We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 249. The Best Advice We’ve Got on Loneliness & Jealousy

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Who do we go to for advice? And do we really even WANT advice — or just a good listener? Glennon, Abby, and Amanda tell us who they each go to when they don’t know what to do next — and offer their best advice to Pod Squaders dealing with loneliness and the unexpected jealousy of their partner's affection for a pet. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, lovebugs. Welcome back to We Can Do Her Things. Today, this is the plan. We're going to give you our best advice. Okay? Not like advice that we've gathered from other people. We're going to listen to some challenges that you all have sent to us via email or voicemail. And we are going to give you our best advice. Okay, we're not saying it's going to be good advice. Yeah, just our best. What we're saying is we're going to give you our best ideas and advice. So before we start, let's take a minute and talk about advice. Who do you to trust to give you good advice? Can you think of people that when you have a problem, you know that person will give me good advice? I mean, I obviously will say you to, for sure, you both are

brilliant advice givers. But outside of you too, I would say Liz and Alex. Yes. Same. Those are my two. Liz Gilbert, Alex, Hedison. Why? What is it about? Let's first take Liz. What is it about her that makes you trust her advice? I think because she's gone through a lot of stuff in her life and has proactively went in search of figuring some of that stuff out. Both Alex and Liz aren't, well, that just happened. I'm not going to like go in any kind of search and analyze like they are the most proactive about understanding themselves and the world and how those two can compete against each other and with each other. Yeah, it's like if you were gonna trust somebody

to tell you about the world, you would trust an adventurer, like someone who had gone out and seen a lot of different places. And Alex and Liz are both people who are adventurers of the human experience. They dig in. Yes. They do recovery.

They do therapy. They do talking to people. They do like their adventures of the soul. Yes. And so when you bring them a problem, it's almost like they're like, please. I know. I've done it a few times.

Where I brought everything. I brought this one thing to Alex that I was so, I was devastated. I was devastated about it. And she reframed that shit in two seconds and the way that she heard my story, she was unaffected. Yeah. And I was like, how is this person not floored and surprised and shocked by this?

It was like she had heard a million worst words. Like you think you're special? Yes. This shit is just life. So what was interesting about that story is you brought her to her a problem you were having that somebody did something that upset you very much. Yes.

And the way that Alex reframed it, which I thought was so interesting, is that she didn't focus on the thing that happened. She didn't focus on the person that did it. She said, isn't it interesting that this thing is causing this much turmoil in you? Yes. What has happened is that something has come up

in you that is unhealed. Yeah. So thank God this happened. I know. This has given you an opportunity to heal. Literally four minutes later, she was just like eventually you're gonna say, thank God for this person.

It's like the Maya Angelou thing. Like say thank you right now. Yes. I think you're right now thank God for this person. It's like them, my angelo thing. Like say thank you right now. Yes. You're right now. And at the beginning of that conversation, I was like, look this person. And at the end, I was like, thank God for this. I hadn't done any of the work yet, of course.

But I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to say thank God for so and so for showing me what I need to work on. And that is why Liz and Alex are the best. What about you, Sissy? How do you go to? I mean, I think it's an interesting question to about advice. Like I think at least for me, probably 90% of the time that I am sharing a problem

purportedly for advice, I actually don't, I'm not seeking advice. Because think there's this, there's so many things that we go to people like, I need to share this with you. Ostensibly for the idea that people are going to advise us, but really we just want to either share and commiserate over like the betrayal or the bullshit that someone did or just like be outraged together or just share this monumental thing that happened to us. But I feel like I rarely seek actual advice as in counsel, as in like, I'm stuck between these two or three roads, which one do you advise me to go down based on what you know about me, but obviously you too,

also my friend Bonzo, I only go to her when I'm like, ready, ready, because she isn't gonna bullshit. She is going to actually tell me what she thinks I should do, And she knows me really well. And so often, if I'm not actually ready to change the thing, I'm not going down that route. Yes, she's not the one you call just to confirm your story or to gather witnesses for your own case.

