Divorce Attorney Reveals The RED FLAGS You Should NEVER IGNORE In A Man! | Faith Jenkins

you can be the total package at the wrong address so just because you're single does not mean that there is something off within you if you're not careful over time you will internalize that messaging and being single can start to feel like something you're embarrassed about or that it's something that you need to get out of as soon as possible i could not be a cynic about love and attracting to my life at the same time [Music] welcome faith women of impact thank you thank you so much i'm so excited for you to be here as a judge on divorce court and there's now a host of killer relationships where literally people end up killing their partner you have seen some really really hard ends to relationships and i think about every relationship mostly started with love romance like attentiveness compassion and yet you've seen the absolute worst in people from hatred divorce to actually killing each other and what is the commonality that you have seen that people have in those situations where they've gone from utter love to utter disaster [Music] well i think that for a lot of the relationship problems i see what i notice first i'll talk about the cases i've seen in divorce court people don't really have a lot of relationship problems actually they have problems that they bring into their relationship and then over the course of time if unaddressed they build and then you have resentment that builds and anger that festers and unforgiveness and those are things that are deadly to love relationships so you have all of those factors and then when i talk about the other show i used to be a prosecutor in manhattan and i prosecuted a lot of really horrible crimes and then i worked in family court where i was dealing with people and their marriages and children and relationships and it was really interesting because i think relationships is something that we all can relate to but we can't relate all relate to the criminality that sometimes happen so i wanted to tell these stories because really it's taking people through this journey and it's the one question that most of us have when we see these relationships end and it's why answering the question of why why do people why is divorce not enough why is separation not enough why is it for these individuals that someone's life had to be taken so those are the two and i know i live and breathe and understand the importance of positivity in all aspects of life and so having the job on divorce court or telling these kinds of stories i always look at it as revealing the lessons in life things that we can learn from and evolve from okay that's amazing and where i love to tie everything in that you're just saying is your book cis don't settle and so as i think about how you've written a book that is basically the starting of a relationship and your career the divorce you know divorce corps and this new show is really the end so i'd love to actually start with where do we start in the relationship so system settle what are the things that we should be looking for that you have seen if you don't have it then it ends up in divorce core or it ends up in an even worse situation well this book uh really you know my professional experience is is one thing lisa but for me this was a very personal project for me because when i graduated from law school and i moved to new york and i was in the big city and had my dream job my dream apartment i thought okay this is the perfect time for me to be my husband and that did not happen for 20 years that's how long i spent dating and so i went through this journey of love and relationships and how they work and what works for me what doesn't work for me and what i realized is because i i didn't have these huge standards of love growing up in my life to pull from so people talked about dating being in art or dating being a science really no one taught me these things so i spent a lot of years trial and error learning on my own and then of course then bringing in the practice of being in family court so i merged all of those things together because i really wanted to give women a guide when i did get married you know i was it was after i turned 40 years old i had been through the questions all those years of why aren't you married why are you still single i'd been through a lot of ups and downs in relationships and learned a lot from those and so i pulled from all of those lessons because this is what i wanted to give back to women who had who are have similar journeys and struggles and questions like i did okay that's amazing so what was the first thing that you feel like because you know talking about foundation right everything that we're saying right now is building the foundation so that you don't end up in these you know horrific situations because you never marry the person you divorce and i think about that a lot and i think about as you fall in love and everything you just said it took you 20 years to figure out all those things and the choices you make in order to build the foundation of a relationship that allows you to then have you know hopefully a successful one so as you started what to you was the first fundamental step you needed to take in order to have a relationship that you could set up for success loving my life because i could not look to someone else to make me happy if i gave someone else the power to make me happy then i'm also giving them the power to make me sad i'm also giving them the power to make me depressed so owning that power for myself and deciding that being single was not a rest stop in my life it was time for me to really live if i had been waiting to meet a partner if i had been waiting to get married to really live well guess what i would have lived half my life just existing so that was the first choice i made to embrace my own happiness so that when you talk about happily ever after i'm bringing the happy to that ever after and hopefully someone else is bringing that happy too so that was the first thing and then working on myself as a single person when you get into a relationship you bring you into the relationship so knowing how if you know how to communicate effectively as a single person that's going to reflect in your relationships if you know how to compromise as a single person that's going to reflect if you know how