Terri Cole - Building Boundaries And Breaking Codependency

Terry. All right, Terry, welcome to the mantalk show. How are you doing today?

I'm great. Thanks for having me, Connor. I'm psyched.

Yeah. I have been looking forward to this for a while. I've had a few people reach out and be like, please talk about boundaries more. Please talk about, you know, how we can bridge the gap in relationships. And so I think this is going to be a very fruitful conversation for everyone that decides to tune into it. But before we do that, before we start to dig into the sort of meat and potatoes of our conversation today, I have to ask you the question that I ask all my guests, which usually brings forward a very fruitful story. And I forgot to ask one of my previous guests, Dr. Zach Bush, and I had many people reach out to me and were like, you didn't. Why didn't you ask him the question? How come he didn't get the. I was like, okay, all right, I got it. So I'm going to have to have him back on the show just so I can ask him the question.

Tell him to just use his cell phone and record it so you can put it up.

Right? Yeah. So tell us a story about a defining moment in your life that made you who you are today.

Well, clearly many things make us who we are today, but for me, actually, I'll choose because there's a plethora of ones I could pick, but I'll pick an early one where I was in. I was still in college and I was graduating. It was my senior year, and I'd been in therapy for about a year. My therapist was like, oh, hey, if you don't seek treatment with a 12 step program, I'm breaking up with you. And I was like, wait a minute, What? What are you talking about? And of course, everyone drinks alcoholically, or lots of people do in college. And I was like, well, if I'm an alcoholic, then everyone I know is an alcoholic. And she was like, okay, but I don't care because I'm only treating you. And it was so shocking. And actually, so she said, you have to go to at least one 12 step program meeting. So to get a vibe on this, to see if it resonates with you, whatever. So, you know, sayas at Long island, keep in mind it's the 80s. So I want you to imagine that I had, like, I had curly hair and I still got perms. This is what we did. This was more. More was more back in the day to tons of makeup, my huge neon hoop earrings. You know, I sat near the door because I was like, I don't know this occult. I didn't know anything about recovery at that point. So I sat near the door so I could smoke my parliament one hundreds considerately because P.S. young people, everybody smoked just saying they did. It wasn't just me. And this woman who looked very similar kind of to me, like way too much makeup and big crazy hair. She comes over and is like, hey, are you new? Like, are you? You know, I'm so and so I guess she was running the meeting and I didn't know any of the protocols, what he was supposed to do. And I was like, yeah. And she was like, oh, what brings you here? And I basically said my therapist threatened to break up with me if I didn't go to one 12 step meeting. Like, not that exciting, but that's what happened. And she was like, oh, well, we're so glad you're here, whatever. And then I thought just to be polite, I would say, well, what, what brought you here? And she just straight to my face said, I killed a six year old boy in a drunk driving accident eight years ago.

And that changed my life.

Because it could have been me so incredibly easily. And I left there, I managed to hold my shit together for the period of time for the rest of that meeting, but got in my car, was just bawling my eyes out because I was so clear.

Of how that could have been me. And I was so grateful that it wasn't that I just made a pact with the powers that be that moment. And I was young, I was 21, maybe that. I like, I get it. And I was like, I'm done. And I stopped drinking.

Powerful. That is definitely, definitely a moment. And somewhat serendipitous, you know, to have someone. I love the concept of your therapist breaking up with you.

Are you even allowed?

Yeah. Are you. Can you even do that? Somebody asked me these the other day, like, have you ever fired a client before? And I was like, I actually have. I fired, I fired a number of them. And I mean, I'm not a therapist. I don't know if there's different liberties that, that I hold versus versus you, but I'm pretty sure that that's within, within the realm. So what, what then? You know, were you on the path towards becoming a psychotherapist or was that something that, that came after? Like, where did that fit into the picture? Because it sounds like you were on a very different path in your early 20s.

