Christopher Bruce:
Hi everyone. My name’s Christopher Bruce. I’m a divorce and family law attorney in the South Florida area and today I have the just distinct pleasure of being joined by Rich Heller. Rich is a relationship coach. He also works in the field of divorce coaching focused around toxic relationships. And we’re going to go over a topic that’s near and dear to my heart and in my law practice and that’s how to deal with divorcing and narcissists both before the process, during and after the dust has settled. So Rich, thanks for taking the time out of your day and your practice to be part of this. And before we get into the topic, maybe just tell everybody how did you get the passion to do this type of work?
Rich Heller:
Well, first I just want to say thank you for having me. It’s great to see you again. I haven’t seen you in a while and I’m so honored to be on the show. And to answer your question, I grew up in a high conflict household that ended in a messy divorce. And my brother and I were both really traumatized by that, though at the time we didn’t know it. We were just kids, right? You’re just kind of adjusting. It was only, in my case, the years of therapy and personal work that I was like, wow, I got some personal stuff to work through here thanks to the household I grew up in. And my brother on the other hand did not do that work. And he is a really smart guy. I mean, really intelligent, 300 pound security guard, just so underutilizing his potential. So we’re kind of like a tale of what can happen to kids in this situation.
I was never going to get divorced because I just wasn’t going to do what my parents did. I was going to have the perfect marriage. And so consequently, of course I married someone very quickly, got her pregnant, did the right thing by her, typical American idiot guy story. And I stayed married to her five years longer than I should have trying to fix her. It wasn’t like she was so awful. I was trying to fix her and make it work and reward her and manipulate her and control her. I made all the mistakes that people make in marriages. And then when we finally got divorced though, the one thing I did right was I let actually a matrimonial attorney, not a coach, coached me on the process.
Somebody I went to college with and I went to college reunion. I was telling her about what was going on. She said, “You know what? I’m going to help you through this.” And she coached me through the whole process, taught me to manage my emotions, take them somewhere else instead into the divorce. And my first wife is or was, I don’t know if she still is, very narcissistic, really is very shortsighted in the impact of her behavior on the children and everyone else. So it really took a lot to follow my coach’s advice. But my first wife and I are friendly today. The kids are relatively well-adjusted human beings who are, both of them, successfully married and having families of their own. So we couldn’t have done that badly.
And that’s why I do this work though, is I grew up in the wrong way and I got coached in doing it the right way. And I thought, how can I take the negative in my life and make it a positive for other people? I can help them with their relationships. And I started out as a divorce coach and I still do that work today.
Christopher Bruce:
Well, that’s an amazing story. And I mean you’re helping people I just think break the cycle of what can be dysfunction in family and especially when it comes to kids. And my point of view with this stuff is when somebody can successfully get out of one of these difficult relationships, especially with children, they really can create just a whole cycle of change for their family, those people around them and everybody that comes after that if enough people do, and I think the world truly is a better place and they’re certainly happier. So it’s amazing to me that you’ve kind of recognized that calling and are doing this type of work.
And I guess now to the people that are on the starting end of this process, haven’t went through it yet, maybe they’re reading, came across this, they think they’re married to a narcissist or just somebody that’s just controlling and then difficult. Just from your experience and life and also in your professional practice, how does being married to one of these controlling, perhaps narcissistic people, affect somebody? What’s it like to the side effect of being married to somebody like that?
Rich Heller:
I think first we got to get clear on what we’re calling a narcissist.
Christopher Bruce:
Yeah.
Rich Heller:
I mean, for me to really answer the question. So there’s a diagnosis. I’m got a master’s of social work and I’ve worked with all kinds of mentally ill folks. There’s a diagnosis called narcissism and it’s hard, difficult to treat, difficult to cope with. It’s a form of mental illness. Then there’s the thing that the rest of us are calling narcissism. So if we put on one end, Mother Teresa, I don’t know why I always use her. On the other end, the most raging narcissist you can think of, Adolf Hitler was pretty narcissistic.
Christopher Bruce
There you go.