to manage your emotions your anger when you're upset how to respond in an emotionally mature way if you know all of those things that's what you're bringing into your relationship so preparing myself becoming the right person so that when i did attract the right person i would be someone that they wanted to be with as well and i love that and then also you just know who you are so you don't adapt how many people and you say this in your book where you meet someone and now you're falling in love and everything that was important to you all your friends everything that you did just is like out of the window yes and now you have morphed yourself into being the person that that other person wants yes i do talk about that because you know in my when i started dating i was figuring out what i liked and what i didn't like and this is the time though when you're single and you're learning about yourself it's the time for you to learn those things that you're willing to compromise on in the things that you aren't so that when someone amazing and fine and sexy shows up in your life all of those things don't go out the window so i said you know you can't all of a sudden you meet a lawyer now you're watching suits every night three rows of scenes it is a good show though it is a good show and then you you meet a preacher you haven't been to church in 20 years but now you're front and center every monday and wednesday because you're navigating you're not really being who you are you're adapting to who you you're trying to impress someone with who you think they want you to be so just being really careful about being grounded and who you are it also really helps when you meet someone new because you you can recognize early on if they have character traits that you know won't mesh with you that aren't compatible with you because you already know the things that you really appreciate about a person and the things that you know won't work for you i said you have three choices you can make when you meet someone that you like and you're dating and you want to go to the next level you can accept them for who they are you can reject them cleanly kindly nicely or you can try to rebuild them rebuilding them is a choice that i see a lot of people make i used to do that and it's the worst of the three because you when when you accept someone for who they are you say okay i can love this person for who they are now we're always growing changing improving learning those are the things that you want right because you you're on a path you want someone else to be on that path to always striving to be their best self even through the peaks and the valleys and then you so you accept them for who they are if you know that there are some core incompatibilities with someone then you reject them cleanly and kindly you don't have to be mean you don't have to be angry you can just recognize that you have a different life perspective than someone else so when you see these really bad breakups that we talked about earlier that's really coming from a place where you're not enlightened about your future because if you really think that the best is still out there for you why would you be angry when a relationship ends why would you be upset when it's ending you you would just be more accepting of it and more at peace about it and then lastly rebuilding someone which is i say the worst i like you but these are all the things that i need you to change and do different in order for this relationship to work people do not change because they are being forced to by someone else they change because it comes from a place within where they want to do something different and they think that it will be an improvement in their own life so nagging doesn't work harassing doesn't work giving someone an ultimatum does not work and those are the things that build resentment in your partner and sooner or later they will leave there will be a separation because you can't build a relationship based on that kind of resentment god that's so powerful like resentment is one of those things and i've heard you say like in relationships it's really the day-to-day right it's how do you act how do you show up every day with your partner and you know are you cohesive um and i really think about that like how people get to the point where they really really truly resent like this sometimes true freaking hatred in that person's eye and that's what's going back to something earlier it's like when you first meet someone you have the love but you that you know like oh my god this person's never gonna hurt me look how generous look how kind look how sweet they are and then flash forward five or ten years later and it becomes the person that is the bane of your existence that is like keeping you awake at night that is just spilling hatred into you into your life or your relationship and so i like going back to like what is that i think resentment is such a big part of it and how many people do you see in those situations where they've said but you said you were gonna do this or you said you were gonna be this person and now you've changed and so it's kind of is that taking ownership is that actually do you see that being useful saying um you know you've actually we made an agreement and you're the one that switched and if so how would you actually if you could rewind what would you change about it an example would be when a couple discusses having children and they agree that let's say the couple agrees that they will have kids at some point and and they get married this is a friend of mine real life situation that happened he was married for several years and his wife decided that even though initially she thought she wanted kids she changed her mind and she did not want to have children they had an open and honest conversation and they ended up getting a divorce because that was a true level of incompatibility at that point and it wasn't there in the beginning and initially they had these discussions well but you said that this is what you wanted and you changed your mind and that was the wedge that was being created between them in the end i think they handled it in a healthy way and going their separate ways because they didn't try to destroy each other on the way out which is what you see far too often but what you have to do is recognize because we we're humans we we are going to