LOVE, RESENTMENT, AND THE MOM WHO FEELS INVISIBLE — REWRITING EMOTIONAL SCRIPTS IN MARRIAGE AND THE EMPTY NEST YEARS | EP. 4
Welcome to The Small Jar, a podcast where we explore how to intentionally design the life that you want in the space between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number four.
Hello, friends. In the spirit of Valentine's Day, I thought I would talk about love. Specifically, romantic love.
You may be married, happily or unhappily, divorced or in the process of a divorce, widowed, dating, single. No matter your relationship status, I want to offer you food for thought as you curate love in your life. You may have heard the phrase, marriage is a marathon, not a sprint.
Well, I recently saw a comedian on TikTok who took this metaphor a bit further. She said, getting married is a sprint. From the moment you decide this person is the one, it's a sprint to the wedding.
She says, it's you, it's you. Oh my God. Yay.
I'm so excited. Then you have the party and it's amazing. And then you're done with the wedding and you're married.
And marriage is like a marathon track where you go round and round and round and round the same track with the same person. And if you're doing it properly, it's forever. And then she asks, how do people typically look when they finish a sprint? Well, people finishing a sprint are always pumped, so excited.
Well, how do people look when they are finishing a marathon? The fundamental thing to notice, she says, about people who are finishing a marathon is that they don't know how they are feeling themselves. They're delirious, being wrapped in tinfoil, nipples bleeding, no self-respect left. It's hysterical.
She goes on to be a lot more explicit. I was dying as I was listening to it. The sprint and the marathon.
Do you remember how you first envisioned getting married? I think for many women, we view marriage as this magical destination in life. I remember sitting with my best friend in the nineties on the balcony of my very small apartment in New York City. And we would try to envision what our lives would be like when we found the one.
So often we would talk through our fears of never finding him. Back then, we were absolutely sure that our future happiness required us to get married. Love in our twenties, maybe even our thirties felt like a roller coaster.
Soaring highs, painful lows. Then eventually you meet him, the one. The excitement of seeing him, getting ready for dates, passionate kissing, holding hands.
Life felt so full of possibility. You would envision what your life would be like if you were married. In retrospect, it all seemed so glistening, like a fairy tale.
I dreamed of a prince, and then I found him. Getting engaged was magical. The road to the wedding, while stressful at times, was exciting and so full of joy.
Life was so perfect. So perfect, in fact, that when my new husband and I arrived at the airport to check in for the flight that would launch us into our honeymoon, we realized my passport had expired. It could have been an absolute disaster, but I didn't care.
I mean, I felt badly that I had somehow overlooked this critical detail, but I wasn't upset. It certainly helped that my new husband somehow miraculously solved the problem, but at the time I felt so elated and joyful and happy that there was nothing that could take that joy away from me. The sprint to marriage, exciting, maybe stressful, but exhilarating, fantastic.
As you listen, you may still be waiting for your fairy tale. Not everyone finds the one in the same way or over the same timeline, but if you're listening and you were somewhere in your 40s or 50s, you also have seen the reality of how the fairy tale turns out for many couples. It's staggering that notwithstanding our idealistic hopes for marriage when we're younger, that 50% of marriages end in divorce.
Now, why do people get divorced? Lack of commitment is a huge one. Couples argue too much. They're not faithful.
They get married too young or they have unrealistic expectations. In contrast, when you look up the characteristics of a strong, healthy marriage or a long-term partnership, you get a wide range of answers. Communication and commitment score high on most lists.
Other lists say you really need kindness, integrity, intimacy, connection. You need to set healthy boundaries. All that's really clear from these lists is that there doesn't seem to be a clear formula or an easy solution to how to keep a marriage strong.
According to what's known as interdependence theory, partners evaluate satisfaction with a relationship based on an assessment of costs and benefits. So basically, according to this theory, each partner in a relationship is weighing the benefit of staying with the cost of leaving the relationship. For some, the benefits of staying are clear, that they far outweigh the costs and they are happy.
Others might stay in a difficult relationship because they hope it will get better in the future, or they may think that the opportunities waiting for them outside the relationship, whether romantic, financial, or otherwise, are no better. So this means that if 50% of marriages end in divorce, meaning 50% of couples have weighed the cost-benefit of leaving versus staying and decided leaving was better, and that others stay in bad relationships because they don't think leaving will be better than staying, then you have to ask yourself, what percent of marriages actually stay intact because both people in the relationship feel the benefits far outweigh the cost of leaving, or even that they never even consider leaving because the benefits of staying are so clear? I don't want to hazard a guess, but suffice to say, the number is clearly smaller than 50%. Now I don't mean to lead on such a depressing note, but I do think there's a takeaway here for all of us.
