Stephanie: Hi, Rita. Welcome to the 40 drinks podcast.

Rita: Hi, Stephanie. I am so looking forward to our chat.

Stephanie: I am as well, mostly because you started our email conversations by saying, I'm not in a full blown midlife crisis, but I'm flirting with one, which I just loved the way you put that. And it's so funny because knowing, as I do a little bit about your story already, I'm interested to hear all the way through your story and how at this point you're flirting with a midlife crisis.

Why don't we start at the beginning as I always do. I call it the prologue. Right? How did we get to the adult 1. 0 Rita? What were the forces that shaped you? And where does our story begin?

Rita: So my story starts at the very, very, very beginning when I was a baby. My main lifelong journey has been about healing attachment issues. And attachment issues started at the very beginning of my life. I,was born and my parents had a messy divorce and my father was an immigrant from Mexico and didn't think he would have any custody rights against my mother and so he fled to Mexico basically kidnapping me.

And I lived with him and his family for two years. And then when I was three years old, my mom essentially stole me back and then severed all ties with my father. So even though I was not a foster child, my early life mimicked that of a foster child. And thus I had some attachment issues.

Stephanie: Wow. It's so interesting. You hadn't mentioned that before the concept of the foster child and how your experience matches with it. And, and I know I said a moment ago, if I have any relevant stories to your story. I might jump in, but my husband is a social worker and he works for a state child protection agency.

So once you said that, it was like, I had a V8 moment of like, Oh yes, that's the kind of stuff he talks about with kids who are in the child welfare system. But when you lived with your dad for those first couple of years, if I recall you saying it was a very loving family, big family. And Spanish became your first language.

Rita: Yes. So my dad is one of 11, which is very normal for Mexican families. And it's a very tight knit family that's very loving. And from what I u nderstand, because I don't have any memories of that time. I was primarily cared for by his grandmother. So my great grandmother, my grandmother, and then a couple of his sisters.

He, of course, was there as well. But in the Hispanic community, it's very much women who do the child rearing. So I was pretty much cared for by them.

Stephanie: Yeah. And were there a pack of other children?

Rita: Oh yes.

Stephanie: Yeah, I say that cause my dad's one of 10 and my mom's one of six. And I know growing up, right. The cousins, right. There, there's like roaming packs of children, you know, just. So, as a real young person. baby, you were in the middle of this huge family, lots of extended family, cousins, probably older cousins.

Rita: I was one of the older cousins, always picking up the younger ones and babysitting and stuff like that. So your mom during these two years, what was she doing? She basically had a breakdown because as any mother can imagine, your baby's taken from you and taken to another country. Plus it was the early 80s. So, you know, she went to the authorities and they said, well, he's the biological father. He has the right to do that. All of that has since changed.

I mean, it would be news now, but it was not a big deal then. She hired some private investigators. That didn't really lead to anything. And she was, I think, like, 23 at the time,she later went on to go back to school, but at that time, she was basically a high school graduate. So she didn't have a whole lot of resources and she tried everything that she possibly could. So she had a hard time with it.

Stephanie: How did she finally make connection again with your father?

Rita: I love the story. So she was out of options. And my grandmother, her mother, reminded her that she was an accomplished writer. And said, just use what you have, use your writing. So my mom says that she wrote my father a love letter saying, I want to get back together. We can be a family again, come and visit me.

And she mailed it to his mother's house. My Mexican grandmother got it to him and he showed up California with me. Now My mom didn't know this and I didn't learn this until later when I reconnected with my father, but he had extreme pressure from his family to reunite me with my mother and to take me back to America, or the United States I should say, where I would have more opportunities. They were not in support of him taking me.

Stephanie: Oh, interesting. So even, so they knew you were kidnapped and while they were taking care of you, they weren't, they were no bueno with him.

Rita: No bueno is correct. They supported him as far as taking care of me and, they didn't reach out to my mom, but he had pressure to take me back where

up and this is, your mom's in California at this point they met. Yep. I was born and where they met and fell in love and were married and divorced. And,the story is that they had dinner together and then I fell asleep on my mother and she begged my father to let me stay with her over the night and that my father could come back in the morning and then she called all of her friends and they helped her get back home to Pennsylvania on the other side of the country where my father wouldn't have had the means or the, ability to chase after her. And my father's side of the story is that he had planned to leave me with my mother, but he had planned to come visit very frequently. And if nothing else, he would have access to me and potentially they could get back together.

Stephanie: If she had stayed in California.

Rita: If she had stayed in California, but she fled. And I mean, the purpose of her fleeing was to flee from my father. She was afraid that he would take me to Mexico again. And I mean, she went, she changed my name. So my name was changed when I was five years old so that he couldn't find me.

Stephanie: Oh my goodness. So she must've taken her maiden name back, right? Cause, okay.

and then she married again kind of quickly when I was five years old. Oh my goodness. So start having memories around three years

Rita: hmm. Mm hmm

Stephanie: Tell me what those memories were like.

