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Anatomy of a Divorce with Kate Anthony
34 Plays11 months ago
The queens are joined by former actress and renowned divorce coach Kate Anthony to discuss the realities of divorce and how women can navigate it with strength and dignity.
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Transcript
Introduction to Kate Anthony
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Female Dating Strategy, the meanest only female dating podcast on the internet.
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm your host, Diana.
00:00:06
Speaker
And I am Rose.
00:00:07
Speaker
And today we have a very special guest who we are just delighted to have on our podcast.
00:00:13
Speaker
Kate Anthony, welcome.
00:00:15
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:00:15
Speaker
Thank you guys so much for having me.
00:00:17
Speaker
I think this is going to be juicy and fun.
00:00:20
Speaker
I cannot wait.
00:00:21
Speaker
And I'm so excited that I get to introduce you.
00:00:24
Speaker
We received your bio.
00:00:25
Speaker
And I know you were saying beforehand that you were like, we can cut this short.
00:00:28
Speaker
But I was saying, we are not cutting down the brilliance of your life and your career.
00:00:32
Speaker
So I'm going to read a little bit about what we know about you.
00:00:34
Speaker
And then we're going to get into the conversation.
00:00:36
Speaker
Okay?
00:00:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:38
Speaker
I'm okay with it.
00:00:39
Speaker
I can handle it.
00:00:40
Speaker
All right.
00:00:42
Speaker
Here we go.
00:00:43
Speaker
You can do it.
00:00:44
Speaker
You can do it.
00:00:45
Speaker
You've lived it.
00:00:45
Speaker
Now you can hear about it.
00:00:47
Speaker
So to our dear listeners, Kate Anthony that we have here today is a multi-talented individual.
00:00:53
Speaker
She is a former Grey's Anatomy actress and author, a critically acclaimed podcast host, and a high-conflict divorce coach.
00:01:00
Speaker
Kate is not afraid to initiate tough conversations about relationships, domestic violence, and the cultural implications of our New Age society.
00:01:09
Speaker
In her book, The D Word, Making the Ultimate Decision About Your Marriage, Kate dives deeply into the importance of self-work and the cultural understanding of marriage in order to sustain healthy interpersonal relationships.
00:01:21
Speaker
Through private and group coaching, Kate equips her clients with the tools they need to identify abusive relationships and feel empowered to make decisions for themselves and their children while feeling validated and supported.
00:01:33
Speaker
Her number one ranked podcast, the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, has reached over 3 million downloads.
00:01:41
Speaker
And Kate has been featured as an expert in the New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek, and Pure Wow.
00:01:48
Speaker
Kate herself is a survivor of domestic abuse and has overcome many of her own challenges with navigating divorce with a child to consider.
00:01:56
Speaker
Kate's work as an advocate for women comes after a 20 plus year career in Hollywood bookended by five years on Sesame Street and five years on Grey's Anatomy.
00:02:05
Speaker
Her background in entertainment allows Kate to thrive as a podcast host and take the mic or camera in crucial conversations standing up for women and children who are survivors of domestic violence.
00:02:17
Speaker
Kate, welcome.
00:02:19
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me.
00:02:21
Speaker
We are so excited to have you.
00:02:23
Speaker
We've got so much to talk about.
00:02:26
Speaker
It's going to be insane.
00:02:27
Speaker
Diana, I need you to take points.
00:02:28
Speaker
Otherwise, I'm just going to like, I'm going to be stumbling all over my words.
00:02:32
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:02:33
Speaker
I have so much.
00:02:35
Speaker
You know what?
00:02:35
Speaker
Like, let's throw you a softball question.
00:02:39
Speaker
Like, who is the biggest diva on Sesame Street?
00:02:41
Speaker
Like, we want to know.
00:02:44
Speaker
It was Big Bird, wasn't it?
00:02:45
Speaker
It was Elmo, wasn't it?
00:02:47
Speaker
I have a feeling it's Elmo.
00:02:49
Speaker
Oh, listen.
00:02:52
Speaker
So I am old enough that I was on Sesame Street long before Elmo was even a thought.
00:02:59
Speaker
Wow.
00:03:00
Speaker
Oh my.
00:03:01
Speaker
Were you on Sesame Street when Kermit was on Sesame Street?
00:03:05
Speaker
So Kermit was actually filmed in a different studio.
00:03:09
Speaker
So I think actually he might have been out here in Los Angeles.
00:03:12
Speaker
We were in New York, but I am old enough to have worked with Mr. Hooper.
00:03:17
Speaker
And you guys are like, who the hell is Mr. Hooper?
00:03:19
Speaker
I don't know who that is.
00:03:22
Speaker
I don't know who that is.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's his store.
00:03:25
Speaker
It's his store.
00:03:27
Speaker
Ah.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:29
Speaker
So I was on Sesame Street in the 70s.
00:03:32
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:35
Speaker
We didn't have divas.
00:03:36
Speaker
It was so...
00:03:38
Speaker
Listen, it was such an honor to be part of that, those early, early years of Sesame Street, where, I mean, it was just so full of hippies just trying to do something different, right?
00:03:51
Speaker
It was so cool.
00:03:53
Speaker
That was not where I was expecting that to go.
00:03:56
Speaker
No, that's what it was.
00:03:58
Speaker
I mean, that's really what it was.
00:04:01
Speaker
Well, it makes sense.
00:04:01
Speaker
It was the 70s.
00:04:02
Speaker
So that makes total sense.
00:04:04
Speaker
Exactly.
00:04:05
Speaker
Exactly.
00:04:06
Speaker
And they're like, we got to do something different for these kids.
00:04:09
Speaker
And, you know, it was great.
00:04:11
Speaker
It was such an honor.
00:04:13
Speaker
Honestly, there's some videos.
00:04:14
Speaker
There's some YouTube videos.
00:04:15
Speaker
One of them is a day that Ray Charles came on the show.
00:04:21
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:04:22
Speaker
And did the alphabet song.
00:04:25
Speaker
And I had the privilege of sitting on a piano bench next to Ray Charles and singing with him.
00:04:33
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:35
Speaker
When I was like seven years old or something.
00:04:38
Speaker
So those are the kinds of experiences that I got to have on that show.
00:04:42
Speaker
And it's just, you know, really cool.
00:04:44
Speaker
And now to have the videos of it, it's just amazing.
00:04:46
Speaker
Wow.
00:04:48
Speaker
That sounds amazing.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:50
Speaker
Really cool.
00:04:51
Speaker
My mom had to explain it to me because I was like, what do you mean?
00:04:53
Speaker
She was like, okay, listen.
00:04:57
Speaker
Let's break this down for a seven-year-old.
00:04:59
Speaker
Let's break this down.
00:05:00
Speaker
He's blind and he plays the piano.
00:05:01
Speaker
And I was like, what?
00:05:03
Speaker
What are you talking about?
00:05:05
Speaker
It's insane.
00:05:07
Speaker
It is insane.
00:05:07
Speaker
Like, actually, I'm a piano teacher, Kate.
00:05:10
Speaker
Oh, my gosh.
00:05:11
Speaker
Okay, well.
00:05:12
Speaker
Wow.
00:05:13
Speaker
He's one of my huge heroes, like Ray Charles and Nina Simone are some of my most revered musicians because what they can do on the keys, it's just, it's out of this world.
00:05:22
Speaker
Some people just have that connection with music.
00:05:24
Speaker
Like he's just a once in a lifetime kind of talent, you know?
00:05:28
Speaker
A hundred percent, a hundred percent.
00:05:31
Speaker
So that was when you were seven.
00:05:32
Speaker
And then how did you end up becoming this divorce expert
Realization of a Toxic Marriage
00:05:36
Speaker
then, Kate?
00:05:37
Speaker
Walk us through that journey, if you don't mind.
00:05:39
Speaker
Well, I'm going to skip a few years, but...
00:05:42
Speaker
I mean, essentially, you know, I was what I now know to be toxic and abusive marriage.
00:05:50
Speaker
But when I was questioning whether I should stay or go, because that was really the biggest thing was that I was trying to figure out how to make this marriage work.
00:06:00
Speaker
And, you know, I loved him and we had a kid and we had this great life, but I was dying on the inside and everything on the outside looked really good.
00:06:10
Speaker
You know, we were pretty.
00:06:12
Speaker
We lived in Los Angeles.
00:06:14
Speaker
I was on Grey's Anatomy.
00:06:16
Speaker
We had this adorable little, you know, two-year-old and everything.
00:06:21
Speaker
My ex-husband also works in the entertainment industry.
