Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse

How Narcissists Use Love Bombing to Build a Financial Trap

• Kerry McAvoy, Ph.D. • Season 5 • Episode 295

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He checked the grocery receipt. And the look on his face said everything: he expected to catch you at something. 

You weren't a partner. You were a suspected thief. 

But that moment — that first time money became a surveillance tool — didn't come out of nowhere. It didn't start with the receipts, or the interrogations, or the separate account he opened without telling you. 

It started the moment he made you feel like the luckiest person alive. Because that feeling — of being chosen, adored, and completely seen — was the setup for everything that came after. 

This week, Kerry sits down with clinical co-host and  UK psychologist Lynn S. to break down exactly how narcissists use love bombing to lay the groundwork for financial control —  and why so many survivors don't recognize the trap until they're already inside it. 

In this episode: 

  • Why money is never just money in a narcissistic relationship 
  • The "eating off my plate" impulse: the primitive threat response that drives financial control 
  • How love bombing creates the emotional dependency that makes financial control feel normal — even deserved 
  • The "empty jar" framework: why giving second chances too early is one of the most dangerous mistakes in new relationships. 

Want to go deeper? 

For the Podcast Extra interview: 

Paid Substack subscribers get exclusive access to Kerry and Lynn's full conversation on "sitting in the grey" — the psychological skill narcissists systematically destroy, and why rebuilding your capacity to trust your own inner compass requires something most survivors never think to look for.

🔒 Become a paid subscriber and unlock your access today: https://substack.com/@breakingfreenarcabuse 

LYNN STRATHDEE is a UK-based psychodynamic psychotherapist specializing in echoism, narcissistic abuse recovery, and the unconscious patterns that keep survivors stuck in repeating relationship cycles. A former educator turned therapist, Lynn brings both clinical training and lived experience to her private practice, where she works with clients online and in person. Her approach goes beyond surface-level psychoeducation to the deeper identity work that creates lasting change.  

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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D., an author and educator, helps listeners decode toxic dynamics, recognize manipulation, and rebuild self-trust.

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This podcast/video is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute therapy, counseling, or professional mental health advice, nor does listening create a doctor-patient or therapist-client relationship. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 911 or contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 (US/Canada).

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

There are people who literally move in that fast, impregnate you that fast in order to have power in your life. All I saw was, oh, hallmark of love bombing and then entrapment. I saw clients being hounded about their mileage or grocery receipts or Christmas gifts. It was amazing to me how much surveillance one partner would do of another around something like this. When I first got married, and my first husband wasn't a narcissist, but he did have narcissistic traits, and definitely was immature around some things. Thank goodness he had some characteristics that made him amenable to change, and so there were significant changes. But one of the first things that happened was he would get really upset over what I spent at the grocery store. He would actually ask to see the receipt-

Lynn Strathdee:

Wow.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

And then compare what was in the house against the receipt, as if somehow I'd, I don't know, like I stuck stuff in there. I don't know what he thought, but he thought something. And it hurt. It really hurt because for one, I didn't like to have that kind of surveillance- That's what it felt like. It felt like, lack of trust. It also made me feel like he was seeing it as his money, not our money, and I really had the perspective that what we made, each of us made, belonged to the household, didn't belong to us individually. That, so it hurt. But I, I'll never forget, so he got into therapy pretty fast because we hit a roadblock that if I said if we didn't get straightened out, I was not gonna stay married to him. So he got into therapy, and he apparently complained to the therapist a lot, to enough so he came home and told me this interaction he had with the therapist. The therapist said to him,"Is she that bad with money?" I mean, I think the therapist truly wanted to know. And he paused and, 'cause this was one great thing about Brad, was that he was always honest. Mm. So if you asked him a big question, he would think on it, and then compared, he was an engineer, so his engineering mind would come out, and he said, "No, actually, she's really good with money." And then he said, "So what is your issue?" And it, that issue went away. It stopped. But it is something that I since then saw in my office, where I saw clients being hounded about their mileage or grocery s- receipts or Christmas gifts. It was amazing to me how, h- how much surveillance one partner would do of another around something like this. M- but m- like food, though, money is such a, sensitive area because everybody has such their own personal narratives about money, and grown up, with their own sort of stories about what money means. It's 'cause it's a r- isn't it? It's about resource, it's about having enough, having not enough, controlling resources, who's in charge of it, and there's something about freedom, too, isn't there, with money? It feels like it's a kind of, in childhood, it's the one thing kids don't have, is their own real money, you know. There's something about having money equals I get to make the decisions, I get to be free and choose. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It, we didn't talk about this on the food episode, but they've done studies of people eating off other people's plates.

