Soul Custody & Divorce Truths: Pamela Henry on Parenting, Trauma & Healing

Opening Thoughts on Escapist Marriage 0:00

inner voice. A heartfelt chat with Dr. Fujian. Parents, the parent who wants out, who is strictly trying to avoid their own inevitable issues in life. And so that never bodes well. When a parent wants out because they are not wanting to face issues within themselves. So it's a very specific audience of I discovered I was running from childhood issues, was not willing to work them out in the partnership, and my spouse and children paid for my avoidance. And so in that regard, I coined a phrase, escapist marriage.

These are people that want out because they're trying to avoid something in themselves. Now, I didn't know it until five years after the divorce. So it's not like I could have known. But once I knew, then I really wanted to see if there were other people like me. that would be running introducing a powerful new update from the fujian app now with flexible subscription plans to fit your journey monthly quarterly or yearly Our new AI-driven onboarding customizes your path to feeling better, faster, and enjoy a refreshed experience with stunning 3D interactive videos.

Update now. Empower your inner voice with Fusion.

Podcast Introduction and Guest Background 1:51

Download today. Welcome to the Inner Voice, a heartfelt chat podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Foujansane. I'm a psychotherapist. I'm an author and the founder of the Awareness Integration Institute. Now today, I will be talking to Pamela Henry. She's worked in the field of supervised visitation for non-custodial parents, written newspaper columns on family matters, and offered classes in shared custody parenting, including parenting with a pen. and a Pandora's box managing a private journal collection.

She has a degree in telecommunications from San Diego State and earned a certificate in early childhood education from UC Riverside. She's also the owner of the Soul Custody Press, which publishes memoirs with a message. Her new book, which we're going to be talking about, is Soul Custody Sparing Children from Divorce. And you can find her also at the Soul Custody Press, which gives you all of the creation of the message. I think we had an amazing conversation. I learned a lot from her, from different angles, from different perspectives.

of her own experience of going through a divorce and with her children, her remorse, her regrets, and she shares all of that with us in this episode and in her book. And a lot of them, you know, I'm a child of a divorce, so we all had a lot of conversations to have and I I hope and I'm positive that you'll enjoy it as much as I did. Now, be sure to subscribe to this podcast on my YouTube channel. Connect with me through my website, fujonzane.com. Go to Fujon app and go through 31 areas of your life and really create improvements in your life based on the research we've done.

And connect with me in social media platforms and share your thoughts with me. I love to hear from you. And without further ado, here's Penelope. Listen up if you want to promote your personal growth and self awareness. I found the FuJohn app last month and I have been absolutely loving it. I personally have never learned guided meditation, but thanks to this app, I now have learned incredible tools for my own stress relief and emotional self-awareness. Not to mention there are self-evaluation tools and professional coaching available to utilize however your journey to self-discovery takes you.

Join FuJohn today and redefine your life one step at a time. Intentional Parenting, a Practical Guide to Awareness Integration Theory written by Dr. Jafari, Dr. Fuganzen, and Dr. Manoukian, three experts in human development, is your step-by-step guide to raising a healthy child prepared for a culturally integrated world. You're supported in parenting infants to adolescents using the latest evidence-based scientific research on parenting. Order your copy on Amazon now.

Why Pamela Wrote Soul Custody 5:00

Hi, Pamela. It is so nice to have you. Thank you, Dr. Zane. I'm delighted to be on your show. You have written the book Soul Custody, sparing our children from the kind of divorce. I am a child of a divorce, and so my parents got divorced when I was five. And I have experienced personally what it feels to be a child of a divorce. And I've been a therapist working with couples who are in the process of getting divorced and work with their children. So I have, I'll share some of the experiences as we go along, but I know that it's truly a shakeup for the family when the divorce happens.

and you've worked in this field for so long, then that's the experience you've brought into your book. First of all, what got you to want to go into this field, actually? Well, my own divorce, which was in 2008, I work pretty strong 12-step programs. And in that, we deal with character defects, including inordinate guilt. As I went along in my recovery post-divorce, the regret for divorce only increased. And I didn't understand why the regret for divorcing was more intensified. It was what I'd call inordinate regret.