Rita: So the main thing is I remember learning English. My mom spoke some broken Spanish just from being in California and marrying my father, but she was not yet fluent. And for a three year old, I'm very talkative, and I'm told that for a three year old, I was quite fluent. I was quite talkative.

And so I remember being in a new place with new people, feeling out of place, no one looking like me cause my features are more Mexican,learning English because no one around me spoke Spanish. So that was a, a huge benchmark to everything, the fact that I had to learn English because, my little three year old brain didn't understand everything that had happened. And I certainly didn't remember,a lot. And so that's the big, telltale,happening that made it very much so in my awareness, if that makes sense, it makes everything

Stephanie: Yeah.

Rita: in my little brain that I came from somewhere else.

Stephanie: Do you remember like missing your grandmother or, do you know what I mean? Like the people that you had known for two years were just all of a sudden gone.

Right. And I don't have memories of that. And that actually has bothered me, believe it or not. But, you know, you think of a three year old. I probably did. It just didn't stay in my memory because I, instead I was navigating, learning how to communicate. Those memories probably just got pushed to the back and the bigger problems got pushed to the front, because that's human nature. We remember what we're going through more than what we've had. So now let's talk about, in general, talk about attachment, attachment theory,give us a sort of high level definition of attachment theory.

Rita: Sure. Attachment theory is just the belief that a child, specifically a baby, a newborn, needs to form a lasting bond with at least one primary loving, responsive, consistent caregiver. It doesn't even need to be a biological relative, but it needs to be consistent, loving, and responsive.

And a lot of kids who have been in the foster care system, are adopted, or have suffered abuse or neglect or extreme separation. In my case, because I was well loved in both families. but there was that extreme separation. I never got a chance to create a lasting bond with anybody. then there can be attachment issues.

And attachment basically says there is a foundation of love, and from that foundation of love, a person can get to know who they are and then can explore the world around them because they know there's this foundation of love to protect them.

When everybody says, the terrible twos, well, really what the two year old is doing is they're exploring the world. They're no longer attached to their caregiver's hip. They're picking up the scissors. They're petting the dog. They're saying no. And that's actually a sign of health.

They're able to do that because they have that strong foundation of love that that person who's their primary caregiver is going to stop them from doing anything truly harmful. It's going to redirect, isn't going to help them figure out who they are as a person

Stephanie: And they're not going to go away.

Rita: and they're not going to go away.

Stephanie: matter if you're quote unquote bad or misbehaving or, pushing boundaries, that caregiver will, will be consistent and steady for you.

Rita: Yes, even if the caregiver gets frustrated or has a bad day, they're there and they're ultimately loving. They're ultimately responsive. And they're ultimately consistent. And that communicates a lot to a little person and the little person is able to develop as a person, and then to develop outside relationships, usually friendships first, and then as those friendships continue to have developmental stages, then they're able to branch out in more romantic relationships. And so that first relationship with your primary caregiver really gives a child the blueprints they need for future life.

Stephanie: Yeah. Success.

Rita: Yes.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Rita: So that's basically the idea behind attachment theory.

Stephanie: Great. That's a great foundation for us to know as we continue to move forward. So talk to me about what it was like growing up in your mom's house.

Rita: So my mom's house was ultimately loving. I will say, her father particularly was first generation American, both of his parents, immigrated from Slovenia. And I mean, his mom came as into the United States as an indentured servant.

So, I mean, it's, it was, you know, they had nothing. And so there was very much that immigrant culture of, we have nothing. We don't care about your feelings. We have to work hard, maintain our reputation and start a new life in the States. And then my grandparents also bought a hundred acre farm and had five children. So my mom and all of her siblings got land on the farm. And when I was growing up, there was still very much a big loving family, but that culture of your feelings don't matter so much. Work hard, be a good citizen, not bad things. But if you're someone like me who was dealing with broken attachment, it wasn't exactly the best environment to have that naturally heal.

Stephanie: Right. I think you said to me earlier, it was, the nineties version of like socially acceptable dysfunction in a family, like

Rita: Yeah.

Stephanie: nothing outrageous.

Rita: Right. Yeah.

Stephanie: but not a healing environment for somebody who had some foundational issues they needed to work through.

Rita: Exactly. Was I loved? Yes. Was I cared for? Yes. Would my family do anything possible for me? Absolutely. But you know, there were bad boundaries, not a huge,culture of validating feelings,not a huge culture of forgiveness, sort of those things that are exceptionally healthy or exceptionally healing. Nothing like that soul healing kind of love that makes up for all the broken pieces.

Stephanie: But your mom did something really progressive for you when you were young. Talk about that.

Rita: So my mom knew that, you know, naturally I would have some issues and she got me into professional Christian counseling when I was like 13 or 14 years old. And this was the nineties and it was pretty progressive. And my mom was a you know, school teacher who didn't have a ton of money. I mean, nobody was spending money on counseling for their kids in the nineties, but it was just the absolute best thing she could have done for me.

And that's where you really learned about the concept, right. of attachment and kind of what you were experiencing.