change being in a marriage by definition changes you the moment you get married because what other there's no other relationship that you're going to have it's not the parent-child relationship the sibling relationship that brings you as close as you will be to your significant other than this marriage than this life partnership you're talking about the person who will really see you at your weakest at your most vulnerable moments all of those things so by definition that relationship changes us but then as we go through life and we evolve there are other things that that are going to change so you hope when you're making a decision about who you go through this partnership with the change won't be something that is um that is in opposition to what your core values are because that's when it really breaks down when the change becomes in opposition to your core values and then you have a different choice to make so there are two things that are really important when you realize that it's not working and you have those open and honest conversations and then it's second how you treat each other when you are going in a different direction because i always say and this is so important how many times did have you gone through or you've witnessed your friends go through relationships and then they go through a breakup and someone is being vindictive they are being spiteful now they're full of all of this revenge and all of these things and they say wow i never saw this side to a person that is a red flag because whatever what's in them is coming out of them if those things were not inside of them when they're under pressure then it would not come out of them it's just like when you take an orange and i give you an orange and you squeeze it right now what's going to come out of it orange juice i can put it on the table i can put it on the floor i can put it on top of a heater you squeeze it one thing is going to come out of it and that is orange juice so when you're under pressure and you see people under pressure how they start treating each other that is reflective of their character because it is easy to treat people right when things are going well how do people treat each other when things are not going well that is the key and a reflection of someone's true nature and you think do you think that that's always like or do you think it becomes building blocks where people get hurt they you know um put up barriers and they get hurt again they put up more barriers so over time it becomes well i never used to be vindictive but you've hurt me this time you hurt me this time you hurt me this time i keep going back and now i have a very different feeling towards it like how do you think that that's um preventable yes because we're all on a journey and it's our responsibility often when we experience hurt and pain in our lives we we we can't control where it comes from and we aren't in charge of the person who hurt us but we are in charge of our healing i don't believe that people should stay in relationships where they repeatedly disrespected and dishonored it's heartbreaking for me to witness that actually because what happens over time is it starts to become normal for them right and it starts to become a part of their process and a part of their lives and then they in turn start to believe that they aren't worthy of the honor and the respect because they're used to being disrespected so when you're talking about someone over time in that resentment building and those building blocks it is because of when you stay and that start and that becomes a part of your norm then you're trying to protect yourself it's like how do i protect myself then you're building up those walls have you seen those any relationships like that in divorce court where you in your opinion it has crossed the boundary and it's like now a partners being malicious to the other person and you see that it is a norm in their relationship have you seen that and if so what do you say because i'm just trying to think about what are the things or people can identify where they're like oh yeah this has been um a long dripping effect that i've now accepted but if i had flashed back 10 years i never would have accepted it as like on in and of itself i see it all the time and i think that a couple of things happen over time it becomes normalized so people stay longer and then they choose history over their happiness oh tell me about that because they look back at the history of their relationship and to when times were good and they reflect on that and then they think that the pain of staying will be less than the pain of leaving and it's just not the case because once you leave and you're really able to get yourself out of the situation you're able to work on yourself that pain will eventually subside but it can't as long as you remain so it takes strength and courage and and and just a real sense of knowing that you want something different and something better for yourself for you to be able to walk away it's a hard truth about life sometimes you're going to have to walk away from people that you love but you got to do it for your for your own peace for your own self for your own security and your own future how do you start to do that then because i know that you know like we all want things and so when we want something and we see inclinations or signs we have the confirmation bias like oh my god see he does love me or she loves me um how do we make sure that we're not making decisions based on the confirmation bias because like you said once you're out of it then you can say oh i'm glad i'm out and now i'm doing the healing yes but when you're in it it's hard to see that ask yourself with this question are the two of you committed to the same commitment and what is that commitment is that commitment treating each other well is that commitment learning from your mistakes is that commitment bringing a healthy person into the relationship what are you committed to because you can't just say i'm committed to being in this relationship it's easy to fall in love but it takes work to stay there so what are you committed to are you committed to doing the work if you're with someone who's really not committed to doing the work of what it takes to be in a healthy relationship then you're not committed to the same commitment i love that so much and actually now this perfect