they're unhappy, because they're not fulfilled, because they, oh, they didn't get a brand new Mercedes and so now they've decided to divorce or their husband didn't bring home the milk, or we want to trivialize and minimize the abuse and neglect and the emotional dysfunction because this is not about happiness. We're not leaving because we're simply unhappy. We're leaving because we're tired of putting up with emotional dysfunction and emotional dysregulation. We are tired of being married to a six year old that's running around in a grown man's body. We are tired of dealing with somebody who as an adult is having tantrums, who's either raging or giving you the silent treatment, who is coercive and controlling and manipulative.
[00:01:58] We're done. We are so fed up and just flat out done. And we get marginalized and trivialized as, oh, shame on her. She chose divorce. She's going to hell. We have all of these thoughts and fears and views, and so much of it is spiritual abuse.
[00:02:16] So much of it is misunderstanding what the Bible actually says about divorce, what the Bible actually says and how the Bible talks about women and how Jesus views women. So I'll do a separate podcast on that because I think that it's worth talking and sharing. What were some of the reasons where I finally realized I actually do have a biblical reason for leaving? I feel solid and grounded in My view and my decision for divorce. And I didn't have to prove anything. I didn't have to prove that it was neglectful. I decided I knew what I experienced and I was no longer looking for permission from anybody else. I was no longer looking for validation. I was not looking for somebody's stamp of approval. I decided. And that was also, I think, in part it came out of not really having a home church for very long, moving around and always going to different churches. But because of that, I also talked to so many pastors and so many pastors wives, and very few were actually able to truly help.
[00:03:19] For me, though, I am so proud of myself for leaving. I am proud of myself for setting myself free. I'm proud that I set my ex free so that he could go and create the life and the marriage that he really wants. And I am so proud that I left for my son because I promised myself when I was like 12, I made a vow, first and foremost to myself that I would never marry anyone like my stepdad. And if, God forbid, I did, I would run. The moment I figured it out, there was a vow, and I don't even remember what sparked it, what triggered it, what happened to make me think that, but it was definitely a God thing. It was the Holy Spirit that reminded me of that vow that woke me up to recognize and to see we are not moving forward, we are now moving backwards. I thought things were getting better, but things are actually getting worse. And now we are getting a lot worse a lot quicker. There was this realization and this epiphany of, oh, my gosh, I married my stepdad. And then within that, as I was starting to recognize and make sense of that, I was also very resistant to calling it abuse.
[00:04:31] I was very resistant to. My ex only has, like, half of the narcissistic traits. So I don't think that fits him.
[00:04:38] It's, oh, sometimes he does, but sometimes he's really great.
[00:04:41] But I was very convicted in my belief of I will leave in part for my son.
[00:04:49] I'm not gonna stay for him. I'm not gonna stay and feel guilty and worry about what this might do to him. I'm going to leave for him. So that at least for half of his life, at least for half of his time at home, he's going to get to live in a. An emotionally stable and healthy environment.
[00:05:07] And yes, there are going to be times when he's going to have to live with his dad and he's going to have to swim in a toxic bond. But I also release the reins. I had to drop the rope and stop playing tug of war. And I had to accept that him living in a healthy environment half the time was better than him never getting that opportunity.
[00:05:26] Because I promised I would never raise a kid the way that I was raised.
[00:05:31] And I think based on my experience, it's hard to say because my son was so young. He was two and a half when I left, so I don't know that he would have experienced as much of the backlash as I did. But he learned very quickly. By the time he was four, he learned who he needed to be at his dad's house, how he needed to show up, what emotions he was allowed to have, what emotions he was not allowed to have, how he was shamed for being sad or disappointed for just being a kid and having human emotions.
[00:05:59] I also have talked with so many people, a lot of women in particular, but also a lot of men who feel guilty about leaving. They feel guilty about divorce and what divorce might do to their kids or what divorce might do. It's like blowing up the family or it's a failed marriage.
