We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Jen Hatmaker: What We Win When We Lose It All

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

1. Jen describes the shock of losing her 26-year marriage overnight.  2. How, looking back, Jen sees that she knew something was wrong in her relationship well before she “knew” something was wrong–and the moment she reached out to Glennon to share it for the first time.   3. Why Jen’s friends told her she was a “human spotlight” and “cleanup crew” in her marriage–and the pain of realizing she was powerful in every role other than wife.   4. How Jen convinced herself that her marriage was enough when in reality she felt like a pot of water slowly building to a boil.  5. The common hell of being lonely inside of marriage–and why we won’t be fully honest with ourselves, our partners, or our friends about what we are most afraid of.   About Jen:  Jen Hatmaker is the New York Times bestselling author of For the Love and Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire, along with twelve other books. She hosts the award-winning For the Love podcast, is the delighted curator of the Jen Hatmaker Book Club, and leader of a tightly knit online community where she reaches millions of people each week. Jen is a co-founder of Legacy Collective, a giving organization that grants millions of dollars toward sustainable projects around the world. She is a mom to five kids and lives happily just outside Austin, Texas. To learn more about Jen, visit www.jenhatmaker.com. TW: @JenHatmaker IG: @jenhatmaker 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

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at 12.99 per month. I walk through a fire I came out the other side. Okay, we're going to jump right into we can do hard things today because we today

have one of my favorite hard things doers in all the land. Her name is Jen Hatmaker and I'll just tell you that right off the bat because I know everyone's gonna get really excited about that. The crowd goes wild. And I have known Jen for a long, long time. And I've always loved Jen, but I was thinking about this quote from both of our friends Elizabeth Gilbert. I just asked Abby to grab it for me like five minutes ago. And it says, the women I love and admire for their

strength and grace did not get that way because shit worked out. They got that way because shit went wrong and they handled it. They handled it a thousand different ways on a thousand different days, but they handled it. Those women are my superheroes. That is Liz Gilbert. But she's the best. She's the best.

We have Jen Hatmaker, who is the New York Times best-selling author of For the Love and fierce free and full of fire, along with 12. I don't know. I don't know what to say. Well, okay. Ridiculous. The whole book show, just of her own books. Okay. She hosts the award-winning For the Love Podcast, which is so freaking good, is the delighted curator of the Jen Hatmaker book club and only Jen would write the delighted curator. Okay, no, that's my phrase.

Yes, even her bio is so Jen. And she is the leader of a tightly knit online community where she reaches millions of people each week. Jen is a co-founder of Legacy Collective, a giving organization that grants millions of dollars towards sustainable projects around the world. She is a mom to five kids, only seven less books that she's written, five books, 12. Math, and just, and lives just outside,

Austin, Texas, Jen Hatmaker. Welcome to We Can Do Her Thanks. Hello, my darlings. I'm so happy to see you both. And Abby just off camera. Yeah, she's right here. Hi, Jen. I know.

Guys, do you want to just come in here? She just is so jealous that she's going to stay in the frame. Yes, Abby. Abby Wobbuck loves herself, some Jen Hatmaker, which I just wanna say that I think the first time Jen and Abby met was backstage at a women-of-fade conference. So what I need the world to know is that I brought my lesbian,

that's right. Soccer player, girlfriend. That's right. To the most conservative, evangelical Christian arena event. Arena. Yes. Full of evangelical Christians. And then I stood in the front row and we held hands and kissed and waved our arms to Jesus

songs. Jen, do you remember that? That's right. Oh, do I remember? Do I remember? I remember. What were you thinking at that point? I just know what was...

I don't think I really understood what I was proposing to that crowd of 40,000 people. Well, I was thinking how much I loved you. And I knew about Abby. So, um, and then, you know, it only takes like about three and a half seconds of meeting Abby. And it doesn't, I don't care who you are. You fall hard. You fall hard. You fall immediately. It's irreversible, it's irrevocable. I got it immediately. I got you, I got y'all. Because of course, as you mentioned,

our history deeply preceded that. We met when we were both married to men, other men. And so I immediately loved Abby, and I was proud of you, and I was proud of both of you. And I felt like I had real time, I was watching you like walk into yourself. And it was like an honor to witness it. And then a couple years later, yeah, I got to watch you walk into yourself. We have talked previously on this pod in the context of my sister and I's divorces about how the most obnoxious question a person can ask about that horrific sacred time is

what happened? Because it's just like, I don't know, simplification bypassing that like kind of icky curiosity. So without asking what happened, can you tell us what happened? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. and even just discretion around what it means to tell a hard story like this. You have literally all four of us understand this. All four of us, unfortunately, understand exactly this. Yes. Because there's us in the story, but there's a person that we were married to in the story.