time if you can break down how you approach once you met your your husband now um how you started to make sure because everything you're talking about is so freaking powerful and not only is it powerful but you're living you're the living example of these are the things you actually mean right so if you can break down when you first met your husband like you went to therapy before you even got engaged like i love all this because i want to make sure that when people are hearing like it's we don't want to fear monger people right it's like hey guys this is the potential death trap that we're all getting ourselves into into a relationship and then how do we prevent it how do we empower ourselves to have our eyes wide open to make a decision based on the right person but always also going to your point of but we all also evolve so how am i choosing the right person that i can evolve with and so if you don't mind breaking down how you basically approach this i think it's so genius well that's that the reason why i was so motivated to write the book is because i remember going through all those years being single you know everyone's journey is different you're you've been with your husband a long time so you have a totally different journey and experience than someone like me who's only been married for two years so we have to embrace our journey and where we're going i wanted to write this book because getting married after 40 years old and hearing all of these things over the course of the years about you know what are the possibilities what are the chances well when are you going to find love all these things and then i end up meeting the most amazing man and uh and everything that i wanted everything that i've been waiting for when i met him it was all worth it so i wanted to write the book to say going through the peaks and the valleys and the lessons and the hurt and the pain and everything i learned from it in the end it was all worth it because i met the person who added all of the value and added the things that i wanted to add in my life and i used the word ad for a reason because i knew i was bringing a lot to the table and i wanted someone who was going to add to the happiness i already had so when i met kenny and we we dated for six months before we got engaged i just gone through a breakup the year prior to meeting him it's easy to talk about you know the best is yet to come when you're not going through anything or dreaming big about the future but when you're going through a breakup and you're going through that pain and that hurt i made a decision and i said i've learned all of these lessons this is the time that i will apply it to my life because this is really important now and so i took out a sheet of paper and i just wrote down what i wanted to see happen in my love life within the next year i was always really good about doing that in my career but i've never really done it in my personal life so i took out a sheet of paper and i said within the next year i'm going to meet my husband and i wrote about the things that i would be attracted to in him what kind of person he would be and i took that sheet of paper and i put it in my nightstand and i looked at it every day now i wasn't out you know walking the streets every day looking for and saying is that him you know i wasn't doing that but i expected that that would happen and the second thing i did is i released that prior relationship i didn't fight for it i didn't hang on to it i decided i will radically accept that this relationship is coming to an end and there's a reason for it coming to an end i didn't i was in pain i was hurt about it but i wasn't gonna suffer through it like i did in the past and i said i'm gonna let this go and i'm gonna open myself up to meet my husband the love of my life and six months later i was out taking voice lessons again you know i used to sing years ago and i was thinking what what can i do what do i like to do what are just some of the things that i really love doing and i thought i want to sing i want to go out and take some voice lessons again and so in the midst of doing that i met with someone who works in music my husband is a professional singer i met with someone who works in music we were just having lunch one day i was not thinking this is the day that someone's going to introduce me to the man i marry i was just doing the things that i loved and going through life and i met with the music producer and he said in that moment that he sat down with me he knew that he wanted to introduce me to kenny and when he talks about the story he said he went home to his wife that day and he said to her i met someone who i want to introduce to kenny but i'm a little hesitant because i don't know her that well just in a professional setting but he was really good friends with kenny had known him for 15 years and she said well what do you think what do you feel and he said i think they're perfect for each other and they should meet and so he orchestrated us meeting and so six months after i wrote that note that i was going to meet my husband i went and had lunch with the man that i would marry a year later so many of us are feeling stuck right now we have this dream and desire that we have ignored upon pause for so long and we tell ourselves that we'll go after it when when i have the time when i have the confidence and trust me i get it i spend eight years waiting for my life to change because i didn't have the confidence to do it myself but what if i didn't need the confidence to make a change what if i could have radical confidence which means not having the confidence but doing it anyway these are some of the 10 mobius life lessons i'll be teaching you in my new book radical confidence i have so many amazing bonuses to click the link below and let's get radically confident right freaking now i love that story so much what do you think writing that down actually does i became honest with myself about what i really wanted and and also had a very honest conversation with god in that moment about what i really wanted and writing it down for me made it more real right for me and uh it was really important for me to have the courage to be able to do that because i think for so long i was fearful that i would get my hopes up about love again and it i will be disappointed yet again and i realized something really important