When Your Ex’s New Life Looks Like a Dream After They Shattered Yours

You’re barely picking up the pieces, and your ex has already moved on—posting picture-perfect snapshots of their new, fabulous life. Meanwhile, you're left wondering: Were they always this happy, or is this just for show? 

In this episode, Dr. Kerry and Lisa Sonni dive into why narcissists and toxic personalities seem to seamlessly transition into a "perfect" new relationship. Is it real, or is it just another illusion? And if you’re struggling with the gut-punch of watching your ex’s highlight reel, we’ve got practical strategies to help you break free from the comparison trap and reclaim your healing.

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More About Us!

Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D.

Dr. Kerry, a retired psychologist and author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships and deconstructing narcissism. Her blogs have been featured in Mamami, YourTango, Scary Mommy, and The Good Men Project. In Love You More, Dr. McAvoy gives an uncensored glimpse into her survival of narcissistic abuse, and her workbook, First Steps to Leaving a Narcissist, helps victims break free from the confusion common in abusive relationships. She hosts the Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse podcast and offers trauma-related advice on social media.

Lisa Sonni

Lisa Sonni is a certified Life & Relationship Coach, specializing in trauma bond recovery and abuse education, who helps clients from all walks of life overcome challenges stemming from traumatic partnerships. She has published an online self-guided course, The Trauma Bond Recovery Course, and several books, The Trauma Bond Recovery Journal, and Surviving to Thriving: A Six-Step Blueprint to Narcissistic Abuse Healing and Recovery.

With 7 professional certifications and her own personal experience as a survivor of narcissistic abuse, her expertise is geared towards getting clients to a good space in their lives and within themselves. Lisa has two children and enjoys cooking, reading,

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• 12:50 (Cont.) When Your Ex’s New Life Looks Like a Dream After They Shattered Yours

Transcript

00:00:04:16 - 00:00:24:09

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

After a narcissistic relationship ends, often the new life looks like a dream. While our life looks like a mess. In this episode, Lisa and I tackled this troubling dynamic and how to view it differently, so that doesn't drive you insane.

00:00:24:10 - 00:00:46:10

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Have you noticed, Lisa, how the narcissists new life looks like a dream? I don't know how many times I've heard this when survivors are talking about looking either on Instagram or somehow having a sense that everything now is perfect, magical, like they've just picked up and moved on. I know it certainly looks that way. In my case, the engagement photos were already being posted before the divorce was finalized.

00:00:46:10 - 00:00:54:06

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

So yeah, he looked pretty happy right after this relationship was over. Did it happen to you or did you face something similar to this as well?

00:00:54:08 - 00:01:18:15

Lisa Sonni

Yeah, I absolutely did. And it's the standard narcissistic new supply move on so quickly. They move on at warp speed and so my move was done while we were still together. So it did appear like he was really happy. It weighed on me so heavily to see that he's happy. I'm shattered. I'm literally laying on the bathroom floor crying, and he gets to move on and just go be happy with someone else.

00:01:18:16 - 00:01:19:23

Lisa Sonni

It's wildly unfair.

00:01:20:02 - 00:01:36:12

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Oh it is. I mean, when you think about what I was left, I was left with a dying son. So I am trucking to the hospital by myself, walking and sitting by his bedside, knowing that my ex is already down. Back in Mexico, meeting up with the person he'd been in a relationship with. The girlfriend. Yeah, it was devastating.

00:01:36:12 - 00:01:59:19

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I was really angry. And I have to say, despite me knowing what I know. I mean, granted, I'm a psychologist, so there's a lot that I know, but despite that, I felt defective. I felt thrown out. I felt used, you know, and I even knew what she looked like. This woman has nothing over me. Nothing at all. So it wasn't like I felt like, oh, insecure about my body or my image, but I just felt like it has been unloved.

00:01:59:21 - 00:02:00:11

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Unloved?

