Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
To divorce or not to divorce? That is the question. Pt.1
Ever wondered if staying together for the kids is a fairytale or a trap? Join me, Annie McCubbin, as I unravel this complex question with Skye Carmichael, a former nurse who transformed her life into a relationship and divorce coach.
What if the perfect marriage is just a facade? In the midst of unfulfilling marriages, why do we cling to optimism that things will magically improve? Together, Skye and I dissect the pressures women face, often shouldering the blame for relationship woes while awaiting a better future that may never come. We stress the need for safe spaces where brutal self-honesty is not only encouraged but necessary to escape dissatisfaction and regain control of one's life.
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Coached by Skye - https://www.coachedbyskye.com
I often actually say which might sound a bit strange but I would still marry my husband again. I probably just would have divorced him a little bit sooner than what I did.
Speaker 2:OK. Decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though. I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Hello, smart women, and welcome back to the why Smart Women podcast.
Speaker 2:Today, we're going to be delving into the topic of divorce and to do that, I'm going to be chatting to Skye Carmichael, who has a background in nursing, but who has pivoted that's the word of the decade, isn't it Pivoted? And is now a relationship and divorce coach. And who knows, even though I'm currently married, after we get through this particular preparation to sell, maybe I'll be one of Sky's clients. No, I won't. I don't mean that, david. I don't mean that. I don't mean that when he listens to this, I don't mean that. Anyway, hello Skye, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm wonderful Thank you, Annie, for having me on. Oh, my absolute pleasure. You're in Queensland, are you not? I am Sunshine Coast. Is it a Sunshine Coast today? It is not the Sunshine Coast today.
Speaker 1:It is not the Sunshine Coast today. Ha ha ha ha ha ha because in Sydney it's just beautiful.
Speaker 2:So, for our overseas listeners, skye is from a northern state in Australia, in Queensland, and I'm in a more southern state. I'm in New South Wales, and Queensland traditionally has the best weather in Australia, but not today. So ha ha, ha, right. So, skye, tell me all about it, tell me how you got into it and just tell me the sort of issues that you encounter in your new job as a relationship and divorce coach.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would become a divorce coach. I had never even heard of the term until a few years ago. So I experienced my own marriage breakdown and divorce. When was that? Three years ago, it sort of started.
Speaker 2:So quite recent really, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, still quite recent and also never thought that I would find myself in that situation. I've got two young children and I think what triggered it for me was how society still views divorce as a failure, as something that should be avoided at all costs.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I'm just going to keep interrupting you, so I hope that's okay. That's fine If you don't mind just going back a little bit to so you became divorced three years ago, is that right? And you're saying do you mind talking about that? I'm perfectly fine. If you don't want to talk about it, I don't mind at all. Oh, awesome, Okay.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:So great. So you're saying it was a surprise to you to be divorced.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know, when you get married and on your wedding day, you don't ever expect that you will get divorced one day. And I often actually say, which might sound a bit strange, but I would still marry my husband again. I probably just would have divorced him a little bit sooner than what I did. So I have no regrets whatsoever.
Speaker 2:And what precipitated this. It's a very funny thing. You've said that you would marry him again but divorce him quicker. So just tell me about that thinking. And, if you don't mind, what precipitated this, it's a very funny thing. You've said that you would marry him again but divorce him quicker. So just tell me about that thinking and, if you don't mind, what precipitated the divorce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, I think in essence and I'm very mindful to you know I don't want to divulge too many personal details, certainly about my ex-husband. He knows what I'm doing, he knows I'm a divorce coach and he's very supportive about it. So I guess the simplest way to describe it is we really just grew apart and we found ourselves in a situation where we weren't being the best people that we could be. We weren't being the best parents, we certainly weren't the best husband and wife, and we tried very, very hard over a long period of time to correct that and you know, try harder. But at the end of the day we weren't happy. Neither of us were, and we weren't modeling to our children what we wanted them to see a happy and loving marriage. It just wasn't going to be possible for us.
Speaker 2:And I think that's such a pivotal point in that. I know because I'm of a certain age. Obviously quite a few of my friends have separated over that time and so often you hear the refrain well, we really should stay for the children. But I've always thought to myself I don't think that's such a great idea because as we imprint what is a good relationship from a very, very early age as children, and often replicated, it doesn't seem to me. I mean, I'm not suggesting for a minute, it's a simple issue. But to stay for the children seems to be really not ideal because then they walk away from, they move into adulthood with an idea of marriage which is fractious, difficult, potentially loveless, cold, whatever the aspects of it are. So, yeah, yeah, I think for the sake of the children, maybe for many people separating is is actually optimum. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1:absolutely, and I think it it does more harm than good. You know, children are so perceptive and they subconsciously, when they get older they will emulate the marriage that they have observed and to them is normal. They won't know any different. So you know, I can share with you. I remember one day my husband at the time had come home and he had put his bags on the bench and he'd said hi to the children and he had said hi to me, but he hadn't even looked at me and I realized then that's actually normal, that's actually what my children are seeing as normal and we would never fight. It wasn't volatile, but that's what my son was seeing and I saw him sort of clock, my husband, and then look at me and I just saw his little brain think hmm, and I thought no.