Yes, exactly. It's like, well, do I actually want to solve this? No. Well, then I'm not going to go over there. And so that's good to have someone like that. And it's also interesting to pay attention to whether you're actually, like, do you actually want advice? Advice suggests action and change and movement. And if you're not going to do that,

you're just sharing a story. You're not asking for advice. Yeah, it's a good point. Most of us don't want. That's why it's so important to know that about human beings. Because I feel like we always jump into advice giving when really, the only time that you should really offer advice is when someone calls your voicemail podcast line and says, do you have advice for me?

It was like the line episode. It's like when someone says, I want to hear the truth. I mean, most think of how many relationship stories that people have come to to share a story. And you're like, he's never gonna leave her. Everyone knows he's never gonna leave her. Like, you're not actually asking me what I think.

Yeah. Because everyone knows the correct answer to your conundrum, which is you leave his ass or stop doing whatever you're doing, but you're not actually asking me that. What you're asking me for is to lend you a listening ear and to actually not say what I think. Yeah. Which is what we do most of the time. So I think it's like that lying episode where you kind of create a social contract. I think my social contract with Ponzo is you're going to tell me where my dysfunction is in this and you're going to give it back to me. And then you're going to tell me the changes that are going to help to not make that happen again. And then John is just the most, for better, for worse,

most level, a emotional reactor to things ever. So it's a very helpful one when I'm like, this person just said this to me. And sometimes I don't know because I am a very emotional reactor to things. And I'll be like, is that weird? And he will tell me honestly, when he says something's weird or strange. You're like, oh, wow. Okay, that is really weird. Yeah. Then I am confirmed in my reaction to that being weird.

I think that's a really helpful, it's helpful when you're a very sensitive person. that I am confirmed in my reaction to that being weird. I think that's a really helpful, it's helpful when you're a very sensitive person, you have to have that. I mean, Abby and I, once a day, once a, we have a thing where we have figured out that just because I am triggered by something

doesn't mean anything happened. Right. And I'm not like being hard on myself. I'm saying like, so I will ask her, did that feel weird to you or do you think whatever? Objectively speaking, was that odd? Yeah, yeah. Or she'll be like, I'll be like, did that like even with you,

I'll be like, did sister seems stressed? And Abby will be like, yeah. And I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa. And she's like, that don't think it's a problem, but so here's the deal. We're both with you. Is sister stressed? Yes. For me, that's a very upsetting thing. For the avi, it's a fact. It is new information

to me and something that is so important in my space a person can be sad or upset or angry. And I do not have to immediately become sad or upset or angry. And I'm not there, but I can see, you can entertain that intellectually and conceptually. Right. Right. So I don't know what that has to do with advice other than there's some advice for you. You can be in a room with someone who's upset and you can stay how you are. Okay. So should we hear from, do you have anything else to say about advice?

I just want to make sure that you feel like you said who you're advice. Oh, I agree with Liz and Alex. Yeah, I was thinking about how funny it is. Like my people think their parents and I was thinking about my mom and advice. And my mom is like the worst advice, give her ever because she hates everyone. I hate she loves everyone. I love she thinks everything that I've done is perfect. So there's no like otherness to offer. That's the commiseration and evalitation.

Commiserates. And we got to, oh my God, totally, totally. And I did think about we have one kid who constantly wants to report trauma and drama, but never wants to fix it. No one's, no ideas. That is not her purpose. That is not what we're doing here. No, right. And so it is a different way of being to listen to someone's pain or problems and say,

that sounds so hard. And then nothing else. Yeah. But I bet more people are like that than we know. Because actually, usually when someone offers me advice, it makes me feel stupid most of the time. Because I'm like, I know that. Yeah. I know what to do. Does it make you feel stupid? Does it make you feel like you just like them? It makes me

feel like they think I'm stupid. Do you know what I mean? Like, obviously, I know how to solve the problem. We're doing something else here. Right. Yeah. Right. But these are people, these are pod's letters who don't know how to solve the problems. Maybe. And so maybe they just ask. Maybe they want to come to us and we can be like, mom, we can be like, do the

questions. I can't believe it. And also don't you have those friends like when I think about Alex and Liz and telling them stuff, usually when I'm telling them a problem, I'm thinking right now about a problem that I reported to Alex a couple weeks ago, we were on FaceTime and by the end of me talking, I was already embarrassed because I was already looking at her face listening to me. She's like, I'm waiting for the problem. Yeah, I know, but I know exactly what my problem is. I know exactly what to do. I know exactly what she's gonna say before she opens her mouth