Lynn Strathdee:

Oh.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

So wh- even when there's a sense of sufficiency, like I have enough, I'm not gonna starve, but if you eat off my plate or you, you take that from me, it activates this primitive sense of you're taking from me. You're starving me, and we're very protective of that. We don't like people eating off of our plates. I think the same principle is true around money. As there's a sense of if you take something that I'm not ready to give you, then you're threatening my survival. And what you were saying about Brad, though, sounds like he'd brought something into the relationship about money that he hadn't realized he'd brought in, and then, was made very aware that he'd brought something in that actually wasn't anything to do with you at all. Yeah, yeah, and he did tell me a lot of it's early childhood stories, and one of them is that, and I can say this comfortably 'cause both parents are deceased, is that they severely neglected him. He was the youngest of four. They were born really quick to a young mom and a struggling couple who were on their own, far from family, so not supported well. And so he and his younger brother basically kind of raised themselves, and he would talk about how if a pizza was ordered, they'd actually get out measuring tools to make sure it was cut fairly.

Lynn Strathdee:

Wow.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

They would actually measure-

Lynn Strathdee:

Wow.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

The slicing, to make sure it was exactly half or whatever the split it was.

Lynn Strathdee:

Wow. So that lack, lack of trust thing towards you, and the food, like where's the extra food gone? Are you stashing it somewhere, like-

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Yeah, yeah.

Lynn Strathdee:

Are you hiding stuff in the car and not bringing it in?

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Or, or, or I even think it was, I don't think it was the food specific, it was, "What are you doing with my money?"

Lynn Strathdee:

Okay.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

I'm the one, because at the time this was happening, I was going to school and he was putting me through, so I was not earning, and the deal had been when we got married… See, this is even interesting, 'cause when we met and dated, right at the very first time we started hanging out together, he said, "I want a working woman. I'm looking for a woman who's gonna wanna work." And I thought, "Great. I, I want you to support my freedom to work." What I didn't know what he was saying was, "I expect a two-income family."

Lynn Strathdee:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

He wasn't saying,"I, support w- women working." He was saying, "I don't ever wanna be the sole provider." Mm-hmm. And s- and then it wasn't because he and I like, put our money separately. We didn't. It always went into this one s- big jar, and then we just divvied it up based upon the need of the household. It was never who, who got more of what. There was never that kind of discussion, honestly. But, and yet, but in the early days, if I spent it, i- it, he felt like I was in his jar, with later, with after that big revelation of, "No, she's not irresponsible, I can trust her," then became our jar.

Lynn Strathdee:

Mm-hmm. So what was taken out would be put back in. There was a sense of it's okay. I had a, I know we're gonna move the conversation on in a second, but I had a training recently, continuing professional development training for therapists around money, and I thought it was about managing finances in private practice, and it wasn't. It was to do with clients and money and what that brings up in the room.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Oh.