Correct. I don't know that the term attachment theory was ever used, but it was certainly explained to me and it certainly made sense.It validated what I was experiencing. I, very quickly realized, yes, this is correct. This is what I'm dealing with. And yes, it made sense.

Stephanie: I think this is going to be a little bit of a tangent, but let's go, back one step. Tell me about your mom got pregnant again in her new marriage. Tell me about that.

Rita: Yes. So my mom remarried and had my little brother and my little sister, and I was eight years old when she was pregnant with my little sister and we did not grow up in that going to church.

Stephanie: was sort of one of those things that you just cry out to God when you're in trouble, but there was no like, actively seeking a faith on the regular for no reason, just because.And my mom in the nineties got pregnant and she was, I think 31 or 32. And in the nineties that was considered a high risk geriatric pregnancy, which is so funny

It is so funny.

Rita: I think I just saw that like Cameron Diaz is 51 and had her second baby.

But,but then it was high risk and my little eight year old mind was worried. And without telling anybody, I started praying every night in my bed before I would fall asleep. And I started to have,dreams about this little sister and very specific dreams. And my mother was told that she was having a boy.But my grandmother encouraged me. She felt like I was, you know, hearing from the Lord. Basically, she felt like I had this divine revelation and sure enough, my sister was born and of course she was a girl and everything that I dreamed about and everything I saw came true. My sister has a very unique personality. She has big expressive blue eyes and long legs and just all of these things that I dreamed as a little girl. And so that was the other thing that happened to me. So I got into counseling very young and then I had a spiritual encounter very young. And those have been the true driving forces in my journey of healing.

Stephanie: Wow. When you first told me this story, you said that it was the first, sort of supernatural experience you had. Have you had others?

Rita: Oh, yeah.

Stephanie: Oh, okay.

Rita: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie: All right. Cause we didn't talk about those. Wow. Okay. All right. So are you one of those people for whom the veil is thin between this,plane and the next?

Rita: I wouldn't say the veil is naturally thin for me I would say that I'm aware there's a veil and I constantly push it aside

Stephanie: So you can peek.

Rita: I can peek, and it takes effort. I have friends whom the veil is thin for, and it doesn't take much effort at all. Me, it's very much a,conscious,intentional practice to push the veil aside, if that makes sense.

Stephanie: It makes sense to me. Yeah. Okay. Let's flash forward a little bit. You got into counseling as a young teen and you've stayed in counseling your whole life.

Rita: Yes. Now, of course there've been, times where I've walked away for a couple of months, but generally speaking, I have been in counseling my entire life.

Stephanie: And tell me about your, in your twenties, you reconnected with your dad.

Rita: Yes. So I actually met my father when I was 18. And it was a horrible first visit. We laugh about it. He agrees it was horrible. But then I actually really started connecting with him in my twenties.

So in my twenties, they came and visited me. Somy dad had sort of shown up on my doorstep when I was 18 and I was living on my own, trying to be a successful independent woman, and I was nannying for a family. And it was just an extremely inconvenient time. It's one thing if you have your own place, but if you're a nanny, you don't really want your Mexican father that you've never met knocking on their door.

You know, they were, they were a little concerned. Let's just put it that way. They were a little concerned. And he was extremely nervous, extremely nervous, and it was just a very short, quick interact. I think he was there for a day and we went to dinner together and it was just very awkward.

And I remember sort of thinking, well, I can check that off my bucket list. I've met him. I can get in touch with him whenever I want, but I'm not going to be doing that anytime soon. She

Stephanie: have positive or negative perceptions of him at that point? Like, was he a bad guy when you were growing up? Or did your mom sort of understand why he did what he did and didn't characterize him so negatively?

Rita: She was just brutally honest with me. So he was the love of her life. They were best friends and they probably would have stayed married forever, but he got into drugs and alcohol. And at times was abusive.So that's why she initiated the divorce. Growing up. She was honest with me and told me that she had to leave him, that he was not a safe person, especially after he took me to Mexico.

Stephanie:

Rita: But she used to always say, and I love this. My husband loves this. He says it's the most encouraging thing he's ever heard. She used to always say, but his family is extremely good. And by the time you're old enough to meet him, they will have straightened him out. She would use the phrase, pray him straight.

You will love him. And if by some horrible chance, he's still involved in drugs and alcohol and unsafe, his family is worth meeting. I mean, he was the good guy that had some bad behavior that she believed was ultimately a good guy, if that makes sense. So

Stephanie: total sense. That's so sweet.

Rita: She, it really was sweet. She really laid the foundation for reunification. It mean like a champ, like a champ, like she had a, social working, career. That mean that's like the perfect foundation.

Stephanie: That's really wonderfully,big of her, open of her to not paint him with a very broad brush. So,

Rita: No, she did a great job.

Stephanie: Alright, so now you're in your 20s and you're reconnecting with your dad. I actually want to jump forward a little bit into your thirties because you talked about some breakthroughs in your therapy in your early thirties. So why don't we start there? Cause I think some of those are going to kind of loop us back and forward again. So,talk to me about your first couple of breakthroughs.

