Navigating Mental Health: Divorce Realities with Scot and Emily McKay
Seth Nelson and Pete Wright explore a deeply sensitive subject—dealing with mental illness within a marriage. Scott and Emily McKay, bestselling authors, podcasters, and BMX champions, bring their own experiences to the table, sharing how their previous marriages were affected by partners grappling with profound mental health issues.
In a candid conversation, Scott and Emily recount the red flags and realizations that accompanied their relationships with partners dealing with mental illness. From bipolar disorder and schizophrenia to borderline personality disorder, their stories reveal the complexities of living with and supporting individuals facing these challenges. Both hosts and guests openly address the transformational impact of mental illness on a marriage and how it's vital to distinguish between the illness and the person.
Tune in to this episode for an honest exploration of navigating relationships within the context of mental health challenges. Scott, Emily, Seth, and Pete dive deep into the journey of understanding, acceptance, and compassion in the face of mental illness while providing valuable insights for anyone dealing with similar situations.
Links & Notes
Check out Scot’s and Emily’s various podcasts: The Mountain Top, Wing It Worldwide, X&Y on the Fly Dating Podcast
Scot on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, and YouTube
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships from TruStory FM. Today, your toaster split, and half of it is very broken.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always I'm here with my good friend Pete Wright. Today we're taking you on a sensitive subject. What happens in a marriage when one partner is living with mental illness? How do you communicate? When do you stay in the marriage and how do you determine when it's time to leave? To help us through this conversation we have a couple, two people married to one another, each with a first marriage affected by partners living with profound mental illness. They also happen to be bestselling authors and podcasters, number one ranked champion BMX racers, and all-around cool people. Scott and Emily McKay welcome to the Toaster.
Scot McKay:
Thank you.
Emily McKay:
Thank you. It feels good to be toasted. We're getting used to it down here in sunny San Antonio where it's been 108 degrees.
Seth Nelson:
So what is that on the toaster level? Is that burnt? Is it just a little bit brown?
Scot McKay:
Well, having lived in the Arizona climate previously, I don't know if we're completely burnt to a crisp but we're definitely toast, that's for sure, especially if we don't get any water soon.
Pete Wright:
As much as we laugh, we're talking about a serious issue that we've never talked about on this podcast and that is mental illness in the marriage. You both come to us ... You are a couple, you've been happily married for many, many years. Well, okay, you've been married for many, many years.
Scot McKay:
Happily.
Pete Wright:
Okay, good, thank you. I don't want to qualify it for you, it's not my job.
Seth Nelson:
My parents used to say ... And they were married 57 years until my mom passed. My parents used to say, on their 40th wedding anniversary, "We've been happily married for four years. 1967, 1989." In all those years when the children were not in the house, by the way.
Pete Wright:
Oh, good. She's great, she's keeping a diary. That's a diarist response.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. So happily married for many, many years but were both previously married.
Scot McKay:
Yes, that's true.
Pete Wright:
And it's the previous marriages that we want to talk about a little bit today. Let's start with some of the background story. The realization that you were in marriages with a ... For lack of a better word, a compromised partner.
Scot McKay:
You're being too kind.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Scot McKay:
I think crazy is a better word. Let's put it this way. When you're dating after a divorce, everybody's got a crazy ex, right, except she and I really did. And I remember being so codependent, having been led to believe I'm the crazy one, and it was all my problem, and I was the one who wasn't thinking straight, that I started dating and I was really concerned that if I let women know that I had, no seriously, a clinically crazy they would all run away, they wouldn't want anything to do with me.
Seth Nelson:
And then Emily came in and said, "So do I. We're made for each other."
Scot McKay:
You're skipping straight to that part.
Seth Nelson:
That's the best part.
Scot McKay:
It is the best part. I mean, I was amazed by not only how many people had similar stories, and that continues into our coaching practice to this day, but also how many women were very sympathetic. It's like if that crazy woman ever tries to come between you and your daughter, even if we're not dating anymore, I'll go to court and stay right by you. So I mean, I realized that first of all, I wasn't alone, second of all I probably wasn't the crazy one in this crazy relationship, and third of all that, just because I was afraid of something or fearing something, that wasn't necessarily the fear that other ... Women I was meeting would have.
