Speaker 1 (00:00):
So today I'm hugely excited to be speaking to Denise Cullington who wrote the book, Breaking up Blues, Mel, the Child Therapist recommended it to me. Denise is a Psychoanalyst with her own experience of breaking up and decided to write a practical self-help guide for people experiencing breakup and divorce. Firstly, I was interested to hear what made you want to write this book, Denise,
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Because I found the experience so much more tough than I ever expected to. I mean, you, you get so overwhelmed with feelings really don't you. And I was astonished to notice how powerful they were, how long they were, because I'm a psychologist too. Then I went and did some research. There was one book that came out around that time, which was of a long-term follow-up study of people who've gone through divorce. And I thought, well, here is me with my experience and having been in analysis myself and so on, and I'm finding it tough. I can get into all these situations, that I recognized looking in that research. I thought, gosh, well, how do other people who don't have these advantages or who don't have a training manage, we can go into it kind of thinking this is fine. It's not too bad. It's probably for the best. And it may be. But the point being that actually there's a big emotional journey. And I thought if I can find a way of describing the emotional journey, then I have something that might be useful to other people too.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I had a similar idea, actually, that I thought I need to find out these things for myself, but I think they would actually be really useful for other people as well. And so many things chimed for me in your book, you described divorce as an everyday disaster. The biggest one, many of us will face, which I thought was fascinating. Can you tell me a bit more about that?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I think it's enormous. I think it's not only the loss of the person that we've spent however many years with and had had hopes of how it was going to be, maybe had children together. And there is the loss of all those dreams. And there are other external things like loss of their family who probably kind of gradually move out of your sphere. Sometimes loss of friends, loss of financial or the house or the sort of structure that you've been living in. But I also think that there's this huge emotional journey where however, imperfect whilst you were together, you could feel yourself to be more or less loved and more or less loving and suddenly you're not. And I think that is like a catastrophe. And what do you do with it? How do you make sense of it? You know, and one way is to say, no, I am fine and lovable and it's not me, but it's them.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And they've done all these hateful and horrible things. And to a point that's reassuring, but it can also sort of lead you down this frightening path of blame and counter blaming. Or the other thing you can do is you can turn it around and suddenly it becomes it's me who is useless or bad, or how could I ever think I was lovable ever. Nobody will, you know, I can't love myself. Nobody else will ever love me these kinds of things. And I think you could oscillate between these two and it takes a long time, I think, to sort of settle and find your feet again.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So lately, I mean, I, I seem to swing between feeling quite hopeful and actually things might turn out okay to other days, just waking up in absolute panic, just feeling like this is a disaster and it's never going to turn out. Okay. It does feel very unsettling. The kind of ping ponging from one to the other and not knowing how you're going to feel on a given day.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I'm guessing that actually people oscillate between these various moods that I've described. And I, think for a lot of people, it's not that one kind of slowly smoothly moves through, but actually it's just a to and fro and gradually it gets less pressing. One makes one's peace with it. I mean, I think also if you know that maybe that's a bit how it is for most people, you know, then it's quite helpful to know that you're not doing it badly. You know, there isn't a better way you're supposed to be doing it and you've allowed yourself to love deeply actually letting go that bond or, or kind of remaking it in some very different form. It takes time. It has a huge meaning.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I really liked that idea of just, you've got to just kind of live through it and feel all those things and realize it's going to be a slow process,
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Especially it doesn't mean that along the way, the can't be lovely moments, sort of heaps of learning going on. It seems to me that you can learn a lot more about yourself or what you're doing. You know, it's a chance to reevaluate and kind of slightly reset to your life, which is no bad thing. And I mean, I think we can feel if only I can be brave enough, courageous enough, and I can do it, you know, so I've got to myself up and do it, and this is the way to do it and yourself get out and I'll do all these great positive things or meet up with all kinds of new sexual partners or whatever it is. And to a point that's can be helpful. But I think there is also the other bit, which is actually whoever it is who's decided to leave or if you've mutually decided to leave, whatever it is, I think you feel terribly wounded. And I think there just is this slow, sad process of figuring it out and grieving. Grieving what you've lost. Even if, of course, you know, you can also see that while there might be other good things too.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah. But not, not sort of rushing around trying to fill that space with things, but to actually listen to those emotions and yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Which, which is hard because, you know, sort of when we do, we can feel sad and sorry for ourselves. And as you say, you know, worry, well, I'll never feel better. This will always just feel wounded.