Rita: So I will back up just a little bit. In my 20s, I read the book, Hiding From Love, which I had been made abundantly aware of attachment, and that I had avoidant attachment. But in a sense, it was kind of like, it's just because of what happened to me and I can try to get counseling and I can try to work on it, but ultimately it will always be the big elephant in the room.

And then I read Hiding From Love by Dr. John Townsend. Everyone should read it. Who thinks they have avoidant attachment issues. Changed, rocked my world. It based the main message that I got from it was, yes, you've experienced traumas and that's why you're where you are, but most of the problems you have in your life are regarding the habits you've developed to cope with your trauma.

And so you need to unlearn those unhealthy habits and learn healthy habits. And so now it's on you. Even though I had been in therapy, it just was an aha moment.

Stephanie: I suppose it's super empowering.

Rita: it was empowering, but it was terrifying at the same time.

Stephanie: Right. Cause now you have not only the ability, but the responsibility,

Rita: yes,

Stephanie: right? It's just a total double edged sword. Like, Oh, I can make it better, but holy crap. It's up to me to make it better.

That's a lot.

Rita: And just to be completely honest, didn't have the best response. I actually backed away from inner healing for a while, just because it was overwhelming.

Stephanie: That makes total sense to me.

Rita: It was just too much. And so naturally when you have a big issue and you back away from inner healing, your life becomes a bigger mess than it's ever been ever before.And then in my early thirties, relationships were falling apart. I just wasn't where I wanted to be. And so then I got serious about inner healing again, and I revisited it and I just decided to face the big elephant in the room the way that I knew I should have in my late twenties, but didn't. And then I just started having amazing breakthrough in counseling.

Stephanie: Well, let's also reframe that the way you could have in your late twenties, but you weren't ready for yet.

Rita: I was not ready. That's a good way to put it.

Stephanie: Yeah. So this is one of the tangents that I wanted to go on. So, avoidant attachment issues cause problems or issues in relationships.

Rita: Yep.

Stephanie: So tell me about friendships for you in your teens and twenties. What did those look like? How did it express for you in your friendships?

Okay.

Rita: Sure. So I will say that first of all, just to back up a bit. There is avoidant attachment, and there's anxious attachment, that's healthy. Even if you're healthy, even if you've had a strong foundation of love, you tilt one way or the other. Then when it's unhealthy, you're extreme avoidant or extreme anxious, or there's a third, which is disorganized, which is a combination of both.

So a lot of people, when I talk about some of the symptoms of avoidant attachment, they'll say, well, I do that. Or will I, you know, have that, but to just really determine if it's unhealthy, as if you're also maybe depressed, or anxious, or it's affecting your life in a negative way.

Stephanie: So avoidant attachment is basically somebody who feels that no one can meet their needs. The people that have tried to meet their needs have failed. And so they can't rely on anyone. They have to rely on themselves. And they're usually hyper independent, often workaholics. They do struggle with loneliness. So every once in a while they come out of their shell and search for connection, but it's usually shallow,

because they're afraid of intimacy and they're afraid of losing themselves in relationship.

Okay.

Rita: Anxious attachment is the exact opposite. They're hyper aware of their needs and they themselves know that they can't meet them. And so they're looking for other people to meet their needs. And they're looking to be loved. They're looking to be validated. They're looking to be supported. And then sometimes because they're so desperate to have their needs met are willing to compromise when they meet somebody that's maybe unhealthy, willing tonot care about boundaries and just engage in maybe some risky behavior. So, the avoidant default is no. The anxious default is I'm going to chase you and make you love me.

Stephanie: Okay.

Rita: So the thing that's funny is that children with avoidant attachment usually have a lot of friends.

So I knew consciously that I was loved by my family. I just didn't always feel it. It didn't always seem real to me. It was, intangible. And I felt love And connection from my friends more often. But I will say that I also was afraid of intimacy. So I, had some opportunities for some really deep friendships and it was usually me that kept people at arm's length.

So I had a lot of friends, but I didn't have the ability to be transparent or vulnerable or truly open up. I was that good listener. Everybody opened up to me. But I usually didn't open up so much. Or if I did, I was transparent without being vulnerable. Cause I actually talked about,the first few years of my life a lot because I had to, because I was the only Mexican kid in my elementary school and my name got registered before it was changed.

And so I always had to explain to people that my name was changed. So I actually talked about it a lot. But not the feeling and impact of all of those events, you know, so I was transparent without being vulnerable. Does that answer your question?

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, and part of the reason I ask is because I'm trying to get a sense of before so that when we get to after we can see the context of what friendships were like before you were able to get this under control for yourself and then after. so you had plenty of friends, but you were very shallow with them and your story was merely a story.

Rita: Correct, yes.

Stephanie: Okay.

Rita: I had a lot of fitting in, but not a lot of belonging.

Stephanie: Okay.

Rita: I didn't have a sense of belonging and I didn't have a sense of myself or,the ability to be intimate emotionally.

