If I Speak - 16: How do you recover after betrayal? w/ Chimene Suleyman

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Moya and Ash talk to Chimene Suleyman, author of The Chain, about uncovering her ex-boyfriend’s secrets and why society lets abusive men get away with it again and again. Plus: a listener needs help with their sexless relationship. Come and see If I Speak live at the London Podcast Festival on 15 September! Tickets available […]

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of If I Speak speak a podcast that shoots for the stars and yet remains squished in the gutter as always i'm joined by my co-conspirator moya lothian mclean you always call me that maybe we should come up with a more positive adjective comrade yeah am i a comrade i don't know sometimes i let the side joint enterprise defendant i love that actually no we're gonna get cancelled for that. Cancelled! I'm here with you. And that's what really matters, Ash.

I'm here with you. God, you're really in your woo era, aren't you? Oh, yes. But we'll get onto that later. But what really makes this week's show particularly exciting is that we're joined by Shemaine Suleiman, poet, essayist, author of The Chain, The Relationships That Break Us and The Women Who Rebuild Us Shemaine, thank you so much for joining us Thank you for having me

It's also really nice I've not seen you for about 13 years Something like that, yeah Well, it's been a long time It's been a really, really long time I feel like the last time I properly saw you we were in a pub in Camden It's like one of the last memories I have

and that would have been a really long time ago Really very long time Because I haven't been to Camden for probably at least 10 years Camden it's like one of the last memories I have and that would have been a really long time ago really because I haven't been to Camden for probably at least 10 years yeah it really did it really did um so yeah if you want the dirt on baby ash I mean I actually quite do want the dirt let's scrap all this when you were 15 actually yeah truly baby ash what how did you know each other when you were 15? You were at a festival. I'm trying to remember which one. I was at a festival.

I was a very earnest writer. I wanted to write poetry and be a poet. And then I discovered communism. But anyway, this isn't about me, Moya. This is about Shemaine and the questions you have for her, which are not about me. I do have questions. I have 73 questions minus 70 which if anyone could do quick maths equals three three uh so you ready yes okay first question do you prefer writing by

hand or on the computer oh computer well I don't know mixed actually because I take notes by hand and I think I have that well I don't know I think a lot of writers have that where sometimes I hear things that I like or I get an idea and I'm out or I'm on the train or whatever. And it's a bit too annoying to try and, like, type it into my phone. So I'll, like, that I'll write down. So there are definitely, like, parts of the book that were written by hand if I wasn't in front of my computer. But if I know I'm having a writing day, then it goes straight to laptop. Okay, when you're on a plane, aisle, middle,

or window seat? Window. Always window. Aisle. Why? I have a small bladder. And I like to be able to move if I need to. Oh,

interesting. No, I make sure I pee early beforehand and then I try to sleep. Oh, I pee early. Yeah. I don't want this misconstrued.

I pee early. I just need to pee often. Right. And when you're in a small box with like confined air pressure it gets stressful sometimes you need to

pee a lot and if you're in the window you're just stuck on the aisle you can just move anywhere no one can trap me I'm free

yeah but then when you're on the aisle other people when they want to move you've got to get up but I don't they tend but because of the

social pressure because of the implications they won't get up they don't like getting up as much they really hold it whereas I don't told i really hold it yeah i really really hold it i held it you prove my point look at me free as a bird yeah you two cooked in the middle of the aisle okay last question one habit you would love to kick oh god oh there's so many to choose from um

uh does it just bad sleeping does that count as a bad habit i don't know if it counts as a habit or a trait as a trait then okay habit i'd like to kick um smoking probably when i'm stressed or for breakfast shemaine had a marlboro light for breakfast didn't smoke it just ate it whole which was disgusting

we were discussing breakfast earlier and yours your breakfast was too buttery and mine wasn't buttery enough I feel like it's so 90s just having like a coffee it's very Carrie Bradshaw it is a little bit isn't it

it's supermodel it's what it is it's very cliched it's really cliched well okay thank you for answering our mystery questions so openly

well we've got another mystery question But a much more robust one From our producer and silent partner Chow Just checking my tones are on hang on Wow Okay ready for the mystery question How do you recover From betrayal

You write a book about it. Shall we introduce the book? So why don't you tell us first? So how do you recover from betrayal? I think, or after betrayal, is a question that is very relevant to your book. Wow, what a coincidence. Amazing.

The Chain. Why don't you tell us a bit about what The Chain's about first? It's about a relationship that I had because I was living in New York for five years. So this would have happened in 2016. I met someone who had a relationship with them. And then, and this doesn't really give too much away because it's kind of all in the beginning of the book anyway.

But I go to an abortion clinic in Queens with this person. And then by the time I come out of the doctor's office, they are gone. They've vanished. And that's the last time I see them. And then through trying to piece together what happens, I find other women that this man has done similar, if not identical things to. And then we sort of go on a bit of a well not really rampage but kind of like a bit of a sort of desire to to try and hold him accountable and just look after each other really um so the book's about that but then it's it's kind of it is and it isn't about him and us like it's like i've said this a lot in other interviews as well but it's like or other discussions he's kind of a vessel through which i'm telling a much bigger kind of story

through and a much bigger point um so the book kind of goes on to talk about like well like you said effectively how we deal with betrayal and kind of the things that come with trauma um for better or for worse um and the good stuff is is like the sisterhood and the people around us. So to answer your question about betrayal, I think finding good people is a good way to kind of deal with. I mean, what for me was so fascinating about this book, and again, not to give too much away, but you discover that not only has he done this kind of thing

with lots of other women but that so much of what he was saying was just flatly untrue he wove together this world where you always had to be in the apartment because he was agoraphobic and it would be ableist if you wanted to go out for a drink but that was to hide from these parallel relationships he was having where he was doing the same thing and when you're talking about find good people in a way you guys didn't choose each other you were joined together through the web of deceit that this man wove and then what you chose to be to each other was something else. Was friends and a sisterhood yeah and I think there's there's often this misconception and obviously it does happen but I think there's a thing we love to pit women against

each other and we love to pit exes against each other and you know rather than going down that that that that route that people think that that we'd hate each other and feel jealous of each other, actually. And I mean, I guess this was also such an extreme situation with this person. But rather than if anything, kind of their existence really like helped me. And that was kind of the point where you're right. We didn't choose each other. We found each other in kind of the most strange and extreme situations. But having said that, as soon as I met all of them, I really liked them.

