Toxic Relationships - Weekly Energy Boost

How do we reveal light in dark situations? Is it “spiritual” to stay in toxic relationships and situations to reveal light? Or can we just walk away? In our final episode of our relationship series, we share the answers to these and other eye-opening relationship questions with guest Tanya Helfand, a certified matrimonial attorney. Episode 4 of 4. Original airdate: 1/4/20

Transcript

Good morning,

Everyone.

Good evening,

Good afternoon,

Wherever you are,

And welcome to the Weekly Energy Boost.

My name is Ellie Sheva,

And I'm here this beautiful 2021 morning with David,

And we have a special guest who I'll introduce shortly.

Today is our fourth and final episode on the topic of relationships,

Which by far has been the most in demand,

The most questions,

And I think today's show specifically over the years that we've been doing the podcast,

We've had more questions that need to be answered in today's show than any other episode beforehand.

We are going to be talking today about toxic relationships,

How to assess,

How to recognize,

How to deal,

And how and when to get out.

What a great show.

The Weekly Energy Boost.

Great topic.

Right?

This is so essential.

Weekly Energy Boost is a podcast.

We're available on all platforms,

And our goal is to provide our listeners with the best strategies,

The best perspectives,

And the most powerful wisdom on how to navigate our daily lives.

We use the slant of the energy of the week or the energy of the month to filter that wisdom to you so that you not only have the ability this month when our relationships need our attention to practice what we're talking about,

But that wisdom and those lessons can last your entire life.

For that reason,

Today's guest on the show is Tanya Helfand,

Who is what's called a matrimonial lawyer.

I guess on the street we would call that a divorce lawyer.

She practices in New Jersey.

She has a fabulous book out called 20.

.

.

I'm going to get it.

It's on my phone.

20 great tips for successful divorce,

And as such,

Tanya is also a long-time student of Kabbalah and brings that into everything that she does.

We're excited to have Tanya's perspective and hear from her on today's show.

How do we want to start?

This sounds like it's going to be.

.

.

You're in charge of our Kabbalah 1,

2,

And 3 curriculum worldwide.

I think you and a team of people.

This should be like in Kabbalah 1,

A toxic relationship class.

I know it doesn't sound like it's positive,

But I think the best way to avoid a toxic relationship is to talk about it.

I think we also have to distinguish,

And Tanya will get to speak to this as well,

There are some relationships you can't get out of.

Yeah,

I guess so.

I guess so,

Yeah.

Marriage is maybe the one you can get out of,

But most.

.

.

I mean,

A lot of relationships.

You can divorce your business partner.

You can divorce your spouse,

But you can't always divorce parents,

Kids,

Siblings.

Are we going to all these relationships?

Well,

We said initially we would try to bring in examples from elsewhere,

But our focus was relationships with the one.

Well,

Tanya,

From what I read from your bio,

Tanya,

27 years as an attorney in this field,

I would love to hear some horror stories and some things that will make all of us pause for a moment.

I would like to hear first how you got started in this field.

Okay,

Yes,

Yes.

I'm going straight for the- I don't think it's medical school where you have to choose,

Am I going to be a cardiologist or a proctologist,

Right?

You have to.

.

.

It's a.

.

.

I mean,

Share with us.

Proctologist?

Sorry,

I wanted people to hear what I was saying.

All right.

Go for it,

Tanya.

All right.

First,

I wanted to really thank you very much for having me.

I wanted to just say what a blessing the Kabbalah Center has been and all my teachers and,

Gosh,

She has my current teacher,

So I wanted to thank her too.

She's a regular guest on our show.

She's a regular guest on our show.

.

.

.

Love her.

We challenge each other,

So I just wanted to mention that.

How did I get into this field?

It is not something that I really chose.

It chose me.

When I got out of law school,

I was married at the time and I actually initially owned many retail stores with my ex-husband.

We were both professionals,

But we ended up doing that.

Then I concurrently opened a practice,

A general practice,

Doing real estate,

Municipal court,

Commercial matters,

And divorce work.

I had worked for about a year for a lawyer that did exclusively matrimonial and was just a job that I got through the accountant.

Interestingly,

That gentleman is now of counsel at my firm,

So he works for me 25 years later.