00:02:00:15 - 00:02:20:08

Lisa Sonni

Yeah. Unloved. Absolutely. You know, I actually am not one who struggled so much wondering if I was the problem, I was confused, I was so perplexed, like, I don't I don't understand it. And I don't even mean from the perspective of putting her down, because the amount of people that knew her as well or reached out to me to say, oh, she's not pretty or she's not.

00:02:20:09 - 00:02:36:04

Lisa Sonni

I'm like, listen, listen, I don't want to be that kind of woman who trashes someone else. Certainly not the way they look. But yeah, she was with him when I was with him and she knew about me. So I mean, I'm not I'm not defending her. I'm not a fan, but I'm just saying I don't like the idea of putting someone else down.

00:02:36:09 - 00:02:57:18

Lisa Sonni

But I also couldn't understand, like, why her, of all people, it was the antithesis of everything he said he ever wanted. It was like realizing the lie. It was realizing that he told me all these things and it wasn't true. Or he made it up the entire time. He just doesn't know what he wants, or he'll shapeshift into whatever relationship he needs to to kind of keep that going.

00:02:57:21 - 00:03:00:00

Lisa Sonni

I started to realize how fake it all was.

00:03:00:00 - 00:03:19:02

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Yeah, yeah, that's another big part of this is their new life that they pick up can look radically different than ours. For me, I guess that drove home the cognitive dissonance piece that the reality that I had was never real. The person that I created in my head that he helped create in my head didn't actually exist. Although, I'll tell you, it wasn't like he left.

00:03:19:02 - 00:03:39:14

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

And I realized that it took months for me to realize that. So it was a process, but it did help me to think there's nothing he's doing today that aligns with who I am and what I want to be about. So, I mean, that's not a life that I really want, but it did emphasize the fact that I was living with a false persona, very much so.

00:03:39:18 - 00:03:56:14

Lisa Sonni

Yeah, that was very eye opening to me. At first I couldn't understand it, but I actually when you start to realize that that's what their whole world is, is a false persona. So they told you, oh, I don't like women that are like this, and then they leave you for a woman exactly like that. It's actually. Yeah. They lied.

00:03:56:17 - 00:04:01:19

Lisa Sonni

Oh, shocker. Big truth is, they're liars. We know that, right?

00:04:01:22 - 00:04:23:07

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Right, right. It is common, though, for a lot of us, and I hear it often for us to think that the new supply is a bad person. I don't feel that way. I mean, just like you, my was very involved before the relationship. I found photos that they had had a vacation just prior to him meeting me. So I mean, she existed for years ahead of me.

00:04:23:13 - 00:04:40:04

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I don't know where they're at today, nor do I care. But in other words, she was an ongoing presence in our relationship. So I have reasons to not like the woman. I mean, I actually had an interaction with her, and she's still, I mean, under her belief systems, odd. And I don't align with it. That's for sure. But I don't hate her.

00:04:40:04 - 00:04:51:18

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I don't envy her. I don't want her position. I don't even think bad things about her. Honestly, I feel sorry for her. That's how I really, truly feel. But I've noticed how many people vilify the new supply.

00:04:51:21 - 00:05:10:08

Lisa Sonni

I get that though. I actually really see both sides and I have gone through stages where I did and I mean, I would even say I do to a degree still in the sense that she knew. And here's the thing, people are like, oh, but narcissists lie to everybody. Yeah, I know that. And I know that there was a level of lie that was told to her.

00:05:10:11 - 00:05:29:22

Lisa Sonni

I'm sure she thought we weren't together. I'm sure at one point. But I happen to know for a fact, because she tried to befriend me, she hung out with me. She talked to me on the phone. She absolutely, unequivocally, 110% knew I existed, knew the status of our relationship, and fully lied directly to my face. So she knew.

00:05:29:22 - 00:05:45:15

Lisa Sonni

So I'm I'm going to vilify a bit more than the average person. I do believe that in many cases, the new supply is completely lied to. And I think that's a bit unfair because it's easy to say she should have known. Well, we all should have known if you're going to look at it like that, we don't know.

00:05:45:20 - 00:05:48:02

Lisa Sonni

But she knew that's where I draw the line.