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Having decided to be very positive and very kind of glass half full about everything and feeling like everything was going to be great. I then read your section called Reality check, which gave me a bit of a shock. And if I'm honest, I had to put the book down for a few weeks after that and then come back to it when I was ready to sort of face what you were saying. I mean, w would you mind sort of sharing with the listeners please, these facts?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So I asked the reader, how many of the following facts do you think are true “divorce is tough in the short term, but after a short time, you'll move on”, “you and your ex won't fight in the ridiculous way that some people seem to,” “your children. They're resilient. They'll do better with two happily separated parents than if you remain together somewhat unhappily,” “you'll have more time for yourself,” “you won't make the same mistakes as last time,” “a new partner we'll appreciate you much better than the old one.” And then I say that the disheartening answer is none of the above is true without a lot of effort. And that's based on these research studies.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
I think I just wasn't ready to, to hear that. And I think interestingly, when I came back to read it and it said without a lot of work, I'd completely missed that part. So I had just looked at the negative and thought, oh, well, there's no hope. And I'm heading into this disaster situation. But then when I read it again and it said with a lot of work, I sort of thought, well, actually I'm willing to put a lot of work in. So I want to one of those people for who it, it does work out as well as it can. Anyway,
Speaker 2 (09:01):
In writing the book, I both wanted to be supportive and say, yes, it's bloody tough. And you know, all that. But I suppose I was also wanting to challenge my sisters and brothers who were going through the same thing, if you know what I mean and say actually, Hey, we need to just recognize these things and, and look at what these other couples seem to have not been able to do and learn from it and have, have some sort of map about the territory. And it's not saying, look, you, you have to do it this way or your way may not work. I'm just kind of saying, here is a map it's worth keeping an eye on.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah. And there's no point sugarcoating it and trying to say, it's all going to be amazing. It's good to know what the pitfalls are and what could happen if you don't really try to mitigate those things.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yes. I felt in a way to that actually, because I had had my own experience and I was very much writing out of that, but it gave me a particular place to work from, you know, I, wasn't kind of coming in as a, from on high and at a distance, and this is what you should be doing kind of top down. I was just saying here we all are when we're in this really tough time and figuring our way through.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah. I did find it very useful. I think it was just that, as you say, it's challenging, you you're requiring someone to look inside themselves. And actually I did think that the results were quite depressing in terms of the common outcome for most people that got divorced. And it was quite sobering to read that close to a third of couples were still caught up in hostilities. You know, 10 years later,
Speaker 2 (10:58):
A third of people do very badly. There was a 10% of those couples who couldn't even speak together or cooperate together about arrangements with the children. You know, just, just very, very sad and shocking.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
You say that after the initial shock and disruption dies down, a minority were able to use their divorces a window of opportunity. So I suppose the million dollar question for me is what do I have to do to be in that minority?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yes. You know, we don't want to go down that other route. We absolutely need to be able to learn from them and what these other couples seem to have not been able to do. So two real perils, one is getting caught up and bitterness and hatred and constant fighting. It can come out in fighting if their children access to the children, it can come out financially in terms of child support. And I mean, rather shocking figures again, of, you know, the number of men who don't pay their child support in full.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That is that 50% of men who don't?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That was, that was one, figure another said of third, but you know, a hell of a lot, very shocking. So, you know, one question, how can you get yourself out of that spiral and find a way of, so it's about how to find a way of making a peace with one's former partner. So that's part of it. The other thing that some people got locked into is some made new relationships very quickly. It may have been already beginning then when the marriage broke down and there was a very high breakup and divorce rate after that often it was more of the men got partnered quickly. The marriage broke up on the same sorts of reasons that the first one had broken up. So there's a sort of question about, okay, what can I learn? Not only about my choice of them, but actually are the things that I bring in terms of our relationship, that if I don't notice it and pay attention to, it can be a problem in the next one in the same kind of way. So it was, it was much more to do with avoiding those pitfalls.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
