Moving On vs Moving Forward After Divorce: The Truth Men Need to Hear || DPTSP #152 || Bill Simpson and David

[00:00:00] Welcome to the show, everyone. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce a guest who's truly making a difference for men navigating one of life's toughest challenges, recovering and rebuilding after divorce. Meet Bill Simpson. I've had Bill on the show before. I was on this podcast a couple of years ago, a relationship coach for men and the host of the highly insightful men on the path to love podcast. Bill specializes in helping men rebuild their lives after breakups by identifying unhealthy relationship patterns, regaining emotional pain.

[00:00:30] confidence and creating healthier, more fulfilling relationships. Drawing from his own personal journey of heartbreak and transformation, as well as over two decades of experience in coaching, mind-body education and integrative therapy, Bill has developed a unique approach to helping men not just move on, but move forward with clarity and purpose. If you ever wondered how you can rebuild your confidence and create relationships that truly thrive,

[00:00:59] this episode is for you. Let's dive in. Welcome to the show, Bill. Nice to see you again. Tell people a little bit about yourself and I got some questions for you. Yeah, I'm just really happy to be on your show again. Always a pleasure talking with you, David. Appreciate the work that you're doing. Yeah. Why I'm working with men, I've had different careers in my life. I was in radio for years, 35 years. And then I became a mind-body educator, life coach, mindfulness coach at a health clinic.

[00:01:29] For about 11 years. And part of why I decided to work with men was my clinical work where I had mostly women, probably 80% women. And I would keep hearing the same feedback over and over about the men in their lives that they loved and wanted to be with,

[00:01:50] wanted a relationship with, but they were getting really frustrated. And I would say, what if he were to say this or do that or whatever? And they're like, oh yeah, that would make all the difference. And so that started seeping in with me. I'm like, these are just skills that men can learn. This is not, you know, a whole revamp of masculinity or anything like that. It's just learning some skills.

[00:02:14] And I'm like, I can do that. And I started working with the men in the clinic. I ran a men's group before COVID. And so I started getting some insight and then understanding my own journey of someone who's been through three divorces. A lot of heartache, a lot of financial loss, just a lot of things in that process, as I'm sure a lot of you are aware of, yourself included.

[00:02:39] And I started putting this together. I was thinking, yeah, I can help men with these skills in relationship. But more importantly is I can support men because I've been through this stuff, man. Three times going through divorce and there were different stages felt like I had grown. And yet here I'd repeated a pattern. Same thing happened over again.

[00:03:02] And I ended up going through three divorces, learning every step of the way, excuse me, learning every step of the way to finally get to where I am today, where now I've been with my wife now for 17 years. And we're in a thriving relationship. And a lot of it has to do with the skills I've learned, the ups and downs that I've been through.

[00:03:23] We went through parallel lives of similar relationship dynamics. She did her work. I did my work. And then we met each other and we're still together. And the biggest thing was for me to finally feel like I could be free and be myself in a relationship. And I always kind of joke and say that I had no choice to be, you know, only could be me.

[00:03:49] I had to be real to myself. And my wife is still with me in spite of that. And she says because of it, because I'm authentic and I feel like I've been the most free in a relationship than I've ever been. And I felt closer than I've ever been. You talk about identifying relationship patterns. Can you explain why this is so important?

[00:04:14] It's very important because a lot of times it usually starts in our childhood. And I'll use myself as an example. I had had six years old. I had been sexually abused by a girl, a girlfriend of my brother's girlfriend. They were like 14 and I had no idea what I was doing. And it was like terrifying and exciting at the same time and very confusing. And that influenced me. And then my parents got divorced around that time.

[00:04:44] And I went to live with my mother. And she could be the best mother on the planet. So nurturing, just great mom. But she could also be a very terrifying mother to where I never know what I was going to get. And it could be as extreme as her breaking glass and putting it on a plate and saying, here's your dinner. And I was terrified of her.

[00:05:11] But when she would pick me up after school and take me to the bakery and get donuts and we would talk and laugh. And I felt that I felt safe. But I never knew what I was going to get. So fast forward a couple of years later, she decided to give custody to my dad. And my brother and me at the same time, my brother's about six or seven years older than me.

[00:05:38] And she basically abandoned me at that point because I never saw her after that. And about five years later, she died of a heart attack. And so I didn't see her from the time she gave custody to my dad. And after that, I saw her one time when I was walking to school and I saw her in a taxi cab. That's my last memory of seeing my mom.

