Dating While Estranged: Revealing Personal Details in Early Romantic Involvement with E! Relationship Expert Dr. Darcy Sterling

In this episode of Family Troubles, I sit down with Dr. Darcy Sterling, a NYC-based Licensed Clinical Social Worker, relationship expert, and host of E! Network’s Famously Single, to talk about what it means to date while estranged from a parent, adult child, sibling, or other family member.

Estrangement can be painful enough on its own. But when you’re beginning a new romantic relationship, it can raise a whole new set of questions: When do you share it? How much do you say? Will the other person judge you? And how do you talk about something deeply personal without making it the whole story?

Dr. Darcy and I discuss the challenges of revealing personal details early in dating, especially when those details involve family conflict, shame, grief, or unresolved relationships. We also talk about vulnerability, emotional pacing, and how to build intimacy without feeling pressured to disclose everything at once.

Listen for more on:

• When to share family estrangement in a new romantic relationship
• Why estrangement can bring up shame, fear, or anxiety in dating
• How much personal history to reveal early on
• The difference between being honest and oversharing
• Why timing matters when discussing painful family experiences
• How to protect yourself emotionally while still building trust
• What a partner’s response can tell you about their emotional maturity
• How estrangement can shape intimacy, vulnerability, and connection

Tune into this episode of Family Troubles for a thoughtful conversation about dating, disclosure, and how to navigate new relationships when part of your family story feels difficult to explain.

Guest links:

Website: https://www.askdrdarcy.com/

Podcast: https://www.askdrdarcy.com/podcast/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdarcysterling/

Dr. Joshua Coleman’s Links:
Website: http://www.drjoshuacoleman.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.josh.coleman
Substack: https://substack.com/@joshuacolemanphd
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshColeman/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjoshuacoleman/?trk=opento_sprofile_topcard
Twitter X: https://x.com/drjcoleman
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc-olRqS_o2xJlkpxWEEErg

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome everybody to another Family Troubles podcast. Today I'm delighted to have my colleague on, Dr. Darcy Starling. Darcy is a licensed clinical social worker, relationship therapist, one of the country's most sought-after experts on dating and relationships. Many of you may know her from her work on TV, including Ease Network Famously Single, or from her popular advice column, media appearances and online courses. She's also the host of We Need to Talk with Dr. Darcy Sterling, which is a podcast that I've been on several times. Darcy's a great, great interviewer, and I got a lot out of the podcast that I know the people in my group who followed it did as well. So I'm just thrilled to have you on the call, Darcy.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Thanks so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah, it's so great. So, yeah, so I wanted to kind of pick your brain today about one of the topics that's come up lately for me with my estranged people, and that is, and we can talk more generally about, you know, dating with a secret or dating when you have something that you feel ashamed about or embarrassed about, um, and kind of both how to do it, when to reveal it, um, and also kind of how to screen those kinds of things in other people. So do you have any sort of just general thoughts about all that? I'm sure you do.

SPEAKER_04 1:35

Yeah. When I think about dating, I don't just think about looking for red flags. I think about whether or not the person in front of you is someone that you can tolerate being known by. So it's so it's not just am I able to see you clearly, but am I able to let you see me clearly?

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:02

And it gets really nuanced. What you just described, the difference between trying to determine when the right time is to tell someone something personal about you, is basically the difference between privacy and secrecy. It's it's a really nuanced and and poignant question and topic.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

When I think about, first of all, everybody has a right to privacy. You have a right to your story, and other people have to earn their right, have to earn the right to hear your story. No one should feel compelled to disclose things early or when they're uncomfortable. However, as you know, there's a tipping point between, you know, I'm waiting for this relationship to evolve so that the fabric of it is tight enough to handle the weight of my story versus I'm holding out and I'm not sure when or if I'm going to tell the person, you know, disclosing something private can start to feel like you ever get in a situation where somebody you're introduced to someone and you like them a lot, and then you run into them a few times, but you forgot their name. Oh, sure. And you never ask them for their name again. And it gets to the point where, like, at a certain there's a tipping point where like at a certain point you realize that it behooved you to ask their name a long time ago, and now you're just kind of like pointing at them and saying, So good to see you. And you're covering and you're doing image management. And the thing about secrecy is that you never want it to become image management. If it's become image management, it behooves you to ask yourself, is it something about this person or is this me? People have a right to know what they're getting involved with. Yeah, they have a right to know you know, they have a right to know what they're getting involved with. They have a right to know what you're doing about your wounds, what kind of wounds you have. You're so much better off disclosing this stuff. And I when I say early on, I mean like the first six months, I don't mean the first six dates or the first six weeks at all. I mean, like, you know, you want to know whether someone can handle your story, I think, early on. I would never want to be deeply invested in someone if I thought that they were gonna clutch their pearls and go running at the first sign of my wounds.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Right.

