If you’ve ever found yourself in that painful in-between of “I can’t stay, but I don’t know how to move forward,” my hope is that this episode will feel like a big exhale. I’m joined by Dr. Marianna Strongin, licensed clinical psychologist, child of divorce, and the mental health expert at My Next Chapter, where she and I have been collaborating to support people through every stage of divorce.

In this episode, we talk about finding your footing in uncertainty – as a parent, as a partner letting go, and as a person rebuilding a life. Marianna and I explore co-parenting dynamics, the fear of staying and leaving, teaching kids to trust and use their voice, and using mindfulness to stay with yourself instead of spiraling into “what ifs.” We also discuss how returning to your values becomes a grounding compass, and how self-trust rebuilds slowly, one honest step at a time.

You don’t have to rush or have it all figured out, but do you get to take the next right step toward a life that feels like yours again.

✨ If you’d like to watch the video version of this episode, you can find it here.

What you’ll hear about in this episode:

• How being a child of divorce informed Marianna’s work (2:40)
• Why values work clears everything up, especially when you’re stuck (16:06)
• Mindfulness as a here-and-now practice (not perfectionism) (17:36)
• The My Next Chapter coaching platform and why expert collaboration matters (23:11)
• Co-parenting and rooting every decision in your child’s wellbeing + teaching kids to use their voice and advocate for themselves (29:49)
• Rebuilding after divorce by asking: “What do I want?” and starting small (41:38)

Learn more about Dr. Marianna Strongin: Dr. Marianna Strongin is a licensed clinical psychologist who treats adults for Mood and Anxiety Disorders. In addition, Dr. Strongin treats relationship, financial, family and workplace problems. Through exploration of feelings, behaviors and life choices Dr. Strongin helps clients become STRONGER and more confident individuals.

Dr. Strongin serves as an adjunct supervisor at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, where she mentors and supervises the next generation of mental health professionals. Her work has been featured in prestigious publications such as The New York Times, CNN, Forbes, and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

In addition, Dr. Strongin writes a weekly column for Survivornet called Strong in Cancer, offering valuable mental health advice for the cancer community. She also advises various mental health startups, contributing her expertise to innovative approaches in the field.

Resources & Links:

Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
The Divorce Survival Guide Resource Bundle
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Kate on Instagram
Kate on Facebook
Kate’s Substack Newsletter: Divorce Coaching Dispatch

The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast Episodes are also available YouTube!

My Next Chapter – Use code DSG to receive $30 off your first month
Dr. Marianna’s website
Dr. Strongin on Instagram  @Strong_in_therapy @drmariannastrongin

Show Transcript:

Kate Anthony: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome back. Today I am joined by Dr. Mariana Strongin. She is a licensed clinical psychologist, founder of Strongin Therapy, which I love. I love the play on words there, and she is the mental health expert at my next. Chapter. She has spent the last 15 years helping people recognize and understand unhealthy life patterns so they can move through transition with more clarity, confidence, and resilience.

Kate Anthony: We love that. I’m really excited about this conversation because Marianna and I have been collaborating on My Next Chapter’s brand new one-on-one premium coaching program, which is really a first of its kind and it brings together, as you guys know, I’ve been talking about this expert, legal, financial and emotional support for people going through divorce, whether they’re uncertain going through the process or rebuilding afterwards.

Kate Anthony: So I could go on, but I will stop and [00:01:00] I will turn it over and say, hi, welcome. 

Marianna Strongin: Thank you for having me. It’s been already so nice to collaborate with you and now on the podcast as well. 

Kate Anthony: Exactly. Yeah, it’s been really fun. So first of all, you are a child of divorce. I am. So I would love to hear how your personal experience has shaped the way you might help guide others through this process.

Marianna Strongin: Being a child of divorce has also led me to just deciding to become a psychologist because so early in my life I became so attuned to the feelings around me. I was hopeful to predict my future and control the feelings all around me. And I think that it drove me into the field of psychology.

Marianna Strongin: So I’ll tell you a little bit about my experience. Being a child of divorce. So I came to America from the former Soviet Union when I was eight years old, which was a tremendous change for our family. So we were in a new country, we didn’t speak a word of [00:02:00] English, and this put enormous pressure on my parents and so I had to watch my parents start all over.

Marianna Strongin: They went from having a career and friends and community to really having to start all over and I think that whatever cracks. That lived in their relationship, really broke them in this really difficult transition. So as a kid, I was the new kid. I didn’t speak English. I was already feeling a lot of shame.

Marianna Strongin: And then only a few years into being in America, my parents started to divorce. 

Kate Anthony: Oh my gosh, that’s so much. That’s so much my, like my heart for like little you, right? And of course it put more strain on their marriage. Of course it did. 

Marianna Strongin: Exactly. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. That’s so all of it’s so stressful. Yeah.

