Bonus! - Whatever it Takes

Deb Morgan

Deb Morgan, the REAL Relationships Expert, is a speaker, podcaster, coach and author who knows a thing or two about the wrong relationships. She also knows what it takes to create strong, healthy and robust relationships.
With 25+ years of ‘research’ into domestic abuse, combined with her psychology and drama training, Deb’s unique expertise and experience drives her to help women Worldwide, to overcome historic relationship beliefs and patterns to create strong, healthy and robust relationships that last. Her over-riding mission being to reduce the prevalence of domestic abuse globally.
She created her coaching practice, Not A Rehearsal, as a reminder that life really isn’t a rehearsal and that whatever you want to achieve is possible.

Social media and contact information: www.notarehearsal.co.uk
FB Profile: https://www.facebook.com/debmorgan.notarehearsal/
FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/realwomenrealliferealrelationships
FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/NotARehearsal
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deb-morgan-~-relationships-expert-podcaster-speaker-author-03546333/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifesnotarehearsal/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/not_a_rehearsal

Podcast Transcript:

Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] You made it back to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents were devastated, crumbled, fractured people come to learn, maybe. Just maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.

Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damage self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it.

There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole. Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose.

These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me, not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero. Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.

Today we have dead Morgan with us. She has many roles in her life, mother, sister, daughter, partner on T end more. We'll talk about how her first husband beat her up for the first time on their wedding night. Her second husband was psychologically abusive. And her third boyfriend.

I was financially abusive and now she's in a healthy relationship. Let's find out how she did this. Let's talk.  

 Deb Morgan, welcome to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We're so glad you're here today.

Deb Morgan: [00:02:12] Thank you very much for having me.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:13] Yes, you're welcome. I love the idea of learning and growing through struggle. And it sounds like that's one of the stories that is part of your story is it happens and we recover

Deb Morgan: [00:02:28] Absolutely. And it's absolutely why I do what I now do. As a result of my own life experiences, which led me to where I am now,

Damaged Parents: [00:02:37] and you are a coach.

Deb Morgan: [00:02:40] I am. I'm a relationships coach.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:42] It's very interesting. So we'll, if we can, hopefully round back to that, after we talk about your struggles. So what we're going to do is we're going to, if you wouldn't mind starting where your struggle started for you, and then along the way, I'm going to ask some questions to try and get a better understanding of maybe what was happening and how you found hope in some of those moments, hope and courage.

And then hopefully we'll round out. The idea is to round out with three tips or tools, whether mentioned, or not in the podcast that you want to share with other people that helped you throughout that process.

Deb Morgan: [00:03:18] absolutely no problem at all.

Damaged Parents: [00:03:20] Okay. So let's go for it.

Deb Morgan: [00:03:22] Well, I guess my struggle first started when I married my childhood sweetheart. I like met him when I was 14 years old. And he proposed when I was 19, we got married when I was 20. So we'd been together seven years. By the time we got married and on my wedding night, I was really excited, a little bit apprehensive because I've been a firm fan of period drama.

Whether we see now you're ready for your wedding night. And I always believe that that was all you ready for sex. Although we'd been together a long time and we'd been having sex prior to that, but he'd beat me up for the first time on our wedding night. And I remember being

wondering what an earth was going on and sitting there and thinking this must be actually what they really mean about are you prepared for your wedding night?

Damaged Parents: [00:04:12] Hold on a second. So you interpreted, are you ready for your wedding night as maybe what other people, what you were experiencing was what you should have expected?

Deb Morgan: [00:04:23] Yes. At that point, I thought I completely got it wrong up until that point.

Damaged Parents: [00:04:27] Oh my gosh. So that would be really scary then.

I mean, what were you thinking in that moment?

Deb Morgan: [00:04:35] I was in total and utter shock. It's the only way to describe it. And I can, even now I can see his face and he said to me, don't worry. Nobody's going to believe you. If you say anything, because I'm not going to touch your face or your arms. So he was absolutely adamant that what he was doing, he had a right to do.

And in fact, his words were your mine now I can do what I like with you.

Damaged Parents: [00:05:01] So he really thought you were in his property.

Deb Morgan: [00:05:03] That's it,

Damaged Parents: [00:05:04] What was it like up into that point

Deb Morgan: [00:05:07] it was fantastic. I was treated like an absolute princess every Friday. And as we got older and he started working every Friday, he would turn up with a bouquet of flowers or a bottle of wine. We'd go out for dinner. We'd go out to the bar and have a few drinks. So he really treated me really, really well.

He would call me every night. I guess hindsight's a marvelous tool and maybe that amount of attention now would get flags flying, but, and raise some flags for me. But back then, I thought this was how, how you had a relationship, how couples behaved. I was, I was very young. I was very naive. Not that that excuses it, but that was what I believed a relationship was.

And I think as well, my parents thought, Oh, it's just, it's teenagers, a teenage romance. It'll fizzle out when they both go on and do their own thing, not expecting a tool that we would end up getting married.

Damaged Parents: [00:05:57] Okay. So you've got this idea. This is how it is. I'm thinking it continues because of what you said. He said, tell us what happened next.

Deb Morgan: [00:06:08] Well, it went on for about 18 months. And I don't know how many times I got beaten up in one form or another. I been held under the bath water until I started shaking. Cause I couldn't breathe. He'd come up behind me holding a carving knife to my throat whilst I was washing dishes and said to me I could kill you now.

Nobody would know nobody would notice you will be missed by anybody. So psychological abuse going on as well. I would cook dinner for him and if it wasn't the meal he wanted that night, he would throw it at me and throw it across the room. I lost count of the amount of furniture that was thrown at me.

Yeah, I was, he would use, if not his fests, he would use furniture to beat me with, but all the time I was told it was my fault because I had done something wrong. I'd set the wrong thing. I was wearing the wrong clothes. I looked at him the wrong way. I'd cooked the wrong meal or the wrong radio station was playing all those sorts of crazy things.

And I can remember spending a lot of that time feeling very scared, not really knowing where to turn, because I grew up believing that when she got married, that was it. You were married for life. My parents were married, had been married a long time. They still are. Then now they've never been married 54 years.

My grandparents before them had been married well into 60, 70 years. By the time they passed. So I was surrounded by family. That marriage was for life. And that's what I believe. I believed you found the one and of course, that was fed by Disney and by Hollywood as well. And all that romantic novels that you read at that age and magazines that were out in we're talking late eighties, mid to late eighties.