Stephanie: Mm hmm. Yeah. I did not have that same ability for most of my life as well. I have a girlfriend who we were friends and I think I've told this story before, but I think I was in my late twenties and she was in her early twenties or mid twenties. And we hung out for several years and it was a blast. And at one point she started pulling away and I never really knew why, but, years later, we sort of rounded back together rekindled our friendship and within the last couple of years, I asked her, what was that about? Why did you pull away? And she said, she said, I just wanted more from you.

Rita: Mm hmm.

Stephanie: more and I didn't know how to get it. I don't think you had any idea how to give it.

Rita: Mm

Stephanie: She even had friends of hers that would say to her like, Oh my God, how could you not be friends with Steph anymore? She's so much fun. She's the best. She throws the best parties. And she's like, yeah, I know. Andthat's it.

Rita: That's it.

Stephanie: Yeah. And I,I just didn't really know how to be vulnerable with people for, a good long time until into my forties really. So, so there, I do relate to a little bit of that.And your stories, stories of, of your life that maybe people with some more emotional capacity might feel,were, hurtful or devastating or any of those things. You just tell them as like a party story, like,

Rita: Right. Yeah. Ta da! Here's what happened. Yeah. Riveting, isn't it?

Stephanie: Yeah, I know. yeah, it becomes a shtick. What about your romantic,life, if you're having trouble with intimacy through your 20s and into your 30s, what did that look like?

Rita: Just a mess. I mean, just an absolute mess. So I definitely dated, but it was not productive dating at all. , Basically I would get lonely and put myself out there and meet somebody and it would, entertain me for a while, and then when it got too intimate, I would ghost people.

I was, I invented ghosting before it was a thing. That's what I always say. I would, go MIA. Or find some reason to, you know, some valid reason to cut the person off. I broke up with men cruelly. Very cruelly. Now, I also probably wasn't attracting the most healthy men because I was the epitome of emotionally unavailable.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Rita: And you attract equally emotionally unavailable people or people that are desperate to have their emotional needs met and think they can change you. So either way it's toxic and you know, not the best. So I'm glad none of those relationships worked out. Buthealthier young people make mistakes and they learn from them. And then they also grow. They also realize they want deeper connection.

And so even though, you know, they have some bad dating experiences, they learn from them and they learn to become more vulnerable. I was not learning. I was not productive. You know, I was just, sick of being lonely. And I would, put myself out there and then the cycle would start all over again. So it wasn't very, it wasn't very good.

Stephanie: I'm really struck by the word you used there, not productive,because I too, certainly in my romantic relationships for decades,you know, was choosing the wrong people. And I was a serial monogamist, so it was always, a steady boyfriend. There were only comparatively smaller periods of time where I was just plain old dating. But I was also not learning lessons until probably my very late thirties.I remember I had a thunderstruck moment in one relationship and that might have been the beginning of my kind of those cogs turning, but,yeah,not productive relationships.

I like that characterization.

Rita: Yeah, I had a lot of those.

Stephanie: So in your thirties,you're back into therapy, counseling really with a,with full intention and you had said something to me previous about the loneliness of your life came crashing down on you.

Rita: Yeah. So in my,reconnecting with my father,it was gradual, you know, my dad's showed up on my doorstep. It was horrible. And then my uncle and his family and my father came to visit me,a few years later and it was wonderful. I fell in love with them and I decided, okay, this is it. I'm going to reconnect with my Mexican side of the family.

Well, you know, here I am on the East coast and they're on the West coast. So it took a little bit of time to plan a trip to California where I had some family and then a little bit more time to plan a trip to Mexico. And then I went almost immediately back after the first trip to Mexico. And it was just like the internal walls of avoidant attachment came crashing down. It was just all of a sudden I realized I had all of this love and it just came crashing down on me in such a powerful way but then I came home from the trip. And when you have avoidant attachment you really I mean you do get lonely but you're sort of disconnected from it. And when I came back home after the second trip to Mexico and had really just connecting each time in such a powerful way. It was like the loneliness of my life came pouring down on me. And it was like the biggest regret for having been alive for 30 years and not receiving that love.

And once I reconnected with my Mexican family, I then suddenly started to feel the love of my mother's family.

Stephanie: Interesting.

Rita: Because what avoidant attachment is, is your love receiver's broken. And there was a major milestone in healing my love receiver. And then all that love came flooding in from my Mexican family, my mom's American family. And there I was miles away from anybody, you know, I was living in North Carolina. The majority of my mom's family's in Pennsylvania, my dad's family's in California and Mexico. And so it was just great, but horrible at the same. It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.

Stephanie: Your English teacher would be thrilled.

Rita: Yes.

Stephanie: Alright, so this is a kind of a turning point for you though.

Rita: It was a turning point and I was ready to leave everything and go live in Mexico. I was ready to go engage in this love that that I had awakened to. And then I had also lost Spanish as a child. And so I was excited to learn Spanish through immersion and I was just ready to go.