00:06:24
Speaker
And so, you know, like we had the nice house, nice cars, like the works.
00:06:28
Speaker
On the outside, everything looked amazing.
00:06:30
Speaker
And on the inside, I was dying.
00:06:32
Speaker
And I
00:06:33
Speaker
This was 2006, seven, eight.
00:06:37
Speaker
And I did not know there was no Instagram, there were no podcasts, there was no information about what was happening to me.
00:06:47
Speaker
I just knew that there was something wrong.
00:06:49
Speaker
And I was, of course, in the process of being so deeply gaslit.
00:06:54
Speaker
that I was questioning, as you do with gaslighting, it's not just when you're being lied to, it's when you're being lied to for the express purpose of having you doubt your own sense of reality.
00:07:04
Speaker
And I was so confused.
00:07:07
Speaker
You know, I was constantly being, you know, convinced that the feelings I was having about what was happening were not valid, or that it was really me.
00:07:17
Speaker
And that if I just tried harder, and that if I just did something different, if I changed my voice, if the list went on,
00:07:24
Speaker
And eventually I kept asking people, how do you know when it's like when you've done everything?
00:07:30
Speaker
Because you sort of have this sense that there's just something else around the corner that if I stop now, I'll have missed the thing that was going to fix it all.
00:07:40
Speaker
So you keep waiting and you keep looking and you keep researching and trying different therapies and different modalities, right?
00:07:47
Speaker
Totally not realizing that you're the only one doing the work.
00:07:50
Speaker
Right.
00:07:51
Speaker
Right.
00:07:52
Speaker
And, you know, I kept asking people, how do you know?
00:07:55
Speaker
How do you know when like you really have reached the end of the road?
00:07:59
Speaker
And the response I got was, you know, when you know, you'll know.
00:08:03
Speaker
And I was like, but I don't know.
00:08:05
Speaker
Right.
00:08:06
Speaker
That's why I'm asking.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:10
Speaker
Thank you for being so unhelpful.
00:08:13
Speaker
So unhelpful.
00:08:14
Speaker
So, you know, but eventually I did.
00:08:17
Speaker
Eventually I sort of had this moment that was very, I sort of likened it to sort of being hit upside the head with a frying pan.
00:08:25
Speaker
It was very clear.
00:08:26
Speaker
And I did know.
00:08:28
Speaker
And what I knew in that moment was that my son, you know, everyone was like, you have to stay for the kids.
00:08:36
Speaker
I had, you know, this couples therapist was like, you have to stay for your son.
00:08:40
Speaker
And all of this very toxic and wrong information that has now been deeply debunked about how divorce completely screws up kids.
00:08:49
Speaker
And so I wanted to stay because I didn't want to screw up my kid, obviously.
00:08:53
Speaker
And in this moment, this like frying pan moment that I had, I realized that I was screwing up my kid by staying.
00:09:00
Speaker
That he was going to turn into an abusive man.
00:09:05
Speaker
That he was going to choose codependent women.
00:09:09
Speaker
with compliant women.
00:09:10
Speaker
He was learning how to be manipulative and lie.
00:09:12
Speaker
I mean, that's all he was seeing in his life.
00:09:14
Speaker
And then I was like, oh, I have to leave for him.
00:09:17
Speaker
I kept thinking I had to stay for him, but I realized in that moment, I have to leave for him.
00:09:22
Speaker
And I did.
00:09:23
Speaker
And then somehow my ex and I managed to have a very amicable divorce and people kept asking me, how did you do that?
00:09:29
Speaker
How did you do that?
00:09:30
Speaker
And so I decided that I wanted to help people do that.
00:09:35
Speaker
What I didn't realize at the time was that it was kind of luck of the draw, right?
00:09:41
Speaker
I was very lucky that I was divorcing somebody who kind of gave up the abuse somewhat after we decided to call it quits.
00:09:53
Speaker
Very unusual.
00:09:55
Speaker
It's very unusual.
00:09:57
Speaker
And he did in certain ways, but I think it also depends on what's important to them.
Journey to Helping Others
00:10:02
Speaker
To him, it was important for him to be seen as the most collaborative, the best dad.
00:10:09
Speaker
It was always important for him how he looked.
00:10:12
Speaker
And so for him, it was like, now I'm going to be the best divorced dad in the universe.
00:10:16
Speaker
And so that worked really to my advantage.
00:10:18
Speaker
So anyway, long story short, you know, I went to school, I went back to school, I got certified as a life coach, then I went back to school and got certified as a relationship coach.
00:10:30
Speaker
And back then, when I was doing this, you know, my coaching certification training took like a year and a half.
00:10:36
Speaker
This wasn't like a weekend course.
00:10:39
Speaker
And then I started working with women and the more stories I heard, the more I started realizing like, oh, there's a pattern here.
00:10:48
Speaker
And I started learning more about domestic violence and realizing that that's what had happened to me because I hadn't quite identified it yet.
00:10:55
Speaker
Right.
00:10:55
Speaker
And the more I learned, the more I realized, whoa, this is happening everywhere because I just kept hearing the same stories over and over and over again.
00:11:03
Speaker
And what I know now after almost 15 years of doing this is that when women are in this, they tend to think that their situation is unique, that they're the only one this is happening to, that they're really alone in this.
00:11:18
Speaker
And what I've learned in over the last 15 years is that, first of all, this is systemic.
00:11:25
Speaker
So mostly, this is what women are experiencing, right?
00:11:29
Speaker
Because this is how patriarchy conditions men to be in relationship.
00:11:34
Speaker
And this is how patriarchy conditions women to be in relationship.
00:11:37
Speaker
So the imbalance of power
00:11:40
Speaker
And control and the use of coercion and control to be in relationship is actually the air we breathe and the water we swim in.
00:11:50
Speaker
And so talking about this more and more and more and more helps women realize like, oh, oh, oh, it's not me.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:58
Speaker
It's actually the relationship and I'm not alone.
00:12:01
Speaker
Right now we have podcasts.
00:12:03
Speaker
Now we have Instagram.
00:12:04
Speaker
Now we have all of these tools where we can shed the light and sort of turn on the light for women and show them that number one, they're so not alone.
00:12:16
Speaker
And number two, it's so not their fault.
00:12:19
Speaker
And number three, there's a whole sisterhood of women out here who are opting out and not having it anymore.
00:12:26
Speaker
And you can join us.
00:12:27
Speaker
And it's fucking great over here.
00:12:30
Speaker
If I may ask something, you know, yeah, when we started our Reddit forum, there were a lot of women talking about like a mask switch, you know, when they were in the relationship, the early days were really good.
00:12:42
Speaker
And then sometime along their relationship, there was like a little flip.
00:12:45
Speaker
For some people, this flip lasted a lot longer.
00:12:48
Speaker
It was like after they got married, there was a flip.
00:12:50
Speaker
In your situation, if you don't mind answering this question, it's fine if it's too personal.
00:12:55
Speaker
But, you know, were there any red flags early on?
00:12:57
Speaker
Like now, you know, in hindsight, did he display any of these behaviors like early on?
00:13:04
Speaker
Totally.
00:13:05
Speaker
Or did he like wait until the marriage to flip it on you?
00:13:08
Speaker
Oh, no, no, no, no.
00:13:09
Speaker
Oh God, no.
00:13:10
Speaker
I mean, we were together for five years before we got married and it was so high conflict and toxic from very early on.
00:13:20
Speaker
But there was the initial period of the love bombing.
00:13:24
Speaker
Now I know that this is sort of a hallmark of being in a relationship with a narcissist, right?
00:13:29
Speaker
That they attach themselves to you and you are the answer and you are the solution and you're the thing that's going to make them better.
00:13:37
Speaker
Right.
00:13:37
Speaker
And so there's that early period of like exaltation.
00:13:42
Speaker
And this is the most amazing thing ever.
00:13:44
Speaker
And you are, it's intoxicating.
00:13:46
Speaker
Like as a woman who grew up in, you know, with my dad, wasn't in the picture when I was growing up, he was in and out.
00:13:55
Speaker
I was really primed to be selected for this kind of relationship.
00:14:02
Speaker
And, you know, it was absolutely intoxicating.
00:14:05
Speaker
Like I just wanted the fantasy.
00:14:07
Speaker
I was primed for the Disney princess, you know, kiss me and save me and, you know, right.
00:14:14
Speaker
The whole thing.
00:14:15
Speaker
Right.
00:14:16
Speaker
So I was all swept away in it and it was amazing and beautiful and wonderful.
00:14:19
Speaker
And then these things started happening.
00:14:21
Speaker
And they were very jarring where we would be at a party and we would be having a really great time and talking to people and he would start bristling at me.
