Grief, Heartbreak, and Doing the Work with Robin Ducharme

What's new? How you doing? We're gonna just hang out for like three weeks and we're gonna just talk about life and what's going on. And technically, I suppose this is your first visit to Marriage Therapy Radio. If you want to talk about that situation.

My first visit? What do you mean?

Well, you've been on here twice, but we're gonna be removing two of them, I understand, which of course we can edit any of this out.

Well, one of them is gonna be removed, right? The one where I was with Hector. Yeah.

You did it twice?

Together? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, you came on once and then you came on a year later. So we don't have to talk about any of that if you don't want to, but I am willing to set the conversation up in any way that feels good to you.

You know, Zach, I think it's important to talk about. I'm finally at a place where I can talk about it. And what I would say, just around the last three months, it's been three months since my mom passed. And it's been really hard, you know. I've gone through a lot of death in my life with my closest people, my nuclear family. First my twin, then my dad, and now my mom. And so I feel like I was primed for this. My mom's health decline went pretty fast, but she was ready to die when she died. And so that gives me a lot of peace. But the breakup, Hector and I broke up just weeks after she died, it's like a double whammy and it fucking took me down. Took me down for the count. I really mean that. But I was already down. My mom died.

Yeah. How have you made sense of it? How do you understand it now, a couple of months later?

Well, what I would say, even when I was going through it, I was fully present with everything I was going through. I wasn't holding back my feelings of just despair, but I was also having what I would call an opening, a spiritual opening, at the same time as my deepest pain. And I think a lot of people will be able to relate to this and may not have the language to explain it. But I've gone through it twice before. My first spiritual opening on such a scale was when Reece died. When my twin died, I begged my brother to come to me. I was serious in that begging. I was praying to him directly, and to God: bring my twin to me to show me he's okay. I know his body's dead, but I need to know his soul, his spirit, is going to be taken care of and is going to be good, you know? And I asked Reece to come to me. And it was that night, the night I found out that he had died, that he actually did. His spirit came to me and he was with me. And he didn't leave me for a full week. Our connection was so deep, and my love for him was so pure and strong. But I also was open and willing to have him come to me in spirit.

When was that for you? Were you ten, twenty, thirty?

It was 2012. I was 35.

Okay. So you're in your thirties, and this is the first story you're telling us about this kind of spiritual awakening, or spiritual, what'd you call it, opening? I think that's the word you used. Opening.

Well, I would call it an opening because I started seeing beyond physical sight. I started seeing not just my brother, but other things too. And it was scary. I said to my husband, David, I was married at the time to my daughters' dad, I said, I think you may have to take me to the hospital. I think I might be having a nervous breakdown.

Or hallucinating. Yeah.

But the thing is, I knew I wasn't. But it was so terrifying, you know? This is why, as human beings, we can have spiritual experiences, but we're not meant to walk around seeing the non-physical all the time, because our minds wouldn't be able to take it. We're not built that way. But I was having these very prolonged periods of time where I was seeing Reece, hearing Reece, talking to him clearly. So this went on for about a week before he actually transitioned. And so I understand death on this level. People listening, I know there's people out there that have had these experiences, but they're not actually talking about it, or they haven't really understood exactly what happened. But I'm not the only one.

Well, there's also people listening who are thinking you're a crackpot, like, holy cow, this woman is talking about seeing ghosts walk around. I believe you. And it seems like you're at peace with this idea. But what does this spiritual opening then do for you? What does it do to you? Do you know? How does it translate into your day-to-day life, let's say, after it lifts?

I think it really just changed everything around how I look at life, how I live life, how I move through life. I understand that we're not these physical beings. We're spiritual. And Reece showed me that. And the angels that I was seeing and talking to, and just my connection to our source, is just unbreakable now. I mean, it was a lot. But after that happened, I was like, okay, I'm not ready for this. Close it down, close it down. I was very conscious of the power of even saying to my, I don't know, my soul or everything around me, okay, I don't wanna be seeing this anymore. I don't want this opening to be a forever experience. Maybe it'll serve me in my future, but for now I gotta live my life. I've got two young girls to raise, I've got a business to run, I've got a family, my life to live.

