354. Why Do I Feel Responsible for Everyone Else's Happiness After Divorce?

This week, we're taking you behind the scenes and into the very real family dynamics we're navigating in our own lives right now.

Because healing doesn't magically make difficult people easy.

It doesn't erase guilt.
It doesn't eliminate family pressure.
And it certainly doesn't stop other people from expecting you to sacrifice yourself to make them feel better.

In this candid conversation, Dawn, Joy, and Tiffini explore what happens when aging parents, family expectations, old wounds, and lifelong patterns of people-pleasing collide with the work of recovery.

Together, we unpack:

• Why so many women feel responsible for managing everyone else's emotions

• The difference between compassion and self-sacrifice

• What guilt can teach us—and when it's simply a sign that someone is unhappy with our boundaries

• The challenge of loving family members who cannot meet us where we are

• Why healing doesn't protect you from dysfunction—but it does help you recognize it

• The grief of accepting people as they are instead of waiting for them to change

• How to stop abandoning yourself in an effort to keep everyone else comfortable

This conversation is a reminder that recovery isn't about becoming unaffected by difficult people or difficult circumstances.

It's about seeing clearly.

It's about recognizing when old patterns are being activated.

And it's about trusting that you can love people without making their happiness your responsibility.

If you've ever felt guilty for disappointing someone, struggled to set boundaries with family, or wondered why you still feel responsible for everyone else's feelings after divorce, this episode is for you.

You can't think your way into healing 🥵 You have to practice your way there 👭If you're ready for the next step, learn more about  A Different D Word and apply here ✨

Transcript

Behind The Mic And Recovery

SPEAKER_04 1:40

Darlings, darlings, darlings. It has been a minute since we did a behind the mic. And to clarify, what we mean by behind the mic is we are still people, women, in a modern culture dealing with shit. And while we are more in self-energy than not these days, while we have maybe hit that tipping point uh more regulated than not, however you want to conceptualize healing, right? That we have greater access to a sense of security or well-being than not, more of the time than not, uh, we still get triggered, we still have to deal with crap, life on life's terms. And one of the ways you could define recovery is um knowing that even if or even when life throws you shit, you can you have the capacity to move through it. That has certainly been a way that I think many of the thought leaders have conceptualized healing, is not like a, oh gosh, but what if something bad happens? It's sort of being able to know that yes, bad things are going to happen and I'm gonna be okay. So that was a very long way of saying. Behind the mics are where we talk about the modern issues we are facing as recently as this morning. Just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Hi, love. Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave, and build back your confidence. I'm your host, Don Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and divorcee. Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

So that you still have a transparent look into things that we do not maybe want to say that aren't behind a paywall because maybe they affect people, you know, in our day-to-day lives, or maybe because it's just that fresh. But we want you to hear how we move through the very real lifeing that we do. Would you all add anything to that or change it or tweak it?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

We just want you to again feel like you're sitting in our living room hanging out with us, having coffee or a mimosa, whatever the hell feels great today. What is that's the whole point of the behind the mic is like, yes, we are people doing life that sometimes feels like a clusterfuckery. And so we would love to share that journey with you to let you know that you are not alone. That yes, we're on the other side of things, and also life be life in.

Guilt Shows Up In Real Life

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yep, this is okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Fuck it. I'm just driving into it. So I think today the theme is like talking about, you know, feelings of guilt. Like I just did that guilt meditation that I did for y'all on Thursday a couple of weeks ago because I was really picked that. Yes, right. Because I'm like, if

Dad’s Terminal Illness From Afar

SPEAKER_00 4:44

I'm dealing with this, I'm sure all the lovely ladies in our community are dealing with this. And so I am in this season, and I've, you know, I know some of you guys have heard me share about the fact that my my father has terminal cancer. He is dying. He is four hours away from where I am located. And so that has opened up a whole shitstorm of um pressure and guilt and things that are coming up for me, where he had the choice to be closer to me. He had the choice to come out here and be in a place where I could see him every day and be with him. And he did not choose that.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