[00:06:16] And y', all, I was thinking about this, and this is wild, how there is so much shame around leaving your current spouse as society, even without the Christian or religious influence. People think of it as a failed marriage, or you're giving up on your marriage. You're not fighting hard enough.
[00:06:33] But we don't have this same moral view around changing houses and buying a new house.
[00:06:40] Nobody is like, shame on you for outgrowing that house you bought 10 years ago that you realize now doesn't fit and doesn't work for you. Shame on you for wanting to move cities and buying a new house.
[00:06:51] Nobody does that. Right? Imagine you change jobs, which maybe some of you have. Let's say you wake up and you realize, oh, I got this job. I thought this was what I wanted, actually. Turns out I'm not doing the work that I want to do, or I want to go work for a different company that has better benefits, maybe more pay, more time off, more flexibility.
[00:07:12] Maybe you want to work for a company in a different state or a different location.
[00:07:15] Nobody is like, what a failed job that was.
[00:07:19] Nobody is going around telling you that you are a failed employee.
[00:07:23] So I want to really highlight this vast distinction that we have around shame and divorce, not just in the Christian church, but 100% within religion and religious groups and organizations. Absolutely. It's there. There's so much shame even outside of it.
[00:07:42] And this is what we need to break through because shame is a narcissist's favorite tool. That's one of our core wounds as a kid. When we grow up in a dysfunctional home, that is one of the core things. And it's how people can control us and it's how they did it for a long time.
[00:07:59] But you get to decide that you are no longer available for that, that you are going to. Instead of feeling ashamed of your choice and your decision and feeling like a failure, you can choose to feel proud, you can choose to feel courageous.
[00:08:15] You can choose to feel any number of other positive things. Imagine divorce being the catalyst for creating a healthy, thriving marriage.
[00:08:25] Not to your old spouse, but to a new one.
[00:08:28] Imagine divorce being the catalyst for a life so good it blows your mind.
[00:08:34] Imagine divorce being the catalyst for more of God's blessing, for more of what God wants for you. The catalyst for you to step into God's will for your life.
[00:08:46] I just wanted to flip some of this right, because there is so much shame in the church. And I'm going to do some other podcast episodes specifically around the spiritual abuse that gets woven into divorce and marriage conversations. And when we go to get help, a lot of times we're seeking advice from pastors or counselors within the church or maybe pastors wives. And I got. I got sympathy or empathy, but I really like. Until my last church previously in North Carolina, I did not feel like I had somebody who really understood human psychology.
[00:09:19] They didn't understand patterns of behavior. And then to get into this session with a pastor who had met with me and then met with my ex and then he did some sessions together and he was like, I think you two are highly incompatible. What do we do with that?
[00:09:33] We're married now with a child. I don't know what to do here, but I'm gonna walk you through a little bit of my process and like just some of the ways that it unfolded and how I really use this as an opportunity to grow my relationship with God and to really listen for how God speaks to me and how God really works in my life.
[00:09:52] Because this was a very big decision. I don't mean to minimize this and to minimize anybody's experience.
[00:09:59] I think we need to be able to allow ourselves to feel all of the emotions, but to also stop beating ourselves up, to stop throwing ourselves under the bus with shame and regret and self loathing. We have to stop that. Give yourself time and space that you need to process through whatever is coming up.
[00:10:21] And I also want to acknowledge and validate that this is Gonna feel like a hard decision, and it will always feel easier to put it off 100%.
[00:10:31] I'm gonna walk you through a little bit of how I made this decision.
[00:10:35] And really, like, I truly, genuinely am proud of my divorce. As a Christian woman, I am so proud because it's not about the divorce.
[00:10:45] I am proud that I was breaking generational cycles of trauma.
[00:10:50] That is what I am so proud of. By choosing divorce, I was choosing to break cycles that had been passed down to me through generations, not just with divorce, because my parents didn't get divorced until a year ago. My mom and my stepdad, they just recently divorced.