Ultimately,

It's just the work that kept coming back into my office and we got bigger and bigger and so the other stuff kind of filled away.

That's how I ended up just doing divorce.

Well,

I'll tell you,

If you've listened to the show for any period of time,

You know that we often help our listeners handle situations that are difficult,

That are challenging,

That sometimes even seem insurmountable.

You have a chapter in your book called Dealing with Difficult Individuals.

I feel like you could,

Not you,

Any of us could write volumes on dealing with difficult individuals.

Can you give us a taste of what you share there?

I'm sure it has everything to do with these kind of toxic relationships.

Sure.

There's people that you deal with in their,

That I deal with in divorce situations and that people deal with as spouses that sometimes,

And again,

This goes to the toxicity,

Either had substance abuse problems,

Have verbal or physical abuse problems who have been either enabled so much that they think that they have an ultimate sense of entitlement,

You know,

All these different factors make people or can make people very difficult and not sort of in the realm of,

You know,

I don't want to use the word normal,

But in the realm of reasonable conduct.

And this is not uncommon in our system.

So sometimes,

You know,

You try and reason with people and hopefully that hopefully their lawyers will guide them in the direction,

Understanding that the courts and the law are looking for reasonable results.

So you try to mediate and you can,

You can try and negotiate and do all the reasonable things to resolve quickly,

Cost effectively,

So on and so forth.

But sometimes you just can't,

And sometimes you have to go to court and sometimes you have to present the facts to a judge,

Understanding that,

You know,

You have bad actors or bad situations.

Are you saying that the other spouse or soon to be ex-spouse is the bad actor or sometimes the attorney is the bad actor?

It's the thing about divorce.

The interesting thing about divorces is it's many different players in the game.

So right.

So you can have the client on the up,

You can have the client on the other side,

The difficult person.

You could have a,

Also a difficult lawyer on the other side.

And I have to share that people often choose lawyers that mirror their own value system.

Wow.

That's good.

That's so,

So the way the universe works.

It does,

It does.

Because if you,

Cause you know,

It's your team and you want your team to be on the same wavelength.

Right.

So,

And then also another factor is who your judges,

Particularly in today's COVID situation,

The courts are open,

They're moving forward,

But they're very backlogged because everything's on zoom.

So we have,

Like in the last two weeks,

I've experienced both having litigated cases.

You have some judges that are completely overwhelmed and it's not really,

It's not their fault.

There's so many cases in front of them and they're just doing triage and they're trying to get as many settled cases pushed through the system.

And those cases that real have real controversies with really difficult people,

They're just not handling them.

So people are stuck.

So people are going,

You know,

More so back to mediation and then even arbitration,

Which I'm actually working on right now to get myself hopefully certified where people just need a decision,

Right?

When you have difficult positions or difficult people,

Sometimes you just need the independent judge or arbitrator.

An arbitrator is a like basically a paid for judge,

Someone who's going to hear a case and then make a decision to just make a decision because people can't do it.

People need to move forward with their lives.

That brings up,

I think that the number one question we get,

Which is how do you know when to go and how do you know when to stay?

And we've talked about it in bits and pieces,

But never really dedicated an episode to understanding.

And Tanya,

You shared with me a little bit about your formula.

Tanya has a formula.

I want to talk with you about the spiritual angle a little bit,

And then we'll leave people,

We'll give them a little cliffhanger and come back in a few minutes to get Tanya's take on it.

When people,

Again,

We're talking about being with either a spouse or a significant other,

Especially when there's children involved or there's sometimes there's business involved.

Inevitably there's social circles involved,

Property.

I mean,

Forget,

I don't even want to talk about the money part.

I want to talk mostly about the emotional and the,

Of course our listeners are concerned with the spiritual part.

We talk a lot on our show about Tikkun.

Tikkun is our soul's journey.

Before coming to each lifetime,

We pick certain details,

But also more importantly,

Certain situations to transform behaviors,

To overcome things,

To transcend.

And of course,

Things,

Gifts to share with the world.

And as part of that Tikkun,

Part of our correction process,

Or it can be likened to the,

To what a lot of people call karma.

We have to do some balancing with relationships from the past that may not have gone as to the most elevated state it could be,

Or perhaps we put out some sort of darkness,

Negativity,

And therefore we need to be on the balancing end of that as well.