Emily McKay:
Well, mine was a little bit different in the terms that I think four or five years into my marriage my ex started acting weird. It wasn't until I think a year or two years into that he was finally diagnosed. But in that time period he was ... We had a conversation and he says, "I don't love you anymore but we're going to stay together." Crazy stuff like that. I had to endure through all that. Part of the arrangement was, as long as you're on your meds and you work with me we'll get through this. Until he went totally on the deep end and it became dangerous for me to stay in the same household. It got crazy.
Pete Wright:
So both of you said ... Have mentioned diagnosis. What was the diagnosis? What were they dealing with?
Emily McKay:
Mine was paranoid schizophrenic.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Scot McKay:
I am not sure. My ex has evaded any of the possible diagnoses.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Scot McKay:
Including the holy grail which is what used to be called multiple personality disorder.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Scot McKay:
My wife ... My ex-wife truly is psychotic. She's bipolar 1, she's schizoaffective disorder. Most of the time those are men and most of the time they're in jail. Schizoaffective is not paranoid I'm running away from it, I'm going to go get what's coming to get me.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Scot McKay:
She's also borderline personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder. Pretty much the entire alphabet soup. Mine was like hers. Anybody's out there they're probably thinking, why did you marry this crazy woman?
Pete Wright:
Well, that was coming.
Scot McKay:
It was the same as hers, onset after. There were red flags.
Pete Wright:
So what does that awakening look like? What do those red flags look like when you ... It's not like oh, I wake up one day and things are very different. Or was it?
Emily McKay:
Well, the red flags were there when I was dating him I just didn't know ... I didn't know the illness. I think now looking back, understanding what schizophrenia is and what mental illnesses, I would've spotted it right away. I mean, he was having stuff like he thought he could do ... Foretell the future, he was having deja vu.
Seth Nelson:
I have vuja de a lot. Have you ever had vuja de?
Scot McKay:
Didn't she used to be a soul artist in the 80s?
Seth Nelson:
Right. That is very different, very different.
Pete Wright:
Right. Big hair.
Scot McKay:
Heavens name why are you doing this thing?
Seth Nelson:
Vuja a de is the feeling that none of this shit has ever happened before, and I get that a lot.
Pete Wright:
All the time.
Scot McKay:
And this is fresh and new?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Scot McKay:
Well, let me add a little bit of dimension.
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Scot McKay:
Not to be confused with a little bit of dementia.
Seth Nelson:
I thought that's where you were going.
Scot McKay:
It's easy after you've done all the research, and had all this water under the bridge, and have all this history to wonder what the hell you were thinking 25 years ago. I grew up around same people. I don't have degrees in abnormal psychology. I mean, for years the whole idea of schizophrenia was, I may be schizophrenic but we'll always have each other. People misconstrued what schizophrenia actually is thinking that everybody was crazy was multiple personality disorder. And they call it disassociative personality disorder nowadays but that's too politically correct. Everybody knows what you mean when you say multiple personality disorder, and that's what my ex suffers from. It's crazy, by the way, it's horrifying.
The red flags when I was dating her were some of the borderline pointers, some of the borderline indicators that anything prosperous has to be blocked. I'm not happy unless there's drama. But you don't really see that as a psychosis. I know she had trauma in her life over some things. And I noticed there were some ... Certain things that she was really sensitive to talk about, and we just avoided it. I was a very optimistic, generous person. Optimistic, generous people are wonderful when they find each other, but optimistic, generous people tend to be taken advantage of by very extremely selfish people and indeed crazy people. The generous optimist is willing to keep giving and willing to hold up hope that this is temporary or we can fix this. Especially being a guy, we think we can fix everything. So the next thing you know I'm married to her because she's cute and she laughs at my jokes but there's this dark psychosis looming. Like Emily said in her marriage, it onset over time. Both of our respective ex's were late onset with the schizophrenia.
Seth Nelson:
People view this as a light switch, and I view it more as a dimmer.
Scot McKay:
It isn't. It's a frog that got boiled.
Emily McKay:
Boiling.
Seth Nelson:
That's right, that's right. It's not like one day everything changed, it's wow, this progressed slowly. Sometimes there'd be a couple days in a row that was, what's going on here.
Scot McKay:
Right.
Seth Nelson:
And then the next thing you know-
Scot McKay:
It's degenerative, it is.
Seth Nelson:
Everything's fine. Exactly. Sometimes those behaviors happen when you're not around. If you have a spouse who travels for work, they might have that episode for the three days during the week that they were traveling, and so it might be onsetting quicker than you realize because you're not seeing it.
Scot McKay:
That's true. That may have been something going on in mine.