[00:11:08] So it wasn't that by choosing divorce, I was choosing to no longer stay and put up with abuse and neglect and control manipulation and a dynamic that was not healthy. I was choosing to no longer play in a toxic sandbox. I was choosing to no longer stay in an emotionally dysfunctional dynamic where I kept wanting my ex to change and he kept wanting me to change. We kept wanting each other to be different people.
[00:11:38] You cannot make a marriage work when that is your goal.
[00:11:41] If you are in a position where you're thinking about, should I stay or should I leave? What is my thought process around this? If you are choosing to stay in this relationship, stay in this dynamic, you have to accept it all, the good, the bad, the ugly.
[00:11:56] And you have to go into it expecting that they are not going to change. Because so many of us, we stayed and we fought for so long because we thought if we could just say the right thing, then maybe he would change.
[00:12:06] If I could just say the right thing or in the right way, then maybe he would treat me differently. Then maybe things could go back to the beginning when they were good. And that doesn't happen.
[00:12:16] So the only way that I want you to feel good staying and make a conscious decision to stay is if you are in it for all of what's re what's happened in the past to all come with you. You cannot stay with the expectation of somebody who's going to change today as I go to record. Well, number one, I have tried to record this episode multiple times, probably five or six other times. And then I decided, it's too long. I need to break it up. I'll just rerecord it. It is more applicable in another way. I have been so back and forth, and part of it has been about, how do you really like, how do I keep this short and concise enough and not this huge monologue about my life.
[00:12:57] How do I make it meaningful? To the people listening. And also I notice myself still somewhat censoring what I say because there's this little fear of what if he hears this? What if he now takes this out of context? Or what if he gets angry because he hears that I'm saying X, Y and Z about him?
[00:13:16] And now it's going like, now I have to deal with his emotions.
[00:13:21] Okay, so we are three years post divorce, and there is still a fear of his emotions. My nervous system, my body still kind of tightens and clenches when he sends a message. And it's a picture or an image and I can't see it, and I just see the text. What is this?
[00:13:38] My stomach tightens. It starts to churn a little bit. I like my breath. I hold my breath as I'm reading and I'm like, oh, my gosh, what is he referencing?
[00:13:49] Because I am used to him making everything about himself, but he is also very much wanting to appear as the, quote, good Christian man. And he very much cares about his reputation and how other people view and perceive him.
[00:14:04] So he has learned how to control what I say and what I say about him or what I say about the marriage, about my experience.
[00:14:13] I have very much felt like I need to be filtered. And so even sharing this now feels a little scary. I notice my throat chakra is constantly getting blocked. My sinuses are crazy today. I've been congested. You can probably hear it. I've been pausing every so often just to clear my throat because it feels very scary and very vulnerable. To share my truth, to share my experience, to share what, what I see. And even being out of the dynamic because we are still co parenting, there is still a level of feeling responsible to manage his emotions, being afraid of how he might respond.
[00:14:53] And it doesn't mean that I'm doing anything bad or wrong. This is just part of the programming and conditioning.
[00:15:00] The important thing here is that I'm recognizing it and I'm choosing intentionally how I want to handle it.
[00:15:09] And so, Yes, I am 100% proud of my divorce.
[00:15:13] And there are still patterns and behaviors and things within myself that I need to divorce. Right? I divorced the man, but I also need to divorce the patterns within me that got me into that relationship and kept me there for so long.
[00:15:30] And so if you are still wrestling with that, if you are still dealing with that, know that you're not alone.
[00:15:35] This is a process, and you don't have to be fully fixed or healed or done. Evolving, growing, changing, seeing it in order to be able to go on and live your life.
[00:15:46] And it's normal if you're still dealing with trauma responses.
[00:15:50] The. The important piece is that we learn to catch them faster and we learn to make conscious decisions about what we truly want, not decisions from what's going to make other people happy, what's going to keep the peace.