SPEAKER_04 4:59

But they're but you also don't want to like fire hose someone early on and be a bit of an emotional slut where you're like, you're disclosing things because you're looking for the other person to manage your anxiety around your story. So it's gotta be done artfully.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really well said that that we're always sort of testing people unconsciously to see how close we can be, how much we can reveal about ourselves. And for some people, their anxiety would cause them to sort of fire hose the other person in a certain way. Well, let me tell you every single thing I'm ashamed about. So if you're gonna reject me, let's just get it over with. And that's really unfair to the other person because they need time to get to know you. And if you just fire hose them, then they may feel like, oh my gosh, you seem like a lot of work. You know, you seem like you're gonna be really high maintenance, and I'm not necessarily signing on for that. Whereas if you sort of give it to them in bites that they can digest, and that's a very different kind of a relationship.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

Also, if you're fire hosing me with your trauma story dates one through six, I'm questioning your emotional intelligence. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Right.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

And I'm telling my clients to do the same thing. If they're not, I'm like, you know, you might want to think about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Right. Slow the hell down.

SPEAKER_04 6:21

Because what are you trying to do? Are you literally trying to throw the worst parts of yourself at the person to see if they can handle it? That's not fair either.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

No, no. No, it's testing them, you know, typically, I think, unconsciously, to see if the things you hate the most about yourself they're gonna hate as well. But it's just it's the wrong strategy. It's putting too much on the fragile early beginnings of a relationship. And relationships have to develop roots and strength to kind of bear the weight of the more difficult, shameful revelations, both that we have about ourselves and to tolerate the things that they have to tell us about them.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, yeah. Well, so so estrangement is a big one for my people in my my group, kind of like, well, what point do I tell somebody that I'm estranged? And I think that estrangement, I don't know that it's particularly it's certainly very shameful for a parent. Um but I I don't know if it's more shameful than other I mean, sure, it could be more shameful than some things and less shameful than than others. Um but I think for for some people, estrangement feels like it's so much, particularly for women, it feels like it's so much at the core of who they are. So if I tell you that I'm estranged from my child or children, you're gonna think I'm a terrible mother or a terrible person. And um and I don't just don't know if you have any other thoughts about any of that, but um it's kind of the same theme, but you know, as women, we are valued for our relationships.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

So much of our value comes through the quality of our relationships. And you have said this so many times on We Need to Talk, that, you know, as we age, people share with each other about their children.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

And there are not necessarily, if you're estranged from your child and you're a mom, there are not necessarily photos that you can share. You know, you go quiet when there's pictures of the grandchildren, you know, circling a group chat or a group text. It's very, very lonely and it can make you feel quite isolated. But I would argue that it's even beyond a parent-child. I would argue that the parent-child dynamic is probably the most shameful for someone. But you know, I'm a I'm estranged from a family member. I've been quite open with you about that, and I'm not proud of it. I don't like that having to disclose it comes with feels to me like it comes with an an inherent PowerPoint presentation. I don't like that. I don't like that I feel like I have to explain it. I I do feel like I have to explain it because I feel like if I don't explain it, the subtext is there's something wrong with her, that she doesn't have a relationship with these people.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

So I feel the weight of that personally, and I can I can connect to that. I also think that it's important that we, you know, like anything else, the more you expose your shame to the light of day, the less power it has over you.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Completely.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

I'm not screaming it from the rooftop that I have an estranged situation. But people who follow me closely know because I've said it, you know, both times when you've been on my podcast. I I spoke about it once or twice outside of you in the 230 episodes I've done. So that it's not something that I talk about all that often as I think about it. When I look at the when I look at the the stats on it, I don't talk about it that often. But when I meet someone new and they ask me, you know, how many people are in your family, I'm not gonna lie. And then they and then the next question is, are you close to them?