There's a bunch of spawn that we created in the story. There's in-laws and parents. It's complex. Yes, it's complex. And to some degree, our connective tendrils go forever. And so it is complicated to give an accurate retelling, to say nothing of the fact that I have a certain version in its mind, which means it's not entirely right. But it's the one I know, even the one I've crafted a little. Yes, ma'am. I've polished her up. But in short, I was married for 26 years, and I got married. Every time I say this, I just have like a stab of like horror, but I got married when I was 19, and Brandon, my ex-husband was 21. We were in college and we had,

we were in a kind of a conservative Christian college environment, which is just to say, it's a very strange place. It's a very strange ecosystem in and of itself. And I just a bunch of little babies get married there. And that seems normal. And we have real weddings. Our parents give us a way. Like that's a normal thing. Like she's 19. She makes $4.25 at the YMCA. Go be a wife. You know what I'm saying? What the hell are we doing? So I started really young. I was never really an adult, a single day of my life without a man. I went straight from my dad to a boy. So we built a whole life, you know, a whole life. We grew up together essentially.

And we had three kids, and then we adopted two more. Ben and Remy are youngest, they're Ethiopian and we adopted them when they were 5 and 8 and built kind of this entire hat maker. Ethos. And then in 2020 just after the pandemic started, so that was already, we were just already all flailing around and. all flailing around. And we started the divorce process. And for us, it wasn't like a slow burn. It wasn't like a mutual, like we are devolving or disconnecting or we've been working and working and we can't get these things resolved. It wasn't like that.

It was overnight. It was shock and awe. It was one day you know something and the next day you know something different. And there isn't recovery from it. A lot of people wanted to know, you know, because marriage and family has been the center spoke of my wheel for a very long time. And so I know people were like, I don't understand why this, we're not now watching a fight for this recovery or we're not now seeing, Jen and Brandon, you know, just go to the

mat to resolve this or to repair it. And the truth is sometimes that's not an option. And that was not an option for us. And so just like that, just like that, it was over. And then there's some shit that goes on, but it was over. That was the day it was over. When I put the marker in the ground,

it's July 11th, 2020. A bunch of stuff and then we actually filed and then we actually got divorced, but that was the day. That was the day that I was on my own in the world. I didn't know how to be a grown-up. I certainly didn't know how to single parent. I didn't know anything.

I had never had a single moment to myself as an adult woman. And so it was scary. It was shocking. It was humiliating. And there was just a minute there, I can't honestly hardly remember it. I was just in such a fog of trauma and grief and fear. Yeah.

Jen, as you know, Glenin likes to celebrate your transformation in the world as the genocence. That's right. She's branded it and it's really lovely. You don't know my appetite. Glennon, Glennon, I don't know if you've ever watched in my social feeds every time you say that word. Everybody piles on underneath it and they're like, I'm going to borrow that and I am now

in the Linaissance. And now I'm in the Janetessence. And I'm like, listen, borrow it from her. She's offered it to our community. That's good to take it everyone. It's a gift. I wish you could see every time, which maybe like 20 times, I've written Jenna Essence under your things.

I have to Google how do you spell Renaissance every time? And then I have to write it out. And then I have to write every time. It's one of those times. I don't know what to do right now. I feel like if you paid me a million dollars to spell when the sun's I would get it wrong. That's right. I mean, if you've done it many times, even if you've done it at the Jen, it's, yeah.

Oh God. Anyway, I'm sorry Amanda. No, no, no. No, there is not an apology for the Jen's sun's ever. And so she's describing this first, the pain, then the weighting, then the rising. And I think when I went through my divorce, when you say a stake in the ground, and you kind of say, okay, that was July 11th. And at first, I always thought the pain was right when I knew I was getting divorced. And like that started the flaky to pain. But after I realized, no, the pain actually started well before then.

I just couldn't either see it or recognize it in myself, but there was this like a part of me that was grieving, things in my marriage before I even knew I was grieving the loss of my marriage. Yeah. So do you, before I even knew I was grieving the loss of my marriage. So do you, like looking back, are you able to see kind of where the pain was there for you

before the implosion of your marriage? Like, what were you grieving before you knew you were grieving? Yeah. It's such a good question. By the way, please enjoy the train. I like it. I feel like a numerous times. I feel like a numerous times. Numerous. It can't be helped or stopped.

Chew, chew, jeds come through. I mean, okay. Okay. I love this question and I think that's an important one because in my now experience and then what has opened up the floodgates inside my community that I lead, I think this is ubiquitous. I think women who are losing their marriages can get just a little ways out from it. And when they're finally able or willing to be honest,

they can go backward and say, I knew. Or I thought I knew, or I knew something. I don't know if you remember this, Clinton. But so July 11th, 2020, but I had your book in hand before it came out. I had the advance copy. This was like January of that year. So we're six months before anything before I really, I knew anything that was important

for me to know. I read a very specific sentence and untamed and it was essentially, I can't remember it exactly, but it was something like, you gave a litany of things that might possibly be going on in our lives that were really hard to say. They were embarrassing or they were, most hard or they were sad or they were shocking and they were carrying these things around, but we were not saying them out loud. And one of my things was embedded right in the middle of the list. And I had your book open.

And I just kind of like very quietly, I closed it, and I set it down, and I sat there quietly for about one minute. And I picked up my phone and I texted you. And I said, something's wrong in my marriage. and I picked up my phone and I texted you. And I said, something's wrong in my marriage. I didn't understand it at the time because I was only feeling the symptoms. I bet I felt them.