Marianna Strongin: And as adults now, we know what it takes to build and restart and restarting for all of us psychologically is one of the [00:03:00] hardest things to go through. We spend our lives building confidence, building competence, and to have to restart that at the age of, 40 something years old for my parents.

Marianna Strongin: That was a tremendously difficult, so they ended up getting divorced and because we were new to the country, we really had no resources. We had no community to back us up. And so the way that I navigated that was through tremendous shame. So I buried it, pretended nothing was happening. Confided in very few people about it.

Marianna Strongin: And whatever conversations led to where are your parents or anything that had parents attached to it? I would move conversations and I found myself doing it even in adulthood because the shame was so strong. When I was going through it, one of the things that I noticed was how attuned I became to my parents and their feelings, and now looking back, I think what I really wanted.

Marianna Strongin: Was not for the outcome to change, but for them to have been [00:04:00] really communicative and sturdy. So it would’ve been okay if they said, this is really hard. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. We don’t know where we’re gonna live, but we’re all going to be okay. But instead, it was buried and under communicated, which left me to really be the translator of emotions from a very young age.

Marianna Strongin: And I was smart enough to use that passion and interest and strength from a young age and go into the field. So I knew in high school that I was gonna be a psychologist. 

Kate Anthony: Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. That’s wonderful. That’s amazing. One of the things that I talk to my clients about a lot, and I’m sure you do too, is that, when we are living in these especially in the in-between of divorce where we’ve made the decision, but we haven’t told the kids yet, but there’s stuff happening in the house and the kids are picking up on it, but you are not naming it. That’s, that is where the damage is done. It’s not [00:05:00] in the telling of what’s happening.

Kate Anthony: It’s in the not naming what they already know. 

Marianna Strongin: you are saying exactly what I tell all of my patients. I, reiterate, anxiety is formed when we are interpreting. If somebody a hundred percent elbows us what the weather is, we do not have to interpret what to do. And so when kids are interpreting their environment, they’re working extra hard to be attuned to too many different things, and that’s when their body starts to react.

Kate Anthony: Yes, absolutely. And that when they, when nobody’s naming the thing that they’re se clearly seeing, then they start to doubt their own perception of reality. And that’s gaslighting and I, nobody wants to gaslight their kids, and no one is intending to gaslight their kids. They’re just trying to hide things from them so that they don’t have to feel the impact of it.

Kate Anthony: But what they don’t recognize is that the alternative is actually the impact of the alternative can actually be far worse. 

Marianna Strongin: [00:06:00] Absolutely. Absolutely. And we’re all building our gut instincts, like we’re all building these lived experiences. And so as parents, we really wanna name them so that they only get sturdier and more confident in their interpretation of the world.

Marianna Strongin: So when we don’t tell them, they’re actually doubting their own inner voice, which as you and I both know, in adulthood, is so important in all the decisions we make. 

Kate Anthony: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely right, ’cause it teaches you that oh look, your instincts are right. You are. There is something weird going on, or there is a change happening.

Kate Anthony: Oh my God, what a different life I would’ve lived if I had access to trusting my own experience of the world. I’m sure you feel the same way, like yes. Yes. I grew up in the seventies and eighties and so like we were not having these conversations. 

Marianna Strongin: So this was like emotions were not discussed.

Kate Anthony: No. And my mom was like a hippie and she was talking about things that other [00:07:00] people weren’t talking about. Like she was naming body parts correctly. She was, all of these things, but the emotional stuff was just never no.

Kate Anthony: The healing process for I’m sure for you, it’s all very well and gonna be like, and then I decided to be a psychologist but obviously there was a lot of healing that you had to go through in the process, right? Yes. It’s never linear. It’s always layered. Absolutely. It’s always circular and or whatever.

Kate Anthony: It’s a messy pattern and there is this like untangling that has to happen and it can take years. What was your experience with that.

Marianna Strongin: I’m still working on it. It’s a complete work in progress. You’re not cured. What’s what You’re done. You’re never done.

Marianna Strongin: As a psychologist, we actually have to work extra hard to really work through a lot of these things. And we all remain in therapy and do that kind of work and supervision and things like that. But for me, I would say when as I started to gain a little confidence and start to do [00:09:00] the work, I really did it through my friends.

Marianna Strongin: I really did it through community building, so I started to rely on my friends and started to air some of my shame to them and started to rely on them. And I think that’s also where the work really started to go through. Once I started to air the shame, I started to feel confident because I was no longer burdened and so weighed down by the shame, I started to take on other people’s feelings, but in a positive way.

Marianna Strongin: Like not in a way where I had to change it or take care of it or control it, but just take it on and be a place of support. And that felt really gratifying. And then when I went to grad school and I started to do the work in myself, because when you’re in grad school, you have to go through a lot of analysis and sitting at a lot on the couch, and so I had to relive my childhood, and then I started to show up for my patients who were going through divorce and going through very similar trauma.