Then I got married in 91 for the first time. And I just thought that was it well, you've made your bed. You've got to lie in it. You've got to make the best of this. And it was only when I went into work. One day I had a black eye and a thick lip, which I tried to cover with makeup, but obviously hadn't done a very good job and colleague who was about 10 years older than me then.

So she was only in her early thirties. She said to me, you're coming home with me tomorrow night. You're coming for dinner on your own. And you're speaking to my husband because he's a barrister. Am I sick? Why

Damaged Parents: [00:08:16] I'm in the States. So what is a barrister?

Deb Morgan: [00:08:18] Barrister. A lawyer.

Damaged Parents: [00:08:19] Okay.

Deb Morgan: [00:08:20] A senior lawyer, a senior lawyer. So I said, Oh, okay. She said, you're not fooling anybody.

We can all see that you are being beaten up on a regular basis and it has to end and it has to end now. And so I managed to make an excuse and went home with her that evening spoke to her husband who told me very clearly that I had grounds for divorce. And quite categorically said to me, now, if you don't leave, you're going to end up dead.

And he didn't sugar coat any of it. So I realized that I would have to do something about it, but I still didn't make the move. Cause I was terrified. I was terrified of leaving. And then domestic abuse, you know, you hear that all the time, people are more terrified of leaving because of the repercussions after they've left and they are staying because at least when you stay, you know how things stand, when it's coming in variably You know how to cope.

You develop coping mechanisms and coping strategies to try and avoid that explosion of anger. So I was really scared about leaving, but at some point, and I don't even recall how it started, but at some point I did see my parents and I used to go shopping on a Saturday morning with my mother. I'd meet up with her.

We go shopping to buy the groceries together. And she said, are you alright, no, I spoke to my friend's husband in the week and he thinks I should get a divorce. And she said, all right, well, but I still didn't tell her. She didn't know at that point, I think she had an inkling, I was being abused, but she didn't know.

And it was one of those. Well, if I don't ask the question, I don't know. Because it was scary. It's scary for those around you as well. When you're in that situation. And we just left the conversation as it was. And a short while later I was helping my then husband to move furniture around our house.

And we were moving a wardrobe from one bedroom to the other. And I was at the top of the stairs holding the wardrobe and he just pushed the wardrobe against me. And I slipped down the first couple of steps,

Damaged Parents: [00:10:13] Okay. So you were on the stair and of the wardrobe and he pushes

Deb Morgan: [00:10:20] he pushed the wardrobe to me to push me down the stairs and I slipped a couple of steps and he said, I could let go of this wardrobe now. And it would really injure you. It could kill you. And everybody would know it was an accident. And that was the point I snapped. And our stairs led straight down to the sort of hallway in the front door.

And I remember running down the stairs, opening the front door and running down the street to the telephone kiosk, which was at the end of the street. That's how long ago it was. We didn't have mobile phones. And I phoned my parents, my dad answered and I start I'm coming home. Will you come and get me?

And I had no idea that my dad's car had rocket fuel in it, because it seemed as if no sooner had, I put the phone down that he was on my doorstep. Now I know it wasn't as long as that, but it wasn't as fast as that. But he came and picked me up and I grabbed what I could at that point. I'd got back to the house and I'd said to my husband, I'm going, my dad is coming to get me.

I'm leaving, I'm leaving now. And he just ran. I think he knew at that stage, if he was in the house, my father was a prison officer. I don't think he fancied his chances. my parents arrived and my dad arrived. We loaded the car with my, my clothes, my toiletries, and a few personal belongings. And that was it.

I left and I never went back. I filed for divorce. And that was that.

Damaged Parents: [00:11:41] You must have had so much courage to go back, I don't know how, how could you. Go back to even get your things and to face him.

Deb Morgan: [00:11:52] it was one of those moments where I think I knew I had to go back. As I said, people don't leave abusive relationships because they're more scared of what's going to happen when you leave. So I knew that I had to go back and face up to him and say to him, I'm leaving. My dad is coming. Because I had to take that gamble.

He was either going to kill me in the time it took for my father to arrive, or he was going to make himself scarce. And let me go, thankfully, he made himself scarce and just let me go. But I often say, he wasn't particularly clever, but he wasn't stupid because he knows if I had been found dead or in a pool of blood or whatever, it might've been, it would have been blatantly obvious who had done it because moments earlier I'd been on the phone to my parents, to my dad.

So he wasn't stupid enough to put himself in that sort of position. And he took the clever option, I guess, by running. And my father was more concerned with my safety and my welfare than he was about any sort of revenge. And that suited me just fine because when I was gone, that was it. And that actually was the very last time I saw my husband, my first husband.

I've not seen him since I know we have mutual friends, but I didn't ask after him. As far as I know, he's married with children though. Very happy. And I hope that everything is all right there, but I have not seen him since that day. I've got no desire to see him since that day he's left me alone.

And that suits me fine. Quite frankly.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:24] Right. So you took that risk. Had it gone through your mind? There are two things that could happen. Okay. So you knowingly were like, I must face him in your situation. That's what you felt based on your values and everything that you absolutely had to do that.

Deb Morgan: [00:13:41] because I then had the option. I could either live the rest of my life in this marriage in fear. Or, The other option for me was death. Well, I thought, you know, he might kill me and actually that would be better than spending the rest of my life in fear. So for me to have those options, the fact that he went, which was the third option, but I wasn't entirely sure that he would go because he wanted to have the last say he, it was all about power and control, which most of all abusive relationships are.

And it was very much about calling his bluff and it's about standing up to the bully. And very often when you stand up to the bully, then not expecting it. And because he wasn't expecting it, he panicked and ran. It's like schoolkids and bear in mind. We weren't, we were very, very young. He would have been 21 at that age, 21, 22, I think at that time.

So still very, very young and very much behaving like teenagers. We married, we were little more than teenagers when we got married. So. His psychology and mindset was still in that naughty school boy in that teenager role, thankfully so rather them face the music he ran, and that was the best thing that he could do for him.

And for me really.

Damaged Parents: [00:14:52] Right. Right. So you recover from that. Or did you, what was that like and what was next.

Deb Morgan: [00:15:01] Well, I thought I had handled it fairly well. And of course the divorce it's never nice going through a divorce no matter what the circumstances. So the divorce was difficult on the one hand, but relatively easy on the other. He didn't contest it. He didn't put up any fight. So. He did mess about a bit. And there was argy-bargy about who got the house and things like that.