I was really not on a very well thought out path. I could say That I was a super lover of life the same way I am now. I was frigging psyched to be alive, right? Whatever it is. So I moved into the city immediately into New York City because I was, you know, I was in school in Long island and with a friend that I met just, you know, rented like a frigging studio apartment on the ninth floor that we literally never looked at during the daytime. We didn't realize it was a cave. Like all the things you do when you're young where you're like, no parents are helping, you're just like, oh, okay, that seems fair. And then we're like, wow, it is literally pitch dark in here all day long. But I just took the first job honestly that was offered as a receptionist in the garment center. My father was like, I'm really glad I just paid for you to go to college. Like, why that? I'm like, oh my God, dad, they give you free lunch every day. It's gonna be amazing. He's like, oh my God. So I stayed in that industry briefly. Then I started really grasping that, I don't know, decisions have consequences. But I was so lit up about, in some way, I was so lit up about being sober, I didn't do the whole thing. I wasn't like going to 90 meetings in 90 days. I worked with a therapist who was an addiction expert and basically helped me. But I just couldn't believe how good it felt to not be hungover every day and how much more energized and clear eyed I was in my life. So I wanted to do everything and I was learning all the things and really got into self help. That was the beginning. And this is, you know, late 80s, early 90s. So. M. Scott Peck, the road less traveled, the four agreements, all of this Louise Hay, all of this stuff that I just couldn't believe. Like what happened for me being in therapy. I couldn't believe that a, anybody could be in therapy, but like everybody wasn't doing it. I was like, this is like the most amazing thing that was ever existed. How or is nobody doing it, but that it didn't matter. Like my takeaway from therapy, which is why I've been in it pretty much ever since, is that it didn't matter what my, the cards I was dealt, right? The hand I was dealt in life that I really saw at that young age that therapy gave me the power to say I want new cards or I don't like this deck or I don't like this game. I'm literally creating my own game. And so I was incredibly inspired to create the life that I wanted, regardless of what had happened in my family of origin or my extended family prior to me. And it wasn't like a horrible shit show, but it wasn't what I wanted, right? I wanted something more, something different. And so for a long time that sustained me. So I got got out of the garment center pretty early on and I became, actually, I became an agent. And by the end of my career, I was negotiating contracts for celebrities and supermodels, like endorsement deal type things. And by that point then I was too healthy to be in that industry. So I was like, this is not a hotbed of mental health. I gotta get outta here. Because I was really trying to. Especially when I got into the modeling world, which was the last few years of my career, I was like, no, this is so toxic. And as much as I tried to change this really broken system, I remember I was doing something with the Ford Modeling Agency because I was already out. I was already a psychotherapist. Somehow that business can always suck you back in with her. Like, here's a boat of money. Do you want it? I'm like, yes, I do. In fact, because I'm starting my therapy practice, I'm getting married. Like, I had all these things that I needed money for which I knew I wasn't going to be immediately making a ton of money as a therapist. And I remember going in to see Katie. Ford was running it at the time. And I remember going into her office multiple times, being like, you know, I really think we should think about. Stop. We should stop. Not call the models girls. I mean, these are grown women, most of them. I mean, if they're a minor, it's fine, you know. And she was like, okay, lady, no. And then by like the fifth time I went in, she was like, terri, do you really want to be doing this? And I was like, I really don't like to myself. And I ended up leaving for good. And then really getting into. Because I was building my therapy practice at the time that I was doing that. And then once I got into the therapy practice, what ended up happening was my own. My own pain points. What I discovered about myself in my 20s, about what a boundary disaster I was and how much I had the disease to please and how it was so hard for me to talk true, as I say now. And I didn't want anyone rejecting me and I didn't want anyone mad at me. And all of this learning to be a good girl, which I think this Happens for men as well. But women in particular, this is like a special skill that we, that we get burdened with. You know, turn that frown around. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Where's my happy girl? Like, literally, we were raised and praised for being self abandoning codependents from birth. And this isn't just American women. I mean, I've taught this, my boundary bootcamp course, which is now actually open to men and women for the first time this year to women in 198 countries. And not once was someone like, oh my God, yes, my grandmother, my mother taught me how to have amazing boundaries. Awesome. No.

Yeah. I mean, I think, I think we as men are even more so in modern culture, indoctrinated into the idea of, you know, being a good boy. Right. And, and that, that the idea of being a good man has now become so prominent that a lot of men's shadows are sort of riddled with all the things that they don't think that women want to know about. And it's sort of like a dumping ground for. It's like, well, women don't want to know about this and they don't want to know about that. It's not okay for me to show these parts of myself to men in my life. And so I have nowhere to put them. So I think it resonates. But I do agree, I think that women especially have that sort of poured into them consistently from culture and society and family members. I'm curious, you know, you talked about almost like a little bit of if you don't like the game that you've been given or the game that you're playing, that start to change the game. And I like that idea of game theoretics, you know, especially when it comes to, to our current day society and, and culture. I'm wondering, where does someone begin? You know, I think if somebody's listening to this podcast and they're like, okay, I know I don't really like the game that I'm playing right now. I don't, I don't really appreciate the game or the cards that I was given when I was, when I was growing up, One, how do they begin to change that? And two, where do boundaries fit into that transition based on how you view it?

Well, they fit in at every phase of that transition. And as much as Boundary Boss, my new book, as much as it's written for CIS women. Right. That's who I'm talking to, to a degree. I have tons of Men who are reading it and getting benefit themselves, but also saying, I understand the women in my life and how to be more seen myself in my relationship with them. So I feel like it really is for, you know, people love to say it's for everyone, but I do believe it is because the boundary struggles are. So I'm going to first establish what I say it means. Terri Cole's version of what it means to have healthy boundaries or what your boundaries are made up of. It's your preferences, your desires, your limits, and your deal breakers. And it's you knowing those things and then readily being able to communicate them in your life if you so choose. So think about what happens if we end up in a life like you said, I don't like the game I'm in. If we break down, what would it look like if we didn't like the game we were in, what our life was? I guarantee you that every single one of those choices that got us in a game we didn't like can be rooted back to disordered boundaries, an inability to talk true, to know what your preferences are and to assert them. Perhaps you wanted to do something different in your life, but you had a father or mother figure, some parental impactor who was like, no, but in our family, we're all lawyers or we're all chefs, or we're all laborers, whatever, you know, Right. They're like, singing isn't a career. You can't play the cello for money. You can't be an artist. What the hell's wrong with you? And that is there's pressure to conform. And so boys and men, they have their own bunch of crap that is put on them in childhood. And a lot of it has to do with disorder. You know, creates disordered boundaries as well. Right? Be strong, be independent. Don't cry. That's literally saying, if you cry, there's something wrong with you. And I don't know that that messaging is as prominent as it was when I was younger, but I don't see that it's changed all that much if you look at society itself. So again, it's teaching boys to deny the way they feel, to repress the way they feel, to hide or hate the way they feel. So I do understand what you're saying about the shadow stuff, because, you know, listen, those feelings, as we know, they don't just, like, conveniently go away because we don't like them. They go underground, and then they're driving our other behavior, and we don't even know why the hell we feel the way we do, you know.