I felt them, sure shit, I felt them. I was feeling the symptoms. And so I was trying to diagnose the problem. And I was partially right. I was half right. And I said, something's wrong. Nobody knows. I don't know how to talk about this.

I don't know what to do. I'm trying so hard to fix it and I can't fix it. I can't get it all back in. I'm, and I just need somebody to know it. And you immediately texted back because when I'll never get a text back from you, if I text you something silly, it's like I never sent you a message. It's like, it's like

you don't have a phone. But if I sent you something important, if I sent you something serious, you're Johnny on the spot. And you know what? I received this. Okay. And I actually respected. And you texted me back right away because I had given you what I think the problem was which you have some history with. And you sort of began workshopping it with me and what it looks like in a marriage and how I'm not alone in this and a lot of women are like biting their fingernails off in their marriages

but they don't know what to do. And so to your question Amanda, I did know. And I wish I would have been more courageous. And honestly, I wish I just could have been more honest, even inside my own marriage. I cannot imagine some of the suffering and sorrow that I maybe could have avoided if I would have just told the truth. Number one, to myself. That was the first person I lied to. Because I just didn't want to believe any of it. 26 years, my parents been married for 50 years.

My in-laws have been married for 50 years. I'm like, we're going the distance, man. We have five kids, damn. Like, this, just, no, not us, right? And so I just kept thinking, okay, I can fix this. Like I can, we're gonna write the ship somehow. And, but I've had a been more honest and I think if I would have been more honest with him

and said, we both see this thing that's happening. Like what can and should we do? I don't know what would have happened at this point in speculation. But I did, I want you to know that I told him way after the fact, after I'd hit the bottom of the ocean and just drug myself back up to the surface and we were able to speak and talk and be on a little bit more honest and tender with each other,

then just like radical disintegration. I'm like, I wasn't telling the truth to us. And I wish I would have. And this was broken. And I just wouldn't admit it. So if I wouldn't admit it, I couldn't address it. And I wouldn't let you address it. Because that made it true. And so we've kind of had that good healing conversation since. But it's true. It's hard to admit. It's lonely. Like no one's in your marriage except you. You know, like something about parenting, for example, you get to reach sideways for that. You know, we have each other in that. And for some reason, that feels more, that feels easier to bring our community up. And marriage, it is you and it's that person.

And so when things are so, so broken, it's scary and it's isolating. And that's the easiest place at least for me to lie to myself about what's real. Yeah. I'm Jonathan M. Hevar. I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things. But I grew up working class. My parents were immigrants with factory jobs.

And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I want to talk about it. That's what we're doing on my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food. I was like, Girl, we're not doing that anymore. You'll hear from people who told me awkward, embarrassing, and strangely intimate things about what class means to them. She said, you know, for the house cleaner, I hide the tag on the $6 bread. And I just thought, don't you think she knows that you're wealthy? You're hiding the tags from yourself. Classy.

A new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Jen, you are so beautiful. I mean, just the way you tell your story and the way you honor the other people in the story, but also tell the truth. I think that was just a service to some people because we don't tell, like, we are in our marriages, but we are often just us in our marriages. You know, and so it isn't even, You know, even with the partner, a lot of people, we're not even with our partner. We're just all totally. And we don't know where our partner is.

Because if you, because you don't say the thing, because what happens after you say the thing? That's why we don't say the thing. Because what are you gonna find out you're right? Who the hell wants to find out they're right? About that thing. And like it's, it's not working, but it's working, right?

You are still married until you say the thing. That's it. And if you're like me, this like glass half full hope springsy terminal type, I'm like, we're just about to fix this, you know? It's just out of reach. There's some sort of trickery or like formula, we just haven't quite discovered, and then we're just gonna be like back. Like he'll be back in his own body and mind. We'll be back in this sort of relational space, and we'll look back at this and be like,

woo, that little bit was rough. And so I think there's also this like just also this hope maybe that we hang on to because the truth is, even when divorce is literally the best thing, when it gives you back to yourself, when it returns you to your highest space and it delivers you to the second half of your life, whole and healthy and good and your partner for that matter. Even then, divorce is traumatizing. Yes, and it's. It just tears some things apart

that we've spent our adult life building and putting together. And so, and it affects so many people. The rollout of the centrifugal rings of affectation are still going on. Frankly, a year and a half later. And so I think we know that and just wanting to avoid that level of just disconnection in all of our family structures makes us just kind of go, well, you know what? I don't know. We're still panorpils. It's like our kids are in school. you know what? I don't know, we're still paying our bills.

That's right. Like our kids are in school, nobody's dropped out yet. You know, like, I don't know. I created a version of our marriage in my own mind and convinced myself it was enough. Yeah, same. And that wasn't fair to either one of us. It really wasn't.