because I have heard myself through Alex's ears and now I know that this is all her shit. She doesn't have to say anything. What is that verbal processing? Yeah. That's a big thing. That's why writing down in journals is so important. That's why having people to share our

issues with is important because when we are all in our heads, our problems, our frustrations, are so in co-hate, you can't touch them, you can't, they just feel overwhelming. So if you're able to verbally process, you are walking through yourself in that. So if you're able to verbally process, you are walking through yourself and that. And if you're able to write, you are making them more manageable by putting something so amorphous and undelable. Yeah, and I think you should have a list of people when you want to just get all riled up.

You have that friend, you know, you have that friend. We're just gonna hate everyone you hate, be with you, you know, a very valuable confirm your case. Yes. Like, yes, you're the winner. That other person is all the things. And then you should have an empathetic person who's just going to be sad and soft for you. And then you should have the bond. So, who's like, I assume you're not going to waste my time if we're not going to get to a solution here. Right. And like we're gonna sit here and pretend like you haven't done that same worship

pattern for 30 years. Oh, I'm so surprised. That's a trouble of having friends very long times. Keep bringing back the same shit. Over. Yeah, it's better to get new ones. So you can pretend like you're just discovering this issue. All right, let's hear from our first pod squadron. My name is River, my pronouns are they them. I am someone who can feel alone and a proud of my

family and friends, and I need to feel really keen and known to feel so safe and also to feel present and very sensitive to not having those things especially right now. I recognize that we are all communal and social beings that human nature really, but we also live in a very individualistic world, And currently building a community in my life with people capable of giving me these things, but that's not the only people I have in my life. So my question is, how badly do I need to learn to be alone?

What is the value of loneliness? Is there value to loneliness? And how can I let my community in more when they are present, when they are there for me? Thank you so so much. You are all like my mother, my sisters, my guardian angels, my teachers. Thank you for everything I listen to you. Basically every day for your guidance. River, damn! I love that name, River. Well, you know I love this question. We have I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right?

I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right?

I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right?

I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? I love that name, right? They love each other. They take care of each other. They pull each other intellectually and emotionally. It's really gorgeous community. And our kid was starting to feel a little bit lost. So they carved out more alone time just to go for walks, do all the things and they were reporting back to me about the results of that and they said, when I am alone is the time that I feel like I exist the most. Wow.

They can feel themselves existing the most and I feel the same way. Okay, so it's like I am blue. Okay, it's like I'm blue and I can feel my blueness and then when I'm with other people, it's like I suddenly turn green. Like I'm mixed with their colors and I just start to feel like disintegrated a little bit. And I just start to feel like disintegrated a little bit. And I love that feeling. Like when you think about being at a concert is like the ultimate experience of that to me. It's like communal. You're disappearing. And that is so beautiful. Like I love to disappear

with a group, whether it's like us on the couch with our team last night, which the five of us and it's like we're a mushy still. Or at a concert where it's like you really feel like molecularly you have disappeared. Like you are in the collective, you're gone. I must have those experiences and I must return to blue. Like if I don't disappear and exist completely, then I feel like I'm not whole. So, river, I think, is there value to a loneliness? Oh my God, it's to some of us, it's when we exist fully. In our culture, we define loneliness as being alone. And I am the most lonely when I'm with a group of people and I can't connect with any of them. And everything's just talk, talk, talk.

And I can't like see anybody's, blueness or greenness or redness. And I can't feel my own blueness because there's so much noise. And that's when I feel the most lonely. When I'm in a space that's not supposed to be disappearing, it's not supposed to be a concert, but I still feel like we're all disappearing, which I don't like a party. I mean, I have friends who are married and are the most lonely when they're with their

partner on a couch and they're together because they feel so unknown by that person and they feel like they're supposed to be known by that person. And when you feel like it's supposed to be connection and it's not there, that's really lonely. I know people who hate to be alone. And that's loneliness for them. So I think loneliness can be so many different things. And it's not just a loneliness.