Yeah, I was curious, like, you mentioned the concept of disordered. I think you said disordered boundaries. And I'm hoping that you can just illuminate that a little bit more, because when I hear that, I'm like, oh, I get that. I certainly had disordered boundaries growing up. I was. I bounced back and forth between two families, and I had to chameleon myself into, you know, specific roles. And I became very well adept at. At being able to mold myself into any environment. And so because of that, my boundaries were constantly in flux. They were this. Like, my boundaries were dependent on the environment and the social situation and relationship that I was in, which is very challenging A, to maintain a sense of solidarity and independence, but also B, to be able to have a sense of continuity who I am and how I create relationships with people. And so that's just one example. But I'm hoping that you can give a little bit more of a framework to what those disordered boundaries might look like for the people that are listening that are like, oh, I think that that might have been me or is me or is my partner or someone in my life.

Well, let's talk about the way that we. The way I teach boundaries and the way that they are is that we have boundaries in these multiple areas of our life. Right? I mean, we have them everywhere, but we have to put them in categories. So it's like, you have physical boundaries. How do you want to be touched? How do you touch others? Whatever. You have sexual boundaries. Very similar. When, where, with whom is it? Okay. We have our material boundaries, which is how we relate to our things. Do we lend our money? Do we lend our car? Do we like to keep our car clean? And then someone comes in and leaves their, like, fast food crap in our car. That is like a material boundary violation.

That's a big. It's a big no, no. That's a big no, no. You can't do that.

Do not do that. But we all relate so differently. We have emotional boundaries, which means that, you know, what is your side of the street? We don't blame others for the way we feel. We also. We take responsibility if we're healthy. Right. For our feelings. We also don't feel guilted or guilty for the feeling states of others because we're really clear about what is my side of the street and what is your side of the street when it comes to that. So that's emotional boundaries. Then we have mental boundaries, which is about your opinions and what you think. And when you have healthy boundaries. And this is where it's very challenging for a chameleon with healthy boundaries, you can hold onto what you think even if others disagree. You don't get overly out of control mad if others disagree because you are sovereign right Yourself, you're like, oh, but you thinking that is nothing personal to me, you know, and listen, it's become very heated with politics and vaccine and not and blah blah. So I'm not talking about like super, you know, a lot of people are getting heated and it's not about their boundaries, it's about the content. But when it comes to boundaries, knowing what you think, someone else being like, well, you're wrong, doesn't really feel that heated. When you kind of don't give a shit what they think or you don't go, oh, what they say, that defines me. So when you have good mental boundaries, you're pretty sure that you are defining you. So those are the areas. And the way the boundaries can be expressed is they can be porous, which is too loose, they can be rigid, which is too hard, or they can be healthy. And we can have healthy boundaries at work and porous boundaries in romantic relationships. We can, let's say your experience in childhood authority figures are scary to you. You can have very rigid boundaries with authority figures, meaning you pull away from them, you don't want to interact with them, instead of interacting with your boss that you're afraid of. So they can see how frigging smart you are. You like hide because you kind of become your own 10 year old self in that interaction. So there's lots of reasons we have disordered boundaries. So let's start with. Because I think this will be the most helpful for people to be able to go, well, where am I at? Like, where are my boundaries at? First of all, we all have a downloaded boundary blueprint, according to me, which this is in your unconscious mind. It's like a paradigm of the way it is with quotes around it or the way it's supposed to be in the world. If you grew up and let's say you had a paternal impactor who was like the nice guy, like everybody, like you know, loved him. You know, he did everything for everyone in the neighborhood. No matter what anyone asked him to do, he said yes. So he was kind of a pushover. Let's say that came into you where you're like, oh, those are my boundaries. If a neighbor asks for help, I need to say yes. That's what I do. That's being a good man. Does that make Sense.

Absolutely.

So we are looking at all of these different influences, and it's not just our family of origin. So that is modeled behavior. That's one piece. And what about the greater society, the culture, the community that we were raised in that also has their own ideas of how you're supposed to interact with when it comes to boundaries? In romantic relationships, in friendships, loyalty stuff. All of this is right down here in our unconscious mind. And so the first process of what I do as I'm walking people through this in the book is we do a downloaded boundary blueprint inventory. Basically. So your behaviors now, where you feel frustrated or where you feel like, I don't know why I said yes to that when I wanted to say no, or, or I don't know why I didn't allow myself to say yes when I really wanted to. Because trust me, it goes both ways. You start to get some insight into what are the things that have impacted the way that you relate to boundaries right now in your life.

Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, I think it's good to hear you talk about the sort of origins of how boundaries are created, because I think that often gets missed. And, and then people don't really understand, like, where, you know, where did this come from? Why am I so averse to setting boundaries in my relationship? Or why do I constantly, like, you know, why am I a yes man? How come that, you know, how does that show up? So I think what I hear you saying is that it's an sort of a conglomeration or an amalgamation of what we viewed in our childhood, along with maybe social and cultural pressures, coupled with expectations maybe of our gender and from partners in relationships. Is that, did I miss anything in there or did I add anything in there? Like maybe correct me if I missed something?

No, I feel like you kind of covered it. Also thinking about your role in the family system, because how enmeshed or not our family, the families of origin, wherever it is that we grew up, that also has a lot to do with how we relate to boundaries. So if you're, you know, I was the hero child in my family system, which meant that even though I was the youngest chronologically, I was the designated oldest child. That's like the weirdest phenomenon, but it's true, it happens. So I was high functioning, codependent, as I have called it. And we, we will get into codependency as well. A lot of over functioning, over giving, over delivering. And that is a boundary issue. Right. What I was doing in my life, in my friendships, because where does that lead you? To resentment. So anyone listening? If you're like, wonder what relationships of mine need better boundaries, I'm going to say you can right now think who are you kind of harboring some resentment against? Who do you feel underappreciated by or pissed off at? Because that usually tells us that a need has gone unmet or a boundary has been violated in some way.

It's interesting because as you're talking about that, like, one of the things that through my own work, I eventually became aware of was that I was the sort of clown. You know, I was like the class clown. I was very much like the goofball in my family system. And so again, part of that chameleon thing was that my boundaries were. Were constantly shifting and changing and that I didn't really have a lot of them. And I was sort of the, you know, the. The perpetual failure. You know, I failed to school and sports and. And that became a part of my Persona that as I went into adulthood and as I started to assert some of these boundaries, I had to shift out of this role that I had adopted of being the disaster in my family system, you know, like constantly being the train wreck in my family system. And I think it was. It was somewhat jarring for my family eventually when I started to set boundaries and I started to sort of like, get my shit together.

Yep.

My life wasn't like a, you know, a constant, sort of repetitive episode of Californication with David Duchovny. It was like, oh, this is, you know, it sounds like you're getting some balance in there. I'm hoping that you can maybe just speak to that codependency piece. Because I. I can see in my life where that codependency, whether it was in relationships or within a family system, prevented me from being able to set any kind of coherent boundaries. And so maybe just if you can speak to the. The impact or maybe just define codependency and then speak to the impact that that codependency has on our capacity to set some of. Some of those healthy boundaries.

Yes. Before I do that, I want to say something about your family of origin situation.

Sounds fun. Yeah.

When we have roles like that, you get chosen. So the system chooses itself. Like it's like a living, breathing thing. So you were chosen to be the scapegoat so everyone could agree that Connor is a mess up. Like, Connor's got problems, Connor needs help, whatever. It's never a choice. Right. I didn't choose to be the hero child because none of that is free. It's exhausting. You didn't choose that. What ends up happening is that your behavior keeps the group cohesive because it's something they can all agree on, and you are also expressing the veiled feelings of the group. So it's. That stuff is so fascinating to me, and I can imagine that it really upset the apple court when you got it together where they were like, wait a minute, what's happening? Aren't you. This is the time when you're supposed to be in jail or whatever. Not in jail, but, you know.

Totally. Yeah. That's actually entirely what my family would have said.

Yeah.

But I think what's interesting is that what I noticed is that as I stepped out of that role, it sort of shone a light on the other parts of the dysfunction that had been hidden by my sort of clowning, you know, by my disaster that I. I sort of took some of the heat off of the family system where dysfunction was actually living.

Absolutely.

And then the cool thing was, is that as I started to assert my own boundaries, create my own sovereignty, individuate and step into my own independent role, the dysfunction in the family actually came to light. And suddenly the family couldn't just, you know, get around the table and, you know, have our normal kind of conversations. We actually had to start addressing some of those issues. And so it was such a cool thing that I was like, oh, me? Not. Not that I was, like, special in some way or like the linchpin for any of that happening, but just the act of me stepping out of that role created the opportunity for the family system to start to address some of the lack of boundaries. So I just wanted to add that in.

No, it's so amazing. And what I find in my therapy practice of the last almost 25 years is that people who are chosen by their family systems to be the scapegoat, they are the most likely to get therapy. They're the most likely to not repeat those cycles because they're already kind of on the outside. Right. So they're like, what do I got to lose? So you end up being the leader. Which is interesting because that's really what it sounds like that happened in your family system, which is amazing. All right. Codependency.

Yes, ma'. Am.

Do it.

Yep.

