Inside 19 Years of Couples Therapy: What Dr. Molly Burrets Wishes Everyone Knew

Advocate for yourself! Clinical psychologist and couples therapist Dr. Molly Burrets discovered a brain tumor after years of doctors dismissing symptoms. This taught her about self-advocacy, meeting herself at rock bottom, and then asking for help. With 19 years of couples therapy experience, Dr. Molly reveals insights on resentment in relationships, the mental load women carry, dating wisdom, and why knowing your worth is the foundation for everything, from advocating in the medical system to building partnerships that actually work.

In this episode they explore: 

• The exact words to say that make doctors legally required to investigate your concerns
• How "having it all" was really just "doing it all" with no peace or ease
• The hidden truth about resentment
• Why you should never marry someone you wouldn't go into business with
• What Dr. Molly uses to make the invisible labor visible 
• The dating advice no one talks about

Dr. Molly Burrets: 

• Connect with Dr. Molly
• Listen to her podcast Kissing Frogs
• IG: @drmollyburrets

Also mentioned:

• Eve Rodsky’s book Fair Play

If this episode spoke to you, you will love Curiosity Over Conflict: How to Heal Relationships with JJ Brake. You can also watch the episodes on YouTube.

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Reach out to the show—send an email or voice note to beautyinthebreakpod@gmail.com and be sure to follow on Instagram and TikTok. 

Cesar Cardona:

• Receive his newsletter Insights That Matter
• Get guided meditation from Cesar on his website 
• Listen to music from Cesar + The Clew on Apple Music and Spotify

Foster Wilson:

• Buy her poetry book Afternoon Abundance
• Learn about her postpartum services
• Receive her newsletter Foster’s Village

Created & Hosted by: Cesar Cardona and Foster Wilson

Executive Producer: Glenn Milley

Special Guest: Dr. Molly Burrets

This episode is brought to you by Arlene Thornton & Associates

Transcript

Doctors were unhelpful because they also minimized my concerns, and I found out much, much too late that I had a large tumor at the base of my brain. No one's coming to save you. You have to believe that you are important enough to save yourself. The strongest predictor of life satisfaction is relationship satisfaction.

Welcome to Beauty and the Break. Here we explore stories of how barriers are broken, both within ourselves and within the world. I'm Foster Wilson. And I'm Cesar Cardona. This is a home for you, questioning the rules you inherited and choosing your own path forward. We are here with you on this messy and courageous journey.

Let's dive in. Welcome to Beauty and the Break. Thank you for being here, and wherever you are, I wish you much peace, and I'm glad you're joining us. So we have a very special guest with us today who is a dear friend of mine. We have Dr. Molly Burrets. Now, Molly and I actually know each other because she was one of my postpartum clients after her second baby.

And I wanna introduce Molly to you all through a friend of hers named Sonya Cooke, because I thought Sonya would know how to best describe you and give you the best intro. Oh my God, you're gonna get me crying before we even start. From the jump. Because there's so much to you... as a human and as a professional.

You are here as, like, both my friend and client, former client, and also an expert in your field, very much an expert in your field, so I wanted to, like, do you justice with your bio. So this is how, this is how Sonya described you, okay? She said, "I am blessed to share this life's ups and downs with such a loving and grounded force of nature such as Molly.

A clinical psychologist specializing in couples therapy, Molly is a fount of wisdom, no-nonsense practicality, and feminine intuition." "Not only does she have a busy roster of private patients and couples, she is also a professor at USC, and if that weren't enough, she is a thought leader in the spaces of love, relationships, women's issues, parenthood, and fertility.

She is launching her podcast, Kissing Frogs, this year, and has regularly appeared on innumerable podcasts with other critical speakers and leaders in these topics. She accomplishes all of this while being a generous mother and wife and friend to those who are lucky to call her one. The word that she embodies for me is authenticity.

She lives with authenticity, no matter how painful that can be at times. She reminds me of my own authenticity when I embody it, and on days when I cannot acknowledge it." Molly, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. That's a very generous introduction. I fully resonate with all of that-

because I, that is how I know you as well. And you're just such a beautiful, expressive gift to this world. Can you tell us a little bit about- Why you're different as a psychologist- ... and what you speak on? Well, I like to be really transparent that a lot of what I have become an expert in, I'm an expert because I learned the hard way.

Academic training has been a big part of my life, and I got the most advanced degree that was available to me in this country, and that was sort of how I started out my path. But my career has evolved based on my own experiences. And although I don't necessarily ad nauseam talk about them in therapy, 

um, in my life, on my podcast, and in the book that I'm writing, I'm very transparent about my struggles in relationships, infertility, in chronic health issues, and as a high-achieving woman juggling my roles at work, at home, and in love. And that's what I help women with. That's what I help couples with.

And I think the way that I'm different is that I'm transparent about those struggles. I don't have it all figured out. Yeah. And a lot of what I've become good at helping other people with is because I struggled in it myself. Yeah. Yeah, you speak from, like, a very personal truth place. I love that, and I think that you're...

That's where your authenticity really comes from. That is what makes you a thought leader because you're not only in clinical practice, but you're also out there in the- ... world trying to say, like, "I see, I see what's going on here in all of these couples and all of these relationships. How can we, how can we tackle this from another angle?

How can we tackle it from this perspective, from a woman's perspective?" You know, all of that. It's really interesting. The authenticity part, you know, that I think is a really special descriptor. But I also wanna say that as a deeply feeling person and a very sensitive person, there often hasn't felt to me like another way.