00:14:32
Speaker
I would be talking to people and he'd stand there just bristling and shuddering when I was speaking.
00:14:38
Speaker
And then we'd leave and I'd be like, what's going on?
00:14:40
Speaker
And then I would be given the litany of how I had done things wrong and how embarrassing I was.
00:14:45
Speaker
And up to that point, no one had ever told me I was embarrassing and I'm not.
00:14:50
Speaker
Right.
00:14:51
Speaker
I'm not.
00:14:52
Speaker
And that's his childhood shit.
00:14:53
Speaker
Now I know like his dad was and like all of this stuff.
00:14:56
Speaker
And that was his stuff.
00:14:57
Speaker
And it's stuff that, you know, to his credit, he's worked on a lot, but it was all my fault.
00:15:02
Speaker
And I'd be like, well, I don't know what you're talking about.
00:15:03
Speaker
Like, I didn't do anything wrong.
00:15:04
Speaker
He's like, well, you did.
00:15:05
Speaker
And if you would just, you know, and so then I would go, okay, well, I guess, you know, this is how I have to be in relationship with him because I love him.
00:15:13
Speaker
And so, you know, when up until this point, it's been so wonderful.
00:15:18
Speaker
These little things, little things, they're quite large.
00:15:21
Speaker
They feel like a blip.
00:15:23
Speaker
They feel like they are anomaly in the relationship.
00:15:27
Speaker
And then as time goes on,
00:15:30
Speaker
they become more and more present and they happen more and more often.
00:15:36
Speaker
You know, I look at other women because, you know, I'm a boob man, you know, and I had no boobs, you know, and I'm like, okay, right.
00:15:44
Speaker
And you're shifting your way of being, you're shifting your way of talking.
Impact of Toxic Relationships
00:15:47
Speaker
You're trying to get back to the thing that you had at first.
00:15:51
Speaker
And it makes sense.
00:15:52
Speaker
You're like, oh, okay, well, these things are blips.
00:15:54
Speaker
These things are anomalies.
00:15:56
Speaker
If I just shift a little bit, then we can just get back to things because he tells you.
00:16:00
Speaker
He's like, well, if you just did this, then everything would be fine.
00:16:02
Speaker
You're like, okay, I'll just do that.
00:16:04
Speaker
And then we'll get back to what it was.
00:16:06
Speaker
But the target is now moving all over the board.
00:16:09
Speaker
And every time you hit it, there's another one.
00:16:12
Speaker
And now you have no idea who you are anymore.
00:16:15
Speaker
You have no sense of self.
00:16:16
Speaker
You've lost all of yourself.
00:16:19
Speaker
And all you want is to get back to the thing that you think is the reality of the relationship, not realizing that this is actually the reality of the relationship.
00:16:28
Speaker
I think a lot of people want to get back to the honeymoon phase of like the early days.
00:16:34
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:16:35
Speaker
It is.
00:16:35
Speaker
It's the illusion.
00:16:37
Speaker
And you know, have you ever heard of Chinese water torture, Kate?
00:16:40
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:16:41
Speaker
So this reminds me of, you know, there's there are two ways of looking at water torture.
00:16:45
Speaker
Like one is, you know, you use it to torture people.
00:16:48
Speaker
And the other way of looking at it is...
00:16:51
Speaker
The Chinese talk about how the approach to a problem is like water on rock.
00:16:55
Speaker
You know, rock is this immovable force.
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:59
Speaker
That's seemingly imperious to all of the elements, but one drop of water over time, continually dropping, changes the entire face of the rock.
00:17:09
Speaker
That's exactly right.
00:17:10
Speaker
And so...
00:17:11
Speaker
That's exactly what they're doing to you over time.
00:17:14
Speaker
It's not only are they torturing you, but they're literally changing who you are as a person.
00:17:18
Speaker
And it's not to say that you can't recover that, but you will never be who you were because you've undergone such a prolonged traumatic experience at that point.
00:17:26
Speaker
That's right.
00:17:27
Speaker
That's exactly right.
00:17:28
Speaker
And I always say, you know, we talk in recovery from this kind of abuse about, you know, everyone's like, I want to reclaim myself.
00:17:35
Speaker
And it's like, you're not that person anymore.
00:17:37
Speaker
So let's stop trying to get back to what we were or who we were.
00:17:41
Speaker
Sure, there are things that we're going to remember about like, oh yeah, I used to like going dancing and he took that from me and I'm going to reclaim that.
00:17:49
Speaker
But also like, who are we now?
00:17:51
Speaker
Right?
00:17:51
Speaker
If I had not gone through this relationship, I certainly wouldn't be here talking to you today.
00:17:55
Speaker
It completely shifted who I am and what I do and the gifts that I give to the world.
00:18:01
Speaker
And I'm lucky that I was able to harness that and create something that does that.
00:18:07
Speaker
But good Lord, this is a completely different me than I would have been had I not had this experience.
00:18:16
Speaker
And you know, this makes me wonder if one of the reasons why it's really hard to call it on a relationship is because it's so devastating to have to grieve who you were and who you will never be because of this relationship.
00:18:31
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder how much we know that, right?
00:18:34
Speaker
At the time, I think that is part of it.
00:18:37
Speaker
And it's part of the work, perhaps that we really just don't want to have to do.
00:18:42
Speaker
Right?
00:18:42
Speaker
It's like, come on.
00:18:44
Speaker
We always say on this podcast, like when you start trying to make the changes in your life that are actually beneficial to you, it will feel uncomfortable.
00:18:51
Speaker
Because you have lived in this kind of weird comfort for such a long time.
00:18:56
Speaker
It's essentially self sabotage.
00:18:58
Speaker
But because you've been doing that for so long, it feels comfortable.
00:19:01
Speaker
You know, actual change, the hard work of growing and evolving, that stuff is really uncomfortable because you're not used to doing it.
00:19:08
Speaker
You're not used to showing up for yourself like that.
00:19:10
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:19:11
Speaker
Also wanted to ask about your other toxic relationship, which is the one you had at Hollywood.
00:19:17
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:19:19
Speaker
Because I do think that you mentioned earlier that you kind of grew up on like a very Disney-fied version of love.
00:19:25
Speaker
And I would say that a lot of women probably had those ideals as well.
00:19:29
Speaker
Most of us did, yeah.
00:19:30
Speaker
Most of us?
00:19:32
Speaker
Well, yes.
00:19:33
Speaker
And I'll tell you, it wasn't like I grew up on that because my parents had that.
00:19:37
Speaker
It wasn't like, you know, my parents were separated when I was 11 months old.
00:19:42
Speaker
You know, and my mom was a full-time single mom.
00:19:46
Speaker
You know, raising me in New York City in the 70s on her own and going back to school, getting her master's and her PhD.
00:19:53
Speaker
Like, she's a badass.
00:19:55
Speaker
Damn Kate's mom.
00:19:56
Speaker
Like, what?
00:19:58
Speaker
Yes.
00:19:58
Speaker
Dame Swain, man.
00:20:00
Speaker
Right?
00:20:00
Speaker
She is no joke.
00:20:02
Speaker
So it wasn't like it was presented to me, but I think...
00:20:06
Speaker
that, you know, I did grow up being like, well, I'm going to have something different, right?
00:20:10
Speaker
I'm going to have that Disney version because we all grew up on that.
00:20:14
Speaker
That was, you know, especially in the seventies.
00:20:16
Speaker
Hello.
00:20:17
Speaker
You know, feminism was, you know, pretty early in its development.
00:20:22
Speaker
And absolutely, you know, my mom would talk about the patriarchy and she'd talk about feminism and she'd talk about Gloria Steinem and I would roll my eyes.
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker
And now here I am.
00:20:36
Speaker
Especially when you're a kid, I think, you know, you're like, okay, mom, whatever.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:40
Speaker
And I literally now wear a necklace that says, fuck the patriarchy.
00:20:44
Speaker
So there you go.
00:20:47
Speaker
Listen, that's the wisdom of experience.
00:20:49
Speaker
But you know what?
00:20:49
Speaker
I didn't want to ask because, you know, you mentioned that when you were leaving your relationship, you also left the industry.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes.
00:20:57
Speaker
And, you know, and speaking as a person who's working in the industry right now, you know, being a person who writes stories for the industry, I can see that a lot of the content that they're making right now, even like the content that they were making years ago, we were talking, I think last week about like King of Queens and like all of those like
00:21:15
Speaker
Kevin Can Wait and all these like sitcoms about like the mediocre kind of negligent, sometimes cruel husband and it was played off for like jokes and gags while the wife is like this beautiful bombshell who has to like put up with his bullshit.