And the funniest thing happened. I,had a career in banking, not because I had a passion for banking, but just because it was a good job that had health insurance.

Stephanie: And as I'm planning on leaving everything and going to Mexico and, you know, throwing all caution to the wind, I started to become wildly successful in banking to the tune of meeting my goal for the entire year in the month of January.

Rita: Yeah, wildly successful. And I was being asked to speak at meetings and just, it was just, just a shock. And so it got my attention. Like, am I really going to leave all of this and go to Mexico? And then right around that time, I started to have really deep intimate friendships and I just got redirected to grow where I was planted.

I guess you could say. I wanted to pick up and either go to Mexico or Pennsylvania or something. And it was just like, all of a sudden, my life started to blossom exactly where I was. And there was a part of me that still wanted to go to Mexico and kind of make up for lost time with my Mexican family, but it just, I just decided not to. I just didn't feel like that was really where life was leading me. And of course, you know, my faith is, still a big part of my life, but at that moment was also still a big part and I didn't really feel like that's where God was leading me either, even though I wanted to go. But I just started to thrive where I was.

Stephanie: Well, it sounds like the universe kind of like, all of a sudden took the veil off of this, flower lined path that was, easy and wonderful to walk and why would you choose elsewhere if that path is working so well? And like you say, blooming and blossoming.

That's that's amazing.

Rita: Yes

Stephanie: So then what happens?

Rita: So I'm thriving, you know here in the Carolinas with career, with friends, reconnected to both sides of my family. And you know purchased my first home. Doing all of the things. And I always say Grace interrupted everything because a lady from church named Grace just decided that she wanted to introduce me to this fella. Sure enough, we met at her birthday party, and we did not like each other.

Stephanie: How old was Grace? Tell me she was 85.

Rita: Uh, not 85, more like 75.

Stephanie: Okay, but I was right. I knew who Grace was.

Rita: Yes, you knew who Grace

Stephanie: Okay. All

Rita: Sweet little Grace. Yes. Yes, you know her. Yes,

Stephanie: Okay. So you didn't like the fella.

Rita: He thought I was too opinionated, and he's right. And he immediately started talking about skydiving And here I am, adulting finally, you know, my early thirties. And I was like, I don't have time for a skydiver, you know, exodus, but we became friends. We, you know, swapped phone numbers anyway, and we became friends. And over the next year we became best friends. And,he was married before and has a daughter and I, his daughter and I fell in love with each other. And, and then right at a year we got together.

Stephanie: were you when you got together?

Rita: 36.

Stephanie: Wow.

Rita: Yeah.

Stephanie: That's a big deal for someone who comes from the early years that you do, isn't it?

Rita: It is, and didn't think it was going to happen. I didn't think I was going to get married. I did and I do believe that people can change and people can heal, but I thought I had kind of missed the boat because everybody my age was married, everybody was my age was married or divorced with 4 children and I knew that would be too much for me.

I was, I wasn't going to do that.And then, you know, my now husband comes along and he has one daughter and,we were just on the same page with a lot of things, you know. We, have the same faith, similar faith journeys and, you know, relatively the same age, and we were just ready to do the healthy thing.

He had worked on a lot of inner healing himself, which I think is a bit rare. You know, my world is all women working on inner healing. I don't see a lot of men working on it more than maybe one or two steps. They'll have a big problem in their life and they'll work on one or two steps to get rid of that problem and then that's the end of it. But my husband had been on a six year,inner healing journey when I met him. And so he was different.He was different than other people that I had encountered.

Stephanie: Okay. And so you end up getting married.

Rita: Yes, we got married pretty quickly. We got married, I think, seven months later.

Stephanie: Oh, wow.

Stephanie: And we had a two year honeymoon because the world shut down.

Because nobody could go anywhere or do anything.

Rita: Yeah, it was absolutely fantastic. It was absolutely what we needed. We both kept working. You know, he's a nurse, so he had plenty of work. And,I'm in the financial industry, so I was considered essential, but life wasn't nearly as busy.

We were able to spend that quality time as, newly weds and really just get to know each other on a deeper level. And it was, I'm so thankful for that time. I know it was a horrible time for a lot of people and some horrible things happened, but for us, it was a beautiful time.

Stephanie: Mm hmm. That's lovely. Lots of feathering of the nest happening,

Rita: Yes.

Stephanie: Yeah,

Rita: Lots of feathering. Yes.

Stephanie: Lots of nesting. And you became a step mom too.

Rita: I became a stepmom. Yep. And my stepdaughter and I were BFFs before my husband and I got together. And then the second we started dating, she hated my guts.

Stephanie: Well all of a sudden you became competition.

Rita: Exactly. And my husband, like I said, was on a six year inner healing journey. So he didn't date. For six years, he just focused on inner healing and his daughter. And so she was a daddy's girl. Let me tell you. She was a daddy's girl before that, but especially just being the center of his world. And she absolutely loved me as long as, she would have even liked us living together, as long as I was in a separate room. You know, and not taking any of her time. So she hated my guts. but that didn't last long. we had a good foundation before my husband and I started dating.

