← The Overwhelmed Brain
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Overwhelmed Brain Podcast, helping you navigate the difficulties in your life and relationships. These are my personal opinions. Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well being. Welcome to the show. My name is Paul. I am glad that you are here. Guess you already heard that. My name is Paul. I'm gonna talk about. What am I talking about? Today somebody wrote to me and said that they've shared their past behaviors extensively. I guess this is a man writing to me extensively with men in support group settings. While I'm nowhere near ready or open to another relationship, I am curious. How do you talk about your past with potential relationships? And he is referring to his past abusive behaviors. I didn't say abusive when I was reading this because this really applies to anyone's past. If you have any reservations or regrets or thoughts about your past that you wish you didn't have to tell anyone or have to share or maybe you don't mind sharing that, but how do you bring it up? This is something I went through myself. I'm happy to talk about this. After my divorce, my previous marriage ended in divorce. I had a realization that I had been emotionally abusive throughout my life, all my relationships. And I kept showing up that way. I was judgmental, I was critical in the past. I was also possessive and jealous and I had a lot of codependent behaviors. I was the people pleaser. So I would, I would lie and I would build resentment toward people who weren't reciprocating the way I gave. Like, I expected them to give back as much as I gave to them. But like most people pleasers, we will always give more than we receive. So it isn't, it's. You're never going to be happy if you are a people pleaser because nobody will ever give you back what you believe you're giving them. So that was my life. I was this person most of my life. In my relationships now, outside of romantic relationships, I was not this person. I was charming and friendly and funny and nobody believed that I could be hurtful or toxic in my romantic relationships. But if you ask my exes, they will say my friends loved him. Yes, that was me. I was that guy. And so that is not a past I'm proud of at all. But I talk about it openly with you. I talk about it with anyone. I talked about it with Asha, my current and hopefully indefinite wife, my life partner when I met her about 12 years ago. And I basically told her everything about me. And this comes to the point of this person's message. He said how I've shared what he say. I've shared my past abusive behaviors extensively with men in support group settings. So he became comfortable sharing that because a peer group, and maybe those men have been hurtful as well, or maybe they've realized and like every person realizes, we all make mistakes. So it's easier to tell people the mistakes that you've made to other people who admit that they've made mistakes. Where it gets tricky is, yes, a potential new relationship. The way I have done this and the way I still do it today is I own everything. I own who I was. I own it. It is a part of my past and I'm open about. Doesn't mean on the first 15 minutes of a first date, if I were to date again, that I would just start saying, hey, I was emotionally abusive and I was possessive and jealous. I thinking that I might actually talk about that on a first date, actually, but probably not in the first 15 minutes. Hey, you know, I like this, I like sci fi, I like movies, I play guitar. You know, all this stuff, all the things that come out just to get to know someone. But when the subject of relationships come up or comes up, it will come up. Then that's the time I think the subject of other relationships, like, so, you know, I was married before. Oh, how did that work out? How was your marriage? And that's when the subject comes up. And so when I started getting to know Asha, the subject of relationships came up. And again, I owned my past. I talked about who I used to be and how I used to behave the same way as if I were telling her that I washed my car yesterday. Now, that doesn't mean I didn't have an emotional attachment. Like, I didn't say, hey, I washed my car yesterday. And I used to be critical and judgmental of what my ex wife used to eat. As far as junk food, I didn't talk like that. I did tell her, though. I did tell Asha that this is who I used to be. And it is something that I started working on after my divorce or actually during the separation. And I started learning about myself and reflecting on my behaviors and accepting that I was the common denominator of all my relationship failures. Every relationship that ended was because of something or many things that I did to end them. Because nobody wants to be around a controlling freak like me. And I was. I was a covert. I was a covert emotionally abuser. You've heard the term covert narcissist. I've had many covert narcissistic tendencies. Fortunately, if you're not a fully diagnosable narcissist, you can heal. And I decided that's what I needed to do because I didn't want people leaving my life anymore. I didn't want to be in a relationship for only a few years to