Like, my feelings are so palpable that to deny them and to try to live in a way that hides them would be very difficult for me, and when I've done that, it's made me sick. You know? So I think it's really a brave thing for people to be authentic, but for me, it's been also, like, a requirement as well for health.

Yeah. You know? Interesting. When you, when you do try to suppress that, because we live in a society where... We had this conversation with a previous guest about kind of the masks that we wear sometimes. . When you do, you said it makes you very sick. What does that feel like for you? What comes up for you?

Well, what comes up for me is that I lived my life in such a way for many years where achievement was at the forefront of everything that I did. I wanted to have it all, and what I didn't realize at the time was that having it all was really just about doing it all. I didn't have it all because I didn't have peace, I didn't have ease, I didn't have relaxation.

But I definitely was doing it all. When I did that for long enough, what happened was that I became desensitized to the physical experiences that I was having of illness. And I set them aside. I didn't prioritize them. Doctors were unhelpful because they also minimized my concerns, so I don't wanna take on the entirety of the responsibility because there was also a system at play that minimized my experiences.

And I found out much, much too late, later than I should have, that I had a large tumor at the base of my brain and the top of my spinal cord, and that really changed my entire life. I'm not saying that my high-achieving nature or the way that I suppressed my symptoms and concerns caused the tumor, but what I do know is that I got a lot sicker than I needed to get because- I didn't know it. I didn't know it was there, and there was a way that my symptoms, my pain, my difficulty became suppressed, and I normalized it in my life as an experience of, oh, just getting older. Life is hard. And I didn't have to do that. I could have taken a lot better care of myself.

So then can you talk a little bit more about the tumor, 'cause this was fairly recent. Yeah. Take us through that experience a little bit, and then what, what did you discover during the surgery and, and recovery process? Wow, those are big questions. So I had been experiencing symptoms. In retrospect, I can now say I had been experiencing symptoms from early on in my pregnancy with my daughter, and so that was about three and a half years ago.

I started experiencing pain in my neck, unexplained pain in my neck. Now, it was a very long process of uncovering and these symptoms intensifying and spreading. But, you know, I had gone through IVF, a very grueling experience, years long of IVF, and so my body was kind of broken down. Yeah. You know? I... It had really taken a toll.

And I was aging also. So I didn't really know what was the result of having gone through this difficult experience, the result of aging, the result of being pregnant. But what I did know is that my neck pain was increasing, and then the pain spread, and s- so I would experience tingling in my hands and fingers.

And then I had my daughter. There was very little time or bandwidth to attend to myself, and all of my symptoms started getting worse. Around the time that she was about one year old, I started really losing my fine motor skills. Oh, wow. I really, you know, started taking it seriously because I was no longer able to hand write.

And I had been to the doctor, and they had sent me to physical therapy multiple times, which didn't work for me. They told me that I had carpal tunnel syndrome and sent me to physical therapy for that. And they were sending me to clinics that were in downtown Los Angeles where there was no parking. I wasn't able to get a regular appointment.

It kind of changed every week. So as a working mother who was in serious pain and also had an infant child- Yeah ... I just wasn't able to follow through with all the physical therapy that wasn't helping me anyway. It wasn't making me feel better. And that's how the can kept getting kicked down the road, and my symptoms kept getting worse until finally I changed health insurance, got a new doctor.

I went into her, and I started just sobbing. And I said to her, "Something is really, really wrong, and I need someone to take me seriously because I'm starting to think that I have a tumor or something." Wow. Now, I didn't really think cognitively that I had a tumor, but I did think something was wrong, and I wanted someone to pay attention.

And you know your body. We know if something is bugging us inside our body. Even if you can't put your finger on it, there's something that's off- Yes ... there, and people were not listening to you. Yes. Doctors were not listening to you, by the way. Doctors were not listening. I had an OBGYN tell me that of course I was tired, of course my sex drive was declining, of course I was in pain.

I was a 45-year-old woman with an infant. What did I expect? Wow. Those were her exact words, and I can recite them verbatim because they were so dismissive, so invalidating. They made me feel so hopeless that I'll never forget them. And the physical therapist kept telling me how I needed to build muscle.

I needed to get stronger. I needed to build the muscle in my neck and my shoulders. And there was this indication to me or this implication that I was the reason why I was in pain. I had chosen to have a baby older. I didn't have enough muscle. I wasn't physically fit enough. These messages were so suppressive that that contributed to me, "You know what?

Just shut up. Just shut up-" ... "about being in pain. Stop even telling your husband about it. Stop talking about it." Pain was with me every minute of every hour of every day of my life, and I just got the message that it was my fault, and if I were just younger or healthier, I wouldn't be dealing with this trouble.

And so that's how I ended up ignoring my needs for so long until I literally could not hold a pen in my hand and went into a doctor's office crying saying, "I think I have a tumor." Do you see Caesar? Caesar's getting fidgety because- This is something that is so upsetting to him when the medical industrial complex doesn't take care of or listen to his patients.

Yeah. And especially to anyone with a marginalized identity. Exactly. Exactly. We live in a society where we have dogmatized science. . A very beautiful and beneficial thing that can get us all of the stuff that we have here. . And still we haven't done enough work on our own ego- ... and our own ability to say, "You know what?"

My gosh. It is a hu- this is a big thing for me. One, it's an authority thing. First off, you're perceived to be a person in coand here, under control. The first thing you should be doing is being compassionate. That's the very first thing if you're in control here, is being kind and being compassionate.

. What other reason would you do something if you have power other than being kind and compassionate? Secondly, this whole systemic industrialized way of society has been ... I'm losing my brand right now- ... 'cause it just drives me insane. I'm so sorry that that happened to you. It shouldn't have happened to you.