So I think when a spiritual person comes or a person comes to spirituality and starts to say,

Okay,

Wait a second,

I'm being challenged in this relationship.

Am I supposed to endure what's difficult about it?

Is that my Tikkun or am I supposed to walk away?

And I want to add to that because I've dealt with this so many times with students who are contemplating leaving the relationship.

And we're not just talking about divorce,

We're talking about leaving any kind of long-term committed relationship.

And that could even be a business partnership,

A very difficult decision with a lot on the line.

Then you get children involved,

Which I want to hear about and so many other factors and there's emotional factors,

There's hurting the other person.

I know personally what the way my approach is with students is anything,

And I always tell the student,

I said,

Before you make that,

Before you hit that red button,

We have to do anything and everything on your side spiritually to make sure that this incompatibility is not because of you,

Your negativity.

Maybe you are meant to be together,

But because you yourself haven't worked on yourself,

You could be causing a real disaster here by leaving a good woman or a good man and then finding yourself in the same situation years later.

So my approach always is that red button called divorce or separation has to be the absolute last thing you do after you think you've done everything spiritually,

Physically,

Counseling,

You name it.

We've got to throw everything at it.

So at least in the eyes of the upper world,

You have made all the effort and shed all the ego you can until really just a compatibility issue.

And that circles us back to episode one where we talked about how relationships are not the purpose,

They're the means.

They're the means to our fulfilling our purpose.

They're the means to our becoming like the creator that David talks about in every other episode.

I talked about it in the last week,

So I'm making sure we hit that button.

But the idea,

I think that the biggest incentive is if you don't do that personal audit on yourself that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you've done your 100% to make sure that it's not on you,

If you don't,

You will have some repetition of that relationship in your next relationship.

Because the purpose,

There may be two people in the relationship and you can only own 100% of your 50%.

That's what David's saying.

You own it 120% of your 50% of obviously you can't control the other person or make them,

I always say,

If you think it's hard to control your husband,

Try controlling your ex-husband.

The goal is that you will recognize that the relationship is there for your growth and for the other person's growth and you're not running from the growth.

That's what David's saying because the growth will chase you.

It'll chase you to the next town you move into.

It'll chase you into the next relationship you go to.

It'll chase you to the next job you go to if you don't personally internally resolve what that relationship is trying to elicit from you.

And now I want to hear Tanya's.

Tanya has a mathematical formula on how to know whether it's time to stay or whether you need to stay or go.

So I'm going to just throw in one or two other thoughts if that's okay.

Sure.

Based on what you guys said.

So first of all,

I just want to share,

I completely,

I believe in marriage.

I've been doing this for so long and a lot of divorce lawyers,

I think,

And people become cynical.

I'm not.

And I also counsel my clients who come in when I hear that there's really a possibility of them being together.

And I've sent people to marriage counselors many times before allowing them to continue with me to give it a whirl because there's definitely indicia indicating that there's a possibility for it to work out.

So that's my belief system to begin with.

Most people do not get divorced because it just,

You know,

The relationship just sort of fizzles.

Most people,

I would say,

Or at least in my personal experience,

Get divorced because of serious issues.

Most people don't want to be divorced.

Most people look at it as sort of a failure,

At least initially.

And so I would say most cases there is abuse,

Infidelity,

Substance abuse,

Financial abuse,

You know,

Any number of different things that are identifiable.

It's not just,

You know,

We don't get along.

And in terms of when to get out,

You know,

Again,

I'm talking serious cases and have very few cases that aren't very serious.

You know,

When you really hear people's stories,

You know,

People get physically ill from it or,

You know,

So uncomfortable about going home on a daily basis.

You know,

There's real hardship.

And I feel,

And what I tell people,

And I hope,

David,

You like this because it's math and business,

Is if more of your days,

Significantly more of your days are difficult and a real hardship and really sadness or feeling ill or any one of those levels of discomfort,

More of them are that way than the good days.

And there's no matter how lousy the relationship is,

There's always going to be good days as well because abuse and things,

There's cycles.

So you know,

If you,

The notorious cycles are somebody abuses you and they apologize and they buy you some,

Whatever it is,

You know,

Whether it's physical abuse or some other,

Maybe the spouse goes on a business trip and you have a week of a happy go lucky kind of thing.