Marianna Strongin: That was really [00:10:00] healing. 

Kate Anthony: There’s something, there’s a. Saying in, in 12 step rooms that you’re only as sick as your secrets. Yes. And that there’s, which is that unburdening of the shame that you’re pointing to, that when we share and it’s, we all, we’ve all had that experience where we say something that’s so secret we feel is so like shameful to us and everyone else.

Kate Anthony: Oh my God. Totally. Me too. 

Marianna Strongin: Yes. The opposite of shame is connection. And so I always tell my patients like, let the shame have some oxygen. Second, it’s exposed to oxygen. It turns into connection exactly what happened. And that’s exactly where confidence was built and actually created room to then care for others.

Marianna Strongin: Then obviously a lot of the work happened when I became a mother myself, 

Kate Anthony: girl. Yeah. 

Marianna Strongin: And I’m still very much working on that because I have teenagers. 

Kate Anthony: Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh God, yeah. Mine is 20 and I’m still working on it whatcha gonna do? I wanna talk a little bit about [00:11:00] the being stuck, right?

Kate Anthony: The should I stay, should I go? It’s such a, it’s so painful to be in that stuck place, and I think it’s so layered. You are, to distill it down to something very trite is that you’re stuck in this like the devil you know, or this complete unknown. What I often find with my clients is that they get to the point of questioning, should I stay or should I go?

Marianna Strongin: Yes. 

Kate Anthony: When they have grown beyond the marriage, as it exists or beyond the relationship, beyond their partner, whatever it is. But there is something in them that has grown to a point where they cannot live that life anymore, but they don’t know this grown part, this grown person well enough to trust them moving forward.

Kate Anthony: Do you find that, is that Yes. Yes. And it’s absolutely, and it is, it’s like the most terrifying place, right? It’s, I think it’s the hardest [00:12:00] part of the whole process is like, I can’t go back, but I don’t I don’t trust myself to go forward, 

Marianna Strongin: and the forward is so unknown and so totally unknown.

Marianna Strongin: It’s very scary. Yep, absolutely. I see that all the time. And as a therapist, what I try to do is I try to name it for them. I try to kind of name where they are in the journey. So I always say, one of the first things I notice are people can be really avoidant, right? And so when I think about avoidance, I ask them, what do you think is under that avoidance?

Marianna Strongin: And often it’s fear, right? Then we sit with the emotion. We talk about the emotion. I’m really careful that I say to them, let’s just stay in the emotion and remove the behavior. ’cause people are often afraid of the behavior. If I feel uninterested, what does that actually mean I need to do? No.

Marianna Strongin: We’re gonna take the behavior away. Let’s talk about just feeling and process the feeling. So we talk about the feelings and that takes. A while, a long time. As they’re doing that, I’m already noticing the change. I’m already noticing the movement because [00:13:00] we’ve removed the responsibility of the behavior.

Marianna Strongin: Yes. Then we begin to label the movement in and the shift. And also I’ll say, I’m noticing you’re less ambivalent. Oh, what do you mean by that? Okay. You were at the zero point on the access line and I’m noticing you’re more on the one, and I’ll show them.

Marianna Strongin: They’ll validate that. They’ll say, yeah, that feels like that, but I’m still not ready to do anything with that. And so we continue to name it and label it because again, as a therapist, as a coach, we’re not fortune tellers, so we have to help people see. What they might not be seeing. But we can’t push in that way ’cause we don’t know.

Marianna Strongin: We also don’t know what people are, can withstand in their lives. And so I like to watch them move themselves and I label it for them. I love that. 

Kate Anthony: I love that. I will often say to my clients, we don’t have to worry about, I think it’s similar to what you’re saying, we don’t have to worry about the what.

Kate Anthony: We’re just, or the how, that’s right. We’re not gonna worry about what we’re gonna do with this information. We’re not making a [00:14:00] plan with this information. But let’s explore Yes. What’s happening here? Yes, let’s leave the how. Like it doesn’t matter because they get stuck in but what about my kids?

Kate Anthony: And where am I gonna live and how will I have enough money and blah, blah, blah. We’re not gonna think about that.

Marianna Strongin: Exactly. And that’s how we neglect our feelings and we keep putting it away, putting until it becomes like this cancer that grows inside of us. So that’s why Yes. We have to look at it, we have to let it out.

Marianna Strongin: We have to examine it, the work that we need to do about it, the behavior, we’ll tackle it when we’re ready. That’s right. 

Kate Anthony: That’s right. And often, once we’re, we get them more rooted in the what’s happening, how they feel, who they are, and all of that. All of those answers just become so much clearer to them or easier to manage.

Kate Anthony: Or if they’re hard, they know they can do it.