Rich Heller:
Then the chances are that someone who behaves in a way that has a narcissistic tendency is going to be, let’s say, a seven and a half up towards that 10, somewhere in there. So you may be married to someone that’s not as awful and terrible as the most extreme narcissist in the world, but they might have that tendency. And when you live with someone who has a tendency to think mostly of themselves, what they do is that they twist the needs of the people around them to meet their own needs. They view other people as vehicles for getting their own needs met. And these people can be very seductive. They’re very charismatic.
Well, yeah. My first wife was too. I’m just thinking, is this true for my first wife, who wasn’t Adolf Hitler, by the way. Yeah, they can be very seductive and attractive. And the thing is, when once we become part of their sphere and sort of get plugged in, it can feel like what happened? As we become a tool in their toolbox, once they bring us into their sphere of influence, it can feel really disappointing. And you start to find yourself twisting yourself into a pretzel to please them and to make things right with them because you want the good stuff that you got into the relationship in the first place with. And sometimes, you get there and they shine it on you and it just feels so good. But those instances get less and less. And the experience of being all emotionally twisted get more and more.
Christopher Bruce:
So it’s I guess for the pretzels out there, the people that are really identifying in what you’re talking about, which I think is spot on by the way. I mean, we have initial meetings with people that sometimes become clients of the law firm and they pretty much describe feeling the way that you just described there towards the end. I mean, they want the dopamine hit of the stuff that got them into the relationship, the attention a lot of times very important to them based on just their own upbringing and what happened in their family growing up. But then they get it less and less and they feel more used and used. And I guess for the people that identify with some of this stuff and they’re thinking, okay, well I got a lawyer and I got a divorce coach or relationship coach on this call here, I’m thinking about possibly leaving this relationship. What’s your advice to them? What should they be doing now before things get started and out in the open?
Rich Heller:
I think if you’re finding yourself in this situation and you’re questioning it, there’s a tendency to believe that in some way it’s reparable. What if I can fix it? What if I can make it better? And a lot of the people, clients that I work with, usually come to me because they have children and they didn’t really get the damage on themselves to themselves of being in this relationship. But they start to see how the narcissistic, the person with the tendency, their self-centered partner treats the children. And that gets really scary for them. And the fact of the matter is that we can’t change. Nobody can change anyone else. Nobody can fix anyone else. Nobody. We just don’t have that power.
And so your options would be, A, talk to them about what you’re seeing. And I promise you what they’re going to do is if they’re really in that scale, in that seven and a half to 10 realm, the first thing they’re going to do is convince you that the problem is you, that you are crazy, that there’s something wrong with you. How could you say that? You need to really look at yourself. In some way, shape or form, they’re going to gaslight you and make it about you. And that’s a surefire sign that there is no hope or very little hope.
Christopher Bruce:
Well, you’re spot on with what you say. I mean, I guess I don’t know the actual numbers, but there are probably 25% of our clients are clients of the firm because their husband told them that. They went to see a therapist and the therapist basically told them what you’re just saying and they realized what the deal is. You’re spot on with that.
Rich Heller:
Yeah. And the next step if you want to actually get out is to talk to someone like Chris Bruce, an attorney who understands the problem, not because you’re not necessarily going to go to an attorney to so that you can serve them and move on it. But I think the first thing, just get to know the landscape. Get to know what your rights really are. Get to know what the cost really will be. Before you make the decision, you want to understand where you might be going and what the price of going there is.
And divorce is never inexpensive. It is never, or well, it is very rarely painless, but I say probably never painless because divorce involves the dissolution of a dream, a vision that you had with another person. And once you have children, you’re well on the way to making that dream happen. So there’s going to be some pain involved. But first you want to understand how much pain and is the pain of taking this step going to outweigh the pain that I’m currently in? Or is it going to be less than? Which pain is more? And if the pain of getting the freedom is going to lead to not having any pain at all, it might be worth it.
Christopher Bruce:
Makes sense. So somebody, she’s going through this process, she’s done these steps, she’s now determined she’s going to follow through, she’s going to get divorced. Do you have any advice for her as she goes through the divorce process with one of these people?