Exactly.

So it's never going to be a hundred percent one way or the other,

But if it's mostly lousy,

Most of the time,

I think it's time to make your life better.

So that's it.

I think that's what it really comes down to.

So,

You know,

Start looking at the totality of your life and is this how you want to live the totality of your life?

And then if you were to get divorced,

Again,

It's never going to be a hundred percent one or the other.

But now can you switch it,

Say 80 lousy,

20 good to 80 peaceful and calm household for yourself and your children.

And 20 percent of the time you have to deal with your ex-mouthing.

That's the formula.

That's the numbers we use.

Right.

I think we were told that for some people,

The relationships are 80 lousy,

20 good.

And the threshold that it should be is 80 good,

20 challenging.

But that's what we should be aiming for.

Obviously,

There's no 100 percent anything.

We should be aiming for that reverse.

So tiny question for you.

I think what really gets complicated for people is when there are kids involved and there's two camps,

Two belief systems,

Which is stay in a lousy relationship,

Protect the children.

I have my theory about that.

Or let go of the lousy relationship,

Assuming that it's not very abusive or whatever.

It's kind of like let go of the lousy relationship because ultimately that's better for the kids,

Not to be in a toxic,

Not to experience a toxic relationship.

And of course,

Those parents that are very,

It's very problematic.

They know they need to divorce.

That's one thing.

But I'm talking more about people who just aren't happy.

Maybe they're two good people.

People who live parallel lives but don't live lives together.

Right.

So they're not parallel lives.

Just maybe they're not in love.

Their intimacy is gone.

They want to move on.

They want to find something that's exciting.

Some people say they want a spiritual relationship,

Which I also beg to differ that they think that they can't find spirituality inside their current one.

But what have you seen when it comes to children and the decisions people make around divorce?

And do you have advice about that?

So this is I find to be the most important issue when people are considering divorce is the importance of the children and trying to do the best by them as parents.

And what I try and convey to people is the importance of putting yourself in the children's shoes,

Particularly in a situation,

For example,

Where you mentioned where we're not having serious safety issues.

So just to go back a little,

If you're having an issue where the other spouse has a,

Again,

A mental illness that could be a serious problem,

An alcohol or drug abuse issue or some other abuse issue that is a danger to the children,

That's something that a parent has to step up and protect the child from that,

Notwithstanding the natural love.

So children just love both of their parents.

They just do.

That's the way it is.

So when making a decision,

If the children are living in a toxic household,

Then it's probably better for the parties to split up and live in two peaceful households.

And the more that they can cooperate in terms of the parenting and not have anger,

Fighting and animosity,

It makes the kids' lives easier.

The studies always show that children are quite resilient,

Particularly when they're younger to the shift,

To divorce.

Sometimes and I actually did a whole research paper on this separately once investigating it outside of my field,

Where all kids want to know is that they have freedom to see both of their parents.

It doesn't have to be 50-50.

It can be 50-50.

It could be 30-70.

Just a nice pattern where they know where they're going to go,

What they're going to do,

What their life is going to look like,

And that they have strong time in bonding with each parent and that they're not going to be subjected to constant fighting and bickering and being pawned between the two parents.

Because again,

Studies show over and over when you speak to the adults after they were children of divorce,

That's it.

They just don't want to be the monkey in the middle.

They don't want to have to hold secrets.

They don't want to have to play favorites.

They don't want that extra burden.

And it's not fair to put that extra burden on the children when they have to readjust their lives.

Also,

It's not a bad thing.

They can do it.

They can,

You know,

It's life.

And again,

It might be better for them,

But they need to focus on their school,

Their friends,

Their sports,

Their goals,

And not have this extra albatross on them if it can be helped.

So that's kind of how I ask parents to look at it.

People do argue over things like,

You know,

People say,

Well,

You know,

I'm the one who gives the child vegetables and makes sure that they do their homework and so on and so forth.

But,

You know,

That other parent gives them,

You know,

Chocolate cupcakes for breakfast and lets them do their homework in their pajamas.

That's not an argument.

That's not an issue.

You need to take your battles.