Whether married, divorced, or single, the grass isn't greener. Marriage does not necessarily equal happiness. Being divorced or single doesn't necessarily mean unhappy.
So if these circumstances don't guarantee love or happiness, then how can we ever actually find love and happiness? We talk about love as if it's something that you can give someone, or like a gift that you can receive. But have you ever received a gift from someone and your first thought was, what were they thinking? This isn't anything I would ever use. You might feel disappointed or confused, like I wonder if this person even knows me.
I want to suggest to you that it's similar with giving love. You can love someone and show someone you love them by giving them the gift of your love, meaning you are doing and saying things that you believe demonstrate your love, but how they receive that love is completely up to them. They may not receive your love in the exact way you intend it.
They observe what you say and do, and they interpret your actions based on what it means to them, based on how their vision of what love should look like compares to the way you demonstrate love. The perception of what we think love looks like comes in part from what we have observed in our life. Many of us have ideas of what love looks like from our parents or our friend's parents, and then later from the various connections we have throughout our lives.
We've also grown up watching examples of passionate love and then very bad relationships on TV or in the movies, the best and worst case scenarios. Over the course of time, we've seen examples of what we want and clearly what we don't want in our romantic relationship. If your parents stayed married, you may have observed the way they treated each other and taken note of particular traits that you would want for your own partner or conversely traits that you don't want.
If your parents were divorced or had a difficult marriage, it could make you want to make an even greater effort to ensure your own marriage is successful, or it could make you question whether marriage is worth it at all. We all interpret and internalize the circumstances of other people's relationships in different ways, and then we build our own dream of what we want to create for ourselves. So we have this view of what we want in a partner, and when we're dating and evaluating who might be a future long-term partner, we're stacking up these prospects against the view of what we have, potentially unconsciously, created in our mind as the perfect match.
When you're dating and young, it's easy to be swayed by somewhat superficial traits, how attractive the person is, body types. You of course get to know the person's personality, but in the early stages of dating, everyone's on their best behavior, for the most part. Sure, you do tend to see people for who they are over time when you're dating, but the relationship is rarely tested.
That all changes on the marathon track of marriage or a long-term partnership. Money, kids, responsibilities, intimacy. When you share your life with someone on a day-to-day basis, the circumstances of your life don't feel quite as vibrant and sexy as they did when you were younger and when you didn't have so many stressors or shared responsibilities.
There are so many reasons couples fight. When one person feels they're not getting enough affection, couples may fight about these expectations. When one or both partners feel jealous or are unfaithful, couples can become mired in arguments about fidelity and mistrust about what they're doing when they're not together.
Couples disagree over household and family responsibilities, who manages the kids' lives, taking care of the house, parenting strategies. Finally, money is a huge source of discord for couples. How they earn it, how they spend it, how to save and plan for the future.
And this is by no means an exhaustive list. Each of us have our own specific reasons for why we may disagree or argue with our partner on a regular basis or the reasons that we ended a prior relationship. When it comes down to it, working through the circumstances of our lives in a partnership takes work.
Even if your relationship is relatively strong and healthy, every couple has challenges. In the beginning of a relationship, it's so easy to feel loved. The excitement and newness of the relationship makes it easier to accept the gift of your partner's love in a positive way.
There are few distractions, fewer stresses and responsibilities. But the longer you are in a relationship, the more it can feel as if your partner is not giving you the love you desire. You may feel taken for granted or that your partner doesn't reciprocate the love you give to him.
We are all used to believing that what our partner does or doesn't do is the cause of our frustration or disappointment with them. But I want to challenge this assumption. First, ask yourself, what are the big or little frustrations that accumulate over the course of the week or month with your partner? Or if you're divorced, what are those frustrations that you're still carrying from your past relationship? What do you like or not like about how he displays affection? What are the things he does that you love? And conversely, what are the things that he does that you think make you feel aggravated? Do you fight about money? What he does with his spare time? How he helps with the kids or around the house? How he shows his appreciation for you? Throughout our lives, we develop something of a manual for what love is supposed to look like or what we want it to look like for ourselves.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, we are constantly comparing our partner with our manual. This is what they should do when they show me love. This is how they should help with the housework.
