Why You Keep Believing Him
Episode 2: The Smaller I Got
Why you keep believing someone who keeps proving you shouldn't
My ex-husband called last week to tell me I had to come off his health insurance. We're legally separated, not divorced, and that was on purpose. Staying on his insurance was part of the deal we negotiated, because he knows I have health issues that make good coverage something I need to survive. When I asked him back then whether the promise would hold once he met someone new, he told me he thinks for himself and no one would ever change his mind. Last week, someone changed his mind.
This episode isn't really about health insurance. It's about the pattern underneath it. He says a thing, I believe the thing, the thing turns out not to be true, and then I'm standing in the wreckage trying to figure out how I believed it again. I'm a life coach. I've done years of work on this. And it still happened to me last week. If you keep believing somebody who keeps proving you shouldn't, it's not because you're stupid or naive. Believing the people we love is a habit, and habits are stronger than insight.
In this episode:
The promise that held right up until it stopped being useful, and the two possible truths behind it
The Monday my marriage ended, and the years it had already been ending without me in the room
"Work is the problem, not us." The lie that kept me walking on eggshells while he planned his exit
What making yourself smaller actually looks like when you're not quiet, not a doormat, and still disappearing
The difference between anxiety talking and your gut telling you the truth. I wasn't blind. I was loyal.
What to do with the quiet feeling that something is off when you have no proof and he says you're imagining it
What rebuilding actually looks like. It's not on a stage. It's in the kitchen and the spreadsheet and the half-second pause where I almost believed him again, but didn't.
"My anxiety wasn't lying to me. He was."
Near the end of that phone call, he asked me if I was okay. Yep. It was the only answer I could give him, and it wasn't true. If you've been answering that question on autopilot too, I built a workbook for exactly this. It's called But How Are You Really? and it walks you through the questions I had to learn to answer honestly, starting with that one. It's $47 and you can get it here.
Follow Honestly Kristin on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so new episodes come to you. And if this one sounded like a woman you'd want in your living room, send it to her.