00:05:48:05 - 00:06:05:19

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Yeah. And I think maybe one of the reasons that I don't quite hold her as high of a standard as I see a lot of other people do is because, listen, I always wife number five, okay? So I was a new supply for the last woman who, by the way, was still married to him when we were dating and engaged, although I didn't know it.

00:06:05:23 - 00:06:24:22

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

So I mean, that woman could have a lot of bad feelings about me as well, that I was really innocent. And I also witnessed this is the other thing, because I did so much investigative work on my own around what happened to right. Love you more. I also know that the new person is being just as massively abused as I was.

00:06:24:22 - 00:06:33:03

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I don't envy anyone in that position. So was she complicit? Absolutely. But is she also a victim? Oh, absolutely.

00:06:33:07 - 00:06:56:02

Lisa Sonni

Absolutely. And actually, that was an incredible realization for me. And I would think a shocking one, because by this time I was actually already online. And I would say, you know, they're never good to the new person. Don't worry, I promise you, they stay the same, they don't change. And I will admit that in the back of my mind, if I could quantify like a half a percent, I thought, I think, I think that that this is true.

00:06:56:02 - 00:07:18:01

Lisa Sonni

I'm not, you know, maybe what if I'm wrong? There was that little shred of self-doubt. I ended up getting proof and he is abusive to her unequivocally that I have so much evidence to support that. And it makes me sad. I remember for a moment feeling validated, but actually I was like, oh man, that sucks because I think from her perspective, she really won the prize and then realized I was right.

00:07:18:04 - 00:07:25:09

Lisa Sonni

But I don't know that she consciously understands that I was right. I think that she would probably see me as the cause of why he treats her that way.

00:07:25:13 - 00:07:49:22

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Let's circle back, because I think what really throws people off is why narcissists do create a new life that looks so amazing. And what that's about, because it creates so much additional confusion and a lot of pain for survivors when they're trying to rebuild, especially when they're because we both we both know that when narcissists leave a relationship, it isn't going to be, you win and they win situation.

00:07:49:23 - 00:08:09:17

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

There's no mutual gains here. It's going to be mutual mass destruction often, or they're going to win and you lose. So it's going to be they come out ahead and you come out holding just the pieces. So it feels very unfair. And there's a lot of pain that happens around that. I think one of the things that I realize is that narcissists play an image game.

00:08:09:20 - 00:08:41:10

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

They're extremely competitive. It's all about how they present, and in the beginning, they're extremely good at making an idealistic picture look as though it's authentic, and they're doing that for the new person, but they're also doing it because they're aware you're watching, because they're aware that the world is watching, but they're aware that you're watching. And I think that's the other terribly ironic part of it is its number of victims, who then discover that their partner continues to stalk them, maybe just online, but there's a level of them watching you watch them.

00:08:41:12 - 00:08:46:15

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

And so they're extremely aware of kind of creating what we call an Instagram look to their life.

00:08:46:15 - 00:09:07:01

Lisa Sonni

Like it's a PR campaign and people need to realize this is a performance, you know, that you're watching it even if they don't know, like they can't prove that you are creeping their Instagram stories. They think you are. They think that your sister's telling them, your friends that that this information will get back to you. They are curating this life to look so happy.

00:09:07:04 - 00:09:29:03

Lisa Sonni

And my question is always a little bit rhetorically like, why are you watching? What are you getting out of this? Because it actually hurts you. But I do understand the difficulty, and I think the point is that you see it now. You might be co-parenting and the kids come home and they're like, she's amazing or he's amazing. And it's so sad to feel that way to to see, even indirectly see or hear that they're happy without you.

00:09:29:03 - 00:09:53:06

Lisa Sonni

But this is an assumption because I think that when I look back, I see old like Instagram posts where I'm like, oh, I'm so in love. And it was after we got into an argument and I realized how much we all put forward on social media, this picture perfect life when it's not speaking for myself, the new supply had a lot of reasons to want to show me that I was wrong about him so that her little Instagram life was curated.