Lynn Strathdee:

And just how much we carry about money. In us and how we act out in lots of ways, how we express ourselves and unconsciously express ourselves through money, and I thought it was so, so interesting.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Oh, I bet that's fascinating, 'cause I know something about you and I already-'Cause we have the same issue. I see it in you and I see it in myself. I hope it's okay I call you out publicly in front of everybody, 'cause calling myself out too. We have a hard time charging our value.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah. Well, you've said to me before about that 100%. I- You know,

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

I, I, I, I was always the last in the county to raise my prices. And now I don't know if I was literally dead last, but let me tell you that I was not first. I was not the one leading the charge with raising rates in my area. I was usually follow it. I follow quite delay. Mm-hmm. Quite slow. And I think it's a really common issue, particularly for therapists, and obviously that was, your original kind of role. Because most of us come into this with a whole load of that whole kind of he- wounded healer stuff. I hate that term. I try not to, but I know that I did. How can we not, right? It's really, really hard, to value your time financially and say,"Yeah, I need to earn." You know, money is an interesting topic, 'cause it was treated oddly in my family, too.

Lynn Strathdee:

In what way?

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

So, yeah, this is a… I know this is gonna shock, maybe even horrify some people, but my parents semi-emancipated my sisters and I when I was 12. My other sister was 11, and my youngest was eight, and they gave us a monthly budget, and we had to buy our f- school needs, any special things that we wanted, any parties that we got invited to. We were expected to save with it as well and to tithe. So part of it was training, you know, how to handle money responsibly, but it also in a way is a bit emancipation that occurred with it. Like, so if we asked for something and they'd say, "Well, do you have the money for it?"

Lynn Strathdee:

Wow.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

So it was a way, it, so we didn't, we didn't stop having- A home and room and board. It, it, you know, I didn't have to pay for room and board, but, and I didn't even have to pay for my gas 'cause I lived off of the farm's use of fuel. We had a big tank outside, and it was filled regularly for the tractors, and we were allowed to use it for transportation. But on the other hand, if something came up that was different, like maybe if I wanted a special pair of boots or something, I needed to save up and buy it myself.

Lynn Strathdee:

Was that commonplace in the States, at that time?

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

No.

Lynn Strathdee:

What was the, what was the thinking behind that?

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

No. I, well, what was commonplace in the United States around the time that I was, people often had, babysitting money, or, you know-

Lynn Strathdee:

Pocket money.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

money, or they might do a fundraiser to go on a trip. You might do that, but this ca- I mean, this wasn't something I would openly say to other people. Like, if I went to, our church does annual go to Cedar Point, which is sort of like a Six Flags. It's a theme park thing here, and it's not cheap. It's expensive trip. I would have to pay for that. That would kind of come out of my money, out of my budget.

Lynn Strathdee:

Wow.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

And then when I went to college, I w- I was emancipated. My parents did not put me through college. I put myself through college, which was the opposite of Brad. Brad's parents put him through. I mean, but, and I put my own kids through. I paid for theirs, but-

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

No, my college was my res- And everything, phone, food, clothing, shampoo, all of it was my responsibility. So I was, yeah, 100% emancipated at 18.

Lynn Strathdee:

Do you think, you know how I often, when we chat on the phone or we, whatever, I- I'm often saying to you how driven you are. Do you think that's behind that, that emancipation, that sort of having to kind of push and drive and drive and drive?

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Well, the other weird thing that happened for me, and I think people suspect this, so I don't mind telling them, is that I also became independent financially, 10 years ago when my late husband passed away. So I don't have to work. I work because I want to. I think my drive isn't related to money. I think my drive is more related to family that valued work.

Lynn Strathdee:

Okay.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

That, you know, I started working-

Lynn Strathdee:

Mm.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Well, I remember as a five-year-old doing dishes. They would put a stool up, and I would be on top helping my mom and grandma, do dishes. Right. And I was expected to shuck peas-

Lynn Strathdee:

I see.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Prepare canned goods. We were very poor. I mean, very poor family. Home haircuts, sewed clothes. Had a large garden. We were eating our own food. We weren't off the grid, but we weren't far from being off the grid.

