Episode 13 - I don't judge Justin or Hailey Bieber - I've been on both sides of a toxic relationship
INTRODUCTION
In Episode 12 of the OPENHOUSE podcast (linked here on Apple, here on Spotify), we talked to Dr Tari Mack, clinical psychologist and relationship expert, and went deep into all things, Justin and Hailey Bieber. Is it love? Is it codependency? Why does she care give for him in the way that she does?
Today, I wanted to check back in with some more thoughts because it definitely got you guys talking, but also I wanted to share my own experiences with you. The reason for this is that so many people will look at me as this strong, independent woman that takes no shit from anyone, but actually I have been in all kinds of relationships in my twenties, and a lot of them have been really, really unhealthy.
I think as a society and particularly as women, we get very ashamed of these experiences that we live. And we maybe don't even admit to ourselves what we are accepting, what we are putting up with or what we are staying with. So, in this episode, I want to talk about how I've been on both sides of the Justin and Hailey saga and that, if you have too, that it’s okay.
Relationships are ultimately vehicles for us to learn more about ourselves, more about the people around us and particularly how we love how we want to love and how we want to be treated.
If you've gone through situations that are less than ideal, look back compassionately because there is nothing worse than carrying regrets, fear and shame into the future.
LET’S DIVE INTO IT
I have been Hailey and I have been Justin, so I don't judge either of them for who they are, what they're doing in their marriage or how they're showing up in the world.
The reason for this is because I just understand that we are all trying our hardest to stay afloat. I'm going to be honest, when I look at Haley and I look at Justin, I'm torn between the ultimate fantasy of thinking that they're the world's perfect couple. They found a safe haven in each other and almost redemption from the world and what they've gone through, a healing, caring, loving space.
They look like best friends. They look like lovers and they seem to do so much together. I find myself asking, is that not the ultimate true love? Finding that one person that will stick through everything with you, and that loves you so much, that they will never leave you.
A THERAPIST THOUGHTS ON JUSTIN & HAILEY BIEBER
According to my therapist, that is, in fact, not a true, healthy love and that fantasy is something that is very, very common for people who perhaps grew up in dysfunctional families or with absent or sporadic or unavailable parents.
My therapist also explained to me that someone who is desperate for this type of love, or even just slightly envious of it in other people is someone that might need to do some more work on themselves because it often means that there's more going on below the surface, or from their childhood, that they haven't yet addressed.
And if they don't address it, then they're more likely to end up veering towards a dysfunctional relationship too. Doing the work on yourself, ultimately means that you are more likely to end up in a balanced, healthy, and happy partnership that is most likely to go the distance.
Like with anything. I think it's really important to also look at the objective facts of what is going on below the surface, underneath the fantasy that we have, because, like with most things, the reality is that things are never really as perfect as they look with Justin and Hailey.
JUSTIN & HAILEY’S MARRIAGE
For example, all you have to do is Google their marriage for you to see a lot of really interesting feedback from them directly on their first year of marriage. Justin labeled it very difficult because there was no trust between them. And Hailey said that marriage should be labeled as f***ing hard. And this is where something that Dr. Tari said, stuck with me big time, she said, marriage isn't hard, codependency is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm obviously not married, so I have no idea what it's like to be married and I can imagine that it’s really really hard, but I think Dr. Tari’s point here is that codependency can make a relationship, ultimately feel just really, really difficult.
LOUISE AS HAILEY
I have been Hailey, I've been the caregiver for the bad boy for the broken person. I fell madly in love with someone for many years that had such an extensive catalog of issues that they had absolutely no interest in facing up to.
In fact, they were so disconnected from themselves and they had such little emotional intelligence themselves, that even the slightest suggestion that they needed to do some work or that they had a problem would be the trigger for the most insane all out row.
I was so young that I didn't really know how to communicate at the time. And I certainly didn't know what to do when I saw all of these red flags. And if I did, I certainly didn't have the self-love, self-respect, or self-esteem at that point in my life to respect myself enough to leave this relationship. To know that there was another person out there and another love that I was so much more worthy of.
His temper was scary and it was definitely on paper an abusive relationship. I talk about it with such ease these days that it's actually concerning for me, how many people have probably been in similar situations and I've never spoken about it, or just really made it out to be no big deal. Whilst he never hit me per se, he definitely put his hands on me and his temper was so bad and so frequent.
At the end of a night out, fueled by alcohol or even an evening that didn't involve alcohol, it wasn't unusual for him to absolutely rage about something. And at that point in my life, I didn't know how to regulate myself so I was all up for raging back. We would end up fighting and fighting and fighting for hours.