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

And I'm not gonna lie. And then comes the the the moment where I'm like, I feel like I need to tag a little explanation here. And and it doesn't feel great. So when you're dating someone new, I do think it is important that you tell them that tell them about your family dynamics. And it's going to mean different things to different people. You and I are gonna understand it differently hearing it from someone than a lay person would. A lay person's family dynamic is going to inform how they experience that. We're also gonna be folding in our own personal experiences of having been estranged and reconciling, and also our clinical lenses. So it is important to disclose it because you want to know how the person's going to react. Again, you're trying to see how much of the real you, the uncurated version of you, that person can handle. You don't want to be in a relationship with someone where you're constantly managing your image. That is such a burden.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

So I do think you want to disclose it, but again, keeping in mind the cadence. You don't want to be someone who unloads too early and and makes themselves look off-putting, yeah, because of that, you know, you you want you want there to be also some reciprocity. So as your as your partner, the person you're dating is disclosing to you, you know, you you kind of you can tell if they're sharing with you, it means it should mean that they're capable of holding space for you as well, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

I would yeah, I would certainly hope so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:17

And if they can't, is that not a red flag?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

That's definitely a red flag. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah. Well, so what do you think the healthiest way to disclose it is? Because because I think what you're saying, and I agree with, is there is a certain amount of um image management that does have to come in the early part of relationship. And we can't kind of fire hose the person with all of our sad tales and history and things that we're ashamed of. And every single person has them. You know, every s everybody has something that they're ashamed of, and either in the past or they feel about themselves that's really unlovable and uh repellent, maybe even. And so in the beginning, you there is a certain amount of image management that is required, but you're right, at some point, if that takes over, then you're now you're sort of building a relationship on a faulty, kind of a faulty foundation. So do you have like language when somebody like let's say you're let's say you're a strange mom and you want to tell this person that you're dating and falling in love with uh you know the unvarnished truth? Like, what are your thoughts about the best way to raise that?

SPEAKER_04 13:24

Well, I want to start by gently pushing on the frame. I don't think that's image management, I think it's pacing. And I think pacing is appropriate, and we all want to do it. We want to be mindful of the other person's capacity and the relationship's capacity. Has the relationship grown enough roots to be able to tolerate what you're about to share? And you know, I think that if you're if you're an estranged mom, I can only manage, imagine that so much of your identity, like, isn't that the first thing people ask? Do you have children?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 14:04

So you're going to say yes. Right. And let me see pictures.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

When was the last time you saw them?

SPEAKER_04 14:09

Right. I mean, and so if you find yourself on the receiving end of that, I would say my relationship with my children is complicated. And I'm happy to share that with you over time.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

And and I would leave it there until you feel comfortable. And that's that's an appropriate gentle boundary, right? Like, I don't think I just, you know, I don't think I just roadblocked you by saying that. So much of it is in the tone and in the delivery. And then when you feel that the relationship is right, because now the person's got a yellow flag, okay? Right. I'm gonna be honest.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Yeah, you've raised their uh some anxiety or something.

SPEAKER_04 14:50

Yeah, you have, you have, and so it's not fair to moms. I'm sorry to the moms out there. It is not fair, so much of your identity, of our identity, is around being parents. So you're gonna be asked early, and you have a right to set a gentle boundary. And just, I mean, so much of it is like it's in the spirit from which we express it. Like, I I'm I'm I'm looking at the person, I'm saying, I'm not punishing them for asking the the normal question, and I'm saying, I understand why you would ask that. My relationship with my kids is complicated, and I and I do want to talk about that when I'm ready. Yeah, and and like that's just such a reasonable way to express yourself, and then you have to know that time is ticking from that point on.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

That's right, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

Time is definitely ticking, and you want to move towards like what is a story, what is a version of that that you can tell? And and you know, you would be a better able to speak to this than I am, because you're such an expert in estrangement. When you tell the story, you can't just be victimized.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Right, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 16:10

Because I have to tell you when when somebody tells me a story of anything that is close to the heart, a breakup, any ending of a relationship, I am looking for the person to take responsibility for it.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Absolutely, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 16:26

And I mean, I'm looking for that in my brand new clients. Brand new people come to me, and in the very first session, I'm asking them questions about that because if they can't tolerate the ability to look at themselves critically, I am not the therapist for them, as you well know. I am not the girl, I am, I am nurturing and supportive and protective. And I will also tell you the truth. You have to be willing to hear the truth because otherwise you have no power in your life.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Right.