Lynn Strathdee:

Uh-huh.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

We were close, pretty close to it, 'cause there w- it was just no funds. My f- as a farming family, we were, there was just no money in it at all, and my mom worked just to keep, probably to keep the lights on, to be honest with you As a farm has a huge overhead of electricity bills. So I think literally she was trying to keep the f- the farm was a s- a sinkhole. And my mom's work was trying to keep us from going bankrupt. That was what was happening.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah. And.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

You just- So I think work, though, was just a way to be useful Mm-hmm … be seen, have value.

Lynn Strathdee:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

But it also gives purpose. I mean, I learned to enjoy work. I do actually enjoy working.

Lynn Strathdee:

Me too. 100%. I had a very different experience with money and l- a bit like we, when we were talking about food, how meals and food prep wasn't a sensitive area for you in your abusive relationship, and I said it would've been for me, and was for me. The inverse is true. My parents were very, I would say, healthy around money. They were generous. It wasn't a big deal. We didn't talk about it very much because it wasn't a big deal. If there was enough to share, it got shared. It was equal and fair and predictable. There was no… I haven't got sort of a soft area around-

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Mm-hmm.

Lynn Strathdee:

Money and availability. My issue around money is asking for things from other people. I don't have a sense of lack. It's almost like I kind of expect that it'll sort of be all right, when actually, no it won't. You need to make sure it is by making sure you get what you need. Does that make sense?

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

It does. It does. And I, and my issue isn't around money either, because one of the things I discovered in that poverty was that I could be content with what I had. I found a freedom in just being happy. And that if I had just… We had this really cheap stereo, and then I would play my Barry Manilow songs, and I would sit between them, so I had my surround sound, and I thought, "See, this is heaven. What more do I need?" I don't need a Walkman. I don't need a stereo. I ha- I can just sit between the speakers. So I just, you know, I learned to make do-

Lynn Strathdee:

The innate genius of children. It's brilliant …

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, but it, but it did tie into something. So it wasn't around that, it was, but for me, it was around the asking, you know, around being perceived and, and feeling chosen. And yeah, that, that would really trip me up,

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

And make me feel vulnerable, was just do I know my… This, back to what I was sharing before about children are to be seen and not heard. You know, to, to, to show up and to make a ripple, that might be dangerous. So again, for me, having Brad upset about my receipts, I was making a ripple, see? And that would've been really, really scary.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah, absolutely. I was so touched when you said, the good thing about Brad was he was able to change, and he was also very honest. And it just sort of underscores the fact that with those two things, like you can go quite a long way. You can. Can't you? Like with a very basic, but without them, we're screwed. Like, literally.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Yeah, 'cause people hearing our stories, it, I, yeah, I, I've shared this before. I don't know if you're aware of it, but he did strike me. He had hit me.

Lynn Strathdee:

You did tell me. That was the crisis that we'd hit, is that what really happened on the honeymoon was the first time he ever punched me, and that was not on my face. It was on my arm. No, it doesn't make it any better, but thank goodness it wasn't in my face. But he punched me a few times, and that was when I called the brakes on the relationship. I said, "We're getting therapy, and if you don't…" He said, "I'm not gonna go." And I'm like, "Well, if you don't go, we're over." And I meant it. "We're, we're gonna be…" And he knew it. He knew I meant it."We're gonna be over." And he went. And we, and it was out, by the way, it was out of pocket. We had no insurance. It was expensive. It was, it was a bill we didn't, we didn't have the money for. But we went weekly for a year, and it saved our marriage. And one of the things I learned about him in that process was he took that very seriously, that he, once you could make it make sense to him- He would hear it and he would change. And you're right, so it isn't that necessarily somebody is toxic-free, it's their willingness to self-reflect and to change course.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