He would be disrespectful. He would be verbally abusive and I would just stay around like a little lamb. Looking back now I can't remember if I was ever scared, it's very blurry, which I now also understand is some element of a trauma response where our body blocks out the things that have been really traumatic.
I remember times when he would leave me in the middle of London when my phone had run out of battery and I had no way to get home in the pouring rain because he accused me of flirting with his married 50 year old cousin, which I obviously didn't do. Or the time he left me at Nikki Beach in Marbella with thousands of euros on the tab because he got so drunk and decided that he didn't want to pay it anymore.
And he didn't want to hang out with me anymore, storming out, leaving me to pick up this horrible mess behind him. His language was foul, his behavior was erratic. And, ultimately I was the woman so many of us laugh about, saying to our friends, what is she doing? Why is she staying with this man? And how can she let him treat her like this.
Literally, no one liked him, my friends, my family, no one knew what I saw in him. Everyone said I could do better. And, essentially I wouldn't listen to any of them still to this day. I find it hard to explain why I stayed in that relationship for so long, but going into therapy has helped me understand a lot more why I thought that relationship was love. Because I really, really did. I really, really, really loved him. And I know that he really, really loved me too.
THE INNER CHILD OF THE ANGRY MAN
Underneath his temper, I saw the soppiest, sweetest, most loving man. In the moments that there was no temper, you see these people on the inside for who they really are, the inner child that they came into the world as, before they turned into these big broken, angry men.
Underneath the temper, he was so soft and I felt that he was so worthy of love and care and kindness. I loved him and I wanted to take his pain away. And, I honestly thought that if I loved him enough, then maybe he would stop being that angry person. There were so many good moments. And, in the good moments they make you feel like the most special person in the world, they treat you so well, they dote on you, they obsess over you.
But in the dark moments, it is hella dark. The other side of the passionate, intense love is the darkness. And you tolerate bad behavior, and you tolerate a roller coaster, and you tolerate uncertainty, because you think that's what a passionate relationship] is like. I thought it was love.
LOVE IS NOT CHAOS
And now today I realized that that was not a healthy love after all. Love is not unpredictability. Love is not chaos and chasing for the good moments. Love is not hoping that they might not lose their temper tonight. And love is certainly not knowing what might happen next. What I've learned since is that love should be calm and it should be stable and it should be reliable.
Love shouldn't be constantly caring for another party or being fueled by dopamine hits and erratic behavior thinking that it's passion. Love should be fueled by conscious connection and communication, where you take responsibility for yourself so you can help the other person to feel safe, heard and loved in that situation.
So I have been Hailey and I have cared for someone erratic like Justin and I have stayed. And it says a lot about me. And it says a lot about the love that I accepted. And it says a lot about the love that I thought I deserved. Dr. Tari has] explained to me that Hailey is suppressing so many of her needs in this situation. And she made me ask myself the same question.
I WAS HAILEY AND I WALKED AWAY
What happened to my needs in that relationship? In fact, the answer is that I kept them so quiet and silent because I wanted this person to love me and I wanted to avoid further outbursts. I was Hailey and I loved him so much, but I was Hailey and I walked away.
I walked away because I had no other choice and it started to feel like I couldn't breathe in the relationship anymore. I walked away because I couldn't deal with not knowing what was going to happen next and, something for the spiritual people out there, I grew a cyst on my neck when I was with him, which I had taken out.
When the surgeons removed it, the stitches split wide open, immediately. My throat chakra was screaming out at me because it had been suppressed and silenced by this angry, scary man for so many years. I totally lost my voice. Ultimately who I was in that relationship, I let him get away with so much.
I set no boundaries. I would accept the flowers and the gifts that he would bring me every time he repeated the same cycle. I can't help but wonder if there are people around Hailey telling her that she doesn't actually have to put up with Justin's erratic behavior after. Or, whether she's surrounded by groups and groups of Hollywood enablers, who just tell her that this is the best thing for her and she should stay in this relationship.
WHY I DONT JUDGE HAILEY
For me, I ignored the thoughts of everyone around me so I don't judge Hailey for staying. To find a love that you think is your one true love is intoxicating. Why would you leave? Because ultimately it's not until you have that light bulb moment when you see the truth of the situation for what it is that you really can start to gain perspective.
Will Hailey leave? Who knows.
I hope that she can find a true, happy, healthy love that she deserves. Maybe that is with Justin. It certainly could be, but maybe it won't be, what do we know? All I know is that I thought that I found the one, but since leaving this chaotic man, I realised - what was I doing? But I don't look back with regrets.