And I realized that they would have been women that I would have been friends with anyway. Like had I met them in normal, like through work, through other friends in a bar, like these women were so fucking cool. They were really clever, really successful, really like great politics, lovely, funny, funny hot like kind so there was and and it that kind of that actually really helped me because where I was so hard on myself I kind of looked at them and went well I don't blame any of them and I don't think that any of them are worthless pieces of shit that deserved everything that had done to them I think they're absolutely brilliant women

so I don't need to be this hard on myself because like he has good taste you know bad man great taste exactly exactly that and and like yes it's true we kind of we didn't we didn't get to know each other in the most conventional of dynamics but they they were wicked like I would have been friends and I am we are still friends as well and and um you know there there are a lot of them that I still speak to really regularly and our relationships are not based around this or him anymore they're just regular friendships where we talk about things like all girlfriends do you know I want to zoom in on this word recover because something that really struck me about the book is how raw it is yeah it's very like

it's a howl of pain essentially and there's there's sections where it's just kind of like this is what men do they like will break you down they will ruin you etc etc which i felt was very it's it's feelings that i've definitely had when i'm in the middle of like like straight in the thick of the pain yeah yeah of course um and i wondered for you whether like your perspective on that has shifted or like what the process of recovery has been for you like where are you at and what does that actually look like what does it mean to recover sure after betrayal has it shifted yeah i mean yes and no because like you said it's it's you know i think we're used to and i i have no issue with kind of talking about things from a

general perspective as well you know it's like it's it's it's not it's not all men that are like this in the same way that it's not all women who've experienced this um and it's not also the book isn't just about like every we're not defined by trauma either you know so it's like whilst this isn't a book about all men and all women, it's also not a book about all, it's not a universal female experience because there's so much more to us than just trauma and abuse and betrayal. Also this guy got around, but not that much.

Not that well, I mean, I'm not quite sure about that. He was very prolific. He was very prolific. He was very prolific and pretty global with it as well. But, you know, so it's in in that in that sense it's like i generalize about kind of women's experiences as much as i generalize about men's experiences and if you see yourself in it then you do and if you don't then you don't and that that same same goes for men too like of course there are good men out there um but yeah i i believe that like in context of this book when we're talking about um abuse

like no my opinion on that hasn't shifted like i think the way that society is set up for men who are abusers who want to lean into that like i think i you know that it is that rule um if you're not an abuser fine fantastic but society is kind of set up for those abusers to play it out in exactly this fashion and it's scared there's a template i feel there's um a word missing from our conversation so far but maybe has been hovering around the periphery and that's shame and the fact that this guy was so prolific on the one hand is deeply wounding and traumatizing but on the other you've got an experience that's shared and so that means that you can all help each other deal with the shame yeah and it's easier to say well maybe this isn't all on me because look how many other

women this has happened to absolutely and so maybe this isn't a reflection of who I am or how bad my judgment is because she's smart and she's hot and she's funny and kind and deserving. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's almost like an embodiment of that principle of talk to yourself the way you would a friend. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, it's exactly that. You're practising that.

And I think also there's this, you see it so much about, you know, I hate the, I hate the, like the idea that it's like, oh, I, you know, you've got such bad taste in men and blah, blah. And it's like, because then that, that it's a very loose way of like victim blaming and shifting the responsibility on the women. And it's like, there's this idea that we all love bad boys. And it's like the majority of us have gone for the nice guys. And some of them turn out to be abusers because they've learned how to play the role of a nice guy. And then suddenly you're in too late. And a lot of the things that the guy in this book, In the Chain, does is that he kind of corners you, like you said, with stuff like I'm agoraphobic and I've got severe mental health issues and I'm suicidal.

And this person's dying of cancer and this person's actually died and you know you'd be an absolute piece of shit to question those things as a partner as a friend even as a stranger like if someone comes up to you and they go like oh this person who's close to me is dead who would I be to then go prove it like I like have they actually or for someone to tell you that they have unless I see that death certificate exactly exactly and and you know it's they're really kind of they're really clever and really like nuanced ways of of abusing people it's not this like black and white like punching someone in the face and everyone knows that what they've done is is is atrocious which even that a lot of the time we don't have sympathy for women when that happens either. But they're such kind of, they're very careful, very considered tactics that are being

used. And if someone tells you that they're suicidal or that they've got serious, or they're agoraphobic and they can't leave the house, what kind of partner goes like, well, are you though? Like, and also because we don't take men's mental health seriously enough as a society. And also because we don't take men's mental health seriously enough as a society. So for someone to weaponize that as well and to make up having mental health problems as a man, knowing that it's something that in order to manipulate it in a society that already doesn't take it seriously, it's such a dangerous, dirty, like really cruel game to play, actually. I do want to go back to this idea of recovery because sure this i this like i want to know what that has looked like for you and i presume it's an ongoing process sure and how you've rebuilt yourself because the betrayal you suffered

wasn't just of this man leaving you there was also a child involved you were in an abortion clinic he went with you to the abortion clinic to make sure you were in that abortion clinic and then he left and you write a lot about this like idea of the child and motherhood and it's not that you were you know fully you wanted it but it's like you were you say at the end i'm grieving a child yeah as well i think we can have we can have i mean i've said this before and i think this is a really important point to me and then we i will come back to the recovery thing as well but in terms of like abortion I I don't I feel like we don't have we can't really have or claim to have like actual proper abortion