So in the book, there's a term called high functioning codependency that I actually created because having a therapy practice for all these years, I had all these incredibly high functioning humans, mostly women in my practice. Super competent. And if I was looking at their behavior and basically I might make a note like, hey, this seems like codependent interaction right there. All of them would be like, what are you nuts? What? I do everything, everyone counts on me. I'm the dependable one. I'm making all the money. It's me. I'm not dependent on crap, you know. So I was like, oh, they just don't know what codependency is. And they are stuck with the melody. Beatty, codependent no more. You must be involved with an addict and be an enabler. And then I also thought about my own kind of, what is my own flav of codependency, especially in my 20s. And it was this, the illusion. Everyone would look at me and be like, oh man, she has got it together, right? Go to her. She's got the answers, She's a solid one. Saving the family, saving the people. First one to go to college, grad school, all the things, right? So my clients, it was the same thing where nobody saw them as dependent, everyone saw them as dependable. But let's look at what it actually means to be codependent. And then we just apply it to high functioning codependency because it's the same stuff. It's just with people who are very high functioning, which is you are overly invested in the feeling states, the decisions, the circumstances and the outcomes of the people in your life, to the detriment of your internal peace, maybe your financial well being, maybe your physical wellbeing. So I say that because as lovers and as people who care about the people in our life, normal people are all going to be invested in some way in what's happening with the people we care about. But this is how you know the difference when I really ask people to check their urgency. So if the person you care about a situation is happening, a sibling, a friend, if you are panicked, if it feels like that bad thing or that bad decision they made is now yours to fix or that it's actually happening to you, that is codependency.

So it's one thing to be like, wow, I wish that wasn't happening. That sucks. How can I best support. And it's another thing to be like, okay, I called a lawyer or 10 and I'm doing this and I cut this out of the paper for you or whatever.

You know, I like the coupon reference. I got the silhouette of paper for you.

I'm thinking of my mother who still cuts things out of her local paper and sends us now. She's so cute.

It's so good. It's so good. My wife's dad does that. He'll send us newspaper clippings about whatever the car stuff or whatever it is. So good. Okay, so I love that definition because it's like an over prioritization of someone else's needs, almost as if they are our own. It's almost like an. To some degree, like an ownership or responsibility. Not that we're consciously or intentionally, intentionally trying to take ownership over somebody's state or challenges, but we end up trying to be responsible for that. It sounds like there's many reasons, right? To find value, to find worth, to get approval, acceptance, etc.

Right. But the major reason, the major driving factor is that it's a covert or overt bid for control. Because we don't want you making that terrible mistake. Because we know you're better than that. Because we don't want you going back with that stupid girlfriend or stupid boyfriend because they were terrible for you. Because we know that you could be doing more with your life, because we know that it'd be better for you if you were healthy. So you need to lose £20. It's the fear. So driven by fear. And it's also this illusion of our own importance. Because when you really think about it, I mean, it took a lot of years of therapy for me to get over my own high functioning, codependent actions where we're really actually centering ourselves in the other person's situation. And I remember saying to a therapist I had for many years that one of my sisters is the scapegoat of my family system. And so she was in another disastrous relationship with a guy who literally was doing crack, beating her. And they were living in a house in the woods without running water. And there is no need to embellish that because that is the actual situation. Like, I'm not even. None of that is untrue. So here's me, like, building my career and being like, what the actual. Why? What is going on? So I was crying to my therapist and then she finally said after, like the second session. Cause I was like, I'm sending her money. I'm doing this. I don't get it. I want to have that guy shot. Like, what are we. Do you know, all. All the external things? And she said, terry, let me ask you something. What makes you think you know what Jenna needs to learn on her life's journey?

And I was like, well, I think we can all agree she doesn't need to learn it with a crackhead who beats her in the middle of the woods with no running water. And she was like, I cannot agree with that. I'm not God. I don't know what her assignments are in this life, and neither do you, but do you want to know what's really happening for you? And I was like, yes, please. I'm waiting with bated breath because I thought that's what was happening. And she said, you've worked. You've been in therapy at this point for two decades to create a pretty harmonious, peaceful life. And your sister's life being a dumpster fire is really fucking with that peace.

So what you really want is your pain about her life to stop so you can get back to the life that you've created.

I was like, wow. I liked it so much better when I thought I was just Mother Teresa, but okay.

Yeah, I appreciate that story. I thank you for that. Because I think it somewhat exemplifies. I don't know how else to say it, but the kind of, like, net negative impact that our need for control can have on our ability to create boundaries. You know, coherence, alignment, internally. I think the hard part of what I hear you saying is that, one, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but one, when we are codependent, we are in some ways in love with control. We're trying to control things, so we have to. So. So, two, we have to come into contact with and a sort of acknowledgement of our own desire for control, which I totally get. I've had. I've been there before. And then. And then three, that our codependency will infringe on our capacity to almost allow other people to find their own boundaries, to find their own path, to find their own way of doing things or way of being in the world. And that we sort of have to let go of either our superiority.

Complex, I guess we could call it, or our need to sort of be responsible for someone else. So did I miss anything in there? Would you adjust anything?

Well, I would say one other thing, because when we are not really in acceptance of the people in our life, when we always have a better idea of what they should be doing, when we're always giving unasked for advice and criticism, we're not really, like, knowing or loving them authentically. And one of my mentors, Russell Friedman, who passed away a bunch of years ago, but he was one of the founders of the Grief Recovery Institute in California, he said, you know, giving unasked for advice and criticism robs the other person of their dignity. When I really got that as truth. And when I felt let off the hook by my therapist that, like, not only was my sister's situation not my own, but that I was doing more damage where she was like, every time you give her money, you're literally diluting the feelings that are going to be the impetus for her to make the move. You're putting a band aid on this gaping wound for your own purposes, you know? And I was like, oh, my God. So not only am I not being a terrible sister by not doing it, I'm actually being a better sister. And I was able to step back and be like, hey, if you ever want to, you know, get out of here, then I, I'm here to help you. And nine months later, she did. And I stepped back. For those nine months, I was like, I can't listen to you tell me about abusive things. But that was decades ago, and she's been sober and great ever since.