have them leave and not even want to talk to me anymore. I mean, it's just a terrible place to be when they keep leaving and when you finally accept. I'm talking about myself here. When I finally accepted that I was the common denominator of all these relationship failures, I started looking inward instead of outward. I always looked outward. I always looked at the people around me as the problem. So I played the victim. Like, they're hurting me, so I better change them so they stop hurting me. And that's what I did. I tried to change them. I tried to do things again in a very covert, passive aggressive way where it seemed like I wasn't being hurtful or abusive, but I really was, and that is manipulative. As I'm talking about this now, again, I am not proud of my past. I am so sad that these people were in my life and were treated the way they were. Not saying that there weren't good times. We both had good times in my past relationships. But the bad can outweigh the good and really cover all those good times with a bunch of crap, bunch of toxic crap. And so over the years, that's what happened in my relationships. We had a lot of great times. But when it comes down to it, even if you have fun, 90% of the time, 10% toxicity can bring you down. So it feels like the entire relationship is toxic. And it really is, actually. When you are with an emotionally abusive person, your entire relationship can become toxic. Not because they're not loving all the time or supportive or letting you be yourself. It's because you can't stop thinking about what you're doing wrong or how to please them. And that's where my partners were. Now I'm revealing a lot. I'm being very transparent here, and I'm doing so. You know, I'm telling you a lot about my personal life and what I put people through. Because let's just say that we're on a first date. This is me being open, owning who I was. And part of owning who I am. Part of owning who you are is knowing people are going to judge you for who you were. Part of owning the person you were means that you are open to their criticisms, to their judgments, to their hurtful. Comments. How could you be such an a hole? How could you do that? How could you hurt that person? Absolutely, I deserve those questions. I have heard those questions. I've heard those questions from others that I've tried to help understand what they're going through on both sides. I've helped abusive people and I've helped the victims of abuse. I've seen the side that hurts and I've been on the side that hurts as well. I've been unhealed most of my life and I had to work on that hard. I had to change, literally become someone different, someone I didn't know because the person I was was trying to control and change others. And again, that was looking outward. So I had to look inward. And that's when I started reflecting on all my behaviors and realizing that every challenge that I faced was a coping mechanism that was unhealthy. The childhood survival mechanisms that we have that we developed in childhood to deal with challenges become coping mechanisms as adults. I started learning why I coped, why I behaved the way I behaved. And again, this isn't necessarily a full personal breakdown of my life and my life story. And that's all you're going to hear today. I'm saying this because I'm trying to convey how open I am with you as my date. Again, it may not be a first date kind of conversation and you may not get into the level of detail unless they ask. Like if somebody is. If you're on a date and somebody asks, so what was your marriage like? Or what was your last relationship like? Tell me about it. And you say, oh, there's a bunch of fun stuff. We did this and we did that. But, you know, it ended because, you know, you could say how it ended or you could wait for them to ask. That's, you know, either way, you just have to feel it out. And so to the person who wrote that's how I do it, I'm open, I own it. I talk about it knowing they're going to have opinions on it. Even if they don't, they may not have opinions on it. They may say, well, oh yeah, I was hurtful in my last relationship too. Who knows, they may be open about that as well, but that's not the point. The point is that you don't hide who you were. And when I say that, I say it knowing you could lose potential relationships. I think hiding who you were starts the relationship off on a deception. If we don't want to be deceptive anymore, we don't want to Start it off on a deception. We don't want to start off on a manipulation. If we don't want to be manipulative in the relationship because we used to be, for example, we don't want to manipulate them into thinking that we're such a great person. We may be. You may be, but you aren't always Person who wrote, maybe the person listening now is a great person, somebody else. But I wasn't always a great person. I had a lot of great qualities, and I still do. I love a lot of parts of myself, but I didn't like a lot of parts of myself, and I had to learn what those parts were and heal those. But that's the kind of open dialogue that I am willing to have with a person who I know may have thoughts and feelings about that. Like, what if they were in an abusive