And so now I'm dealing with not in the way where we're like, oh dad, you should move and sell your house and buy like his house has wheels, his literal house has wheels on it.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Not like so it's kind of now in this space where I have had a family member who has come onto the scene and has just been back in my dad's life for a couple of years, who now wants to guilt trip me into the fact that my father is going to die alone in a nursing home because for the past three months I have not been able to pick up my life and stop my career and go sit with him. And so it kind of escalated on Memorial Day when this family member had another obligation and was visiting him from out of state and literally made the comment, oh, so you're gonna let your dad die alone then. I lost my fucking shit. Now, to this person, I crafted the most beautiful text message and I sent it to my mom and my brother, and they were like, Oh, that was lovely. How nice of you. And I said, That's the one shot that this bitch gets, because if she comes back again, she's gonna get the not so nice side of me and then I'm gonna explode. But again, it was bringing up all of this stuff around the guilt that I feel for not being by my father's side every second of his of his journey. Transition, the fact that I'm not there to hold his hand every waking moment of the day, that he does have long periods of time or days when he's alone there. Let's say quote unquote alone, right? Because he's not really alone. He has an excellent care staff. Um, so it's brought up a lot of stuff from my childhood that I've had to take a hard look at around the ways that specifically my father and people on that side of the family have made me feel responsible or guilty when I don't act in a way that they need me to act. And so it's been this journey the past few months of me just kind of coming to terms and being very honest with myself around the fact that sometimes I'm only hearing from these people when they need something or when there's an expectation, but they're never calling to check on me. You know, nobody's really wanting to say, well, hey, what is the reason why you haven't been out there? And I have to tell them, I'm sorry, like our middle daughter just graduated from high school. She just turned 18. You know, our youngest daughter just had surgery. There's all of these things that are happening in my life right now that these people don't fucking understand because they don't care to get to know me. And so I really had to take a step back. And in that moment, I was so proud of myself because I looked at the text message from her and I had a visceral reaction. It was like someone slapped me in the face. And then I was like, no, no, like this is not my story. This is not my story, this is not how I've carried out my life. I've always been there to support my dad in whatever capacity I had. This is no different. But this is a very different thing that's being asked of me, and I don't have capacity to do it, and that's okay. It does not make me a bad daughter. It doesn't mean I don't love him, doesn't mean he didn't have an impact on my life, like any of that. This is just going to be the journey of losing my dad from far away. And this is what it is.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

So intense. So intense. It's been such a joy to watch you navigate it step by step by step. Because I know when it all first kicked off, right? You felt like you had to give up everything, literally, like, you know, you're gonna move them in your basement, basically. You, you know, that level of sort of self-sacrifice, and that wasn't a medically stable choice to make, right? It ended up not being feasible, but that was the that was your reflexive response, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Was to I wanted to feel like you had to give up everything. Yes. And I've always been very self-sacrificing when it has come to my dad, always. My dad is somebody that's been divorced three times, you know, he's been alone most of his life by his own choice. And so

When Family Uses Guilt

SPEAKER_00 9:24

he has chosen to live in the places he's lived away from his kids, to the point where now I have to get real about the fact that he chose this. He knew what his illness was when he made his final move to this last destination. And so the fact that these choices are made, it doesn't mean that I have to completely revert back to spaces in life where I feel like I had to give up everything for my dad.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