And so, I don't know, not many people were saying this out loud, which is why Clinton, when I was kind of reading this and untamed, I'm like, shh, do I have permission for this? Like, do we get to say out loud that even this long time heralded marriage, much admired, much written about, like much respected. Do I get to say this is fragmenting and I am lost and he is lost and we are lost and we can't find our way back

to each other. And that was I think for me the beginning of the end, probably, in a good way. Really, I can say that now. I can't believe I could ever say that, but I mean it now. I'm thinking about hope when you're saying this and it's interesting, this idea of hope. It's like sometimes I think our Christian version of hope fucks us up because you know, the Buddhist version of hope is like don't have it basically like well we'll like abandon all ye hope who enter you. But it is it's like hope can distract you from the truth. It like keeps you from accepting what is. And hope is a beautiful thing when it carries you through

the truth. Yeah. And and and you match the truth with hope. But when you when you use hope as a spiritual bypass to what is actually happening in front of you. Mm hmm. That's when it screws us over. That is the truest thing because you're hoping in an invention. It's not true. It's made up. I made up a story about what was actually happening and I made up

a story about what could happen. And neither one of them were ever going to be true. Right. Ever. Ever. I just wrote myself a little script and went, well, that is sweet. That is lovely. I like that story. Super hard when you're also a writer. Yes. When you also want to eat narratives, you're like, I can do this. I can make this a love story. I mean, I think about that all the time. Yes. Did I live love warrior and then write it? Because I don't think so. I think I wrote love warrior and then hoped that I would live into that version

of the redemption story. That's so real. Like, I think I am my own self-help author. Okay. Okay. Okay. Dangerous freaking territory. Totally. Oh my gosh, me too. By the time we got to July 2020, I had told so many lovely stories about my own marriage, which were partially true. Right, absolutely. And partially was enough for me.

Yes. I was okay with partial. I'm like, I will fill in the gaps on partial with my best friends, with my parents, with my siblings, with my kids, with my work, with the women in my community, with my friends that we work alongside of each other, that will be enough for me.

And so my marriage can be partial, and I can still be a happy human lady. That's true. The shitty thing about that is, it's a little true. Like, it's not really true. I'm not really happy, but I could run those traps. Yes.

Yeah, and nobody's going to like us. We're like a friend. It's nobody's just can't prove that it's not really true. I'm not really happy, but I could run those traps. Yes. Yes. Nobody can prove that it's not true. If I were under a lie detector test, I could still pass. There's part of this that feels true enough to be true. That's the problem. But what I'm learning, what I'm discovering right now, is at least for me having been married my entire adult life, I just didn't know what I'm learning, like what I'm discovering right now is, at least for me, having been married my entire adult life, I just didn't know what I didn't know. And so what I'm discovering is that, oh, that was really partial. Yes.

Now, I had, you know, I was in a slow pot of boiling water. Yeah. So that partial space, just, it just crept up on me, you know, where all of a sudden, like, if you'd have dropped me into that scenario from 10 years previous, I'd be like, Oh, shit, what has happened here? Like something has derailed, but because it kind of was a slow coming, I talked myself into that being a fulfilling life day by day, right month by month, year by year. And as things continue to fall off,

I would backfill them with other healthy relationships or spaces. And just I just kind of kept the balance like this just enough, just enough. I had the capacity to do that forever. But what I'm experiencing right now in genuine wholeness and completeness just in and of myself, like in my own soul and my own life, I'm stunned that I would have chosen to live that way for the rest of my life. And I am now like grateful. I'm really grateful to be here. Did I want to get here the way I got here? God, no, and I don't wish that on anybody. And my heart for women who have been in a super similar path is just endless now.

But am I sorry that I'm here? I'm not. I'm really not. I feel like I am, this is me. I feel me. I feel me living. I feel me alive. I feel me. I feel me living. I feel me alive. I feel me leading without editing

and without constantly having to shape shift around somebody else and without having to keep the thing afloat. And I wouldn't try to. Oh, there she is. There she is. You said shape shift. And that's what do you mean by shape shift?

Because I also heard another conversation with you and Jamie Wright and Kristen Howardton. They're your dear friends and they know you and then they as you and then they knew you as wife. And you just said shape shift and they said you were a human spotlight and a cleanup crew as a wife as a wife. What can you talk about those things that you can look back and see yourself as different in that role than as you were as you.

And what does it mean to be a human spotlight and a cleanup crew? And just, you know, sister, I talked about this for an hour in terms of our own previous and crew. Like it just made so much sense to me and I feel like people are gonna get it in their own. I'd like to hear both of your thoughts on that too.

That was really hard to hear from my friends. And I heard it earlier. I heard it before we were divorced. And I was shocked. I was shocked because I didn't know that there were two versions of me. I didn't realize it. And I certainly didn't know it was observable. You know, I felt like I was running a pretty clean operation. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because it was my job to keep our best foot forward as a couple.

Yeah. And I did it. I thought I was doing it. Yeah. I thought I was doing it. You did do it. And I thought that when things were like dipping and wobbling and going off the rails that I was

course correcting quickly enough outward facing so that that was either like, oh, well, that was silly. Or we could shrug that off like that's a weird day. That was a strange conversation. That was a strange conversation. Those girls were with me in January, right before I texted you, Glenin. January of 2020, and that's when they told me that. We were all together with all couples for four days, and they very bravely, and I commend all friends who love us enough to come to us and say hard things. I commend them.