It shouldn't happen to anybody for that matter. . My justice bone iediately is like, "And, and say that OBGYN's name please." But, you know, that could blow back on you way worse than it could anybody else. . But from the multitude of people that I've worked with as a physical trainer to when I worked at a law firm where people lost their homes because they couldn't pay their healthcare bills because the doctor was not helping them, being kind to them, to whoever's listening right here and right now and feeling the same sort of powerlessness that you might have felt during that time, what is something they can do to take action or to literally try to get this doctor or this practice to take some sort of accountability?

The number one thing is that you first have to know how important you are. Because when you don't know that, what other people think about you becomes the guiding light, and then people, especially those who are in authority positions, will make decisions for you, and you will go along with them, which is what I did for so long.

So you have to know that you matter, you are important, and your experience is valuable. It is not normal to live your life in pain. Pain- is information. Pain is the experience that says, "Pay attention." And nobody should tell you that that's just a normal part of life. It is a signal that something is wrong.

And when that doctor who finally listened to me because I was having a meltdown in her office, and I said the word tumor, and that made her liable if she didn't do something about it. Oh. Because look, she didn't send me for an MRI out of the kindness of her heart. She sent me for an MRI because when you say the word tumor, the doctor now becomes liable if they do not investigate your concern.

So this wasn't out of kindness or compassion. Okay. This was out of covering her ass. She sent me for an MRI, which is exactly what needed to happen, and it's egregious that it hadn't happened yet. Right. Exactly. Right. Are there other things like that as well that somebody can say or can express to kind of put some fire under them?

I think if you say, "I am concerned that there is a serious problem that has been overlooked," then that goes in your clinical note- Okay ... that you are expressing that your concern has not been attended to. And that you, you... It's sad how much you have to advocate for yourself, but if you think something is wrong, you have to insist something is wrong.

Yeah. It goes against what we're taught about doctors, that they're there for us, they're the ones who are there to sort out what the problem is. That just hasn't always been my experience. Do you think it's helpful to have another person in the room with you? I can imagine for many people it would be.

Yeah. My partner, who is extremely supportive and who you know- ... he grew up in the South, and he is a gentleman. He sometimes struggles with conflict. And so I sometimes wish, since I hadn't been able to do it for myself, that he had been the one to say, "I don't think this is normal, Molly. You shouldn't have to live like this.

I'm gonna go in that doctor's office with you, and I'm gonna give them a piece of their, my mind," you know? But he's part of the same system that I'm a part of. You know? And I've had to find acceptance and forgiveness around that too, that some of the same things I struggle with myself- in self-advocacy, he also does. And so no one's coming to save you. Yeah. You have to believe that you are important enough to save yourself. If you have someone that you can bring into the room with you and be another voice- ... then yes, that's a- ... resource that you absolutely should use.

And this is one of the reasons why having a doula or a birth worker present at your birth in a hospital system is so vital, in particular for Black and brown maternal outcomes. Just having a doula present in the room, even if they don't advocate on your behalf to the doctor. Doulas don't speak to the doctor on your behalf.

That's not their job. But to bear witness and to explain to you, "Hey, you know, you have choices here." Yeah. "They're saying this one thing. You can ask them if there's another option." Yes. "They're saying this is the next step. Are there choices? Is it an emergency?" You know, like, just, just having another person in the room, even if they're not trained, just having a friend in the room- also improves outcomes, and reduces interventions, and reduces surgical birth. So everybody is up against this, right? We're all up against this. It, it's hard to advocate for yourself. I loved what you said about knowing your own value, that you're worth speaking up for yourself. Like, that's something you, that, that's a lot of deep work we have to do to get there.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I had... The, the state of pain and distress that I had to be in in order to do that for myself- Yeah ... makes me really sad. Yeah. You know? I really grieve that that version of me didn't know that, but I know it now. Yeah. There's a sort of offense that I think people should be taking more. It shouldn't have to be that way, but I'm gonna have to work with the society that we do have instead of the way that I want it to be.

Yeah. You said something recently in one of your interviews, and I think about this quite often, about the dichotomy of women searching for somebody, needing somebody to provide or, or protect. Yeah. But who's the person that they're protecting against? Yeah. And if it's a- ... heterosexual couple, the woman is looking for a male to protect her from who?

Yeah. From zebras? No. You know? No, from other men. From other men, right? There's a strange dichotomy there. There's a biological part of it. Our ancestors be- like, before homo sapiens, whether it was homo erectus, homo habilis neanderthals and so on, the tribes, the female would, on average, look towards the male to protect, and the two men would go to battle, and they'd go to war, and that, that's in us at some capacity.

And in this society, we have put that on steroids. Where do you think we make the leap from what's just biologically in tune with us till it is time for us to say, "Okay, I'm standing on my DNA. Here is where I leap"? This is a tough one for me, because I spent my life looking for someone to take care of me, and I was always disappointed I, I come from a very, very loving family, but a very chaotic family, and there were a lot of stressors pulling on the minimal resources that we had, right?

So there wasn't enough of anything to go around. My basic needs were for shelter and food were always met. It... There was always some stress around that, but those needs were always met. But the more hierarchical developmental needs for attention, for safety, for security, for familiarity, for consistency, those things were really hard for me to access.

And so my whole life, from the time I was little, I was always looking for a partner or a friend who would provide validation, consistency, attention, the sense of making me feel safe in the world. I always put that on someone else, and the problem is that it was never enough. I was looking to have someone fill a hole that w- was sort of bottomless.