SPEAKER_04 16:58

So when you're telling the story, you have to work out a version of it that doesn't, you know, you can share a story. Look, you know, it's like a coming out story. Your first coming out story is not the gory details. You know, when you tell people you're gay, it's not like, so here's how the whole thing happened. You're not like walking them through the gory details of that. You have to start with like a top-line explanation of it. And then over time you can get into more detail over it. Again, as the person earns the right, especially if you were on the receiving end of a question very early on in the rule in the dating, which a lot of moms will be. You know, it's it's reasonable to give a top-line explanation. So, you know, with me, I'll just use me and my brother. I would tell someone, you know, my brother and I had a falling out many years ago, and it's very sad, and I miss him very much, and I wish I could have him in my life, and that's completely true. And we are estranged. I mean, and then over time maybe I tell someone the details of it, but that's the top-line explanation. What do you think of that?

SPEAKER_00 18:28

I like it. I mean, I think it's honest, and you know, you've the fact that you're not just saying, Oh, but my brother's a total asshole and a sadist. I mean, if he's an asshole and a sadist, then I guess it's okay to say that. Um, but if that's not your feeling and and there's pain and sadness in it as well, I think that makes you look more more appealing and vulnerable than just acting completely victimized by it. I feel the same way, you know, about divorces or or estrangement. It isn't that parents have to blame themselves, but they do have to have the capacity for well certainly if towards reconciliation, they have to have the capacity to take responsibility and find the colonel, if not the bush look truth in the child's complaints. But if they're describing it to somebody else, um I I think they if they're gonna get into it, then they have to talk about whatever ways they feel responsible or feel a certain degree of shame or blame or that kind of thing, just so they're not looking like they're just externalizing everything.

SPEAKER_04 19:24

And if you want to expand it to our exes, and all of us have them, I think. You know, unless we're very young, right, most of us have past relationships, you cannot frame it all as the other person's problems. Right. Even if you were betrayed, even if you were betrayed, you have to find the piece of the relationship that you were responsible for as well. The betrayal is part of the story, it can't be the whole story. It can't be, it just can't be, you know, it it with the exception of like domestic violence, you know. And and you you know, I hear people say so often my clients will tell me that new people that they're dating frame their exes as I outgrew the relationship. Okay, I'm gonna call bullshit on that right now. First of all, it's it's a little smug to say that you outgrew the relationship. Oh, you're so emotionally intelligent. You outgrew the person. Okay, you outgrew your partner. Like, or or we we grew apart. I mean, that is such a dodge from an honest answer. You might as well just say, I don't want to talk about it. Just just set a boundary. If you don't want to talk about it, don't talk about it. But don't give somebody, don't give one of my clients a bullshit answer like that. Because they're gonna tell me and I'm gonna tell them what to say next time. They're gonna come back with a better response and you're not gonna be able to get out of it. And if you do get out of it, they're not gonna go on another date with you because they're gonna see it as a major red flag. Because if you can't take responsibility for your exes, then you're not gonna take responsibility for the new relationship and any of the problems in that. You have to show some ability to have learned from your last relationships. And look, long-term relationships and marriages, like we live a very long time, and so people stay together a very long time, and people do grow in different directions, but the way you frame that cannot be we just screw apart. It has to involve a little bit more detail than that. And I think that, you know, there's a version of it where you can say, you know, in order to be in that relationship, I had to be a version of myself that I wasn't okay with being anymore.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Now that's

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Honest.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

That's a more sophisticated way of saying that.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

Did I but did I essentially just say the same thing? I did. But no, because it isn't the it has more self-reflection.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

I mean, if you just say I outgrew the other person, then it's all about how you're superior to them. But if you kind of Right.

SPEAKER_04 22:21

It's morally superior. Right, yeah. But like I think there can be like self-erasure sometimes involved in trying to stay the person you need to stay to maintain a relationship.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

For sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:38

And sometimes that is the explanation. So we don't want to cut off parts of ourselves or mute parts of ourselves or stagnate our self from growing. Like we're meant to be growing throughout our lives. And the right relationship allows and allows for and nurtures the growth in us. And a relationship that is not meant to last forever will try to control or reject or shame the parts of us that continue to grow. And then if you find yourself in a relationship like that, the only way to keep the relationship alive is to like mute yourself and self-erase, and that's not okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Right. And I think it highlights why the capacity to be vulnerable and take responsibility and the and being with somebody who is empathic, there's such key qualities to any good relationship. You know, if you don't have the capacity to share parts of yourself that you feel sad about or isolated about. And I think so many men really suffer in romantic relationships and friendships because they kind of can't can't do that. They can't be vulnerable. They don't want to expose themselves. They maybe maybe don't even understand their feelings. Most men don't have any friends. If they're married and straight, their wives are probably their best friend, if not their only friend. So so many men need to learn this, and it's really tragic how many don't really understand it.