To me, that's what makes somebody, a, a relationship redeemable.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah, because so often we don't even know why we're doing the things we're doing. No. And that works for pretty much everybody, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. You know, most of the time these things only show up in relationship, you know? That's the first time you kinda discover, actually, I've got a bit of a thing about, I don't know, my side of the bed, or I didn't know that, now I know it. It's a thing. It bugs me, or whatever. You know? It, it is interesting, 'cause I, I know a lot of people wanna know, like, well, what, what things, we, we talk about all the time red flags, as if red flags are the it. No, they're not. No. Red flags is just one piece of the big information. And, and a lot of other pieces that you nee- And to me, it's not whether or… It, I was, I don't know what I'm… We're way off the target today, which is fine, but one of the things I got to thinking about recently is what people end relationships over. I had a guy, and he was very serious. He wanted to get married. It was one of those guys. He was ready. I mean, ready, and all he needed was the right woman to slot in. And I could tell he was gonna slot me in, and I wasn't ready to be slotted in. But he would do this thing where he would purse his lips and then hang a f- s- because this is in college, so I got to eat with him in the dorm, purse his lips and hang a spoon on it at the, at the, while we were eating. I'm like, I just thought, "I am not sitting across that the rest of my life, having someone do that." You could see what the future had for you.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

I could. It was like, it was that petty. I'm not, I'm not having somebody hang spoons on their lips at my, at while we eat at a dinner table. But…

Lynn Strathdee:

But I love that because w- I think one of the things that I struggle with on the internet, you mentioned the red flags thing, I think the internet's doing a disservice, unintentionally maybe, by talking about it as if it's individual elements or things that you can know, rather than- All of us, myself included, focusing on the skills that you need to be able to handle the real-life uncertainties of any relationship so that you're adapting to what's happening rather than, standing back, assessing something on a blank sheet of paper, going in with a plan, because that just isn't how life works. It's like an eme- it's an emergent thing, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, it is. It emerges within that context, which, you know, you were just talking about.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Have you heard, you probably have not, 'cause you're probably not on social media, and I don't know it super well. I've only known it because people are talking about it. Otherwise, I wouldn't know this drama. Her name is Wizard Liz.

Lynn Strathdee:

Nope.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

And apparently Wizard Liz, and I don't know what her main content is, but she starts sharing of a journey about meeting the perfect guy.

Lynn Strathdee:

Oh, no.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Falling in love really super fast, and in, with three m- I, with, I think within a couple, I don't know. Just super, everything was way too fast, and they moved in really fast, and now she's expecting a baby, and it's all gone south.

Lynn Strathdee:

Okay.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

And she's already got into trouble 'cause she's hit him, and they're going to court because there've been abuse on both sides. And so there was this co- this, again, somebody had an opinion. It was a man. I thought that was, to me, this was kind of a male perspective, and so I, that was like, yeah, that's why it attracts. But one of the things he said, and I w- I actually wrote a comment. I was very disturbed by his take. It was an interesting take. He was trying to be thoughtful. I appreciate that. But what he was saying was she claimed she manifested this, a dream relationship, and now of course it's not a dream relationship, it's a nightmare. And then he said, no, she didn't manifest it, is that she, he used language that was really very specific. I mean, I was thinking about Dr. Jennie Young talking about rhetoric, you know, context and words, and how words have meaning. And the way he, he was kind of labeling it was she sort of called this in or it's transactional. She wanted something. Oh, yeah, that's what it was. He, she wanted power and influence, and he provided that for her, and that she asked for this and, and that whatever our deepest unmet needs are, will call that into our life, and that's what she's done. And my thought was… Yeah, there's a measure of truth there. I'm not saying there wasn't, but I am also saying this man was predatory and moved in on her. By the way, she's a huge, huge account. So she's a massive… I think she's in the millions. So she's not a nobody. She's a big somebody when it comes to TikTok. And who, who can't not know that? It's not hard to, like, go out there and figure that out. And there are people who literally move in that fast, impregnate you that fast in order to have power in your life, you know? All I saw was, oh, hallmark of love bombing and then entrapment. That's what I saw when I looked at her story. And yet we wanna blame her for this naiveté around hoping she manifested love. No, that's called idealization, you know? So-

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah. Naiveté maybe.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Yeah, exactly I, I have- And I could have been there. She's, you know?