I can't imagine how hard that was for them to say to me. Because I didn't ask for their opinion. It's not like I said, did you guys see me absolutely shrink or no? Like, did I just go real small? Did my light snuff out or was side normal? I didn't give them any rope. They just came to me and said,

we just need to tell you something that we're seeing. And I was defensive because I was embarrassed, because I'm so strong everywhere in my life. I'm powerful everywhere in my life. In every role, except that one. And I just didn't know that anybody saw it. You know, I thought it was internal. I thought I was just gonna carry that inside me

and partially make it work forever. And so this is what I've learned, what Brunei taught me. So Brunei called me like in maybe week two, week one or two after Defcon, you know, one. And she's, she told me something to do. And when Brunei tells you what to do, you do it, right? You don't get to disobey. And, you know, she doesn't come in real gentle. She kind of comes in like a wrecking ball. Like there's no hair petting. It's not like this is a real hard time. She's like, I've got one hour.

I'd like you to sit down and grab a pin. I'm like, you will be crying. You will be rising strong in 15 minutes. But one of the things she told me, she gave me a list of things that I was going to do. And ways that I was going to survive. Some of it had to do with my body. And just, she's like, it's radical self-care time.

And this is no joke. She's like, don't take this lightly. But one of the things she told me back to our point here is to get the book codependent no more. Yes, melody,, Melody. Yeah. We have several copies. There are like six of them here. Yeah, all.

Y'all. But I'm still furious. When you come out as a lesbian, they make you read that book. It's just like part of it. It's part of the campaign rules. It's part of the campaign rules. Yes, yeah. Yeah, it's the rules of admission to the lesbian.

It's like actually, this is the book what how to lesbian. Yes, but it could have been forever more. Wasn't that book like just a kick in the teeth? I didn't understand codependency. I don't know if you guys did. When I hear that word, I thought that word meant you are a needy person, like your fragile and you don't have the muscle memory to be independent anywhere in your life. And that's what I thought that meant.

And I'm like, that's not me. No, because you, what the listeners need to know if you haven't picked it up for the last 30 minutes. Jen does not, those are words she would not have related to fragile. No, no, no, no. Jen handle it. Hat maker.

Yes. Right. I'm like, I'm a fragile. Because, Jenny, just so you know, when you describe her name, that is certainly how I feel about you. It's Texas or something. Maybe, maybe it is.

You know, maybe it is. And we're sorry. The state makes us this way. You see that we're at the race to the bottom. I can't say Texas. So we're doing the best we can. Okay. Okay. And you've got a lot of problems to solve

so the 15 minutes makes sense and rises strong quickly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As a recovering person, I know a lot about what depends to be because of recovery. We know a lot about what happens to be because of recovery. We learn a lot about it in that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And that would be the backdrop to what it means to be a human spotlight. And what it means to be the cleanup crew because essentially, the central definition of codependency is that you just do not allow another person to sit in the consequences of his or her choices. You just won't allow it. You don't either. You don't want them to feel the discomfort of it.

You don't want other people to observe what's true. That would have been closer to me. You don't want to live with a ticking time bomb. So you shape shift around somebody's like volatile personality, just to steady the waters, right? So that you're just not constantly having explosions all around you. You're basically taking on the effects of somebody else's choices and you are crafting an environment around someone else. So they don't have to feel their own pain, their own discomfort, their own trauma, their own consequences, or even their own responsibilities.

And then I was like, well, shit. I took that book and I give it a little toss. I passed my living room, it's a little toss. And I was like, you don't know me. You don't know my life. I did not know I was codependent. I thought I was just being a good person, right? I thought I was just being helpful. I thought I was just being in service to another person or I did not realize how much I stunted our own growth. Not just mine but his and hours and had I let the chips fall where they were supposed to fall all along. Who knows what

we could have solved, right? Like, had consequences worked their magical effect because they do one way or another. Who knows how we could have grown or what would have been possible for him inside his own like soul and his own trauma or how we could have learned to relate to one another in healthy mature adult ways as two whole people, not two half people, trying to make one whole, right? And so that was really hard to learn. And I took that to my counselor. And she was like, this is your work. She's like, I promise you, this is not Brandon's fault. It's not. She's like, these are your choices. You made these choices one by one because you preferred a steady stable

environment over whatever was true. And if you don't deal with these behaviors and responses, you will 100% walk them into your next relationship. And she's like, you're probably already behaving this way with your kids. I'm like, you're mean. I pay you $150 an hour to not talk to me like that. What have you been trained by Bernie Brown or something? Oh, seriously.

I'm like, I'm hurting. What? What? Sure enough, when I decided to like put that overlay over parenting, I was like, oh, no. Yes. Oh, nuts. Fast, nuts. And so that's been a lot of my personal work for the last year and a half. Is figuring out how to let other human people just be human people all the way.