00:09:53:06 - 00:10:17:16

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I know that when it was me in that position, I did know. I just knew that the love bombing felt so amazing that I was accidentally contributing to the look, that this is an amazing I mean, people who didn't know what was really going on, who was just watching from afar, just my own friends and community were saying they thought I had a fantasy love life, and that I met the guy so that when everything kind of fell apart, they're like, oh my goodness, there was this big shock.

00:10:17:19 - 00:10:41:19

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

So I know that that was happening. But we underestimate that. The love bombing doesn't just happen with us. It's constantly happening with the public that what everybody is seeing is the curated self. They have a deep need to have this false persona so the people don't really know who they are. No one knows. I look back, honestly, I don't even think the person who she is today with her is the real person.

00:10:41:19 - 00:10:59:14

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I don't know if anyone knows that real person. I don't know if anyone ever gets to be allowed to know that real person, which to me, I found actually very creepy and scary that there is a side to this individual that is so deeply private and held apart from everybody that no one's allowed to get close.

00:10:59:14 - 00:11:18:04

Lisa Sonni

Yeah, it's really, really creepy. That's exactly the right word. Nobody knows him. And actually, my sister once said that to me. The only thing you know about him is that you'll never really know him. And I was like, oh, that's so true, because it's a mask. So they'll pretend to be who you need them to be, who the new supply needs them to be, and they just rinse and repeat.

00:11:18:07 - 00:11:28:05

Lisa Sonni

But we compare our healing to their acting. And meanwhile we're playing two different games. What you see online, whatever you see is likely not what's actually happening.

00:11:28:05 - 00:11:48:03

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Yeah, it's then presented on purpose that way. And sometimes this is the other hard part. It's to punish you. And we don't actually say that aloud very often. We just tell people stop looking. Which yeah, that's what they should do. But I think that deep down we recognize that there is a degree that this person wants to insult and inflict injury on you.

00:11:48:03 - 00:12:07:18

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Why do you think mine had engagement pictures posted on WhatsApp before even the divorce? By the way, my divorce went super quick, unusually quick. I was one of the extremely lucky few that from the date that I filed, actually, I thought I filed in August but didn't realize I hadn't really filed the paperwork. I really filed the first week of September.

00:12:07:21 - 00:12:09:22

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I was divorced on September 20th.

00:12:09:22 - 00:12:21:08

Lisa Sonni

Oh wow. Yeah, I have clients that tell me like two years, three years longer. Sometimes they can really drag it out. Yeah. So that knowing how how quickly that is, it's like, how could you possibly be engaged so quickly?

00:12:21:08 - 00:12:41:06

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

That's. Yeah. Yeah. So he actually walked. Yeah. He walked out the week right after 4th of July. And then the divorce was final by September 20th. So think about that. That's a short span. And the engagement photos on WhatsApp popped up in August. And of course here's the other caveat. It was on the beach near where we lived.

00:12:41:09 - 00:12:58:20

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

And she lives like, you know, she had to take a flight to get there. It wasn't anywhere near convenient. Was it? Like there near a beach? She's not near a beach. She's in the mountains. So there. Flew into our home town area to stay and took the photos. And you don't think that was an intentional effort to her?

00:12:58:20 - 00:13:00:18

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Of course it was, of course.

00:13:00:18 - 00:13:15:23

Lisa Sonni

Because it absolutely was. There's a lot of little things, you know. I mean, mine moved to the city that he said he would never live to, that I asked him to live. He absolutely refused. That's exactly where they moved. And then later I found out that she hates living where they live and feels like she was dragged there.

00:13:16:02 - 00:13:18:16

Lisa Sonni

Well that's interesting.

00:13:18:18 - 00:13:36:14

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

You just say interesting. That interesting. She's Lisa man. Yeah, there's a lot. There is a lot. In fact, I know somebody right now that they're exes hanging out in their home area too. You know, like why why would they do that? It's literally like, you know, imagine that you got stabbed. And then they pushed their thumb into that wound.

00:13:36:14 - 00:13:39:02

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

That's really what they're doing. They're pushing their thumb into the wound.