No, but I know we all, I know every single one of us listening right now relates so profoundly from a very visceral place, right? When people invite us to soothe their feelings for them, it is very hard to say no, you know. Yeah. This last week, Joy took our kid on her family vacation, but really dropped her off to uh visit with my mom. And if y'all have been on our email list for a while, you have read the email or heard the episode where we talked about I said no, she can't go stay with grandma for the w summer and or for a week or whatever. And this year I said yes because A, my kid is that much better that she just I knew that it was so much less likely that she was gonna need anything in particular for my mom, but B, because Joy was gonna be right up the road and she could get together with Joy while she was there. So we had a ripcord to pull, right? That didn't involve me having to and it's like for a couple of days while everything was going well, it I I for a moment was like, Oh, maybe it's me, maybe I'm the problem. Maybe my mom is brilliant and I'm I cause problems, right? But it's like, no, then you go through and you remember all the times where anytime something was about me, it had to be about her. That she's the person that said the cruelest things to me in my life. That oh, then when my daughter came home and she said, I said, Oh, my husband asked about one of her goats. Oh, how's Daphne the goat? The one that she bottle fed and lived inside her house. How's Daphne the goat? And my mom said to Grace, Daphne's dead. You never asked. What? Like, why did Grace have to specifically ask about Daphne to know you know what I mean? Like when you experience something, right? You just offer information. But it's like, how was Grace made to feel like she was doing something wrong in that moment that she didn't know that the goat died, you know, which is so sad when you think about it. Anyways, but all my life I've been invited to have to soothe my parents' painful feelings for them. And when I didn't comply, it got ugly or just got snowballed, right? This weekend, I told my dad I was gonna celebrate my birthday very low-key, very, very low-key. And I was gonna take just a lot of time on myself. And if I ended up deciding anything last minute, if he wanted to attend, great. If otherwise, see you when I see ya. But he showed up Saturday morning anyways. I wasn't wearing a bra. I wasn't, you know, ready to receive a person, and he ended up hanging out for almost two hours, which uh uh uh okay, right? But it's like, oh, look how the thing that I said was in no way respected or honored. And this has been the lived experience, right? Where

Learning To Say No At Home

SPEAKER_04 12:34

I have to swallow or uh be a feel like a bad girl because I am not doing what you want me to do in this moment, giving you access to myself, my child, my resources, solving your mad, sad, glad, afraid, ashamed for you. Um, and then to watch how people can spiral or start to blame shift or attack or play victim, right? It's that victim triangle concept that when you don't have a grounded sense of self-worth, you're constantly bouncing between feeling like a victim, feeling like you have to rescue someone else, or feeling like you have to blame someone else, and just like hitting those three points on the triangle chronically. And if you're dealing with someone who's making you question if you're sane or like, there's your sign.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Well, and I said I feel like when you were explaining that situation, I'm like, oh my God, like our dad, and we've talked about this, very similar people, right? And I remember when I started dating my partner now. I did not want my dad to meet him for a while because this was the first relationship I had been in in a long time. And I just kind of wanted to keep it to myself for a while until I kind of gauged everything or whatever. And I will never forget, I told my dad that I don't want you meeting him this weekend. And my dad showed up at my house and just walked in the door. And I was so fucking pissed because in that moment, I was like, he doesn't respect shit. Like, and that's how it's been my entire life. Like my boundaries and feelings don't matter. And if I'm drawing a boundary, I'm being dramatic or I'm being a bitch.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Dramatic, yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Like I cannot tell you how many times my dad has called me a bitch because every time I draw a boundary, there must be something wrong with me. And that was crazy. And the funny part, this is the last story I'm gonna tell this, but the funniest, the funniest one of all was that my mother was down. Now, my parents have not been together since I was a baby, but they still got along pretty well. My mother was down visiting me for two weeks when I lived in Myrtle. It was a morning there was football on that day. We'd invited my dad over later that day and my partner's parents, and we were all gonna get together and watch football. And I'm laying in bed, and my master bedroom was downstairs, and I knew my mom was awake. I could hear a man's voice in the living room, and it was 7 a.m. And I'm like, oh my God, my fucking dad is here. And I walk out and he has showed up to my house at 7 a.m. with the dish that he was supposed to be making, ready to hang out, wondering why everybody wasn't awake and like ready to roll. And it was 7 a.m. And my mother was looking at me like, please save me. But it was like those moments, right? So it's again the people in my life that feel like they are entitled or have the right to tell me that what I'm feeling, I'm not feeling, or that the boundary that I need is not a real thing because I'm just being a bitch or I'm being dramatic. Like, zero fucks around that anymore. I don't care.