at that time in my life i could not be a cynic about love and attracted into my life at the same time so i had to let go a lot of the things in the past that i'd gone through to be able to open myself up to love like i wanted to yeah because that's so powerful because you know just as a regular person who may have gone through some you know bad breakups you do get cynical but for you who has had like the extreme scene like the horrors that really you know a a bad relationship can lead to um the fact that you're not cynical and that you're not sitting there with your husband with your little notepad like waiting like i'm watching i just dropped the ball once i've got my eye on you right because you're so worried that your relationship could turn into something bad um what are the things that you're actually doing in order for you to make sure that you're not cynical because that's the one thing so i've been married for 20 years and about to celebrate our 20-year wedding anniversary congratulations and thank you and i have said you know we've got our non-negotiables in our relationship and we've made them very clear from day one you can't hit me or cheat on me those two things i'm out the door there's no discussion there's no explanation i'm literally packing my bags and i'm out the door we've vote we've made it very clear but then thinking about if he did well i can't control him like i like to think i've got a stable marriage and i do everything but there's no being able to control someone else and i think about if he cheated on me i've had 20 years of faith in believing him and his word and all the flags i don't see any red flags i don't know how i would believe in love again after that and i i tell him that very honestly i'm like i have no idea how to believe in love again or trust love because trust myself to be able to trust someone that says they wouldn't do it yes so i can only imagine people who have been in relationships where they feel the way that i felt yeah and they have had someone betrayed them how have you been able to stay so positive in the relationships and love in marriage in respect and all of that how are you able to to do that what you describe is so real because that's what happens over time when you've been through betrayal and heartbreak and you've had your the trust has been broken and i go through all these stories in the book because i had all of these dating experiences and but at some point it's a journey i don't think you can just wake up one day and say you know what i had all these experiences but today i'm going to be healed and whole and walk out and attract the love of my dreams it is a journey it is a process it is a daily process when you've been broken by someone who promised to love you forever and at some point though it is a decision that you will not live your life based on fear because what it really is is a fear of getting hurt again and a fear of being heartbroken again and i went through that and i really had to ask myself who do i want my husband to meet do i want him to meet a faith that's been battered and bruised and broken in the past or do i want him to meet someone who's gone through this healing journey and this healing process still going through it because we all are as we go through life and i decided that i wanted him to meet the latter the second thing is i realized that that fear wasn't serving me what it really was doing was poisoning my perspective and i didn't want someone new in my life to pay the price for something they had nothing to do with in my past when you go through heartbreak and someone has betrayed you it takes time to heal from that so i took time in between some of my relationships to get past it to work through it and to do all those things and you think in your mind at the time i'm never going to be able to trust i'm never going to be able to love again because you you someone has broken your core one of your core values and that is the loyalty but you will you will when you make a decision that you will do the work to work through it and get past it you cannot control what other people do you can only control how you respond to it i love that so much so when you're in a if people find themselves in a toxic relationship what do you find the thing that holds people um that keeps people there there's there's so many things but i i find that over time there's an element of control that has been exerted in their lives if we if you look at the uh the show that i'm doing now in the cases that we have on the show there's a common element in being throughout their relationships and i think that it's a level of control and seeing that so early on and then people thinking that it is a form of love unfortunately because oh he cares so much that's why he's calling me five times a day to see where i am it takes strength and a lot of self reflection and inner reflection to realize when you're in something that is not healthy for you and a lot of times when we have friends and family who recognize things and they say things to us it's not people who are just trying to reign on our happy parade of love they're they can see things on the outside that you can't sometimes and so you know taking a step back and listening and observing and then asking yourself what do you really want the relationship to look like in your life it's really important to have some element of independence even when you're in a relationship because you never want to feel like you're staying because you have to yeah not because you want to yeah how many people do you think do that stay because they feel like they have to especially if you've got kids and um it's hard it's it's hard it's really challenging i and i can't when people ask me is it time for me to get a divorce right yeah i bet you get asked out all the time if you're asking me that question you already know the answer and and so i'm not going to get i'm not going to tell you oh yes it's time absent you know there's some of course some situations where i talk about get out immediately when it's forms of abuse and i see it and you're telling me about it absolutely but the other decisions that you're making when relationships are growing apart and all these other things it's a very deeply personal decision and i have friends who have gone through divorce and it took them years to get there because of all of the other