That was a real epiphany for me. Actually, I have to say the thing about, you know, owning up to your own part in it. Cause I think however much I sort of still love and respect my husband. I definitely felt like I was the wronged party, even though I was the instigator. And actually when I read that, I thought to myself, well, yeah, I actually do need to look at my personality and what I've done. And I suppose when the other person isn't in the relationship with you, rather than always blaming anything, going wrong on them, you have to sort of realize that sometimes it’s your fault and carries on even after you're not married to that person. And then you have to go, okay, that wasn't him. That was me. I think it's, it can be quite tempting when you're leaving a relationship…well I suppose you have to focus on the negatives in order to sort of say to yourself, yeah, there are enough for these things now that make me think this isn't right. But I see now reading this, that actually, that doesn't help me with an ongoing relationship with my husband,
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Either with your husband, but also if at some point you're in a new partnership, you know, it's, it's useful to be able to learn from things we managed well and things we didn't manage so well.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
And I suppose if you need to get to the stage where you can acknowledge, there were good things about the marriage and not to kind of gloss over all of that as if it was a kind of nothing good about it.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I think that's absolutely right. And, and it's a painful one to do because to remember that there was anything good and that there are losses and sadnesses, there was ever a time when things went well. And so, you know, you can feel rather grief struck at it, but if you can't allow yourself to do that and you keep saying yes, it was always bad. There was never anything good about it. Then in a way, what you're doing is kind of obliterating any good past memories. So you just have this rather obliterated internal landscape, which is pretty miserable and you know, and isn't a good basis to sort of feel you have anything to move on with.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
At first I didn't want to really challenge myself about what my kind of part was in the breakdown of the relationship, but it's actually been quite freeing. I've definitely not taking responsibility for my own part. And it's probably been nice for him to think of me doing that as well. Cause I don't think being in a position where you feel like you're the one who's made all the mistakes is good for someone's soul either. It's not nice to be self-righteous anyway and be sort of, you know, I'm the virtuous one.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
It can begin to feel uncomfortable, can't it? Whereas at least if you've kind of fessed up, well, then we're kind of making peace with ourselves a bit. We are human. We, we bring our human selves into our friendships and relationships.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
So the window of opportunity or talking about is people who managed to evolve from the experience and
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Absolutely who didn't, who didn't sort of shut down. We're able to remain open, you know, to use friends sometimes to find resources that they didn't know they had before in the studies, there are quite a lot of women who at that stage, hadn't trained before they'd had children and they went on, you know, with great courage and, you know, to go on and train or something like that. But I mean, I think a lot of people actually felt that they, and again, after process had more confidence, had more of a sense of themselves who they were in their own right.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah. That's interesting actually. I mean, I've definitely through necessity had to sort of start working and I think that's been really good for me. I've realized that actually I've got a lot to offer and maybe I was nervous about making that move before, but now I've just had to do it. And that's been a good motivator for me that I didn't have before,
Speaker 2 (17:55):
But actually it's quite important to our children to learn, well, my mother is available, but she has other things going on in her life too. And I might mind and might feel cross that she's not instantly accessible, but actually she is a person in her own right. Actually a parent isn't just a servant. Some things are easier too. I mean, I've found sometimes, you know, making decisions could actually be easier when it was up to me, you know, it could be, it could be more frightening, but actually it was nice having the, the power and the responsibility.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And that sort of autonomy. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I suppose when you're in a relationship there's so much compromise goes on the often you can't always like have a thing the way it's done, but you're able to kind of do things in your own way a bit more
Speaker 2 (18:55):
You think too, you know, but just sort of a lot of people, you know, they've begun their relationship reasonably early and you know, when they were still kind of sorting out and yes, as you're saying, doing lots of compromises, then actually that, that sort of moment of being separate and kind of thinking and that discovery about, oh, well actually, is this what I want to do with my evening? Or is this the piece of music I want to listen to? Or, you know, it's, it's an extraordinary opportunity.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I think also sort of learning skills that maybe I used to just kind of leave to my husband, I'm terrible map reader. So I was used to just leave that to him, for example. And it's something that I never tried to do, but actually now I've realized I'm fine at it, but I just, it was easier for me to just kind of pass it over to him. I think sometimes when you rely on somebody for those things, you end up feeling a bit less competent as a person. And it's quite nice to feel that actually yeah, I'm independent and I can kind of, I can do this. Yeah. I think that's a good feeling. Well, there's obviously a big difference in experience for those that are leavers and they, that those that have been left and you pose an interesting question, who is the real leaver? And it isn't always as obvious as it may seem….