And if you're asking River, is it important to be alone and to have community or if that's either or, I think it's an end both. I think it is so interesting what you just brought up about the concert because that togetherness is not lonely precisely because you are having what feels like because you are having what feels like dissolving into the same experience together. And what River is talking about is that they have the experience of friends and family, who they feel they are lonely around because they don't share the same. I forget how they put it, but like experience of life or same values or whatever.

And I think this is significant because there was a study out of USC last month and it's a very different research than has ever been done that is showing the brain processing of people who are lonely and people who are not lonely. And this to me blows my mind and makes sense of this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy of loneliness. So people who are not experiencing loneliness have very similar patterns in brain information processing as other people who do not experience loneliness. Okay, so you're not lonely, your brain works a certain way. You work very similarly to other people who are not lonely.

If you are lonely, your brain processing is very individualized, distinct, idiosyncratic. So the brains of lonely people do not look like the brains of not lonely people, and also do not look like the brains of other lonely people. Your brain just looks very individual, which means that when you feel like you are not experiencing the world in the same way, with a shared experience and understanding, you are correct. Wow. And the research is completely unaffected by how many friends you have, how much socialization you do,

how many people are around you, does not affect your experience of your loneliness being the result of a feeling like you do not experience the world in the same way. So does that mean that if you're a lonely person, you can't just change your circumstances, it means that you are born a lonely person. Are people who have this lonely brain? Are they? Is that why artists are always like, please let me show you or paint you or or sing to you or write to you what it's like for me because

no one else is sharing this experience. So we're constantly like, look, because it is an unusual experience that nobody else is having, right? Lon lonely people are lonely people are lonely people are lonely people Remember we don't just get a dog or get another friend. Well, this is what's mind blowing They haven't done the research yet to show whether it's a cart or horse thing. I see so the question is right if your brain Is that idiosyncratic? Do you become lonely? Because you Do you become lonely because you realize by watching the world and being around people that your brain isn't working like all these other people's brains? And that makes you feel more lonely.

Or are you just born with lonely brain, but what is true is that it doesn't matter how many people you surround yourself with. You're still going to be having a very distinct experience. That is not the same as them. And so in fact, they have found that that actually might be the research is still out, but it actually might be a risk factor. They say the possibility that being surrounded by people who see the world differently from one self may be a risk factor for loneliness. So not only that, just adding those people to your mix doesn't make it better, it might make it worse. So if you're blue and blue and blue and you're surrounding, you're saying, I'm so blue. I need to surround myself with more other colors if half of those people who are not lonely are all red.

And the other half are lonely, but they're not blue. They're teal and yellow and purple and orange. So let me just put this into a visual so that the pod squadders can visualize with me. So like, what is this just saying is the people studied loneliness and they're like, all right, we've got these hundred people who are saying they're lonely. So we're going to put them in a room and study them and figure out, do they have a dog? Do they have enough friends? Do they have enough family? And then what they found out was, oh, they all have different amounts of those. The thing they have, oh, they all have different amounts

of those. The thing they have in common is they all have an idiosyncratic brain. So their brain is what they have in common, not any circumstances that we define as loneliness. Well, for the record, I don't know that they looked at dogs and families and whatever. Well, you assume that they would look at circumstances also. It was just MRI imaging. So basically, they looked at, let's say they looked at 100 brains on MRIs. They said, okay, 50% of these people are only 50% or not. What's wild to us is that the 50% that are not lonely, their brains look very similar to one another. Then they looked at the other 50% who are lonely and they're like, Lord, have mercy, these people are all over the map.

Their brains don't look like each other and they also don't look like the people who are not lonely. I mean, talk about perpetuating loneliness. Exactly. So then what we need is a different word. Then the word lonely, it just has such a negative connotation and it makes us feel like the thing we're experiencing is that we need more people around us.

So what we need is a different word. If what we're saying is lonely means your brain works differently than everybody else and that makes you feel isolated, then we just need a different word from that. Like how do you feel idiosyncratic again? Exactly. How do I feel like like I am not neither seen nor understood nor experienced the world the same way as others? Exactly.