issues that they were having to grapple with what this would really mean and how it would affect so many lives but i will tell you most of them tell me that it took me years to get there but it was something that i probably should have done sooner yes so how do you get people to do as soon as they don't waste their lives like what is that thing i mean obviously i think it's denial right people don't want to admit that maybe the relationship is going the wrong way so they stay with it right so it's like i can there's like elements that i can understand why people stay in that relationship um but like what is that thing of like how do you try and help people like to eliminate those years where they they knew it i mean literally they knew this relationship isn't going to work but then they stay for the greater good of the kids for the greater good of the family for the you know for the good of um even their partner who isn't making them happy um do you think that it's just inevitable and they have to come to that conclusion by themselves they really do and it's a choice you pay now or you pay later some people are not willing to pay now so they they pay later and sometimes when their relationship issues they come in peaks and valleys so when the good times are good they hang on to them when the bad times are bad they're hoping that they will go back to the good and but again it goes back to are you really committed to the same commitment and are you working towards that commitment together i have another friend actually whose wedding i went to he was only married for a year i went to the wedding and i talked to him about this and i interviewed him for my book because i wanted to know the opposite of that as well there are people who remain in relationships far longer and i always say there's only one thing worse than being in a bad relationship that's overextending your stay in one and then his story and i interviewed him for the book because i wanted to know what made you make the decision so early on in your marriage and he said that what i've heard many times people will often tell you they never wish they moved faster when they come in no one ever comes in and say wow i wish we would have moved faster [Laughter] they always wish that they would have taken more time and they would have gotten to know the other person more because he said what happened is when they got married he realized that there were all of these things that he had really turned a blind eye to hoping that they would get better after the wedding and they didn't they got worse and i tell people a wedding does not change anything maybe your last name but it won't change anything else about someone they will break the bank but it doesn't break bad habits so if someone has those bad habits prior to the wedding nothing about being at that altar being in a dress being in a tux is going to change any of that so actually it's funny you say that because my sister the same thing happened when she was in a relationship for actually a while and then she got married and then very soon after she got married she realized she shouldn't have gotten married and when in talking up to her about it she talks about the pressure and the the cultural pressure orthodox so you know once you've been with someone for a while it's like well hang on where's the next step you've been together for two years where's the marriage you've been married three i got the you've been married for a year where are the kids like so absolutely the questions don't stop coming they just don't so that's why i say people just live their life yeah so but you you talk about in the book about the pressure that was coming your way all the time and you call it i believe the danger zone yes so talk to me about the danger zone and how we can avoid it because i love what you're saying in that there's multiple um issues it's people stay in relationships way too long and they haven't been able to identify along the way the red flags needed either to maneuver and improve the relationship or to get out and there's the other side of it like you said where you maybe should never have got married in the first place and so how do we identify those and then the danger zones well for me as a single woman in my 20s and my 30s and being a professional woman working all these other things there was this external pressure that people would try to place on me by just the questioning of why i was single as if it was a byproduct of something wrong within me if you're not careful over time you will internalize that messaging and being single can start to feel like something you're embarrassed about right or that it's something that you need to get out of as soon as possible that's what i call the danger the danger zone because it's like people are telling you to just pick somebody already and i didn't want to do that i'd looked at people who had just picked someone because they succumbed to the pressure of some artificial timeline and i didn't want that to be me so you have these questions coming for you and people were not shy about asking me i would meet people and they would say oh hi it's so nice to meet you why aren't you married i'll never forget that happened once when i went home to a family event that was the first question that someone asked me in front of other people and it's like you're so taken aback by it because what does the messaging really imply to you you've got all these great things but you can't really be that happy because you don't have a man [Music] so i had to take a step back and say the people asking you that that is a reflection of them that is not a reflection of you to your point the questions don't stop coming as soon as i got married guess what people started asking me when you have kids of course and for my friends who have children people well when are you going to have another one are you going to have another one are you going to try for a girl are you going to try for a boy you have to get used to just really ignoring all of the noise around you and being okay with what your personal journey is you don't have to explain it you don't have to defend it you don't have to share it it is your journey and your personal life and it takes strength and that's why you read books like mine i started reading you know how i learned i started reading and sharing with other women what i was