Yeah. Honestly, Robin, I haven't had very many experiences at all with death. So for you to explain this to me, I'm like, gosh, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around even just the weight of the loss in your life. It's significant, you know. So I'm grateful that you're sharing it with me, but I don't know. I've been very fortunate to not have to navigate some of these things.

Yeah. And so when my mom passed away in Miami, she was at a hospital there with my brother. And I was in LA working the day she died, but I got on a plane that morning and was attempting to be there before she passed, but she died two hours before my flight landed. My brother and I stayed in Miami to do all the things you need to do to get a body cremated. My mom was from Canada. She died in the US. So we had to go through that whole process. It's a process when you die in another country, let alone in your own country. To get a body cremated, it's not something that just happens overnight. It's freaking a lot. So I spent time there and then I came home. I was home for four days planning her funeral. And then like five days later, we did her funeral in Calgary, her celebration of life. So all this happened in a matter of like two weeks, right?

Yeah, you were operating.

You know, it's a funny thing, because I didn't realize this was gonna be a conversation about grief, but I do understand grief, because I've been through it many times, and the depths of it. And we can postpone it, but it's gonna come. And it might come in waves. In my case, I knew there was nothing else I could do. I said to all my colleagues, my business partners, I can't work. I just need you to know that I'm out. There's nothing I can do. I can't be on my phone. That's the last thing I can do right now, is look at a telephone. I need to be in my home. I sat outside, looking at the ocean, because I live on the water, thank God. And I was able to just sit and just be, and I would cry or smoke cigarettes. I mean, fuck, I took up smoking for a good couple months there. That was my medicine. I did, because I was like, this is helping me somehow. Okay, Robin's gonna do this right now. And I wasn't judging myself. My kids sure as hell were. They're like, Mom, really? And I'm like, yeah, Mom's gonna smoke right now. Everybody stand back. It's gonna stink, but I'm doing it.

Yeah. How do you make sense of that? I mean, part of how you made sense of it is you said, this is not a relationship I want to be a part of. But the empathetic part of my brain goes, I wonder if that's his version of grief. Losing this kind of relationship, or this person, or access to this person, in a way that was jarring and immediate. Maybe he didn't have the equipment or the skills to know how to do empathy or how to do care. That's just the part of me that goes, well, I wonder what was going on. But maybe you've come to a different conclusion, or a different space.

I actually appreciate your perspective on this, Zach, because, well, what I...

I don't know if I'm right. I just know that, yeah.

What I know was communicated to me by him, and my experience in our relationship for those two and a half years. It was two years, four months, whatever, let's get technical. But his lack of empathy when we would hit up against things that I wasn't good with. I was voicing, that doesn't feel good. That doesn't feel right for me. That's going against my values. That's going against my heart. And there wasn't empathy for where I was at. You know? I'm very equipped for empathy. I'm a very empathetic person. I can put myself in other people's shoes easily. And I know that's not a skill that a lot of people can say they have.

Well, I wonder if it's a skill, right? I had the same conversation with somebody the other day about empathy. Is empathy a thing you have or you don't have, or is it a thing that you can learn or not learn? If it's a skill, you can learn it, right? But if it's not a skill, if it's a gift, or if it's a disposition, let's say, that you have, or that someone like Sarah has, can you learn it? I don't really know. I think I'm probably in the middle somewhere. I think professionally I'm really good at empathy, but I don't know if personally the people in my life would say the same thing. I understand it conceptually, but certainly there's a range. I just wonder if you can actually build it up.

Well, what came to me was that he had a lack, a full lack of empathy for me. And this was not new.

It wasn't brand new. I think that's what you just said. You can kind of go back and go, yep, that's where it was, and that's where it was, and that's where it was. And this was just an extreme example.

Yes. And on those examples where I can pinpoint, which were things that were really important to me, his lack of empathy was so clear. We would get therapy about it. We talked to you. We had professionals involved, because we're not coming to any solution here. And I felt completely unheard, unseen, unfelt. I want my partner, who I'm sharing my life with, to feel this, to get even some sort of semblance of where I'm at. You don't have to agree, but I sure hope that you could come to a place of, I could see how this would really hurt you. This would hurt your heart, you know? And I don't want to hurt you.