SPEAKER_04 24:11

I like that we're starting to pay attention to men and men's mental health and the extent to which we raise boys to mute their emotions, to deny their emotions, to not express their emotions, and then they go into relationships. And if they're straight, it doesn't matter what their orientation is. No matter who they're in a relationship with, the person is going to want emotional intimacy as well as well as sexual intimacy. And when that poor guy can't show up, you know, he's blamed when it is a larger issue. It is the way we raise boys. And you're you're right, you're right. I have I have so much empathy for men. I have to tell you, a lot of my young adult and just adult male clients, I'm hearing that they have connections with other men, and it really heartens me. Like my 30 somethings and 40 somethings, like they do have relationships with other men and other women, particularly if they're not in a monogamous relationship. The problem is that when, if they're straight and they get into a monogamous relationship with a woman, you know, often she will feel threatened by their relationships with other women, and that sucks.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah, it does, yeah. Yeah. No, I think the younger crap of men are doing better. They're still incredibly socially isolated and don't have the kind of friends that older generations did. But um, but I agree they're getting a more sensitive parenting, both from I mean, it's it's such a mix because the research on raising boys is that both mothers and fathers don't talk to boys as much about their feelings, they're much more likely to shame them, they're much more likely to um um not use emotional language with them. So even younger generations of men are still growing up fairly stunted that way. They're better, I think, than older generations, because many of them have fathers who are are more sensitive themselves. But um but it's still a very serious problem in our culture.

SPEAKER_04 26:13

I mean, you go to any playground, Josh, and you see two little kids playing on the playground, a boy and a girl. When the girl falls and cries, somebody comes and holds her and soothes her. And when the boy falls and cries, he's told, stand up, little buddy, you're okay. You're fine. And then like they like pat him on the head and send him off. Go, go, get back on the bike. You got this.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

And he's not given the level of attunement that the little girl is given. And then we wonder why men grow up and can't connect emotionally.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Right. Yeah, no, it's incredibly, incredibly tragic that that effect goes on. I mean, I do think that gay men, I mean, I have a uh gay sen, but I'm not just extrapolating from him, but but in general, I think that gay men, I mean, the statistically, gay men are much they have the highest, the lowest divorce rates, um, and and really good communication, very egalitarian marriages and relationships, um, and in general do, I think, a better job of communicating vulnerability. Because it's not pathologized as much. Whereas for straight men, you know, there was this cartoon I saw years ago, these two women talking, where the one woman said something like, Well, I want a guy who will well up with tears. I just don't want one who will actually cry. And I think that, you know, I think that straight men really don't know where that line is. It's horrible.

SPEAKER_04 27:37

And what a double bind. What an impossible wish.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Right, exactly. But I think so many straight men are just they don't know where that line is. You know, well, at what point am I attractively strong and at what point am I pitifully weak. Whereas I think for gay men, there's not the same kind of you know, idealization of that more sort of stoic masculinity, and there's more of an acceptance towards vulnerability and feelings in general, which I think is the strength in anybody's marriage.

SPEAKER_04 28:04

I absolutely agree. I um, yeah, I mean, my best friend is a gay man, and he has taught me so much about emotions, and he is so much more emotionally evolved than I am. And we both know this. We both know that I'm the straight man in our relationship.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

And I mean, you know, I'm but I'm open to him coaxing out the softer parts of me, and he's done a really good job of that over the years. He is incredibly emotionally attuned.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think I mean there maybe there's genetic aspects to any of that. I'm not, I'm not sure, but certainly culturally just not.

SPEAKER_04 28:47

Yeah, there's so right. There are social permissions aligned with that. That like if you're you don't have to be machismo. And the thing is, he passes us straight. I mean, he he he has very traditional masculine qualities about himself, but he also has the permission slip.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Right.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

He has the permission slip to be a human being.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

And it's and and it's really uh it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah, for sure. Well, let's talk more about the whole issue of red flags. Like there are red flags that you think on so because there's so much about it in social media. Are there red flags that you think are sort of overrated on social media or sort of over, yeah, just overrated or whatever?