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah. I have. I, Yeah … I heard someone talking yesterday, I don't… I can't remember what podcast I was listening to, and he talked about a retrospectoscope, and I thought, I love that idea, that every time we, we look at this stuff retrospectively from the outside, everybody always knows what the problem was, who was doing… Does that make sense? It's like, it.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Does.

Lynn Strathdee:

But when you're in it, you're in it, and, and you're coming from where you're coming from with your- That's right … own life history. And so, and you don't read minds. So you don't know what that other person's agenda is because it emerges within the context of the relationship based on the two of them interacting.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Yes, yes. And that's the other thing he was doing. He was deconstructing it in a mechanistic way, calling out all the red flags as if she was an idiot for not seeing them. Like, who says I love you on the second- I mean, all this thing. Like, yeah, okay, that's kinda rare, doesn't happen a lot. It is suspect when it does. It could be real, might not be real. You don't really know the context of the relationship. You don't know, they may have been pen pals for two years, you know, and then finally met up and it was everything they thought it would. I, you know, I don't know. Exactly. But it's, it's amazing how we wanna distill everything down into these simple things. If you see this, then run. Yeah. No, maybe not. It does- like, it comes back to the bigger picture. Does the person have the capacity for self-reflection? Does the person have the capacity to change, authentically without being coerced into the change? Do they have the empathy to be aware of what it feels like to be you? Can they accurately see reality for what it really is? Which is hard for any of us to do. I, I watched a clip of, you said I don't watch much social media, and I don't, but I watched a clip yesterday, and this girl, have you seen it? The girl had a jar, and she said she has a no second chances rule at the beginning of dating. And I thought, oh, this sounds interesting, one of these rules, and she had this jar, and she goes, "It goes like this." She's got an empty jar, and she said,"At the beginning of the relationship, because this jar is gonna get filled up over time with, like, cotton buds and paperclips and, I don't know, stamps and marbles, bits and bobs of all sorts, and every time something nice happens within that relationship, something goes in the jar. And every time something that's not nice happens, we have to take something out of the jar. At the beginning of the relationship, there's nothing to take out of the jar, so you don't get any second chances. You only get second chances when the jar is kind of filling up, because then there's enough in the jar to show you that all of these lovely things have happened over time, represented by the marble or the cotton ball, and then we can afford to take something out. We don't take something out at the beginning." And I think that's what's so important, is we need to see it as an empty jar, that we don't know the person until that jar's started to get pretty full. It really needs quite a few things in it before we can even start to assess who somebody is, and in the meantime, it has to be about am I flexible enough to stay alive within this and responding to what's actually happening within me. Yeah, it reminds me something Dr. Daniel Jones said in my recent interview with him, which will probably air after this, but he said,"Between a lot of red flags on the first date and a boring person, I'll give a second date to the boring person." Back to the idea there's nothing in the jar.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

And so if they're already taking out of it-

Lynn Strathdee:

Y- you can't, you can't take from what isn't there.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

You shouldn't start from a negative point in a relationship.

Lynn Strathdee:

You can't. You absolutely can't. Something needs to be in there to start with. I thought that was a great analogy. I loved that.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

I love that. I love that. I think what happens, to me, when I get into the relationship, I want closure so f- so, so badly, I wanna know is this it or not it, I want a decision, that I don't hold it in suspense. The question in suspense to allow it to unfold for me to know over time, is this it And so I lock in a decision really too fast, and I don't know if that's unique to me or if we all do that. I just know that's something that I realize I do, and I have to actively work against it these days.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah. I think, I think I definitely do that. I think a lot of us do that. I think the internet supports that. Holding tension in a relationship is really difficult to do. It's hard work. Like holding the t- you know this therapeutically. Clinically. It's really hard work to hold tension.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