And so I would say six months into the marriage, she started to realize, hey, this is another person that loves me. This is another person giving me attention. And daddy still gives me attention. We were very intentional not to push her aside. We wanted her in the love nest with us,

Stephanie:

Rita: yeah, so it, it's smoothed out pretty quickly, but I will say, you know, there was no guarantee that was going to happen. And it was a little scary for me the first couple of months of our marriage that it was just going to remain that way forever.

Stephanie: Yeah, how did your background come into play when you started playing a parental role to a young person?

Rita: It was the best thing ever. So I just focused entirely on connection.I didn't focus on anything else. It was every single day. It was how can we build a bond? How can we nurture connection? Nothing else really matters. And it worked. I mean, we are connected. We are connected family. And there is always a temptation to get caught up in materialism or anger or frustration or just the busyness of life. But now that I'm on the other side of a lot of attachment healing, it is a lifelong journey, I don't believe it's over, but,I've had a lot of positive milestones. The main gift now is that I am focused on love and connection.

Nothing else really matters. Everything else is, fleeting. And that's one of the biggest gifts about an attachment healing journey is that you really learn what matters. And you learn to value relationships and connection above everything else. And when you have a stepchild, let me tell you, that is the formula. That is, the formula because, I was a step child, even though my stepfather adopted us. So he was legally my father, but there's always that sense of he loves us because he loves our mother.

Stephanie: Were just part of the package.

Rita: We were part of the package. And when you really focus on connection and attachment, those thoughts go away.

Stephanie: Tell me what that looks like though, when you're with your stepdaughter, what does focusing on connection and focusing on attachment look like from a practical standpoint? What are the actions or activities?

Rita: Yeah. So first of all, you have to be very balanced. You have to be secure in your identity and in your role and in unconditional love. Because that's really what messes up attachment is conditional love. And so you have to be grounded in those things and not reactional. So, you know, you tell the kid to do the dishes. If you tell the kid to do the dishes, they don't. You remind them to do that, do them and then they have a total flip out on you. If you're focused on connection, you cannot react. You have to stay secure in your identity, stay secure in unconditional love and say things like, it's okay that you're having a big reaction. I understand. It's, a task that nobody wants to do. I love you, but I still expect you to do the dishes. And that takes a lot of work, and there are lots of excuses to allow you to not react that way. I had a long day at work. I might have had a, problem at work, I'm tired, I'm old, whatever, but to stay in that place.

And then the same goes for fun things as well. It's very easy for me to say, it's summer. I want to lay by the pool and get a tan. Well, for a 10 year old, that's not fun. And so finding that being intentional before the moment comes and saying, we all deserve fun this weekend. This is what I would like to do. What would you like to do? Or however many people in your family, we just have the three. So it's easier. And focusing on having fun together where you don't have to fake it all the time. So, for us for a while, it was, well, I'm going to go to the pool and get a tan, but I'm also going to play with you in the pool.

There's nothing I want to do less than get my hair wet, but is connection worth getting my hair wet?And so it's just asking yourself those questions and then also remembering, I think a lot of times we fail children cause we forget what it's like to be children. We have memories. We do.

We can remember what it's like to, sure, your parents feed and clothes with you and as far as they're concerned spoil you, but gosh darn it, you were sad that you didn't get that $5 toy. And so it's making sure you know what the $5 toy is and getting that toy when it's time to buy a toy. I don't know how else to say it, but it's just, if you are focused on connection, connection happens. Not to say you'll be perfect every time, but if you truly have a heart for connection, you will develop connection.

Stephanie: All right. So here we are on the other side of the pandemic, on the other side of your two year honeymoon, and you're married, you're 41 now, and I'm going to go all the way back to the beginning. You're not in a full blown midlife crisis, but you're flirting with one. What does your midlife crisis look like?

So during the pandemic, I had a friend, a dear friend,encouraged me to start writing. She had no idea that I liked writing, but I've always liked writing. She actually gave me five journals and she said, I don't know if you like to write, but I feel like you're supposed to start writing. And sure enough, I had sort of had the inkling to start writing about this attachment healing journey because there's not a lot of,examples out there.

And I certainly didn't have role models that, got healing from attachment. And I wish I would have, cause at times it's so confusing. There are many ups and downs. And I just realized that I needed to share the story. So I started writing and it was very healing painful, wonderful, and every, every, every possible emotion that you can think of.

Rita: I was having while writing and somehow I got through it. It was, raw, but also healing. And so now I'm, you know, really excited to share the story, but also I just am a little sad that it took so much effort to get here. I'm a little sad that I didn't meet my husband at least 10 years earlier.

I mean, we are still in the honeymoon. I mean, we're coming up on our fourth anniversary and we are still in the honeymoon. So, you know, we are not two old married people. We are passionately in love with each other. I'm still passionately in love with my stepdaughter. And, just darn that it wasn't earlier. And, that's the main thing is just the lost time. Now, do I consciously know that time was not lost? Of course. Was I growing? Would I be here had I not gone through that? Probably not. But there is that little voice that's like, well, couldn't have you just been normal and gotten here on the normal path and, been thriving for a lot longer.