Marianna Strongin: You’re so right, and once we do the emotional work, the values start to become really clear and the values help move things. [00:15:00] Yes. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Ex I do so much values work with my clients too, because they do, they’re so clarifying. It’s so clarifying, right? Yes. Yeah.

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Absolutely.

Marianna Strongin: It clears it all up. 

Kate Anthony: A hundred percent. I always tell the story. I had a client once who, was working with me as a coach. She had a therapist. She was like, re always reading personal development books and listening to podcasts. And at one point her husband, she wanted to go to therapy with him really badly.

Kate Anthony: And he was like, I don’t believe in therapy. That’s all hogwash. You knew who I was when you married me 20 years ago. I haven’t changed in 20 years. And I was like, look, take all of the judgment out of it. You value development and growth and change, and this man doesn’t, and that’s a misalignment, despite the fact that is no way to be in a marriage.

Kate Anthony: We’re gonna not, like this doesn’t, the values don’t align. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. And that’s so simple when you put it in those terms there. It’s so clarifying. It’s oh yeah. Oh yeah. This is not a person who’s [00:17:00] gonna join me on this journey. Okay. And that doesn’t mean you have to leave him.

Kate Anthony: No, now he’s not joining you on that journey. And what are you gonna do with that information? 

Marianna Strongin: Exactly. 

Kate Anthony: You work a lot, I think with mindfulness. And helping clients. And what, what does that work look like for you in your work? 

Marianna Strongin: I know there’s so much out there about mindfulness.

Marianna Strongin: It’s such a big topic. Here’s how I distill it. When we’re focused on the future, we’re having anxiety. When we’re focused on the past and we’re ruminative, we’re more likely to be depressed. But when we’re focused on the here and now, we’re more likely to have joy and trust. That’s how I think about mindfulness is how can we put all of our attention into where we are today and learn to work with that?

Marianna Strongin: Because if we really try to predict the future or jump ahead, that’s really anxiety provoking. 

Kate Anthony: Sure, absolutely. 

Marianna Strongin: So the way that I think about mindfulness is really about having practices that [00:18:00] orient you to the here and now, and creating a self-talk that constantly says, I’ll figure that out when I get there.

Marianna Strongin: Let me think about here and now. This feels hard. Let me take it one step at a time. Lemme figure this out. It’s really a coping strategy to be in the here and now and mindfulness looks really different for everybody, 

Marianna Strongin: I’m not one to tell somebody how to be more mindful. ’cause I think you have to find it in your own way.

Marianna Strongin: As long as the focus is on today. So if you don’t prescribe practices, which I very much appreciate, ’cause everyone is so different. How do you guide someone whose brain just doesn’t work has not had that experience? And their neural pathways are not set up for that. How do you help when they’re like, what are you talking about? Right. When they look at you and they’re like, 

Marianna Strongin: All the time.

Kate Anthony: Yeah. So how do you, where, how do you take them to finding their own practice? 

Marianna Strongin: That’s right. So I do the work in the practice. With my patients in the room. So one [00:19:00] of the things that I ask when people come in is I say, what are you thinking about? Because I think what we think about is then what we feel and what we feel is then how we behave.

Marianna Strongin: So let’s start with the granular, what are we thinking about? And then I summarize to them the way in which they’re thinking. Are you fortune telling? Are you catastrophizing? Are you know? Are you focused on, trying to control something that you never can control, and then we figure out ways to think differently, to think more holistically, right?

Marianna Strongin: Which is really to be focused again, on more here and now. What can I do? What am I feeling? What is that telling me? And not focus so much on trying to control the things that they can’t control, which is the future and the past. And I tweak it right as they’re talking. I’m like whoa.

Marianna Strongin: Wait, let’s stop right there. What do you mean by that? So we’re, it’s like a constant, like I’m editing and I call myself a thought partner because I feel like if I can help them edit their [00:20:00] thoughts, I’m really helping them edit their feelings. 

Kate Anthony: And then you’re starting to. You’re like a personal trainer, right?

Kate Anthony: For like you are building those neural pathways with them. ’cause they’re gonna automatically start future faking. Yes. And you’re gonna go no, that’s the future. What? Where are you? What? What do we know? Yeah. What do we know? What do we know now in this moment? 

Marianna Strongin: That’s right. I just had a patient earlier today who had one of the worst days.

Marianna Strongin: At work she was telling me, and it was a pretty bad day for her, and she said, I kept having you in my mind, like today is just a bad day. It’s, I have a big job and I was meant to have one really bad day. Here it is. What can I control? What can I not control? Tomorrow it’ll be better. And that was her really being mindful.

Kate Anthony: Yes. I love it when they come to us and they’re like, I had you in my head all day. You’re like, it feels so good. 

Marianna Strongin: It’s like the most rewarding. 

