Welcome to my podcast. Happily, even After. I’m life coach, jen, I’m passionate about helping people recover from betrayal. I rode the intense emotional roller coaster and felt stuck and traumatized for years. It’s the reason I became a trauma-informed certified life coach who helps people like you navigate their post-betrayal world. I have the tools, processes and knowledge to help you not only heal from the betrayal but create a healthy future. Today we begin to help you live happily even after. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast.
So this idea of this podcast actually came from one of my clients and he was telling me you know things he tolerates in his life and I don’t know why, but the word, when I read the word tolerate, he’s one that he likes to send me like his thought downloads ahead of his session, which is great, like I love it, because then I can like give him you know tips and stuff like that and help him through those thoughts. But I just I don’t know, I’m like I the word tolerance. When I read it I was like really I’ve just been thinking about it for weeks and actually last night I have another brother who is an attorney and thinks a lot differently than I do, but we had a whole discussion on tolerance. It was really good. So this could be a topic you might, you know, could bring up at the dinner table maybe. But so I’m going to give you the definition really quick Tolerate to tolerate you allow the existence, occurrence or practice of something that one does not necessarily that you like or agree with, okay, but you don’t have. You’re not interfering with them doing it. You accept or endure someone or something that’s unpleasant or disliked. Now I’m going to relate this to betrayal, but I was just thinking if you tolerate a situation or a person, you accept them although you do not particularly like them, okay.
And I just was thinking I mean so many things in our life, like I think tolerance they said it is a moral virtue, tolerance is more than putting up with things, it’s actually a virtue. So tolerance, in a way, I think, is a good thing, it’s a good quality, and you know how people that have things that they’re really good at tolerating can also become like things they’re not good at. So I’m like maybe I am a really tolerant person because I tolerated a lot of crap in my marriage and so I think that’s why it stuck out to me, because I was like, wait, it’s good to be tolerant, right, it’s almost like noble and we tolerate lots of things, and I think there are some things that we should tolerate maybe more than we don’t. I mean, right now, with the election coming up, people are really intolerant of one another and I think that’s really sad, because the thing is we get so focused on what we think is right and what we think is wrong that we don’t even hear anyone else’s side, we just like close off and shut down. I think, with your children I have all young adult kids and there are things that they do that I tolerate but I love them. I’m willing to tolerate some things that they do or don’t do because I love them, tolerate some things that they do or don’t do because I love them, and that thing that maybe I don’t like isn’t as important as my love for them. Right, like or is yeah, is less important than how I feel and I love them and I want a relationship with them. And so maybe looking and I want you to think about this in with your marriage, with things you’re tolerating in it, maybe other close relationships, but you could also look at it on the grand scheme of things. Right, like, sometimes we go eat at a restaurant where we’re like, eh, it’s not the best location, but they have just these amazing tacos and so we’re going to tolerate maybe going to not a great location or it’s not really cute inside, but because we like their food we’re going to. We do things like that all throughout our day and our life, right? Obviously, some hold heavier weight than others, and so I just have been thinking about this. So being tolerant is you’re open-minded, right? Sometimes we tolerate things from our neighbors, right, but it’s because it doesn’t happen that often. Or we might tolerate people at church and it’s like oh, they’re just not our favorite people, but you know, they’re our brother or sister and we go to church with them. We only have to see them once a week. So just really consider, like, what you tolerate and then why? Because I think our why matters For me.
I was thinking I mean, I hate saying this, but I’m going to tell you, when I was in high school, if someone swore around me like said any swearing, I would be like I would appreciate if you wouldn’t swear around me. I don’t like swearing. I would say that and I’m like mortified now that I did. But I did, and people totally would. They’re like oh, don’t swear around, jennifer, and people. I think people respected me. No one, no one thought that was weird. I mean People respected me. No one thought that was weird. I mean, nowadays that would probably be really weird, but in the 80s people just they liked me so they were willing to respect me for saying that. But now I feel like that was just me being self-righteous or I don’t know, and I laugh because me now I have recommended like movies and books and it has lots of swearing. I’m like, oh, I didn’t even notice, and so I really changed a lot. When it comes to swearing, I allow my kids to swear. I told them after I got divorced. I’m like you know what, sometimes you just need to say a bad word every now and again, and so I’m just like I’ve just tolerated swearing more is what I’m trying to say.
I think people really get hung up on like punctuality and get fixated on it. There are just some people that just run late, right, or the people that just always have to be on time and so, whether, whatever person you are like can you tolerate, especially if it’s your spouse or your kids, are you creating this like fight um, this intolerance, this judgment for those people, because I think punctuality, you might be like, no, I’m not going to be, I’m not going to tolerate it, okay, but I just I feel like punctuality some people get really hung up on it Other people’s opinions I already talked about politics. Also, religion is, you know, could become a huge thing that people become intolerant. There’s a lot of intolerance and people that aren’t tolerant in our world, our society, with religion, with politics, with other hot topics that are talked about nowadays. But I think something we need to become more tolerant in is building tolerance in our nervous system. We need to make it stronger, being when we get triggered, not just reacting to the trigger, sit with it, learning, becoming tolerant of feeling uncomfortable.