SPEAKER_04 29:32

Yes. I absolutely do think. Listen, I think social media is part of the problem, and I can't divorce myself from the fact that I'm on social media and am part of the problem. I'm not that I'm I'm complicit in this. We we only, you know, social media is a short-form modality. We have like two lines to make a point. It's going to necessarily be reductive in tonality, and it's going to lack nuance what we say on social media. So the problem is that the the masses don't get that. They think we're delivering gospel. They think when we put something out, it is the absolute truth, and there are no ifs, thens, or buts about it. And it is a top-line explanation for things. It is not a total line explanation for things. And what that has resulted in, I think, culturally, is that we have the most therapy-fluent society that we have ever had in recorded history. And we have a culture of people who have no capacity or low capacity for distress because what they're hearing on social media is that anything that's distressing is toxic or it is um, it is it is abusive. It is, you know, we the the masses overuse diagnoses that have no business living in normal dialect, in informal conversations. You know, how often people throw around the term, oh, he's so narcissistic. I'm like, please, yeah, please. You don't even know one. What you know are apples. You know a lot of selfish people. You do not know a narcissist. I'm willing to bet. So this is why I don't go to parties that often, because the minute I see some hear something like that, I start getting heated up.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yeah, well, good. So wait, we need that in our society. I mean, yes, we do.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

I am the corrector. So red flags, there's too much focus around red flags, and there's not enough focus around the nuance of red flags. Listen, none of us escape childhood without some wounds. We all got fucked up in childhood. And if you think you hit the childhood lottery, and maybe you did, then there's probably some things that you're unaware of. I'm just gonna say, airing on the side of caution, you're probably unaware of a couple of things. Most of us did not escape childhood unscathed, and what that means is that we're all walking around with some stress fac fractures in us. We all have wounds. You are allowed to meet someone on a date who is wounded because you can't avoid it. Everybody's wounded, one way or another. A wound is just something somebody, it's part of their history, it's something somebody carries. A red flag is what they do with the wound. Whether they blame others or they deny it or they avoid accountability or they refuse repair or they neglect to heal it. They choose not to heal it because for whatever reason, yeah, that is a red flag. So if somebody has a real complicated history, and and I know a lot of people with very complicated histories, I don't have a problem with that at all. Did you do the work to do that stuff? Are you aware of them? Are you aware of them? You know, what are the stories this person is telling you about their history? Is it all other people's fault?

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:01

It can't all be other people's fault. If it's other people's fault, well then that's a red flag. You know, I like to tell people first or second date questions that are not sexy but so necessary. Tell me when your last relationship ended. You gotta know the proximity. I don't want to be the rebound. I mean, I mean, it doesn't matter if you're the next one as long as there's been a margin between them and you, sure, you know, but there has to be a period of time, and then you want to ask them, why'd it end? You have to ask them that because that that's gonna tell you, right? It's gonna tell you whether or not they can take any responsibility for why that ended.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

And then the third question, and this for me is the most important what have you done, you know, for on your side of the street to make sure you don't repeat that in the next relationship. Yeah, guys, that has to be asked. If the person just what is the person hoping to just like they're gonna just pick better this time? No. Right, no, no, no, I'm gonna touch your soft spots. I promise you, I'm not gonna mean to, it's gonna happen. That's what intimate relationships do. You better have healed that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

100%.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

Right?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, you have to do it or it's just gonna come up again. That's why kind of serial monogamy just keeps being serialized because people are just expecting the other person to fulfill them and to not touch those parts of themselves that they they are reactive to.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

Right. Like if you're just hoping to pick better, you have you have thrown out all your power, you've given all your power away to chance. Can you imagine that? I just I am too much of a control freak. I could never outsource my odds of having a better experience and just hope that I'm gonna pick better.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Um sorry.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

No, please, please go.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Oh, so Kierkegaard had this um saying about um in relationships that to rotate the crops. And the idea is that in relationship, rather than just changing relationships, it's like a farmer changes the you know, turns the soil over and something new grows from that. And I know in my own, my second marriage, you know, I had a was married in my 20s, and I have a daughter who's, you know, who's um um in her forties now. And when my twins were young, um, you know, w we had a very hard time in our marriage. We became came very close to to breaking up. Um and, you know, my wife was against divorce, so she wouldn't break up, and I was like not going to put more kids through a divorce, so um, so I didn't want to break up. Um but at the time I was like, screw this. I need to be with somebody who's X, Y, and Z, you know, and A, B, and C, because she's not cutting it. And I'm sure she thought, I know she thought the same thing, but both of us just kind of stuck it out, and you know, and and things got better over time because we grew the fuck up. We got into couples' therapy, we got into individual therapy, we learned how to take responsibility, our kids got easier. Um, but if we had left the marriage in search of somebody newer or hotter or whatever, I mean maybe we would have found that person for a while, but then that person would have had brought their own baggage to it, we would have brought our baggage to it. And and so I think so many people don't leave workable relationships because they're looking for that greener grass somewhere that you know oftentimes just doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_04 37:40