[00:06:05] And I had no idea at the time the impact that these events had on me. And fast forward to when I started dating girls, I always overlapped my relationships. I would be with a girl, get bored or whatever I would, or find another girl that was attracted to me. And then I would go to her. And always overlapped. I never had time in between.

[00:06:32] And so that pattern went all the way up through my first marriage. And then it stopped after my second marriage. I started going to therapy and started learning about things. And I found out that I had abandonment issues. Right? My mom abandoned me. And from that, I made sure that I wasn't going to be abandoned. So I would leave the relationship and be in another relationship. So I would never be alone. So I wouldn't be abandoned.

[00:07:01] I would abandon them. Gotcha. And so that pattern continued. And then subsequently learning, going to couples counseling, learning more about relationships and so on. The pattern still existed, even though I wasn't cheating on my wife or anything. But the pattern of wanting to abandon the relationship was there. And I ended that marriage. I ended my third marriage. And I was ready to give up on relationships, period.

[00:07:31] Because I did all this work. I know about communications. I know about all these things. I know about relationship skills. And they just weren't working, it seemed. And that's when I, you know, just took a deep dive within myself and had to get really clear about who I was in that moment. And then once I got clear about who I was, I had to get clear about what I wanted in a relationship.

[00:07:58] And, but I was still terrified to put myself out there. And so what ended up happening was I found, my wife found me. I went on a, I was actually meditating. And this may sound kind of, but I was sitting in meditation and I hear this voice of Rafiki going, it is time. And I'm like, look, man, I'm in one room in someone's house and I don't look good on paper.

[00:08:25] I just went through a divorce, got kids, and I just lost my job, my full-time job. So I'm saying all this to say that I had to dive deep into what was I bringing or not bringing to a relationship. And realizing the fear of abandonment, I had to feel confident about myself. So no matter who I was with, I wasn't going to change and lose my identity to stay in this relationship.

[00:08:53] I'm not going to leave and bail this relationship. I'm going to work hard to make it work. All these things that I had to work on and get clear. And then lo and behold, I meet my wife online. And we talked, we emailed back and forth. This was a while back. And we got really clear about our values, our vision, where we wanted to go. We put all our baggage out there. She knew I'd been married three times. She knew about everything. I knew about her baggage.

[00:09:21] Before we even talked, David, we hadn't even talked on the phone. And every little step along the way was like checking the boxes almost. It was like, okay, here we've got this compatibility thing going. So we talked and then we finally met. And once our eyes met, we haven't stopped. And if I hadn't taken the time to look and understand those relationship patterns, bringing that fear of abandonment to relationships,

[00:09:51] even the sexual abuse of cheating and going for the sex, going for, I was on the radio and I would have women throwing themselves at me basically, made it really easy. And it's every guy's dream, you know, to have that kind of play. And it made it really easy. But I was chasing something that I became way too aware of at an early age. And so I had to do some healing around that as well.

[00:10:16] So that gives you an indication of the patterns that we have to look at within ourselves. And that's my goal. How does emotional, yeah, that's cool. How does emotional awareness play a role in creating healthier relationships? If you're not emotionally aware, it can create a lot of distance between you and your partner. And the thing is, most guys have been conditioned not to be so emotionally aware.

[00:10:46] And usually the one emotion that we're allowed, or at least men can feel okay about, is our anger. Men can express anger, but we can't. That's strength. But we can't express that we're hurt. We can't express our sadness and things that makes us really vulnerable. And we're just not programmed to do that. It doesn't mean we can't do it. And it doesn't mean it's a male or a female thing.

[00:11:14] It's just if you're trying to connect with somebody and you're not emotionally aware, then a lot of times there's going to be miscommunications, especially if you've got something going on and you shut down. And how is your partner going to know? She says, what's wrong? Nothing. She knows damn well something's wrong. But you're not expressing that. And that's just one example.

[00:11:40] But if you're not sharing your emotions, letting her know what's going on, then she's in the dark. And so that starts to create distance. She can't connect with you because you're not bringing your emotional self to the relationship. Make sense? Yeah, it does. What about, I call them the self cousins, self respect, self confidence, all those self cousins.