This person taught me what love was not and he also taught me that underneath any angry, chaotic person is a small sad child that is just desperate to be loved and cared for, but doesn't have the voice, means, skills or communication to ask for what they need.
If you're feeling like Hailey too, it's okay.
Maybe this will be difficult for you to have to listen to, but maybe this is the sign that you need, coming from me, someone who's lived this experience, and coming from Dr. Tari, a clinical psychologist, that you deserve a stable and loving love. And not only do you deserve it, but it is out there.
This passionate, erratic rollercoaster that you're living at the moment, it is not real reliable, healthy love. No one should tolerate bad behaviour, bad tempers, disrespectful language, or abusive behaviour in any format. And for me from now on, there will be a one strike policy because when someone showcases this behaviour, I know that it will happen again, 100%.
If this is you, but you ultimately don't want to leave the relationship, then this is a flashlight onto you and why you are accepting this kind of love. Whatever kind of Haley situation you're in, please, please seek professional help, even if it's just to talk through the situation, what you're going through and so you can understand more why you and your partner are acting in this way.
There is always so, so much more to these situations than initially meets the eye and going deeper into these situations is the only way that you are going to break the cycles. You have to understand why you are the way you are and why you accept the things and behaviours that you do in order to break those cycles and level up your life and all of the relationships around.
LOUISE AS JUSTIN
Okay. Okay. Okay - enough about me being Hailey and accepting all of this bad behaviour from this bad boy for so many years of my life. Let's now flip the script and talk about how I've also been Justin. Yep, I told you, my relationships have historically been messy, but I have been Justin in a relationship.
What I mean by that is that I've been the party in the relationship that desperately needed caring. In my last relationship, in fact, I was definitely more of a Justin than I was a Hailey.
Any of you that follow me know that I suffer from a chronic pain disorder called fibromyalgia, which has also led to a whole host of mental health challenges, awful anxiety about where the pain is coming from and panic attacks that would floor me when doctors could just never give me an answer as to what was going on in my body. I wasn't in a good place when I met him and I was also still working insanely hard and my parents were also not in a good place so I was very upset because I thought that there was a chance that they might not end up staying together.
In short, my life was a roller coaster. One moment I was in pain and then nothing. It was so up and down. And then I met him and then all of a sudden the roller coaster went from pain to pleasure. My ex-boyfriend listened to me in a way that I have never been listened to before. He he cared for me in a way that I had never, ever been cared for.
I had in fact, never met a man who was so caring and he gave me space to talk about everything that I felt and experienced with no shame, no judgment and no hypocrisy. He taught me about open and honest communication. Communication without tempers and fights and rows. He taught me what reliable, consistent, stable love was and how it didn't need to be a rollercoaster of fighting to mean that it was passionate and loving at the same time.
ON THE GOOD DAYS
On the good days, I was falling in love, deeply, madly, transformatively, and passionately with someone who treated me like an absolute princess. That is the only way I can describe it. I was Justin and I needed the love. I was Justin and I needed the care. It felt so good after so many years of not having answers or just having to be this independent woman that lived with this pain and all of the stress of a hugely stressful life around me, without anyone there to live it with me.
My ex-boyfriend would cook for me, he would clean for me, he would care for me, he would massage me when I was in pain, he would help me find specialists to help me work out what was going on with my body. He was super smart too, he would help me with my work. He would always be available anytime of the day or night.
He literally would call me princess. There is no other way that I can describe how he treated me other than he literally treated me like royalty. The love felt so good. It felt like the ultimate love, reliability and care. I truly thought that I had found love and it was so different to anything I had experienced before.
I thought ‘this is it. This is finally it’. Maybe it didn't come in the type or the form or the person that I was expecting, but I thought, how can this not be true love. But it wasn’t. Because it taught me that no matter how much you can dote on someone or care for them or love them, ultimately, if your values are not aligned and you do not want the same things in life, you can't outlove misaligned values.
YOU CAN LOVE SOMEONE TOO MUCH
Ultimately when the relationship ended, it actually taught me that your love can swing too far the other way. I do actually think that you can love someone too much, and you can love someone so much that they lose their role and their identity in the relationship because they ultimately become your caregiver and your support.
I never, ever, ever thought this person would leave me because he said he loved me more than anyone he has ever met in his entire life. And he would never, ever meet anyone but me for the rest of his life, but he left. You can only imagine how much that floored me when my caregiver, the person that treated me like a princess and got me through some of the darkest times in my life, left me silent, alone, and abandoned, with nothing more than a phone call to end the relationship.