Rich Heller:
For sure. So you’ve made the decision that you’re going to get divorced. The most important person on your team is going to be your attorney because they are your Sherpa in the legal world. Most attorneys are going to be limited to the legal world. Not all of them have the in-depth understanding that you have. I’ve talked to you and I’ve gotten an know you. Chris, you’ve got an incredible in-depth understanding of this problem. But I dare say that you are probably going to want some mental health help, a coach, a therapist. Or maybe you’re going to want a preacher or a rabbi, whatever you lean into, but you’re going to want somebody in your corner, preferably somebody who really understands this problem to help you with the emotional/spiritual side. Not that an attorney like Chris can’t, but I’m going to guess that most attorneys charge a lot more than a pastor, a rabbi, a therapist or a coach.
So you’re going to want to get some cost-effectiveness there because divorce ain’t cheap, folks. But the other thing is that those people are probably trained to manage the emotional side, whereas professionals like Chris intimately know the legal side and are familiar with the emotional side. We don’t want to take away that relationship. The mental health professional, the coach, whatever, is going to really have in-depth experience at the emotional side and how to deflect the gaslighting, which is going to keep coming and while you’re going through the divorce process, the gaslighting keeps coming. While you’re going through the divorce process, your own denial will come up. About halfway in, you’ll go, “Oh, why am I doing this to my children and my family?” And you’re going to want to talk to someone who understands what that is and how to handle it. And Chris has got massive experience with that because he’s seen it again and again and again. But a mental health professional who’s worked with a large number of people in this particular area might have some tools that Chris doesn’t.
Christopher Bruce
And just on that note, and I read through your, it’s a great book, we’ll talk about it a little bit more at the end, but Rich wrote a book, Divorce Detox. But I think you had an exercise in there for trying to basically take some of the things that are really aggravating you and basically I guess lessen the intensity of them or the effect that they have on you. And I mean, maybe you could explain that and a couple other tips you might have for people in this stage of the process just for staying grounded and not letting their emotions get the best of them. I think that would be helpful.
Rich Heller:
Wow, that’s a big can you want to open there.
Christopher Bruce:
Top three.
Rich Heller:
Yeah. I think the biggest problem for any of us in any situation in life is that we all have emotional baggage from our childhood. So how do we get into a relationship with a narcissist? Probably we had one in our childhood. We’re preconditioned for that relationship. And what comes with emotional baggage is a tendency to overreact, to go from zero to 60 instead of zero from 10 to 20, or to be very vulnerable to certain kinds of influences that might not be so positive for us.
And so what’s in the book are there are a number of exercises, number one, to help people identify their what we call triggers, which is this emotional baggage that’s stuff, unresolved feelings from our childhood to he identify it. The first step is to learn to work around the emotional baggage. The emotional baggage exists on the unconscious level, which is like 80% of who we are.
The next step is to start identifying what the baggage is and to help the unconscious mind to heal from it. And our unconscious mind actually is on our side. It’s our internal operating system. It’s the part of us that’s on automatic and it wants us to thrive. It wants to take care of our body. It wants to take care of our emotions. It wants to take care of all those things for us. So when we focus on these areas and allow our unconscious mind to see that we have maybe some feelings we need to let go, and we have processes that help us to let go of them, the unconscious mind will actually cooperate and we can start to let go of this stuff so we are less triggered and less really most important, we’re less vulnerable to the manipulation of the narcissist. Because what the narcissist is a master of is discovering our triggers and manipulating us through them. And there’s a whole lot more to that. But I’m working really hard today to keep my answers within two minutes.
Christopher Bruce:
That part, too. Maybe we could just talk briefly or a moment, somebody’s going through the divorce and there’s kids, whether these kids are the little ones that I have or the big ones all grown up like yours. I think that a divorce from a toxic spouse can really has a tendency to impact those children regardless of the age. What’s your best advice for somebody to try to deal with that in the best way possible?
Rich Heller:
Allow me to speak from personal experience. All right. So I have two children by my first wife who is got some narcissist tendencies and a mental illness that she refuses to get treated. My current wife and I hope forever wife, one day at a time, has two children by her husband who is a rageaholic and also something of a narcissist. And so we both had to work really hard at helping our children to have a relationship with these people and not become too much like them. We wanted them to adopt… Both of these people have really strong qualities by the way. We want our children to grow in the strong positive qualities of these people without taking on the mantle of being a rageaholic or in my first wife’s case, clinical depression. And my children wrestle with that somewhat. They’ve gotten some help with that.