This is how late they should work. We think that when they meet our expectations or follow our manual, we'll feel happy, appreciated, and loved. Alternatively, when they fall short of the manual, don't do what we ask.
Don't show affection. Don't meet our hopes for who we want them to be. We feel frustrated, disappointed, unappreciated, and maybe even unloved.
I remember the first time someone mentioned the concept that you can't feel someone else's love. I was like, what? What do you mean you can't feel someone else's love? Intuitively, it doesn't sound right. But think about it.
An emotion is a sensation in your own body. It's a subjective reaction. Think about what love feels like in your body.
Maybe warm, maybe tingling, maybe a little dizzying. When you feel love, this sensation in your body, you act a certain way toward the person you love. Maybe you tell them you love them.
Maybe you do nice things for them, go out of your way for them. Maybe you buy them gifts or cook them dinner. You show them your love.
But remember when we talked about the unwanted gift, the gift you might have received in the past when you thought, what were they thinking? The giver presumably purchased this gift for you thinking that you would like it. They very likely thought they were doing something nice for you. They might have thought they were showing you their love by giving you the gift.
But you didn't experience their love in the way it was intended because the gift wasn't quite right in your mind. It all comes down to your perception of other people's actions. We observe what our partner is doing, what they're saying, and how they're interacting with us.
And based on our interpretation, we might feel love and appreciation, or alternatively, frustration or disappointment. If your partner looks you in the eye and they say, I love you. He holds your hand and he kisses you passionately.
It's very easy to think, this man loves me and I love how he's showing me he loves me. Of course, in that moment, you feel love. You feel the sensation in your body of love.
But what if a complete stranger did the exact same thing? What if someone on the street came up to you, he looked you in the eye and said, I love you. He held your hand and tried to kiss you passionately. Would you think, he loves me and I appreciate how he is showing me love? Or would you think, get the hell away from me? Who do you think you are? The gift the stranger is giving you is unwanted.
You don't feel his love because you don't interpret his actions as love. Here's another example. Have you ever been in a situation, maybe at a time when you were dating, when someone does all the right things and says all the right things, but you don't feel anything? The person could tell you you're beautiful.
They could hold your hand and do all of the things that someone should do that you'd like them to do if you cared about them, but you don't. For whatever reason, this person just isn't a match for you in your mind. And so they can say all the right things and they can even tell you they love you, but in your mind, it's not a match.
So you don't feel love. Your perception, your interpretation is what creates the feeling of love, not the actions someone takes or the words someone says. It might seem like a very semantic distinction, but it really becomes important as you decipher the cause of your feelings in the context of a romantic relationship.
When we think that our feelings come from outside of us, that we're just struck by love at first sight, or that we can fall in love or fall out of love as if it's something that just happens to us, then we lose all control of our emotional life. It may seem romantic to think of love as something that is magical, something that happens to us if we're really lucky, but thinking of it this way means that we have little ability to create love for ourselves unless we happen to find the right person. And it allows us to abdicate all responsibility for creating love in our life unless the person we're with follows our manual.
Is there a right person? You might have thought there was at one time. Maybe you're still with him. Maybe you're still looking.
But no matter how right or perfect a partner is, they will never follow your manual a hundred percent of the time. In fact, if you really think about it, all of the items in your manual, the list of things that you want your partner to do and say, how many of those items have you actually communicated as an expectation of them? Who is responsible for making you feel love? Well, when I talked about the example of the lover, the stranger, and the just a friend, I demonstrated that each of these men could say the exact same words and do the exact same things, but you experience these circumstances entirely differently based on your perception of the circumstances. The lover, in the first example, is someone who you already care about.
You have a relationship with him. So when he says, I love you, you think, yes, I'll take that. But when the stranger says, I love you, you think, no, thanks.
I have no idea who you are. Similarly, the friend's own date says, I love you. And again, you think, no, thanks.
It's not a match. In each case, you are interpreting the circumstance to mean different things depending on the story you have about each of the individual people. In the first case, you feel love because in your mind, this is someone with whom you feel a connection.
In the second two cases, you don't think there's a connection, so you don't feel love. The point being your thoughts, your interpretation of the circumstance makes you feel love. Your thoughts make you feel love.
Each of us will interpret the circumstances of our relationships in different ways based on our own personal needs and preferences. So one of the key takeaways as you think about the love you feel in your life is that your emotions are not out of your control. In fact, you create your feelings, whether consciously or unconsciously, based on the thoughts you were having about the circumstance, meaning how your partner acts, what they say, and the evidence you've collected from the past about how they typically act or how they used to behave.