Good, bad, hard, making good choices, making terrible choices, because they're a person, and that's their life. That's right. And it's not my life. And so I am only, I'm at about the 54% mark on this, you guys, if you want to grade. That's good. I would still give it a kind of an f minus I've pulled up from zero

That's what we're gonna call it progress. We'll take it. What is your experience here? Well codependence inside these relationships like specifically because they manifest there differently Then I think they do with our work partners or with even our kids or our parents, but inside like a marriage. Oh, Lord, that can sink a ship. Yeah, I have a lens when I think about this that is just a question. I don't know if this is true or not, but I I found these journals. I can't believe I'm about to admit this out loud. Oh, oh, my God.

I know. I found these journals from like 15 years ago or something. I don't believe I'm about to admit this out loud. Oh, I know. Oh my gosh. I found these journals from like 15 years ago or something. I don't know. And they were, I was writing to myself to God, I guess. But I was saying things like, dear God, please help me let Craig be the spiritual leader of my family. Please help me be less loud. Please help me be less, less,

less, less. Okay, like I'm sweating again every time. But like, that is who I was trying to be less. And when I think about the way the cleanup crew manifests in like a social thing to me is like the person says something dumbass. And like you just don't let everybody experience and him experience the discomfort of having said something dumbass. You jump in and go, you're dancing monkey. Like you try to distract everyone from what just happened.

You try to put it in context real quick for everyone else. You're just, you're like a gazebo. Or what is that called? The, the at a hockey game in the middle. Oh, Zambo. Zambo. I see you go. Which is always exactly like a gazebo.

It's pretty close. I tracked, to be honest with you, as soon as she said hockey, I'm like, I'm there. Okay. It's fine. So you're a gazebo. Yeah. So the cleanup crew, I see it with like lit,

truly almost all of my friends and me. It's like so, the giggling, the making, okay, what you just said is just, it's terrible actually. It's so gross, but that's the spotlight thing is what I'm really interested in, especially with you, because and what I was just writing about my journal. It feels to me like it's perhaps set up in patriarchal marriages, especially inside of Christian marriages or in a marriage where inside of Christian marriages or any marriage where the man is supposed to be the thing. Yeah. The problem is that doesn't work because people are just people and there's going to be somebody who's shinier, who's bolder, who's probably a little bit wiser, who's the leader, and it might be

the man and it might not be the man, it might be the woman. But when the woman is as shiny and bold and wise as you are, in order to fulfill the deal you made, which was to always allow him to be, you have to become a human spotlight. You have to become dimmer and dimmer and dimmer and try to make him shine

because you've not only broken the rules by being as successful and effervescent and beloved and admired as you are. Mm-hmm. You've already fucked up the whole deal you made, which was to allow him to constantly be better than you. Mm. Mm. Mm. to allow him to constantly be better than you. It sucks so bad because it's so true.

Like, I have, I internalized that narrative so deeply. I didn't really have another one until I was a grown person with critical thinking skills. And by that point, I'd already screwed it up. I'd already gone out on my own ledge. I'd already created my own world and couldn't understand the trimmers that that was creating. And so I was trying again to fix it. Like I can be as powerful as I am in all these places. But when I come back over here,

I need to put a lid on that shit like because it's causing some problems and I don't get it. And also, what sucks about that, about me just constantly kind of shrinking so that I didn't we didn't get too out of Papuaac here, you know, it can't be like this, can only be like this. Is that that's like not even fair to him. What a shitty arrangement. Like, look, you're married to a smart, wise, powerful person. Literally damn, like let's fit into our spaces correctly.

We can flourish like that like literally flourish And so even the effort to try to sort of Pony up this ethos that you don't even have right to be a thing To match or supersede this what that's exhausting and shame I'm more now It shames the dude. I can just imagine Craig in his little journal being like Dear God help me be the leader like Shames the guy who maybe it does It also happens in lesbian marriages my marriage is this is that too. Yes, you made yourself small small

I mean I had myself small to feel like that there was like some sort of Balance it was a root belief like childhood thing too. Youngest of seven. I think what I've learned is that it comes down to stepping into my full humanity and loving myself fully enough because there was a part of me that felt like, oh yeah, I should dim my light for you. That's what a good part of does. And really, it's just about self-love. Like, it was self-hate. I was hating myself in doing that. It's so true. And then I think what happens when we like sign on to this agreement inside a marriage or any kind of partnership where we sort of agree with one another. I'm going to shrink so you can expand.

I'll clean up, I'll clean up and I'll shine the spotlight. It does create a lot of shame in both partners. It creates, it does. That's, that's a shameful practice. And so shame is when we make our worst choices. When I am operating out of shame, that's my grossest self. That is when I say and I do things that if I were looking in on that from the outside, it'd be like, Jen, can't behave. No, we don't talk like that. We don't say that. We don't posture ourselves like that. ourselves like that. Like shame, that sort of shameful agreement made us mean and it made us punish each other. And we did that in different ways. I think, I think he would say this, Brandon punished

me with aggression and dominance and anger, which has a catastrophic effect on me. Just the way that I'm built that is already take out the context that's going to make me sort of freeze. I freeze like that. And then I punished him with withdrawal and withholding. And so I will just go, boom, dormant. I won't respond to this. I won't engage you. I won't, I won't even try to make this better. I'm just absent. I just, the gin has left the building. And so we just got in this circular pattern of like aggression and withdrawal. And we just couldn't