00:21:27
Speaker
Even the dynamic of like this man disrespecting her and treating her badly was taken as a joke.
00:21:33
Speaker
You know, Hollywood had a role to play in minimizing women's traumas and struggles in marriages and in heterosexual relationships.
00:21:42
Speaker
And, you know, be curious to know, with your work experience, what did you feel as a person who was working in it?
00:21:48
Speaker
But also, what do you feel like now that you've been out of the industry for a while, like looking back at it and looking at what the industry is now?
00:21:54
Speaker
Like, do you feel like gotten worse?
00:21:56
Speaker
Do you feel like they still peddle these messages?
00:21:58
Speaker
Like, what do you think?
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:00
Speaker
Oh, I have so many thoughts.
00:22:01
Speaker
I mean, first of all, you know, when I left the industry, it was really because as an actor in particular, you know, everyone has this sort of image of like, you know, being an actor in Hollywood, it's so glamorous and it is anything but, and being an actor, you're basically the lowest on the totem pole, unless you're an A-lister, unless you're the star of the show, all of, right.
00:22:22
Speaker
And so as an actor, you're in an abusive relationship with an entire industry.
00:22:28
Speaker
You go into auditions and you bare your soul and you basically like open every vein and you leave it on the floor.
00:22:37
Speaker
And then they're like, okay, thank you.
00:22:40
Speaker
And then you have to like leave.
00:22:45
Speaker
Then they ghost you.
00:22:46
Speaker
They don't say, you know, hey, we've gone another direction.
00:22:50
Speaker
Nobody says, you know what?
00:22:51
Speaker
That was amazing.
00:22:52
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:22:53
Speaker
We're actually going to be going in a different direction or like nothing.
00:22:57
Speaker
They just don't tell you.
00:23:00
Speaker
You are, you know, you're ghosted.
00:23:03
Speaker
And it's a really, really toxic thing for actors.
00:23:07
Speaker
You book one out of every hundred auditions you go on.
00:23:10
Speaker
You are expected to...
00:23:14
Speaker
give and give and give and give and give.
00:23:17
Speaker
And if you set any boundaries on that, then you're just ungrateful.
00:23:20
Speaker
Right.
00:23:20
Speaker
And the return on the investment is minimal at best.
00:23:25
Speaker
And so I just was like, wait a minute, if I'm not doing this in my marriage, like hell, I'm doing it in my career, you know, and I had friendships that fell apart in that time to my closest friendships, because again, it's same dynamics.
00:23:40
Speaker
And so that's sort of what I saw in the industry.
00:23:44
Speaker
It was really more about how actors are treated.
00:23:48
Speaker
But in terms of the messages that they're portraying, I think that we're getting better, but also there's a lot of, there's some band-aids.
00:23:56
Speaker
Like we're going to make it look a little bit different.
00:23:59
Speaker
We're going to make it seem like this is really women-centered and focused.
00:24:03
Speaker
But if you look too deep under the cover, you're going to realize like, oh, no, it's not.
00:24:10
Speaker
Right.
00:24:11
Speaker
It's just the same, same old, different packaging.
00:24:14
Speaker
Right.
00:24:15
Speaker
This is an attitude that goes back to the very beginning.
00:24:17
Speaker
I mean, if you look at any sort of patronage system, which essentially is what entertainment is, I mean, if you go back to the days of like the aristocracy and even today in present Russia, you know, the ballerinas and the opera singers were basically the high end escorts.
00:24:32
Speaker
Right.
00:24:33
Speaker
And actresses as well.
00:24:35
Speaker
It was never considered an honorable or suitable position for highly well-bred ladies, right?
00:24:40
Speaker
I think from the very beginning, many of the men who make up the industry look at it as, you know, it's an open range.
00:24:47
Speaker
I mean, I think it was John Huston, the director who referred to actors as cattle.
00:24:51
Speaker
That's right.
00:24:52
Speaker
Exactly.
00:24:53
Speaker
And that's the feeling.
00:24:54
Speaker
That's how we are.
00:24:55
Speaker
I don't think that's changed.
00:24:56
Speaker
Exactly.
00:24:57
Speaker
No, no.
00:24:58
Speaker
So it is interesting that this parallels your sort of emancipation from your marriage and that marriage mentality also coincided with you really taking a look at sort of the dynamics across the board in your life.
00:25:10
Speaker
Is that right?
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:12
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:25:13
Speaker
Look, if you're going to end the biggest relationship basically in your life, right?
00:25:19
Speaker
The biggest commitment you've ever made, and you're going to tear that down.
00:25:23
Speaker
Why on earth would you perpetuate the same dynamics in any other aspect of your life?
00:25:31
Speaker
It just doesn't make sense.
00:25:32
Speaker
But also, right, I had grown into a person who no longer accepted unacceptable behavior.
00:25:40
Speaker
I'd grown into a person who had boundaries and self-respect.
00:25:45
Speaker
And so when similar behaviors and toxic people showed up later, I was like, oh, wait, that doesn't fit anymore.
00:25:54
Speaker
Wait a minute, that's like literally not who I am anymore.
00:25:57
Speaker
And so it was easier, not easy.
00:25:59
Speaker
It was easier to recognize and go, oh, wow, that's so weird.
00:26:04
Speaker
It doesn't fit anymore.
00:26:06
Speaker
I used to wear that relationship like it was a comfortable sweater.
00:26:11
Speaker
And now I'm like, oh, it's actually prickly, like really hard wool.
00:26:17
Speaker
And I don't want this on my body anymore.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:20
Speaker
Is this something that when you're going through these coaching sessions with the clients that come to you, walk us through a little bit about I saw on your website that you have like a listing of you sort of have like different tabs under the different processes that people will go through when it comes to approaching divorce.
00:26:38
Speaker
Walk us through a little bit about what it looks like for these clients who are coming to realize that there's one book that I've always recommended to people who are really kind of on the fence.
00:26:47
Speaker
I'm sure you've heard of this or perhaps read it too good to leave too bad to stay.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great book.
00:26:54
Speaker
It's by a woman named Mira Kirshenbaum, who I adore.
00:26:58
Speaker
It is a great book.
00:26:59
Speaker
It is a it's a really wonderful book.
00:27:02
Speaker
And I actually reference it in the introduction to my book as well.
00:27:05
Speaker
I mean, she's, you know, she's the OG.
00:27:08
Speaker
Right.
00:27:08
Speaker
It's iconic.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, she is.
00:27:10
Speaker
She's the OG.
00:27:11
Speaker
I adore Mira and she's very supportive of my work too.
00:27:14
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:17
Speaker
Women supporting women.
00:27:18
Speaker
We love it.
00:27:19
Speaker
That's right.
00:27:20
Speaker
That's right.
00:27:21
Speaker
We're all about it.
00:27:22
Speaker
We're all about it.
00:27:24
Speaker
So, you know, there's I have a year what you're talking about is the decision roadmap that I have.
00:27:30
Speaker
And there are the stages that you'll predictably go through when you're trying to decide whether to stay or go.
00:27:36
Speaker
And, you know, the three main stages are deciding, right, and then decided, I've decided, right, and then done.
00:27:44
Speaker
And then within each of those, there's this sort of roadmap that we go through.
00:27:48
Speaker
So when people are trying to decide whether to stay or go, there's the first stage is like, I'm questioning this.
00:27:54
Speaker
You know, this is weird.
00:27:56
Speaker
Then you start to have this dawning realization.
00:27:59
Speaker
Then you turn to their partner and you're like, I'm having this realization.
00:28:02
Speaker
I need you to not do this anymore.
00:28:05
Speaker
here are the issues, let's go to therapy, please help this not be the outcome.
00:28:12
Speaker
And when you're in an abusive relationship, nine times out of 10, either will not go to therapy because they're not the problem you are.
00:28:18
Speaker
So if you have a problem, you should go to therapy because here's the thing, this relationship works really well for men.
00:28:24
Speaker
Marriage is designed to work for men off of the backs of the labor of women.
00:28:29
Speaker
So when we say there's a problem,
00:28:33
Speaker
They say, there's no problem.
00:28:35
Speaker
Right.
00:28:35
Speaker
You're the problem.
00:28:36
Speaker
That sounds like a you problem.
00:28:38
Speaker
That sounds like a you problem.
00:28:40
Speaker
And they're right, by the way, it is an us problem.
00:28:43
Speaker
But what I like to say is that in a healthy relationship, if one person has a problem, the relationship has a problem.
00:28:51
Speaker
And so the proper response is, oh shit, you're not happy.