But ultimately I ended up keeping the house. Although, when I walked in, it was a total shell. He had ripped the carpets off the floor, the light sockets off the walls, the bull cock out of the toilet bowl, cock out of the tank in the attic, all those sorts of things. So he made it very difficult for me to move back in, but at least I have the bricks and mortar.

So I had to, I had somewhere to label though. I'd been living with my parents and they helped me to put the house back together. But what I hadn't realized was what it did to me psychologically. And I created this barrier around me, this box that I lived in and I became very, very focused, a lot of friends, a lot of family said I spent the best part of 10 years with a fixed jaw because I was so tense. And so adamant, I'm going to wear this mask. Everything was fine.

Damaged Parents: [00:16:16] Okay.

Deb Morgan: [00:16:16] didn't want to let anybody in. And what that meant was that I ended up having not great relationships, my self esteem wasn't great. I was looking for love, but I was doing it in all the wrong places.

And I ended up meeting bad boy after bad boy after bad boy. The amount of work I've done on myself since then, I recognize it's because that's what they thought I deserved. And that's all I thought I was worth. So that was quite interesting. But the irony that my second husband was my kickboxing instructor.

After having a physically abusive husband is not lost on me at all. I met a man who I believe could protect me and teach me how to protect myself. And as far as I'm concerned, that ticked all my boxes.

Damaged Parents: [00:16:59] Right. I would be looking for someone to quote unquote, save me, protect

Deb Morgan: [00:17:04] there was an element of that. And interestingly, on my first date with my second husband, he had discovered that I love theater and had booked theater tickets to take me to the theater two nights before I'd gone to his kickboxing class. And during the exercise I'd snapped all of the tendons in my right foot.

So I was in plaster. And he'd phoned me to make sure I was okay. And he said, I'm still happy if you'd like to still go out on a date. I'm happy. I said, yeah, I would. That'd be really good. Thank you. And he took me to the theater and carried me up the stairs to the circle. And of course, everybody else waiting to go into their seats in the stalls or the circle.

The upper circle just looked as, Oh, isn't that lovely? So I said, he literally swept me off my feet on our first date. And that at that moment I thought, Oh, this is a man that can really look after me. He can really care for me. And you're right. He rescue me. That was, I hadn't realized that's what was happening.

But with hindsight, I understand. That's what I was looking for. Somebody who would rescue me.

Damaged Parents: [00:18:06] Okay. When you got out of the, first relationship, the way that you did that was by kind of putting up walls. If you will putting up walls saying I'm strong, I'm this. And then in fact, you go to kickboxing and you're trying to regain maybe, or gain physical strength in a way to say I'm strong, and then you get swept off your feet.

And what happens in that relationship?

Deb Morgan: [00:18:31] Well, that's again, amazing relationship. We felt like any couple, we had some things, we agreed on some things we didn't, but it was, it was an okay relationship. He fell, he seemed to fall very, very quickly. And I wasn't, I wasn't used to that. I didn't understand why he wants to be ringing me all the time.

And again, hindsight's marvelous tool. So many red flags were raised at that point, which I just didn't recognize. But two years of dating, we got married. We had our son who is now 16.

He was laid off. He became redundant. I was working in a good job. I had a good salary, but I really wanted to be a stay at home. Mom. I wanted to look after my son. My son was my seventh pregnancy. I'd had six miscarriages up till then. So I really wanted to be at home and spend time with my son. And my husband said to me, look, he said, you've got the higher earning power.

You love business. You love being in the workplace. I do. I do love business. I really always enjoyed work. I enjoyed my job. Why don't I be a house husband? You go back to work.

Damaged Parents: [00:19:31] Was your heart broken in that moment?

Deb Morgan: [00:19:33] Yeah, it was one of those. I thought this it's, this, this makes sense. It's logical. I, I had always owned more than him. My earning potential is greater, actually. Yes, this does make sense. But what happened? I ended up going back to work. My son was eight weeks old. I went back to work. I lasted a couple of weeks because I was just so distraught, leaving my son all the time that I actually fell out with the person I was working for we'd had an argument one day.

He said, well, I'm not happy. And I said, fine. If you're not happy, I'll give you something to be unhappy about and handed my keys in and just left and quit there. And then, so I walked home, my husband said to me, what are you doing home? And I said, I've quit. What you mean? You've resigned. It's like, no, I've quit with immediate effect.

And he said, what are you going to do? I said, well, I don't know. I can do short hand and typing. I'll just get on the phone and I'll ring around and see if there's anybody who knows anybody who knows anybody that might want some typing done. And so my first business started that way and the business grew very, very rapidly, but it enabled me to still have time at home with my son as it was growing.

But again, my husband decided that I needed some help in the business. So he told me that he was going to work with me and he was going to man, the operational side of things, the bit the, the office so I could get out and I could go and do the selling and the networking, and then come home in the evenings.

And when our son was in bed, I could do the client work. I was, he was Manning the phones and that seemed like a really good temporary solution because I wasn't quite in a position where I could take on staff, but I needed that extra support. So that seemed to work well, but what happened over time? And as the business grew, I ended up with a team of six staff.

My husband came on board as my co-director in the business. And what I didn't realize was that he was sabotaging the business from within because he felt emasculated by my success. I had a very high profile in my local area. It was a UK industry leading business at the time. And he just didn't like that element of success.

So he was sabotaging it behind my back. And I wasn't aware of that. And it got to new year's Eve 2008, when I logged on to pay my staff. And there was enough money in the bank and I realized that the business was insolvent. So I had to ring all of my team and make them redundant with immediate effect and no pay.

And my ex-husband came into the home office cause I was at home being new year's Eve. He'd obviously heard my shriek at what on earth go in on what we're going to do now. And I told him what had happened. And he said, well, I knew this was going to happen. What made you think you could run a business? And everybody knows that you can't, you don't know what you're doing.

You're an absolute laughing stock out there. And I said, I don't care what you think about me. I don't care. What you want to say right now, I just need you to put your arms around me and tell me everything is okay. And the six foot five bucks instructor stood with his back against the wall, his arms by his side and said, I can't, because I don't know that it will and then walked out to the room.

And at that point I knew that not only was my business over that, I'd also lost my marriage. So the months that followed, I took the business to insolvency and then I left my husband and I had gone through a number of years since starting the businesses. Before I started the business with my husband saying to me, things like, I didn't know how to be mom.

I'd never had children. I didn't have any maternal instinct. And to a degree he was right. I never had a maternal instinct. I didn't particularly like other people's children, but I knew I wanted my own and would love my own. So he really sort of picked up on that and there would be days where he'd say things, are you really going out dress like that?

