Show Notes

They say hindsight is 2020, and if the year 2020 has taught us anything it has been to take stock of what is important in our lives right now. “What Now? Life After 2020” is a two-part episode all about how we are collectively coping with quarantine, communication challenges and strategies, and how to simply remember how to be human.

In this episode we cover:

• Our origin story

• What 2020 was like for us and our clients

• Divorce rate trends

• Living and working a virtual life

• Making hard transitions and decision

• Feeling and coping with loss and discomfort

• How to be human right now

Transcript

Meredith Shirey (00:00):

It's toilet paper.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:01):

I have enough toilet paper. Now.

Meredith Shirey (00:02):

I'm very glad to hear that. Cause I know there for a while it was touching and go with a lot of us.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:06):

Toilet paper, chicken and Lysol were all stocked up. I mean the New York post says the end of times.

Meredith Shirey (00:12):

Um, but they always say that.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:14):

Right? Exactly. Exactly. So, so who knows, what's really true and really what matters is what's happening to you?

[Theme Music]

Meredith Shirey (00:22):

Hey everyone, I'm Meredith Shirey. I'm a licensed psychotherapist, specializing in relationship issues

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:37):

And I'm Isaiah Vallejo-Juste, a divorce attorney.

Meredith Shirey (00:38):

This is a podcast about filling in the gaps of our relationships, the deeply personal choices we make for our families and ourselves

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:45):

And the impact that our actions have on the rest of our lives. This is Love Me or Leave Me

Meredith Shirey (00:53):

What a year. What a year in 2020 has been weird between this pandemic. When the world went from everything is fine to everything is on fire. And what felt like the course of a day, working from home mass mandates, social unrest, all of the things it's been crazy. Toilet paper, the toilet paper debacle. How are you on that? Are you, are you stocked up?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (01:17):

Toliet paper, chicken and Lysol were all stocked up over here.

Meredith Shirey (01:21):

How are you? Are you doing okay?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (01:23):

Yeah, I'm making it too. It's been tough. You know, you know, with the, the toilet paper and the law and the lack of goods out there and adjusting to all that and Instacart, it's been, it's been a year, it's been a year to say the least. Um, but you know, the quote Morpheus from the matrix, we are still here.

Meredith Shirey (01:46):

We are still here. And I think that we're really trying to figure out how to settle into, okay, we're here. We're not going anywhere. So what now? And I think in the beginning there was such a just hustle and bustle and reaction to how sudden the pandemic hit that it wasn't until Midsummer. I think that some of us could even slow down like you and I finally, I think Midsummer we're like, Hey, how you doing? You? Okay. The interesting thing that came from that was that we both realized we were seeing this emerging trend from our clients, which is interesting because we actually have very different careers. And so it seems like we were seeing this diverging path of, because of everything that changes at pandemic, people were either on the fast track to commit or to break up.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (02:37):

Yeah. That's, I mean, that's why we started the podcast. Love me to leave me, you know, the idea is that we're going to delve deep into this stuff, right? We're going to talk about our relationships and we're going to talk about our families and ourselves and you know, the impact that our actions have on other people's lives. And so I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm absolutely thrilled to be starting this with you as my partner in this endeavor. So with that said, what are you seeing out there right now when it comes to couples and in your practice

Meredith Shirey (03:04):

2020 and the pandemic, weren't the cause of most of the issues I'm seeing with clients, but it has been a catalyst either for the positive or the negative because all those issues is existed before, but it's as though they were really just put under a microscope. And so we're seeing this kind of perfect storm for people of not being able to run away from the issues because we're stuck in, in a place usually where all of our distractions that we have before work and friends and family and all the things, um, that allowed us to maybe be avoided issues or not have to face them head on those really got put under a microscope. And when people are in a place of crisis, when it feels like there's an imminent threat and we also don't have any schema for how to deal with this, because none of us have done this before.

Meredith Shirey (03:56):

It really shows you the bones of a relationship. And I think from that people realized, is this someone that I could see my life with, if my life might potentially be limited because we're not guaranteed tomorrow. You know, if this is our first-class ticket to doomsday, do I want to do it with the person next to me? And so I think that that existential question is what's really created this divergent path. I think with that too, there's a lot that we're seeing, right. In terms of what's different in the way that we have to actually do our jobs. So I'm curious, one, what in the world does doing divorce via zoom look like, how does that work for you? And then two, what are you noticing in terms of changes in divorce? Are people getting divorced, more something? I think pop culture tells us that, but is that actually accurate?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (04:54):