00:28:56
Speaker
I'm happy, but you're not.
00:28:58
Speaker
Then this relationship is not happy.
00:29:00
Speaker
So let's go figure out what we have to do about it.
00:29:02
Speaker
But that's usually not the case.
00:29:04
Speaker
And then when they don't, we get angry righteously.
00:29:07
Speaker
There's righteous anger, right?
00:29:10
Speaker
And we're begging for someone to see our humanity.
00:29:13
Speaker
We're begging the person who claims to love us.
00:29:17
Speaker
to actually see us as a human that matters in this relationship.
00:29:23
Speaker
And then when they don't, we fall into some serious amounts of grief and despair before we come to acceptance.
00:29:30
Speaker
And this is why when women are done, we're done.
00:29:36
Speaker
Because we have gone through this entire process and most of us have grieved the relationship before ending the relationship.
00:29:43
Speaker
So when we're done, we're done.
00:29:46
Speaker
What do you do about the men though who have like that weird come to Jesus Hail Mary thing where like they suddenly start trying to salvage the relationship just as you're ready to exit?
00:29:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:56
Speaker
Well, so there are a couple of things I have to say about that.
00:29:58
Speaker
Number one, usually that's a tactic.
00:30:01
Speaker
Usually that's just a, oh shit, she's serious.
00:30:04
Speaker
Let me play at doing the work that she says she, right.
00:30:09
Speaker
Because they will, as soon as you say, as soon as you have the talk, as soon as you say in the decided, the first thing you're going to do is like, you know, tell them like, oh, I'm done, which I have a very specific thing.
00:30:20
Speaker
framework for because it's a very difficult conversation and it has to be done the right way.
00:30:24
Speaker
And the first tip is it's not a conversation.
00:30:27
Speaker
It's a declaration.
00:30:28
Speaker
That's right.
00:30:28
Speaker
Because it's not a discussion.
00:30:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:30
Speaker
You're not going into negotiate.
00:30:32
Speaker
Nope.
00:30:32
Speaker
You're not looking for permission.
00:30:34
Speaker
You're not looking for agreement or acceptance.
00:30:36
Speaker
You're just telling them what you've decided because you are a human being in your own right.
00:30:41
Speaker
And you get to make this decision without asking permission.
00:30:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:45
Speaker
But as soon as you do that, the very next day, everything that you've been asking them to do in the house will get done.
00:30:51
Speaker
They will suddenly start doing laundry.
00:30:53
Speaker
They're going to pick up the kids.
00:30:55
Speaker
They're going to do all of the things that you've been begging them for for decades.
00:31:00
Speaker
And look, if you're lucky, a couple months.
00:31:03
Speaker
But usually when they realize that it actually isn't changing your mind, they will flip on a dime.
00:31:13
Speaker
Haven't I heard, Kate, haven't I heard that you only know the person you married when you divorce them?
00:31:19
Speaker
Yep, 100%.
00:31:20
Speaker
I say that all the time.
00:31:21
Speaker
You really only know who they are when you divorce them.
00:31:24
Speaker
And so either it is just a tactic, right?
00:31:30
Speaker
And listen, I say, if you have an ounce of a fuck left to give in this relationship, then see how it plays out.
00:31:42
Speaker
Give it time, observe, and see if this lasts more than two or three months.
00:31:49
Speaker
And you'll know very quickly, you know, because what I say is, listen, so separate.
00:31:53
Speaker
If you have an ounce of a fuck left to give and you really actually want to give it a chance, separate and say, I'm happy you're doing the work.
00:32:00
Speaker
I need time to see if this is something that is going to be lasting.
00:32:05
Speaker
And, you know, actions speak a lot louder than words.
00:32:07
Speaker
So I need some time to see if your actions actually align and hold that boundary and see what they do.
00:32:15
Speaker
Usually they will backslide very quickly.
00:32:19
Speaker
If they're actually doing the work and they're actually interested in making changes and they call the therapist and make appointments for therapy, if they find the couple's therapist and they do the actual work,
00:32:32
Speaker
of, you know, reading the books, listening to the podcast.
00:32:38
Speaker
You know, we consume, women consume 75% of personal development work.
00:32:41
Speaker
So like, who's doing the work here?
00:32:44
Speaker
So if they're going to take on the brunt of that labor and they're really going to do the work, then you might have a chance.
00:32:50
Speaker
You really might.
00:32:51
Speaker
And in your experience, how often do they do the work?
00:32:54
Speaker
Rarely.
00:32:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:56
Speaker
Well, I expected that.
00:32:57
Speaker
Because like you say, it works for them.
00:32:59
Speaker
And if this one isn't going to work for them, they'll just get into the next appliance replacement that will work for them.
00:33:05
Speaker
Well, right.
00:33:06
Speaker
And this is why men remarry so quickly after divorce.
00:33:10
Speaker
They get into relationships immediately.
00:33:11
Speaker
Because they need a new wife appliance.
00:33:13
Speaker
They can't function without us.
00:33:17
Speaker
And it's why they skew younger the next time.
00:33:20
Speaker
And this is why me as a 53 year old woman have been single for as long as I've been because men my age are not dating women my age.
00:33:29
Speaker
And I don't want to date men in their 60s and 70s.
00:33:32
Speaker
I mean, 60s, maybe but like, it's because you can smell their bullshit a mile away, you know, like they know they can't manipulate you.
00:33:38
Speaker
That's right.
00:33:39
Speaker
I don't tolerate and they know it.
00:33:41
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:33:41
Speaker
And so they're dating women in their 40s or, you know, 30s who are like, oh my gosh, you're so amazing and accomplished.
00:33:48
Speaker
And they haven't figured it out yet.
00:33:49
Speaker
Like these women haven't been through what we've been through and they just, they haven't figured it out yet.
Financial Independence in Marriage
00:33:55
Speaker
And, you know, I haven't got time for that shit anymore.
00:34:00
Speaker
I just wanted to ask because, you know, you are obviously a really strong and willful woman and you know who you are.
00:34:07
Speaker
I mean, for someone like you who's got the experience, who had the ability to leave, I'm sure at some point you've had some clients who have been unable to leave for reasons because lots of women have dependencies on men.
00:34:18
Speaker
Now we have this rise of trad wife culture where women are being encouraged to be financially dependent on men to a degree that's stupid.
00:34:26
Speaker
And I mean, there's no other way to describe it except it's fucking stupid.
00:34:30
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:34:31
Speaker
I mean, spend his money, but keep your money too.
00:34:33
Speaker
I'm all about making sure I spend... His money is our money and my money is my money.
00:34:37
Speaker
That's how it works.
00:34:38
Speaker
Correct.
00:34:40
Speaker
And that's how it'll always work.
00:34:41
Speaker
I don't know anything else.
00:34:42
Speaker
And I'm not about to struggle that way.
00:34:44
Speaker
But I mean, you know, there's a lot of women who come from countries where they're financially dependent on men, or don't have a support system, their families, like I had a friend who was in a very abusive marriage years ago, and her parents are pushing her to have a reconciliation with her husband, even when it made no sense, you know, because of like the stigma of divorce in the community.
00:35:03
Speaker
And like, she had no independent wealth, she was so reliant on him.
00:35:07
Speaker
So, you know, have you ever dealt with people who have either been emotionally or financially dependent on the man and have no other support system?
00:35:13
Speaker
And so, like, you know, for those people, I would imagine it's so much harder to leave.
00:35:18
Speaker
So what would your advice be to people like that?
00:35:21
Speaker
Well, so first of all, I mean, yes, I deal with that all the time, especially the financial disenfranchisement.
00:35:26
Speaker
I mean, 99%.
00:35:29
Speaker
of domestic abuse cases involves some form of financial abuse as well, because it's the biggest piece that they can control.
00:35:38
Speaker
Okay, sorry to interrupt, but this is something I've been saying from my first episode, and I will continue to say it.
00:35:43
Speaker
And the reason why men want to be able to feed you, the reason they want to be the ones bringing the food to the table is because if they can't starve you, they don't want to feed you.
00:35:52
Speaker
That's right.
00:35:54
Speaker
I love that.
00:35:54
Speaker
That's very well said.
00:35:56
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yep.
00:35:57
Speaker
I might borrow that from you.
00:35:59
Speaker
please do you take it freely?
00:36:00
Speaker
Yes, because it says everything like, yeah, oh, you want to provide for me, but you want to be able to use that as the carrot and the stick.
00:36:07
Speaker
That's right.
00:36:08
Speaker
That's exactly right.
00:36:09
Speaker
That's exactly right.