And one day I just started writing and it occurred to me that my regret was going to be lessons for people to stay married. That something good had to come from this hindsight. And so as I wrote, I literally felt I had a book of everything that I wished that I had been told before I divorced with three small children. And that's what this book is that I poured my heart and soul into. The regrets not only transformed, you know, into forgiveness and release, but I really have some almost like I did a life reset, almost like I went back and saw what I could have done.

as a healing measure, not only for other people, but to know there was more that I could have done and I learned the lessons that I believe that I should have known before divorcing. So I recaptured the things that I felt that I lost in the mistake of divorcing. And we can see this both ways. There are also people who share that I stayed in the marriage because of my children, although this was not the right marriage. I stayed in the marriage and my children did not get the opportunity to see me ever happy, or they thought this was the kind.

So we have both sides, but the other side that I'm hearing from you is, If when I went to a marriage and I have children, the best possible way is that I do everything that I need to do. I need to be in this marriage. So I'm not just staying here out of resentment, but not necessarily work on the marriage and yes, create a toxic environment within the marriage just because I say because of my children, I'm not divorcing. And I've seen so many of those, right? I've seen like, I'm going to stay here and I'm going to retaliate.

I'm going to create a war, but I'm not leaving because of my children. And then you create this toxicity, which the children are getting more abused actually within a system that is toxic. But it's more about, okay, I get a divorce and move on. And then when I'm moving on and I'm not in that space, possibly the forgiveness and many of those other pieces show up. And it's like some people even become best friends even after they're divorced. And it's like, how can I bring that kind of a foresight within my marriage?

I see, yes. And this book is primarily for people, first of all, who are not in unsafe relationships or toxic family situations, but specifically for parents, the parent who wants out, who is strictly trying to avoid their own inevitable uh issues in in life and so that never bodes well when a parent wants out because they are not wanting to face issues within themselves so it's a very specific uh audience of of i discovered i was running from childhood issues

Escapist Marriage and Emotional Avoidance 9:54

was not willing to work them out in the partnership and my spouse and children paid for my avoidance And so in that regard, I coined a phrase, escapist marriage. These are people that want out because they're trying to avoid something in themselves. Now, I didn't know it until five years after the divorce. So it's not like I could have known. But once I knew, then I really wanted to see if there were other people like me. that would be running and I'll go into those issues if you like. Oh, give an example.

Yes. Yes. I love it that what you said is because you're right. Absolutely. That what we do is we bring what we've experienced in the in our relationship with our mom and dad and their relationship together. And we have a lot inside that we kind of subconsciously come in and bring it into the relationship without our own knowledge. And obviously that relationship keeps triggering it. And we're like, I'm leaving this one because I don't want to get triggered. And the key to it is no, this is a place you're getting triggered.

And actually that's the place we need to go and check it out and heal it. And it was deceptive in my case because we were never out of counseling from the time we were together in 1988 to 2008. And so we were busy working on a lot of issues, but I'll tell you how this one broadsided me. Okay, the moment I traced it back, the moment I threw my marriage under the bus was after having confronted my own father about childhood incest. I didn't realize that when he rejected me as an adult, and he literally just cut me off, I did something that has to have a term in therapy.

I took that rejection and passed it on to my family. It's some form of transference. I didn't know I was doing it. My therapist didn't know I was doing it. Nobody knew I was doing it until me five years later. when you're rejected and you don't want to feel that pain, if you create rejection and a set of circumstances, you can sidestep it. Because I didn't even get to the issue of that rejection until five years after the divorce. So I did successfully circumvent what I was running from. And sad to say, I was not prepared, did not know at the time, had always known about the childhood issues.

I did not bank on what the adult response was going to mobilize in my life. Simultaneously, marriages at the same time even though the incest was creating problems obviously in my marriage, I also was diverting emotionally thinking it was okay to be in contact with other men because they were just emails, they were just relationships from the past, nothing was physical, but I literally was in three separate you know, emotional affairs that were preventing me from not only having honesty in my marriage, but so I had two things going on that had I brought it all into, had I brought in the rejection of my father, had I fessed up about the emotional affairs, I do see a path that I could have worked through, but I was really bent on trying to escape all the emotions I got in that time.

