How to Use Your Difficult Relationship for Growth with Elana Israel

Okay, Alana, I'm really thrilled to have you on to talk about difficult relationships, but really growing in difficult relationships. Thank you for coming on the show today.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

I love following your Instagram because you have so much just really great content, and you're also a podcast host of Partnership Aligned. Um, so I wanted to have you on because you share really great content, and you've got a story that I'm interested in hearing because I've only heard like the tiniest So could you share just a little bit about your journey with my audience of really developing growth through the process of a difficult relationship?

Yeah, absolutely. So I was married to a man that I was really in love with, and we met at a healthy time, and he became unhealthy and kind of went back to some old demons that I wasn't even really aware of. Together. And, you know, there were a lot of red flags looking back, and I just—

They're always there, aren't they? It's just—

No.

You see them later. Yeah.

Well, you know, it's not— I saw them, but I didn't want them to be true.

Yeah.

I didn't want them to be true. And I am, like, amazing with minimization. So, you know, I just— it was very easy for me to, like, sweep it under the rug. It's not, you know, it's not that bad. I really know who he is, you know, like all that stuff, right?

Denial. Yes.

Yeah, 100%. And like, listen, no shade on him. He's like a really good guy. He's just not well. And so anyway, you know, everything kind of hit the fan when we had a baby. So my son is 3 and a half now, and my husband and I split up when my son was 15 months old. So just to give you a little bit of a timeline, and we had been together for a few years. So the relationship, especially post-marriage and baby, got very difficult. He was not well, really not well. Mm-hmm. There were a lot of addictions. There was— I didn't even realize how bad the gaslighting was. There was a lot of manipulation. You know, just— it was a very difficult relationship. And I lied to myself a lot about it. And I don't even think that I realized that I was in a difficult relationship until it was so blatant that I couldn't ignore it anymore. But looking back now, being the healthier version of myself, it was difficult way before I thought it was difficult.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's amazing what you can carry when you're trying not to pay attention to it, isn't

it? Yeah. It's a little scary, actually. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I had this, like, fierce desire to grow. Like, I wanted to grow. And for me, that didn't mean not being with him, not at that point, you know? And I was a new mom, and I just really wanted to grow. And what was holding me back from growing was trying to manage his growth, or lack thereof.

Mm-hmm.

I was very much Codependent in the sense of like, what is his mood going to be today? You know, when he gets home from work, you know, is he going to be bitching about it or is he going to be okay? And like, what's going on there? And when he comes, you know, like it was always about like what's going on with him and trying to manage his mood, walking on eggshells, all of that stuff.

Right.

And, you know, if you think about it, like he didn't ask me to do any of that. Right. Like I just decided that that's where I needed to go. And, um, I got introduced to life coaching, uh, randomly. Somebody like sent me a podcast, and I was a therapist at the time. And, um, you know, unfortunately, in the world of therapists, there isn't that much talk about coaching, at least not where I was. Maybe they're, they're now in different areas. But anyway, so I got introduced to coaching, and, um, I listened to this podcast by this coach, and she talked about marriage in a way that I had never heard before. And it was very much about extreme ownership, like really take ownership of where you're at. If you have a difficult partner, that does not mean that you're a victim.

I love that.

And it felt so liberating for me. So I did some digging and found a coach of my own, not necessarily that one, but another one under the same methodology. And I got to work. And it only took me a few sessions. It was so quick. I was so ready. It took me a few sessions for me to really release him from needing him to be any different.

Yes.

Once I released him of being different, all of a sudden I had all this energy that I had been expending on him to put on me.

And we talk about that for a minute because I talk about that so much in my podcast about the importance of not expecting him or your partner to be somebody that they aren't. Right. And it's so easy to say, of course he's going to do these things. He's always done these things. You should expect him to continue. But how did you— because I'm hearing just in your voice that it was a radical shift for you, your ability to kind of release him to be who he was. Can you think of what allowed you to get there where you weren't before but allowed you to get to that place?