Are you sure? Oh my God, what have you done with your hair? You're sure about that makeup. So constantly, constant little snipes to make me doubt myself, to make me feel less confident. What I, what I learned after the event was that in the business, when I was going out to try and get more business in, he was talking to the team and saying everything Deb has just told you, ignore.

She has no idea what she's talking about. We're not following this marketing plan or this strategy. This is what we're doing. And he was on the sort of on the quiet behind my back, trying to create another business stream and confusing the market as to what it was we were doing. So of course people were moving away from us and that particular.

Incident new year's Eve 2008. My biggest three biggest clients decided they weren't going to pay me. They had never had an issue with clients, not paying me before they didn't pay me. And it meant I couldn't meet my salary bill, which at that time was 10,000 pounds a month. So, you know, I had to really sit back and think long and hard about it.

And when I looked back, when I looked at all the things my ex-husband had done, they all seemed really minor on, on the surface. But then I realized that I was too scared to go out. I wouldn't go out with anybody that he didn't like or didn't approve of because of the grief I would get when I got back in, if I was working at home on the business and not spending time with the family, he'd complain that I was doing too much work, not spending time with the family, but if I went and sat with the family or joined the family in anything, he would have a go at me and say, what are you doing?

You haven't got time to be sit around, sitting around, watching a film or play, and you've got business to do. You've got clients to do work for,

Damaged Parents: [00:24:44] So more worried about what you're doing than what he's doing. What I'm hearing is a lot of you, you, you

Deb Morgan: [00:24:51] absolutely.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:52] and not, I anything about I

Deb Morgan: [00:24:55] No, he and he was doing nothing. He's I, you know, he kept saying, I'm, I'm a house is lunch and all this around the house. What are you doing around the house? Because I'm doing the cooking, I'm doing the shopping, I'm doing the cleaning, I'm doing the laundry, I'm doing the gardening. What are you doing? Well, I'm bringing up our son.

And again, hindsight's a marvelous tool. And he, every Christmas he would set up the video camera  as we open presents and looking back over those videos, I wasn't in a single video. It was always him and my son and my son was always on his lap. I didn't appear in any of the videos. There was no mention of me in any of the videos, no mention of me anywhere.

And there were little things that happened, which again, you can join the dots, looking back on, you can't join going forwards as the great Steve Jobs said, and little things like when he was out of work, when the business was working well, before he came on board with me, he asked me if I would transfer the child benefit to his name, which is a benefit we get in the UK.

I don't know if you get it in the States. So everybody that has children gets a payment from the government every month to help support that child. And it gets paid to the primary carer. So whoever gets that payment is considered the primary carer.

And he had asked me if I would get that paid to him. So he at least had a little bit of money going into his account that made him feel better.

And of course in my naivety, I was happy for him to have that little did I know that would come back to bite me a number of years later when we were getting divorced. And when I was fighting for residency of my son, because when I left my husband, my son was three years old and I didn't know where I was going to go.

There wasn't enough room at my parent's house for my son and I, and I thought, right, I need to find somewhere to go. I can't stay here. It's just a, such a toxic environment. I can't stay here. So I used to, I'm going, I don't know where I'm going. I will come back to get our son when I'm settled.

Damaged Parents: [00:26:50] But in those moments when you're you're leaving, I mean, how did you find that courage? How do you find, how did you find that bravery or what was it that. You felt that you knew that you needed to move forward? What was the feeling like inside of you?

Deb Morgan: [00:27:08] it was actually about protecting my son because the morning I left and it was a Saturday morning and I was in the lounge, I was tidying up, I think, picking up toys or something like that. And my son who was three at the time, came up to me and he said, please don't cry. Mommy, I'll look after you. And I had heard those words from him.

So many times that something inside me snapped and I thought this isn't right. A three-year-old should not be saying those words to his mum at all. Let alone with the regularity that my son was saying, those words to me. I thought for the sake of my son, I have to leave this. And that was it. And it was almost automatic pilot, right?

I'm going, I don't know where I'm going. I will be back for our son, but I'm going. And again, my clothes, my toiletries, and a few personal effects went into the car and off I went and I actually phoned my parents as I was leaving. I was distraught. I was in tears as I was driving. And I explained what had happened this, well, you can come back here.

I said, you haven't got room. They said we'll make room. And I ended up in a very tiny spare bedroom, bless them. But at least I had a bed and my mom is very, very pragmatic. And when I got there, she said, right, don't worry about it today. We'll work out what you're going to do. And the very next day, by the time I woke up the next day, she come up with a plan.

We're going to bring around to schools. We're going to ring around nurseries. We're going to find out what. What you're eligible for what you need to do. And so we started that and unfortunately we were unable to get a school place or a nursery place for my son local to my parents. So I made the decision again, putting his welfare first, that it wasn't fair to drag him around all over the place, just because I wanted him with me.

I knew his dad wouldn't do anything, do any harm to him. His dad would really look after him. Absolutely the Apple of his dad's eye. So I know he's going to be looked after. I will continue to find somewhere to live. I will continue to find a school and whichever comes first is what I'll do. So I ended up moving to a small, flat, close to where my son was at school.

So I could at least be involved in his schooling because I didn't want to disrupt him.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:19] I'm betting that in that process, there were a lot of tears.

Deb Morgan: [00:29:23] Oh, absolutely.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:25] Yeah. Because it just what I'm getting from you is that your son is so important to you and.

Deb Morgan: [00:29:31] Oh yes.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:32] You really had to set yourself up in a way to be the best you could be for him and what he needed. And I think that was still, probably very painful.

Deb Morgan: [00:29:44] Oh, it absolutely was. Over the years I've looked back and when I eventually went back to get my son a number of months after leaving his dad, his father turned around to me and said, he's going to live with you over my dead body. And that started a 10 year legal battle to be recognized as my son's primary carer and to have residency of my son and even then the court in the eyes of the law in the UK at that time, because I had fallen terribly left my son, I had voluntarily given up my right to be his primary carer.

And that's how they viewed it. And the law didn't look kindly on women who left their children. So I was even before I opened my mouth, even before I said, or did anything, I was immediately labeled as a bad mother. And then my ex-husband went completely detained. He knew that he had the law on his side.

He knew that he had social services on his side. She's an unfit mother. She was always working too much. She would drink too much. And this is a man who I was getting from work. And he said, Hey, we I've poured you a drink. I said, thanks very much. And he would pull me a vodka tonic, but it would be. More than more than three quarters vodka and less than a quarter tonic.