[00:16:03] All right, so let's get back into the episode here, because for me, it took about a year for me to fully walk away.
[00:16:11] So when I was really waking up to things in my marriage, this was spring, summer of 2022. We were slated to move states, and we did eventually move at the end of that year. And so this decision about the marriage also came in line with this move. I felt a lot of pressure. And in the past, moving someplace, I had felt like a conviction, an agreement, a yes, let's go. Whether it was with my spouse or whether it was on my own, there were several times in my past where for me personally to move, it was like. It just felt like a God moment. It was like, it's time to leave D.C. and move back to California. And within two weeks, I was on a plane and moving back. Same thing happened about a year later when I was moving to Bangladesh.
[00:16:54] It was like this instinct and this gut knowing that it's how I experience God speaking to me or the Holy Spirit. It's just this thought and this can, like, deep knowing of, okay, it's time to go. And within two weeks, again, I was on a plane moving across the world.
[00:17:11] I had felt some gut yeses in the past when it came to moving different states. And I was really struggling with this decision.
[00:17:19] And so where I came to at the end, because part of me, I outsourced this decision to the pastor that I was seeing, and he suggested that I go. And so he was like, I think you should move with him. You try to make this work. See what you can do to rebuild your marriage and rebuild a strong foundation.
[00:17:35] And so I was like, okay. Cause I decided I was gonna listen to him. And I was disappointed with the answer. I was afraid. It was like, kind of felt like a. A lose, lose situation, like it was gonna be hard no matter what. But I also told myself, I was like, I'm gonna listen to the pastor, so I'm gonna move. But I also made this deal with God, and I was like, all right, God, I don't feel a strong conviction to stay, to stay in this state. So I'm going to move and I'm going to trust that even if I get divorced, that you want Me in this new state, in this new city for a reason, that there's a purpose, that there's a plan and a path forward, and I'm going to trust that's what you want from me.
[00:18:11] And I felt peace about moving.
[00:18:14] Even though the marriage, I thought was going to be like, 50, 50, there's a 50% chance we make it at best. But I was hopeful. I was hopeful he was going to get a therapist. I was hopeful that we were going to keep working on the marriage. I was hopeful.
[00:18:29] Once we moved, within two weeks, two times he said, if you want to leave, it's okay. You can go. And I was like, are you freaking kidding me right now? Now that I've moved states for you and for your job, now that I'm in a city where I'm further away from my family, now that I'm in a city where I know absolutely no one, you're going to tell me it's okay to leave? Are you kidding me right now? What?
[00:18:55] There wasn't another big incident. It was a lot of little incidents. It was a lot of little things like him laughing and making fun of me when I was attacked by dogs while walking my dogs. It was little things that were said, like arguments that we would have about food and how I didn't bring him back his favorite soup, things that he didn't ask for, but it clearly meant that I didn't love him. There were so many little things that I started to wake up to, and I started to see it was just this. This awakening of, oh, my gosh, yeah, like, we are not gonna make it.
[00:19:29] And then there was a bit of, what have I just done? But we needed to live here. We needed to live in our new state for six months before we could file. And so there was a part of me that also was like, okay, let's see. I also said I would give it six months. I told myself. I was like, I'm not going to push it. I am not going to bring up counseling. I'm not going to bring up the marriage. I'm not going to bring up anything. I'm going to let him decide, and I'm going to let him show me what he really cares about, what he really values, who he really is. And I just started being more observant.
[00:20:00] And there were times when I would push back a little bit where he would say something and I would. Instead of just backing down automatically, I would fight.