And though we can’t teach our children not to be depressed or not to be raging, we can teach them how to deal with these other personalities. And so once the first step for us is to really understand who is the… I call it embracing the enemy, but really they’re not the enemy. They’re the other parent. We call embracing the enemy because at that stage in the divorce process, it feels like they’re the enemy. But where we want to do is we want to embrace them so that we start to develop empathy for them and understanding of how they became the way they are. And as we understand that they behave the way that they do because of what happened with their parents and that really has very little to do with who we are, they stop becoming the enemy and they start becoming, “Oh, this is my kid’s other parent.”
And then we teach our kids, we taught our kids how to deal with each of these parents in a way where they could deflect the negative and absorb the positive. Without saying to my kids, “You know your mom’s all effed up. You don’t want to be like her.” Instead we said, “Oh, well,” I taught them when you encounter someone who has a problem with this issue, rather than absorbing it, here are some strategies you can have that will help you with it. And let’s face it, the world is filled with angry and sad people. So taking that stance is helpful for them no matter what, I mean, whether they’re dealing with an upside down parent or another upside down human being.
Christopher Bruce:
Well, that’s great advice and I think a perfect way to try to frame it. So [inaudible 00:19:52] listening-
Rich Heller:
But you’ve got to have that personal understanding of why they are the way they are. And when we’re in the divorce process, it can feel very personal and very much like you’re being personally attacked. And once you get that they’re just hardwired that way because their parents flooded them with their stuff and they’re just sharing that stuff with you, not because of who you are, but because of who they are, your whole perspective and experience starts to change.
Christopher Bruce:
Well, I think that’s great advice. And I hope really people take that to heart and I think they could absolve themselves of a lot of grief and really their children by taking the time to teach them that stuff. And like you said, I mean, it’s not just something that’s going to apply maybe to the enemy or the other parent as we want them to be. But also, I mean, these people are all over the world and whether they’re straight from hell or just have a brain that works a little bit differently because of the way they’re raised, it’s the fact is they exist and it’s a life skill to be able to deal with them. So thank you for sharing that. Now for people when they get-
Rich Heller:
Straight from hell. Maybe I write a new book, it’s called How to Deal With Satan. Did you know Satan? I did. Let me show you how to deal with that. It’s like it’s never that bad, we hope.
Christopher Bruce:
Well, some of my clients, they would say the straight from hell part is the truth. But when you [inaudible 00:21:31]
Rich Heller:
Well, there are some pretty evil people out there. It’s true.
Christopher Bruce:
There are. It’s sad but true. So just so we can help people see the light at the end of the tunnel and maybe see the full course of how this goes, they do the stuff we’re talking about. Before it all starts, they get hopefully a great lawyer that understands this stuff, therapists, other professionals, a coach that help them stay grounded. They get to the finish line, they get the word from their state, a piece of paper that says, “Congratulations, you’re divorced.” What then? I mean, does everything get better? How should they expect things to go? And you probably could be great in talking just about how things went for you. How do you deal with these people?
Rich Heller:
Well, there are kind of two pieces to answering that. The first thing I want to say is just talk about what kind of professional you need to pick and why. So what therapists are really good at is helping people to untangle emotional knots from the past. And so if part of what’s coming up for you is that you’re divorcing someone who is reminding you of your parents and that’s complicating the process, that’s something you definitely want to go to a therapist about it.
If what you’re having trouble with is making a strategy for dealing with this person in the immediate future and the coming future, that’s more the world of coach. Not that therapists don’t do strategy and not that coaches don’t touch emotion. But those are kind of the boundaries of those two things. Now the second part is when you get to the end of the divorce, you may still want to work with one or both of those people on those issues.
