sSara (00:05)

Empowered people make informed decisions that lead to living a life without regret. This is Sara Khaki and Shawna Woods from Atlanta Divorce Law Group. And this is the Happily Ever After Divorce Podcast. Welcome to the Happily Ever After Divorce Podcast. I’m attorney Sara Khaki with Atlanta Divorce Law Group. And I’m joined by our very own managing partner, Shawna Woods. Today, we will be addressing the question, are you coddling your partner?

Or your spouse. Shawna, I remember when you actually messaged me one day after I think it was a specific case you were coming out of and you had this idea of discussing this topic. So what recently happened? What recently did you deal with in or outside of the court that made you think of this?

sShawna (00:58)

You know, and it’s not just one individual. It was this one thing that happened that kind of made me have this mind idea to bring this to the podcast. But, you know, when you have a person who is a caretaker and many of us are, and you want the best for your spouse, sometimes it can go over the top to the spouse’s detriment. And a lot of times this happens to my male clients.

More often than it happens to my female clients. And I’m not saying it can’t be flipped, but the script is flipped in different ways. Talking in particularly about this one. This man’s spouse has never had to work outside the home. Their children are long grown. In fact, they have grandchildren at this point. This spouse is so. Toddles that they don’t have to.

Worry about what’s in their bank account. They don’t have to worry about getting up during the day to do anything. Everything is done for them. Now that might sound lovely because quite frankly, I’d love to be an international woman of leisure. That is actually my goal in life.

sSara (02:16)

That sounds like an actual title. International woman of leisure. And I love that you added the word international in there. That made it even more exciting. Keep on.

sShawna (02:25)

Well, because when I think about that, think about traveling. Think about becoming something that is, you know, you’re enjoying your life. But the coddled person, the person who’s not out there doing the self growth and the self awareness and accomplishing things on their own, whose spouses have really done everything for them. They are now just children. Yeah, just children.

Stuck in a gilded cage and a gilded house. And when the spouse who has coddled them all along out grows that no longer finds that to be an attractive trait, no longer finds that to be satisfying in a relationship. The spouse that has been coddled, and this takes two to do this, it takes the coddler and the coddley. The spouse that has been coddled is very much

Like a child coming into the world not understanding how to function. How do I purchase a house? How do I pay my house bills? How do I pay my utility bills? Where do I go to buy a car? They don’t know the simple skill set of grown adults because their spouse has taken care of everything for them to the detriment of both parties and the marriage.

sSara (03:48)

I love this topic so much for so many reasons because A, even if we’re not dealing with divorce, we’re in a happy, healthy marriage. It is the prudent thing to do for the sake of the partnership to make sure you’re growing together, right? That doesn’t mean you’re both growing professionally. That doesn’t mean you’re both growing financially, but it means that mindset-wise, perspective,

Worldliness, understanding what it takes to get from A to Z, you’re growing together in those things. And I understand that, you know, sometimes you have the stereotypical financially more successful spouse that could be the husband that comes in and tells the wife that, know what, I would love nothing more than to provide for you. You stay home, you don’t have to worry about anything. And that’s what I want to provide for you.

And as much as sweet as that sounds, I think that that’s not real love because God forbid something happens to you. What is this person supposed to do? And that we see that we don’t handle trust in a state, but we see that in a lot of our colleagues and other firms who do estate planning where all sudden somebody’s left behind with this.

Massive estate that they don’t know, they’re overwhelmed by it, they have no idea what to do about it, because they were not in the know and they were just coddled. And not coddled from a place of financial control or I want to keep you isolated, but from a place of like, I’ll provide for you, you don’t have to lift a finger, you don’t have to worry about anything. And I think it takes me back to a lot of lessons in leadership, which is, you know,

Somebody being an individual contributor and just wanting to be in control and take care of everything versus saying, know what, I’m going to take the time and build a partnership here and raise you up with me and help you empower you so that anything happens to me, you can, you can take care of yourself as well. Or if one day this relationship doesn’t work out, you’re not left out in the dark.

So that’s in a healthy, happy marriage and relationship. But what I think happens realistically is, and we see this so often, especially in our entrepreneur divorces when we have business owners who they met each other at a certain point in life, both of them might’ve had nothing, and a conscious decision was made that he would work on build the business where she would just take care of the home.

And she might have done some of the initial help with the administrative stuff some of that. I’m making sure office is running until he can afford to hire staff and then she backed out of it and he just started providing and building his business providing and building this business one day fifteen years later two kids in he realizes he is mentally and emotionally outgrown her and he comes home to a child. And i hate saying this cuz.

It’s painful for him and it’s so painful for her and I feel for both of them, but they’ve both played a part here. They’ve both enabled this to happen. And what’s sad is that the script gets flipped on her. Because she was playing along with what she thought all this time is what he wanted. And he, and he was doing what he thought would be the ultimate way of providing love, which is you don’t worry about anything. Once I get this business up and running, I am going to have you.