Incredible. Incredible. I, I, I appreciate that as well, because I have addiction in my family. And one of the hard parts that I've had to learn as, you know, I sort of went through my own journey and, you know, pulled myself out of the proverbial wreckage was letting go of that belief that I knew better or that I could save or that I could help and being able to just sort of like, let go and allow the other person to walk their own path, which is an incredibly, in some ways, it's almost a sacred experience. You know, it's almost a spiritual experience to. Yes to. As in, I think in the 12 step program, they say let go and let God, you know, and it's almost, it's almost like that you're, you're relinquishing that person's path for their own and then being able to sort of set the boundaries in place that allow you to function and still hopefully maybe be in relationship with them.

So it's very much like the Joseph Campbell, you know, dark night of the soul, where it's like, we're not going to where the path already is. It's like, in order for it to be our thing, we're literally like taking that machete and creating that path for ourselves by ourselves. Because that is what it means to be self determined.

You know, I'm curious, I'm going to just shift a little here because this, one of the things that I really wanted to get into was someone asking the question, like, do men and women deal with boundaries differently? Because I think based on some of the conversation that we had at the beginning of this. And what I've seen is that we often, you know, because of the. The roles that we have or the expectations that are putting. Put on us as kids, that we often enter into boundaries with different perspectives, different expectations of ourselves and the other person. And so I was wondering if you can speak to that. A, do you. Do you think that there are differences between how men and women show up with boundaries? And B, what are those differences? How do we start to recognize them? What does that look like in terms of how it impacts our relationships if we're in a heterosexual relationship?

Well, part of it is definitely, I've noticed for sure, it being different because we have had different prescribed roles. So the way that little girls have been raised is different than the way that little boys have been raised. And I think more modern.

Generations, hopefully are doing it better now. But many of us are, you know, in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, like it already. That ship already sailed, right? It's already done. So the biggest complaints when I was seeing couples in my practice, there would be all of these boundary. Two big things that both have to do with boundaries, and one would have to do with emotional labor. The women would tend to think that there was inequity in the emotional labor, which is like the labor, the invisible labor that women are doing endlessly. And maybe men too now, maybe modern men, maybe you guys are doing it. But to keep the ship of life going from housekeeping, cleaning, shopping, kids, dentists, your mother's birthday, the things getting to the thing, Are we going to have a vacation? Who's planning it? Making sure that the insurance is upped, all the things we keep going, we're almost always. At least my experience is women being the producer of life, where if you have a dog walker, it's always like, mom, who's got the dog walker's number? Who's in touch? We don't need you on Thursday, but come on Monday. All of those things, making sure kids are brushing their frigging teeth, making sure they're doing their homework. And hopefully in some families, we have some distribution. But even in families where there's some distribution, what I would see is a lot of it still being very unequal. And so I think that it can be helpful because in a way, those are. It's a dysfunctional boundary. If one person, no matter who it is, is doing 80% of the emotional labor, that keeps that system even if it's just the romantic relationship, but there's no kids involved, Right. Maybe it's just your dyad and that's fine too. That's going to breed resentment. And so that has to do with why is the person who's doing 80% of it doing it. Why does the person who's doing 20% of it not know that they're doing it? Because nobody talks about it. Because it's kind of magical when you, if you were raised in an intact family or a family where you had an adult who was actually an adult, then food was just in the refrigerator and the toilet paper did just get changed and you, you didn't run out of toothpaste that much or whatever, right? Those things, they. Hi. They're in the cabinet. It's not like you're thinking of like, how did they get in the cabinet? You know, so that's one thing where Disorder, boundaries. What I suggest with couples is that you gotta write down everything, whoever is doing what, both of you write down all of the things that you're doing and then make a plan to make it be more equitable.

Because.

And listen, sometimes, let's say one person decides. You, you decide as a couple, I'm going to stay working because I make more money then the other person. Let's say you are privileged enough, lucky enough that one person could stay home with children and would want to do that. Now we're talking about, are we going to do emotional labor right down the middle? Not right down the middle. I mean, we have to look at raising kids is a massive full time job as well. But you know, if you're available in your home, you're probably gonna be the one who's there when the cable guy comes, right? Just because there's practical decisions that have to be made. But every couple, you know, when you make agreements, it's so important that they're talked about. And most couples don't. I always suggest that you have a couple's vision, which is something that you can do together. Like, where do we see ourselves in a year? Do we love living here? Do we not? What are we gonna do with our disposable income? If you share income, how much money do we want to save? Are we putting anything away? Do we see our. We're going to live here forever. You know, my husband years ago was like, one day I want to get animals. I was like, oh God, okay, I hope it's a long time from now.

Like, like alpacas or like what we.

Have right now, because that's what happened to me over Covid, which is now we have 10 chickens and three guard geese. Nobody's chicked or guarded yet because they're still babies. But it's a whole thing. I can't even tell you. It's so all encompassing. But I did find a watcher, so. Because I was like, dude, I can't not never go away because we have chickens and geese, Please.

Yeah.

Anyway, so back to the boundaries. So that was one thing. And another thing is the way that we show love, the way that we show concern.