And I said, well, it's this? Oh, well, you've had a hard day have a drink. So there were all of these little things going on that he was doing to prove I was an unfit mother and I was again naive, we think. And he was trying to look after me and do his best in the way he knew how. So we had a lot of that stuff going on.

And as I was going back and forth to court over the 10 years, it took, there was a point where. I ended up speaking to the police. I was getting really vicious emails from my ex-husband and text messages, and he was stopping my son from speaking to me. He was alienating my son towards me telling my son, mommy left you because she didn't want you.

And she doesn't love you. And I said, sweetheart, I didn't leave you. I left your dad, not you, but what do you tell? A six year old, eight year old, a nine year old. They don't understand that differentiation. So all of this was going on, backed up by a barrage of horrible emails and text messages and telephone messages or reinforcing the belief that I was unfit mother.

I didn't deserve to look after my child. Nobody would have me. I was grateful and I brought it all on myself, yada, yada yada. And so I stood up in court one day while I spoke to the police officer. And I said, I can't take this. Is there any way I can stop this? He said, yes. He said, you can get an order against him for harassment.

I said, really? I said, but he's the father of my son. And yeah, I'm fighting for my son here. He said, absolutely. You can get an order of harassment. This is abuse don't be ridiculous. It's not abuse. It's this is abuse. Everything you have described to me is psychological abuse. And that was a term I'd heard before, but never heard it applied to myself.

So then I started to research what it was and there were so many light bulb moments. I don't believe this. How could, how could I have been so stupid? And that is something I hear so often, particularly with women going through psychological abuse or emotional abuse, because you think, how can I have been so stupid?

Cause when you look back again, you look back and it's so clear, but when you're in it, it is so subtle. And it just creeps in like a disease. It's it's horrible. And from that point, I thought, okay, maybe this is abuse. Maybe it's not. I started doing research. I spoke to places like women's aid, like refuge.

And I then met my partner who I've been with for eight years and we'd actually met 25 years ago. before I even met my son's father and we had dated briefly gone our separate ways, but he'd always been the one that got away. And apparently I was for him as well. So we met kind of accidentally eight years ago and he was supportive of me as I was going through these battles.

And he's a social worker.

Damaged Parents: [00:33:46] Okay. I've got to ask, was it hard to share that part of your journey? And did you, because you, I heard you say when you were looking up the psychological abuse information that you were like, Oh my gosh, why didn't I know this? Or I didn't see this, or, you know, so did you see it as, Oh my gosh, now I'm damaged.

Who's going to love me. Because I have this damage. Do you understand what I'm trying to

Deb Morgan: [00:34:10] yes. Yes I do. And you know what? No, it wasn't because that, wasn't the end of my, my story. That wasn't the damage as far as I was concerned. And I always joke that having. Having been with a physically sexually abusive first husband, my second husband was psychologically abusive. So actually that was, that was improvement.

And, you know, from him, I actually went on and had a brief relationship with somebody else, which was economically abusive. So that was an improvement again. So I joke that, well, at least I was, you know, raising the bar each time. So, and humor is a way that I've often managed to deal with things like that.

Humor and drama actually. Cause I love the theater and because my partner who I'm with now, and we've been together eight years, as I say, and he knew me from 25 years previously, he said to me, I know the Deb that's inside there. And I'm seeing that her spark has gone and everything you're telling me is like some of the clients I work with because he's a social worker. And I said, look, I'm not prepared to be one of your clients. I'm not in this relationship to be one of your clients. No, but I can help you. And the first two years of our relationship with very, I'm going to say volatile or physically volatile, but because I wasn't familiar with what it was like to be in an unconditionally loving relationship, I was waiting for whatever was going to come. If he did something nice for me, I then think, okay. So why has he done that? I was waiting for the conditions because all of my relationships up til then had been full of conditions. My first husband, as long as late, as long as I behave properly cooked, the right meals were the right things.

I didn't get beaten up second husband, as long as I did what he wanted me to do and behave in the way he wanted to. Didn't usurp his perceived status? Didn't damage his ego in any way. Then I was fine. I would be treated accordingly. Third relationship again, that was conditional because he controlled me through money.

He gave me an allowance every month, which sounds fantastic. But when you're not, when you're not allowed to save any of it and you have to account for every penny you're spending, you can spend it on anything you like, but you have to account for every penny. You can't then save to escape, which I sort of got to that relationship and thought.

Right. Okay. I knew I wasn't happy in the relationship very early on, but didn't know how to get out of it. And I thought, well, we've got a decent lifestyle and we had a very good lifestyle. He was very well paid. I didn't need to work. So I was looked after in terms of all of my material needs all of my basic needs, but I was trapped.

I was suffocated another one who wasn't happy with me having friends that he didn't know if I went up, he came with me. If I had hobbies, he came with me. And I just thought this is crazy. I'm suffocated here. I need to get out of this relationship. I don't know how to, and how I got out of it was ultimately by following my dreams.

But prior to that, I'd also ended up as a sex worker because my self-esteem and self-worth had been so low after both of my marriages. I was living on my own. I'd been through personal bankruptcy. I lost everything. I was on the verge of bankruptcy for the second time and I just couldn't take anymore.

Yeah. I didn't have my son with me. I couldn't take any more. I had no job, no income on the horizon. And I thought there's nothing else for it. So I had planned to take my own life and I bought the alcohol, bought the pills and I was sat with them on my desk, in front of me. And as I lifted the pills and the bottle to my hand to my mouth, took them down like that.

And I caught sight of a photograph of my son on my bookcase at the time. And I realized that I couldn't do it because I couldn't have him reach teenage years, believing mummy killed herself because she didn't want to go. Didn't love him. So I knew that I had to do something else and I figured you've spent so long.

Having one night stands so long, giving this away. Actually, if you charged for it, you wouldn't be in this position anymore. So 24 hours later, I was an independent escort and selling my body to whoever would pay. And I made sure they paid through the nose for it. I, a bit bizarrely, I had more self-worth and self-value at that stage and any of the point, but that kind of was a turning point.

And my third relationship, the economically abusive one, he had actually been one of my clients. And he fell in love with me. It was classic pretty woman. And I allowed myself to be rescued by him because it's not really a career path you choose to go down. And I allowed him to rescue me without really knowing very little about him, but he gave me a good lifestyle.

He looked off to me. I have money to spend. He didn't question what I was spending on, but of course that came with conditions. As I said that I couldn't save anything because I had to account for everything I was spending. And I realized that it was a very suffocating relationship. I wasn't happy.