Yeah,

Because that's something because I get that a lot from divorced parents,

Which is my child goes home and there's no spirituality.

There's no religion in that home.

There's no special diet.

The rules are all broken.

So then when the child comes to my home,

You know,

They're not in the mood to follow any rules.

You know what?

That's who you chose to marry.

That's the parents.

That's the other parent.

You know,

And kids just,

It's okay,

Whether they're together in the same house or in two separate households.

Each parent has his or her own individual perspectives and the kids will go back and forth and kind of choose what works for them.

And kindness and love and support and ease of,

You know,

Moving back and forward and cooperation is better.

So those things,

Again,

You really need to pick your battles and they really need to be about safety.

And what inevitably when one person points the finger at the other and says,

You know,

He's wrong or she's wrong.

You know,

I'm the better parent,

Again,

Unless we're dealing with a safety issue or a mental health issue.

It kind of almost always backfires.

I've seen it over and over and over again.

So you kind of need to,

You know,

Which of us as parents is perfect.

Beautiful.

Lisa,

Do you want to add something to that?

Well,

I want to bring back the listeners who are not facing divorce or not dealing with kids.

We there's always a question whenever we have a big decision to make,

How do I know if it's right for me?

Like you mentioned before,

You know,

I'm going to maybe the person is going to the decision is going to impact others,

Right?

Breaking up with someone is not the only decision that impacts others that we might make.

But breaking up with someone,

It could be a business partner and what's going to happen to the employees and what's going to happen to the assets.

It could be there are so many questions to ask,

But when you know something is right for you and this goes,

You know,

Speaks again to the conversation about what's best for the kids.

When my decision that I know is best for me is going to potentially negatively impact others,

It often prevents people from taking that step.

How can we help our listeners?

What can we share with our listeners to help them navigate those situations?

I know I need to do something.

It feels right to me.

It feels good for me,

But I can't do it because so-and-so is going to be upset or hurt or out of a job or any number of reasons.

The number one reason why people stay in bad relationships studies have shown is that they're afraid to hurt the other person or in our case,

It could be to hurt the children.

And how do you,

How do you convey the other side of that?

I have so many success stories of people who have left loveless relationships broke that fear,

Broke the fear of hurting the other person and hurting the children.

And what happened was,

Yes,

They did.

There was a moment where there was hurt on all sides.

But what that did is,

Tanya said,

Is it created a resilience,

Created a next level.

Sometimes it actually allowed the people to come back together because they learned lessons apart that they couldn't learn while they were together.

So it didn't move everything forward.

But majority of people are kind of locked in that,

I don't know what to do because I don't want to rock the boat too much,

Even though I'm not really happy.

Well,

There's,

I also think that there is a,

A phenomenon that takes place among those examples where the truth of the matter is the initial decision will hurt,

But it's what's best for everyone in the long run.

And that's really what I reflect back on people when faced with that question is,

Even though it may,

Right,

Ripping the bandaid off is always going to hurt.

But at a certain point in the healing process,

It's what's best for the wound.

The wound needs air.

So when you look at those decisions,

Whether it's to walk away from a toxic relationship or any other difficult decision,

Chances are the impact you're afraid of having,

The negative,

Whether it's going to be hurt or create some sort of lack or loss,

Perceived lack or loss,

If the longterm is going to be better,

It's worth ripping the bandaid off now.

Can we apply any of this to business relationships?

I was going to ask you in a different question,

Which is people who aren't in a relationship,

What are the most important things to look for,

To watch out for,

Maybe to preemptively not enter a toxic relationship?

Because I've seen so many times someone kind of like falls in love with somebody else.

And just because we've been doing this for a while,

I'll talk to the person who has fallen in love for,

I don't know how you want to say it.

And within like 15 minutes,

I kind of noticed maybe there's some issues,

Some unresolved issues that the person doesn't see.

And why don't they see it because they don't want to see it.

They just want to kind of be in this relationship,

Whatever it is.

And they're not really looking out for the warning signs and the danger signs.

And maybe,

Tanya,

I don't know if you want to speak to that.

What are some things that are single listeners or just- Let me tell you how I worded that question in my notes.

Okay,

Please.

What are some questions we can ask ourselves before going into a relationship?

Right?

And I don't mean should I have a prenup or not.