SPEAKER_04 16:46

Such a line to dance, right? Because on the one hand, I I think

The Victim Triangle And Boundaries

SPEAKER_04 16:49

I've said this more times this year around your father's transition than I've ever said. But like, gosh, dying has got to be one of the most courageous things a person will ever do, right? Like at the end of the day, you walk out of this joint alone, you know, um, or with your maker, and that's it, you know? And I have so much for compassion for the fact that he's he's struggling, right? For someone who has been in control, who has never reconciled their pain, who has never taken responsibility for their addiction, whatever the things are, right? Like to be at this moment where you can't control what happens next, and like vying for any kind of control you possibly can in death, like wow, how hard that must be because nobody can fix it for you in that moment, right? But I do hear that that's what this family member wants you to do, wants you to go sit with him so that you can fix it for him before he goes. But like, holy crap, that's a crap load of responsibility. And so, how do we as humans, compassionate humans, juggle with a filial obligation, right? Or just being uh compassionate humans with rescuing or or still working out our own repetition compulsions, right? Like that first initial maneuver to um you know, sacrifice everything or to still pursue something with people that's not actually available.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Yeah, it's uh it's a it's a murky, murky journey because you know the the easy thing is no contact, right? Like, oh, I'm just like they don't respect my boundaries, I'm never gonna speak to them again. Yeah. I'm not I don't think that's yeah, right. I don't think that's um a it's not biblical, but it's also not like incest and instances of incest. Right, right, right, right. Right, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 18:52

Yeah, danger and absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

That's kind of where I'm noodling at the moment because like you said, we went out of town this past weekend, and I went with my extended family, my parents, my sister, my aunt and uncle came in from out of town, and we all went into the mountains and got a cabin. And I knew that it was gonna be hard because I don't have a great relationship with my parents or my sister. Um, so I knew it was gonna be hard. So I strategically scheduled my time to be able to have time away from them, go walking outside, you know, like we made sure there was an outside area, um, very grounding to me, being in the mountains. And so I even texted Don in the middle of it. Like, I can't imagine doing this trip without all the work I've been doing. Because while it is a lot easier to recognize self-energy and and being in self, it's still I I still catch myself trying to revert back into that little girl who performed to receive love. And this weekend in particular, I just it was just so clear to me the matrix. It was in in every instance of how dysfunctional or how, you know, that's the dysfunctional, but like how broken or how sad my family truly is. And being able to hold space and love them well, but also not have to come to the table in the craziness anymore. And um, really the only words my mom spoke to me the entire four days we were together was when she was talking crap because I was losing the game that we were playing. So, like there was no, you know, sh my my family left this weekend without knowing me or my children any better, any differently. And so like I'm working through the grieving of just truly understanding that's they love me to their capacity, but their capacity is not it's not enough for me to have to sacrifice myself or sacrifice my family, you know, and loving them well, but not necessarily having to do this trip ever again because of the cost of both my children and myself and wanting to love them well and don't go no contact, but also recognize that it w you know we are roughly no contact.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

If you swim in the sea of dysfunction, you're going to get wet.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

I'd rather

Compassion Without Self-Sacrifice

SPEAKER_02 21:37

stand on the shore of dysfunction. I'd rather stand on the shore. I'd rather and so how do you stand on the shore and not be no contact because I'm not engaging in the the in the the theatrics anymore. And I don't I don't I didn't call them out. I was I was a good girl, right? Like I didn't call them out, I didn't misbehave, I didn't do anything, I just didn't engage either. Like I'm not gonna fight my mom and her iPad to have a conversation. And so, but then I'm so it's just um it's a murky water journey trying to navigate what's right for me and my family versus you know loving them well.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

It's really yeah, and even just that tendency to be preoccupied in one's mind trying to solve the problem, like having some level of does it land when I say preoccupied, right? Like mind turn, like my mind can turn over the energy that's going into is such a sign that a part is activated or multiple parts are activated, right? And that this is not something about this is off, right? I need to come back home to self because yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Well, it's like sitting there all weekend, Joy, thinking, like, how can I interact with her, right? What can I say to make her pay attention to me? What can I do to make her really see me? You know, it's like ruminating over and over.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

I think it was it was more so because I mean I've had 43 years of this. It was more for my girls, like just heartbreak for my girls that they they don't they're sitting in a room with two grandparents that don't even know their favorite color. We live in the same town, they're seven minutes apart. So then I get all victimy and all then another part activates because like rescue persecutor. And my kids deserve running this, and they're and so I I texted um I think I just I texted a friend group who had been praying for me for this week, and I was just like, you know, my girls are not lacking. I think that I want I want my family to love my children, but my girls aren't lacking. They don't know they don't they don't know of a family that, you know, they they are they are surrounded by family that love them and support them and celebrate them. And it just doesn't look like sometimes I want it to look, you know. I want my parents to be excited to see them or plan for them or you know, celebrate last day of school or whatever. And it's just it's they just don't you know they ha they have grandchildren that they do that with. They don't need mine, you know, it's like their their cup is full.