Speaker 2:Interesting that lack of. I find that lack of volatility very, very interesting, because I think people consider the breakdown of a relationship to be always volatile.
Speaker 2:You know full of argument and acrimony, but more often you hear of people that just sort of become separate, cold disinterested, cold disinterested and in an almost in a way, in terms of sort of absorbing that. For a child it's almost like where do you put that? Where do you put that in your brain and in your subconscious If you can't sort of name it as well? My parents argued a lot and they were really it was sort of volatile. If it's quieter, how do you reframe that and understand that? That's also, that's also not a healthy relationship. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And you know, one of the cognitive biases that I see, aversion. Ah, yes, yeah, absolutely. Loss aversion is is, I think, such a and sunk cost.
Speaker 2:Right, you're talking about sunk cost and loss aversion. Yeah, absolutely, it's. It's so, so common, isn't it that notion, even with the selling of our house? You know we've put, you know we've put 24 years into this. You know we should really. You know we've put 24 years into this. You know we should really just stay here because we've got so much investable, should we? It's the same principle, right?
Speaker 2:It's the same principle, as when you get on the phone to Telstra and you've been on call waiting for five hours and your brain goes I'd really better hang on here because I've spent five hours and that's the whole sunk cost fallacy. Well, get off the phone and call back later. Yes, you have spent that time in the marriage, but life is short, right, you want to get out, you want to have a life, correct?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that's what women, that's what they say to me. You know, I've spent 20 years giving all of my energy, you know all of that time, and they don't want to walk away, but they're not happy. These marriages are. You know, they're living in separate bedrooms, they're living separate lives. You know, do you want to live that way for the next 40?
Speaker 2:years. And what do you so tell? Let's just say I say to you I'm I don't know. Let's just say my name Marilyn and look Sky. I've been in this relationship now for 22 and a half years. That's a long time. I mean what I mean. If I walk away now I've wasted 22 and a half years. It just doesn't seem right to me absolutely so what we would look at first is shifting your perspective, and how do you do that?
Speaker 1:so it takes quite a long period of time and it's all about shifting perspective and, as a coach, it's not my job to tell you what you should do, because nobody knows better than you, but sometimes it's just asking the right questions to really get you to dig deep and be honest.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I understand that, of course, shifting perspective, especially after a couple of decades, is an enormously big ask, but just what would be a couple of things that you might ask somebody in order to precipitate that change of thinking. What would you ask them?
Speaker 1:I would ask them. You know, if we're 40 years old, the average person you know female person will live to about 80 years old. So you've got half of your life left to live. Yes, you may have invested a lot, but do you want to continue living like this for 40 years? Is this the way that you want to live your life, and do you honestly believe that that's all that you deserve?
Speaker 2:Okay. So then if I hear that, let's just say, and I say to you well, no, I don't want to live my life like this, but you know, maybe if I do things differently in the marriage, maybe he will change his behavior like is it my fault, we got here and what would you? I mean, that's my experience of women. They generally take too much responsibility. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely. And I think an important thing that I always keep in the back of my mind is women will often, you know, have all of these little excuses like'll say he's such a good dad or he's such a good provider. But if you really give them a safe container to be 100% honest, they will tell you because they know Deep down, they know, they know what their heart's telling them, they know whether or not their husband will change or can change, because they've been through it for years. They've been going around in a cycle for years and years and years. So it's when they're at that point, when they're ready to say I'm ready to, to stop the cycle, I'm ready to be the one who says no more.
Speaker 1:We need to, you know, be really honest and we need to face exactly what this situation is. Until somebody is brave enough to do that and sometimes it's the husband, sometimes it's the wife, but until one of them is brave enough, it will continue and before you know it, it it'll be another five years, you know, down the track and nothing's changed. Um, so it's just really allowing the space for women to be honest and to really think critically. You know, if your husband has been doing the same thing for 15 years. Do you really think that there's capacity there to change? And you know, sometimes there might be, but often it's when a woman comes to me, they know that their marriage is over. They're just trying to find the self-belief and the self-confidence to imagine a life with not being in that family dynamic and being, you know, stepping out on their own, because it's especially in this current economic climate. It is really difficult. It's a difficult thing for women to face.