And in that self-centered existence, I did not take into account what I write about in my book about how we need to be thinking of the children. I was only thinking of myself and my selfish needs and putting those before my children. So bravo to the people who are staying for the children. I didn't even do that. I already had a mission to break up and get out and I was going to fulfill it. It's so refreshing to hear That you're sharing the authenticity of taking responsibility and seeing at this point that, okay, there was a part of me that was in pain.

And I was coping with the pain in so many unhealthy ways and I did not know how to cope with it in a healthy way. Although I was going to therapy, I was trying and all of that. But it was a part of me that was, it was like a blind spot that I did not see how, you know, the pain that was caused to me, not only as a child, but also when I confronted that it still created another level of pain because I finally put myself in a position of wanting to be seen. And then yet I'm getting, you know, the message that I'm not seen.

no matter what, no matter what I say. And then that, you know, brought you into a space of needing to be seen by all these other men. And that was, you know, trying to get fulfilled from that angle, which had a full on impact on your marriage and and your children and your experience was this is not fulfilling, this is not my experience that I want to stay here and I want I need to go get healed outside of this marriage and then outside the marriage yes you finally all of this opened up and you got healed and I don't know if you were staying in the marriage for another 30 years that you would have gone healed and it could have been that you had to leave before but there's your book is also about what happens like there is a personal you're right every one of us goes through something your book is also saying that when I am not taking care of myself to the fullest and becoming authentic, that my behaviors has a full-on impact on my children.

And that's where it shows up as the book. So you're not only taking responsibility and accountability for you, but you're also taking responsibility and accountability that your behavior has an impact, your decisions have an impact on your kids. Yes, and I really wished I had looked at that impact on my children, because the five things that I write about that were the main regrets, and I'll just say them simply. The first one, I really did not have an understanding of the anxiety that divorce creates in children.

How Divorce Affects Children 17:00

Even though I came from it myself, that almost made me insensitive to it, because I handled it. The sadness that permeates the children's lives. Thirdly, dishonoring God. Did I ever once ask God, what is your will for our marriage? No, I did not rely on God or think about that I was even breaking my vows divorcing. And of course I didn't think of breaking my vows with the infidelity. And then the passing on of the legacy. Did I really want to reenact the same trauma that was the worst trauma of my own life?

I thought I was going to do it better than my parents and that doing divorce would make it less impactful. Wrong. Yes, I did it the best possible way after the fact, but I think the best possible way to avoid the trauma of divorce is to stay married. Otherwise, it's a divorce is a trauma, no matter how you slice it. So experiencing not only as a personal experience, but also in the field of the legal custody expert that you have been for all of these years with the children. Because we, of course, we have our own experiences, but there's also, as an expert, you see so many of the other varieties.

What have you seen in the custody battles and things that goes wrong, let's say, in all of those fights that are happening around custody. Because when people get divorced and they don't have kids, it's just like, ah, OK, it was a relationship. I decide to leave or not to leave. But when you do have kids, the whole notion of we have to be a relative for the rest of our life, we have to be someone who negotiates and now we're not married, but we have to negotiate for all the way until our kids are 20 or 30. And we have to be part of their life.

So it's not a clean cut. Okay. I no longer want to be with you and bye bye. And you have nothing to do with me. We still have to create a relationship with that person, which we're divorcing for the next 20 years, 30 years of our life, which all of that is going to affect the children again and again and again. Such an important question because working in the field of supervised visitation for five years I discovered that I had it easy in my marriage compared to what really goes on out there and I'll tell you the missing ingredient in me and also the other parents is We're not thinking of how much the child loves both parents.

If we can hold the child's heart in our hearts and always be letting our words and our decisions be with regard to how the child feels about their parent. They love the parent no matter what the parent does to them. This is a huge responsibility. on the part of the parents and across the board it's the same thing that I ran amok with. It's that selfishness. of only thinking of your own agenda and not understanding how it affects the children. So across the board, people are not thinking of their children's feelings toward the other parent and how much they love them.