Kate Anthony: It really is. It’s so good.[00:21:00] 

Kate Anthony: I wanna talk a little bit about this platform that we are working on together. So what, how are we are, we’ve been working as my audience knows, ’cause we’ve talked about it a bit on My Next Chapter. And it is this wonderful platform that has a very robust, free. Content on that has a lot of content from Mariana and from legal experts and financial, all about divorce.

Kate Anthony: Tell me about the content that you have on there and what you’re providing for it. 

Marianna Strongin: It’s so exciting. The name is so perfect. ‘Cause we use it in our e even in when we’re talking in your next chapter it just it flows in that way. Yeah. So when I first started working with my next chapter, we were really intentional.

Marianna Strongin: We all came together, all the experts, legal, financial, mental health, and we wanted it to be evidence-based. So I use. [00:22:00] All of the training I’ve had in CBT and DBT and relational therapy. I threw all of that in there and then we collaborated with legal and financial. And so what’s really unique about, I think the content that’s different than anything you’re gonna get anywhere else is that.

Marianna Strongin: We all collaborated as experts when we are handing this information. And as divorce is so interwoven. You do need legal, you do need financial, you do need mental health. And so it’s all expert led and weaved into one another. So we not only do we have videos, we have worksheets. We also we literally give scripts in how to talk to your children about the various stages of divorce.

Marianna Strongin: And then we broke down the scripts into the ages of the kids. So we really spent a lot of time figuring out and making this process more connected. And my favorite part about the platform really is the community page. Because the community page, I think [00:23:00] that going through divorce is one of the most.

Marianna Strongin: Isolating experiences because, in so many different transitions, you are told not to tell anyone or to tell this person before this person and to protect your financial and legal rights you need to stay quiet here. And so the community page, I think is so huge because every user is somewhat, they’re all anonymous and they can use one another for help in the various stages.

Marianna Strongin: And we as the experts can also chime in whenever we need to. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Yes. And there’s so there’s the community aspect and there’s all of that and all of that is free. 

Marianna Strongin: Exactly. And then there we’ve added something else. 

Kate Anthony: Now we’ve added something else. You wanna talk about what we have added?

Marianna Strongin: That’s right. And that’s what the help of, of your guidance and, so now we’re gonna. Add actual coaching, which you know, you so you know, bravely provided all of us and for the coaches that we have. So now we’re all coached in helping [00:24:00] people in the various stages. And it’s one thing to go on the platform and utilize everything, but now there’s a little bit more handholding in it.

Marianna Strongin: And we learned as we were doing this work that when people are in their transitional stages. Somewhere, in that ambivalent, maybe avoidance stage or just trying to gather info, they do need a little more handholding, and that’s what the coaching is there for. 

Kate Anthony: And that’s a really, I think it’s a really I find that too, right?

Kate Anthony: There’s so much content, but at a certain point when it’s your, I don’t know about you, but I felt like this, I’ve, I have always been like this. I look at, read a book on. Like sleep training, right? But I need to talk to an expert because I need to, I need them to weigh in on my baby, right? Because we’re all individuals, like it’s not one size fits all.

Kate Anthony: Exactly right. I need to hear you need to, I’m, I might, I feel like my situation is unique and different. And very often, by the way, it’s not but I will say with divorces they are, [00:25:00] they really can be because there are so many, there are just so many moving pieces all the time. Yes. And so having people to be able to speak with a legal expert who’s not costing you.

Kate Anthony: $750 an hour. It’s pretty fucking great. 

Marianna Strongin: And all in one kind of, so you know all that’s right. You’re talking about legal, you’re really all, a lot of times talking about financial. And when you’re talking about custody, you’re talking about mental health. And so to have that all together.

Marianna Strongin: We all collaborate, we all work well together. We all kind of love hanging out together, which is unique and fun. I think that there’s something, really special here, bringing all the experts together. 

Kate Anthony: I agree. I agree. I think it’s really great and I’ve loved collaborating with you.

Kate Anthony: It’s, I love the, because I think there is this. The, I think the sweetest spot is a collaboration between mental health and coaching, therapy and coaching, right? Yes. It I want all of my clients [00:27:00] in therapy. Yes. And because we do different things and we hold different aspects of the mental health aspect of divorce.

Kate Anthony: And so it’s a great, it’s been great. 

Marianna Strongin: And it actually, it came together so beautifully, like when we all sat down together and figured out how we were gonna collaborate on that. It was really quite simple. 

Kate Anthony: Exactly. And knowing each other’s lanes is helpful. Exactly. As a coach, I’m really clear on my lane and I think that’s often very, that can get a little fuzzy, which is one of the more important aspects of the coaching that we implemented.

Kate Anthony: Exactly. Yeah, really important. One of the things I wanna say about that is that the paid version where you get one-on-one coaching. Is $99 a month. If you think about the $750 an hour that you’re paying your attorney or upwards the, the amount of that you’re paying your therapist or your, and your co and or your coach and your financial person, no, you’re not gonna get.