I mean,

Even before the dating becomes serious,

What are some questions we can ask ourselves to make sure that this person is in alignment with what we want in the longterm?

And what are the danger signs?

Yes.

Go.

Go.

All right.

Actually,

I think it was last year,

Batya gave a talk on relationships.

And I thought it was super useful,

This answer.

And that is the importance of people having very open and honest conversations,

Real conversations,

Before getting together or married or into a serious situation.

What are the issues to discuss,

Hypothetically?

Money.

How do you handle money?

Do you believe in debt?

Do you- Not do you believe in death,

Do you believe in debt?

Yeah.

Debt.

D-E-B-T.

Yeah.

Okay.

Just want to make sure everyone's clear.

Do you believe in savings?

Do you.

.

.

And people think if you're dating for a year or so,

You know everything about a person.

You don't.

And that's exactly it.

I think this is critically important and I hope to have the opportunity to help in this regard is that relationships are so important.

We educate ourselves to become professionals in our jobs and things like this.

And what an important decision to have a relationship.

And there's no training,

Really.

I mean,

The Kabbalah Center provides some lessons and other religious organizations do.

But it really,

I really hoped for it to be an educational program in colleges because there's so much divorce.

That's a good point.

And right,

You need to have these bottom line questions or discussions.

And look,

Obviously things can change because you never know what those problems are that are going to arise.

But things that people learn after the fact that really give them pause are how each one handles money.

It's a good thing if each person understands that.

Are there expectations to continue to work when children are born or not?

Sex is probably a good discussion in terms of those things.

Family values,

Religion,

People often,

You know,

People can often not be of the same religious background when they get together.

But inevitably,

When they have children,

How do you want to raise those children?

You know,

If there's two different religions,

You know,

How people handle problems.

I think that the critical thing to make the best relationship is are you really a team?

And when it hits the fan,

Are you going to each put 100 percent in to get the other persons back as a team?

I think the greatest problems occur and breakdowns occur when something happens in a relationship like everybody's life,

Whether it's a loss of a job,

An illness,

You know,

Financial crises,

Whatever,

Medical problems.

And the other person either isn't supportive or can't handle it or,

You know,

It's just not it's just not worked as a team.

So that's where a huge fissure occurs.

So all these discussions are really important.

I think this is so,

So powerful,

So important.

And I almost think that I think I've suggested this to people that everyone who's about to get married should go to marriage counseling.

I think people look at marriage counseling as a reactive thing to do.

When it gets bad,

We need to see somebody.

I remember recommending this to a couple.

I said,

You guys should go to marriage counseling.

Why?

Things are good.

I said,

That's exactly why you should go,

Because you do not want to use it as a reactive approach.

Of course,

Kabbalah is a huge spiritual dimension to it.

I almost find it impossible to reach the highest levels of happiness and unity in a relationship without the tools of Kabbalah.

That being said,

We know we're not marriage counselors.

We don't sit there going through every detail of people's lives and trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together.

So I think that people should learn about each other.

There should be a fast track approach to learning about each other.

And I've noticed when there's a third party in the room,

Things are said,

Things are shared,

Things are understood that you never can really understand just talking to the person directly.

And this is my mind is it's mind boggling to me that there isn't like and whoever does this is going to be very successful,

Whether it's you,

Tanya,

Or somebody else.

But a 20 week course or 20 sessions,

It's like a camp,

It's like a boot camp,

It's something that everyone who's engaged or about to be married or thinking about to be engaged,

You got to go through this.

And it covers everything from contracts to prenups to how to handle money to how to handle religion.

A professional needs to probe you about everything you believe in,

Look for danger signs,

Warning signs,

I mean everything.

And I think that would be a phenomenal approach.

People prepare for basketball games more than they prepare.

How many plays we go through and how many scenarios we look at in a football game,

In a basketball,

Coaching your little kid's soccer team,

You probably prepare more than you did getting married to the wife of the mother of the child.

So it's just crazy to me,

We don't have an institution like that.

It's kind of just roll the dice and go for it.

I think because everybody's values are different,

That's why it would be like,

You could maybe come up with a boot camp for people who live here or people with this background or that you know,

It couldn't be an overarching like- But it could be.

But it also could be because- David,

You just found your next startup.