Yeah. Right? And so one of the things that coming face to face with my rock bottom during the recovery from my surgery presented me with was this experience of knowing so clearly that nobody could come to save me from this. Yeah. I, I remember being up in the middle of the night at, like, you know, hour seven, eight of the pain medication and knowing I couldn't take it until a specific time, and I had to sit with the pain until that time, and it was the middle of the night.

I was in the pitch black. I wasn't gonna wake anybody up just to be in pain, you know? And I was with my pain alone in the middle of the night, watching the clock, waiting until I could get relief. And in that moment, I knew there are some things in life that you can only do for yourself. Nobody was gonna feel that pain for me.

Nobody was gonna get to that time for me. You know? Nobody was going to take away how alone I felt in that moment, you know? And at my rock bottom, what I met was myself, and I found through this most painful experience of my life that I will never let me down. Even though I may suffer, I will always be there.

I will save myself because I can tolerate and stay with myself through anything. I was able to release my parents and my husband primarily from my unrealistic expectations- ... that they would fill this hole in me. And when I was able to do that, what I, what I let go of in my life was resentment. .

Because resentment is just- An arrow pointing you to what you really want in your life, and I gave it to myself in this experience. At my rock bottom, I came face to face with myself, and I met my own needs, and it was a transformative experience. I now know that and will never unlearn it, that even though we can want connection from others- and it's, it's wonderful and we need it, there are certain foundational needs that we can only meet for ourself. And that's where I took the leap from wanting someone else to protect me and take care of me to owning the responsibility for doing that for myself. That phrase can sound so isolating sometimes, but I hear empowerment.

Yeah. On at the surface it sounds kind of isolating, but there's a deep, enriching empowerment in it. Yes. If you don't get it here, you're not gonna get it anywhere else. Yeah. I resonate so much with that. It sounds exactly like my experience with losing Wild, which was that the pain and grief I felt, no one else could meet me where I was.

Even my husband at the time had his own version of it and his own version of grief, but I carried that baby. I was the only one to know him. My experience was so unique, no one could understand what I was going through, and I feel the same. I've never said it like that, but I feel the same in that I met myself there, and I knew, I knew the depths of who I was in that moment, and even if no one else was there, I, I knew my roots.

I always describe it as, like, my fuck it moment. Like, fuck it, nothing else can scare me now because I've gone through pretty much the worst thing I could imagine, so I got this now. And I've had to do other really hard things in my life, like leaving my marriage, and that was not as scary as what I'd already gone through.

So I knew, like, I had it in me. The beauty of aging is that you have been through so many things that you go, "I know that I can get through this 'cause I'm proof that I'm here still." Yeah. Yeah. Letting go of resentment is huge. Resentment feels like the mold in a house. It's like if something's on fire, you almost know almost iediately.

That's anger. But resentment is like mold. By the time you notice it, it has spread in a lot of places- ... and you're like, "Oh, well, I gotta tear everything down now." You have worked with couples for 16 years. Is that correct? 19 now. 19. Wow. You've worked with couples for 19 years. Coming up on that 20 year.

Do you- . You must see resentment show itself in a multitude of ways. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you something I've learned about resentment recently. I always my whole life thought resentment was related to anger, right? And it seems like it on the surface. Yeah. I thought, "Okay, what's the core emotion at the heart of resentment?

It's anger." I now feel differently about it. I feel like resentment is about envy. When you are resentful of someone for what they haven't supplied you, it's probably because they have something that you want. H. You want that thing that they have for themself. And you're mad that they're not giving it to you.

Right? I think I, I see this with couples all the time, especially in parenthood. . I experience it in my own marriage. I remember when I had my first baby, I was so resentful that my husband just got up from the room and went and took a shower. Yeah. How dare you- Yeah. ... just stand up and take a shower.

I would ask permission, "Is it okay if I go take a shower now? Let me, can I get my three minutes in the shower? Think I'll be able to wash my hair during that time?" I would ask permission. You know? And I would be so resentful. . How dare he just have the audacity? And what I realized was I wanna be able to just take a shower- without asking for permission. My resentment was about envy. He did a thing that I wanted for myself, and I was mad at him that he got it and I didn't. And so when you can look at it that way and ask yourself, what do you want that you're angry you're not getting, then it becomes about, oh, that's the thing I need.

That's the thing I wish I had. So cue in, dial into your envy. What is it that someone has that you want? H. H. And it's, and the, what you're saying is baked in, yet again, looking in yourself. Finding out the thing, what's going on in here. 'Cause your husband's not gonna turn to you and be like, "Oh, you don't like that I'm covered in suds right now in this shower?"

"Is that bothering you?" Like, that's not gonna happen. You know? He, he can't read the mind. Yeah. Even if he puts the two pieces together, any individual is not going to give the revelation to somebody. Yeah. That it has to come from this within part. Yeah. Yeah. I also think, I think it's such a good explanation of resentment.

I think it's also, for me, wanting to sometimes be seen and understood. . Like, if I'm in your situation here, your husband goes to the shower without asking permission. Does he see that you have to ask permission? . Do you see... I, maybe I'm fine asking permission- ... but I just want you to notice how- hard this is, and that I have to ask permission to take a shower.

And so sometimes it's also about being seen and understood. Which is kind of what we want in partnership, isn't it? To be seen. Yeah. And to try to b- you will never be fully understood. Yeah. But to be t- someone attempting to understand my experience. Yeah. And the wrong answer, which he gave me -- make no mistake -- was, "You don't have to ask permission to take a shower."

That's the wrong answer. The right answer is, "I wish you didn't feel like you had to ask permission to take a shower." Right. "And, and I don't want you to feel that way." "So what can we do differently?" "So that you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you can just hand me the baby-" and say, 'I'm going to take a shower.'" Yeah. D- when you work with couples and you see resentment, what's the number one thing you wish they knew about all of this? This is gonna sound cliché, but it's really true. Something that is so pernicious about resentment is how long-lasting and how rigid it gets, because it stays with us for so long.