learning about what worked and what didn't some of these core principles in relationships and what i learned was no one was going to put pressure on me to do something or be committed to someone just for the sake of saying that i was in a relationship do you understand the implications of choosing a life partner do you understand the time you're going to be spending with this person the type of influence they're going to have over your life if you choose to have children the type of influence they'll have over your children's lives it is the most important decision you will make in your life not your career not any of those things that is a decision and no one was going to put pressure on me to move faster because they thought i needed to be on some kind of timeline oh my god that's so powerful and to your the title of your book don't settle um so many people and i don't know if you found this but growing up again i was greek orthodox family so i very much it was the end goal was married that was like the end goal just get married and you'll be fine you even said like hang on you've got a freaking fiery career you're loving your life you're you know settled you're living in a place that you love and then you go to this thing and everyone's like oh hang on but you're not married hang on right like yeah um there are there is an insinuation in that there's multiple insinuations is that your life isn't complete until this actually happens yes and then also there's a more like oh but so what's wrong with you because someone else hasn't accepted you versus what i love what you're saying is i haven't accepted someone else that's it that's it that's it it's it's your journey in your life path and your decision to make and you know we talk about rejection in the book because this is so important especially when you're single and you're dating you can be the total package at the wrong address so just because you're single does not mean that there is something off within you i went through a lot of rejection over the years of of dating and you're going to go through rejection in life it's just going to happen with jobs with your career with friends relationships all of those things you have to be able to master how to handle rejection i went to i talk about this in my book this one story that really shaped my entire perspective on rejection i was in college and i was not dating anyone i didn't really date seriously in college at all but there was a really cute guy at the school that i liked i kind of had a crush on him and we had this formal event coming up every year that um a lot of the kids at the school would go to when you would dress up in the gowns and suits and it was really fun it's like the prom but it was college and it was a few days away and i decided i was going to ask this really cute guy that i would see the student union every day to go with me not a big deal not asking him to date or be my boyfriend or anything like that just go to this event so i went over to him and i asked him i said hey we're having this event friday night you've probably heard about it i'm going i was going to go by myself but i would love to have a date would you like to go with me well he got really flustered and fumbled over his words a bit and then he you know straight himself up and he told me no rejected right then on the spot in the student union and i remember standing there to being a little bit embarrassed and just kind of avoiding him for the rest of the semester but i went to the event anyway five years later and this was so key because a lot of times these situations happen and you don't know the why and you you never really learn the why five years later i'm back in my college town and i'm walking down the street with some friends and we go into a store and this guy is in the store he sees me calls me over and he starts talking to me about the event from five years ago he said you remember when you asked me to go to this event i'd forgotten i didn't remember but he starts telling me and i did remember and i was like oh yes and he said you know i told you no that i couldn't go with you but i really i want to tell you the reason why he said i really liked you and i really actually wanted to go with you but i didn't have a suit i didn't have anything to wear and i was too embarrassed to tell you that i didn't have anything to wear now at this time i'm thinking everybody had one of those big steve harvey suits in their closets but apparently not not him but he told me that story and i thought wow i remember how my feelings were so hurt back then and i thought he didn't like me like he didn't like me enough to go to this event with me and i think when you think about rejection it's so important that you remember you know a lot of times rejection has nothing to do with you it's what somebody else is dealing with and their perspective and what's going on in their lives but if we're not careful we make it a whole story about us we're not smart enough we're not good enough all these other stories we tell ourselves and we build in our minds over time as to why we're being rejected in that moment i realized i could not take rejection so personal in my life whether it was a job a career any of those things i would not take it so personal because so often it just wasn't about me that saved me a lot of heartache and about five pounds of ice cream over the next several years i love that story so much because here's what i think um there are multiple ways that in that moment where you get rejected you could have really internalized it where you even said like okay clearly he doesn't like me but at least thinking about myself in college like being insecure and not really like being confident in who i was and really wanting to be liked because i'd been bullied and picked on in school i could see myself going oh this is probably what he doesn't like about me to let me change it absolutely and now a misinterpretation that i've had on someone else in their own head thinking about themselves i've now internalized it it's all about me i now want to be like to have an insecurity in me right so i now adjust and adapt to try and be liked and then before you know it you are now someone that doesn't necessarily compete with who you want to be yeah and all because someone didn't have a suit they had nothing to do with what they actually felt about you