A lot of times because men are raised as problem solvers. Be independent, be an original thinker, be tough. You know, obviously I don't need to tell you the stereotypes, right? Do I need to? I don't. This is an evolved group of men mostly and probably tons of women who listen to your show as well. But these stereotypes don't just. It takes so long for these things to change where women are. We're the assuagers, the connectors, the soothers of society. We're good if we are self sacrificing as hell. You know, people think it's a compliment to say, oh, you'd love her. She would give her. She'd give anybody the shirt off her back. And you're like, betty, keep your shirt on. Why are you giving your shirt to anybody? Habits of discernment. But there's something that's considered very mama earth and very. That's like a good quality, you know, where a lot of times with men, someone being tough and having good boundaries can be looked at like, you're like a leader, you know, so we're all of us, men and women are going up against, especially depending on when we were born, these types of stereotypes. What I saw in my practice over and over again and experienced in my own life is that men want to fix, want to protect, want to take care. So if I would come home, you know, and I had a long, big life before I met my husband. Never thought I'd get married. Got married when I was 35. He was almost 45. So if I came home with a problem after I'd been, you know, running a talent agency, got my own, like, I'm good, right? If I'm complaining about something, I just want to vent. I just want you to know where I am. And he would be like, why don't you do this? Like, give me some advice that I'm not taking. And I would say in the beginning, I would just be like, well, wait, I just want to talk. Like, can I just talk? But then I realized his heart is totally in the right place. I mean, he's the best person who ever lived on the planet. But he just doesn't know how to best support me. So it's my job to say, not get mad and say what makes you think you know what I should do? Which is what I felt like saying. But to say, hey, can you just ask me how can I best support you right now? Or I will just tell you. And he's like, great, how can I best support you? Are we brainstorming? Do you want input or you want me to just hold? Of course, now he's like an expert at it. But what happens is that the auto advice giving and the wanting to fix the problem. Most women, unless they're asking you for your opinion, their experience is very invalidating. Men might be saying, well, I don't know why you didn't just do this. You're like, well, okay, the horses are already out of the barn, so thanks for that. Like, I didn't. So you saying that is just making me feel bad and supporting. So I think it's on anyone. And again, this could be reversed, right? It doesn't only have to be, but my experience is that in heterosexual relationships is that it's the woman who wants to talk and wants to talk more and wants to be considered in a different way and wants to be seen and heard with the belief that she's going to figure out whatever the thing is and that men and women do it to men too. Give auto advice. I don't know why you didn't do this, but the complaint, because most of my practice was women is I heard it mostly about heterosexual men doing that. And I think that there is a way to communicate up front, get clear about what it is that you do want.

In when you are talking. It isn't anyone's job to read anyone else's mind. And I find that heterosexual women a lot were like, he should just know by now. He should. If he doesn't know, he just doesn't want to know. I'm like, no, you do not want to take responsibility for getting your need met because you're afraid to be vulnerable. So you're blaming him for not having like a Magic 8 ball, but he doesn't. So now it's time to grow a big pair of ovaries and ask for what you want. And this whole thing about talking true, I mean the subtitle of the book, right, it's Boundary Boss, the Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen and Finally Live Free. And none of us, regardless of your gender, can create the lives that we want if we do not master this, the language of boundaries, because it's not just saying no. It's not just keeping people out. It's not just rejecting or confronting. Those are all the myths that people think it is, but it's not. It's you knowing that your preference matters because it is your preference, your desires, your limits and your deal breakers that makes you, Connor uniquely and amazingly you. So when we try to be easygoing, and I find this with the women in my practice who have the disease to please, it's as if their preference is a burden. Like, they want to get a gold star for being like, you know me, I'm easy. Everything, anything is fine. It's all good. I'm like, it's not, though. Why is it so having no opinion, not getting even a preference met, that's good. It isn't. And it's our job, because that's what makes you uniquely you. So I feel like this goes for. For all genders, that a lot of times we don't want to make waves. We don't want to be a pain. Listen, you got to know who you are to have real relationships with other folks. And your preferences, your desires, your limits and your deal breakers, I promise you, those are the things that make you you. And you're so worth knowing.

You know, I mean, it's very. I think it's very similar for the nice guys that are out there. You know, it's like if I give my perspective or if I actually communicate what it is that I want, then I'm going to be rejected or I'm going to be, you know, viewed as a bad guy or whatever the narrative is right, or whatever the story is internally. And so being able to break that is incredibly important. I think there's two things that maybe we can wrap up with here, unfortunately, because I feel like we could have this conversation indefinitely because I can just see how it's like, there's so many questions in the background, like, permeating through. But I can hear some of my, like, the guys in my audience as you're talking about this conversation between partners. How do we as men, what does it actually look like for us if we know that our partner is struggling with boundaries, if we know that we're in a codependent relationship, if we know that our partner is struggling to bring forward what she wants to bring forward her voice, because I get that question a lot from men, is like, how do I support my partner? She. She doesn't know how to bring it forward. So what can we do to Better support them, bringing forward their boundaries.