relationship and they tell me, oh, you know, that makes me uncomfortable because I was in an abusive relationship? I would say, I completely understand, and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. And if you feel uncomfortable with me, then by all means, we probably shouldn't pursue this. I might say that I may say something else or feel free to talk to me about it or ask me questions. I'm an open book. But I am willing to let go of love or potential love if it means the other person will feel comfortable or happy. Because that's the big picture here. The big picture is when you meet someone for a potential relationship, if you get into that relationship, is it not your goal? Is it not your mission or responsibility or obligation, however you want to look at it, to try to make them happy, to try to show them that you support them and especially show them that you accept them as they are and aren't here to change their mind. So if they have an opinion about you, that's okay. If they say, well, I can't be with somebody like you because you're an awful person, if somebody said that to me, I would say, you have every right to feel that way. I used to be awful. You're right. I don't feel I'm awful anymore. But if you see that as awful, if you can't come to that place where you see me as I am today, I'm not going to talk you out of it. I would rather you get to know me, who I am today, than stay focused on who I was. But if you can't, you can't stop focusing on who I was, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise, because that's what I used to do. I used to be the person who tried to convince you that I was a good guy. And now I'm just here saying that's who I was. I feel like I'm a good guy now. So you can believe that or not, but this is who I am today. And I completely understand if you don't want to talk anymore or meet up with me again. I hope you do. I would really love to see you again, but I understand if you don't want to. You know what that does? It frees someone to be themselves, to make their own decisions, to make up their own mind so that you aren't involved or influencing them. You aren't involved in their decision making process in an influential or manipulative way. I'll never forget when I first met Asha. She said that she was on a dating site. I was on a dating site, but I got off the dating site right after we met because my plan was to just not date and still work on. Only work on my healing because I was still grieving my marriage and I still had stuff to work on. I still had emotional triggers to figure out and fix these coping mechanisms that I thought were normal. They weren't. And so after a few months of online communication, we were about a thousand miles apart, and she reached out and said, you know, it's too bad you're not closer, because we could see if this worked as something else more. Something more. And I said, wait, wait, wait. I'm skipping a lot of parts of the story, but I said, wait, I thought we agreed that we're just going to be friends. And I didn't think we were going to start dating because we're far apart. And I told you that I'm not really looking to date anyone right now. And she said, no, I'm not saying that we would become a couple or anything. I'm just saying it would be interesting to see if we were compatible or whatever. And so that was the first time after I met her online that I considered dating her. And so we kind of made just a very, very loose agreement that we would meet. But the following day or the day after, she called me and said, hey, I'm going out on a date and it's tonight, we'll see what happens. I said, what? You're going on a date? What do you mean you're going on a date? I thought that you said that maybe it would be interesting if we met and, you know, maybe something could come of it. And she said, well, what do you mean? I'M not going to just stop dating. What if you're not the right guy for me? And I thought, yeah, but I kind of thought that once we made that conversation, once we had that conversation, we agreed that this is something we would move toward. Toward each other. And she said, well, that's not what I thought. So her point was, you know, I don't know really who you are. We've only talked on the phone. And so I said, okay. And I was very uncomfortable about it. And so we hung up. And I thought about it. Not for long, but I thought about it, and I had to remind myself, what am I thinking? First of all, she doesn't know me. She's right. Second of all, why am I trying to tell her what to do? This is who I used to be. Why am I trying to tell her that maybe she shouldn't date other people even though we haven't even met yet? Doesn't make any sense. So the next day we talked, and I said, I just want to apologize. You're totally right. I shouldn't be telling you if you should date or not, because that is your decision. And if you make that decision, that's something that you are doing because you believe it's the best path for you. And I need to support that. I said something like that. I forget the words, but I said, of course, you know, go on a date, have fun. We haven't met, and if we meet and it works out great. And if we me and it doesn't work out, that's