yeah yeah and in your book you really do something like internalize everything it's all about you know the the you in the sense of who can i show up to be what's the best person i can show up and you even said earlier to let them into your life versus you molding yourself to fit that person's life yes um and that was very evident when you were approaching your relationship with your now husband um and you guys went into therapy before you got engaged and then went into therapy again before you got married absolutely can you talk to me about it because it's so powerful i'd never heard of also someone getting therapy before they got engaged yes and also after well when you get engaged and you announce your engagement and everyone's celebrating and everyone's happy and then you go into counseling what happens when a big issue comes up are most people going to really take a step back and not go forward with a wedding when they've now announced to the world that they're getting married so i wanted to put our relationship in the best possible position to really win and i knew that i was smart and had learned all of these things about relationships because it was my idea to go to counseling and he was very open to it and accepting but i thought am i really asking all of the right questions because i have not been married before this is a new experience for me so is there something that i'm missing why don't we go to a third party who's a professional who does this for a living and they can ask some additional questions just in case i'm missing something i called it doing my due diligence and that's what i talk about in the book doing my due diligence and um and so that's what we did but it gave me so much peace when we did get engaged it was it was so much peace and that decision because we'd already gone through this journey of counseling and going to therapy and talking about all these things expectations what do you expect from a wife what do you expect from a husband a lot you know just so many things that we talked about that were really important to bring to the forefront before you say yes to forever these are the discussions that we wanted to have not after so after we said yes to this forever love then we started having different discussions in our counseling sessions but it was really important for me to go to those sessions before i made the decision to say yes it's so smart like everything you just said is like oh my god of course yes but we don't do it in matters of the heart we would do of course like if you're buying a house if you're buying a car yes right it's like what's the vin number let me make sure it wasn't in any car accidents right it's like you do all of your research when you're about to invest but we don't do that in matters of the heart and i actually i've heard people say like um relationship shouldn't be hard work right love like that isn't love enough and the truth is it's like you hope it is but it's not the truth is is that like anything if you're entering you even said like it's marriage is new to me so of course i would look into what does it take for a marriage and it's like a business right you would do the same thing it's like okay what is it going to take how do i understand p l's how do i build out my team what does it mean to be a manager but with relationships and love we don't do that same type of thing it's really interesting isn't it because in every other area of our life when we talk about success people say a key is preparation yes people think that love is just a feeling and that this feeling is going to is going to be what makes our relationship stand the test of time but it's really not it's a commitment to the relationship when the feeling ebbs and flows because we're human our feelings are going to change over time so for me i wanted to prepare just when i was in law school and i prepared for exams what did i do i studied right all those things so it was all about preparing because i wanted to set myself up for success in my relationship just like i did for all those other aspects of life yeah and that's what i love that you've done and what your book has is just like it's really setting the the stage for this is it's all the pre-work you can't just show up and expect it to happen no you have to build the foundation and cis don't settle is the freaking foundation to i believe a true like long-lasting happy fulfilling relationship where can people follow you where can people find the book and just all the amazing all the shows that you're doing is so fun i've got a lot on my plate right now but um i i feel really blessed because this is really the story that i wanted to share with women one of my life goals was to inspire and empower women in their journey to finding that authentic love because i do believe that you can have the love that you want in your life and uh and i hopefully hope that this book is a part of the key to unlocking that for people so it's everywhere books are sold i'm on social media judge faith jenkins you can find me on instagram and facebook and twitter and people write to me every day and give me feedback about the book i love reading it so it's it's been really amazing and thank you so much for having me here oh my god my pleasure your advice is so fire guys guys guys you've got to go check out system settle out now when i say this is literally a guide to setting your relationship up so that it doesn't end up in divorce core or god forbid on killer relationships um but literally this is a foundation on how to build a long-lasting relationship and a successful happy long-lasting relationship so go check it out if you're not following me follow me at lisabillyw and until next time guys be the hero of your own life peace out sis don't settle

Channel: Lisa Bilyeu

Views: 1,809,671

Keywords: Judge Faith Jenkins, Sis Don’t Settle, Lisa Bilyeu, Women of Impact, women, women empowerment, interview, q&a, business advice, advice for women, tips for women, podcasts, divorce, family court, divorce attorney, relationship disaster, love and relationships, dating life, dating for women, single women in their 40s, resentment in marriage, unhealthy relationships, pressure to get married, cynical about love, toxic love, Divorce Court TV, Oxygen True Crimes

Id: zgmQHz0OqCE

Length: 52min 39sec (3159 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 30 2022