This isn't really in our cultural DNA. I find that everything is just heightened now, right? You're spending 24 hours a day, more or less with, uh, your spouse or your partner and that kind of make any issue bubble up. And so it's, it's been difficult in that way for many people. But at the same time, I think you see a lot of love out there as well. Right. You know, we've all been, we've all been invited to socially distant weddings and things of that nature and people getting engaged and having babies and, you know, life continues to go on despite everything else that's going on in this world. Right. With respect to the divorce rates, the truth is nobody really knows. There are a lot of, there's a lot of information out there. The poll says the world is ending as they tend to do.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (05:37):

But the truth is, nobody really knows in March or April, you know, it was very, you couldn't really get a divorce unless it was an essential matter, some type of emergency or something like that. Cause the courts were closed. So couldn't really do it then. So it could be a lot of catch-up. Right. But I also find that you're right. Everything is kind of heightened now. So whatever feeling you have about your partner, that's heightened, whether it be positive or negative. And so sure. Yeah. There's, there's lots of divorces out there, you know, the way they're always lots of divorces out there, but really I think for people, when they look at divorce rates, they're really concerned about their own marriage. So the divorce rate for them only matters whether they're getting divorced or not. And that's what really matters. And I think that's what gives us kind of like a unique ability here in this podcast is to try to help people through those issues. I think people are just trying to live their best lives right now. Right? So they look at their partner and they say, all this stuff is heightened. Are you the person I want to go through this with? Or are you not?

Meredith Shirey (06:37):

You know, I'm curious, so there's this, this complete pause between March and April, right? So no divorces are happening. And then you see this onslaught. Do you think that the pandemic had a direct impact on the, those two forces, meaning had the pandemic not happened? Do you think that it actually would've made a difference for some couples

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (06:55):

Probably right. Every, every marriage is different. So I'm sure that their marriage is out there that are in part terminating because of what's going on, what's going on or relationships in general. Right. That, that makes a lot of sense. But at the same time, what are the kind of big trends that we're seeing? And I would say generally speaking, um, if you're, if you're in a happy marriage, you know, the idea that the pandemic is going to be the thing that causes your divorce is probably not true. There's probably underlying issues there as well. Um, lack of communication I always say is the primary one. So I would say that I'm sure that the voices out there that are going on right now that, you know, the pandemic has, has contributed to them. But at the same time, I would say that, you know, for certain marriages, people may have been brought closer together, right?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (07:50):

So at the end of the day, it's really about, it's really about what are the underlying issues that were there from beforehand and about fixing those issues. You have to retain the ability to remain friendly. You don't necessarily have to be friends, right? I mean, the reason being is, you know, if you have kids, God willing, one day they're going to be grandkids, right? And who's going to be sitting at the grandkids for his birthday, the two people who got divorced 40 years ago, right. Unless somebody decided to really act up and now they completely hate each other. And now somebody is missing, you know, little Johnny's first birthday party. Is this what we want? Not really. Right. So we do want to be able to retain that ability to remain friendly, but at the same time, you know, assert yourself for your rights and all of that stuff.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (08:41):

But you don't completely dehumanize the person to the point where that person is just an enemy. We can't fix the pandemic, right? None of us are a miracle worker. Who's going to magically invent a vaccine. But what we can do is help people in this current and their current situations. And I think that's where you and I can come together and help some people out. What have you seen with respect to your clients, right? Like how are they communicating with each other? What happens? For example, if you have two people who've approached that pandemic in two different ways, like one person believes in it. And the other one doesn't

Meredith Shirey (09:15):

I'm one who is a, you know, an anti mascara and the other person who's maybe OCD, right? So hopefully for anyone listening, we're not in a situation where you realized that your partner was an anti-science, uh, that'd be pretty shocking. You know, it might put you on that fast track for the, for the breakup. But I think for most people, they felt somewhere on the lighter end of the spectrum, where maybe we had a disagreement about, do we need to wipe down these groceries? Should the kid go to this birthday party? That's socially distant things like that. One thing that I've had to tell couples is to slow down the conversation. First of all, when things are heightened, when there's a crisis, especially if there's something that's touching for us that feels scary and unsafe, we tend to get really rigid. We get reactive really quickly.

Meredith Shirey (10:04):

And then when we get reactive, our partner gets reactive and that is just a powder keg for a really, really unhealthy conversation that escalates too quickly. And where we say the things we don't mean, and those are those fights that, you know, you say the words you can't take back. And so what I have to remind people to do a lot of times is to slow down the conversation and to remember that you can disagree and you can still do it with civility. So you can create space and have a safe conversation. And it does not mean that you need to convince your partner or that your partner needs to convince you. So the goal should be listening to understand, not just hearing to respond, think about your perspectives as though they're parallel lines, they can both exist and they do not have to intersect. And that is a way to hold onto yourself and to allow room for your partner. And from that place, usually when we feel heard and understood, and we feel like there's space for us, then we can actually find resolution pretty easily. We can find the compromise. I say, I know that you were quarantining with your wife and your kids. How has that been for you to have a full house during this time?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (11:17):