rights until we can have really vast really nuanced really conflicting conversations about it and I think what we end up doing is because we're so scared understand so, of the anti-choice rhetoric, which is, you know, it's a real baby. You're killing a life. You're going to regret it. You're going to wish that you hadn't done it. And those are the reasons that they give for wanting to take those rights away from us. And we're so scared of having those rights taken away that we end up making it binary and going, no, it is just a set of cells. It's not a real life. It means nothing. It's the best decision I've ever made. And actually, that's not true. And there are plenty of people, in fact, most people in my experience, who see it as a baby,

who see it as a grief process, who do regret it, who do register, who remember the date that they had the abortion on, who've worked out how old do register, who remember the date that they have the abortion on, who've worked out how old that child could have been. It would have been 12 this year. It would have been 17 this year. I would have had a six-year-old by this point. And I think it's really important for us if we're going to say that we have actual abortion rights, that comes with having really painful conversations about the fact that in order for me to know that I don't want a baby and I'm not ready for it I have to see it as a baby and I have to envisage what that life with that child would be

to be able to know that it's not for me if at all then certainly not in that moment um and yeah there was and then there's an extra betrayal that comes from when you when you realize or recognize that actually you've been coerced into that decision, as I was, as many other women that this person dealt with or had relationships with, so to speak, realizes that it wasn't our decision, really, because we didn't have all of the information to make what we thought was an informed decision. But to go back to your point, then you know obviously and then that lends itself to the betrayal and the trauma um but the recovery from that definitely did come through all of the other women having a community

having a support system um but for me personally I think also just writing the book out. And I found it harder writing about the trauma that came afterwards than I did writing about what he did, if that makes sense. Why do you think that was? Because you suddenly start to realize how many years of your life you've lost. And it's not just that year that you spent with them or maybe two years or five years if you're in an abusive relationship but the five years that come afterwards the 10 years that come afterwards the fact that your peers can have relationships and you don't know how to trust anyone or maybe you get stuck in an abuse cycle so every relationship you have it becomes with comes with an abuser or people who turn to drink or people who are depressed all of the time and it's that was I had more grief I think around that in realizing like fuck there's a lot that he took away from me and it wasn't just that year of my life that I'm writing about it's the seven years afterwards as well what is your

relationship to trust now is there certain situations where you're like I don't think I will have trust in this kind of person for a long time if if ever? No, I think I'm okay with trust now because I've learned or I'm learning to trust my gut. And I think that's the thing. And I think I say it in the book, but I can't really remember. But I think I do say in the book that there was a point where I questioned with a friend, am I dating a psychopath? And the issue was was I just didn't trust my instincts and all of it, it was there. And like I said, he does it in a really smart way. And a lot of abusers do where a lot of the things you kind of can't challenge without looking like a bad person yourself.

Um, but I should have trusted my gut and I shouldn't have allowed myself. Well, I should or shouldn't have because then I feel like I'm I'm kind of putting blame on people who you know who who was who were struggling with it but I just wish I had trusted my gut and that is something that I'm doing for myself more now whether it even when it comes to friends not just romantic romantic relationships as well because one of the broader points made in the book, which I thought really slotted some things into place for me, was you talk about how being socialized into your gender as a woman in a patriarchal society primes you for abusive dynamics. So you believe that your

own desire for love is embarrassing, so people can wield it against you. You intensely that your own desire for love is embarrassing so people can wield it against you absolutely you intensely doubt your own lovable-ness but also because what it means to be a woman is to provide care for people who say i need this care when someone comes along weaponizing mental health discourses you may have a gut instinct which is going this doesn't feel true this doesn't add up somewhere this isn't making sense to me but you're in a cage of gender which denies you a script for expressing that feeling for sure and it's it's kind of it's you know i say it in the book where it's like even when you have like the opportunity to be a mother taken away from you you're still having to be a mother to everyone around you anyway including this partner that you know doesn't

want women to have as kids but expects you to be his mother over and over and over again and I think that is a huge part of it and there's a part of the book where I talk about and I think this was probably one of the hardest chapters for me to book where I talk about, and I think this was probably one of the hardest chapters for me to write, where I talk about depression in women. And in fact, I think if I had a chance to revise it, I think I'd write a longer chapter on it. I think I shied away from it a little bit because it hurt a bit too much. But there's a thing that kind of happens with female depression where, and I'm not saying this doesn't happen to men too,

but I can only speak on it from a woman's perspective, that we become kind of useless to everyone. Because we're so, you know, everyone expects us to be able to constantly like give and have a use and have a purpose. And when you sit down and you say, you know what, I'm too fucking tired. I don't have it in me anymore. I don't have it in me to look after myself, let alone everyone else. You watch the way people start to turn away from you and you watch the way people start to turn away from you and you watch the way people start to deeply resent you because you don't have a purpose anymore and that purpose is to look after every other fucking person in the room but yourself

shemaine get your foot off my neck the last like five episodes have been me and ash talking about how we derive our value from caring for other people whether they've asked for or not and how we're trying to decouple from that and then you come in and be like yeah if you stop doing that then people turn away from you he's like okay well worst fears realized yeah but fucking though i mean let them turn away from you because i just i don't want friends that or i don't want relationships or partners or family members that are parasites either you know like if we're gonna and i'm and if and that and if people only see your value from what they can take from you constantly

a hundred percent of the time then if i'm not going to take that in a romantic relationship then fuck it if that means that some of those those friends goes and let them go too what about the friends who stayed for you though they're amazing and they're great and then my community and they're my people but you know people people come and go and I'm learning to kind of not be as heartbroken by that anymore because we cling on to you know in the same way we stay in abusive relate romantic relationships because we want stuff to get better even when all of the clues are there that it never will and it's okay for that to happen with with and family as well, or colleagues even. Something that struck me as well about the book was it's basically this grassroots network

of women trying to find resolution, but also a form of justice. And there's a moment when this guy resurfaces in London in the creative scene and you take to social media and you're like, this guy is back and this is what he's done. But I know since then, you've had to sort of remove that because you've written this book. And it's interesting that I presume that's for legal reasons. And he can't be named like now.