But not lonely. Yeah. Like I feel like nobody fucking gets me still or I'm having a different experience and everyone else is what's the word for that? Yes. And I think that that is super helpful because then even people who are not lonely people, maybe their brains work like all these other 50% and congratulations, you're lucky.

They still could have periods of that. Like what is this icky feeling when I'm with these three people and this thing happens and I appear to be the only one that experiences it in this weird way. And so that is loneliness, right? It's like, uh, I am alone in this feeling and this experience,

in this understanding of what's happening. And so River already nailed it because they have identified for themselves what's already the issue. It's not the lack of people around them. It's the having a connection with those who experience the world in the same way, and to have similar reactions. And I think that's why that is so coveted. That's why when we find those people, we rarely let them go because they are fucking rare. Yeah, rare. And that's why maybe we don't need a lot of them. Maybe we just keep it tight. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow, that's so interesting. Just reframing what loneliness is. That's the biggest difference between my first marriage and my second marriage. I was so freaking lonely in my first marriage because I constantly felt like we were having different experiences. We would be in the same room, something would happen

with a kid with a life, whatever, something would happen in the world. And I understood that we were having completely different experiences. I felt so lonely. Yeah, and that's the biggest difference now in my marriage is there's lots of things, but that's very rarely happening.

We are having similar experiences. I can trust, I can look at Abby and be like, yes, she knows exactly what's happening with me, what just happened with the kid. That's the opposite of loneliness to me. And many people don't have that with their partners, but if you have that with someone, yeah, and at a concert, that's what you're saying. Yeah, it's the same experience. If I'm at a concert, I'm watching Brandy Carlisle and Catherine singing. And my heart is like busting open with joy at their love and their community and their lives.

That is what everyone around me is thinking. Yes, that is why you dissolve into them. Because it is an indistinction. It is not the distinction of having a different experience. So if you're at a party, you know you're not having the same experience that person over there. And so that is why you're lonely at a party. That is why you're not lonely at a concert.

And that's why what I really want at a party is for everyone to ask one person a question. Like I love at a dinner when you do one, let's have one question that everybody answers. That's because everybody then is having the same experience. We're looking at the person altogether collectively. We're all focused on one thing. We're all having the same experience.

And that's really interesting because I wouldn't consider myself an overly lonely person. And so I'm not as concerned with needing to have the same experience because it's not as important to me because I don't think of myself or I wouldn't consider myself a lonely person. So going to small talk cocktail hour, though I'm not having any cocktails, doesn't bother me because I don't care if I'm not having any cocktails, doesn't bother me because I don't care if I'm having a different experience than other people.

Or you're on the 50% where your brain works similarly to others. And so you have never picked up on the clues throughout your life that you are experiencing the world vastly differently than everyone else. Right. So you don't have that. So that's less long. There's no, there's no like, you're earning. Yes, you don't have the automatic presumption

that you understand the world differently. So you don't have that craving that needs to be met because it's possible. And so you look around, you're like 50% of this party is experiencing the same way as I do. And maybe you have that kind of understanding of the universe. So River, in short. In short, you are blue. We try to show it every time, like voice mouse and we get through like one. I know. And I feel like people, they, they leave us messages hoping for an answer. And we return to them 50,000 more questions and much more

Confusion sorry Let's try to give let's try to give Riveran in short, okay in some river It is possible that it's not that you just haven't found the right Conglomeration of circumstances or people it is possible that you just have an idiosyncratic brain, a different sort of brain. And so what we could do is not label that as a yearning, but just a difference, and that it is possible that you will feel best

in experiences where there is a decided shared experience, like a concert. And with the very few people you will find throughout your life who you feel like see you and know you and you share a common understanding with. And that there's not anything wrong with you. Right. That you feel lonely in groups of people where you get the feeling that you experience things differently than them. That is actually correct. Yeah. It is not your moral failing or emotional failing or theirs or theirs that you are in this group and feel lonely. And maybe go for art. Art is where we express our little idiosyncratic worlds

and say, someone please look and tell me if you're like blue. I am blue. I am blue. Okay, God help the next one. Let's hear from Emily. My name is Emily. I have a situation with my boyfriend. He is a wonderful guy. I very love him. He comes from a very abusive background and so because of that physical touch is very complicated for him. And so our best life isn't that great, our physical touch life isn't very, isn't what I need it to be. but I want to respect his needs and respect his founders. If you're in,