00:36:10
Speaker
And so, you know, the first thing we have to do, fortunately, currently, right now in the United States, we do have laws that protect against this.
00:36:20
Speaker
And so the hardest thing, there's so many women who are, they don't have enough money to
00:36:25
Speaker
to get an attorney to be able to get the money that's rightfully theirs.
00:36:31
Speaker
Right?
00:36:32
Speaker
So I'm thinking of a woman right now that I know, and she has zero access to their bank accounts, money, nothing, nothing.
00:36:42
Speaker
She's given a very small allowance because she's a child.
00:36:45
Speaker
She's as dependent.
00:36:47
Speaker
She's his dependent.
00:36:48
Speaker
And I keep saying, you know, once you get out, you're going to be so much better financially, but we got to find a way.
00:36:54
Speaker
We got to just get an emergency order for you to have access to money so that you can divorce this man.
00:36:59
Speaker
Right.
00:36:59
Speaker
But then she's got, how is she going to get the emergency order?
00:37:02
Speaker
She's got to hire an attorney.
00:37:03
Speaker
She can't hire the attorney because she doesn't have the money.
00:37:05
Speaker
Right.
00:37:05
Speaker
This is how they keep us trapped.
00:37:07
Speaker
So, you know, legal aid is a huge, you know, really big piece of this.
00:37:13
Speaker
And there are domestic violence shelters.
00:37:15
Speaker
One of the things that I really want people to understand is that a domestic violence shelter is not just a place that you go.
00:37:23
Speaker
It's not just a place where you go and hide.
00:37:25
Speaker
It's not just a shelter.
00:37:27
Speaker
They have legal aid.
00:37:29
Speaker
They have advocates that you can call and talk to.
00:37:32
Speaker
And they have resources available in your community that are beyond just running away and hiding in them.
00:37:38
Speaker
Right.
00:37:38
Speaker
So when I tell people to call their local shelter, they're like, well, I'm not going to go and run away.
00:37:43
Speaker
I'm like, that's not what we're talking about here.
00:37:44
Speaker
We're talking about gathering information.
00:37:47
Speaker
Oh, I didn't realize that because I'm always talking about people need to take advantage of their local libraries.
00:37:52
Speaker
There's so much more than just books, right?
00:37:55
Speaker
It sounds like these domestic shelters are really like libraries specifically for women who need to emancipate themselves.
00:38:03
Speaker
That's exactly right.
00:38:04
Speaker
That's exactly right.
00:38:05
Speaker
And they're overrun.
00:38:09
Speaker
Right.
00:38:09
Speaker
They're overrun.
00:38:11
Speaker
You know, and this, by the way, is why there is such a push right now to roll back no-fault divorce.
Potential Rollback of No-Fault Divorce Laws
00:38:21
Speaker
And it is a state-by-state issue, but I can, you know, all but guarantee that in the next year or so, a bunch of states will
00:38:29
Speaker
are going to roll it back.
00:38:31
Speaker
And then once that gets rolled back, the women in those states are going to be really, really, really screwed because they're going to have to go to court to prove abuse, which is very difficult to prove,
00:38:44
Speaker
If it's just coercive control, just, which underpins all forms of abuse, but if he hasn't, you know, given you black eyes and broken your bones, proving the abuse is very difficult.
00:38:56
Speaker
But if you can't hire an attorney to take you to court to help you through the process of gathering the evidence, then like it's a moot point to begin with.
00:39:04
Speaker
Right.
00:39:04
Speaker
It's a non-starter.
00:39:05
Speaker
Right.
00:39:06
Speaker
It's a non-starter.
00:39:07
Speaker
And so we're going to see domestic violence rates skyrocketing.
00:39:11
Speaker
We're going to see women's suicide rates skyrocketing just as they plummeted when no-fault divorce became the law in all of the states.
00:39:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:19
Speaker
Part of it is to keep them dependent.
00:39:21
Speaker
But the other part of it is also, I think, that a lot of women are given the suggestion when they're seeking divorce to be like, oh, have a kid.
00:39:28
Speaker
It's going to help the situation.
00:39:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:30
Speaker
And I think that men, I mean, I'm not even joking.
00:39:32
Speaker
There's a lot of women that have been given that advice.
00:39:34
Speaker
And baby trapping is another way that men keep women in their grasp, you know?
00:39:40
Speaker
That's right.
00:39:41
Speaker
That's right.
00:39:42
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:39:43
Speaker
And, you know, and also forced pregnancies, right?
00:39:45
Speaker
And then, you know, the incidence of marital rape is so high.
00:39:50
Speaker
The amount of coercion, reproductive coercion, it's staggering.
00:39:56
Speaker
And in 30 states, right?
00:39:59
Speaker
30 states in the United States.
00:40:02
Speaker
There are only 50.
00:40:03
Speaker
In 30 of them, it is 100% legal to rape your wife as long as you didn't have to use any kind of physical coercion.
00:40:12
Speaker
That's right.
00:40:12
Speaker
And not only that, Kate, but how many states is child marriage legal?
00:40:16
Speaker
I think it's up around 30 or 35.
00:40:18
Speaker
It is legal to marry girls as young as 12 years old in the United States in many states.
00:40:23
Speaker
I have to say it's so like baffling for me to hear because, you know, again, I come from like a developing country.
00:40:29
Speaker
Whenever people ask me about my experience in America and I tell them it's like any old other place that has problems, they're so shocked because like all the media exposure we got about America is like it's like this utopia on Earth.
Hollywood's Unrealistic Image of America
00:40:39
Speaker
Everybody is drinking Coca-Cola and dancing on the streets.
00:40:43
Speaker
Hollywood has been one of the most successful psyops in the history of the world.
00:40:49
Speaker
It really has.
00:40:49
Speaker
It really has.
00:40:50
Speaker
So great.
00:40:51
Speaker
But you know what?
00:40:51
Speaker
Have you heard the story about Abraham Lincoln and when he was representing that woman who killed her husband?
00:40:56
Speaker
I don't know if the two of you know this story.
00:40:58
Speaker
No, I don't, but I want to.
00:41:00
Speaker
Basically, you know, Abraham Lincoln used to be a lawyer, and he had to represent a woman who was accused of murdering her husband.
00:41:06
Speaker
And everyone in town, like knew that she was being abused by this guy.
00:41:10
Speaker
You know, it felt bad for her.
00:41:11
Speaker
They didn't want her to go to prison.
00:41:12
Speaker
And so he like requested the judge if he could like have a private meeting with her in one of the other courtrooms.
00:41:17
Speaker
And he spoke to her and he comes to the lobby or whatever, where he's supposed to meet the judge and the judge is like, where's your client?
00:41:23
Speaker
And he's like, Oh, she asked me where she could get a glass of water.
00:41:25
Speaker
And I told her Tennessee.
00:41:27
Speaker
And like, basically, she like, he let her escape, essentially.
00:41:30
Speaker
And I always tell people, Abraham Lincoln, God knows how many years ago knew that this was wrong to send this woman to prison for reacting to such suffering.
00:41:41
Speaker
that like men know what the fuck they're doing.
00:41:43
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:41:44
Speaker
Like men know they're not naive.
00:41:46
Speaker
Like the way that people treat men are like the stupid coddle kids that don't know any better.
00:41:50
Speaker
And it's like, no, no, they know what they're doing the entire time.
00:41:52
Speaker
Like the playing dumb is an act, you know?
00:41:55
Speaker
That's right.
00:41:56
Speaker
Listen, if you had a domestic and sexual slave,
00:42:00
Speaker
Why would you ever want to let them be free?
00:42:03
Speaker
That is what men have been guaranteed for millennia.
00:42:06
Speaker
They're not going down without a fight.
00:42:07
Speaker
All we're seeing is a reaction to the very few, the very slight gains that our foremothers have fought for and gained for us.
00:42:16
Speaker
I think it's so timely to have you on the podcast this week, Kate, because
00:42:19
Speaker
As we were mentioning to you in the pre-chat, Diana and I have already discussed 4B.
00:42:23
Speaker
We've been talking about the no-fault divorce that's on the horizon.
00:42:25
Speaker
We've been talking about, you know, the Roe v. Wade and its potential fall.
00:42:29
Speaker
And, you know, we're all about having the strategies and tools for being as discerning and practical as possible if and when you decide you want to find a life mate.
00:42:40
Speaker
But these are literal life and death.
00:42:41
Speaker
It's a matter of life and death when you are determining a
00:42:44
Speaker
who you're going to let under your roof.
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it really is because, listen, dating is the most dangerous thing
00:42:54
Speaker
for women, of anything that we do.