He can't be revealed because of these legal reasons. So you only have this sort of grassroots network of peer-to-peer knowledge of who he is and what he's doing but the legal stuff is blocking you from carrying on those warnings now you've written this book how does that feel that's a strange situation to be in it is but i mean i've i've also from from a from a creative perspective i'm also yeah legally i can't name them but also apart from listen it's it's it's a really difficult one to answer because obviously i wanted to name out there because i want women to be safe um but the other side of it is that with a book out like this i don't want to make a hero with him

and i next thing you know he's on lawrence fox's podcast and he's absolutely and then and then you have the you know it's like we're seeing it with Baby Reindeer and how people went absolutely nuts trying to find the real Martha. And then the woman who I assume is the real Martha and not just, I mean, either way, it seems to be a really unwell person that is being taken advantage of. And now you've got this person on Piers Morgan and that doesn't seem... And making club appearances. And making club appearances. Club appearances! Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's doing club appearances that doesn't seem and making club appearances club appearances oh yeah yeah yeah she's doing club yeah oh yeah and it's it's stuff like it's stuff like that

where it just you know in in the wrong people's hands you make a celebrity out of someone who has destroyed lives um and i you know i don't i don't want a bunch of incels glamorizing like this guy either and I don't want him to be like haha I've made it because I was such a shit comedian I couldn't make it in the comedy scene but suddenly like now I'm gonna make my name off the back of yet another woman that I abused um so there's there's that side of it but But there's also, to be perfectly honest, the depressing thing is that there are enough people around him that know exactly who he is and don't care. So there were enough people that were listening to this guy's comedy sets where he was bragging about what he was doing

and basically describing forms of sexual assault and legal stuff that he was doing to rooms full of men that were laughing and applauding him and still had an agent and still had, you know, male friends on the comedy scene who were big named comedians who knew. Did that make you reconsider, or I don't know what your initial position was on this, but I find it interesting. Sometimes I think we write off that stuff in the creative world as like, oh, you know, a persona it's xyz but you were exposed to his actual behavior and then him literally going and recounting that behavior oh yeah um did that make you

reconsider other people who do that too and like shine a new light oh it didn't it didn't shine a new light on me because I think I was in the spoken word scene for so long which is where i originally met ash and it's like it's no surprise to me that that people use stages as a confessional you know it's like you i see it in in any any time whether it's comedy whether it's poetry whether it's even forms of like you know acting playwright like there are a lot of people who love to kind of tell you what they've done and they get that I mean Russell Brand and Louis CK and R Kelly singing about every single damn thing that he's done and it's it's it's there so it it doesn't any other yeah I I kind of my my inclination is that

generally if you're talking about it in that way, there's at least some truth to it. Why does society at large ignore it still? Because we don't give a shit about what happens to victims, I think, to be perfectly honest. I also think that the ambiguity about how true is this, are you creating a character or are you not, not wanting to close down possibilities of fiction

creates a space where abusers can thrive. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I get that. And I understand the kind of free speech arguments. To be honest, I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to get up and say it. I just, my take on it is that if you want people to believe that you're capable of that,

it's really strange that that is the character that you would create for yourself. Like Predator is not really something that I would want to get up and be like, only joking. Like I don't want anyone to think that I'm those things, whether it's a character or a joke or not. I mean, so I've got a question and it's about forgiveness. question and it's about forgiveness. I recently spoke to a woman who lost her child in the Manchester arena bombing. And what she said about forgiveness really, really challenged me because I was very much taking the view that, well, if you forgive somebody, it wipes away the wrong that was done, right? It's a false balancing of the scale somehow. And she was like, no, no, no, no, no. What this is about is saying that if I'm going to live, I have to find a way to let go of anger, resentment,

hatred. Doesn't mean that I don't want the Manchester Arena bomber held accountable, very much do, but I have to be able to see him as a human being in order to hold onto my own humanity. So I guess the question that I wanted to ask you is how do you relate to forgiveness? And this isn't just about forgiving him but also forgiving yourself and dealing with internalized shame i i i forgive myself um i don't forgive him like i think that's really admirable and and that that woman is able to and i and i get that as a healing process i i mean i'm at peace with it but i don't forgive him. And I humanize him too. And I think I say that in the book as well, where I talk about how we like to see these

people who are abusers, irrespective of gender really, as monsters and they're not. And I think that's quite dangerous territory to kind of take them away and make it almost like the supernatural thing that only a few people are capable of doing.'re all capable of doing it um i don't know i don't i don't i don't forgive him i don't forgive the people around him who knew and let it happen um i don't really forgive society for also setting up a dynamic in which this happens and nothing ever really seems to to to change with it but that doesn't mean I'm not at peace though because I do forgive myself so in terms of forgiveness I forgive I forgive me mostly most of the time um and I think that's the important is it work to hold on to the forgiveness of yourself yeah exactly it's that it's

that kind of what I mean what's that saying it's like drinking poison and expecting it to kill someone else you know it's like I I kind of that's not to say that I don't take accountability for from for my own kind of complicity in it too like I take accountability for not trusting my gut like I can say oh I see why as a society we're taught as women not to but I can also take responsibility for for ignoring my own needs as well and those are lessons that are learned so I forgive myself for a lot of those things um but me personally I don't know maybe I'm too petty I don't I don't I'm not sure I don't forgive other people for I'm not sure I can forgive anyone without repairing with them yeah yeah exactly and so and this is an interesting kind of loop back to the theme of like how do you recover