Damaged Parents: [00:39:01] I think it's really interesting that you said it was at that time. And in that, that you felt stronger than you'd ever felt before and here you were going to choose to be a sex worker. Can we dive a little bit deeper into that? I'm really trying to figure out that mindset.

Deb Morgan: [00:39:21] Really was about survival, you know, that fight or flight. And I had been through some very dark, dark days with the situation with my ex-husband and my son. I was drinking too much. I was hooking up with people in bars who, I didn't know. I was, yeah, I was exhibiting very dangerous behaviors. I was going home with people.

I didn't know, didn't know where I was going. I would be drunk. It wasn't healthy. It wasn't good for me. And that night, when I tried to take my own life, I felt actually. You're prepared to give it away. You're prepared to put yourself at risk. Is this any worse? And at least you're going to be alive. At least you're going to have money and you are not going to be getting drunk to do it.

Because before that, when I was meeting people, if they were buying the drinks, I, I figured that it was a fair exchange that I would give them sex because they bought drinks. So they bought dinner. So that's where I was coming from. But because they were buying it, it became a business transaction. I thought, yeah, that's okay.

You're buying it, I'm selling it. This is a business transaction. And that was fine. So I actually ended up bizarrely in a much safer place and much safer environment because I was seeing people well, my terms when I chose to yeah. I had people at hand who knew when I had clients. And so you, there was a whole buddy system in place, so people would know what my appointments were and if they didn't hear from me within five minutes of the appointment ending, there would be somebody on my doorstep to make sure I was okay.

So I actually was much safer in that environment. I didn't have a pimp before you think that's what it was. I learned an awful lot about the sex industry model. Now there's an awful lot about the industry that is very, very bad, but actually it's a rough 80 20 split. I don't have the exact figures in front of me, but, uh, roughly 80% of people working industry are there through choice.

They've made an active choice to be there. It's the 20% that generally are the ones the media focus on who are there because they are forced to because they have no choice because they have addictions because they have problems and. It really opened my eyes to, I suppose, in a qualities in the world, because here was, I very much in control, very much charging what my worth was and people were prepared to pay it.

And I was being treated with respect by my clients. I was calling shots. if a client offended me, if a client asked me about, they just didn't see me again. That was it.

Damaged Parents: [00:42:03] So

you had more control in this situation then it sounds like you had had for a long, long, long, long

Deb Morgan: [00:42:11] Oh, completely.

Damaged Parents: [00:42:12] So to me that seems inside the competence would build and I would start to feel stronger. Is that what happened?

Deb Morgan: [00:42:19] absolutely. So. With this confidence. I then met this client who I knew, could afford, he could afford to spend days and nights with me. So I knew money. Wasn't an issue for him. And I liked him. I knew when he was kind of, I mean, I wish he wasn't a client cause actually I quite like this guy and he felt the same.

So as I said, it was a bit of a classic pretty woman moment, but it got me out of the industry. So I'm very grateful to him for doing that. But then when I was actually in that relationship and realized that it wasn't a healthy relationship, I rapidly plummeted. I got very, very depressed to a point where I ended up living on my kitchen floor, basically for about three weeks.

I wouldn't go out. I wouldn't shower. I wouldn't change my clothes. I wasn't sleeping in the bed. I. And up to prior to that, what's triggered that. So I had gone out in my car. I couldn't find a parking space. I had a panic attack as I was driving the car around my local town, because I couldn't find a parking space because he had asked me, he'd asked me to buy something or I think pick his shirts from the dry cleaner or something, something really banal like that.

And I had this massive panic attack because I believed I let him down. I had done something wrong and I remember getting out of my car, leaving it in the middle of the road with the keys in it and running all the way home, sitting on my kitchen floor. And that's where I stayed for about three weeks until he said to me, Debbie, you have got to do something, this isn't right.

And he'd been phoning the doctor as well, so they'd been trying to see me. And I wouldn't let anybody see me. I wouldn't go out. I wouldn't let people in. I became quite feral. It's the only way to describe it. And one day he said to me, Deb you really do need to have a wash or have a shower. You stink, you really stink.

And I don't know what is going on. I don't know how else I can help you, but you need to have a shower. And it triggered something. I remember being curled up almost in the fetal position on my kitchen floor. Yeah. I was thinking, what if I come to, why have I allowed anybody to make me feel this way? And I wasn't holding him responsible for that.

I recognized that it was a buildup of all of those experiences I'd had over sort of the 20 years up till that point. And I thought you're looking for people to rescue you and nobody else is going to do that. The only person that can rescue is you, you have to do it. And that day I got up off the floor and I went and had a shower.

And I felt so much better, you know, when you've been ill and then you're gonna to have a shower. Oh, wow. That's great. So I felt better if I still put the dirty clothes back on. I wasn't, quite ready to sort of let go of my cocoon yet. And the next day then I showered my put fresh clothes on the next day I put makeup on and the next day, and the next day I did something else, I did something else until a point where I felt brave enough to stand on my front doorstep with a cup of tea.

Damaged Parents: [00:45:15] okay. So it was little things

Deb Morgan: [00:45:17] Oh,

Damaged Parents: [00:45:17] period of

Deb Morgan: [00:45:18] things.

Damaged Parents: [00:45:19] Okay. Tiny, tiny, not just little but tiny time.

Deb Morgan: [00:45:22] Yes. Yeah. But these were massive for me. And over a period of a number of weeks, I actually got to a stage where I would walk to the end of the development. We will live not, we were in a nice apartment, overlooking the sea, and we were on a development. So I would walk to the edge of development where I might encounter other people.

And that was really frightening. But over time I realized that they weren't going to hurt me and the fresh air wasn't going to kill me. And I wasn't gonna be struck by lightning bolt or anything like that. And that taught me that these simple steps, uh, what got me to move forward. You know, every marathon starts with the first step, as they say, and from there I felt right, you've done this.

You've got the strength to get yourself from that place to this place. Now you need to look at your relationship.

Damaged Parents: [00:46:07] Right. So you were looking back at those tiny, tiny things and saying to yourself, well, you got yourself from here to here and you got yourself from here to here. So, so you really had to focus on what you were doing that was helping you go in the right direction. It sounds like.

Deb Morgan: [00:46:23] Absolutely. And I hadn't realized where I was doing was actually coaching myself at that point. Yeah, I was celebrating the small wins each day. I was given myself enough of a challenge to stretch me slightly beyond my comfort zone each day, but I hadn't realized that's what I was doing. You know, again, hindsight, it's a marvelous tool until I got to the stage where I realized that I wasn't happy in the relationship.