[00:12:08] How do they play a part in relationships? I'm going to start with self compassion, having grace for ourselves. And that's another thing. Most people I taught this, we don't have a role model for self compassion. Women do it because they care for everybody else and they don't care for themselves. And men do the same.

[00:12:33] They push themselves to provide and work work and they don't have self compassion. Because if you don't have compassion for yourself and if you don't love yourself enough to and respect yourself enough, then self confidence, self esteem, all that's out the window. And so I think the basis of those selves, self cousins, is having that self compassion,

[00:13:01] being able to have that self awareness, self love. And it's not, oh, I love myself. It's just treating yourself as you would someone that you care about. We just tough it out. We're like, no, you're not going to let, you're not going to do that. And so it goes against your grain to do it. And once I learned about self compassion, it was a game changer for me.

[00:13:25] Because I can't truly have compassion for someone else if I didn't have it for myself. And so starting with that and then building your confidence of, of that you are okay just the way you are, like in terms of being real and authentic versus trying to perform to be something that you're not.

[00:13:53] Self esteem can go both ways, man. You can be the best thing since sliced bread or the worst thing. And it's just on different sides of the spectrum. But self compassion puts it all together. It acknowledges the part of you that suffers and acknowledges the part of you that that's thriving. That's pretty cool. How do you help men or what are some of the ways you help men break the cycle of unhealthy relationship patterns?

[00:14:23] Once you figure out what they are. Yeah. That's the first thing is having the awareness that you have them. And I hear this from a lot of men. And this is the challenge is some can be absolutely aware of their patterns, but they don't do anything with it. It's like I know about it, but they don't really know it. They understand it intellectually, but they don't operationalize it. They don't do the work that needs to be done.

[00:14:53] And I work with mindfulness. It's called acceptance commitment therapy, ACT or ACT. And this is a way to acknowledge your thoughts, your feelings, and even your urges, your body sensations. But you respond according to what's important to you, what matters to you. So if you're aware, that's the first step, aware of the pattern.

[00:15:20] The pattern is going to keep showing up because it's this unconscious, subconscious pattern that you've been doing automatically. It's like automatic pilot. And when you become aware, then that's your first chance to start to change it. And then you have the awareness. So you feel it coming up. Maybe you're triggered and you feel that pattern coming up or you have that urge to act out.

[00:15:44] And what ACT teaches you to do and mindfulness teaches you to do is to accept that you have that urge or you recognize the pattern. And so that's something that takes a lot of practice because the way the brain is wired, it wants to go back to what is familiar.

[00:16:11] And so you'll take one step forward, maybe two steps forward, and then one or two steps back. And then people say, it doesn't work or I can't do it. No, you have to understand that's what the brain does. It wants what's familiar, whether it's good for us or not. So having the awareness and then being able to identify when it's happening or when you feel that pattern coming up,

[00:16:35] and then you pause and take the time to choose to respond in a way that works for you, that matters to you. And that's probably the – it sounds simple in theory, but, again, it's challenging because the brain is going to fight you on it.

[00:16:56] But the good news is the more you feed it, the more you repeat it, the more you reinforce what you're going for, your values and what's important to you, then you start to rewire the brain and you start behaving differently. But if you don't understand that the brain is going to want to go back, then you're going to keep repeating the patterns. Almost don't move my cheese. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:23] Well, what's the difference between moving on and moving forward, as you often say? Moving on can be just doing what you did before. You recognize the attraction, the chemistry, the butterflies or the intensity, and oftentimes we'll mistake that as – mistake it as love, especially if that's been your pattern.

[00:17:52] And so we just repeat it and you're just moving on. But to move forward is, again, taking a look at your patterns and how you want to change and how you want to move forward. Going for compatibility versus attention and validation. And, man, with our egos, we – like I said when I was on the radio, women throwing themselves at me, I'm like, yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:19] But honestly, that was great for a minute. But then it just started getting old because it was empty. It just wasn't any substance there. Oops. Sorry. There wasn't any substance there. And that was the lesson that I learned. And moving forward is looking at yourself, looking at the patterns, and start to rebuild yourself.

[00:18:47] And figure out, again, as I said earlier, what do you want in a relationship? And get really clear about that. And that's how you move forward. But if you're moving on, it's all right, I'm going to go start dating again. And guess what? You end up in the same place if you don't take the time. Same thing. How do you help men who feel like they've failed in their relationships regain a sense of purpose?