If I had thought of that even once, Dr. Zane, I often think I would have thought, how sad to cut in half my children's time with their father for the rest of their childhoods by 50%. And that's in the best possible scenario of 50-50 custody. Did I think of what that meant to cut my time with them in half 50% for the rest of their childhoods? And if you think about it, it's also for the rest of their lives because as an adult, they still have to 50-50. So it doesn't stop at 18 when you're cutting this 50% piece of the pie together.

And so if parents can think about, make their decisions with their children's hearts in their mind, outcomes might be different. And that takes a lot to to look at what is it that I need in my life and you know how long can I. create this? Because I think that there's a beauty in what you're saying, which is if I'm the person who actually has to look inside and see if I need to make a change. There's also the ones that they do, they take full responsibility, they're consistently changing, but their mate is not willing to.

And then we find in that path that, again, staying in a relationship, is it Does it feel... worse for the children. And how do we assess that? Because that's part of the assessment. We're looking at, yes, we're dismantling the structure of the family. We're dismantling the idea of the stability of the family for our children. We're dismantling this concept of stability where, you know, you have access to both parents all the time. I hear a lot from the parents, like, I cannot even imagine that I will go to sleep and my children are not here and I don't get to kiss them good night or be with them or read to them, especially as the kids are younger.

And I think it's interesting because divorce sometimes is easier on kids which are younger versus like adolescent. I think it's horrible for adolescents to go through this. But then the concept of the children who are younger also needing both parents at the time, it's much more prevalent because I think as adolescent and you're getting teen, although it's harder for them to handle it, but their time allows them to be with their friends a lot more. What is your experience as you've seen different ages of children and what they go through as their family goes through a divorce?

You know, it's interesting. I offered a college scholarship to high school students who come from families of divorce. And I got 800 essays. And across the board and all the essays, regardless of the age of the child's divorce, it it is the world it literally explodes like they all had as if it was a giant earthquake no matter what the age was the the foundation of the two parents being so vital and important to them no matter what age they were i saw that as a common denominator because some they were when they were two but they still had the same effects some were 16, you know, and it's the same effect.

And so if we can think of the ageless child heart, it's what divorce does to the soul.

Custody Battles and the Child's Perspective 25:00

And parents who divorce discover very quickly how it's what I call a soul shredder. Divorce is a soul shredder. You can't say that 10 times fast. But for the children, it is also, it is a devastating experience that then the childhood, no matter what age it is, the main focus becomes their parents' story over their childhood. And it's like their childhood just ends, even if there's more to it. And so when it comes to how the children are impacted, the main traumatic impact, I believe, is the same, regardless of the age, and even can go on at the same level for someone who's in their 20s whose parents divorce.

There was a study done, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, Judith Wallerstein, a 25-year study that followed children of divorce through adulthood. And even the effects of divorce may not even show up until the child of divorce is in their 20s and starts to try to live their lives the true impact, regardless of the age, will show up in your child's relationships. And so this is another thing I did not consider, that by me divorcing their father when I had other options, was going to impact their young adult relationships, their fears of commitment, their ability to commit, their insecurities, even their desire to get married.

And here I was all, I'm going to do it differently. I made so many mistakes with my bravado. ignoring the true impact. I needed to take into account, especially for people who come from divorce, it's too easy to repeat a legacy. My spouse was not from a divorced family. He was willing to work through everything, including the three emotional affairs. He was willing to stay with me. The people who have divorce in their history, you'd think they'd be wiser and not want to repeat it, but there's a certain amount of immunity to pain, or maybe even in the resilience from having dealt with it, that made me a little insensitive to what someone else was going to have to go through.

I paid the price for that. And what was the epiphany that showed up that caused you to even look at this matter? Was it that your children were sharing with you? Oh, good question. It wasn't that they were suffering terribly. I've had the best divorce shared custody, parenting, raising of children that I've ever heard of. So my own experience is the best case scenario that I've seen. I'll tell you what it was. It was spiritual in nature. When I got wind of how I dishonored God by divorcing, this is when I really felt the full weight of the mistake.

I'll only describe it as a godly remorse. A feeling that I had let down the bond that God had created between me and my spouse didn't even occur to me until five years after. The epiphany was God wanted us together and God wanted us to raise the family in, you know, together. And I had not considered what God wanted for our family. He was the one that gave us those beautiful three children. Did I ever think to go to God to ask, what does he want? No, I was very busy trying to get away from things I did not want to deal with.