00:42:57
Speaker
The number one predator is men.
00:43:00
Speaker
That is our number one predator.
00:43:02
Speaker
It's not like we go out into the world and are going to be eaten by like jackals or anything, right?
00:43:07
Speaker
Like it's men.
00:43:09
Speaker
They are the predators.
00:43:11
Speaker
And so in order for me to find a partner, I have to literally put my life on the line.
00:43:18
Speaker
And if I'm not putting my life on the line, I am putting my emotions and my spirit and my psyche on the line.
00:43:26
Speaker
And like, what is worth the risk?
00:43:30
Speaker
And, you know, I think I said to you in the pre-chat, we were talking about how like one of the biggest things that women will say to me when they're contemplating divorce is like, but what if I'm alone forever?
00:43:39
Speaker
And my response to that is often or usually, so what if you are?
00:43:46
Speaker
Like, why is it the, you know, the brass ring for womanhood to be attached to a man?
00:43:53
Speaker
My life is so much better without all of that bullshit in it.
00:43:58
Speaker
And then, yes, of course, I also am a human being and I want connection and I want love and I want physical touch and like all of the things, right?
00:44:06
Speaker
And the fact that in order to fulfill that human need that I have to actually put my life on the line is fucking insane.
00:44:16
Speaker
And it's infuriating.
00:44:18
Speaker
It's infuriating.
00:44:19
Speaker
It is.
00:44:20
Speaker
Also, people always tell you that dating is supposed to be fun.
00:44:23
Speaker
And I can say, I don't know about when you stopped dating.
00:44:26
Speaker
I stopped dating like four years ago.
00:44:28
Speaker
When?
00:44:28
Speaker
I was like, I stopped dating.
00:44:30
Speaker
I stopped dating the second I realized this is not fun for me.
00:44:33
Speaker
It's not fun.
00:44:34
Speaker
It's not fun.
00:44:35
Speaker
And I'm not going to spend even an hour doing something that I don't find fun.
00:44:38
Speaker
You know, like I feel like that's such a waste of my time.
00:44:41
Speaker
We all have finite lives.
00:44:42
Speaker
We're not immortal.
00:44:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:44
Speaker
I don't have endless amount of time to fucking waste on these stupid guys.
00:44:47
Speaker
Like, I'm not going to do that.
00:44:48
Speaker
Like, I could be doing, you know, cultivating a hobby, like, you know, growing some plants, getting a pet, like traveling the world.
00:44:55
Speaker
Taking a nap.
00:44:55
Speaker
Taking a nap.
00:44:56
Speaker
Literally taking a nap.
00:44:58
Speaker
Like, naps are fantastic and they're free.
00:45:01
Speaker
And like, you know, just to check in, like when after you got divorced, how did you go back into dating?
00:45:06
Speaker
Like, did you take like a pause?
00:45:07
Speaker
Like, oh, no, not at all.
00:45:09
Speaker
I hit the ground running.
00:45:10
Speaker
I was like, I'm going to find me a new husband because I hadn't figured it all out yet.
00:45:15
Speaker
And so I was dating and dating and dating.
00:45:18
Speaker
And I was obsessed with whether this guy likes me or that guy liked me.
00:45:22
Speaker
And I was, you know, basically the same.
00:45:25
Speaker
I was repeating the same patterns.
00:45:27
Speaker
And my therapist was the one who was like, you know,
00:45:30
Speaker
maybe you should take your own temperature.
00:45:33
Speaker
You're so busy trying to figure out if they like you.
00:45:36
Speaker
Do you even like him?
00:45:39
Speaker
And I was like,
00:45:40
Speaker
No, I don't like him at all.
00:45:45
Speaker
My therapist said the same thing to me.
00:45:47
Speaker
She's like, it doesn't matter if he likes you.
00:45:49
Speaker
Do you like them?
00:45:50
Speaker
And so I think this idea, we talked about this as well in our pre chat, like the idea before you just are out there, like ready to get back into, you know, to storm the castle again, like, where are you at with yourself?
00:46:02
Speaker
What have you done and what have you changed and how have you learned so that you're not just repeating these endless mistakes and so that you are actually centering above all yourself?
00:46:11
Speaker
Yes, that's right.
00:46:13
Speaker
And so, you know, look, Dr. Romani says that you should take a year.
00:46:17
Speaker
Like a full year.
00:46:18
Speaker
I love her.
00:46:19
Speaker
We love Dr. Romani.
00:46:21
Speaker
We need to get her on this podcast, Diana.
00:46:23
Speaker
At some point, yes.
00:46:24
Speaker
She's amazing.
00:46:25
Speaker
She is amazing.
00:46:26
Speaker
And she's right.
00:46:28
Speaker
You know that take a full year of being alone and learning to center yourself.
00:46:35
Speaker
sit through the uncomfortable times, sit through the loneliness, figure out how to fill your own cup.
00:46:41
Speaker
It takes a long time.
00:46:43
Speaker
And you're going to go through a full cycle of seasons of, oh, okay, what do I like?
00:46:48
Speaker
Okay, how do I want to be?
00:46:50
Speaker
And, you know, I think it's the best advice.
00:46:52
Speaker
I wish I had taken it.
00:46:53
Speaker
I certainly did it later.
00:46:54
Speaker
And it's been, you know, it's been great.
00:46:57
Speaker
But I think that that's right.
00:46:59
Speaker
And then when you go out, right, then when you start dating, you
00:47:03
Speaker
You know, when I talked about that, like itchy sweater before, right?
00:47:06
Speaker
That like, then when you go out and start dating, you get to say, well, does this sweater fit?
00:47:15
Speaker
Does it feel comfortable?
00:47:16
Speaker
You have some context, right?
00:47:20
Speaker
You're like, oh, this is who I am in the world.
00:47:23
Speaker
And this is how much peace my life brings me.
00:47:27
Speaker
Are you adding to it?
00:47:29
Speaker
Or are you just an annoyance to that?
00:47:32
Speaker
And if it's an annoyance, like next move on.
00:47:35
Speaker
And you're far more primed to be able to take your own temperature to really figure out if this person is worth your time and energy.
00:47:44
Speaker
Because let's be honest, it is always our default training, the propaganda and the inculcation of self-deprecation and self-denial and self-abnegation and self-martyrdom.
00:47:57
Speaker
It's our evil, rotten legacy that we as women will have to be overcoming for the rest of our lives.
Recognizing Self-Worth in Relationships
00:48:03
Speaker
Also, just to speak plainly, like we put men on a pedestal that they don't deserve to be on.
00:48:06
Speaker
They're way too boring to be on that pedestal.
00:48:08
Speaker
I think it's about time we remove them from that pedestal and put ourselves on that pedestal because every single time.
00:48:15
Speaker
Remember what you said about religious men and non-religious men?
00:48:19
Speaker
Would you repeat that for Kate?
00:48:21
Speaker
Was that about the Andrea Dworkin quote?
00:48:24
Speaker
No, you were like, listen, you need to have the attitude towards men where like for religious.
00:48:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:48:30
Speaker
For a religious man, he will be you know, he will abdicate God and follow me as his one true God.
00:48:36
Speaker
And if he's an atheist, I mean, if he's a that's a religious man, right?
00:48:40
Speaker
Yeah, if he's an atheist, not religious.
00:48:42
Speaker
Yeah, if he's an atheist, he'll believe in God.
00:48:44
Speaker
And if he's a religious man, he'll basically abdicate God and follow me instead.
00:48:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:52
Speaker
As is one true religion.
00:48:54
Speaker
Unless you become the one true religion.
00:48:56
Speaker
No, because you know what?
00:48:57
Speaker
I'm not even joking.
00:48:58
Speaker
Anytime I've had an interesting date where I've had a lot of fun, I was like, oh yeah, I was the magic.
00:49:04
Speaker
That was me.
00:49:05
Speaker
That was me.
00:49:07
Speaker
I was the showstopper.
00:49:08
Speaker
That was me.
00:49:09
Speaker
Like I've had those sessions with therapy where she was like, oh, were you having a good time or were you the good time?
00:49:14
Speaker
I was like, I was the good time.
00:49:16
Speaker
I know.
00:49:16
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:49:17
Speaker
I know.
00:49:18
Speaker
It was the good time.
00:49:19
Speaker
And I think a lot of women need to stand in their power and realize that you are what makes him interesting.
00:49:23
Speaker
Okay?
00:49:23
Speaker
He is just, he's just Ken.
00:49:30
Speaker
You know what?
00:49:30
Speaker
I know the mark of a good marriage when I hear nothing about the husband.