In order for something to stay with us that long, one of two things is happening, or maybe both. One, the problem is not being voiced, right? We can be really passive, and we can keep our resentments to ourself and not voice them, in which case, there's something baked into the system where your need is not being met, and if you don't say anything, it ain't gonna change.

And the second part is, it's being voiced, but it's not being received. There's nothing actionable. So I want people to know that when it comes to resentment, if you want a different result, you have to do something differently. You have to either voice it, or you have to change what's being actioned on- when it's voiced. Otherwise, it will be with you forever. I mean, I have seen couples that have come in resentful for 20 years about the same thing. Gosh. You have to do something different. It's not gonna magically change. But is there hope for them? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What, where we get stuck, is that we don't do something different.

We either think, "Somebody's coming to save us." "And that person's probably my partner, and once they just change, then this will be all done." Yeah. Right? To normal. Yeah. Or, or we think, you know, "I'll change. I'll stop wanting this. You know, I'll get into a different chapter, and then this won't be as important."

And so we just stay the same- ... 'cause it's familiar. If you take it back before- We're in these long-term partnerships- Yeah ... and we're in dating. Yeah. Because I think you talk a lot about dating and finding a partner. Yes. Right? I love mate selection. Yes. Yes. Mate selection. Okay, so what are people missing when they're dating and looking for a real partnership?

What are they not looking for? What are they overlooking? . Well, there's a lot of content out there online about your manifestation list- ... and, you know, coming up with your list of 50 things that you're looking for in a partner. Right? And I think that's a really fun, informative exercise, and I even did that before I found my partner.

And it's a great exercise. But here's what's missing. Once you have your list of 50 things that you're looking for, you have to read your list, and you have to circle every item on that list that you yourself do not embody. Because if you're looking for something in someone else, that means that you value it, and if you value it, why are you not living it?

And when you start living what you value, you will naturally attract the things that are like-minded. Right? So whatever you're looking for in someone else, make sure that you have it first. Right. Yeah. Foster and I met on Bumble. . And leading up to it, I was making choices that were missteps for myself- 

right? I try to lean away from things like right and wrong. These are just missteps. You can get back into step over what you want, or you can just keep following that if you want and see what happens. I went through a series of dates, and I had gotten out of a relationship that was heartbreakingly deceptive.

And so I started doing literally this thing. I went inward. What am I doing here that's- ... attracting that person in particular- ... and then these dates going forward? And then something changed in me, and I started valuing myself first. . I started approaching a date as if ... And I, I mean this in the most centered way as possible.

This person should realize that this is a gift that I get to be with them- ... because I wanna value them the same way. Yeah. Before it was, "Let me try to show them something about me that they might like." How much you have to offer. Right. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. The mindset could also be said as like, "No, I'm dope."

"I'm fu- I'm the shit." . "I'm good, and somebody who's with me, they should be, they should be thrilled to be with me." And I didn't really say that in my mind, but it was that sort of feeling- Yeah ... of like, "No, I got something to offer here that's, that's me." Yeah. "And I love me." Yeah. "And I should be going in that mentality."

Yeah. Three weeks later, Foster shows up and matches me on Bumble, and like- Jackpot. ... my dating, it just changed everything. And she was nothing like the people that I was attracting, that I was- Yeah ... being a part of. And then next thing you know, we're, here we are. We have a whole podcast. Yeah. We gotta go through the timeline.

Yeah. Here we are. Yeah. I, I'm gonna take a moment and say I am, like, devastatingly in love with you. I think you are the best thing to ever happen to me my entire life in so many ways. I know I am responsible for me 110,000%, and that's what got me in the field with you, and there's the yin and the yang, the dance.

Like, you gotta take the walk. You know, Dorothy walks down the yellow brick road, but she does have Toto and the Tin Man and the Scarecrow to go with her. And we're all Dorothy in our own situation, right? You are the best scarecrow I have ever- ... met in my entire life. You are the hottest tin man-

without question. There is that beautiful thing- Yeah ... to bring it back full circle, is- Yeah ... turning inward. That comes here first. My goodness, I... You stop treating dating like it was a sales pitch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Well said. Well said. There's a phrase, attraction rather than promotion.

. You see it in 12-step programs. Oh, that's cool. . But based on a mindset of attraction rather than promotion. And that means to know yourself well enough that you stand in who you are. . You know what your value is and what your worth is. I was very much in that place when I met Cesar. I, I knew my worth.

I, I knew we were gonna be together, like, early on, a few weeks, but I had no problem being like, "Yeah, take your time. No worries." Yeah. "I'm good." I know what I bring, and if I'm not for you, then great that I'm for someone else. Yeah. And I'm not attached in the way of like, I, I need you to like me to prove to myself that I'm worth it.

Yeah. And I think it was a lot longer... It took me a lot longer in life to realize that. Yeah. But when you see people dating, looking for partnership specifically, there's a, there's a love piece, right? But then there's a partnership piece, too. So do you think people get lost in the love piece? . I know I have.

Yeah. Yeah. How do you weed through? 'Cause that's gonna happen- Yeah ... and then it's a drug, right? Yeah. So how do you get, how do you get to the partnership stuff and make sure that's all there before you fall- Yeah ... you know? Yeah. Step one Wait. Uh-huh. There aren't a lot of things in life that I think are black and white, and certainly there are exceptions to this rule, but my general rule of thumb is do not change your life in a significant way for someone that you haven't at least known for a year.