Well, part of it is instead of really being clear about the insta fixing and the insta advice stuff, like really, if you can just dial that back and if you can say, babe, how can I best support you right now? You know, and you can even go further, like, do you just want to venture? Do you want to brainstorm ideas like, what are we doing? Like, Vic held onto that early on in my relationship. He's like venting or brainstorming, what are we doing? Just so he could kind of get it right. But that's one thing. Also becoming a good listener. When any of us stop the auto advice giving because anyone who's codependent is doing it all day long, we can become excellent conversationalists where instead of giving what we think they should do, we ask, hey, what do you think you should do? But let's talk about that. Let's go down that road. What does your gut say? What does this remind you of? What are you hoping to get? I'm not saying it's your job to become a therapist, but there are ways to have expansive conversations where we are in communion with our person, figuring their stuff out. And it doesn't mean we can never say, hey, I have a thought about that. Are you open for input? Right, I have a thought about that. Or I had a similar experience and it might be helpful if you're open to hearing it.

When we're asking permission. No matter who it is, this is anybody friends, the whole thing there is something, it's so loving, first of all, because we're taking the other person into consideration, but we're really saying, I want to meet your need in this moment right now. And since I'm unsure, I'm going to ask. Because I promise you, 99.9% of the time, your girl, your woman, your person does not want you to actually fix her problems. She wants you to see her. And another thing I wanted to throw in with this is that there is also boundaries around.

Sex, sensuality, sexuality. So the biggest complaint that my heterosexual women would have is that not enough help with the kids, not enough help around the house. And I know this sounds like 1955, but I swear to God, that's the truth of what I would hear. Feeling overburdened by those things. And then when the partner wants to be sexual, the wife is like, bye, no interest, but thanks. So I would say to the husbands, hey, I want you to think about it this way. This is like a love language thing for a fact, which I Think is super valuable if you haven't read it. If you don't know the book, it's called the Five Love Languages. It's been around for, like, decades, and it still holds up and it is still valuable. You can go, just Google it, you'll find it. Anyway, I would say to the husbands, I want you to think about helping. Thinking about your person, right? Helping without being asked. Like the thing women hate. Nagging. Having to ask someone to do something a bunch of times. I was never sort of in relationships like that because I would just do it myself. I'd be like, oh, yeah, I do not need this yet at all. And, you know, maybe that's why I didn't get married until I was in my mid-30s. But I think that there is something. It's very demeaning about feeling like I have to torture this person for them to do something that's keeping our house, home, apartment the way it needs to be. Like, it's not just me who has to put out the recyclables. They gotta go. And if you think about that as foreplay, because that's what it is for your person, that's what it is for your wife or your partner. When you think about her, when you make her life easier in that moment, when you do the things you know she would like you to do, that makes someone so much more open. Because women, heterosexual women, my experience is it's not like a button, it's not like a light switch where I feel like I could, like, be mad at my husband, he could be mad at me. And if I, like, stripped him, was like, hi, I want to have sex, he'd be like, yes, we'll talk about the rest of this later. Now, that may sound like a stereotype, and maybe it's only true for my husband, but I don't think so. I feel like physical intimacy, it means something different to men than it does to women. And for women, we really gotta be feeling you. Like, we've gotta be feeling seen by you. We want to feel desired by you, of course, but somebody just, like, grabbing your boob after not being helpful or after having some kind of a conflict that doesn't usually. I don't know anyone who is like, wow, I can't wait to have sex after that. We just don't want to. But being kind, thoughtful, being a part of each other's solution, that really plants the seeds for really deep and erotic sex. Because you need to be open as a woman. You need your heart to be open. If not I mean, listen, we could all just phone it in. I mean, in a long term relationship, sometimes it's gonna be happening, but when you're resentful and phoning it in, it's like the least satisfying sex ever, you know, for both people, not just the woman. And I'm sorry, that was a long way around the barn to even answer the question for.

No, no, it's perfect. Because I think in. In many ways, what, you know, what I heard from that and what I reaffirmed from that was that boundaries are an integral part to maintaining the communication within our relationship, but also in building the structure. Building and maintaining the structure for intimacy, deep intimacy, to really be possible. And I think it's that way for a number of reasons, because we have to be courageous, we have to be a little bit vulnerable. We have to be willing to maybe be uncomfortable, because for some of us, setting boundaries is an uncomfortable experience.

Of course.

And all of that, all of that creates intimacy. All of that act creates intimacy. And. Okay, well, I feel like you're gonna have to come back on and we're gonna have to talk about better boundaries for better sex. I think that's gonna be round two. So I'm just gonna float that out there and we'll. We'll have that. We'll have that conversation next time. But, Terry, thank you so much for joining me. This is a pleasure and an honor. I appreciate you and the work that you're doing. And for everyone that listened to this, definitely go check out Boundary Boss, the essential guide.

Yes. And I have, I have free gifts for you guys too, though. So if you want to go to boundarybossbook.com if you're planning on getting the book anyway, there's a whole bunch of, like, meditations and other things about codependency and different things that you can get there for free to support you on your journey to becoming a badger boss.

Perfect, perfect, perfect. Thank you so much. We'll have the links for that in the show notes. Maybe check this out. If you're in a relationship, listen to this with your partner or subtly, you know, send it off to them. It could be a good exercise for, you know, the monthly check in that you do in your relationship. Thank you so much for joining me, Terry. I appreciate you. And for everyone that's out there, this is Connor Beaton signing off. We'll see you next week.