[00:19:15] I usually say that they didn't fail. I look back at my three divorces, and you could say, man, he failed miserably. Man, this dude, man, he can't save a relationship to save his life. But I never saw it that way. Maybe in the beginning, yes, but here I am now. And I go, I wouldn't change that for anything because they weren't failures. They were really opportunities for me to grow.

[00:19:44] And so when a guy says, look, I failed, I failed, I'm like, yeah, the relationship didn't work out, but you didn't fail. You didn't know what you didn't know. And now you have some information to work with. And so then it's taking that and really getting clear again about what that is. And so it's also understanding a lot of this stuff isn't our fault.

[00:20:12] And when guys hear that, they're like, it's not about not taking responsibility. It's just realizing that I've been conditioned a certain way not to be emotionally aware, not to be vulnerable, not to communicate openly and honestly. Then look what happened to your relationship. Didn't fail because you're broken. It failed because you lacked certain skills.

[00:20:39] And so the good news, and this is where the confidence starts to come in, the good news is these skills can be learned. At no, any stage in your life, you can start to learn these skills if you're open to learning. And I'm telling you, a handful of skills, man, can make all the difference in the world. Wow. All right, Bill, you got to get out of my head. My next question is, can you explain what you mean by emotional confidence and how can men cultivate it?

[00:21:08] Can you explain what you mean by emotional confidence and how men can cultivate it? It's, yeah, I just interrupted myself here because it is a challenge and it goes back to our conditioning. But for me, it started out in therapy. I was in group therapy and we had this big-ass feelings chart with all these emojis on it.

[00:21:33] And, you know, it's hard to tell a story or we start trying to solve somebody's problem. And the therapist would pull out the chart. All right, Bill, what are you feeling? And it forced me to look within and see, okay, I'm feeling, oh, that smiley face or that frowny face. I'm angry or I'm frustrated or whatever.

[00:21:56] And it sounds corny and everything, but frankly, a lot of us don't know what we're feeling in the moment. We're just going through it. And so we react to whatever that subconscious thing's going on. That's how we've always done it. It's like a knee-jerk reaction. And so it's taking the time to pause and ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? And I've done this with guys where they're like, Bill, I don't know.

[00:22:24] And I'm like, what do you feel in your body? Where is it in your body? And so my chest is real tight right now or my throat's real chest or my heart's pounding. Okay, then let's sit with that because the body is going to know before the brain does. And so if you're having difficulty expressing what you're feeling or identifying what you're feeling, then notice it in the body.

[00:22:50] And even if you're saying to your partner, I don't know what I'm feeling right now, but my heart's pounding and I need a minute. That's being pretty damn vulnerable. But to stuff it and shove it and not say anything and shut down, no, I'm fine. You just created a barrier right there. So that's one way to do it. If you can't identify it, find it in your body and then work on identifying it.

[00:23:17] And even if you're saying, listen, I'm going through something. I don't know what it is. I just can't talk about it right now. I want to talk about it, but I can't do it right now. That gives you pause so that you're not coming from a place of reacting. You're coming from a place of responding. So when you're calm and can identify what was going on, then you can approach that conversation in a whole different way.

[00:23:43] Now, and now if you are starting to get more and more emotionally aware and when you're able to say what you're feeling and be able to express it and say what you feel and what you need and you do it in a compassionate way, man, it's like it makes all the difference in the world. And then you feel it.

[00:24:29] Same thing in looking at your emotions and looking at your skills, how you communicate, all those things. When you haven't done it or you're learning something new, it's going to feel weird at first. It's going to feel uncomfortable. But the more you practice, the more confident you get. And then you get to bring that confidence to the relationship instead of and that confidence of emotional confidence versus walking in there with your swag because that's only surface.

[00:24:59] But the emotions run deep and that's where the connection is. And that's really what feels feeds the soul. The bravado, the performance, the ego stroke with that. But when you can really get in touch with your emotions, that's real connection and that's what feeds your soul. Wow. What about communication? Men suck at communication.

[00:25:26] How can we be better communicators? Give us some tips. Let me just say that women aren't so great at it either. We think that women are good at it. We complain that we're not good at it. They may talk a lot, but they may not be good at communicating. So I just want to put that out there. And a lot of this stuff I'm talking about, men, women are just as guilty of it or sometimes even worse. It doesn't matter, men, women. It's what we do. Definitely.