Your brain is constantly evaluating the circumstances and interpreting what they mean for you, good and bad, and these interpretations fuel our emotional experience. I have found in my own life that the awareness that my thoughts generate my feelings has allowed me to become really honest with myself about why I might feel love or alternatively why I might at times feel disappointed or unappreciated. This awareness has completely transformed the amount of agency I have in my romantic relationship.
Because as long as I'm waiting for my husband to change or to do something specific in order for me to feel loved and accepted, I've given all of my power away to the circumstances which are out of my control. His behavior, what he says, what he does, all of it's out of my control. Even more, as long as I'm dependent on my husband to do the right thing all of the time, I will be constantly seeking this reinforcement of his love and appreciation.
I'll never have enough. I'll always be waiting for the next iteration of actions or words or reinforcement so I can continue to feel loved. But what if you could just decide that this love is available to you now? Even if your partner doesn't live up to your expectations all of the time, can you be honest with yourself about what those expectations are and why they're important to you? You might say, for example, I want him to come home on time for dinner because he works too much and I feel like he's not supporting me at home or spending enough time with the kids.
It is your interpretation of the fact that he works until a certain time that makes you feel unappreciated, unsupported, and disappointed. You are absolutely entitled to feel that way. But if you think the reason you feel this way is because your husband works until nine o'clock, then the only way for you to feel better is for him to come home earlier.
Sounds right, you might say. But what if you could take a step back and question the thought he doesn't support me at home? Is it true? Can you absolutely know that it's true? Could it be that your husband's way of supporting you and the family is that he works late? The way he shows his love is to work hard so he can financially support the family. My point is not to suggest that you should take the high road and look at it from his perspective, but I offer this alternative thought to demonstrate that it is the thought he doesn't support me that makes you feel unappreciated and disappointed.
The thought he doesn't support me isn't a fact, it's your interpretation. And it's that interpretation that causes the pain. When you can take a step back and take ownership for how you interpret what your partner is doing and how your interpretation is making you feel, you start to realize how much power you have to create an emotional life filled with love rather than pain.
Let me share a different example. Let's say your husband drinks. Let's say the fact is that he has more than five drinks a night.
That's the circumstance. Now your interpretation of that fact is he's a no good husband, a drunk, I wish he would stop drinking altogether. You feel angry and powerless.
Following the logic we've discussed, you don't feel angry and powerless because he drinks five drinks each night. You feel angry and powerless because you're thinking he's no good and I wish he would stop drinking altogether. The problem is that he isn't stopping.
So if we're waiting for him to stop to feel better, then we're never going to feel better. But I also understand that if you're thinking he's a drunk, it's completely understandable that you feel angry and powerless. I want to be clear that I never mean to suggest that the way we interpret circumstances is wrong.
It's never wrong. It's just what's true for us in that moment. The main point is to understand that what we think creates our emotional reality.
Just that awareness, just that subtle shift, that it's my thoughts, not his actions, that create my feelings. That subtle shift gives you all your power back. You no longer have to change the other person to feel better.
You simply have to be aware of what you're thinking. Be honest with yourself about what you're thinking and begin to hold space for yourself to understand that your feelings are being generated by this interpretation. By taking this step back from our thoughts, we begin to open our minds to the possibility that there's a different path.
So back to the example of the husband who drinks five drinks. Do you think he's a drunk? Can you begin to have compassion with yourself that of course when you think I wish you would stop drinking and he doesn't, that it makes you feel powerless and angry? Of course it does. We can't change the husband who wants to drink and we notice that when we fight against reality we feel pain.
I love Byron Katie who often says, I'm a lover of reality. When I argue with what is, I lose, but only 100% of the time. Our husbands, our lovers, our partners are doing what they're doing.
We don't have any control over what they do. We can either love them exactly for who they are now, how they show us love, or we can fight against reality. Here's something to contemplate.
If you can accept your partner for exactly who they are in every moment, you will never fall out of love with them, even if you leave them. As long as you need them to change, to do something differently, or say something differently, be somebody different, you will always be searching for more love. The gift you can give yourself is to know that you are responsible for your emotional life.
You are the one who creates love for yourself, the emotion of love. You're not obligated to give your love, and you may decide that someone is no longer worthy of your love. But if you are seeking love from somebody, consider that you can find it in your own mind by accepting who they are.
Isn't that what unconditional love looks like? Until next time, friends.
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