find each other anymore. Like I've had so much resentment around this, so much I was buried in resentment for ways that I was choosing to respond. My choices, right? At any point I had the tools, I had the resources, I instructed other women how to do better in that scenario. To do as I say, not as I do community,

and I just couldn't access it. Now, like, my counselors help me identify shame when it's coming in. It's not a life sentence responding out of shame. We are not stuck in that. That is not a prison that we have to stay in. It is work to learn how to identify shame, how it feels in our bodies,

what it actually does to be physically, how it feels in our bodies, what it actually does to be physically, where my thoughts start going when I'm in a shame spiral, and I can grab that by the tail. I'm learning to grab that by the tail and say, oh, this is instruction. My body is instructing me right now that I am getting pushed into a shame space. And so let's take a minute, let's take a beat, let's get in front of this, let's talk about what's true here. What's not true? Because shame is always constructed on something that's not true, some sort of lie. Whether it's fear-based or

reality-based or both, something in here is not true and it's not going to serve me. And so let me take a deep breath, let me go put my feet in the grass, let me drink some water, and let me pause before I start to respond out of this space and regret it tomorrow morning. And so that's hard work. I'm also medium at that. But I think that's what happens in our marriages when we continue to shame each other by either shrinking or expanding when that was really never how we were meant to fill a room. Yeah, that freaking beautiful. Here's my question. Why in the hell? Why do we share everything with our friends except for the marriage shit? Because did you?

Like, did you share your, you didn't because they had to come to you. Only half. Only half. Yeah. I did half. So like, what would you share? And what, and then tell me, why do we do this? Why do we leave each other alone? Why? Why do we? Why do we? Because we're so good at getting down into the dark tunnels with each other.

We're so good at it. Like I know this experientially when I am like capsized by something in parenting or in work or in a relationship with my parents. My friends are like excavators coming down to get me and like grabbing you by the, you know, I know that this is our magic, that this is the power of women in relationship with each other. The marriage piece, it's so interesting for me to look back on the year prior and go, I did pull my friends in at about the 50% mark. And the parts that I shared were the parts

that were palatable. The ones that felt like I could garner compassion for my friends, not just for myself, but for Brandon. I didn't want him to be, I didn't want him to be non-redeemable in my friend's eyes. And I needed, I needed to keep him above board enough so that we could eventually hit that elusive recovery phase that I was waiting to happen and that everybody could still love him and love us. And so I think had I been more honest, which I was after, oh, so hard to say some things that had been real and true. And just like, of course, how is it met with nothing but open arms?

Nothing. Nothing. It's not a disconnector. It's a connector. I've just covered this in my own community of women online that I lead because I just… You guys are kind of like this too. I don't know. There's not a second version of me.

You know what I mean? I wish there was. That would make things so much easier on everyone. Oh, really? I just only know how to be mostly this one me. And so I didn't know how to suffer privately. I didn't know what else to do except for just live my life like the way it was really going.

Kind of in the public eye and I was like, well, let's just see how this goes. Like, I don't know what this is going to mean for me. Having talked at nauseam about marriage since Facebook existed. Right? Shit. God. What could go wrong?

What could go wrong? Everyone's going gonna love this. But what was interesting was to find out, as always, God, we know this, how many times we have to preach this before we believe it, which was what it actually became that level of vulnerability of raw, unprotected, exposed pain that I just said out loud and put in front of my community what it was was an invitation for connection. And it's exactly what it

became. And something happened in my community over the last year and a half. I mean, it just experienced depth that we've really never had together. Because this is not rare. It's not. People are hurting. And they're hurting specifically inside of their marriages. And my story is not new. It is old and boring. I'm so, please, men, can we get a new story?

This is so boring. I think a new one. They all want to be so cliche. Good. What is there of been? You know what I mean? I'm going to be so cliche. I'm going to be. What is because there have been? You know what I mean? Like, God. Some sort of different shock and awe.

I don't know. But I'm more creative. I love that whole thing where we protect our people from the version of the truth because we are afraid they won't be able to take our people back. It's like that thing I say to my people, you know, I would like to be friends with you, but I already told my sister what you did. So we're done. Sorry, forever.

But I think it's beyond that though. I think if we're being really honest, it is about our people and about how you're going to look at them from now on. And are we going to still be able to like go on that group vacation? Because now you know who he is. But actually, it's about your view of me. Because as much as I can't handle you viewing him like that, I can't handle you viewing me as the kind of person

that's going to stay with that. Yeah, totally. Because the card in our culture is someone who settles, someone who's fine. So if you say this is the situation of my marriage, and also I'm not leaving it, it's like your respect for yourself has gone down, but also the respect that you perceive that they have for you feels like it goes down. And at least for me, that is hard. You know? It's so real. And that's always mattered to me disproportionately. What do people think of me? This is one of my monsters to slay. And it has an outsized effect on my choices or has. It has for sure, which is something a lovely little side gift

that this kind of public divorce gives you. Guess what? You get to fix that. That's dead. So I think you're right, Amanda. And what sucks about this whole thing is that what's actually true is that when we are standing, kind of naked in front of one another, and we are just stripped bare of all of our pretenses and all of our posturing, all the ways we polish our gross stuff up and all this pretending,

that is really where the magic is. That is where real connection is. That is where real community is. Ironically, that's where real hope comes from, the real kind that really has, it's based in reality. Yes. And I don't know why we run away from this so much. I really don't.