00:13:39:04 - 00:13:58:22

Lisa Sonni

Absolutely. I actually I have a client whose dream trip was South Africa, and they planned this trip. The hotel, the flights, what they where they were going to eat, what they were going to do. He broke up with her, took the new supply to that trip, that she planned the entire thing. The same hotel, the same restaurants. And she's watching it play out on Instagram.

00:13:58:22 - 00:14:14:07

Lisa Sonni

Just absolutely like, I can't believe he's giving her everything he said he would give me. But does the new person want that? Is that her dream trip? Imagine finding out that you're on an amazing trip with someone and their ex is who planned it, and you're just a placeholder. Imagine. That's horrible feeling.

00:14:14:07 - 00:14:18:14

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

You're right. Actually, that's a massive betrayal to the new person. Yes.

00:14:18:16 - 00:14:26:17

Lisa Sonni

Yes. And that's the point that I was trying to make was this is not she's on a dream trip. She's on your dream trip. That's weird.

00:14:26:19 - 00:14:51:00

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Death is really weird. Yeah. And I think those are the things that we don't see at the time. We don't get that. All we get is that we've been dog whistled. We don't get the fact that the new person is being actively betrayed by the act of that, that this says that this person still has you in their mind, they're still addressing you, and they're willing to use a new person as a cardboard cutout in order to reenact pain on you.

00:14:51:03 - 00:15:05:23

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

When you start to really think about that, that starts to put it in a different perspective. That makes me feel, I mean, I already felt bad for her, but I not like I said, she's complicit. It's certain measure up in my story, but I don't. She's not a lucky person. There is not. She did not win any lotto here.

00:15:06:02 - 00:15:25:00

Lisa Sonni

Oh yeah, I know, it's like that's the weirdest thing. It's like you're holding that winning ticket. They are. They're thinking they're holding this winning ticket and it's like, you won nothing. You won garbage. You won absolutely nothing here. It's really sad to sort of almost feel like you've stepped into that person's life. I know in my case, she's been told if I was going to be treated like this, then why didn't I just stay with Lisa?

00:15:25:02 - 00:15:44:22

Lisa Sonni

And just all these comments, constantly triangulating Photoshop Instagram photos to make herself appear thinner so that I feel bad. Meanwhile, I don't see those photos. I stopped looking a long time ago. I absolutely did in the beginning, but you eventually have to move on from that, and I moved on a lot faster than she did. But I get why?

00:15:44:23 - 00:15:56:00

Lisa Sonni

Because my name comes up in their relationship. Yep. So I get that. How do you move on? How does she move on and live her new life when I'm, I don't know, a ghost in their life?

00:15:56:02 - 00:16:18:23

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Yeah, exactly. And that's such a good point because here's the critical piece. I think you and I have been dancing around and that is we still give them control over our self, over our healing, even feelings about our life and relationships and everything about them. When we're aware of this and that. The best way through this, and I know we want to talk more about this in the podcast, extra is the practical steps to how to start to take your life back and stop doing this.

00:16:18:23 - 00:16:36:18

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

But the essential piece for me was because mine was stalking me online. Heavily, me just heavily. I think in a year I tracked it. She visited my site over 300 times, and some of the articles she revisit. I mean, I even knew when like one of the articles, which was what it's like to be married to a sex addict.

00:16:36:19 - 00:16:54:15

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

He would visit a 2:00 in the morning to read it. I mean, I could see where he was logging in. It was really bizarre, his preoccupation with me, preoccupation. He even referenced my writing and what I was writing about in a letter. So I yeah, I mean, I verification, yes, he was reading it. So they are extremely preoccupied with us.

00:16:54:15 - 00:17:08:13

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I think that we don't recognize that. But when we do see it and we're watching them while they watch us, we're giving our control away one more time. We're back under their thumb. And I think a lot of time most of us don't recognize that.

00:17:08:17 - 00:17:20:17

Lisa Sonni

Yeah, we absolutely don't. I don't think that narcissists can really be happy. You know, like you talk about the emptiness that they feel and they don't have a strong sense of self. Do you think that they are happy with the new person? They.