Wouldn't that still be something that you were creating within yourself because there is no one to go to and ask everything you're asking is within you anyways, right? So what were you always religious or the religious epiphany showed up after the pain? The religious epiphany. When you say I never went to God, when you say I never went to God to ask, God is someone, you know, for people who are believers that is still someone or is a being that people have within their own imagination. There's nobody out there to go to.

So we're still talking about a very internal process. It's not an external process. Yes. So when you say, I never thought about asking this, I'm like, well, were you even raised religious or was it that through the pain at one point? you know, I've noticed a lot of times for people that, you know, when they're constantly beating their head against the wall, and finally, they can't get any answers, then, then it's almost like, okay, let me go to something beyond human humanity. And then within themselves, they go beyond the structures.

Like, for example, you talked about, you know, the the 12 steps. And that's the same thing, like you hit a place, where I'm totally powerless, I'm hopeless, I'm powerless, I can't do anything with those human conditions anymore, so let me elevate myself to something beyond the humanity and ask and seek. So when you say that the epiphany was more about a spiritual awakening, what brought the spiritual awakening at that age and at that time for you? It was the pain of divorce, um, which then made me think, gee, it would be sure nice to come to God while married and not have to have the pain of divorce be the thing that drove me to God.

So even though that is my story and I'm sticking to it and that's the way it goes, it, it, it, It was nice to think, oh, I could have perhaps had God in the marriage. I might have turned to God while married. I might have understood my wedding vows a little better of what that means to maybe pray for the marriage. It was all after the fact for me, all these sort of God stuff. And it sounds so funny to say because here we're making wedding vows supposedly before God, and yet not including that element in the day to day of my marriage, you know, which is why it was so easy to stray into infidelity, not being, you know, a praying woman or one that was seeking God's will.

So I do bless the pain for sending me to God. You needed an accountability buddy. Yes, I wish I did and maybe in the form of a married woman who would have showed me how she got through the tough times in her marriage without divorcing.

Spiritual Remorse and Accountability 33:00

No, I had a lot of friends who had gotten divorced so they were more like my coaches on how to get out. Yes. If we're afraid and obviously we look at people who made it through and then we're like, okay, well, I can make it through and this is going to be okay. So you're right. If someone made it through the marriage and not the divorce, then if those people are around us, then we learn how to make it through a marriage versus make it through a divorce. So I totally agree with our surrounding and who is beside us.

Does influence us and you know that's what we seek at that moment wherever we think we want we will create those role models because that's our goal so when we're moving toward that goal that that shows up for us. But the interesting part that I'm sensing from what you have gone through is that the pain of a divorce for you went into creating accountability, really looking at yourself and really coming to terms and becoming authentic with yourself and seeing where it is that you have created the results that you have created for yourself.

But then the book is about sparing the children. So that's why I was thinking and looking at. Did your did your children ever share with you a pain or is it because that because of your expertise and being, you know, insupervised visitation, which is the most difficult way of separating and the most difficult when the, you know, the children are experiencing the divorce. Right. I mean, We go any if life is smooth and yes, you know, parents divorce, but I get to have both of them, even if it's a 50%. I get to see how, you know, civilized people are or caring people are.

And I get to see the other person move into another relationship, which wasn't as Okay, the new relationship with another partner for my parents might be, you know, a different way of me looking at the world and, you know, having a different experiences and all of it where it could be, you know, not the best. Obviously, the first scenario would have been best, but the second scenario is not traumatic or really hard, although the shakeup is there versus what you had to go through with in your profession.

which was facing your visitation custody is really hard. That means that the two people that one of the parents is really abusive and that's why they create a visitation. So you were also witnessing this level of toxic relationship because if it wasn't toxic, that usually courts do not give a visitation, you know, as a custody for somebody to have to be sitting in the room, because that person is not safe. And then I thought, okay, well, you wrote the book about these children who are going through the trauma.

which one of these children's or was it your own experience as a child of a person who went through the divorce? Yeah, I think because my children were in therapy at a young age, and we always had open dialogues about feelings and what was going on with them. So they were always able to share what was going on with them. And I think that's why when I talk about the anxiety and the sadness and the not having them, having them go back and forth and the sadness of that, I think all children of divorce will go through those elements.