Kate Anthony: As maybe as [00:28:00] much, but boy, are you gonna get a lot for $99? Yeah, highly recommend. We both highly recommend. All right, so that’s the commercial aspect of this episode, and now we’re gonna go back to our content. So let’s talk about co-parenting. We touched on that. Yeah, I know, right? It can be really hard, especially when one parent is, quote, high conflict.

Kate Anthony: I like to identify usually as it is one parent who’s high conflict, but Sure. Sometimes there’s reactionary, there’s conflict on both sides. That’s right. But Right. We react to somebody being an asshole to us in a way that is maybe not helpful to the situation. Yeah. So how do you how do we work with co-parent?

Kate Anthony: You do this work as a co-parent specialist, so how do you work with co-parents? 

Marianna Strongin: So again, we have to come back to our values. And even in when we were writing the content for my next chapter and thinking about co-parenting and high conflict divorce, we really distilled it [00:29:00] down to one value.

Marianna Strongin: And that value is the wellbeing of our children comes first. And every decision that we make, both small and large, should be informed by that. And so when I do this work, regardless. If it’s the person who’s causing the conflict or not, I really reiterate. Okay, so we’re talking about your child and their wellbeing.

Marianna Strongin: What do you think this will do? What do you think this email might generate for them while they’re at. School or wherever they might be? Just today we, I had somebody in who really deeply wanted to make their daughter have dinner with their new girlfriend. I had a parent who said she has to come to dinner.

Marianna Strongin: She is being so stubborn, she needs to be able to come and have dinner. And I said, okay, let’s figure this out. What’s the rush? Why? Why does it have to happen this week? [00:30:00] What is it about this week? And then he was able to say it works best for my schedule. Okay. So then we were able to say, okay, that’s not a great value because the value is her right now.

Marianna Strongin: And what would be best for her? She had three tests this week and that felt like a lot of pressure to put on her. Then he said this relationship is getting really serious and it’s really meaningful for me, and so I really need her to meet this person. I said, that’s, you said a lot of me.

Marianna Strongin: And so let’s go back to that. What would that be like for your daughter? And so again, they’re already past the divorce stage, but that high conflict that, need for control is still there. And so we are all working through that, the entire system. I like to call families systems and they have to operate together, but if we are valuing the child’s wellbeing, she’s already almost outta the house.

Marianna Strongin: Doesn’t matter. It becomes very clear what might be best 

Kate Anthony: a hundred percent. Not all [00:31:00] parents have you in their corner or me in their corner to guide those things, right? And so you’ve got a parent who is. Let’s say this parent that you’re talking about Yes. Who is having this conversation with their ex and their child.

Kate Anthony: Yes. And they are not rooted, they’re not very often the, that value is that’s not what they’re about. They’re about what I want. And so if you were just working with her this person’s ex Yes. Or the child. How do you deal? How would you, how do you recommend they deal with that?

Marianna Strongin: First of all, we have to soothe ourselves because even I was, activated on this call. I bet you were. You, you have to regulate yourself first. You really have to take care of yourself. ‘Cause once you’re triggered, it’s too late. Then you’re, that’s it.

Marianna Strongin: Lost control. So I always say we, we first really take care of ourselves first. We take a [00:33:00] deep breath. We say that, this is temporary. I know this feeling. I know what to do with this feeling. And then. We say, what can I control? What can I not control? Cannot control other people, right?

Marianna Strongin: Yep. And so the second I’ve placed that on, I know that the one thing I can control is that I can provide my child the values that I hold and I can document things. And I can place that power elsewhere, but it’s not going to be by answering back, by igniting the flame, by trying to control, by trying to teach.

Marianna Strongin: None of that’s gonna work. Yeah, it really comes down to back to ourselves. 

Kate Anthony: And then we also I think as parents, I’ll say I’ll give as parents, but as mothers, I think in particular, or maybe that’s just my experience because I’m a mother and I work with women, but whatever, we wanna protect our kid in that scenario.

Kate Anthony: It’s one thing to be like, I can’t, you can’t [00:34:00] control him, but it’s I wanna protect my kid. 

Marianna Strongin: That’s, and I think that’s the, that’s really the hardest part is that we really wanna be the barrier. That’s right. We can’t always do that. And I think in an effort to try to do that, we can sometimes create more friction for the child.

Marianna Strongin: I’ll tell you one thing. Studies have found that to be a well adjusted, highly attuned. Child. Child and then adult. You only need one steady, stable, attaching relationship. That’s it. One guys, one I, I say it all the time. Here it is backed up by more science. Yep. Just one. And 

Marianna Strongin: in, in an effort to try to get your second, we actually create more problems.

Marianna Strongin: So when we try to get the other co-parent to align with us, when we try to get them to see our way, we actually might be creating the very conflict that I said earlier in the podcast that I felt as a [00:35:00] child. Yes. 