after a betrayal well it's very different depending on what you do with the person after they've betrayed you right exactly or how they deal with it right like if they're still in your life in some way and you go all right well what i want to do is keep you in my life in some way like it's about repairing and i think forgiveness does have to come into that because otherwise you are drinking poison and expecting someone else to die yeah but when that person isn't in your life anymore and what you're doing is you've said okay i've gotten rid of this thing that was wounding me again and again and now i've got to tend to my own wounds the role of forgiveness is different yeah exactly and also when you know with a person like this it's like it's ongoing he's still doing it he still has victims um there are still lives that are being ruined

so it's it's you know it didn't it's not like it ended the day that it ended for me it continued in london it continues wherever in the world he may be now you know and it's how like how do you forgive that and this isn't someone who to my knowledge has ever gotten up and apologized for any of this if anything all of the youtube clips and podcasts that i unfortunately had to listen to for the for the sake of research for the for the book and to kind of show what kind of character this person is um it's very clear that it's a big joke for him and that it's it titillates him to relive it over and over again and that we're all just a bunch of stupid bitches that deserved it and how do you forgive someone who is actively seven years on

still really enjoying what they've done to you and and and god knows how many other women you know um you talk about how this is ongoing how he's still doing this in the book obviously you and the other women take on this role of like warning do you still carry that responsibility because that is a very like that's a heavy load to have this idea that you have to still be getting the word out uh yeah in in different ways now um i think that instagram post that we that's that's mentioned in the book which is how the women kind of came to for anyone who hasn't read it like the the way that all the women found each other and still find each other because they're new generations um was through uh an instagram post there was a drawing of him an illustration made by um one of the women who was living or still is living in australia and uh it's got his name

and his many aliases kind of hashtagged underneath it with a warning um so that's how we all kind of originally found each other to create our community but now kind of there's sadly there's like new generations of people finding each other through that thread so i don't necessarily feel like i have to go around kind of constantly spreading the word because these aren't i mean obviously i don't know which women exist and which ones don't at this point, but they find the post so that warning is there. And then the newer ones are kind of, to my understanding, connecting with each other. The abuse that people suffered, it wasn't just physical, it wasn't emotional, it was also financial. He was literally living off all of you lot.

He was like making his living from you. Yeah, there was, I mean, yeah, I never gave him any money, but lots of the other women did. And there were times it was like tens of thousands of dollars and probably pounds and what other currency. Various currencies.

Various currencies. Euros. He was living, he was squatting in your home effectively yeah he was kind of going from home to home to home and i mean a lot of the time you didn't even kind of notice it because like for me it's like you just have a boyfriend that comes around once in a while right but because there's so many of you that like you don't realize that like every he's that everyone's having that experience with him where you're just seeing your boyfriend like maybe once a week or whatever. And then you're thinking, well, that's a normal amount of time

for someone to come and like hang out and stay over. But every night he's got a different someone's house to kind of go in and kind of catch up. But yeah, and then there's women suddenly realizing that he'd be house sitting for them or whatever and then he'd take women to their houses. And he'd take stuff as well. He'd rob you.

Like trinkets, I guess. It's almost like a serial killer. But how was the impact of realising that? Because I feel like financial abuse and financial scamming as well comes with this extra layer of shame that we've been talking about. Yeah, I think I know that it was extremely hard for because it's it's a very it's a very obvious loss that one you know it's it's you you you know the amount that's gone um and I know that that was a really difficult really painful thing for for so many of the women especially the ones who had

basically lost savings like these weren't people were 10 grand or one grand or 500 pounds or whatever was was inconsequential it was like a notable amount of of money for them and they thought that they were doing a good deed for someone that they loved and also with america it's really easy to kind of oh i need i need this for my health care i need this for my bills i'm going to kill myself and this is how much the hospital stay costs, right? And if you think that you're in a loving, some of these women were with him for, you know, a year, two years, three years. And you think that you're in a committed relationship

with someone and suddenly they're like, oh, I'm going to kill myself. And I need $2,000, $5,000 or whatever to stay alive because this is utterly appalling. Yeah, it appeals to your morality. Of course. Like, what are you going to do? Just do just be like now just like you're on your own like what can they do with a fiver yeah exactly exactly um so there was definitely that definitely had a huge impact on those women but there's I think this is also when I realized that this wasn't it was meant

to be a long-form essay and then or an article and then I realized that actually when I realized that this had to be a book and that it was bigger than him was when I interviewed two of his mates and they I think to this day they probably still think that they're like the good guys you know that they gave me some time and that you know they're like god we're just as shocked and appalled as you guys and then the more I'm talking to them the more i realized that actually they knew pretty much everything other than the financial abuse so the thing that they drew the line at was money so whilst yes of course financial abuse is an extremely serious thing and i'm not undermining that or belittling that um and i think it is recognized now as it is illegal now isn't it um and a form of like

domestic violence but that for me i was like and i say it in the book as well where i'm just a bit like well fuck everything else right like cares about our bodies and like our physical health our mental health our sexual health what you're all disgusted by is the fact that he took money from people and it's like yes of course that's part of what makes this disgusting but only a part of it because that's the thing which divides um normal bad painful well also that's the thing they could relate to yeah that's the thing that they're like oh shit he could have taken my money and like oh god isn't it awful if someone took my money but what they couldn't relate to was what it was like to be pregnant and and be

coerced into having an abortion and the impact that has on you what they couldn't understand was what it is to have someone uh you know have a sexual relationship with you under the pretense of being someone that they're not which is a form form of coercion, right? Do you think that this is a failure at large of empathy? Is it gendered or is it more than that? How have the reactions been from women versus men to this book? I mean, so many women, unfortunately, have taken so much from this book because they've been through very similar things.