We didn't have the traumatic elements that people did, which is what got my attention of why did I leave? I had it great. But the children in those situations where there are acutely dangerous situations, they still have the sadness and anxiety and the loss of the time with their parents. So the common denominator, regardless of the severity, divorce will impose those same things. And so, yes, I can see, oh, wow, look how The divorce affected my children, the anxiety level, the sadness, and the not getting to be with me, alternately not getting to be with him that really got my attention.

And in my own case, Mine was of the more toxic variety, so it was a good thing I didn't get to see my dad after a certain point. But that wasn't enough to make me want to spare my children the same impact. And that's where I wished it was, which is why regret number five, which is about passing on the legacy, is hoping to spare children from the sadness, anxiety, and the 50% prospect of removing them from their parental experience that they deserve, if at all possible? And do you find that parents want to rush through the process more so than take their time to really consider the impact on their lives that divorce will bring?

It's a great question. I mean, when you share, it's like, you know, was yours rushed or not? Or, I mean, you guys were in therapy, so I can't say it was really rushed even because you guys were in therapy. My experience is that, yes, there are people who, because they are thinking about themselves and their needs. And, you know, they came to this, they came with a particular expectation to the marriage and the expectation wasn't fulfilled. And they had this idea that, you know, on Instagram, everybody else is having fun and I'm not having fun.

And I you know, I should just leave so I could get to have the other fun. That piece, sometimes it's rushed. Other ways I've seen that it's not, and I usually joke and say, you got to get complete with your divorce. You either get it inside the marriage or you get it outside the marriage. So either people go through everything within their marriage and finally they come to the terms of You don't need to get a divorce. Or they don't, like you said, they leave and then they've got to get complete afterward, which usually there's a lot of remorse afterward.

What I've noticed is that when people do start looking at themselves, as beautifully you said, they do start taking accountability. They start looking at their patterns of childhood and how it has impacted the way they are. And that's part of the psychology model that I created. It's looking at your traumas, looking at your childhood, looking at what you bring that many times people even go up to the edge of the horse, but then they will come back and keep looking at how to create that. But for that really, Pamela, it takes two people.

It literally takes two people to do the work together because if one doesn't, then You know, the unity usually ends.

Healing the Family Through Writing 40:30

And I've worked with a lot of people, just like you said, where they had the fantasy of, oh, I got the wrong one and the right one is out there and I should just dump this one and go to the right one. And it didn't work out. It did not happen. And then the rewards of what was I thinking? You know, I was thinking of this, you know, the best possible thing is out there for me. And many of them get very disillusioned and, same thing you said, like the remorse of, you know, why did I do that? So yes, do I agree with you that the same way that I think it takes, it takes a certain skills and assessment to get married.

It also takes a certain skills and all of that to get a divorce. And I think that responsibility is a lot higher when you have children. I think that there is a commitment in front of society, in front of your own family, in front of you know, your God, if religion, that when you create this commune of marriage, but I still think that when you do not have children, that, you know, the possibility of separation, if for whatever reason this wasn't working for you, it's a very different act than when you chose to recreate the genetic component of the other ones with yourself and brought another human being onto the face of the earth.

A different sense of responsibility versus just saying, okay, it was a good run and that's fine. It doesn't matter that we bowed until death threw us apart. This is another death of me, so let's just say goodbye and move on and you know whether they go through the upset of oh it was a good marriage how come I didn't lose you know how come I lost it those are your personal experiences you you pay the price for what you did and you'll learn But part of what you're sharing in your book is sharing is you may choose to pay the price, but the things you do, whether you bring a child into a marriage when you shouldn't have, you should have assessed this marriage if this wasn't the one, or when you're trying to get a divorce and not worry that your behavior also have an impact of a lifetime on other human beings.

Lifetime. And three of them in my case, definitely. Yeah. So how has the writing the book become healing for you? And I'm sure the intention is for it to be not only an awareness concept for other people, but hopefully also take him through a healing perspective. Well, I think because it was so healing for me that I think that anyone who reads it will find healing in unexpected ways. And then the other thing is, too, in my own family, the daughters forgave me. In the course of writing the book, we would have discussions.