It's a really good question. I think that I had gotten to a point with the emotional pain Of trying to manage him and the frustration and the continuing to hit a dead end over and over and over that I was really craving a different way to exist.

And so in craving that different way to exist, you sought the coaching. And she helped— it helped you focus it back to you.

Yeah, well, really what she did was she helped me see just how powerless I was over him.

Ah, beautiful. Yes. Okay.

And then I think naturally, once I released him, I was like, oh, well, wait a minute. And then I shifted my focus to me.

Right. Okay. I love that. So you were able to look and recognize that you're completely powerless over him. You cannot control him. You can expend all, every single drip of your emotional energy trying to change him, and it's not going to happen. Right. And so if you finally accept that, oh, all of this energy I'm sending there isn't going to do anything, then you're left with, so then what? So then let me put it back to me, right? Let me focus it back on me. Let me figure out how I can get healthy and how I can show up different in the relationship. Okay, beautiful. Thank you.

Yeah. And ironically, this didn't actually happen for me, but it happens for a lot of my clients. Ironically, When you make yourself more healthy, that's the best chance you have of him changing.

So true. So true. Yes.

Yeah. And something that my coach said to me was, you know, even if you could somehow, like, force him to change right now, do you really want him doing it just out of obligation? Like, it's not, you know, because once in a while you can get your partner to be different for a day or do something different or whatever, but—

Or even a couple of months. But you probably want to be married longer than that.

Yeah, it's not— it doesn't come from them.

Right, right. And then what can also develop as a result is resentment.

100%. Yeah. So I think that mixed with— had a baby and things were different for me. It was like, this isn't just about me anymore. And so I think that's what allowed me to kind of release. And I have to say that I was ready. I was ready because I talk a lot in my work about how we hold on to grudges and resentments and difficult situations because letting go of them would mean that we have to come to terms with some kind of reality that we've been trying to stay away from for a long time.

That we've been very scared of. Yes. Yeah.

And I was ready.

Okay. And so did you have any grief in that process? So you kind of empowered yourself, you made a choice, which was to end the relationship. Mm-hmm. And then what was the, the emotional fallout as a result of that on your way to Strength. I'm just assuming.

Yeah, well, I didn't end the relationship there. It was a little bit later down the road. There was an infidelity, and that was just my— that was my— that was my non-negotiable. But because I had spent the last 8 months before that working on myself, it was a very drama-free decision for me. I was really aligned with myself. And so, of course, it was hard. Right. But it wasn't— it felt clear, which is nice.

OK.

So yes, there was grief afterwards, of course. There was anger. There was grief. There was sadness. There was loss. There was worry for my son. There was all of that. And I just sat with it. And I really took care of myself. For the first 6 months after we split up, I went to bed every night at 8:30. I don't know what it was about that. I just needed the rest.

You did? Yeah.

Needed the rest. Yeah. I was tense for years, and I needed the rest. I needed to be able to let go. And what's cool about my story is that I did a lot of my inner work while I was still with him.

I was going to say, because the grieving process is going to happen. Sometimes you get to choose when it is, but who is it? Who is the author of The Magic? Oh, I can't think of her name. I'm blanking. Anyway, she has some kind of quote. Big Magic. That's who the book is. Big Magic. Why am I blanking on her name? Anyway, she has a quote that basically— I'm not going to get it right, but you're going to grieve at some time. It's going to happen either before or after a thing. But grief is one of those tolls, I think She said that everybody has to pay, right? And so you did all of that grieving for the relationship before the end of the relationship.

Yeah, I, I grieved who I thought he was going to be and who I thought we were going to be.

Oh, I just realized, because the last stage of grief is acceptance, right? And so that's what finally allowed you to get to that point of accepting what was.

Yeah, like, he's, he's not gonna be who I thought he was. Um, he's not gonna be who he was when I met him. Like, it— this just isn't going to be what I thought it was going to be. And when I resist reality, I suffer.

I think we all do. Yeah.

And when I embrace reality, I can thrive.

Yeah, whatever the reality is, you're gonna thrive. Much better if you accept it.

Absolutely.