SPEAKER_04 24:28

But that is the function of grace, right? That it's not always gonna look the way we want it to look. But Grace says that we can still get our needs and our desires met. I mean, so we just have to be open to it coming in a different way than we had planned.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

In a different way, right. They are loved and they are celebrated, and I'm grateful for that because it makes moments when they're

Standing On The Shore Of Dysfunction

SPEAKER_02 24:52

not breathable. Just anchoring and that.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

That was my weekend.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

And I had a lovely, lovely time with Grace. She is she was fun. She was fun to be the fourth. They just the little gaggle of girls just went off and you know did their thing.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Gaggle girls cute. What's the thesis, darlings? Is there no thesis?

SPEAKER_00 25:20

I don't know, but I just it just hit me that like we are all surrounded by little girls because Joy has three, Don has one, and I have one bio and two bonus. And they're all girls. Like between us we have seven girls.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

Between the three of us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

I like to say mine keep me on my neigh my knees in prayer and praise. Like they are both they are um celebratory but also sharpening.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

So yeah I think the moral of the behind the mic today, right, is knowing what you need and being able to shed the guilt to be able to ask for it, right? To be able to honor yourself in a way that the guilt can subside and say, hey, like I'm allowed to feel this way. I'm allowed to be angry. I'm allowed to have resentment. I'm allowed to be pissed off and disappointed and I'm allowed to ask for what I need and not be made to feel like I'm too much.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Or not enough. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And this work doesn't abstain you from hard family or hard situations or hard you still have to life but it does give you the freedom to see it clearly and recognize those parts. Everybody's got crazy everybody's crazy components. Yeah. Yeah. Components.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

I often hear people in my algorithm talk about the capacity to receive and I do think there's something here around that. Because what we're talking about is there having been an expectation that we give something, right? Like that we perform or produce something for people who are not willing to produce the thing for themselves, right? And I think that puts us in a posture and I think that women in general are often in a posture of being better givers than receivers. We feel safer giving than we do receiving and then and then we constantly feel like we don't have enough and then we're like why don't I have enough but if you know but if we had to sit still and just receive I think it would be hard. Anyways the more I come home to myself the less I feel like anything's missing. The less I feel like a particular style of mother or a particular style of father a particular style of fill in the blank is missing. And if there's something I need there is someone in my life there's some resource in my life for me to receive the thing

Receiving Support And Letting Go

SPEAKER_04 28:07

that I need it's it's always there somewhere. But then right can I ask and can I receive it?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

And um so I don't know can you let go of the people you're not getting it from right because so many of us have the expectation that if we're just filling the blank enough that this person will just automatically see our work and be able to receive borders and give us a yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

Yeah. Yeah if I just fill enough then I'll be able to tolerate swimming in the sea of dysfunction but no that's not how it will it doesn't matter how healthy you are how much of a wetsuit you put on you get in that sea of dysfunction you're going to be covered in it head to toe like yeah that's that and you you can want it differently than it is but like that's it there's no healing enough to not be affected by energy you swim in like that's it. It's like trying to go to a concert and not hear the music and like plug your ears it's like you that's not a thing that you're gonna feel it in your bones the music at a concert you know what I mean like it's it's funny the things the ways we try to twist ourselves into pretzels and that's what I mean right we try to overgive rather than just everything I want and need is around me and within me. It's both it's not all just within me right it is also around me. It is both but can I let go of the dysfunctional ways of trying to grasp for it and let it come from wherever and trust that there is a very beautiful tapestry of life waiting for me to see it. Yeah. I don't know maybe that sounds pie in the sky when you're sitting surrounded mired in the sea of dysfunction and maybe it feels very hard to see the shore but it's always there. The shore is always there. You just gotta head for it and eventually you'll be standing on it all right from three humans who poop we love you so much peace peace

Closing Thoughts And Love

SPEAKER_04 30:25

diary is a podcast by MyCoach John.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

You can find more at mycoachon dot com