I think discomfort is very hard for most people and so we can’t tolerate it and so we can’t tolerate it. So people, you know, drink alcohol, smoke weed, look at porn, go shopping, all sorts of things for the simple feeling of discomfort. And it seems crazy if you just like think about it, like really you can’t be uncomfortable. But we have a hard time being uncomfortable. People have a hard time with that emotion, with that feeling, and so we have a hard time tolerating our emotions a lot. You want to tolerate or don’t like or don’t want to tolerate, like maybe look at your marriage or your relationships and think about things you aren’t liking or that you’re tolerating. You’re like should I be tolerating that? Of course not. Should Do I want to still tolerate that? I know it’s easier said than done, but acknowledging it is the first step to change. Okay, when you can acknowledge the truth about things that you’re tolerating and I mean the amount of things I tolerated in my marriage makes me really sad. And I did that because I believed in marriage. I didn’t want to get divorced. I loved my husband. I hoped he would change and I thought I could. In marriage, I didn’t want to get divorced. I loved my husband, I hoped he would change and I thought I could fix things, and so I tolerated a lot of negative stuff. I wrote an email about this and every Thursday if you’re on my email list, get on it. It’s a hello at lifecoachjencom and I send out a relationship tip Thursday. And so I wrote an email about the subject. So I’m just going to read a little few excerpts from the email.
I tolerated my husband’s criticism and infidelity for years. At the time I didn’t realize that I was doing this. I totally was. Why did I do this? I believed parts of what he said were true and if I responded it would turn into a fight. I was conflict avoidant and I loved my family and did not want to get divorced. And conflict avoidant means I just maybe I’ll stay quiet and we won’t have to have a disagreement. Right, the message it sent to my spouse tolerate, remember it, means to allow the existence of the occurrence, the practice. Even if you don’t necessarily agree with it, you’re going to accept or endure it. Okay. The message it sent was I was okay with his behavior, even though subconsciously it was devastating and I was not okay with it at all. As I started to heal, I began to stand up for myself and not tolerate his behavior any longer. I was able to slowly create boundaries and say things that sent the message that I was no longer willing to tolerate his behavior, like having an affair, and his criticism towards me. I did this calm and confidently.
As you reflect on any relationship, stop to consider what you are tolerating. Some things you might decide that ultimately it isn’t that big a deal. Like I said before, you know someone being late, 10 minutes late or swearing things like that, or they are lying to you about the affair that they are having. You may decide you aren’t going to tolerate that any longer Doesn’t mean you have to get divorced. It just means you’re going to start speaking up and having conversations, reaching out to help and a million other things you could do. So I think, if you are finding yourself tolerating things that you don’t want to tolerate anymore, learning how to create boundaries in your marriage, in your relationship, is going to be the best resource, best tool that you can use to start changing this.
Okay, so many things that I think in betrayal that we tolerate are we disrespect, the lying, the gaslighting, manipulation, the marginalizing your thoughts and feelings, calling you names. All these things happen when you experience betrayal and I think so many of us. It’s like we’ve become frozen. So give yourself lots of grace and compassion because you were just doing the best you can at the time, but those are behaviors that should not be tolerated in any healthy, happy marriage. So if you’re like some of those things are in my marriage and it’s not necessarily about betrayal just evaluate, have the conversation and say, okay, if this happens again, this is what I’m going to do and you might need to walk away or whatever boundary you decide to create, right, I think, moving from you know when you are realizing like, oh, I’m tolerating these behaviors that I don’t want to tolerate.
To move out of them, you have to get help and ultimately accept them. And I think acceptance is really amazing when you can accept people as they are. But if you’re accepting your spouse, right, like for me, I’m not going to accept. That’s why I got divorced. I can’t accept that. However, i’ve’m not going to accept. That’s why I got divorced. I can’t accept that. However, I’ve got to learn to accept him. He’s not changing. I’m divorced from him, but he’s still the father of my kids. I just have to learn to accept him this is who he is and come to peace with that. So, learning to move through that, from tolerating something to accepting something, we have to own how we’re feeling about the situation and actively work to release this. Now, this takes a lot of work, right, because it is really hard to accept when we feel like people have done us wrong, done us dirty, been mean and have different beliefs or values or whatever than us. But that will be true, in my opinion, true freedom when we can move from tolerant being tolerant of someone’s behavior to accepting them just for who they are. And sometimes we may never want to do that, and that’s okay.
Hey, I want you to consider. The last thing I want to say is just what is your tipping point? What is the thing that you are tolerating in your life? When does it become intolerable where you can accept it? Right? What is the tipping point, what is the straw for you?
Everyone has a different breaking point, and so you can’t judge someone like wow, they were able to leave their marriage so much quicker than I was. That’s unhelpful for you, and we all have a different breaking point, and we all have reasons why we stay and reasons why we leave. So just really focus on what it is for you, what the end is for you. Right, you’ve created these boundaries and then it keeps on happening. When is enough enough? Okay, and you may never come to that, I don’t know, but I just think it’s something to think about and decide.
What areas in your life are you tolerating things that you definitely don’t want to be tolerating anymore, and then what things maybe do you want to be a little bit more tolerant of, especially from other people. I think our society in general, we need to have a little bit more tolerance of each other, but when it comes to your marriage and maybe your kids the people you’re really close to there are things that you can just say absolutely not. I will not be lied to one more second. I deserve better, and you really do. Anyways, thanks so much for listening.
Hopefully this was helpful. Got your brain thinking. It got my brother and I to have like an hour discussion about this. So have a discussion with someone else. It might be helpful in getting you to think about different things. Anyways, if you like this podcast, I’d love for you to share it. Leave me a message, all the things. Anyways, have a beautiful day and I will talk to you next week. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at. Hello at lifecoachjen with one n dot com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after. Coach. Let’s work together to create your happily even after.