The self-preservation thing has a terrible ROI. Just terrible. It doesn't even work. It doesn't even work. I love to see us tear this down brick by brick. And I think what happens when people like us who have a lot of eyes on us, more than makes sense and more than I like, frankly. I don't think we're necessarily built for this kind of attention and I kind of has a corrosive effect anyway, whatever, that's a different ball. I think when we can dig deep enough to stand like that in front of our communities without defending, without justifying, without making it a little better than it really is, like that in front of our communities without defending,

without justifying, without making it a little better than it really is without anything. Just being true, it has this contagious effect. And I think it has a ripple effect through our communities that is so healthy and it's so good. And we start showing ourselves to one another. And because every single time, I mean, God, how many times I have to say this,

there's nothing new under the sun. Every single time, it's a me too, me too, me too, me too. Every time, I don't care what your thing is, I swear to God, I don't care what it is. However, weird, outlier little situation you feel like you are in, you are not, you are not, you are not. Like, you have a weird little club that you belong to. Congratulations, you know, you don't want it.

Me neither, but we have it. And so it's so good for us to do this. And so I know that we are all committed to continue to live like that as often as we can. Cause we're also just human little people and we'll go into our little Heidi Holes and get weird. But as often as we can, I think leading with that sort of vulnerability and truth telling, is going to have far-reaching effects that we'll probably never even see. It's the commitment to say, okay, I'm okay with you admiring me a little bit less because I want you to love me.

It's so true. And it's the only cure for loneliness, right? I mean, it doesn't matter what your situation is in your marriage. The universal experience when you're struggling in any way in your marriage, whether you're admitting it or not, is a profound loneliness. So isolating. that you're admitting it or not, is a profound loneliness. And then when you are able to hear the truth about other people's marriages, guess what that does?

Makes you feel less lonely. God's so real. And it takes away the shame of it too. The deep shame that seeps into our bones, it's a mean shame because it's not fair and it's not warranted but That sort of connection inside shared pain. It just seeps out that shame bit by bit and it just loses its power over you I mean it really does shame is so powerful in the dark so powerful

I could just convince us of all sorts of things and so to me that is a Incredible antidote. It is literally a healing property to choose, to not stay isolated in our own suffering, but invite people into it. Like that alone is 80% of it. I mean, I get 80% there, just simply not being alone in it anymore. So I do believe in that.

And I love the community that you build and host, which literally almost enforces this. You just, you know, we're not setting tables where people have to just put on their prom dress in order to fit at it. You know what I mean? It's just a messy, sloppy mess. Yes. It is. So here's what we're gonna do. I assumed that during this 50 minutes, we were going to get through the pain, the weighting and the rising, okay, of Jen's life. Apparently the pain, the weighting and the rising takes longer than 50 minutes.

So today, I think we got to the pain. So what we're gonna do. So we've never done this before in the history and we can do our things. But I'm gonna bank Jen to come back and we're going to do a part two because I we must Jen Hatmaker talk about how you during the waiting and in the rising just got your shit together like I have never seen just figured out how to do

life as a whole person. You had your there, she is moment, but it was you. It was there, she is Jen Hattmaker. Jen-A-Sons. The Jen-A-Sons part-damn American hero. And American hero, Kim Hero. This is enough. That's a lot.

This is a lot right now. I don't think so. Okay. Jen, you do her things and we love you. Same. For the pilot squad, we will catch you back here for the next episode of We Can Do Hard Things and you won't want to miss it because

happy and I will be having a double date with Miss Jen Hatmaker and her new boyfriend, Tyler Marin. Catch you then. I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlyleon. I walked through a fire I came out, the other side. I chased his, I er, I made sure I got once mine And I continue to believe that I'm the one for me And because I'm mine, I want the line

Cause we're adventurous and heartbreak So I'm a final destination And I'm we stopped asking directions and some places they've never been and to be loved we need to be known will finally find our way back home and through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do a heartache

I hit rock bottom It felt like a brand new star. I'm all the harm And I continue to believe The best people are free And it took some time But I'm finally fine Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on matter. A final destination will end.

We stopped asking directions. So places they've never been To be loved we need to be known We'll finally find a way back home And through the joy and pain That our lives spring We can do a heartache. This world, ventures and heart breaks on land We might get lost but we're only in that Stopped asking directions Some places they've never been To be loved we need to be known

We'll finally find our way back home Through the joy and pain That our light's free We can do hard things. Yeah, we can do hard things. Yeah, we can do hard things. We can do hard things, is produced in partnership with Kaden's 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever

you get your podcasts, especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine. you