Like, don't move across the country for someone who you met two months ago because of the feeling of falling in love. This is true for all people, but I think especially for women, who often have less power in life than men. You know, you don't want to change your life dramatically based on the feeling of falling in love because it does cloud your judgment.

And you need time to establish a person's character. This was a mistake that I made multiple times in my life. I believed that when you know, you know. I now f- know that that's not true because guess what? There were times where I thought I knew, and it was not the one. Uh-huh. Amen, girl. You know?

Amen. And, and I really- I met, I met the ones a lot of ones. Yeah. I really was operating when, when, when he's the one, you'll know it. Well, that failed for me. Yeah. And then when I met my husband, I absolutely did not know that he was the one, and he's the best decision I ever made. Yeah. And I've been with him now for 18 years.

And I absolutely did not know that he was the one. Look, the feeling of falling in love is important. It's an important bonding. Those neurotransmitters that are there that help people feel connected are essential to many people. So I'm not telling people to settle or settle for a relationship where you don't feel in love.

I'm just saying let there be more to it than just the feeling of falling in love before you change your life dramatically. And the second thing that I tell people is don't marry someone that you wouldn't go into business with. Ooh. Because marriage is a legal proposition- You have to be able to trust another person with how they manage their life, their finances, their relationships before you attach yourself to them legally.

Yeah. And if- And financially too ... and financially. Yeah. And if you're gonna get married, for a lot of people, that becomes tied to another big experience, which is having kids. And having kids with someone is like going into business together because you need a damn good teaate. And if you wouldn't trust someone to operate a business with them, why would you go into a lifelong decision of having children with someone that will tie you to them forever?

Yeah. The biggest investment you're gonna be able to make is your partner- Number one- ... is your spouse ... most important decision of your life- Most important ... in my opinion. If you are gonna partner for long term- Yeah ... it's, it, it will impact you the most in terms of your physical health outcomes, your mental health outcomes, your financial outcomes.

The strongest predictor of life satisfaction is relationship satisfaction. . And if you're looking for this long-term relationship, what is another eight to nine months of keeping a bit more space- ... between each other- ... compared to the 50 years- ... the 60 years that you're gonna have afterward?

Yeah. And I'm not saying- It's not- ... don't fall madly in love. Yeah. Right. I'm not saying don't go to Costa Rica together and zip-line and, you know- ... do all of those things, but just don't give anything up that you can never get back- yeah ... exactly ... until you've known them for longer. .

When we're talking about kids, I have a burning question for you- ... because we have done a whole episode on gender roles- ... and mental load. . Everybody here, I'm sure, knows mental load is all of the invisible labor that someone carries in a household, typically in a family, and it almost always falls on the cis female, the woman- -h

in the, in the relationship. How do we fix it, Molly? . Please help us. Look, this is something I struggle with day in and day out- ... in my life, and you, there were ways in which you saw this play out when you were in my home- ... as my postpartum doula that were so painful to me. And that my husband and I continue to navigate.

Right? I'm actually really excited because next week I'm having Eve Rodsky on my podcast. She wrote a book called Fair Play. Okay. Which is a book for couples on how to navigate the mental load, especially for parents. Oh, great. And it offers a practical system for the division of household labor.

Wow. And so this is a system that I used recently in my own home, Fair Play it's called. You can get a, a card deck that goes along with it. . And it's, like, a couple hundred cards, and there is a household task on every single card, and we're talking, like, the smallest things, like who manages karate lessons.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. Right? There's a card for everything, and you sit down with your partner, and you divvy up the cards so that it is very clear and visible- ... who is taking responsibility for what. . The way to address the mental load in relationships is to make the invisible visible. It's the only way. Now, I'm, I'm very privileged to be married to a partner, and this is a big reason why I chose him, who wants to have an equal relationship.

Yeah. Not everybody does. You need to know that about your partner going into a marriage. What are their expectations for the division of household labor? I'm partnered with someone who wants it to be equal, but because of the prograing and experiences he's had in his life, it has not been equal. So we have had to make the invisible visible so that he can see everything that I'm doing in the background- because he doesn't want the version of me that is pissed off and burned out as a wife. Right. Right? And he knows it's not fair. And so we've really had to be very explicit about it, and we still struggle with it, in part because I'm an over-functioner. Yeah. You know, when I am anxious, I plan and I do. So you also, women, you need to look at yourself and the ways that you keep yourself safe.

Because a way that I keep myself safe, what I'm telling myself is, "If I do it all, I will be safe. All the bases will be covered." And it might provide short-term feeling of safety, but long-term it really puts me at risk. Yeah. Doesn't actually keep me safe. It doesn't. I- I've noticed as well it can cause a deep burnout- Yes

in over-functioners, hyper-functioners as well. Yes. Constant. I've noticed in Foster, if I may say- Yeah ... my love, same. She will want to do... I've... Do you know Quan Yin, the bodhisattva- Yeah ... with all the arms- ... the Buddhist bodhisattva? Yeah. I've called her Quan Yin multiple times- ... because she's ever-giving with a multitude of hands going on.

And I've noticed a cycle. I've even started to make notes in my calendar- ... of when the cycle happens- ... to try to find the patterns and be prepared for if something happens. But she will give the idea, get very into it, a, whatever the amount is. There's a, there's a peak, and then there's a crash, and it's very, very heavy in, in, in that process.

And that w- worries me as, one, as a person who I don't see anybody stressed, knowing what stress does to the body, let alone, two, the love of my life. That cycle is hyperactive in so many people. I've seen it in men who ha- take over the mental load in a relationship, but I see it more so in women in this Western culture.