Speaker 2:Is that? Obviously, in the context in which you operate, you would hear most of the reasons that women are staying in relationships that don't really serve them anymore. So you mentioned the financial aspect of it, which I imagine is really quite relevant at the moment. Yeah, and what else do they come up with? It's like I would leave, but I just can't. Is it the children?
Speaker 1:it is mostly it's the children. Sometimes it's the big, beautiful home that they've only recently moved into because, often.
Speaker 1:You know it's always that next thing. Once I get that next thing, we'll be happy. Once we get a new car, you know we'll. I'll be happy. Once we get into a new, bigger home, we'll be happy. Once you know my husband gets a new job, he'll be less stressed. Things will be okay. It's always the next thing. But then they'll be in this situation when they're in this big, beautiful home. They've got the beautiful cars and guess what? They're still not happy.
Speaker 2:So interesting, isn't it? It's interesting and also really sad. I think we're all guilty of that right, of not having a present focus but thinking the future. The future is going to be fine. It's like the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. It's like a bias towards optimism. I mean, everybody thinks that being positive and optimistic is an optimum state, but we actually know that's not true, that the optimum state is to be as realistic and aligned to the facts as is humanly possible, as opposed to this. I know myself because I have rampant optimism, you know.
Speaker 2:I always think everything's going to be all right, and sometimes it just hasn't been so and as for positive thinking, you know that positive thinking also isn't that great.
Speaker 2:We we want helpful self-talk, not positive self-talk, and I think in this sort of positive thinking environment that we've been awash in in the last 15 years, it's very easy for people to get into this state. If I'm just positive, if I can just think in a really optimistic manner, if I can reframe things and only look at the good things and also keep a gratitude diary and write down all the things that are working as opposed to the things that are not. In my experience, that really gets into the way of what you're talking about, which is sort of brutal self-honesty. Would that be right?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And you know, when you were talking there, annie, I honestly had a flashback to when I was trying to keep my marriage alive and thinking, you know, all of those positive thoughts, this will be okay, this will be fine, you know, and just trying to really push through on positivity, and it will only get you so far. You must be, you must be honest, you must be honest, you must be radically honest with yourself.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting, isn't it? Quite a while ago I read the book about Alison Baden-Clay. Do you remember her? I do, and you know, of course she was murdered by her husband and when they went in and when they were doing the investigation for the murder, they found her diaries. I just I found it. Honestly, it made my heart ache. They'd found all these entries with her going, sort of doing affirmations, talking about manifesting a positive future and doing this gratitude diary. Going. This is what's working. I must just focus on the positive and not look at the negative and, of course, the final. You know, the outcome of that was, of course, her husband murdered her. But I think there's a lot of expectation, especially on women, that you know, let's get some magical thinking happening. Let's really do see if we can manifest something positive. Let's do a gratitude diary, let's sit down every day and go. That's not working, but this is working and I really got to ask the question how many men do you think are doing that? How many men?
Speaker 1:Right, right, not many, not many. And you know, I do. Honestly, I think it has its place, absolutely. But if you're relying on that solely, with completely ignoring the 250 red flags that are right under your nose, I think that's where you know you're running into problems. And also, the sad thing is, you know theen-Clay's. They're still in our society. Oh no, these women. They don't understand or see that they have a choice in that situation and why do you think that is?
Speaker 2:why do you think they do not see that they have a choice and that they do? I mean, I know the whole domestic violence thing, skye. We probably won't get into that because of course it's such an enormous topic and I wouldn't for a minute um want to start to analyze what makes women in a violent relationship stay, because I know it's enormously complex. But for even for women that aren't in a domestic violence situation, why do you think that they do ignore those red flags? So you must come across them all the time and stay.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I'm also very mindful that I don't have any qualifications think that particularly women who are chronic people pleasers and, when they were younger, just learnt to, if they wanted to receive love, to be the good girl and to be quiet and to, you know, do the things that they were asked to do. And I do hear that from my clients. Certainly, to a certain extent, you know, they've always tried to be just a quiet little people pleaser and then they've ended up in these marriages where their needs and their opinions are not respected, and I think it's certainly it's a huge, huge issue. And then, obviously, women have the children, so they're out of the workforce, so they are isolated, they lose those networks around them and that certainly is a benefit to to men who are narcissistic and who are controlling and coercive, and it's certainly, you know, as you know, it's a huge problem in our society.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, I think that's such a good thing. You've said um, the amount of women that are people pleasers, and and that underlying that belief is just, if I can do this, you know, if I'm really good and really nice and really helpful, I can turn this around. And, of course and you do have narcissistic men who can turn it back on them and go well, if you were more helpful, if you were nicer, if you you know you're difficult, you're not nice enough, then of course the woman just tries harder and then they, they lose all their agency in the relationship and, as you say, their opinions are sublimated and it ends up in an awful situation. Then, if you marry that with that sort of hyper optimism that you know, now I'm finally in this beautiful house and every, you know I've got my kids in a really good school and you know we're going to I don't know we're going to Morocco in January.