[00:20:09] And then he would get bigger. So I would withdraw again. I would retreat. But I also recognize we can never resolve conflict. Conflict doesn't bring us closer together because it never gets resolved. There were some things that I finally woke up to, like, I can never have the marriage that I truly want with this spouse, which is a very weird place to get to, especially as a Christian. But because of that move, I also was not fully invested and connected in like, a deep way with my church community. We had only been attending it a few months at the time. But by this point, I was no longer looking for permission. I was not looking for validation, and I was really looking at and accepting. This is my experience and this is not what I want. This isn't what I want from me. This is not what I want for my son. It was in those moments. It was in the little day to day, week by week moments. It was the times when I would talk with my therapist and I would think that we would be able to like, dive into my childhood trauma and maybe I could work through some of that. And I spent six weeks of just telling her about different incidents that would happen. And I would say things like, I don't even know why this bothered me so much. And I don't know how to explain it, but this just really irks me. This really just doesn't feel right. I feel so unsettled.
[00:21:25] And she gave me the language to be able to see that's a form of gaslighting or, oh, this is control, or this is coerciveness. She was able to put labels more to what I was experiencing.
[00:21:38] And I started piecing this together. And I started realizing it's not just an annual incident that happens every year.
[00:21:46] It's little things that come up every week, every couple of weeks, little things. And it was little things that sparked enough interest in me to start reading and researching abuse and narcissism and can they change? And I realized that the only way I wanted to stay in my marriage was if he changed and he became somebody he didn't want to be.
[00:22:10] And I also fully recognize he wanted me to be somebody that I didn't want to be.
[00:22:16] So there came a point where I was willing to be the villain. I was willing to be the bad guy. And I was willing to take the heat and to take the blame. I was willing to feel misunderstood because I knew the truth. I knew what I experienced. And I was proud of myself for walking away from a dynamic that was not healthy, that was so emotionally dysfunctional and dysregulating.
[00:22:40] In my view, it was abusive. That was my experience of it. And I'm sure if you were to ask my ex, he would tell you that I was abusive towards him. I had to just be willing to be the villain. And there were a couple times when he asked if I wanted to reconcile. One of them in particular. I think he was recording the call, and I was like, nope, I don't think that's a good idea. And I think he just. He wanted to be the one making an effort, wanting to try, when I know that's not what he really wanted.
[00:23:07] If he wants to call me the unbelieving spouse that walks away, that's fine. He can.
[00:23:12] I know the truth. I know my relationship with God. And so one of the key moments, one of the key pieces was the same pastor who told me to move, like, a month later, asked me, why are you still with him?
[00:23:24] And this is where I got a little angry. And I was like, because you told me to move here.
[00:23:29] Like, I very much just wanted to blame him and be like, because you told me, bro.
[00:23:33] But that actually was really helpful because he asked, why are you still with him? And what is God trying to teach you? Whether you stay or you leave?
[00:23:42] What is God trying to teach you?
[00:23:45] And that's when I heard the Holy Spirit. And the way I hear God and the Holy Spirit, it's a thought, but it's this deep knowing, this conviction. And I knew God is gonna rebuild my faith and trust in him, and he's gonna rebuild my faith and trust in myself.
[00:23:59] And that still felt scary. There was still so much uncertainty, but there was this deep knowing, like, I had an answer instantly. God wants me to leave, and this is what he's gonna do. This is why. This is what he's going to help teach me.
[00:24:13] I was willing to feel anything. The grief, the heartache, the abandonment. I was willing to feel rejected when he didn't fight for me. There's still a little hope. Even as I was waiting and watching, there was still a little bit of hope of, like, maybe he'll change. Maybe things will get better. Maybe we can actually save this. Maybe he'll fight for me when I say that I want a divorce.
[00:24:35] And looking back, I'm so glad he didn't, because we ended up getting divorced in three months, y'. All. It went so quick.
[00:24:42] Now, the challenging part about that was there was not as much time to really process everything during the divorce. I had to process a lot of it afterwards.