I agree. And I will say that I just want to highlight what I heard you say. You stuck in the relationship because you wanted to learn what you needed to learn so you wouldn't repeat it in the next relationship. That doesn't mean, well, obviously that wasn't the right relationship for you, right? Because it ended. Um so it doesn't mean that that relationship has to last forever. But if you're going to wait for the next person to feel close enough to you that they're gonna press on your soft spots all over again and you on theirs, you are basically committing to another two to five years of avoided growth rather than working it out in this relationship. And when I say working it out, I don't mean that the relationship has to survive. I mean that you don't exit just because something is uncomfortable that you haven't done as much as you can to try and fix. And you can use the relationship as the structure for your own growth. There is nothing more profound than to be in a relationship that is triggering you left and right, provided you know you're safe, of course.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:07

Um, but you know, uh trigger is a big, it's it's it's an umbrella term. I don't mean like you're getting emotionally shocked every day of your life. I mean you're uncomfortable. And and sometimes that's intense in a in a relationship. But if you can use that experience as the lab to begin to see where you need to heal, that is a profound opportunity. And then if it doesn't work out, you have at least done a lot of work on yourself in this relationship. And the stuff you worked on in this relationship, you're not gonna have to repeat in the next one.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Right. Yeah, no, I agree. You have to earn your way out of uh if you're in a bad relationship, you have to take the time, particularly if there's children involved, which in our case there was. I mean, that was sort of the the fence that kept me in and sort of forced to dig deeper. It's like I'm not gonna put more kids through a through a divorce, and you know, things got better at at you know over time through through that digging deeper process. So but it's hard. I mean, I I'm sympathetic to people who leave bad relationships, but I think people don't realize that there's often a lot more that can be done to solve things when we're feeling really stuck and cornered.

SPEAKER_04 40:20

I just want to add one more thing to that. I do want to be cautious and careful because people like you, right? Self-aware, very willing to self-reflect, have clinical skills either because they're trained or they've been in a lot of therapy. People like that can overfunction in relationships and they can make relationships that have past their expiration date work and look like they work when they are pulling the vast majority of the weight in that relationship. And and and we want I want to be careful with that. I don't want someone, relationships are never gonna be 50-50 down the middle at all times. There are gonna be times where you're carrying more weight and they're carrying more weight, but there should be reciprocity. And if you find yourself having to, we talked about image management, emotionally manage the relationship space. I mean, because you don't want to set your partner off, or you don't want your partner to be uncomfortable, or you know your partner can't handle the truth, or the relationship is organized around safeguarding the partner from experiencing distress, that is too high a price of admission, in my opinion. So sometimes people can be so emotionally intelligent that they can make an unwell relationship carry on and look presentable and they shouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Yeah, no, I agree. And it isn't my position that people should stay in a relationship no matter what. I do think that people exit relationships, particularly with children prematurely, because I think we have this idea that if I'm not happy, then my children aren't happy. And I don't think that's always the case because often people will leave a you know workable but not great marriage in pursuit of a romantic relationship that might make them happy, but then their kids get mad at them and then they're later estranged.

SPEAKER_04 42:24

So yes, and that new romantic hot relationship in two years is gonna feel just like anymore.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 42:34

You know, especially if you've had a long-term relationship, because you re-enter all of that familiarity so much faster the second time, the third time. That's why divorce rates go up with subsequent marriages.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 42:47

Because you can feel that level of pain so much quick so much faster with subsequent relationships because you already know how to get there. Your body knows how to get there.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah, exactly. It's funny. Yeah, but do you think as a society we're sort of too preoccupied with happiness and that's a that's a problem?