Kate Anthony: That’s right. And so that’s right. 

Marianna Strongin: Letting that go. Although hard and sometimes impossible is actually best.

Kate Anthony: Yep. And what I tell my clients in these situations and tell me if you agree or disagree, is that really the only thing you can do is teach your children how to have a voice and that so we empower them to be able to say, daddy, I’m not ready. I’m not, I don’t feel comfortable. And that teaches them how to build confidence. 

Marianna Strongin: Yep. Absolutely. And it can start at a young age. We had somebody in our practice who was complaining was a young girl who was just starting to live at both mom’s house and dad’s house and came back to mom’s house and said something like, I can’t sleep at dad’s house. It’s the mattress is really uncomfortable.

Marianna Strongin: I don’t like it, and I don’t know what to do. And the mom, filled with all kinds of emotions, including guilt for putting her guilt. Yes. Yeah, [00:36:00] quickly was about to go and start, shooting texts of you need to get a new mattress and you need to get a new bedding, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Marianna Strongin: And then she stopped herself and she said to the daughter what would you like to do about that? And the daughter said if I tell daddy he’s gonna feel badly. And she said, why don’t you try? She came back next time. So excited. Daddy and I went shopping for a new mattress. We picked out a new bedding and she was empowered. 

Kate Anthony: That’s right. And she built connection with her father. Yes. I love it. I love that story. 

Marianna Strongin: Kids who go through divorce are afraid to burden their parents emotionally. Because as they watch them navigate these difficult moments, they take them on just like I did as a kid. And so they are the kids who are more likely to withhold and hold their requests and their emotions ’cause they don’t wanna burden.

Marianna Strongin: And that’s exactly what this child did. Very early, very, I don’t wanna burden him, I don’t wanna upset him. [00:37:00] 

Kate Anthony: That’s right. 

Marianna Strongin: But it’s really important to have relationships with people where you can be your authentic self and tell them what you need and want and not bury that. And the earlier we learn that the healthier we’re gonna be as adults.

Kate Anthony: Absolutely. Good God. If I had learned that as a child because I. Oh my God. 

Kate Anthony: Total sidebar. But also an important, I think example of this is when I was so conditioned to be worried about everybody else’s feelings before my own. I didn’t even know what my own were. And I was eight years old and I was in the playground.

Kate Anthony: A man came up to me. A stranger, middle-aged man, and he, through a series of events, obviously ended up molesting me in the park. And his, the reason it happened was because he asked me to, he’s come over here. And I knew every fiber of my being was like danger. And I didn’t want to hurt his [00:38:00] feelings.

Kate Anthony: Wow. And now I’m not saying I am responsible for a strange man in the park. You remember how you thought about it? A hundred percent. I remember the feeling of I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna hurt his feelings or I, I have to be polite. Good girl. Meanwhile that exactly, that man walked up onto the rocks in that playground and all the other girls scattered.

Kate Anthony: They all scattered. I was the only one left.

Kate Anthony: I’m and again, I don’t Thank you. It’s, I don’t blame myself for it, but I’m very clear now that I’m very clear now exactly how that ended up happening. Yeah. 

Marianna Strongin: Absolutely. As kids, I say this to my adult patients as kids. We are more likely to say, ouch. It sounds like you were not yet, you were already not saying ouch at a very young [00:39:00] age, but a lot of kids are like, ouch, and that hurts.

Marianna Strongin: But as adults, what’s really fascinating is I was walking down the street the other day and somebody ran right into me and it hurt. I did say Ouch. Yeah. I said, I’m sorry. Yeah. The instinct. And I teach my patients. I was shocked that even I did it. To constantly have ouch moments, right? Both emotionally and physically.

Marianna Strongin: Let it out. Let yourself acknowledge the ouch without the consequence of what other people might think and feel. So you at eight years old were already withholding your Ouch. 

Kate Anthony: Absolutely. ’cause I knew like the alarm, I knew this was not right. But I also knew that I, I don’t wanna rock the boat.

Kate Anthony: I don’t wanna, my point in telling that story is that it’s really, it is beyond the importance of just the relationship with the co-parent teaching our children. To express [00:41:00] themselves and use their voice and honor their feelings and express them to a parent has wider consequences.

Kate Anthony: Absolutely. Absolutely. That are really important. Yeah. So let’s move on to the rebuilding. Rebuilding after divorce, right? We divorce can strip away all the things that you thought you knew. And, we talked about, I talked about, we talked about people in that should I stay or should I go period of like they’ve grown into this person that they’re not ready to become yet.

Kate Anthony: But okay, now they’ve become this new person when they’ve gone through the process. How do you help women or people just rebuild after this, traumatic and also empowering experience? 

Marianna Strongin: Yeah, I think about our lives in various stages and I think those stages look so different for people.