So for the woman out there who's in a place and it's feeling kind of stuck in a difficult relationship, are there any steps, or is there like a process that you can talk to her about today that can help her get from this place of, I feel stuck in this difficult relationship, I recognize that it's draining me, it's draining the life of me, I'm not ready to go to that very scary place that you're talking about. That's terrifying. But I do know that I want to start moving towards health.

Yeah, I would definitely say the first step is to get some kind of a mentor because I think that we can go really crazy in our head within the relationship.

And

I think when you find— like, for me, spiritual mentors work really well. Obviously, coaches work really well, but also It can be like a therapist, or it could be whatever. Get yourself someone that you can start to really talk about what's going on behind closed doors.

You can be honest.

Because there's a lot of stuff that happens behind closed doors in a difficult relationship that when we bottle it up and we don't start talking about it, it's really hard to heal. It's really hard to heal when I'm holding things in because with the stories that I'm holding in, I'm also holding in shame. I'm holding in embarrassment. I'm holding in regret. I'm holding in all of these emotions. And these emotions, they live in our body. They take over for us. So having a safe person— and I would also say journaling. Journaling is this safe place that we get to go to where we can write down what's really going on. But I think that the first step to moving towards health is to start getting really honest. Like, start getting really honest with yourself and hopefully with a mentor of where am I contributing to the difficulty in this relationship, right? So for me, it was a lot of people pleasing. For me, I was saying yes to things that I wanted to say no to.

Right.

And then I feel resentful about it. And I had to own that. I had to own that, right? That doesn't mean I'm responsible for everything he does, right? But to own that. So, like, getting really honest about that, it's empowering. Getting really honest about the fact that, like, this person, I love them, and I might not really like them so much right now.

Mm-hmm.

Or for the past 5 years or whatever it is, you know? Like, just stating, like, the factual things and without trying to justify it. Or minimize it, because a lot of times in my experience and in my work, if you're in it, if you're in a difficult relationship, you are very often trying to protect that.

Exactly. Yes.

From like friends and family and other people and coming to terms with what's actually going on. I think that that's like the first and biggest step. And you don't have to leave him if you don't want to. And you don't have to— like, it doesn't have to be anything life-changing yet on the outside if you don't want it to be. Right. But But as long as you're living, like, under these denials and delusions, you can't heal.

Yeah, I think that's so powerful. You know, the status quo, maintaining a status quo, staying in the status quo is always, always easier in the moment. And so we go through our lives in these moments. I mean, all of our life is essentially just us being present in the moment, right? Or Maybe trying to get away from the present moment. But in any given time, it's always easier to do the status quo. And so it's easy to say, well, uh, I'll just ignore that, or I just won't look at that, or I'll just, you know, I'll just— but what you don't understand is when you do that for moments upon moments upon millions of moments, that's your life. Whereas doing the hard thing is looking at it, acknowledging it, and, and, and saying, okay, how can I focus on me and change me? It's hard and it's painful, which is why we avoid it. Because the status quo is always easier. And so if you recognize that pain has to be a part of it, but the, the pain of the moment is going to give you the relief of the future and the health of the future. Yeah. And so I'm glad that, that, that you mentioned, you know, how powerful it is to just acknowledge there's a lot of fear there too. There's a lot of fear, and the fear is the what if. And I like that you say you don't have to make any decisions right now, because a lot of times we think, well, if we acknowledge something, Then now I've got a decision to make. When we stay status quo and we ignore it and don't look at it, there's no decision to make, right? We're good. Good-ish. Good enough. It's the evil we know.

You get to decide if it's time for a decision or not.

Exactly. You don't have any decision that needs to be made. It's just a matter of focusing back on you.

Yeah. I mean, I came to terms with the reality of my marriage, and I wasn't planning on leaving. That's not where I was going with it. And I don't know what would have happened if I didn't find out about this infidelity. Maybe I don't know what would have happened. I left because of that, but not because I came to terms with the things that I came to terms with. I decided that I wasn't going to make a decision because that's a decision all on its own.