Well, I think what I was gonna ask you is that when you take on that division, right, you actually divvy up the cards- ... let's figuratively but also literally. Yeah. Do you have trouble trusting your partner- Yes ... to take on that many things? Yes. I do. It's hard. Yes. And part of it is, like, I know there's gonna be things that, because I've handled 100% of that a lot of my time, that, like, handing over 50%, some shit's gonna happen.

Yes. Like, stuff's gonna fall through the cracks. Yes. And I don't want it to. That's right. It's really har- That part is my responsibility to let go, and we've been using the phrase a lot, like, let someone else have the dignity of their own experience. Which is that, you know, one time, one time you were late to pick up one of our kids from school, and that kid was disappointed, and that- sat with him, and he said, "I will never do that again," because I know I don't wanna disappoint that kid, but it had to happen- for him to have that feeling. It couldn't be me tracking his location and being like- Yeah ... "You're gonna be late. You better call the school." Yeah. Whatever. You know? Like, and- Can I, can I offer- Yeah ... another perspective too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your kid was okay. Yeah, true. Yeah. They were disappointed. Yeah.

And they were able to talk about that experience, tolerate the experience of disappointment, and if it were to happen again- ... they could be disappointed again- ... and they would be okay. Yeah. This is where I get to, is, like, the things, the balls that get dropped, they are not catastrophic, and I am so Type A- Yeah

that I treat them in my mind like they are catastrophic. If the ball drops, if a child doesn't get picked up on time, that's a catastrophe. And it's not. It's just a mistake. Yeah. You know, we had an episode about this. We talked about, they used the metaphor of strawberries falling.

Conversation was like Foster's holding this big plate of food and whatnot- ... and she's struggling, she's struggling, and someone's trying to bring another thing of strawberries. I'm not gonna be like, "Add the strawberries." I'm like, "No, no, take some of this stuff off a little bit." And then Foster said, "But the strawberries are gonna fall."

And I was like, "Let the strawberries fall." Let the motherfuckers fall on the ground. I'm not, it's... You know what's more important to me? And now I'm getting a little heady about it, but your arm getting rest is most important to me. Damn that fruit on the floor right now. But we want it all. We want it all. We want it ... We want to rest, and we wanna have the strawberries, and it's just like it's not always realistic. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I, I mean, thank you for bringing, bringing all that into the light because I think it's a, it, yeah, is an ongoing struggle. It's an ongoing conversation, and then for us, it's even more complicated.

We don't share a household. And our kids, our kids live with me half the time. And they're my biological children, and so, like, having to navigate ... like, who's responsible for what, I, I am the default parent, ... when it comes to almost everything, and then I can also delegate or ask for help, but it's har- it's hard to do.

I wanna just be like, "Oop, I got it all." "Don't worry. I got it all." "Don't worry." In speaking of kids, if there was some friends of yours who are a couple- ... and they were, not clients of yours, but trying to decide whether or not to have kids. What are some truth bombs you would like to tell them to help them make this decision for themselves?

If they're friends and not clients. Correct. Yeah, yeah. So I can truly offer my own opinions and- Yeah ... perspectives. I'm not just helping to pull out- Exactly ... what they want. What do you wanna tell them that they may not know about parenthood? That is the single most meaningful thing you could ever do with your life.

No matter what happens in that, in that child's life, no matter the pitfalls and the peaks. Oh, yeah. I, I'm not promising you happiness. I'm promising you meaning. . Right, right. Thank you for making that, ... that specific. Thank you. Yes. And you will suffer- ... for that meaning. But everything in my life that has brought me meaning- has also included some suffering. Not that life is suffering, but it's very hard to have a meaningful experience, a meaningful life without some suffering. And parenthood is the range of emotional experience, at least it has been for me. Yeah. It's like the, the highest highs and the lowest lows.

You know? But what it brought to me was meaning, and I was a person that theoretically I wanted to have kids, but every time it kinda came time to do it, I was like... didn't really want to, you know? So I really had to take a leap of faith to do it. The reason why I ended up having my first child is because really my husband wanted to have a child, and I wanted to marry him.

And I knew that he was born to be a dad. And I really wanted to marry him, and I thought, "Well, you know, millions of people can't be wrong." By the way, that's not true. Yeah. Millions of people can absolutely be wrong. Yeah. Damn right. But in this case, they aren't. Teaching moment ... and, and I, and I took the leap of faith.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's an experience that will bring your life so much meaning. Yeah. There's something about the responsibility that we... When we have responsibility to something, that it brings the best version of ourself- ... forward. Yeah. A lot of people haven't worked through a lot of their stuff before having children- and so someti- children will undoubtedly bring up all of the things that we need to work through for ourselves. That's right. Yeah. And- Their... Your, your kids are chosen for you- Yeah. ... specifically to trigger you- ... in ways that require actively healing those parts. Yeah. Whether it's something you didn't get as a child, something that happened to you as a child, or something that happened in your adulthood, but it is undeniable that you will get the child that- Yeah

that you need. I have a friend of mine who, two things, he is a traditionalist, and he also... he's progressive at the same time, and I can see them going to war within him. So sometimes, one, he'll say things that I'm like, "I don't think that's a good thing to generalize about women." . Right? . And they're never, like, dark- 

but they're just a little notes that I'm like, "That's, that's just too far, my friend." . And two, he does not like being ignored. Him and his wife have two kids, both girls now. So he lives in a house full of girls. And the oldest one will look at him when he's upset and just turn and walk away from him.