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I thought that was quite interesting. Yeah. Because you know, it can look like that, but the more I thought about it, the more I talked to various people about it, I was kind of thinking, you know, but actually someone, for example, can just sort of quietly pull away from a marriage and they can think while I'm still part of this, but actually to the degree, the other one picks it up and maybe turns and looks elsewhere or whatever, that one who's done, the obvious turning away, it looks like they're the leaver, but actually what about the other one? Who's, who's done this retreat it's possible then to feel innocent. Well, it wasn't me, but actually, you know, noticing that ways that, you know, maybe one hasn't come forward or, or sort of,
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I think that's fascinating. And I think because I'm the sort of instigator, some people might sort of judge me and say, oh, well, I'm the one who's broken up the marriage, but I've got my own ideas about what happened leading up to that. So that was a really interesting point for me to read because that really made sense to me. And I think it's not black and white. Is it that whole thing about looking at the marriage is something between two people and people who have both had their part in it, I think is it feels like a more comfortable place to be in as well. So I don't feel like I'm the bad guy necessarily. We kind of all got our share of it, which I think feels fairer. You may, I mean, you make loads of great points, but one of the points I really liked was you search really important to surround yourself with people who aren't just sympathizing with you and taking your side.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I think that's right. I think, I think you don't only, you need people to say yes, you're right. I mean, I know that when I was going through my divorce, I wasn't the instigator, but very useful to talk to people who had been the one to make the first move or to talk to men as well as women. You know, because actually it gets you to start thinking, you know, it sort of stops you having your very black and white way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
There was a brilliant quote. You said “sharing shock and devastation with fellow travelers can be invaluable”. It's so true because actually part of why I wanted to do the podcast was so people would feel less alone going through it as well. But also this idea about talking to people who are in maybe the position your husband's in, but you don't have an emotional connection with. You're just really able to have much more compassion. So I spoke to this dad called Thomas who's a fantastic guy. And he was talking to me about when he's co-parenting and how he makes it fun with the kids. And, you know, doesn't want to be spending the whole time cooking cause he doesn't have that much time to connect. And I thought that's so good to know, because I know that if my husband had the kids for the weekend and they came back and said, well, we just had McDonald's the whole weekend and we didn't really do anything. I'd be thinking, oh, he's not pulling his weight. And you know, he should be doing this, that and the other, but now I would think, oh, I completely get that. So over the course of the book, you interviewed lots of couples who were talking to you about their breakups. And I really enjoyed reading all the different case studies. They all had really good lesson to me.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
We need to look at these other couples and learn from it,
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Hearing those different stories and putting yourself in those people's shoes when you don't have that kind of emotional attachment to someone is so useful.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I mean, one of the chapters in the book that I most liked was the one about letting go of hatred, which I, I think is a really difficult thing to do. The advantage of hatred is that it makes you feel strong. And if you're feeling very vulnerable and anxious and hurt rage and hatred is a way of well giving you energy, which to a degree of courses is helpful, but actually if it gets you stuck. So, I mean, I went back for example, to the work of the truth and reconciliation committee in South Africa and Rwanda and so on and via the point being actually that what is so helpful is not a sort of punitive court case, but one which is justice, which is restorative, which is about the person who has done something actually confessing to the other one and the other one able to hear it.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Because I think that there's a way too, that we can kind of get on our high horse in a situation and feel this is the most awful thing that someone could ever have done. And in fact, yes, it is terribly hurtful. It is terribly painful, kind of pulling apart, you know, a marriage and the connections and the hopes and all that. It's very painful, but it isn't the same as losing a child or someone being killed needlessly. It's not that it actually is about a couple who have fallen out of love and haven't managed to make it work in the super long-term. And, and it is sad that maybe it is a forgivable in a human thing.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Sometimes when you're in the maelstrom, you're just like, oh, this is just the worst thing ever. And that sort of gives me a bit more hope. I think that actually, if handled in the right way, it doesn't have to be disastrous.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It doesn't have to be disastrous, but more than that, actually, you know, it's, it can be part of a good life. You know, there can be disappointments and difficulties along the way, and it can still have been worth having done or still worth taking a risk in a new relationship. And that's, that's how relationships are. It's not about fault and blame and hatred. We are human. We bring our human selves into our friendships and relationships and love relationships to
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Thank you for listening to this episode over at good divorce. I'm Rachel and I'm getting divorced on this podcast. I interview experts and other people who've gone through a divorce to try to learn how to have a good one. If you have any suggestions of people you'd like to see interviewed, or you'd like to be interviewed yourself, please email me@agooddivorcepodcast@gmail.com or find me on Instagram and Facebook under a good divorce. I'd love to hear about things that have worked well for you. I also welcome comments and questions. I hope to hear from you soon.