I needed to do something about it, but I put that on the back burner. I thought I've got all of my needs met. I don't need to worry, started pursuing my passion, which is the theater and got cast in a touring production, which brought me to the town I now, live in. And it was my partner had gone into the partner I'm with now he'd gone into the theater to book tickets for something else and recognize my face on the poster.

And with the help of the theater staff tracked me down, realized that I was the woman he'd met 25 years earlier, got in touch with me whilst I was in rehearsal. We met for coffee and he said, look, I've spent 25 years looking for you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you tell me you are completely happy, I will walk away knowing that you're happy, but if you're not happy, I want you to spend your life with me.

And I think I called him a not very nice word and then said, how dare you? Have you got any idea how long I've been waiting to hear those words and things sort of escalated from there. And once again, I left my partner. And it was, it was a case of three weeks after that meeting, I had moved to my partner's bachelor pad from a five-bedroom farmhouse to his bachelor pad.

And we have been in this time though for eight years, very, very happy. We're no longer in the bachelor pad. We are in a nice three bed house with my son is now living with us. And I just told him my whole story. I said, we are going to make a go of this. If we are going to have any sort of a chance, a relationship, you need to know my background.

So I pretty much vomited everything out, you know, and say, this is what's going on. You reckon you can handle it. And he just I'm social worker. It was, and it was one of those. It was almost like, yeah. And that was when I sort of said, look, I'm not going to be one of your clients. I'm not prepared to be treated your client.

I'm your girlfriend. So those first two years of coming together, I spent a lot of time testing him, testing that he wasn't going to throw me out, beat me up, abuse me in any way. And he got to a point, I think he just got fed up of it and he said, look, Deb he said You can throw as much shit at me as you like metaphorically.

I wasn't throwing physical items, but I'm not going anywhere. If anybody breaks this relationship, it's going to be you. And at that point I suddenly, Oh, right now I'm completely flummoxed. What do I do now? I suppose I just better get on and have a relationship then.

Damaged Parents: [00:49:03] I love that you had to test it. And I love that he loved you anyway and said, look, this is enough because. I think in some ways you might have, you had to just based on your story, if you wouldn't have, how could and furthermore, I think if you wouldn't have known, you could say no, that he gave you, do you see where I'm going with that?

Because sometimes it's so much easier when people, when I know that my know isn't going to injure a relationship because I don't want to do something and I'm loved anyway, it makes such a huge difference to me.

Deb Morgan: [00:49:41] Of course. I'd never had that in all my adult life, in all my adult relationships. I didn't know what that was. And it was so alien to me. So when I said to him that I really want to help people who have gone through the same sort of stuff that I've gone through. And he used to come to me and say, look, I'm working with a domestic abuse case.

It wouldn't give me too many details. We'd say it's similar to yours. This is what we did. This is what you did. I'm going to try this. And I've tried that because this is what you did. This is what you went through. And it's really worked for my clients. So I realized that my experiences were helping others.

And then I thought, actually, I want to help others. And whilst I've been going through all of that, particularly those times when I was a sex worker, I was on the floor in my flat. One of the things I kept saying was this has not been in vain. If I can help just one other person, because of all this experience, because of all this shit I'm going through, you know, it made me angry then actually it's been worth it because this isn't right.

And so when my confidence started to grow again in this relationship, and when I said, look, I really want to go study psychology to understand why people do the things they do. And he said, go for it. And didn't laugh at me because it's something that I've looked at years ago. In my second marriage, my husband had said to me, what do you want to study at your age for? That's ridiculous. You're never going to get a degree. And yet my partners absolutely go for it and we'd sit and have conversations around it because of course, psychology is very linked with what he does and sociology and social work. So we have so many good conversations around it. And then as I continued my training with NLP and timeline therapy and hypnotherapy, we'd have more conversations around that.

And I said, you might find this helpful to learn or read this chapter, or he'd say, Oh, I'm going to a seminar. I'm doing an online webinar. I think you'd find it useful, come with me. And we could share that interest and that desire to help others. And all of a sudden I realized what it is, is to have somebody that supports you unconditionally. and it was incredible. And then to support me when I was going through all of the court battles with my son. So my son has been living with us for four years and dealing with all of that in court, everything coming up again, all of the accusations that were thrown at us, thrown at my partner and he just dealt with them and he said, this is all classic.

It's all classic behavior for psychological abuse or narcissistic abuse, as it's now been known and coercive control. And to have somebody who was just so ready to be right by my side in stark, contrast to the ex-husband who, when I asked him to put his arms around me and give me a hug, because I needed that strength to carry on with the business and put it through insolvency.

He just does. All right, Deb we've got this, it's going to, it's going to be shitty for a while, but we've got this, we're a team and. You know that you can't put a price on that. You cannot put a price on that sort of support that unconditional love that loyalty. And he's now he's my biggest cheerleader in all I do.

But doing podcasts and it's all right, I'm in the UK. So it's fairly, it's late afternoon, but not so late. But if I'm doing a podcast, if I'm doing a talk, if I'm with a client late in the evening, that's fine. Don't worry about us. We're fined on who you go on. You're going to do what you need to do and to have that support without having any repercussions.

Damaged Parents: [00:53:07] It sounds like he would support you, even if this wasn't the path

Deb Morgan: [00:53:12] So completely.

Damaged Parents: [00:53:13] and that even if your path were another path, he would still be your cheerleader and you would be his, because it, wouldn't matter. What would matter the most is that you were getting your human experience in the best way that suits you.

And that's what matters to him. And it's also very much so what matters to you? So how does someone get from, and I know we're over time, but how does, I'm still not certain how to, how one would get to that point of realization that you are valuable. Your, what you need for your human experience to make it full and meaningful matters.

Because I think in the depth of despair, like where you were at, I don't think it's super well, I think it might be almost impossible to see.

Deb Morgan: [00:54:05] Oh, absolutely. And it's you hear that phrase that people say, well, something snapped inside me and that's the only way I can describe it. Something snapped. And I think, I guess with some of my psychology training psychology background, you know, it's almost like a neural pathway suddenly said, Nope enough, this is blocked.

You can't come this way anymore. Something snapped and it's got to change. And I didn't know what that change was. I just knew I had to do something different. And at those points, those pivotal moments, it didn't matter what that different thing was. It was about changing what I was doing or a bank to do.

It was about really interrupting and blocking that full process and sending it off on a diversion. So I guess, with NLP, you would do a pattern interrupt, for example. So you break that thought pattern, that negative thought pattern. So all this is stuff I was doing on myself. I didn't know what it was.