They forgave me for leaving their dad. They forgave me. And they're young adults now. and even he forgave me now this was unexpected he did not read the book when he forgave me but there was something about putting letting the regrets be transformed into lessons that healed the whole family to be able to heal from something that was 2008 just by writing a book was phenomenal. I felt like I got right with the whole sacrament of marriage, like I got right before God, like I should have been back then, but I got to do it now even though I'm not with someone or with him.

And I think that brings up an important point because you mentioned expectations people have. I think one of the things is I looked to my spouse for what only God could do, almost like a God. And when I wasn't satisfied, it was the marriage that was the problem, not understanding that a certain type of relationship with God could actually meet those needs. And so I look back now with my lens through God. my marriage and think oh yeah I depended way too heavily on the spouse to you know to do things for me I mean just by leaving saying I can't stay in this marriage and face this issue was depending on it too much to to to to carry it well this marriage can't handle this I'm out of here Well, but with God in the picture, maybe I could have been strong enough to handle it and heal not only my past, but bring an even greater intimacy to the marriage.

But there's also a reliance because I love this conversation because I deal with a lot of people who are religious or not. And I want to I want to extend the conversation also to those group because the people who are religious and believe in God can really take what you say and put it in their heart. The other one, the people who are not necessarily I want to extend that that is still a part of you, that you you talk to, there's still a part of you that can bring you accountability. And yes, you know, that's another layer of you that you know, you could you could tap into.

of your own level of commitment, of the honoring the choices you already made. And so those are concepts that can also be looked upon. And for people who do believe in God, absolutely. Like you, again, like we've got a great accountability buddy for you who didn't have a good father, for me who didn't have necessarily the right father that, you know, was a nurturing father that we put, you know, propose an imagination of the right father to be up there. We assign all of the beautiful expectations, but then no human being can really do that.

So we'll just assign it to some imaginary concept that is there and it's the best. But then good, because then I can heal myself based on that anyway, because yes, if I assign it to another human being, it won't be. So can I assign it to myself and bring that? Because there's a part of me that keeps healing me. whether it's under the name of God or under the name of another, you know, kind of like a higher consciousness that is coming. So to me, it's like I'm expanding the wording so that all of our audience who are hearing this can kind of attempt to relate to themselves.

Yes, and I didn't know that my perceptions of God were rooted in my abuse scenarios. Why would I turn to God the Father if I was abused by my father?

Final Reflections and Where to Find the Book 47:30

I had pockets of spirituality that were suffocating from my own abusive experience. And so, and so, yeah, I, I couldn't turn to God the very things that I confused with my own abuse. And so I looked at that as well. Yeah. Everyone sold custody, sparing children from the wars by Pamela Henry, Pamela, anything we haven't shared that you really want people to know. I think that taking time when you have children to really examine and ask yourself, is there anything I can do for myself about my own past that I can work on first before divorce would ever be an option?

And because there are things hidden from us. and if we can bring them to light in in some way therein lies the hope that we can stay together and we'll be so glad we did because how many married couples do you meet that say oh gee we were glad we divorced in 2008? Not many. I've actually heard that a couple of times. know, we were in the right partners with each other. And, you know, we've become best friends. And but ones who are still married, the couples who are still married, I haven't met a couple who's still married, that that regrets like not divorcing when they want it to.

True, true. And how could people find you? Well, my book is on Amazon. And also my website, soul so ul hyphen custody.com. And those are the best ways. Beautiful. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. Thank you. It's been an honor to be a guest on your show. And for all of you who are out there create an amazing life for yourself and everyone around you. And if you like what you heard, Please share it with other people and subscribe to their podcast and the YouTube channel. And until next week, bye-bye.

Are you a psychotherapist looking to enhance your practice? The Awareness Integration Therapy developed by Dr. Fu-Zhang Zeng is a comprehensive guide to the principle and techniques of this powerful therapeutic approach. Join the growing community who have elevated their practice and expanded their skills by embracing Awareness Integration Therapy and witnessing its life-changing impact. Order your copy on Amazon now.