00:17:20:22 - 00:17:45:14

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

No, no, I don't think so because I think there's an inner restlessness. They're so novelty driven that they're seeking out something that's risky and new and exciting. And the minute somebody think about it, this is why it switches. Where's the switch happened in these relationships? It happens when they feel the relationship becomes committed, when you are theirs. And whatever moment that is when the door like, locks behind you, they're bored.

00:17:45:17 - 00:18:03:20

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I think immediately they're like, okay, done over. Now that I've achieved that, sort of like they climbed the mountain, you know, my neighbors now, what's a new adventure going to be? They immediately move on. So yeah, no, they're not happy. And I think that's why they're watching us is because that's a new kick is how am I disrupting or destroying this other person's life?

00:18:03:22 - 00:18:24:13

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

But also just because they like just the whole drama. They're very drama kind of chaos oriented people. But some of them, I've noticed, is sort of internally empty. There's just a flat like boredom to them. So some are sort of risk takers and some are just there's not a lot. They're driving them. So they're just this restless. I guess that's the word I keep coming back to.

00:18:24:13 - 00:18:46:00

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

There's this restlessness to them. And it's sad because they're restless. Everybody. That's something every person has to solve themselves and they don't solve it. They just jump from a consumable to consumable to consumable. That's why they struggle with addictions and gambling and all this other acting out behavior, sex and all that other stuff is they're just very driven people, very unhappy, driven people.

00:18:46:03 - 00:19:06:20

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

So the podcast extra, let's talk about how to mentally stop watching, which is really hard, how to focus on yourself. But I want to also talk about the fan mail that we've gotten. We got a question that actually was about you, and I think people don't fully appreciate and realize that you're a ghost, that you're now officially here.

00:19:06:20 - 00:19:17:10

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

It's a two person show, which I'm really super excited about and thankful that you're here. So tell people a little bit about yourself. And one of the questions specifically was about trauma bonds. Yeah.

00:19:17:10 - 00:19:33:07

Lisa Sonni

So I mean certified relationship coach I work with people one on one. That's my full time gig. I help people break and heal from trauma bonds. In fact, I noticed that if you Google trauma bonds or trauma bond expert, I am one of the top search results, which is, you know, phenomenal. But I oh.

00:19:33:12 - 00:19:33:19

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Yeah.

00:19:33:19 - 00:19:53:11

Lisa Sonni

I've really honed in on that specifically. And the reason for that is because the travel ban for me was just the biggest piece of confusion. I did not understand why I stayed. I felt so stupid. I felt such deep, profound shame. And when I discovered what a trauma bond was, it was like a light bulb went off and I started studying it.

00:19:53:11 - 00:20:22:09

Lisa Sonni

And it's what made me want to specialize in this specific area. So breaking them and recovering from them. What that really takes, how you emotionally detach, how you resolve that cognitive dissonance, and then really how you focus on yourself. So I sort of have two arms of my business is breaking the trauma bond. And then what that's like to rebuild as well as co-parenting, it's not legal strategy, but the communication and the emotional regulation that's necessary to survive that kind of dynamic with someone who's really toxic.

00:20:22:12 - 00:20:29:00

Lisa Sonni

But I'm happy to be on the show and kind of add my own insights based on what I've been through and what I've studied and what I've learned.

00:20:29:03 - 00:20:37:23

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Yeah, yeah. In fact, people should know that you have several workbooks available, but also have a course as well as a group coaching program that helps with that. Right?

00:20:38:01 - 00:20:59:06

Lisa Sonni

I do, and April 24th is the next trauma bond group coaching program. And we do hosted several times a year. So just join the cohort that's closest to when you're listening to this episode. We also have a program called Healing Strong that's geared towards people who are already out of the relationship, but healing. But the trauma bond group coaching one is incredible, and it's actually based off of my self-paced course.