he is able to see physically affectionate with our dog. He is able to shower this dog with all of the love and affection that I was I could have. And I never thought I'd be in a relationship where I felt jealous of a dog. So I don't know. I don't know if that's any of the type or if you've ever been jealous of a dog, but my question, what do you do when you're jealous of a dog? I love yourself. of a dog. I mean, love yourself. Emily, first of all, I'm so sorry for you and your partner. It's so much. The reverberations of abuse are just so stunning. Just how far it goes, how many relationships it touches like a Ripples from a stone like how many generations how many it's just Amazing

The pain and the destruction that abuse continues I'm so sorry the dog thing. It's interesting. I'm so sorry. The dog thing, it's interesting, I'm thinking about how when I was in therapy, in my first marriage, when we were in healing from one of many things, the therapist used to insist that we tried to cuddle and touch each other in a way where there was absolute clear boundaries around nothing going further than snuggling. And the thing about dogs is that they don't, it's uncomplicated. Like there's nothing that's going to be pushed. There's no moment that like, it's going to, energy's going there's nothing that's going to be pushed. There's no moment that like,

energy's going to switch and it's going to become sexual. There's no like power dynamic. It's so simple. That's just something that came to my mind. Like I wonder if there were times where you could snuggle like dogs where there was like a boundary around it, where you both agreed that the rule was, it wasn't going past the snuggle,

that that could make both people feel safe. I don't know, that's the only idea that I have about the dog love. What do you think, Ann? I understand Emily's boyfriend. It is much easier for me to show affection abandon of affection to my dog that my partner. Yeah, I get that. I actually wonder sometimes if it's like a thing. Like, I, you know, if it's noticed, I'm sure it's known us. Yeah, and I think it's exactly right because it's it's uncomplicated, and I think it's like at a deeper level, it is about self-love. I think it's possible because when you think about it, when you introduce the idea of people, it's like, is the other person worth it?

Is the other person deserve it? Is there like, what is the scorecard today? What will it lead to? Do I have to like work out anything before I show this love? The memory is so long with people and the memory is so long in relationships that, but a dog's, there's no memory. It's also so vulnerable. It's almost like you would have to show that much acceptance and joyful rebbling in yourself to be able to share that with another human. But whereas a dog is a different species, it's like of course they

deserve that. They don't have any of this human fallibility or complications or whatever. I don't have to project on them. Any of my confusion about myself, whereas with partners, you not only have your issues in your relationship, you also are projecting on them all of the things about yourself and all of the judgments and all of the, you know, they did this study where they had like a fake news story and it was the victim in this story was attacked

and they had bones broken, okay? And they changed who the victim was in every, and it was an adult human, a child, an adult dog, and a puppy. And then they analyzed the levels of sympathy and empathy that the people had based on hearing the story. The levels were the exact same for child, adult dog, puppy, high levels of empathy. They did adult person low levels of empathy.

The exact same outcome, the exact same situation. And why is that? Because we've been well done hurt by so many humans. We've been hurt by so many humans and we see our own selves as not worthy of empathy. We see our own selves as not worthy of the kind of reckless, joyful love that is unconditional that we see as a dog. unconditional that we see as a dog. And so I actually think it makes total sense. It's it's shockingly awful for Emily's experience. It's shockingly awful for her partner to not see themselves as either the recipient or the giver of that kind of abandon. And of abandoned and also logically, it makes total sense to me. Yeah.

Damn. I mean, Emily, I will say that I sense at the end of your question a little bit of like, is this okay or weird for me to be jealous of a dog? I'm going to tell you, Emily, that I have had moments in my marriage with Abby, where I'm jealous of her dinner. I'm jealous of her food because she gets excited about food in a way that like first of all the way Abby gets excited about food is so wonderful.