Marianna Strongin: We’re never just constant. We’re always moving towards. But [00:42:00] there’s something really beautiful when you enter this next stage where I think we have to build on anticipation. And so for the first time, I encourage both women and men in this stage to really hone in on their wants. I think like early in our lives, in our twenties and our thirties, we so are focused on acquiring and building and doing the things that we think are right.

Marianna Strongin: And I think when somebody goes something like a divorce, which takes time to go through. The beautiful part about it is that they come to a place where they get to really ask themselves, now what do I want? That’s so beautiful. When do we ever get a chance to really say that? When we say that to ourselves in our twenties and early thirties, we’re too afraid to really ask ourselves those things 

Kate Anthony: or we don’t know yet.

Kate Anthony: Because we don’t know who we are yet, we haven’t figured out our values and all of those things yet. Yeah, 

Marianna Strongin: Exactly. Exactly. And I start small, when people are just going through it and, find themselves, living by themselves for the first time or with their kids.

Marianna Strongin: I [00:43:00] start. Small, I ask them, what are some of the small wants? What are the cravings? What are the new routines? And then we build from that. And that’s really empowering, is to be able to say, I want, and then follow through on that. And it’s actually, it’s one of the best parts of being a therapist is watching people evolve into that.

Kate Anthony: A hundred percent. I agree with you a hundred percent. Even the little things like, okay, so what flavor ice cream do you like? What do I want for dinner? Intentionally asking we always had this for dinner. Do, wait, do I want that? Do I like that? Yes. Yes. Oh, maybe I don’t.

Kate Anthony: Oh shit. I don’t like meatloaf at all. 

Marianna Strongin: That’s right. It’s scary. It’s scary to build new, I like to think about it from the framework of anticipating. So I often will talk about how we oftentimes do get what we want. Once we get there, it presents us with a whole new set of problems.

Marianna Strongin: And sure. But when we’re anticipating something, that’s the best part. ’cause that’s more [00:44:00] fantasy filled, right? We can assign all kinds of positive emotions to it. It’s like before going to a party and you think about what you’re aware and who might be there and what it might feel like. But once you’re there, you’re on to figuring out what to do there, right? And so in this stage, I talk to my patients about what are we gonna anticipate? And maybe you don’t know yet, but that’s exciting too. 

Kate Anthony: Yes. It’s funny ’cause when you, we were talking about mindfulness earlier. I was thinking about, ’cause you said being in the future is, anxiety producing.

Kate Anthony: But the thing that I was thinking of was like, except for anticipation. Except for I’m thinking about that vacation I’m gonna go on in a few weeks. That’s right. That’s right. And that’s gonna be exciting or right, that there’s a difference. I just wanna sort of point that out. If someone’s wait a minute, that’s not what she was talking about before.

Kate Anthony: There’s a difference between anticipation and anxiety. 

Marianna Strongin: It’s different because when you’re anticipating you’re very much aware where you are today, but you’re of building a fantasy for the future. So you know that [00:45:00] you’re in Wednesday, but you’re fantasizing about Friday. When we’re anxious, we’re asking ourselves questions about the future and not giving them any answers.

Kate Anthony: Oh, that’s a great frame. I love that reframe of it. All the questions. All the questions. All the questions with no answers. 

Marianna Strongin: As opposed to painting a picture. Exactly. So the party on Friday, what’s it gonna be like? Who might be there? Will I be comfortable? Will I have fun, anxiety, but.

Marianna Strongin: Party on Friday. What should I wear? That might be, I could wear that dress or I could maybe go try on something new. You are planning, you’re anticipating, you’re neutralizing very different. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Marianna, this is so great. I love, thank you so much for being here.

Kate Anthony: This has been such a great conversation.

Marianna Strongin: I could do this on and on with you.

Kate Anthony: I know. Me too. Same girl. Where could everyone find you and follow along with [00:46:00] you and your work because it’s just so brilliant. 

Marianna Strongin: My practice is called Strongin Therapy. It’s a private practice on the Upper East Side.

Marianna Strongin: I work there along with really talented clinicians who work with me, and we all work within the same framework. And my Instagram is Strong_In_therapy or @dr.marianastrongin. So I have two of them. 

Kate Anthony: Okay, great. And of course Marianna can also be found on My Next Chapter. And if you sign up, I have a code my code is DSG, and you can get your first month of the paid version for just $69.

Kate Anthony: So it’s 30% off. Super worth it. And if the free version, you can watch all the videos if you’re like, Marianna’s amazing. And she’s so smart. I I think then you can go watch all those videos and really get a lot out of it there too. We have so many so much content. I love it. Yeah. I love it.[00:48:00] 

Kate Anthony: Marianna, thank you so much for being here. This has been such a pleasure.

Marianna Strongin: Thank you for having me. 

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DISCLAIMER:  THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVICE.  YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY, COACH, OR THERAPIST IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN ADVICE WITH RESPECT TO ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

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