fine too. I support either way. That was like my first foray into my first relationship after starting my healing. And so that was one of my previous issues, is that I wasn't letting my partner make their own decisions, especially if their decisions didn't include me. And so I had to understand that this person has her own life. His making her own decisions is navigating life the way she feels is right or is necessary or whatever. So in order to care about her, it meant. And this is something I figured out right then and there. It meant honoring the decisions that she makes, even if I'm not part of those decisions. And I got it. I figured it out. That was like a huge epiphany for me. Like, if I'm going to care about someone, then I should care about the path that makes them the happiest or the path that they believe they should take. I should honor the path they want to take. And so that's what I told her. I said, well, not in those words, but I said, it's silly for me to think that you're going to stop dating and wait for me in the next few months to see if we're even compatible. It's silly for me to do that. So, please, you know, I'm so sorry. I said that you are absolutely, you know, 100% free of my judgments or concerns or anything like that when it comes to this. You should be able to live your own life. And again, I don't know exactly what I said, but it was like that. And she said, well, okay, thank you. And so that was good. I felt good about coming to that place. And so I don't know if it was the same day or the next day, but she called me back and said, you know, I quit the dating app and I'm not going on any more other dates. I said, why? What are you talking about? And I was actually concerned, like, oh, what's going on? Why are. I mean, not because she found someone, but because I didn't want to be the one that influenced her to do that. And I kind of said that. I was like, I. I don't understand. What are you talking about? I said it was okay. It's no big deal. Do your thing. And she told me, and she still tells me to this day, she said, if you told me what to do or tried to control my time or who I saw, then that would have been the problem. But because you said that I was free to do anything that I wanted, that's why I stopped. That's why I realized that maybe you. You were different than other people and you weren't here to control me. And I believe I'm putting words in her mouth here, but that's pretty much what she said to me, is that it's because you said, I'm free to say yes or no or to do this or that. It's because you did that. And to this day, she says, if you hadn't done that, we wouldn't be together. I let her be herself. This is part of what I learned growing through all my healing. I let her be herself. I accepted her as she was. I let her. And let is the wrong word, but I didn't interfere with her decision making, with the path that she wanted to take, even if she found someone else. Because I believe, and it's taken many years to figure this out, is that I believe that when you love someone, you support the path they want to take to happiness, even if that path doesn't include you. And that has changed my life. I have learned to accept people and their decisions. And that is how I now define love, is that I honor her path to happiness. I honor the decisions that she makes for herself. And that's what I teach here, that's what I tell people to do, is when you love someone, you honor the path they're on, even if you disagree with that path, and especially even if they don't include you on that path. That doesn't mean you'll stay together if you're in a romantic relationship with them. It just means you love them, you care about them, and you want to see them happy. That's also something I learned from my ex wife. She told me something once. She said, my uncle just loves his wife no matter what she does. All he cares about is if she's happy or not. And he said, all I want is to see her happy. And I thought that was an amazing comment to make. And that just burned into my brain. I wasn't able to do it in my last marriage, but I am finally able to do the best I can with it now. I try to live by that. And again, I'm telling you all this, especially to the person who wrote, because I mean, this whole thing, this whole episode, is me sharing as if we were on a date. I mean, I probably wouldn't have my broadcast voice on. I probably wouldn't be behind a microphone. I probably give you time to talk back to me and interact. But this is how the setup is right now. So this is what we're doing. To the person who wrote, this is, I believe, how you do it. You are just open and you realize that people are going to be judgmental, they'll be critical. And I mean, they may or may not be. You may say all of this and you may get compassion, you may get a surprise look. Like what? I mean, I've gotten those before. I remember telling one of Ash's friends, I told her, this is who I used to be. And she said, really? What? And she was surprised. I can't believe that. And I said, that's who I was. And I had to do a lot of healing. And I ruined all my relationships. And people kind of give me that surprise look like they can't believe I'm just sharing