[00:24:51] It was also a huge blessing in that I was able to stop blaming my ex for things. I could start to see, where am I The obstacle. Where are these patterns now mine to own? What is the dysfunction within me that I need to work through? What are the core wounds and the childhood wounds now that I get to work on, that I need to work on, because I can't keep blaming my spouse now that we're divorced. This was so good for me. But I knew that I was going to be breaking generational cycles of trauma. I was breaking such deep patterns of behavior and patterns. And I could break them to start with divorce. And then I had to learn how to break them within myself.
[00:25:32] And that's what I'm helping people do now to navigate this question of should I stay or should I go? How do I know when it's the right time to leave my Christian marriage? How do I not give in to the love bombing and go back? How do I stay true and honor myself even when I feel kind of guilty, or even when he's being really nice to me, or even when it's the holidays? This is when we get into some tricky topics. But this is what I love to coach on.
[00:25:58] And so while I still have some clients that I'm working with around emotional eating and binge eating habits, I've also taken on a lot of clients who are really questioning their relationship. They're questioning their marriage, and they want to find who they are. They want to figure out who they are, what lights them up because they've lost that along the way. And they want to lean more into that, more of who they are, more of what they want. They really want to create a life that lights them up. And that's what I can help you do, too.
[00:26:27] So whether you are already divorced or you're going through and navigating this process, we've got cycles to break.
[00:26:34] We have new patterns to rewire. But this is why I don't feel guilty. I don't feel ashamed. I am so proud of leaving because it took so much courage to walk away. It took so much courage to bet on myself. It took so much belief in. In God and in myself and in my ability now to show my son another way. And he's going to have his stuff to work through. He's going to have his own reasons and needs to go to therapy or to get coaching. He's going to have his own trauma wounds to work through.
[00:27:05] But I know that I have created a slightly better environment for him to grow up in, and I'm so proud of that. And I hope that this gives you some peace and hope for yourself that you can let go of this fear of being a failure, of failing a person, of failing your kids or a failed marriage. I hope that you can let all of that bullshit go. All of these thoughts about you didn't fight hard enough and you didn't pray hard enough and you let the enemy get a stronghold and a foothold in your marriage. No, you finally acknowledged and accepted a very hard, painful truth and that's now allowed you to walk away.
[00:27:44] And there will still be tears, there will still be a lot of emotion. There will still be a lot of grief and the loss of the hope of the future you thought you were going to have with somebody. But it's time that you let divorce be your catalyst for a life so good it blows your mind.
[00:28:01] Let divorce be a catalyst for stepping more into God's will for you and your life.
[00:28:09] If you want some help navigating this transition, I would love to chat. You can schedule a free consultation@bodyyou crave.com forward slash schedule. Find a day and time on my calendar and we're going to explore where you are now. We're going to look a little bit to the past so that I can better understand what you've been through. And then we can look at where is it that you want to go over the next six to 12 months.
[00:28:31] And from there I can help you bridge the gap. Because part of bridging this gap between where you are now and where you want to be a year from now is we have to look at the wounds and the trauma and the pieces from your past because it's healing those pieces. When we look backwards, it's like that past bridge. We've got to heal some of those pieces to create the bridge moving forward.
[00:28:56] And when you have this clear picture of what that actually looks like, there's a little more certainty, there's a little more confidence. There's a little more belief that this is possible for you, too.
[00:29:07] Because there is so much hope and there's so much freedom on the other side of divorce, even as a Christian.
[00:29:14] All right, y' all have a fabulous week. Here's to creating the life and body you crave.
[00:29:24] If this episode resonated with you, it's time to break free from destructive cycles around food, alcohol and toxic relationships.
[00:29:32] Your next step?
[00:29:34] Book your free Break the Cycle call where you'll finally see why your binge eating and relationship patterns are so deeply connected and how to break free from both for good.
[00:29:45] You'll walk away with fierce clarity and a game plan to step into a life full of fun adventure and self love. Grab your spot now at www.bodyucrave.com BTC. See, it's time to break the cycle. I'll show you how.