[00:25:53] As far as communication, I think the best skill or the first thing to practice is listening. And it's listening to understand where that person is versus listening to solve the problem or listening to say your piece and not really listening to hear where they are. So that's the first thing.

[00:26:20] Another little thing that I do with couples is reflective listening. So it's you telling me how you feel, David, about what's going on. I listen to you. And then I reflect or mirror back what you said to me. And then with that, I check in with you and you say, yeah, that's exactly what I was saying. Or you go, no, I was saying you said B and I was saying A.

[00:26:51] Oh, you were saying A. Yes. Okay. So now you feel seen and heard. And you don't stop that part until that person feels seen and heard because that's the key. So once you've really affirmed that you got that other person, they feel seen and heard, then it's your turn. You get to do it to me and I get to reflect back where you get to reflect back to me. And then the reality is in the eye of the receiver.

[00:27:19] So whoever is receiving it, it's their reality. Whether it's right or wrong, true or not true, it's their experience. So when you're listening, listen to hear their experience versus trying to tell them they're wrong or prove that you're right, whatever. Because that's another disconnect. Say something like, and we don't really talk this way, but to say, I'm sorry you experienced me that way.

[00:27:48] That's not saying you did anything wrong. It's just saying that was her experience. And so when you do that, it's asking her to tell you more so you get clear about really what's going on. And a lot of times that works because if you're putting a mirror up in front of her to tell you what's going on, and she's either going to tell you you're an asshole and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

[00:28:15] or it's going to stop her and have her think about what's going on and being able to tell you. And when she sees that you're listening to her and that you hear her and you can say, hey, man, that must be really hard if I were to feel that way too. Too, if somebody was talking to me like that or whatever, that's what they want. They want to be seen and heard and validated for that experience. And you want it too. We both want it.

[00:28:42] But if you are trying to prove, oh, no, you're wrong. You get defensive. No, I didn't. And get all defensive. You just shut the whole thing down. Does that make sense to you? Yep. Yeah, it does. Totally. Finally, Bill, what's the one piece of advice you'd give to any man listening who's struggling to rebuild or recover from a breakup or divorce? Gosh, I got a lot of advice for that.

[00:29:09] I would take time to really get to know yourself and know who you want to be in relationship. But most importantly, who do you want to be in a man and what does that look like? And really get clear about that. Take time to recognize your feeling because after a breakup or divorce, it's almost worse than a death.

[00:29:39] Because if somebody dies, they're done. They're gone. And you can deal with that. But when someone you love is still on the planet, still on the same block you live. It keeps giving. It keeps giving. It keeps giving. And it's like, God, the scab keeps getting picked. And so it's giving yourself grace, self-compassion that this is hard and there's a lot of different stages of grief. You can be angry one minute about it.

[00:30:09] You can be sad. You can deny it. All these things. And it's just recognizing that's part of the mourning process. Let yourself mourn the loss of that relationship. Yes. Because a lot of guys will start dating again and put themselves out there so they don't feel the loneliness. Yeah. You don't feel the loneliness. Because it's too painful. So we don't want to feel the pain. Nobody does.

[00:30:37] So we go out and have sex, hook up, whatever, and it feels great. But it's not hitting what really matters in the heart. So take that time to heal. And if you're looking for a relationship, then really take your time. If you don't give too smooth farts about connection and you just want to go out there and have sex, well, then be honest with yourself.

[00:31:02] But don't think you're going to get a sustainable relationship by going right back out there without doing some work on yourself. Words from Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill, we appreciate you. Where can my men find you on the Internet? You can find me at menonthepathtolove.com. You can find my podcast there, Men on the Path to Love. I also have a free guide that you can get.

[00:31:30] It's five steps to understanding why your last relationship didn't work. It talks about a lot of stuff that you and I just talked about and how to move forward. And I also offer a free relationship clarity call to just get clear about maybe what happened in your last relationship and where you want to go. There's no pressure. It's not a sales call. It's just an opportunity to get some insight on what could have happened and maybe a little bit of direction on how you want to move forward.

[00:31:58] And if you think I'm a fit to work with you to do those things, then that's an option. But it's just a way to kind of get the ball rolling in terms of that time you need to heal and get some insight. We'll have all those links in the show notes. But we appreciate you, Mr. Bill, for hanging out with us. And hold on to the mic a second. Thank you. Don't go anywhere. Always a pleasure. All right. There we go.