The way Abby gets excited about a lot of things. That's true, but not on the human spectrum. Right. But in terms, she's like a food person. I've been jealous of ice cream. I've been jealous of steak. I've been jealous. So dogs to me are like, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

We did mine. But it's funny, but connected, right? It's like when you see your person finding, when I see Abby, I'm like, oh, that's how you used to desire me. That's how you desire that cupcake, right? Literally said it to me a few times. Oh, I have said it out loud. Oh, okay. You used to make that noise for me that you're making for that cold stone. Exactly. That's exactly right, right? And so, yes, it makes perfect sense to me that you would feel like that is the way you're loving

and being comforted by the dog is how I wish you were being loved and comforted by me and vice versa. I think it makes perfect sense. I mean, not for nothing, my first marriage too, the dog was a big. Yeah. I realized at the close of that marriage that the dog

was the wife that my ex has been needed. Yeah. Like no memory, all devotion, no counting of any pains and costs. I mean, he would go away for six months at a time, walk to the door. I would be standing there, harboring the hurt and pain, and counted costs of all the losses in those six months. The dog would be just as fucking happy as if he'd gone to the grocery store.

Oh, damn. And that's what he needed. And think about Emily's partner, where Emily is asking her partner to engage and probably do the work to recover from abuse and doing all these hard things, and the dogs, I don't need any of that for me. I just think there's a lot of things I've been thinking. I just think it's so beautiful and vulnerable for Emily to call and tell us this, you know, to like admit that she's jealous of her dog like, yes, to that. Yeah. I also think that

it's got to feel even more difficult in moments because it's like, don't you trust me, right? Like Emily is feeling like, why can't you just trust me? I'm not that. There's just so many layers to this that we don't know about. And so to me, it's just therapy. It's like, I hope that he could hear this and to hear how much you love him, and to hear how important this is to you, and to maybe want to do a little bit of work. And I also think that she, Emily, you have to explore that, because even though we might have ideas and desires, and yes, we want to honor those as much as possible, when you are in a partnership, those desires have limits in some ways, because somebody else is a part of this equation. And though that is beautiful in many ways, it's also really

difficult. And so I don't know, I just think communicating this with your partner is like the number one step, like not in a judgment way. So not like you used to look at me like you look at that brownie. That would be better to do it not in that way. Yeah. I would be more open to a conversation if it didn't have that attached to the front part of the cell phone. Totally. Got it.

But I think that there's so much opportunity here. It could be interesting to grow your relationship and build your relationship in different ways that might not have much to do with physical touch right now, but that it could promote that down the road and in the future. I don't know. It makes me excited.

Of course, here I am being excited. And also, I would just say absolutely, Emily, like I was in my first marriage, very jealous of the dog. Like, you would come back in town, you would pick up the dog before he'd come see me. Like actually, that was the order of priority. So I completely understand that and to the extent you feel any embarrassment about that,

like I have absolutely been there. And also two things is that like the dog might seem like it's a barrier right now to your affection but it also might be the road. Like if he can only do that with the dog right now, it is at least a stepping stone towards the ability to show affection at the ability to allow himself to do that. And I'm not saying you should stick around for this to work out. Maybe you shouldn't.

Honestly, if you're not getting your needs met, Emily, I bless you to go get your needs met somewhere else because you might never get them met here. I wasn't in my first marriage, and that was a really good decision to not be there anymore. And maybe this is a step on the road. And also, it isn't about whether that person deems you worthy of the kind of affection they can give the dog. It's whether that person deems themself worthy to give and receive that kind of love with another human. Yes, that's it.

That's good. That's right. Oh my goodness. I think that we should every once in a while do these. And I just love hearing about these beautiful people. I know. There be in so brave every day. Yeah, River and Emily, thank you so much.

River runs through it. Thank you so much. Probably not the first time they heard that. You knew that was coming. I restrained myself for like 20 minutes. Pod Squad, we do not have any answers. But we know a couple things. And one is that there is nothing wrong with you.

Not a damn thing. And that life is really hard and it's not hard because you're doing it wrong. It's just hard because it was designed in that way. And the cool thing about life being hard is that it forces us to need each other. And it's probably one of the reasons why you're listening to this podcast. So thank you for that. Thank you for being the community that we rely on to get through this thing, this hard life. We love you. We will continue to do hard things together.

And we will see you back here next week. Bye. Bye. to We Can Do Hard Things. Following the pod helps you, because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us, because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on Follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful.

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