Well, it's been really challenging in both really challenging and really fun. So I went from spending about 15 minutes a day with my kids, right. Uh, to spending 24 hours a day with my kids. And that's amazing because I get to do that now. Right. But it's also very difficult because I went from spending 15 minutes with them. So that's 24 hours a day. And I have to say in my house, we have two kids, three dogs and a grandma. Right. So it's full of fun and full of life and full of screaming and yelling. And it's great. It's absolutely, it's absolutely great. But it's been tough at the same, you know, we want the kids want to go to school, uh, but they're in virtual school. And so that, that can make it difficult. You know, we, mom and dad want to go off and didn't try, you know, circumventing those safety parameters. Right. Because we have grandma here, who's in a seventies, so we have to be careful. So to that extent, it's been, it's been tough, but it's also, it's been a blessing because I have people and life in the house to kind of go through this with, I would think that it's different if you just have your spouse. So just yourself and going through this same exact scenario,

Meredith Shirey (12:25):

I actually went through a breakup at the very beginning of quarantine, for some of the reasons we talked about that there were problems before and they just got put under a microscope under quarantine. And then when you're threatened with what feels like a life threatening situation, it just makes it that much more clear that this might not be the person I need to be with. And so what I've seen for myself, and then I've also seen in, in different contexts with clients is, is that there's pros and cons to whoever you're doing quarantine. If, if you're alone, like I was, I had a lot of me time to be able to do yoga and do some crafts and I got a puppy. So that was interesting. Right. But then I also had to mourn the loss of that social support and being able to connect in person with friends and family, like I'd want to, at the same time, if you're a couple, you have the added, supportive one person there, but then you're putting so much more pressure on that relationship because that's your only person.

Meredith Shirey (13:25):

And in modern relationships, there's already been a strain that's put on, on partners because we are ready, depend on our partner for so much more what we used to get from entire village. We expect from one person. And then with the quarantine now you're really limited to, I can even supplement that by coworkers, friends, and family. I can only get that from you. And so if we're not connected or if we're having some issues where it's hard for us to even talk through where we're disconnected, that really opens you up and makes you much more vulnerable to continued miss bids for attention and connection and probably increased resentment. Right? So like for you, with the family, I'd imagine, like you said, there's some wonderful, beautiful bonding moments and at the same time, and I'm curious about what some of this might have looked like for you, I'd imagine that you probably have to now have a conversation with the whole family about small decisions that you probably wouldn't have given a second thought to a week before.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (14:26):

Yeah. That's a hundred percent correct. Where are we going to go shopping? How are we going to do that? You know, we're going to Instacart. I mean, the rates are going back up now. So we had to have a conversation today with my mother-in-law about how things are proceeding and how we all need to be careful, um, going out there because she does go back to her apartment on the weekend. It's tough. I would love it if we would just kind of go back to where we were, but we can't, I would love to drive down the, but how do I do that? Right? How do I get from here to there? Do I get an RV, certainly not going to fly with my children down there. You know what I'm gonna do with the dogs? All these things become very difficult. So things which, you know, used to be comfortable as to quote my wife, things which were comfortable, I have all of a sudden become a source of our discomfort.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (15:11):

So the things that we used to do to kind of relax, let's go out to a steak house, let's go out to the neighborhood bar and Mister some music and have a good time, have all become a real source of discomfort. Right. And that is, I think the hardest thing. I mean, how do you navigate going outside, interacting with human beings around other than those who with you live. And those are the things that previously kind of gave us life, and now you don't have those things anymore. So it's, it's very difficult to deal with that, but I feel like, you know, through communication and things of that nature, we're able to kind of somewhat overcome those things, but it's not an easy thing to do.

Meredith Shirey (15:52):

We've all given up so many things, right? Th those a little bit of normal seas, you know, like you said, things like going out to eat for me, that was traveling. And I'm so grateful that I went on a trip right before COVID happened. Um, but you know, I think about that or I think about the last live concert I went to, you know, right before all this happened, what, when all of this, and hopefully when we're able to have life without restrictions, what's the first thing you want to do.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (16:25):

The first thing I want to do. And the first thing I'm going to do are probably different things. The first thing I will do, because it be the, probably the closest thing for me is to take my wife out. Let's go out for a night in a city, you know, I turned 40 this year and she had Hamilton tickets. So we couldn't go see Hamilton. Right. And that, and that really stunk, you know, talk about like third row seats that really slung. So yeah, I know exactly. Not everybody can see your face, but I just saw the face he made and that's exactly right. Right. So we saw it on Disney plus and it was amazing. And I listened to it the next five days. And you know, just culturally speaking, that's so much of where I'm from Hamilton is represents so much to me because I'm what you would call.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (17:07):