Well, not to belabor the point too much, but since we're talking about Sarah's work, she actually highlights this idea of empathy as flawed conceptually. This idea that I need to feel what you're feeling is a little bit of an extreme ask. The alternative is compassion, which is actually always available. It's always an option. Even if you can't climb into somebody else's shoes, you can show compassion for what they're grappling with or dealing with. And so it may be a moot point.

And I would say that those were two things that were absolutely null and void in our relationship: the empathy and the compassion. And that came just crystal clear in my experience with him in the last weeks of our relationship. It happened so fast, Zach. It happened really fast.

Yeah. It sounds like you had to make a choice about which was the real version. You know this one version, and then there's this other version that you didn't know, and that ended up being the one that you kind of committed to. Like, this is the real one, or at least it's the one I don't want to have to navigate or deal with.

I think I've seen the real version. Right. You can turn on this kindness. You can turn on the charm and what you say is love. If that's an act, it was a really good act for a long time, you know? But the person that was in front of me, like I said to him on the beach that day, I said, I imagine this person that's in front of me right now, this man who's mean and who's cold and who really has no empathy towards me whatsoever, is who you were in your marriage. Is that true? And he said, yes, it was. He told me that. He was admitting that he was that man in his marriage. And that's fucking scary. I don't want to be with a mean person. No bloody way. I can be mean sometimes, but I say that and I'm like, that's funny, because when's Robin mean? Not very often. If my meanness comes out, you're hurting somebody that I love. That's pretty much it. And trust me, she will come out, and you're not gonna fuck with her. But that's a very circumstantial thing. I am not walking around hurting people I love with intent or malice. There's no bloody way.

Yeah. Well, I guess I live in this sort of perpetual place of curiosity, maybe. And I get a little bit of extra distance from the thing, 'cause it wasn't my heart that got broken, or my grief that I was navigating. But it sounds to me almost like this was his version of a trauma response, you know. He had his own version of a disruption in his relational space, his life, because of what happened to your family, and he wasn't equipped enough to not revert to the version of himself that was just trying to stay safe and sane. That's the piece that I think is intriguing. And that's a real chunk of work that people have to learn how to do, because if they don't, they'll ruin their relationships. So, you know, I feel terrible for you. I feel terrible for the loss in your family, of your mom, and of this relationship that was working for you for so long. And I also kinda feel bad for him. I feel sad for him that he's missing out on something really available. Love, joy, life, empathy, compassion. That's a bummer for him. I'm sorry about that.

You know what my therapist said to me? Of course, I reached out to her. I'm like, this is crazy what I'm going through right now. How do I even understand this? I don't understand it. And she said something that you're saying too, Zach. She said, this is shadow work in him. It's dark, right? It's very dark. And it requires a lot of work. And she said, Robin, you have been doing the work. And I have been, Zach. I've been doing the work on myself for so many years. So many years. That doesn't mean there's anything perfect about that. But I'm saying it takes a lot of work to do the work. It's freaking hard, and my life has been dedicated to the work, right? You don't get to a place of being relationally literate and strong without doing the work. You can't bypass it. You can't skip through it. And she said to me, he's probably at like a grade two level, and you've been doing this your whole life. So you can't skip forward. You can't just be like, I'm there. I've done it. I've got there. No.

Yeah. Or you can for a while, if you're riding along with somebody who's modeling the work in such a proactive way, as you have done through your life and your career. I do want to ask this question, though, because I know for a fact people are rolling their eyes at this phrase, the work. Like, my God, there it is again. They're talking about the work. How do you understand the work? When you say, I've been doing the work, what is that for you?

Well, first of all, it's a lot of introspection, and going back and going, okay, where was my part in this? Because I know I've got a part in everything that's going on in my life. 50/50, if not more. I've got my responsibility, my side of the fence. Where am I accountable? Who did I hurt? What did I say? What did I do? And it's like, okay, I don't want to do that anymore. And sometimes it's these dark patterns that are so deep inside of us, that we learned, that we've been practicing since we were kids. So of course it's like, shit, I gotta work on that pattern.