There's something there.

I don't know if I'm,

I mean,

I just kind of my mind's just racing like that because no one's addressing it really in detail.

Because I didn't even think of those points Tanya said.

How do you look at savings and debt?

You know,

The truth is I never thought about that before I got married.

And I realized I only learned about it later.

We might have different approaches to it.

I mean,

Thank God it didn't really matter for us,

But I realized for some people,

Like Tanya said,

You have a child who is a special needs child,

People get divorced over that.

Somebody gets sick,

People get divorced over that.

People lose their careers or- I think it's because they often those,

Well,

There's a saying even that you don't,

I don't know what the saying is,

But the gist is that you don't really know someone's true colors until they're under extreme pressure.

So there's a way to recreate that scenario.

Those scenarios bring out,

Show people who they're really married to.

And then you're like,

Well,

What that- Yeah.

I'm just wondering if there's a way to squeeze all that,

To pop that pimple before it pops itself.

That's kind of- Well,

To your point,

David,

I mentioned last week a book that I,

Right.

I think it was last week I mentioned this book that I read by John Gottman in the same book.

He provides like 300 things you must know about your spouse.

Oh,

Where's this book?

It's called,

I think it's called Seven Tips or Seven- 300 Tips.

Seven something to a successful marriage.

In each chapter,

One of them was about the bank account.

One of them is about knowing one another that you don't really know your spouse.

And if you really knew them,

That's actually more,

I think even there was in one of the Spiritually Hungry podcast,

I think it was also Monica and Michael were talking about how it doesn't matter if you know what your spouse likes on their sandwich or what's more important.

Anyway,

It came up also.

But before,

I know we're starting to run out of time and I really wanted to talk because we have gotten a lot of questions over the years.

I really wanted to talk about what to do or how to navigate when you're in a relationship with someone that's,

Again,

We identified that marriage is one,

There is an exit strategy if needed.

But there are relationships like parents,

Siblings,

Children that are not necessarily as not only easy to extract from,

But socially acceptable to extract from.

It's hard to avoid one family member when they're also related to the rest of your family.

Tanya,

Actually in your book,

I think you have a chapter also that's called something about dealing with distress,

Tips for dealing with distress.

How can we help our listeners navigate those toxic relationships that are not divorce friendly?

You're talking about like parents and children?

As an example?

Well,

I mean,

In family court,

And that's where I practice,

We have,

For example,

Domestic violence court where the only criteria is that you are a family member or have had a relationship where there's a child involved,

You don't have to be married and you have to be over the age of 18,

Both parties have to be over the age of 18.

So we sometimes unfortunately get restraining orders against children and or parents who are really in a terrible situation.

If it's toxic or dangerous,

Certainly boundaries are necessary if it comes to actual violence.

As I said,

The courts do this frequently,

Unfortunately.

It has to work for everyone.

I think,

What is it?

You don't have to love your parents.

You just have to respect them.

Again,

There's the boundary issues in terms of what makes sense.

I don't think it's great to cut off relationships.

I think most people feel like cutting off a relationship or not speaking to somebody is not the right thing to do unless maybe there's like sexual abuse or something else like that.

But I think civility makes sense and learning how to deal with it in the best way possible.

I did have a case that was public.

I think it's in the book,

Rachel Cannon case,

Where this was a situation where we actually had to sue the parents.

It was,

I think,

Misplayed in the news because they refused to help with her schooling.

It was interesting because in New Jersey,

A child is not emancipated if they're going to college until they finish the college because they're still within the sphere of influence.

But in an intact family,

Parents can control whether or not they're going to give their kids money for college.

In a divorce family,

That is an issue that can be brought before the divorce court.

So if you're divorced,

One parent can stand up for the kid and say,

Well,

You need to pay for college.

And so the child of divorce actually gets more financial benefits and benefits from the court than a child of an intact family.

So I know I'm sort of deviating here,

But that's one of those parent-child relationships that was a little complex.

So boundaries,

I think that's something also that Kabbalah teaches.

You still want to have a relationship,

But you have to have as healthy a relationship as possible.

I think it's the same reason why people get divorced.

Sometimes they're just better not living together and they're better with some boundaries and there's more peace that way.

Is that an answer?

100%.