She's three. She has no idea that that irks him. She she just started doing it, and I'm like, "Hey, man, this is your sign, buddy." You got this... you're gonna keep seeing this challenge until you, you break through and you find it. . I find that to happen more and more in this, in this world.

Whatever your hangup is, that kid's gonna, like, sprout that thing out in front of you- ... in order to face it. Can you tell us a little bit about your podcast? Oh, I'd love to. Yes. Yes. So my podcast is called Kissing Frogs. Every week, I interview a guest about a meaningful relationship in their life.

. A lot of times, that relationship has failed in some way. So we talk about the beginning, the middle, and the end, and what they learned about themselves, love, and the world- ... based on this relationship. Awesome. And I have been interviewing the most wise, articulate, incredible people. . I am having the time of my life.

Oh, nice. And every story has something in it for the listener that I know is going to speak to their own life, right? And I have found people to be so vulnerable and so transparent about their difficult experiences. I'm having the most fun with it. It's called Kissing Frogs, and it's released every Tuesday.

It's out now. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So when you think about breakups- Yeah ... as painful as they are, what is the beautiful thing about breakups? Oh. The gift of goodbye- ... will set you free- Yeah ... you know, if you let yourself accept it and experience it. Okay. Where we get stuck in a breakup, first thing we do is we don't accept it, okay?

W- we try to get the person back. We stalk them on the internet. You know, we try to change their image of us and how they see us, so what we're posting on social media. Yeah. Right? Yeah. We don't accept it. We get the haircut and the- Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Accept the revenge body. Yeah. You know? All of that is a part of not accepting it.

Right? When you accept that it's finally over, and you, by the way, cut off all counication. Okay. All right? If, if you are still in love with someone and they have left you, you have to cut off all counication. Maybe not for the rest of your life, but until you are no longer in love with them.

Okay? And after you accept it, you have to experience it. You have to experience the loss, the grief, the anger, the relief. Whatever comes up for you, you have to let yourself feel it. So much of the time we are stopping ourselves from feeling- Yeah ... you know, with whatever. Moving on too quickly, sleeping with somebody else, drinking, you know, w- whatever, shopping.

Y- you know, you have to let yourself experience it, and when you do that, you will confront the lesson that it has for you. . And that's the final step. Accept, experience, and integrate. . Only when you accept and experience it can you integrate what it has to teach you about life, and then you will find out the gift in goodbye.

. Because you will change. Well said. Well said, well said. That's beautiful. I've been working on this a lot in my process lately. A little while ago I was talking to somebody at lunch, and they said to me, and I've known them for some years, and they said, "I think that person's on the spectrum. Like you, Cesar, you're on the spectrum.

You know that, right?" And I took a pause. I said, "I don't know that, and I haven't been diagnosed by that, so I'm not gonna jump into that." And they were a little affronted by that. What is it about society right now that wants to start labeling people- ... all these phrases without any actual diagnosis?

. Spectrum. This person is a narcissist. This person is they're gaslighting. . They're all of these little things- ... without going through the actual proper, proper channels. Yeah. The, sorry, the most effective channels I should say. Yeah. What is going on? We are so scared and lost and confused, and defining things helps us feel better.

You know? This is a scary time in the world, really scary, and wonderfully, their access to mental health is improving, and mental health content, access to mental health content is improving a ton. So that's great, but when we're scared, lost, and confused, we take the information that we have and w- then we wanna superimpose it- Like cling it

on everything and everyone we know- Oh, ... so that we can feel- Safer. Right? And that's all that was going on there. Uh-huh. Okay. He had an idea about who you are that would help him feel safer for some reason. None of your business to know why. Yeah. Yeah. You know? And I, I just let her have it.

I'm not even gonna be, I'm- Yeah ... okay, it's not me, whatever. Yeah. I could see she didn't stick with her that well. Yeah. And I was, I'm gonna move on. Yeah. I'm just not interested in labeling in that sort of sense- Yeah ... 'cause I haven't done the due diligence. Yeah. I don't know this person's circumstance.

I have no idea to call them these sorta things, you know? Yeah. Yeah. There's also a second part that I've realized, like, that feels like, I forget what the phrase is, but when somebody goes to college for their freshman year- ... and they get some information, and now they feel like they know it all. Oh, yeah.

Do you know? Yeah. 'Cause they gained this branch of information. Yeah. And some years later- Conscience ... they come back around- Yeah ... and they say, "Oh, I know that I know minimal, actually." You know? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like because we have this burst of collective information- ... the collective conscious is metaphorically that freshman year.

Yeah. . Where we're kind of getting to- Yeah ... like, we have all this information now. Oh, this is, this is this, this is that. Yeah. And then at some point we'll realize, oh, no, we gotta learn a lot more. We got so much more work- Yeah. Yeah, yeah ... that needs to be done. That's such a good analogy. I try to remind myself of that.

I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be freshman year for this c- society right now. Yeah. Yes. Maybe that's it. That's such a compassionate lens. Yeah. Like, we're all just freshmen here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We think we know a lot. Yeah. We got all kinds of disorders now. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Oh, Molly, thank you so much for coming on our show and sharing just, like, your story and your- 

wisdom with everyone. I want everyone to check out Kissing Frogs, for sure. And thank you for being a dear friend- ... as well. The privilege is mine, really. Thank you for having me. And as usual, please be kind to yourself.

If this episode spoke to you- ... take a moment and send it to someone else who might need it. That's the best way to spread these conversations to the people who need them the most. And if you wanna keep exploring with us, make sure to follow Beauty and the Break wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you next time.

Beauty and the Break is created and hosted by Foster Wilson and Cesar Cardona. Our executive producer is Glenn Milley. Original music by Cesar + the Clew.