Speaker 2:And how can I walk away from that when, to all intents and purposes, from the outside and I think that's something else this relationship looks great, you know, from the outside it looks really happy, it looks like we've got everything, and of course, what they don't have is any genuine love or the thrill, I guess, of true vulnerability and intimacy, right, which is the best, isn't it? When you can truly be yourself with someone, when you do have intimacy, right, which is the best, isn't it? When you can truly be yourself with someone, when you do have intimacy, when they do know all parts of you, not just the bit that you think you should show. I think it's so liberating, don't you think? For women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And there's such a problem in our society of keeping up a facade. You know keeping up with the Joneses and you know this facade. It's just honestly. If you could see into people's homes and marriages like a divorce coach sees, it just changes your perspective entirely because these people, to the outside they have the perfect marriage, yeah, but inside, behind closed doors, you know they haven't shared a bed for five years longer. Sometimes, you know, and I think society also terms a successful marriage by the amount of years that you've been married. You know, if you think you know your neighbor's celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, you think oh, wow, 50 years. But is that what makes it successful? Is that why it's successful? Because they've been together for 50 years?
Speaker 2:I think that's's interesting, isn't it? Because I know there's a. We look at the past with rose-coloured glasses, do we not? You know, it's this endless sort of looking back into history and seeing these perfect lives, of these perfect marriages, and people stayed together, as you say, for 50 years. But if you actually look at the data around it of these perfect marriages and people stayed together, as you say, for 50 years, but if you actually look at the data around it, most of the time the reason that they stayed was because they had absolutely no financial opportunity to do anything else and society completely frowned upon separation.
Speaker 2:And where would a divorced woman go? It's hard enough now, because you probably know the stats around homelessness. You know the preponderance of over 55 women in homelessness is just appalling. So this notion that, oh, we really stuck with marriages and we stuck at it through thick and thin and it's like no, it's just crap. The reason people stuck with it was the women had absolutely no choice. It's hard enough now. So that's such an interesting thing that you say that it is measured. The success is measured by years, because you can't look behind a door, right, we don't know.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And some of these people that have been married for that long, they don't even like each other. They don't eat dinner together, they certainly don't sleep in the same bed. They don't respect each other. It's not what a marriage, or what I believe is a successful, loving, happy you know marriage. A lot of people don't have that, and yet society frowns upon people who actually don't want to partake in that facade any longer.
Speaker 2:So Skye and I just mentioned what goes on behind closed doors and how relationships can look perfect on the outside, but in actuality the perfect facade masks a simmering cauldron of trouble. I'm going to play you a very short excerpt from my book why Smart Women Make Bad Decisions. Very short excerpt from my book why Smart Women Make Bad Decisions, in which Kat, the central character, is in a relationship with a narcissist who is the envy of her friends because he's so good-looking and charming with a solid meditation practice. This segment describes how he gaslights Kat by screaming at her for supposedly misplacing the remote.
Speaker 2:The hipster's resting heart rate had been 50. He'd said it was because of his commitment to meditation and mindfulness and that all stressors were the universe, offering you the opportunity to remain calm. However, it seemed that not being able to find the TV remote had been outside the universe's syllabus. You would re-enter the lounge room once he's raging at your inability to simply put the remote back in the correct place petered out, you would find him sprawled on the couch, one foot on the floor, flicking through the channels. He would turn towards you, smile, proffer a beer, but no apology for the screaming, like you'd imagined the whole episode.
Speaker 1:You found the remote.
Speaker 2:You'd venture. Yeah, babe, yeah, all good.
Speaker 2:He'd say the cat, stiff with disapproval, would stalk past him. You would accept the proffered beer and stand behind him looking blankly at the TV, your knees pressed into the couch. You were too shaken to tell him. You always put the remote back. It was him who lost track of it after a few beers.
Speaker 2:This was part one of my talk with Skye about divorce, society's attitude towards it, why women stay in unhappy marriages and how we can apply critical thinking to our decision making to stay or leave a marriage. Now, just to be clear, I'm in no way inferring that the decisions around divorce are easy. I understand it's an incredibly fraught issue. What I'm merely hoping to do is open up a discussion so the decisions we do make are well thought out. So thanks to Sky for her insights, and part two of our discussion on divorce will be coming up soon. So thanks so much for listening. Smart women as usual, I hope that today's discussion was helpful. See you all next week. Bye, thanks for tuning in to why Smart Women with me.
Speaker 2:Annie McCubbin, I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please, respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that.
Speaker 2:And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