00:49:35
Speaker
I don't know anything about him.
00:49:36
Speaker
He's like her Birkin.
00:49:37
Speaker
You know, he's just on the side.
00:49:38
Speaker
I don't know anything about him.
00:49:40
Speaker
It's the best.
00:49:40
Speaker
Like one of my friends was actually in a happy, healthy relationship.
00:49:43
Speaker
The only time I hear about her husband is if he's doing nice things.
00:49:45
Speaker
Otherwise, I don't hear about him at all.
00:49:47
Speaker
I don't know anything about him.
00:49:48
Speaker
I don't even think I know his last name most of the time, even though she's taken it, you know, so I don't even know.
00:49:54
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:49:55
Speaker
My, I always, people always say like, you know, what does a healthy relationship even look like?
00:49:59
Speaker
And I always tell the story of my friends, Mindy and Robert, who have been married for 25 years, 30 years.
00:50:05
Speaker
I don't even know.
00:50:06
Speaker
And they're so perfectly matched.
00:50:10
Speaker
And he, I,
00:50:11
Speaker
adores her so much that, and she's very funny.
00:50:14
Speaker
And every time she tells a joke or says something funny, he laughs.
00:50:20
Speaker
And then he looks around the room at everybody else laughing with this look in his eyes.
00:50:24
Speaker
Like, isn't she amazing?
00:50:26
Speaker
Isn't she just so funny?
00:50:29
Speaker
And like, that's what I want for everybody.
00:50:31
Speaker
I want everybody to be married to a man who's just like looking around the room being like,
00:50:35
Speaker
Did I hit the jackpot or what?
00:50:38
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:50:40
Speaker
You know, and ladies, like this is what I want for all of us.
00:50:42
Speaker
You know, we've talked before about how butterflies are typically like a warning sign from your nervous system, right?
00:50:48
Speaker
It's not, it's not romance.
00:50:49
Speaker
It's not like this elusive sparkle.
00:50:51
Speaker
It's literally you're like, your prey instincts are kicking in.
00:50:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:50:55
Speaker
And we often talk about how, you know, the most successful relationships are really kind of the boring ones because, you
00:51:02
Speaker
What is healthy and what is normal is often what we are least used to.
00:51:06
Speaker
And so in order for us to get that into our heads that like, this isn't something that you should be calling home about this, this isn't anything that you should be seeing on the TV or in entertainment, because it's not drama, it's real life and real life is the mundane, right?
00:51:21
Speaker
So I know we're almost, how does this time fly by so fast?
00:51:24
Speaker
But because we've got such good stuff to talk about, we always just enjoy ourselves so much.
00:51:28
Speaker
And Kate, you've been a wonderful.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah, but we're so grateful for your radical honesty.
00:51:33
Speaker
Because honestly, we say the same thing to the women to listen to this podcast.
00:51:36
Speaker
We say, you know what, you have to start practicing
00:51:38
Speaker
radical honesty with yourself, if you know that you're taken by these things, like you're vulnerable to certain kinds of charms.
00:51:44
Speaker
Like last week, I gave like this advice that, you know, whenever I go on, I mean, I don't, I haven't been on a first date in years.
00:51:49
Speaker
But when I go on a first date with a man, I tend to write down notes about things that I felt a little iffy about.
00:51:55
Speaker
Because I know I tend to gaslight myself into believing the best of people because that's just who I am.
00:52:00
Speaker
So I keep notes.
00:52:01
Speaker
And I also just write, is he attractive?
00:52:04
Speaker
Or is he just tall?
00:52:06
Speaker
because I'm a sucker for tall men and I'm like is he attractive or is he just tall you know and you have to go and seek your ruthless friends if you have them because they will keep you in check I think that you know also if you you know you have any advice for people who don't have a support system while they're navigating this because I'm sure it's so much harder when you don't you know
00:52:27
Speaker
I mean, of course, someone like you, having someone like you in their corner is such a huge, you know, it's just a huge plus because it helps having someone, anyone believe in you.
00:52:36
Speaker
But for the women who don't and for the women who are going to live in those states where this is a possibility, where their rights might be rolled back, you know, I mean, a lot of them come from really conservative cultures where the women in their circle might be the kinds of people who encourage them to stay in these disastrous relationships.
00:52:51
Speaker
So do you have any like notes for them?
00:52:54
Speaker
Any last thoughts for them?
00:52:56
Speaker
Well, I will say that, you know, finding your community, finding people that you can trust.
00:53:00
Speaker
And, you know, there's now we have the internet, there are places online.
00:53:05
Speaker
I have a group coaching program for women going through divorce that is amazing because it's like this incredible collective of women.
00:53:12
Speaker
And they're supporting each other.
00:53:14
Speaker
And we have, you know, zoom calls, but there's a Facebook group.
00:53:17
Speaker
And it's a really like everybody's going through the same thing.
00:53:21
Speaker
finding places like that, that are focused on the healing and focused on the path forward.
00:53:27
Speaker
But
00:53:28
Speaker
finding people if it's in your community, if it's on the internet, there is so much support out there now that it is possible to find.
00:53:37
Speaker
And that's not to bypass the fact that sometimes, you know, you're going to have to leave behind a whole community.
00:53:46
Speaker
And that that is very, very painful.
00:53:48
Speaker
I've worked with women who are in very, you know, radical religious, you know, sects, cults,
00:53:56
Speaker
And yeah, you know, women who have had to walk away from their children because, you know, their male children are going to align with the abuser because that's what's safest for them.
00:54:07
Speaker
And because, you know, if they're in this culture that is so indoctrinated into this, leaving it is, yeah, it's dangerous.
00:54:16
Speaker
It's dangerous.
00:54:17
Speaker
And there are a lot of sort of safety nets that need to be put in place for that to be safe.
00:54:21
Speaker
And that's also a reason that some people don't leave.
00:54:25
Speaker
And, you know, for like my clients who have chosen to leave their families, their children, their parents to get out of the abuse, you know, good God, the amount of strength and courage it takes to do that is enormous.
00:54:40
Speaker
And also the amount of strength and courage it takes to say, it's actually too big of a risk and I'm going to stay.
00:54:47
Speaker
It's also noteworthy.
00:54:49
Speaker
And there are ways to create safety within the confines of those relationships and those cultures if possible.
00:54:57
Speaker
But it's obviously needs to be done very carefully.
00:54:59
Speaker
You know, there's so much to be said about that.
00:55:01
Speaker
But yes, there are groups, there's community wherever you can find it.
00:55:08
Speaker
Join it.
00:55:08
Speaker
That's
Commendation for Kate's Work
00:55:09
Speaker
right.
00:55:09
Speaker
We are stronger together.
00:55:10
Speaker
We are unionizing as a gender and things can only get better the stronger we become.
00:55:15
Speaker
And let the men be scared.
00:55:17
Speaker
And let them run.
00:55:18
Speaker
Let them perish.
00:55:19
Speaker
Let them eat cake.
00:55:21
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:22
Speaker
Let them eat nothing.
00:55:24
Speaker
Let them eat cake that you didn't bake.
00:55:27
Speaker
Let them cook their own sandwiches for a day.
00:55:29
Speaker
Let them make their own sandwiches.
00:55:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:33
Speaker
We do want to thank you all for being a part of this podcast today, but also just for the work that you're doing with these women.
00:55:40
Speaker
You're changing so many lives.
00:55:42
Speaker
Honestly, you are just as badass as your mother is like, like mother, like daughter.
00:55:46
Speaker
Dame Swain and Co.
00:55:49
Speaker
Dame Anthony.
00:55:49
Speaker
It doesn't have that same ring to it, does it?
00:55:55
Speaker
You know what?
00:55:55
Speaker
That's because it's damn Anthony.
00:55:57
Speaker
That's what it is.
00:56:00
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:56:01
Speaker
I'll take it.
00:56:02
Speaker
I'll take it.
00:56:03
Speaker
I like it.
00:56:03
Speaker
That's what it is.
00:56:04
Speaker
You're right, though, Diana.
00:56:05
Speaker
You're right.
00:56:06
Speaker
You know, on behalf of all of our listeners and as on behalf of our sisters, you know, you're doing the goddess's work, Kate.
00:56:12
Speaker
And so many more of us are needed.
00:56:14
Speaker
And we just have to keep we have to stay in the fight.
00:56:16
Speaker
You know, it continues and we're in it to win it.
00:56:19
Speaker
It does.
00:56:19
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:56:21
Speaker
I love this conversation.
00:56:22
Speaker
You guys are doing great work, too.
00:56:24
Speaker
And I was really, really amazing.