That's a great answer.

We are almost out of time.

Can I- Yeah,

Go ahead.

Yeah,

Go ahead.

The only thing I wanted to just share is when people are in a relationship where they're considering divorce,

I'm certainly not saying to run to get the divorce,

But I think it is critically important to investigate your rights under the law as part of your analysis.

Because sometimes the longer you stay in a situation,

Depending on the facts of the situation,

It may play a significant part in your finances going forward,

As well as the children and so on and so forth.

So you may want an objective opinion of a divorce lawyer understanding the laws in your particular jurisdiction to use as part of your analysis as to whether to stay or go,

Because it's a really important series of factors to consider.

I love that.

I love that.

I think the way from today's show actually is more helpful to people who aren't even married yet,

Because I think some people would be like,

Oh,

This show isn't for me.

I'm not in that position.

But the truth is for all of you who are single,

Dating,

Living together,

Considering it,

If you can invest proactively in learning about your significant other,

Your partner,

As much as possible in communicating about a lot of these potential landmines ahead of time,

You want to take on that burden before the marriage so that the marriage itself can be healthy and you're not fighting these battles within the marriage.

Because as Tanya said,

When it gets challenging is when there is a challenging event that occurs,

That is,

Again,

Financial,

Medical,

Emotional,

Whatever.

Then on top of that,

You have the chaos between you and your partner.

So you actually are facing two challenges simultaneously,

When in reality,

You both should just be focused on the medical issue or the financial issue or whatever it is.

You don't want to also be fighting with each other and having that issue.

A lot of that can be mitigated if we proactively invest in the relationship and communicating and learning more about it before you actually go under the canopy.

And to that,

I will see you two bites of wisdom more.

The truth is one overarching,

Kabbalistic wisdom nugget consciousness for relationships that we didn't even mention once in all of these four episodes is exactly what Tanya is saying,

Exactly what David's saying.

It's hire slow,

Fire fast.

David says it all the time about other things.

But the truth is,

If you were a CEO of a big company and you were hiring someone to your executive staff,

You would spend months vetting,

Researching,

Checking criminal records,

Reference it.

You would make it your business to make sure that you are bringing on the best possible team player to this team.

I have seen so many people throw themselves,

Throw the $800 at the handyman and tell him to come in and don't even worry about the work,

Just come on in and therefore end up in a relationship with someone that they literally didn't know.

That all the skeletons accidentally fell out of the closet three or six months or 12 months later,

Probably in the heat of some challenge like you were saying,

All because we didn't apply the brakes when we should have.

We hit the gas,

We arrived at our destination and then turned to look who was sitting in the passenger seat.

I think one of the things,

At least in the relationships that we can control,

Again,

I think that the family dynamics,

We also didn't share the idea that Kabbalah teaches that when the soul comes into the world,

It chooses its parents.

Tanya had mentioned,

You said you married this person,

So you have to take responsibility for the chaos and the blessing that that might bring.

The same goes for when your parents are tailor-made for your tikkun,

Your soul's purpose,

Your siblings as well.

Just that knowledge,

That ownership of some part of me,

Even if it's my highest self and I don't feel like I'm connected to my highest self in that moment,

That highest self,

Pick these people to be in my life for some reason.

The reason may be to draw those boundaries and to have safer and healthier relationships with them,

But be it as it may,

We chose them.

We chose this path and this journey.

You chose this podcast to listen to today for a reason.

And Tanya chose to be with us on the podcast,

So we're very grateful to you for that,

Tanya.

Thank you again.

I know it's these times,

Zooms back to back to back to back.

We really appreciate you joining us.

This has been an awesome journey.

As we venture into the new year,

We're looking forward to putting together more of the content our listeners have been demanding.

So continue to email us at energyboostitcabello.

Com and let us know how we can support your growth and your process.

Continue to share the show.

That's really how we serve in the highest way possible is the more people who are hearing us,

The more benefit to the entire world.

David,

Anything else?

I love the whole relationship series and would love to get feedback from our audience about what are some topics that they would like to hear next.

I thought that was great.

Absolutely.

So again,

Thank you,

David.

Thank you,

Tanya.

Thank you to our listeners and we'll see you next week on the Weekly Energy Boost.

Thanks so much.