I live in New Jersey, but I'm actually a native new Yorker. My wife was born in New York. My mother was born in New York. My grandparents immigrated when, so I'm a real new Yorker, even though I live in New Jersey to see that kind of New York funk play out on Broadway meant so much for me because it meant that the culture had gone that far. Right. So not to be able to see it kind of snuck. Um, so yeah, I would, I would probably go for a night in a city, maybe, maybe hit up the Yale club or some nice place like that, catch a shell. That'd be great. The first thing I want to do is get on a plane right now on a plane. My father right now lives in France. You know, my plan is, you know, in a couple of years to get on a plane in the beginning of the summer, hang out, drop my kids off, lie back and come get them a couple months later. So that will probably be the first thing I wanted to get on a plane and go to Europe hangout and, and have a good time, have a couple of glasses of wine.

Meredith Shirey (18:01):

You know, I think the first thing I'm going to do is, you know, to your point about Hamilton and by the way, it's so funny. I wish people could see our faces because you and I, and, um, our producer Rich, both like almost fell over in her seats. Just like feeling that, that loss for you like, Oh God, that's so painful. And like you said, because it means something to you culturally into your family. You know, I think the first thing I'm going to do is find out whatever the first concert is in the city. I want to go, whatever is happening at forest Hills. I'm there immediately. And even though we've been talking about the loss and the strain, it's, it's like the, you know, with every death there's also birth, right. And it's almost this cycle, that's, there's a lot of loss, but then we found new ways to have joy and define levity.

Meredith Shirey (18:46):

And that's something that I certainly try to remind people and clients and myself, a lot of times have to remind myself there, there are things to be grateful for and find the humor, find the levity in the small moments and it can be something stupid and it could be something that you look back on and you laugh at. So Isaiah and I were talking a little bit before, and I was, I've mentioned that, uh, in the beginning of the quarantine, when things were terrifying in New York, that was very, very scary at one point. And I can look back on this and kind of laugh. Now, there was one point when there is, um, a case of COVID in my apartment building. And I like lost my mind. I remember calling my mother and just being like, I made a dialogue in my apartment and she of course didn't know how to respond.

Meredith Shirey (19:31):

So she sent me this care package and I opened it and it literally had the most, and it was so sweet, but it was random things where it was like, okay, so there's like this, this candle. And then there's some shower gel and there's some men's shaving cream and some toilet paper and some, you know, uh, hair ties. And I was like, mom, what was going on? She's like, I was just so nervous. I was just running around the house, like throwing pieces box, cause I just wanted to help. So I think that, you know, again, there's, there's something kind of sweet and heartwarming and also funny, even in what was scary in the moment can now be something that you actually look back and you can have some fun,

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (20:10):

You know, that's why the paper was worth its weight in gold. Right?

Meredith Shirey (20:13):

Right. I remember, um, when things were leveling off in the early spring and, um, I was preparing to go to where I grew up to spend some time with friends and family. And I remember calling the friend I was staying with and I was like, they have Sharman, how many do you want me to get? And it's just like this silly thing, you know? Um, so I think that this is something that at some point we'll look back on and there were a lot of lessons to learn. So even with all the loss and all of the things that have been hard and difficult, I would say that the one nice thing about doing things virtually is that there's something really humanizing. And then I think brings out the softer, more vulnerable side of people. When you were literally looking into people's homes, you know, I've, I've had clients who were in New York, right? You have to get creative with your space. I've had clients literally go into a closet to do a session

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (21:16):

Who hasn't had the experience of some calling center to order something or whatever. And you hear the person's baby in the background being on various, like a networking event or whatever it is. And you you're literally looking into people's homes. Right? So for awhile it was appearing in court and around, I was in this spare room in my house that we hadn't fixed up yet. And you saw my wallpaper from the 1940s. It just, it just was what it was. Right. And I think, you know, there's a real humanization. There is you look at these people and you say, they're just people. And I think if anything, I think that's what we should remember from all this, with all this going on out there at the end of the day, we're just people and this proof of that, and being on these windfalls and looking into people's homes.

Meredith Shirey (22:01):

So lately, you know, there's so much that we can't control and that we're automatically having to have a bit more vulnerability because we're giving up the comfort and control of being in our offices, where we're wearing our pants suits and our power heels and thinking that we're tough, right? There's something that really brings it down a notch when you are in your home and you see into someone else's home, what a nice way to wrap up this episode, right? We're all just really figuring out how to human right now. And let's just remember to love each other.

Rich Hackman [Producer] (22:49):

Love me, or leave me as a podcast production of the board brand. This podcast is for informational purposes only it does not constitute medical or legal advice and is not a substitute for professional consultation, diagnosis or treatment. Always follow up with a licensed attorney or healthcare professional who can address your specific needs. Thanks for listening.