The men who have read it have also been really um supportive but i don't think men who are misogynist and don't care about us i don't think they're going to read it um so so far if anything actually some of the the worst criticism has come from from women they are few and far between um oh i mean just the usual stuff that i'm ugly and should be grateful that anyone even was interested they're scared that i was stupid this happened to you because you're bad yeah yeah yeah or that i didn't talk about the i didn't talk about the women enough um and it's like well i can only talk about as much as they're willing to give me like i'm not entitled to all of their trauma and i can't go through their bins

like exactly do you know what i mean and it's like i have had to be selective about what i'm what they're willing to say and what i can give about these women's stories um and that wasn't funny enough that's's a really weird one. Yeah, I really wanted more jokes. I think, you know what? The harrowing abortion scene could have really used some giggles. It could have been, yeah. Like, I don't know, did the doctor have funny glasses or something?

Like, come on. Yeah, it's the stuff. Yeah, there is weird stuff like that that I could have like left out the feminism. Yeah, there's- It's a fear response. I think it is a fear response. I think it is.

And it's, you know, it's, I'm i think it is a response i think it is and it's you know it's i'm learning not to take it personally i kind of i feel sorry for people that don't have i hope that people find their own chain enough to to kind of not feel so judgmental of women who've been through probably what sadly they've also been through but don't want to recognize they've been through yeah speaking of empathy it's time for i'm in big trouble okay which is our audience submitted dilemma section as always if you've got a problem which we couldn't possibly make any worse please email us at if i speak at navarra media.com that's if i speak at navarra media.com and we have Shemaine Suleiman also answering

your dilemmas today which I think good luck you're going to be like bitch I can promise nothing Moya do you want to read it out

oh my god me you okay I'm quite pretty actually oh my god Keira Knightley's chin acting do I look pretty uh however Prime Prejudice 2005 I'm quite pretty actually. Oh my God, Keira Knightley's chin acting.

Do I look pretty? However, Prime Prejudice 2005 is one of the best films ever made in the whole world. And that soundtrack. Okay, let's go. Dilemma one. On paper, I feel like I have the perfect relationship. I've been with my partner for about three years now and I really love him. I don't think I really got what love and relationships were like before him. I feel like he listens to me and makes a big effort with me. He rarely lets

me down and on the few occasions he does he's so constructive and willing to hear me out. He makes an effort with all of my friends and family and he handles my just generally high levels of stress all the time really well and very affectionately. However, we rarely have sex and it's not for my lack of want. We've never exactly been the most crazy in the bedroom types, probably maybe averaging around two times a month after the initial rosy period of a relationship ended. I think that's the honeymoon period. Though this year we've only had sex maybe three times. There's definitely some obvious factors like I have a quite busy social life i'm so i'm not always around he's a journalist the non-journalist uh he's a journalist so he works very different leave my non-journalist comrade alone unhand him so our opportunities

to have sex are definitely less than they were before last year he also went through a bit of a mental health crisis that definitely put a pause on things of course incredibly reasonable to do do so i'm just adding for context he's doing much better now and we recently moved in together i thought this would make things easier be around each other more but if anything it's become less he does have a history of an aversion to sex which i think might play into this at times it does feel when i try and make a move he almost shuts off to me we've spoken about this before he's listened to my issue he has definitely also made attempts to try and make things more sexy but it hasn't really gotten better I worry he thinks this is all on him because of his past issues and I've tried to stress this as a two-way problem but I think he's taken it all himself

I think maybe we've gotten ourselves in a bit of a rut and we're struggling to talk about it so I guess what I'm hoping for is that you'll have some advice on how to talk through sex with your partner and if there's ways we can work through this wall yours truly happily in love but sexually frustrated summary amazing partner he has a history of sexual like aversion to sex they're not having sex anymore even though they've moved in together and this person is like i want to fuck what do you think it's a hard hard one isn't it? It's a sticky one still It is Not a sticky one

Why? I'm sorry Right there I mean it's a tough one Because you know If sex is important to you In a relationship Then obviously

It's gonna have an impact On other areas as well Like if that's where You're getting your intimacy from but yeah there's so much shame around it and I think also the more pressure you put on it the more people shut down so it's really difficult to kind of have conversations without kind of making it worse almost making it the elephant in the room I don't know because i don't know what they've what they've tried that hasn't worked i think you're totally right on the point about shame and internalized pressure and that might be something that he's going through which is the

longer this goes on and even though what you're offering to him is an invitation he takes that as almost like well i know what happens you want it for every reason i can't give it you feel sad i feel guilty and then we'll try this again in a month and what that does is it's changed the context in which you're having sex to one which for him is a trigger for shame and anxiety um the thing that i would say might be really helpful is there's a book called Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. It is C-O-M-E, but I believe it may be a dubler entendre. You missed a trick. You've got to do the C-U-M. Come on. And one of the things which I was really struck by when reading it is that it breaks down the sort of physical and nervous system responses to sex. And also like where shame and stress and context come in to sort of redirect those signals towards freezing fear and shutting down.