It is. It's definitely a decision.

Yeah.

So you mentioned resentment earlier, and I think reading one of your blogs or something on your website, I had— I saw something that you made a reference to Shower resentment. And is it simple resentment and shower resentment, which I thought was just brilliant? Can you share a little bit about that? And especially when it comes to difficult relationships, that aspect of resentment?

Yeah, it's like this silly term that me and one of my mentors came up with where, like, you know how, like, you'll be in the shower and you're feeling really resentful towards someone and you're like telling them off in the shower?

Oh yeah, I have the best conversations in the shower.

I know. You're like screaming. Rubbing your hair like, like so aggressively, like you know, and these are the resentments that really live in your body, right? Somebody cuts me off on the road. I might like you know grumble something. I'm not, I'm not talking to them in the shower, you know. You know my, my kid annoys me. I'm not gonna, I'm not talking about that in the shower when I feel, when I feel like someone is just. treating me so poorly and not seeing me for who I am and not valuing me.

Yeah,

that's a different kind of resentment. That's the kind of resentment where you can't even go take a shower without it becoming a conversation.

Right?

Yeah. And then you get out of the shower and you're like more pissed off than you were when you got in. So it's like this silly term we came up with that I've just like been talking about. Yeah.

But I love that concept. And, you know, I think part of the shower, the reason why the shower is what it is It's the same thing sometimes with when you put your head to your pillow to go to sleep at night. Those are almost the only 2 times now in our very connected world where we're not connected. And what happens is it gives our brain space in those moments to actually think about the things that are really burdensome or really powerful or strong, right, in our mind. The shower moments, because we're not on our phone in the shower, at least I don't think so. And same thing with right before you put your head down. And so those thoughts that bubble up are what your brain has actually been working on all day, maybe weeks, months, years, and is just trying to find some space to work on it. But that gives you an indication of what's going on with you. Those shower resentments, if those resentments are coming up in the shower, then you need to know, oh, this is something my brain needs to work on. This is something I need to look at. And pay attention and do something about, right?

Yeah. And listen to that. Yeah. Because one of my favorite things to talk to people about is like, listen, it's all hard. Yeah. It's hard if you acknowledge. It's hard if you don't acknowledge.

You get to choose your hard, right?

Choose your hard. We think that if we don't talk about it, then it's just not that bad. But it's actually low-key running your life.

Mm-hmm.

You know, you will respond to the world differently. You will show up differently. You will think differently if you're not connected to your emotions.

Absolutely.

So if it's going to be hard one way or the other, choose the hard that supports growth.

That supports growth. And choose the hard that's going to make your future easier.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Beautiful. So what's one last thing you would like to share with a woman who's really wanting to move towards health And growth in the middle of a difficult relationship?

Yeah, um, I think I would want her to know that it is totally okay to allow him to have his own journey. He gets the dignity of having his own journey, and you get the dignity of having yours, and you don't need to save him. And you're not responsible for him, and you get to have your own journey that you get to be responsible for. And it's okay. Like, it's okay. Doesn't mean that you have to do anything different on the outside, and it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that this person isn't necessarily the person that you want to be with. Like, there are a lot of things that can coexist. You can heal and actually grow more love and compassion for this person. Like, you can have both if you want to. So it's not an either/or. And the more you try and save them from themselves, the more you try and manage them, the more you're helping them distract from what they really need to be looking at. And same for you. So go on your journey, and you can do it next to him if you want to, but just go on your own journey and seek. Seek help, seek books, seek podcasts, seek coaches. Like, seek whatever you need to seek to support you in that journey, because that is actually the best chance you have of having a healthier relationship.

Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for coming on the podcast today.

Thank you so much for having me.

Oh wait, how can people get a hold of you?

Oh, um, so everything is Partnership Aligned. I have a podcast named Partnership Aligned. My Instagram is Partnership Aligned. My website is partnershipaligned.com. So anywhere that you search for things, search for Partnership Aligned. And you will be able to find me. I have all kinds of free resources on my Instagram page that you can go ahead and download.

Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.