There were so many incredible things about this relationship and today it has been the most loving, caring, transformative relationship that I've ever experienced. But it's also taught me that you can only be a caregiver for so long. There were so many times in that relationship that his needs got overlooked because ultimately he and we were prioritising mine.
That is ultimately just not fair on the person that is giving, giving, and giving. Again, there's many questions here around, why did he feel that that was love? And that's something that he is exploring in his own therapy. And I hope and trust that he will work through too, but ultimately he lost himself in the love that he gave me.
Ultimately, I think I lost myself too. Again, I wouldn't change this relationship for the world. It was the most transformative love I've ever been on the receiving end of, but it taught me about meeting in the middle because in both of these relationships that I've spoken about today, we did not meet in the middle.
I know that no relationship will ever be 50/50, but I do think that a relationship needs to be malleable and flexible so that when one party needs the other, they're able to show up for the other person and put their own problems aside, whether it's for one day, one month or longer.
LOOKING FORWARD NOW
Today, I know that my future partner, wherever he is right now, has to be able to meet me in the middle, with us both being able to take responsibility for what we bring to the table whilst also helping the other party as, and when, needed.
I didn't want to be Hailey in another relationship and I don't want to care and love someone else that is broken and needs healing, because what I've learned is that you cannot, you absolutely cannot love someone better. They have to take responsibility for who they are and why they are that way.
But do you know what?
I also don't want to be Justin? I don't want to be the person that has to be cared for. I don't want to be the person that has to be mollycoddled and loved and treated like a princess. I don’t want to be a burden to someone else. Instead I want to show up next to someone taking responsibility for all that I've been through and using it to my advantage.
I'm coming into my future relationship with so many lessons and communication skills so that I can love and care for them in a more balanced manner.
To meet someone in the middle of a relationship though, I need someone who has done the work for themselves to understand how they're hardwired to love and how that childhood has shaped them.
Because without this understanding, they'll ultimately just be reliving unconscious cycles on repeat and looking back at both of these relationships that I have spoken about today, we were repeating unconscious cycles that we had both picked up along the way, because we didn't even know that we needed to break them. Because we didn't even have an awareness that the cycles that we were running were not normal or healthy or conducive to the best relationship that we could have.
THE POWER OF FINDING A THERAPIST
For me, having a therapist is a really, really important part of this journey because it means that I don't have to use my family or friends or my partner as a therapist. I think that this is one of the healthiest things that we can do for a relationship.
JUSTIN & HAILEY
So enough about all the hundreds of millions of red flags that I've ignored over the last few years and back to Justin and Hailey.
I understand that Justin needs the love and care and affection afer everything that he has gone through. Like really, he has gone through a lot, so I do not judge him. And Hailey, I understand exactly what is going on there too, that she fits into that caregiver role and that, that is exactly the role that Justin needs.
Bless her soul, she genuinely thinks that she can love him better and back to happiness and wholeness and take away all of the pain that he has gone through. On top of that, she's also learned from her own family dynamics that men with substance abuse issues need to be cared for by their female counterparts - a direct reflection of the situation that has happened with her mother and her father.
I don't know what the future holds for Justin and Hailey and who am I to make any kind of prediction? I certainly should be trying to find my own husband rather than constantly commenting on her husband.
MY FINAL THOUGHTS
My summary about this whole situation is that part of me thinks that their childhood like love, bonded together and redemption and Hollywood and a connection with Christ Plus the pressure of not wanting to fail may actually keep them together. They certainly have enough money, meaning that they have every resource in terms of therapy, couples therapy, counseling, and more that they could ever need to help work through their problems.
But part of me, part of me worries for them because I have been Justin and I know how much he needs her. And when I was Justin I ended up alone because my partner couldn't care give for me anymore. I've also been Hailey, and when I was Hailey I couldn't be the caregiver anymore either. If we extrapolate what's happened in my relationships, then it's not looking great for them, but fingers crossed they might be able to find a way around this in a way that I didn't.
Remember whatever you've gone through or whatever you're going through, you are not alone.
There are a lot of us out there in this world that have stayed in relationships that were not healthy or were less than healthy, or maybe they were just a little bit less than what we deserved.
Whatever you're going through, remember seeking professional help, finding a therapist that is really, really a good match for you will be a game changer.
Let us know how you enjoyed the episode and be sure to share this on social media, as well as giving us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify.
Connect with Louise on social: @IAMLOUISERUMBALL
Connect with OPENHOUSE: @OPENHOUSELIFE⠀
Sign up to join the OPENHOUSE mailing list to receive first access to all workshops, courses and live events:WWW.THISISOPENHOUSE.COM