fear and shutting down and doesn't just spell it out but also then provides ways for beginning to shift that and reprogram those responses um and another thing which is very helpful i think if you're dealing with shame because i think one of the things that happens when you deal with shame is you go well i'm just disordered i'm just so disordered and i'm scared of reading this book because on page one it's going to say first name surname you are irredeemably fucked yeah um whereas actually one of the things that lays out is that everyone's got an accelerator and a break and an accelerator is like a shower which takes a while to heat up and you've got to run the water for a while so the accelerator for your desire takes a while and that's part of how you have sex and the other is your breaks um how sensitive are your breaks now

i've got like kind of a regular degular run-of-the-mill accelerator i have highly sensitive breaks so the slightest signal or intrusive thought can make me go like stop what we're doing yeah and that's because of the particular ways in which i deal with anxiety and stress and so it was really good for me to read that and go okay well i just thought i was in the category of like fucked up disordered like really really like irredeemable whereas actually i was like oh no i actually have like very a median level of desire and she also has these like numbers you can add up but it's my breaks which are really really sensitive so that's the second thing so the first thing was dealing with shame in the

context second thing is read this book it's helpful and then the third thing is much broader than this couple which is Esther Perel who is sort of like your guru yeah my guru I mean like I have you know like a catholic shrine to the virgin mary I kind of want one for Esther Perel you can make one no problem um and one of the things that she says is that domesticity and eroticism you can't solve that it's a paradox to be managed and I think that all the things which can make a relationship really wonderful and committed and i think that all the things which can make a relationship really wonderful and committed and nourishing in all the ways that our listener is laid out so being there for each other in terms of mental health crisis being very understanding about

the pressures on your lives being very present being very emotionally open that can also be the same thing which kills eroticism yeah which needs an ingredient of instability mystery and not knowing and so that's a paradox to manage yeah domestic life isn't exactly sexy is it like it's not it's not known for it and in the in the like in the best of situations and dynamics um so yeah i hear you ester pearl is amazing isn't she i love her she is really good she is really good i mean how do you manage that paradox between domesticity and also that what the erotic needs is a tiny bit of insecurity to make it piquant fucking the day i mean yeah that's that makes sense yeah well yeah fucking the day just get it

you break the patterns of having to do at night um no that's a really basic answer um it's like you should try and shake up when you're having sex i think because if you're stuck in the rut and the pattern then and when you're making these moves if you're making them like after dinner every time you're following the same sort of patterns yeah yeah and that's you're slipping into the same habit of no i say no i feel this i feel tired i feel that whereas when you're shaking up and but the main the things i would actually say about this is again what i the two things i always say which is do it in small bits like do it literally in small bits like first of all yeah obviously talk you have talked before though this this writer has said we've spoken about he's listened to my issue i think you should

discuss it again but you shouldn't put too much of a premium on it but you should try other things than just like sex maybe some like mutual masturbation where it's not like you have to yeah take the pressure off yeah you just you're just having a went together yeah yeah like great and it eroticizes you again and you know there's also like you could do sex therapy if you want because this could be a deeper issue if you have the capital yeah that's what i was going to suggest as well going to a therapist together and then it kind of takes the pressure off you two asking each other those awkward, unquote, awkward like questions.

And actually now it's coming from someone else who's rather than you putting the pressure on each other, now it's like this is the therapist asking this. And it's not having difficult conversations in the bedroom as well. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Or in the space that you're meant to feel sexy and comfortable in. And now it's like there's a way to to kind of separate

that and put all of the responsibility on the therapist rather than on each other exactly exactly i mean i think this is always difficult you hear a lot of dilemmas about this like i'm obviously a massive the receipts podcast fan and a lot of their dilemmas are things like we're not having sex even we're not having sex anymore it's like there is no one size fits all answer to this because the causes of why you might not be having sex can range from like a massive amount of things it can literally be something specific to that person who's not wanting to engage in sex or it can be something to do with the relation itself and you don't really know until you're doing the digging you're being really honest but it takes that like level of honesty about what it is and then being willing to excavate it because i

remember like one of my early relationships they will not be listening to this podcast it's fine um where we stopped having sex and they were so they were so gorgeous like they were gorgeous it was a waste we stopped having sex because i wasn't sexually attracted to them anymore and i knew that the relationship was over yeah that was why but that might not be this reason at all they're happily in love like i wasn't in love with that person anymore and sometimes it's you're so scared of that being the reason that you don't want to explore the other reasons which might be to do with stress domesticity the context in which you have sex other things which are going on stuff in your child like trauma that you're carrying that you've not necessarily disclosed with anyone even with your partner even if it is like a an openly like a very open good communicative relationship sometimes

people do have undisclosed trauma that then sort of manifests in or trauma that they don't even know exactly exactly exactly that too and then it manifests in their like in their libido you know i mean this letter i says that their partner went through a mental health crisis maybe he's taking meds now like all these things yeah exactly impact on you know you're sort of the best cocks of my generation destroyed by ssr that's not mine that's a that's a quote from twitter i have to give credit but it's like these are very real pressures and they say also they were never that active sexually so you originally maybe had a mismatched level of sex but the thing as well is you have to decide how

important it is to you that you have like is this a deal breaker yeah in the end if you cannot figure it out and i think maybe you can like there's a lot of love there and you were okay with not having sex that much if you can figure it out but yeah but then you also have to have a conversation with yourself about whether it's whether if it can't be resolved like you said is it a deal breaker is it something that you're like everything else matters the other amazing bits are worth more and I will accept that if this doesn't change in a year then then that's great and that's that's what that's what i accept or if it's a deal breaker maybe give yourself a time limit on that you know i'm all discussing other options because not to bring the uh open relationship klaxon into the room start a

polycule no polycule means multiple different relationships this is literally just fucking outside like if if this is important to you and this is something that your partner's like he's like i'm not actually able to do this or like this but i still love you know you can discuss these these there are tons of relationships apps for reasons or you can like look at how you satisfy yourself more what i'd say about that though is that you have to sequence it because yeah not all at once because i think that if you're trying to help someone deal with shame and then you also introduce the idea of time limit or openness yeah that is going to put pressure on that person i think you have to know that internally i think she made it internally

rather like here's your time limit six months if you haven't dicked me down in six months yeah it's done i don't yeah i don't think you need to yeah definitely don't lead with that yeah do you think do you think we've got time for another dilemma? I think we do. Yeah, let's do another dilemma. We've got time for another dilemma? Yeah, sure. All right.