You know, it's just kind of sad. I guess you could say I'm sort of mourning the loss of not marrying my husband earlier,and not being in this secure place of love just a little earlier, because it's so great. It's so, so great. So that's where I would say I'm kind of flirting with the midlife crisis. And yeah, that's the best way to describe it.

Stephanie: I totally get it by the way. I didn't meet my husband until I was 40.

Rita: Okay. So you understand.

Stephanie: I completely understand. And I know that the person that I was becoming at age 40, as part of my midlife transition, had I met him earlier, whether it have been a year earlier or 5 years earlier, he would have been maybe attracted to me and perhaps amused by me for some amount of time.

Maybe we would have dated for a couple of months, but then it would have been like, enough. You're a wild child. You're a party girl. You're a bit much. But I've started,sort of, getting language around what was happening to me at age 40. And that was that there was some, some calming, some settling that was happening inside me that was making me more grounded and more,more reasonable as a person for sure.

But also, you know, I wasn't always trying to fill my cup with like outside stuff, like, you know, friends and events and dinners and parties and weekends away. And right now I was, I was always kinetic that way through my twenties and my thirties. It was always a party and adventure, a thing,something.

They used to call me Julie McCoy, Cruise Director, cause I was always, putting it all together most of the time. And during this period where I was going through my transition, there was some settling inside of me that was happening that meant that I wasn't always trying to soothe myself or fill my cup with external stuff, which meant that there was room for him, and for us to develop a relationship that wasn't just based on, I mean, the person I dated before him,we started dating and, immediately, he was just like wrapped up into the friend group and off we went for weekends away and dinners out and events and parties and. Sure we had a relationship on our own, but, it was very much swept up in that, tide. Yeah. and when I met my husband, there were cracks in that facade of this friend group and of the things that we had been doing. So yeah,I was 40 and just finally becoming a reasonable human being when I met my husband.

Rita: I love that. I always say I was finally adulting. I think you hit on a good point is that I don't think you can really have a successful marriage until you truly know who you are and you're able to truly know another person. And when you say that settling and you weren't looking for external factors to fill your cup, I think you were finding out who you were, truly. And then there was room to find out who somebody else was. More than just around these activities.

I relate to that because I think that was the main issue is that, people get married when they have issues and they still have successful marriages, but you have to know who you are and you have to know who your partner is and you have to be able to be okay with all of that, or to compromise through some of that. And that's impossible if you don't really know who you are and you're not really able to see who somebody else truly is. And so I, totally relate to what you're saying. But I love that you said I was finally a reasonable human being.

Stephanie: For people who get married young, there were a couple of pathways to that, because when you're in your twenties, you don't necessarily know who you are, right?

Rita: Your brain's not even fully developed until you're 25,

Stephanie: You're still forming. And I have a cousin who I love dearly who got married, I think they were probably, they might've been 24. Maybe he was 25. And she will say, in recent years, she will say how fortunate she feels because when they got engaged, the most important thing to her was that he was cute.

He was cute.

And they have been so fortunate to be able to grow together. Right? Whereas some people grow apart. And that's why this same period, this 35 to 45 period, you see lots of marriages coming apart because the person that you were when you started grew in a different direction from the person they were when you started and, or. Or you've realized you want different things, right?

So, there are a couple of ways for it to go. I mean, very easily could have had, I was 40, I could have had, you know, a 15 or 18 year old kid when I met my husband, easily. But I, I had never done that. I'd never had kids, never been engaged, never.

So. it's interesting. I totally agree with you that sort of like mourning for like, I wish I had more time. I wish I had, we had done it sooner. And yet.

Rita: And yet. it wouldn't, it

wouldn't

Stephanie: place.

Yeah. I had to go through all of those things to become the person that he would fall in love with. He would be attracted to.

Rita: And he had to too. sure. I mean, it might not have been as dramatic of a story, but he had to too. And so one thing my husband always says is he, cause you know, essentially we got married at 40. I mean, I was 37, but. Pretty much right away we were 40. And he always says, well, at least we have the next 40 years.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Rita: And when you think of it that way, that's pretty powerful. You know, 40 years is a long time. And he always says, we may have problems, problems may come and go, but we are in it to, I mean, there's no fear of us not being together, other than death. And so he always says, you know, well, at least we have the next 40 years. And that's a comfort.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Rita: that is a comfort.

Stephanie: So wonderful. Well Rita, I'm so thrilled that you came and shared your story with me today. I'm just so grateful for you. You've been really generous with your story and all the corners and under all the covers and everything. So, thank you so much.

Rita: No, thank you. And I'm just always blown away how different people draw out different aspects of the story. And so thank you for just asking some different questions that drew out little caveats that maybe I hadn't talked about before. So thank you for being uniquely you, for being a reasonable human being.

Stephanie: Finally.

Rita: I love your podcast. You're awesome. You really are.