this. And I'm not trying to pat myself on the back or anything. I'm just saying that's openness. That is being vulnerable. It's vulnerable because you realize that somebody might hate you for it. Somebody might say you're bad news. Somebody might be triggered by it because they were in a relationship with somebody who used to be like you or who is like who you used to be. I think that's how you say it. And so my advice to you is, if you are trying to create a new relationship, don't hide the past. Talk about it when it's appropriate when it comes up, and know that you could be judged for it and it's okay. And they may not like you, and it's okay. They may not be attracted to you anymore, and it's okay because what you're doing is showing them something that I believe not many people do, especially when they're beginning the relationship. And that is being completely honest. And it's not about just being honest. It's also about sharing your faults, sharing your mistakes, sharing what you're not proud of. I would rather be with somebody who can openly talk about that. Because if you can openly talk about your past and the mistakes that you've made and the healing that you've done and the healing that you're still doing, I would rather have that than somebody hide who they've been or hide what they what's going on inside of them. Because what we hide always comes out. It always does. And I don't mean in like somebody telling a secret sort of way. I mean, if you hide what you've done in the past, who you've been, then your behavior changes. It has a foundation of those hidden elements that you have inside of you, and you have no idea how they'll come out later. I mean, aside from the secrets that you might want to keep at the beginning, I understand that it's important to keep something. You don't have to reveal everything. You don't have to reveal every single little thing about you. I'm just saying when the subject comes up, it's not something you hide about yourself. Now I understand there's could be something very terrible that you don't want to tell anyone. And it doesn't mean you have to. If you are working on something with a therapist or something, and that's who you tell. If you are in a new relationship and you have things you are working on. I think as the relationship develops and there's a stronger and stronger connection throughout the days, weeks and months, that this kind of stuff should come out before you make really deeper, full commitments to each other, like before you move in. Maybe they should know about your past, about certain things, before you have a child, before you get married. All of that stuff. I really prefer before you are so head over heels with each other that it's harder to bring up. Because when you're head over heels with each other and you surprise somebody with some fact about yourself that you know will be a surprise, it's a lot harder when you're both deeply in love. And some people might say, well, when you're both deeply in love, you're more willing to find somebody who accepts that about you. And that's possible. That's possibly true. Maybe it is true. But I'm just recommending that some of these parts of yourself, especially if you have been harmful to another person and you learned from it and you are healing or have healed from. From it, and you are not that person anymore, I think it's very fair to share that with somebody. Is it 100% necessary? In my life, it is. I won't tell you. It is for you. Sometimes the past is the past and we move on and we are a different person altogether. And maybe our new partner will find out about our past someday, and maybe that won't be a problem. Maybe it will. I personally don't like surprises later on in the relationship. I'd like to know more about you before we get too deep. At the same time, with my partner, my wife Asha, we talked like crazy at the beginning because. And this is something else I'll share because we weren't trying to date. We weren't trying to show our absolute, immaculate, best side of ourselves. And when I say that, it's kind of a false comment because we were being ourselves. And I think that's the best side of oneself. I think when you be yourself, your genuine self, you show up as the person you truly are. Maybe when no one's looking, the person that you are showing up as, most of the time, that is your best self. So that's how we showed up. And it was the first relationship I'd ever started where I was able to be okay sharing all my faults and be okay telling someone just how broke and unhealed I was at the time. At the time, I was broken. I was newly divorced. I was healing from being this person that I just talked about. And I told her all of this. I told her I was living in my mom's basement. That's where I was at the time. And she laughed. She laughed, and she said it was refreshingly honest. And that was reinforcement to me that being myself is the only way to be and allowing her to be herself is the only way to. To be. So to the person who wrote, thank you for sharing that, and I just Want to emphasize that. What I believe is that honesty at the risk of the relationship is always the best path forward. It's always the best decision to make. Even