SPEAKER_04 43:07

I do. I do. I don't think I don't think we can I don't think we can bottle an emotion. Um I think that you know, all of us want to be happy.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:20

Well, what does that mean? What does that actually mean? Your your partner cannot be the source of all good things in your life. And what we used to rely on an entire community and tribe for, we now, you know, all live in our little pods. We're all somewhat disenfranchised from each other, more so now than ever before, even though we're better connected than ever before.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

And the expectations that we place on our partner are enormous and they're unrealistic, and they set our partners up to fail. So when we talk about Happiness. It can't just be on your partner. Your partner is a piece of the pie. Think of your hat, think of your entire life fulfillment as a pizza pie. Your partner's a few slices of that. I I acknowledge that your partner is more than one slice. It's, you know, the partner is important. Partner can't be more than half the pie. Cannot be more than half the pie. So what does that mean? It means you have to find fulfillment elsewhere. And you need relationships elsewhere. And you need support elsewhere. And you need interests elsewhere. And your happiness and aliveness and passion needs other outlets. It can't all be channeled through your partner, or you set the poor person up to fail. And that person is also wounded, right? We're all wounded, as we said.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:58

That person is on their own journey and they have their own stressors and they're not always going to make you happy. And I get that people understand this intellectually, but I don't know if they understand the ratio of happiness that is meant to come from the partner. And I don't think it's even 50% of the time that you're with your partner, they should be making you happy. I really don't, I think you look for pockets of happiness every day in your life and in other areas of your life. And you're forgiving when your partner can't contribute to that little hit of happiness, one day, two days, a week, a month. It can't become chronic, but they cannot be responsible for the whole jackpot. They're a hit of happiness periodically, and you're not going to be happy constantly because emotions are not meant to be freeze-framed. They're they by nature of what they are, they ebb and they flow. So we can't crystallize and bottle any emotion. And that's the good news. Because when you feel distress or discomfort or anything that's unpleasant, it's important to remember it can't last. It can't last because no emotion lasts.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Right. Yeah, it's kind of what the Buddhists uh the Buddhists knew that our feelings are kind of everything's kind of in transition and temporary.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

And it's in the the suffering comes from trying to bottle it.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Exactly. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, I think that that the parent-adult child relationship is strained by similar, a similar dynamic where parents in the past four decades or so have really withdrawn from friendships and hobbies and other sources of meaning and purpose. Um, and it's all got sucked up into the nuclear family and then redistributed to the children. And then by the time the children are grown, the parents are still wanting this intense kind of best friend relationship, which is a nice work if you can get it. But if your adult child doesn't particularly want to have that kind of availability to you and doesn't want to be your primary source of meaning and purpose, then they're going to really push back hard. And some estrangements come from just that kind of tension. Um so I think having your own sense of value and purpose and meaning um and identity separate from whoever, whoever it's, whether it's romantic relationships or familial relationships, is critically important.

SPEAKER_04 47:22

I think that's a really important um correlation. That's a very, the very important similarity, that the very thing that we're just talking about in relationships can show up in parent-child relationships when the child or children become the entire world of the parent. You can't, you can't let that happen. You have to have your own life, you have to have your own interests because the children, if they're healthy, will grow up and they will they will want independence from you. That doesn't mean that they move away. It doesn't mean that they're gonna, you know, want nothing to do with you. It doesn't mean that they don't want to be best friends with you. All I wanted was to be best friends with my mother. It was unfortunately impossible, and that's the way the cookie crumbles, I'm convinced. It the parents that just want best friendships with the kids, kids have no interest in it. The parent, the kids like me, who are just like, please, can we join at the hip? The the parents are just, you know, their their capacity for intimacy is just limited. Just limited. It's that simple. And so I think it just underscores the importance of us building tribe and building identity that doesn't anchor entirely into one aspect of our life. It can't all be your work because jobs go away and careers end, and sometimes you get fired, and sometimes you, you know what I'm saying? Like I see this often with my clients who are, you know, really successful in their careers, and it concerns me because you know, things can happen with your career. So, yes, your career can be amazingly fruitful and fulfilling, and it can't be everything. You have to have things outside of that.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

Absolutely. Yeah, the more kind of places we can put our identities and find value and purpose and meaning and self-esteem and um joy, the more resourceful we're gonna be, the more resilient, the more it's dependent on one person, the more fragile we're gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 49:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Well, this has been great, Dr. See. Any anything we didn't touch on that I mean, we could talk for several hours, but anything we didn't touch on that you you think we should we should circle to or No, I think you really nailed it.

SPEAKER_04 49:51

I think you covered everything. You covered all the things.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

It was such a pleasure, and um, well, I'm sure we'll be in touch one way or another soon.

SPEAKER_04 49:59

That sounds great. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

If you found this helpful, please follow the podcast and leave a review. It helps other people find the show who could benefit from it. If you want to learn more about my work, you can visit me at www.drjoshua Coleman.com. That is D-R-J-O-S-H-U-A-C-O-L-E-M-E-N dot com, or subscribe to my substack, Family Troubles. Hope to see you in one of those places soon. Take care.