But then there’s your children. So though the studies show that it’s actually that first year after the divorce that’s hardest for them. And this is really important. For us in the divorce process, the adults, we’re just like, “Oh, thank God that’s over. I’m not hemorrhaging money all over the place. The war is over,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I can feel better about dating, if you’re not dating already or you are dating already. I can live my life again. There’s sense of relief. But for the kids, during the divorce, totally irrationally for no reason any of us can really understand, they felt completely responsible for your divorce. They felt like they must have done something wrong. And that’s because they have no context for it. They’re little narcissists basically, They’re kids. What kids mostly think about is themselves. And if their parents are divorcing, it has to be because they did something wrong. And so they are usually on their best behavior or good behavior during the divorce hoping that will fix it.
Now, that isn’t always true. Adolescents may act out a little more. It’s stage related, but the studies show consistently that that first year after the divorce is when all their stuff starts to fall apart. Why? Because they failed. They didn’t save the marriage. All their good behavior or maybe they acted out trying to get attention, but not whatever they did, it didn’t work. And now you are relaxing. You’re like, oh, “I can focus on my life. It’s going to be okay for the kids.” But the kids are like, “Oh my God, my parents are actually divorced. I’ve screwed up. What do I do now?” And that is when your kids are most at risk of depression, of acting out sexually, of drug use, of alcohol use and even suicide. They’re also at risk of doing poorly academically. There’s just all kinds of possible fallout. And so what you really want to be doing after that first year, besides getting yourself a little help, is giving them a ton of attention.
And maybe they need, and in this case, I would say a therapist, not a coach. They really need someone to help untangle the feelings. Feelings are irrational. Help them look at, understand, really get that they’re not responsible, really get that they didn’t do anything wrong, and really get that things are going to be better now. And sometimes I would say a therapist or a counselor, nine times out of 10, is better than a coach. And if you’re strapped for cash, I’ve gone way over two minutes this time. I apologize. If you’re strapped for cash- stressed.
Christopher Bruce:
No, this is helpful. Keep going.
Rich Heller:
You’re always better off going to the school with this. Every school has a school counselor. I myself availed myself of the school counselor throughout my parents’ divorce and post divorce. Without anyone telling me, I was just like, “Oh my god, somebody’s here. I can talk to them. It’s confidential.” And it’s better than no one.
Christopher Bruce:
That’s a great extra tip right there, and I hope people keep that in mind. So thanks for sharing all this stuff. Tell me a little bit about you and what you do both on the relationship side and helping people deal with the divorce. How does a coach fit into all this stuff? And how do you work with the people that are your clients, both on the relationship side and the coaching side? Because you’re way more than a divorce coach.
Rich Heller:
Well, I started out as a divorce coach because that was the experience I was coming from. And what I found out as a divorce coach, I started as a parent coach is what I was to have a better relationship for the sake of the kids. And what I found out is the tools that they needed to have a better relationship for the sake of the kids were the tools that anyone needs to have any kind of partnership, a business partnership, a loving partnership, the same basic tools. And then I was like, oh, I could maybe work with couples. And honestly, I’m a Christian and as a Christian divorce is not on the top of the list in that particular faith. And so I thought, though I love helping people in the divorce process, maybe I can help people not get divorced. And so I got trained as a mediator. I got trained at was what’s called a parent coordinator. I got a lot of education in hypnosis and a process called mental and emotional release, which really helps the unconscious mind to let go of stuff.
And I do a lot of work with, now, starting with men who want to save their marriage because for whatever reason, men find me more relatable than women do. Maybe it’s because I’m a guy. I don’t know. But also out of that, I do couples work. Sometimes men come in with their wives and we do the work. I do work with couples if they feel like their relationship is strong enough. And also if they just feel like they can’t save the relationship, I do divorce work with men and women. And actually in the divorce world, there are women who feel that having a male coach is a plus because it really helps them in healing the really negative experience they had with their male husband. Not all of them, but some of them. Some of them are so scarred by having a narcissistic male husband, they need to be with women and that they need to be in that tribe before they can trust men again. And I totally honor and respect that.
Christopher Bruce:
That’s I think a great explanation of what you do. And you asked a question, you have a podcast by the way, and make sure everybody knows about it at the end. I think there’s a whole lot of great stuff on there. But you asked this question in your podcast, and I’m going to steal because I think it really helps people understand who you are. And Rich, what’s the legacy that you want to leave behind with all of this and your work in it?