On a pedestal, but when emotionally they have grown so far apart because an ocean divided them once he achieved the goal and became this whole other version of himself in order to create this business and she got left behind and now she’s got to figure out how to fish and he’s now complaining. She doesn’t know how to do anything. Well, she never needed to.

It’s heartbreaking, but we see this a lot.

sShawna (07:59)

We do see this a lot and there is a movie and I’ve only seen the clip of it. And you said pedestal and just reminded me of it and it’s very emblematic and it’s what we’re kind of talking about where this man comes in and. Of course, it’s supposed to be metaphorically, but physically builds this pedestal for his wife in his office for her to sit on because he says all I need to do for inspiration is to look at you being pretty all day. So I just need you to sit on this pedestal.

And be pretty. And as the movie progresses, the office chair slowly turns away from the pedestal. Wow. That’s no longer the inspiration. Is sitting there and just being an inspiration by being, and I’m not just talking about physical beauty because we’re hopefully attracted to each other’s soul beauty. But what we’re looking at is that’s not enough to sustain an actual relationship.

Inspiration about who the person you are comes from continuing to grow that inspiration continuing to be that person and grow within that relationship and Neither party should be winning each other in a position where it’s like you just sit there I’m gonna put you on a shelf and when I’m ready, I’m gonna come get my inspiration from you We’ve talked about this a little bit before you have to have this relationship with yourself before you can have a relationship with another person

And being put on a pedestal is not having a relationship with yourself. Putting someone on a pedestal is not having a relationship with yourself because that’s not what you want of yourself. Why is that what you want of your partner?

sSara (09:44)

That is so well said and man that that image is jarring. You know, it goes also back to the book we refer back to quite a bit and we actually give this out to our clients, which is the power of 10 and it talks about the drama triangle and it outlines, you know, the victim, the perpetrator and the rescuer in a basically a dysfunctional relationship. And you coddle.

Your spouse you don’t ever help them figure things out for themselves you don’t ever support them in learning and growing how to be a partner side by side with you and compliment the things you’re doing you are ultimately being a rescuer and the rescuer at some point. Will either turn into the victim or the perpetrator so you’ll either some point get so fed up.

With everything you’re right now providing and coddling and rescuing them from instead of challenging them to grow, challenging them to develop their own skills and develop their own gifts. All of us have gifts, no matter what it is, we all have a gift, we all have a contribution to make. It could be spiritual, it could be educational, it could be professional, it could be financial, it could be in parenting. There’s so many different ways we could express that, but if you don’t

Challenge your partner to express their gift and develop their gift, you are rescuing them. And at some point when you’ve finished, when you take a look and look at how far you’ve come in your own development and your own development of your gift, you may feel like a victim to your spouse and say, you’ve just taken and taken and not really given anything in return. And that’s not fair because you enabled this or

You will become a perpetrator, you could potentially leave them behind and hurt them and leave them for a more ideal situation for yourself at that point.

sShawna (11:47)

I’m flipping the scribe on that and the person who is being coddled who is you know the victim in this scenario when they no longer see that as serving them because a lot of people don’t because this coddling generally started taking place when a year much younger right and if you grow into a much more adult version of yourself if you are trying to break free and learn to do certain things on your on your own you have now turned the rescuer into the persecutor

Just by the version of your mindset shifting. They didn’t do anything else. Your mindset shifted from, no longer want to be coddled, but I don’t know how to break out of this toxic relationship. Therefore, now you’re my persecutor. I’m naming you that.

sSara (12:33)

So that is so good.

sShawna (12:35)

The two way here, it is not good to be coddled and it is not good to coddle. And I know we’re using male and female, but this goes back and forth. The female can coddle just as much as the male.

sSara (12:45)

Oh, absolutely. I’ll give you an example. Every time my mom forces my dad to take his blood pressure medication, she’s coddling him. And he probably would not take it if it wasn’t for her. And I think 1000 % she believes he would die if it wasn’t for her. And he believes that she is micromanaging him.

It is the classic case of coddling, but they’re both enabling it and they’re both participating in it.

sShawna (13:18)

Yeah. And at some point, if that does, it’s no longer serving them. That’s when we see them in my office. So when I’m having stories that are coming to fruition and I have to tell you for the most part, most of the, and this did happen to me, a man, most of the men who are like, yes, I did this. Take responsibility and I understand that I did this. And I do think that’s a healthy way to approach it. However, what

Tends to happen in these particular situations is that the other person feels very victimized because, now I’m here, you got me here, and I don’t know how to get out of it. Thank you.

sSara (13:59)

Thank you, Shawna.

Thanks for listening to the Happily Ever After Divorce Podcast. If you’d to learn more, go to atlantadivorcelawgroup.com/resources.