in a fully established relationship that has been going on for years. When you are honest and you might have to have a difficult, very difficult conversation, like you think, oh, they're going to hate me. I think it's more important to risk the relationship with honesty, because when that happens, when the relationship survives that, then the bond is almost always stronger. And if the relationship doesn't survive that, it wouldn't have anyway. Because if you have something going on inside of you and you're not able to get it out and it's coming out in different ways or especially destructive ways, like in arguments or conversations or behaviors, it comes out in different ways. It usually seeps into the love and connection and can often create a rift. Not always some. There are some exceptions, of course, but I fully believe in being honest at the risk of the relationship because that's how the relationship gets stronger. I don't know of any strong relationship that hasn't suffered difficulties. At least most relationships that are really strong, that are lifelong, they've had difficulties, they've had the hard conversations, and that has helped them become more resilient and strengthen their bond because they want to be there for each other, because they want the relationship to work. And when you're honest with somebody who wants the relationship to work and you want the relationship to work, it will. And in almost all cases, it will. Again, there are exceptions. There are huge betrayals that can happen in a relationship and that might end it. But when two people really want the relationship, there's a great chance that the most difficult conversation can be survived. It can survive, and the relationship can continue and may be stronger than ever from that point on. I hope I've given you something to chew on or a gold nugget. Or maybe you heard this for the first time and you realize what a jerk I was in my past. No, you're not going to ever listen again. I've had people do that. I've had people listen to my transparency, to my openness and say, wow, you're a jerk. I'm never listening to you again. I honor that. You know, that's the way you want to go. I honor that. But I promise I'll never make anything up. And I'll have my wife on the show one day, and she will either corroborate or disagree, but she'll tell you the truth. And I do think that her Truth will match mine. And if it doesn't, well, I'll probably hear about it. So grateful that you listened today. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Overwhelmed Brain. I want to thank the patrons this week. Anna, Sandra, Deborah and Tammy, thank you so much for your support. And Lisa sent a donation. I know Lisa. I've known Lisa for a long time. She said, hi, Paul. I'm loving the podcast. Lately, I'm doing quite well. I'm spending a lot of time somewhere. I'm not going to reveal her confidential information here and I'm taking a solstice trip somewhere else and she's sending love. Thank you so much, Lisa. I am grateful for your donations. Very generous of you. You're still listening after all this time. All of you that support the show, thank you so much for your contribution and I appreciate you. And if you value the show like these patrons do and you want to give back, head over to MoreToB.com and there are options to do that over there. You know, the Overwhelmed Brain is all about navigating the difficulties of life and relationships. But what if you have a very difficult relationship? That's what my other podcast is all about. Love and abuse. Over@loveandabuse.com you heard today's episode. It's just a peek into what an emotionally abusive relationship looks like and feels like. If you are dealing with somebody who I used to be or worse, head over to loveandabuse.com and I talk about how to deal with it, how to understand it, how to work through it, how to. To respond to it, and just give you as much knowledge as I can to make sure that you are empowered to make decisions that are right for you. Again, that's over@loveandabuse.com and if you are the person doing abusive behaviors, like if you're controlling or manipulative or you lie or you're just hurtful and you know you are and you want to change that about yourself. I know how to do that. I know how to help you change. I have done it. I have been through it. It is a process. It will change your life and people around you will be grateful. Because once you start changing and stop doing these behaviors and start accepting people as they are, which is really the key to all this, once you start doing that, you will be a different person and you will love yourself and other people will want to be close to you. And sometimes it helps to save a relationship. Some, sometimes it doesn't. But I'm going to give you the best chance of saving a relationship if that's what your goal is. So head over to healedbeing.com and start your free lessons right away. And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions. And be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want. Always take steps to grow and evolve. You are powerful, being beyond measure and above all. And this is something I absolutely know to be true about you. You are amazing.