Well, yeah. And it's very simple, in terms of one of the things you're describing, particularly this whole trope around ninety meetings in ninety days. It's this idea that if you're gonna do the work, you actually have to dedicate time and energy and effort to it. In that case it's very specific. You need to carve out one hour, plus commute time, every single day to demonstrate that you're interested in changing the pattern, or changing the energy, or changing the path. Because you can't just, I don't know, lay in your bed with your phone and introspect and expect that to be the work, or to qualify, you know.

You make a really good point, Zach, because in order for us to make change in our lives, it has to be through action. It's not just sitting on a phone or reading a book or listening to a podcast. That doesn't constitute change. What constitutes change is our new action, right? It's awareness plus new action that creates change. Right? We have to do things differently. We have to create a new path. New pathways, right?

Yeah. So how you doing? Are you finished grieving? Are you at peace? Are you still angry? Do you know? Where's your head at these days?

You know, when it comes to my mom, somebody just sent me a card this morning, and I haven't received a sympathy card in months, you know. And I open it up and, oh, yeah, it's tender. Or something will happen, somebody will say something about my mom, and I'll just tear up. So, you know, the grief is real, and it's gonna come when it's gonna come, and I'm not gonna shun it. I'm gonna experience it, I'm gonna feel it, and I want to. That's honoring the love I have for my mother. I'm not gonna push anything down.

Well, yeah, grieving is a process. And the whole trope used to be that it was these four or five phases that you went through, and they were almost linear and predictable, and I don't think anybody agrees with that anymore. It's not a linear process that you go through. It's a mishmash or whatever. But the end is acceptance. The solution to grief is acceptance. How do you think about your relationship to acceptance at this point?

I accept. I do accept that this is the best path. This is what's right for me and my family. I fully accept that. That doesn't take the pain away. Acceptance doesn't relieve us of pain. We have to go through the heartbreak and all the phases, whatever that is, you know what I mean?

Well, pain isn't one of the phases. Anger is one of the phases. Depression, denial, bargaining, I think.

Sadness. There has to be sadness.

Well, depression, yeah. But pain isn't a phase. Pain is a fact, you know.

Hmm. Well, I don't know. I think pain is a feeling. I feel it in my heart. I feel heartbroken, and my heart's healing, but it's not healed yet, you know? So I'm just gonna honor my healing in whatever way that goes. Some days I'm angry, I'm just like, whatever, that's just such BS. I'm sorry I'm swearing so much. But some days I do get angry, and then I'm just like, okay, and I just gotta let it go, 'cause I'm not gonna carry around resentment. No.

Yeah. No, you're gonna get on a plane, you're gonna do your job. You're gonna go down and talk to people about how love works. We're gonna get to talk two more times in this context. I wanna hear all about your book, which I know you're trying to push out into the world, to make sure people hear about how love makes a difference and how love works. I bet you have a different perspective on it now than you did when you started writing. I wanna hear all about that, you know.

Yeah. I do. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time and your presence, and just for having me. Your friendship.

All right. So we're gonna make sure that the next time we get together, we're gonna talk about the book, 'cause I wanna hear about that process for you. As you know, I finished my own book. I just got the proof the other day. It just came back.

Awesome, hey.

So I have this actual artifact. But I've told people many times that I started writing it about a year ago, and things that I wrote in October of last year, that I thought were absolutely critical to my thesis, that were essential to my point of view, didn't make it into the final cut. It's wild to start out with an agenda or a plan and to have the plan dictate what the result ends up being. So I wanna hear about your version of that, whether or not you had things that you had to let go of, even though you knew they were valuable and important. Maybe like relationships, you know.

For sure. We'll talk about writing a book, and that process, for sure.

But I wonder if I didn't just accidentally say something about relationships. You know, we start with this plan and this idea that we think is absolutely essential, of how it's going to work and how it's going to go. And then the process plays out, and some things don't make the final cut, right? Some people don't make the final cut, because they don't conform to the thing that you're learning along the way, you know. But we'll hear more about that another time.

Yes, we will. We will. The new chapter is unfolding.

Right on, Robin. Thanks for talking to me. We'll punt the book to next time and we'll go from there.

Thank you. Yes, we will. Have a glorious weekend, my friend. Thank you for having me.