Rich Heller:
The concrete goal is to impact 10,000 marriages in the next 10 years. So impact them positively, making them more resilient and joyful. Marriages might not be the right word. I think it’s really parents, because I work with parents. For me, it’s all about the kids. Having been that kid who was really scarred and just in so much pain and not knowing it until it came out in all the ways that pain does, my heart is really for the children. So it’s really, it’s about helping. I would love it to be about marriages. I would love those marriages to stay intact, but let’s be honest, that sometimes people get together who just shouldn’t get together.
Christopher Bruce:
Yeah.
Rich Heller:
I mean, as much as I’d love to stick to my religious values, even in that box, there are reasons why people shouldn’t be together.
Christopher Bruce:
Well, it’s-
Rich Heller:
But big picture, it’s about building resilience and joy in families. At my funeral, my hope is that people are saying, “Wow, what an incredible thought leader and caring human being. And he helped so many people. He was able to transform his own pain and negative experience into a positive for so many people.” And I believe that’s what God does is he takes the negative and turns it into a positive. That’s right on point for me spiritually.
Christopher Bruce:
Well, that’s amazing to share and I hope that this video helps you get a little bit closer to that. I think it will. And for everybody listening to this, we’re going to have a show note page on the law firm’s website. But Rich, if you could, just for the people listening, just share the best contact information where people should go. Maybe just mention your book a little bit, a little plug, just so they can follow up and get in touch if this is resonating with them.
Rich Heller:
Well, two things. It’s always two things with me. Two things. First, if you are not a religious person or if you have a different name for your higher power, I totally honor that. Please don’t be driven away by my choice, what works for me. Or if you’re an agnostic or an atheist, I totally honor and respect that.
Second, everything that we do is under the brand Rich in Relationship. If you can find the podcast on Spotify, on Google, on Apple, on a number of podcasts, hosting platforms, all under the name Rich in Relationship. If you put Rich in Relationship in Google, we are what comes up. The name of the website is Rich in Relationship. The name on Instagram is like #richinrelationship. At Facebook, it’s Rich in Relationship. At LinkedIn, it’s Rich in Relationship. In TikTok, it’s Rich in Relationship. You put Rich in Relationship there, you will find us. We’re very brand consistent.
You can reach me at the email Rich, R-I-C-H@richinrelationship, all one word. R-I-C-H-I-N-R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P. And we do have the Divorce Detox, which I have one, too. This book is a workbook for people in the divorce process. And what it came out of is I started to realize that as a coach, my services were outside of the reach of people in certain classes. And so what we did was I created this workbook, which is the synthesis of decades of work with people in the divorce process. So if you’re flat broke, you can get a copy of this book from Chris and from a lot of other attorneys for free. I give them two attorneys to hand out for free.
Chris, I’m happy to give you more copies if you want them or need them. Or you can get them on our website. Take a look there. We’ll get it to you. And then if you’re someone who’s not so good at DIY and you need a little help, we have an online video course that goes with the book that you can do. And there’s all different levels of help you can get in this area. So it’s an effort to take a program that we know works, 95% of the time it’s effective for people, and get it out there to as many people as possible.
Christopher Bruce:
Well, that’s a lot of value in that. And just personally from talking with you now a couple times and seeing the impact that you make, you know this stuff and I really just appreciate you sharing your time and your expertise.
Rich Heller:
One last thing. This book will be available on Amazon by May 15th. I don’t know when the podcast is coming out. May 15th, 2023, we’ll have it out there on Amazon for you to purchase as well.
Christopher Bruce:
Hey, good deal. Get your copy today. Probably by the time this airs I think it will be up there. This is Chris Bruce. It’s been a pleasure being here with Rich Heller. He’s a relationship coach, divorce coach, pretty much all over the place. And anywhere you are, you can work with him. And Rich, thank you so much for taking the time to do this.
Rich Heller:
Hey, good deal. Get your copy today. Probably by the time this airs I think it will be up there. This is Chris Bruce. It’s been a pleasure being here with Rich Heller. He’s a relationship coach, divorce coach, pretty much all over the place. And anywhere you are, you can work with him. And Rich, thank you so much for taking the time to do this.
Christopher Bruce:
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Chris.
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