EPISODE 37: LEAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

SHOW NOTES

As a culture, we need to redefine what a “successful relationship” is — sometimes, that includes leaving. In this episode, you’ll hear about how deeply the belief “staying together, especially for your child” is the right thing to do in my Chinese upbringing is. You’ll hear about my internal conflict, and how I had to battle what I thought was “wrong” to do what is truly right for myself and my daughter.

This week, we’ll hear from Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, Christopher Vo, a Vietnamese American therapist who’s part of the Asian Mental Health Collective and how to create truly healthy relationships today.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the F*ck Saving Face podcast. I'm your host, Judy Tsuei, and together we'll explore mental and emotional health for Asian Americans, especially breaking through any taboo topics. Like may not always be pretty, but it is indeed beautiful. Let's make your story beautiful today.

So I was talking to my friend Aviv recently, who said, you need to go deeper in your stories.

You need to dive deeper, which is similar to what my book coach Bethany also said, as I'm working on this book proposal for my memoir, these vignettes are great, but we need context. We need to know how you feel about it. And the last month has been extremely challenging because I feel like I'm very used to sharing how I feel.

I'm very authentic and transparent and all of the. Posts that I do on social media, all the editorial articles that I've ever published, but I don't think I really learned how to assert an opinion, like a clear forthright opinion, and then also be okay if someone has a differing opinion where they're going to challenge me.

I think that for so many people who've published pieces and published articles, they've had to deal with haters, let's say. And I didn't know if I had that kind of confidence and bandwidth to really be able to deal with that or manage that, but I know that I am growing so I will try. And if you agree, or if you disagree, I would love to hear from you.

Please email me@helloatfluxsavingface.com and share your thoughts. It means so much to me. Thank you for everyone. Who's been sharing your messages thus far on Facebook, on Instagram at Fox saving face. And I look forward to hearing from you and I also respond. So in addition to the stories that I've been sharing on Mondays, where there are these personal essays and these vignettes, essentially, I will learn how to go deeper and share an opinion.

I'll learn to speak up more and it's especially relevant for this week because we are going to be covering relationships, especially learning how to have healthy ones, because in my family of origin, here's what I witnessed. I stood at the front door past midnight, my white haired white man neighbor with glasses, askew, standing there in his blue and green striped robe is everything okay.

He asked I'm sure. I said standing there in a t-shirt and shorts, my seventh grade body gangly, and actually completely unsure. I heard a lot of shouting. He said. He was being polite. What he actually heard was my mother in the backyard taking potted plants and throwing them on the ground. And it was so late in the night, I said afraid that my parents would continue their fighting.

Not sure if they knew that someone had come to the front door in alarm it's okay. Really? You can go back to sleep. He cocked his head to the side. He wasn't convinced, but a few seconds later he turned his body down our walkway, back to his house. Next door. I closed the front door behind him. I quietly made my way back to the room.

I shared with my sister, her on the bottom bunk of this frame, my father had built the legs of this bed always looks so thin. So narrow shaking a little as I climbed back up to this day, I have an outsized fear that a bunk bed will fall on top of me or my daughter when we're sleeping in one that we will be crushed.

I tried to go back to sleep. I tried to forget that I was yet, again, an adult before my time. I tried to block out the sounds of my mother and father screaming at each other. Yelling, raging anger became a scary emotion for me. I never knew when my father would blow up. I never knew when my mother would melt down.

I never knew if it were ever safe to exhale. I was always afraid. The other shoe would drop. When I told my three younger siblings, I was contemplating divorce. They each said, please don't do what mom and dad did. Please don't stay together for Wilder sake. Each of them knew the heartache and the heartbreak that we went through, his children waiting for when my parents would enter into the next battle, neither person ever seemed to win.

It's not just Asian culture that tells you to stay together for the sake of your children. It's many cultures around the world. It's many religions. It's believing that a successful relationship is choosing to stay together no matter what, when a more evolved perspective that takes into consideration all the research that's been done on trauma, on what's imprinted in our minds before the age of seven, and then beyond reveals that the healthiest thing we could sometimes do is to know when to move on when to walk away.

When to do things that are right for you, no matter what anyone else says. When my daughter and I arrived back in the states, my husband arrived a month later, he came to the door to pick up my daughter for a weekend play date. We were beginning to embark on the first stirrings of a custody schedule of co-parenting apart.

He walked up to the front door, this same walkway that neighbor had come up decades earlier and did not acknowledge me if he did look my way, it was to send daggers. He did not acknowledge my mother, which in my mind was complete blasphemy for a person who was raised believing. We always had to be different to elders, no matter what, by now, because we've been back for a month, my mother had heard more of what caused me to know that there was absolutely no possibility my husband and I would ever get back together.

She stood beside me at the front door doing that thing that we do as Chinese people, waiting for our guests to completely pull their cars out of you before we shut the door. We'll just stand here and smile and wave. So Wilder knows it's okay. My mother said to me in Mandarin, just stand here and smile.

Then when my husband finally pulled away with my daughter in the car, she closed the door. I was deflated and exhausted. I went to sit on the couch. My mother looked at me across the way across the room and said, I don't know why you and your husband can't just stay together. Why can't you just live in the same house and raise Wilder?

What about your daughter? I looked at her. I gassed. I could not believe that she was saying this to me doing a complete 180 from when she came to see me in Taiwan, especially now after witnessing with her very own two eyes, a small glimpse of what my husband could be like. She wanted me to replicate her marriage.

She wanted me to do the thing that she thought was right for my child by emulating her footsteps. I got up, I walked away. The relationships that we embark upon as we grow into maturity and adults can be emotionally violent when you least expect it. And if you've experienced emotional abuse, when you are young, these types of behavior can look normal.

That's why I'm so excited that this week I'm bringing Vietnamese American LMF T a licensed marriage and family therapist, Christopher , who is also part of the Asian mental health collective. We'll be sharing. Why can be so challenging for Asian Americans to create healthy relationship dynamics? Since those were often not modeled for us growing up, he believes that at the root of any problem is often a breakdown in communication and why it's essential to truly say fuck saving face about everything in order to empower real mental and emotional health.

I'm especially passionate about connection. And part of connection is having relationships of whatever kinds. So this upcoming interview on Wednesday will be a wonderful opportunity to glean some insights on how to shift your mindset and to better be able to express what you need. And then also to listen to those that you care about to be able to help support their needs as well.

See you on Wednesday. Also, hopefully my cold will be better by then.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you heard and know someone in your life who might also benefit from hearing this episode, please feel free to share it with them. Also, if you'd like to support our show, you can make a one-time donation fcksavingface.com. Or, you can make a recurring donation at patreon.com/fcksavingface. That's “fck” without the “u.” Subscribe today to stay tuned for all future episodes.