It- It's called ambivalence …

Lynn Strathdee:

It costs a lot on the nervous system, on the psyche. And it, and it requires, I don't just mean maturity as if if you can't do it, you're not mature. All I mean is to be constantly there is really hard. And I think relationships, if they're your, if, well, they certainly are mine, soft spot, that's the last place I wanna hold ambivalence or tension, because- Yeah that's like my weakest area. Like, can we just nail this down? Can we just sign, yeah, we're dating now, yeah? Yeah. Good. Sign. Tick. Good. That's, we can move on.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Yeah. It is really, really hard to do that. You're right. It's, it's costly. Yes, more maturity as a person helps you be able to, spend the cost. And to think flexibly. It also requires flexible thinking. And it, yeah, but it, but it's something we grow into as we have more resources, we learn to do that. But it is, it's so hard.

Lynn Strathdee:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

'Cause I want an answer so badly. I wanna know, give it up or let's commit. Yeah. I, I'm just desperate to know that.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah, and that's why the internet is loved by everybody, because it will tell you, "If this, then do that. If that, then do this."

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Yes.

Lynn Strathdee:

And people go, "Okay, great. Now I don't have to sit with that tension. I can just do that, Yeah … 'cause the, the guy on the video just told me to do that."

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Yeah, and that's, I, I think that's even why people wanna know, is my partner a narcissist? That's one of the big questions, is because if I can label that, then I can sort this out, then I know what I've got, and then I know what my next decision should be. No, it's never that simple. I, and even this idea of just why did you stay too long? Tell me, when did any relationship ever, even the best relationship, easily end? I think we're so like so naive about these things. We act like things are just, it's this or that. No, it's not.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah. Exactly. And y- I think one of the best things about therapeutic training is you really learn how to be curious. It's a phrase we overuse in the profession, but I've learned how to be curious and stay curious, and not need to find out. You know, in our friendship, I can hold the, "Well, I haven't heard from Kerry for a couple of days. Hope she's okay. I'm not gonna chase. She's busy. I'm, I don't need to seek that reassurance." Whereas a few years ago I'd have been, "Oh my God," you know? What does that mean? What does that mean? Yeah, you do. I need to find out.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Mm, interesting. Yeah, I would've too. I would've b- I was very anxious in the beginning about relationships. And would've… Any distance. These days I assume the best unless there's information that suggests it's not.

Lynn Strathdee:

That's really good though. So when I don't hear from you, it's like, "Oh, she's really busy," or- Yeah.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

She's seeing her father, or, you know, life's got g- she's dealing, dealing with life. Yeah … I don't assume anything else other than that.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah. That's really good.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Let's jump over to the podcast and a- talk about how to move to ambivalence, how to learn how to develop that capacity, and why it's better than the black and white thinking. I think that's a really important thing that, because I, you know, regardless of where you are, is this a good relationship or a bad relationship? Am I healing or am I not healing? Did I meet a narcissist or did I not? Or is this, you know, is there red flags or isn't? I think this is what gets us into trouble is this, for one it makes us judgmental, but it also, it forces us into decisions that maybe are not actually accurate. Maybe they're missing something. Or c- they're hap- or they're happening too quickly.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah. Sure.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Well, thank you for this. We were talking about receipts, but we went into, I think, I, I'm gonna have to figure out the new label for this, but, I'm, I'm really thrilled that we went here because I think this is even more important subject honestly than just why people watch receipts.

Lynn Strathdee:

Yeah, we skipped receipts altogether. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dr. Kerry McAvoy:

Well, that's a wrap for this week's episode. Are you following me on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube? You can find me @kerrymcavoyphd, or you can learn more about me and my resources such as the Toxic-Free Relationship Club at kerrymcavoyphd.com. And I'll see you back here next week.

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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D.

Host