00:20:59:11 - 00:21:19:20

Lisa Sonni

So for people who want something a little bit more self-guided and maybe not ready to interact with people yet, or doing it kind of on the secret, the Trauma Bond Recovery course is a really great option under $100, and you get lifetime access to all 12 really in-depth modules. But the group coaching is where we sort of bring that to life and really interact with small groups of people, and you and I do that together.

00:21:19:20 - 00:21:21:07

Lisa Sonni

So it's it's incredible. Right?

00:21:21:10 - 00:21:39:14

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Yeah. We offer several group coaching programs together that that's one of them as well as Healing Strong. So that's amazing to be able to have a 12 weeks with each of us. I mean, you get six weeks, I get six weeks. We spend time with us directly, interact with us, ask questions and learn a whole lot. There's another question that came in this past week that was really a tough one.

00:21:39:14 - 00:21:56:01

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

And I know that's something we kind of talk a lot about is this came from Fort Smith, Arkansas. I have no idea how to escape the toxic relationship. It's been six years, and I wrote in my journal this morning, he looks at me with lust and void, not respect and love. Please help.

00:21:56:01 - 00:21:58:00

Lisa Sonni

Oh, that is so hard to hear.

00:21:58:01 - 00:21:58:12

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I know.

00:21:58:12 - 00:22:13:09

Lisa Sonni

You know. And to me that sounds like a trauma bond because I. I always feel like the most easy way to look at this is if you see that, if you can see that it's bad and that there's a void and that it's not good, and you don't like how you're being treated, but you don't know how to leave, you can't just walk out the door.

00:22:13:10 - 00:22:34:23

Lisa Sonni

That is a very likely sign that you're in a trauma bond. So learning about what that is why you feel stuck and also sort of looking inward at why you stay from a place of curiosity, not judgment, and figure out like, what are the fears? What are the things that keep you stuck and really work towards building some strength in those areas and start the process of trying to leave?

00:22:34:23 - 00:22:35:16

Lisa Sonni

I know it's hard.

00:22:35:20 - 00:22:42:20

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Yeah, and they can find out more about you and your resources at Stronger Than before. Okay. Right. Yes.

00:22:42:22 - 00:22:43:13

Lisa Sonni

Great. Exactly.

00:22:43:16 - 00:23:00:22

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Great. So let's hop over to the podcast extra and talk about how to stop watching your ex and their supposedly dream life when your life has been shattered. So yeah, thank you so much, Lisa, and we look forward to I think next week we're going to have a guest to back on. And so I'm super excited about that.

00:23:01:02 - 00:23:06:17

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Which one do you think we're going to go with. You want to say anything about that can either Chuck or it's going to be, Erica.

00:23:06:20 - 00:23:26:15

Lisa Sonni

Yeah, I think, the first the next one is, Chuck Dary, who's from the gender based Violence Institute. He's retired now. But with so many decades of experience in studying abusive men and and why they do what they do, he's got some incredible insights about how intentional the abuses that is going to blow people's minds.

00:23:26:17 - 00:23:32:11

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

I'm super excited because he's the one that has that list of the reasons why men abuse, right? Isn't he the one that created the.

00:23:32:11 - 00:23:34:05

Lisa Sonni

Endless, endless list?

00:23:34:09 - 00:23:52:13

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

Yeah, yeah, we'll make sure we put that in the show notes, a link to that list when we post that, because it's like mouth dropping. Awful. So yeah, I'm super excited. So all right thank you so much for that. And we'll see you guys next time. Well that's a wrap for this week's episode. Are you following this on TikTok, Facebook Instagram and YouTube?

00:23:52:15 - 00:23:55:08

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

You can find me at Carrie McEvoy PhD.

00:23:55:09 - 00:24:09:02

Lisa Sonni

Com or find me on TikTok and YouTube at Stronger Than Before and on Instagram Stronger than before coach. Whether you're in considering leaving or have left a narcissistic relationship. Find community support and our toxic free relationship club.

00:24:09:04 - 00:24:18:16

Dr. Kerry McAvoy

You can learn about this and other resources at Kerri McEvoy fd.com or at Stronger Than Before. Okay. And we'll see you back here next week.