We're all revved up and ready to go. Go on, Ash, read out. Just want to start by saying I love you both and have really enjoyed listening to your If I Speak podcast. Thank you very much. That's very kind. I am in my late 20s and I have a brother a few years older. He is my only sibling.

He is a strong lefty and would definitely describe himself as a feminist. I look up to to him a lot but i have always worried about his opinion of me he is extremely judgmental when we were younger he was judgmental about music choices superficial male ideas of what is cool etc but he has grown out of that now our relationship is quite stilted and sometimes he puts me down without even realising or will apologise afterwards if I show that I'm upset. I know he loves and respects me to some extent however I feel so uncomfortable around him. I know both me and him would like to have a better relationship but I can't help feeling bitter and uncomfortable towards him, potentially even competitive sometimes as I've

always felt inferior to him. I feel really guilty for having these feelings and try to talk myself out of them but it feels ingrained at the moment. I feel really guilty for having these feelings and try to talk myself out of them, but it feels ingrained at the moment. I feel bad because he is my brother and I know he's a really good person who means well. I do find myself envying my friends who have sisters they are very close to and seem more confident in themselves,

partly because of this email presence in their lives. Do you have any tips about how to handle this? And is it okay to dislike your sibling, even if they're a good person? I mean, if you listen to the am i a good friend episodes you'll know that having sisters does not mean that you're automatically close to them or that they feel any differently to you i think my little sister would probably be able to write a dilemma that was very similar to this about me i'll also say that left wing men are self-identified left wing men men are the biggest see you next Tuesdays

yeah I mean the planet it was kind of what we were saying earlier as well it's like a lot of there's there's so much kind of learned language now that the wrong people have learned how to use and hijack and and it's that how do you know is it is it an SNL skit I think it's an SNL skit of like the guy that's a feminist yeah and he like goes into a bar and he's like oh I love women I'm a massive feminist and then they'll be like oh yeah sorry I have a boyfriend he's like you fucking bitch like that's not no that's a Matt Berry oh is it no there's two you're right there is a Matt Berry one as well which is amazing he's like helping the woman carry the tv and then he like throws the tv to the floor um yeah there's yeah that that's incredible um so there's an element of that as well so I'm always a bit I don't know like he like throws the TV to the floor yeah that's incredible

so there's an element of that as well so I'm always a bit I don't know like you said I'm always a bit suspicious when people are like they're such a good person and they're such an amazing feminist but also they're really judgmental and say shit things to me all of the time and I'm like they can be both of those things but it doesn't mean that their misogyny isn't showing in some ways

I disagree with both of you reading relationship okay this dilemma all right um i think that the main ways in which he was judgmental occurred when they were younger and i think that misogyny can of course be involved in that this idea of like i'm cool and smart and you're just my stupid you you know, younger sibling that can be very gendered. But if you look at it now, it's more, sometimes he puts me down without even realizing. He'll apologize afterwards if I show that I'm upset. And the reason why I go, okay, a little bit more complex is because I find with my siblings, I regress big time. And all of the ways in which I think I've made progress on myself as a person or become kinder or more open to

people you put me in a room with my siblings I'm like what there we go yeah it's all gone backwards and so I wonder because you also say that you feel bitter and uncomfortable you feel competitive and guilty and all of this stuff you're like like maybe there are things that you're bringing into it based on those very real wounds from you know being teenagers together and you're repeating that as well and then sometimes he puts you down and then you're both back in that same box yeah and so maybe you can open up a conversation with him not about your behavior makes me feel this way though that's a part of it maybe you can open up a conversation about your dynamic together me feel this way though that's a part of it maybe you can open up a conversation about your dynamic together because maybe he'll say well I actually feel the need to

assert myself in these ways and I know that I'm being a dick but it's because I suddenly feel insecure when I'm around you yeah they could both be triggering each other like his response could quite easily be because they're doing something that reminds that sibling rivalry from from early childhood is still like you said it's playing out I mean 100% what I would say like being sincere about this is I think you do as I said have to open up this conversation but you also have to only do it when you are ready to accept maybe the apology if you really want to repair this relationship because it's one thing to have the apology but just from my own experiences you can make that apology and you can actually try and you can make these efforts but if the other person is still not

ready to let go of that and is still not ready to actually they've still got the resentment and that's understandable that's fair yeah but this letter writer you have to actually be ready to let go of that resentment if you really want the relationship to change or it will just everything this person will do your brother will do will unfortunately trigger you back to this state and you'll slide right back yeah you will just and it doesn't matter what like your brother will say or do the slightest hint of like something that you that triggers these emotions in you again it will take you right back there and you'll just immediately be upset and feel inferior and judged once again even if it is just normal human interaction and that's totally fair you're going off a past experience but i just

from saying from things that i have directly experienced in trying to repair relationships the other person has to be ready to accept the repair and they don't have to they don't have to do that yeah they don't want to. But as the letter writer says, you know, how do I handle this? And is it okay to dislike your sibling? Do you actually want to repair this or are you just looking again

for like a lot of letter writers, permission to just be like, yeah, he's a prick. Yeah, that's true. Permission to dislike captain, permission granted. Permission not granted. From an older sibling who's been a bit of a dick,

permission not granted. an older sibling who's been a bit of a dick permission not granted on that bombshell I think we've got to bring this to a close I've been Ash Sarkar who have you guys been? I've been Moya but I think we should just give a round of

applause to Shemaine thank you very much for coming thanks that's really sweet say your name one more time and yeah I'm Shemaine Silliman and what have you written?

I've written a book called The Chain The Relationships That Break Us The Women Who Rebuild Us and where is it available uh waterstones foils the the usual all quality book purveyors thank you very much see you next week guys bye Субтитры подогнал «Симон»