So the studying that I've done the time. Oh, okay. That's what I was doing now. I ended up send it. So I was actually applying all of the things I've learned, but I just didn't know what they were called. I didn't know what the name was for them. I didn't know. There were specific techniques.

Damaged Parents: [00:55:20] Yeah. And it seems like from, even from what you're saying, it is helpful to hear other people's stories because you can go, Oh, I did that or I didn't do that or I'm here and I really want to be there. Maybe I can do what she did.

Deb Morgan: [00:55:34] Absolutely. And what we learn from experience and what other people's stories do is help us feel that we are not alone because we all have a unique lived experience in terms of the different experiences that are all combined together in a specific way, but like our DNA, but we all have similar experiences.

And so by sharing our stories with others, we can give people strengths. We can give people hope. We can perhaps give them new ways of looking at whatever it is they're going through. New ways of trying to change the situation, whatever that may be. We never know what spark we might ignite by sharing our story.

And I think it's so important because we hear so many bad, bad stories, bad messages in the press now. And I wouldn't exactly say my story's a bundle of laughs, but it gives hope because without that experience, there's no way I'd be the coach I am now. I would just be spouting textbooks. But with that lived experience as well, I understand the application of the science of the therapies.

I understand how they can really be used. And I don't like to go in and say, right now, we're going to do NLP. Now we're going to do this. I just have a conversation. Because being listened to, I know from my own experience, the most important thing for me was being listened to without judgment and feeling that I was believed.

And when I got that, then I was able to stop making the changes. And that for me is the key.

Damaged Parents: [00:57:10] and that's to sound safe.

Deb Morgan: [00:57:13] It is

Damaged Parents: [00:57:14] Like you were able to finally get to a safe place.

Deb Morgan: [00:57:17] absolutely.

Damaged Parents: [00:57:18] It also sounds, and whether I'm inferring from what you've been saying and how you talk and uh, while I get to see you, of course, the listeners don't is that you genuinely, genuinely want to share what you have learned and how you have grown. With others and give them tools and ways of learning, because I'm guessing that there's still struggle.

You still experienced struggle.

Deb Morgan: [00:57:43] you don't spend the majority of your adult life in a place of chronic stress. And then suddenly something comes along to remove that stress and you skip off happily into the, into the sunset. If that doesn't happen, there are still things that trigger me. There are still things that happen and I'll react and not understand why.

So then I'll have to speak to my therapist, my counselor, my coach, to try and get to the bottom of it. There are still things that happen. You know, my partner and I, we have a fantastic relationship, but we don't have a perfect relationship. Nobody has a perfect relationship. We argue, we disagree, but we have the tools now to work things out, work through things, to get through those difficult times.

And invariably, when you are in difficult times, you're not both going through exactly the same thing at the same time. It's very much a see-saw effect very often, but it can feel like you're both completely wrapped up in it together. But when you take a step back when you've got somebody looking at these things objectively and they can pull out the positives, they can pull out what's going on, pull out perhaps where you've gone wrong, because it is about as well, acknowledging that we're not all perfect.

And whilst I might understand the science behind everything or behind what I do, I still don't have the answers, particularly not when it comes to myself, because we all think that we're amazing. Yeah, as individuals, we all think that we are right. And it takes somebody to tell us very often. Well, I understand what you're saying, but have you tried looking at it from this viewpoint and just those little nuances that makes such massive, massive changes.

And it's so easy to lose sight of that and get caught up in the small stuff and caught up in the fact that things might be difficult, but actually let's look at what we've got around us. Let's look at what a stance is, a loving relationship. We've got a roof over our heads, food in our stomach. We've got people that love us.

We're able to get outdoors. We've got our health and all of those things. And it is really going down to the tiny little things. So even practicing gratitude, which so many people do that when you actually do genuinely acknowledge what you have and how far you've come. As I said earlier, those tiny little wins I was celebrating when I was taking tiny steps to get myself off the kitchen floor.

That makes a massive difference. And when you do that day after day after day, you start to recognize that things might be bad, but actually you can overcome them. And the past year has been so difficult for so many people, but still there are really good signs for most people. Now, unfortunately, some people have lost their lives.

They've lost, loved ones, and my family was caught up with all of that as well. But when you look at what we do have wrong focus on the good stuff, let's focus on the good stuff. Not on the bad let's remember the lessons we learned. Let's remember what we've been through via that. We're not going to go through that again.

What can we learn from that? How can we ensure that we are stronger moving forward?

Damaged Parents: [01:00:37] Yeah. Okay. Three tips or tools that you have mentioned, or not for listeners to walk away with.

Deb Morgan: [01:00:45] okay. First one, listen, listen to your partner, listen to each other. By that, I mean actively listen. If they come in and they want to runt, let them, let it all out. Don't come up with solutions. They don't want solutions. And they often say a woman doesn't want solutions. And that's a man thing to do.

Women do it as well. So listen to your partner and just let them get out what they need to get on. Uh, usually at the end of the day, when they get in from work, that's normally the key time don't offer solutions. Just let them get it off their chest. That's number one, number two, be aware of how you're talking to your partner.

Are you interested in your partner and are you interesting to them? So rather than. When they get in and they're about to offload and they say, how was your day? Oh, it was fine. Thanks. And you then carry on preparing dinner or you turn back to the TV or whatever it is you might be doing, spend that time with them be present because it makes a difference.

And finally, on the same vein, I work with so many couples that say, well, we're slightly two separate people living in the same way, get that conductivity back. And it might be that one of you wants to watch TV. And the other wants to read a book or the other wants to do something online. What about doing that in the same room?

You don't have to physically be doing the same thing, but when you want any, each other's company, subconsciously you're reminding each other, that you are still there. And you're very much part of the relationship. If you are moving to different areas of your house, you end up feeling like you're the only person that lives there.

And you only see each other when you go to bed or at meal mealtimes. And if that's, when you're having all of your conversations, And you go into end up having arguments. You're going to end up not listening properly. You're going to end up trying to find solutions when you don't need to, when you just need to listen.

So listen actively, don't give solutions, be interested and interesting.

Damaged Parents: [01:02:34] I love those Deb Morgan. I am so glad we got to have you on the show.

Deb Morgan: [01:02:39] thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

 Damaged Parents: [01:02:42] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Deb Morgan about how she got better in every relationship. We especially liked when she spoke of an abundance of love for her son. To unite with other damaged people. Connect with us on Facebook. Look for damaged parents.

We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.