Emily McKay:
In my relationship, Fred was really good at hiding it. He knew when he was having an episode and he would do everything he can to control it. And if he couldn't control it he would go to one of the bedrooms, close the door, and refuse to have any contact with me.
Scot McKay:
I think it's like when people drive drunk and they see police lights in their rearview mirror, they so up real quick when they have to, or they act like it, they know how to act.
Seth Nelson:
Or they think they sober up but they don't.
Pete Wright:
They think they sober up, right.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Pete Wright:
We still know so little about how the brain works. We're still basically in the national stages of psychology ultimately that I think there's a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of really unknowns, a lot of variables, X factors. And I think one of them is we really don't know what it's like to be them. But two things that I've come to the conclusion of is that they know when they're being crazy, and I think they also when they're being crazy. They tend to want to avoid the meds and go to their happy place.
The thing about schizophrenia ... Maybe we should just throw this on the table. Schizophrenia, in our vernacular, as we were ... We've both jointly been told to understand it, is that reality shifts for these folks. Either there's voices telling them or there's a perception of what's real to them that nobody else can jive with. There were certain aha moments during my marriage. When she started accusing me of having a multi-satellite network watching her in the shower and broadcasting naked pornography to the internet with her. And I tried to reason with her like there's no way that could be happening. That's when I got ensnared because I was trying to reason with something wholly unreasonable.
Seth Nelson:
Scott, I mention that all the time in representing clients is you did exactly what a lot of my clients do. They come to me and I'm like "I know what the problem is here." And they're like "What's the problem?" They've already told me the whole thing. I said, "You are trying to bring a rational solution to an irrational problem, and that is unachievable."
Scot McKay:
Right. It's unachievable even the customer service field. If someone's being unreasonable you can't reason with them. But I think there's another dimension to it. Emily mentioned that her ex could hide it.
Emily McKay:
Well, I had 10 years of ... From the time he was diagnosed to the time we were divorced to really work with him with his diagnosis. Work with this doctor, work with him, understand what he's thinking, what he's feeling, along with the meds, and how paranoia and schizophrenia was affecting him and the household.
Pete Wright:
You weren't in the dark on any of this?
Emily McKay:
For the first four years I was, but after that, for the next 10 years, I was very aware of and working with it very closely.
Scot McKay:
And in my case ... And I mentioned that it's this degenerative so I mean, the onset was like the proverbial boiling of the frog. She was perfectly normal, sweet, and even charming in front of literally everybody else but me. It was just behind closed doors with me when the crazy came out. I started making an outcry going, "I think something needs to go on here."
Seth Nelson:
And people are like "No, she's so nice."
Pete Wright:
She's so nice.
Scot McKay:
No. Well, I'm the guy so I'm the evil, horrible, toxic masculine husband, why are you trying to manipulate ... Her family didn't even believe it was going on until well after the divorce happened, okay? When the divorce was going through she refused to sign the papers to sell the house and she was being crazy about it. I had to tell my real estate agents, who I'd been working with for years, "You need to come over and be present and she'll sign it." And they ... See, these things sound nuts when I'm perfectly sane.
Pete Wright:
But at this point when you're asking ... Making those requests of the real estate agents, was there any part of you at that point that was questioning your own self and your own reality?
Scot McKay:
Oh, yeah, I was completely gaslit by all this thing.
Pete Wright:
I have to imagine. That's the hindsight part, right? Now, sitting here on this podcast it seems pretty easy for you both to be completely cogent about what happened in that history, but I imagine that was a tough road transitioning from oh my God, I think something's happening to how am I going to divorce this person?
Scot McKay:
In psychology there's a principle called the Martha Mitchell effect. Are either of you guys familiar with who she was?
Pete Wright:
I am not.
Scot McKay:
We're all too young. During the Nixon administration-
Pete Wright:
That was a relief to hear you say that though, by the way, I'll just say thank you.
Seth Nelson:
I would've paid money, Scott, if you would've said, "She was on the cover of Time Magazine last week."
Pete Wright:
Right? Now we're too long.
Scot McKay:
Who reads Time Magazine.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Seth Nelson:
That was the other part of that joke. Exactly. Scott, I know you do standup comedy but I just want to be your setup guy. That's all I want to be.
Scot McKay:
You're doing a great job.
Seth Nelson:
Thank you.
Scot McKay:
Tip the waitstaff, by the way.
Pete Wright:
That's right.
Scot McKay:
Martha Mitchell was the wife of a Nixon administration higher-up who was completely 100% involved with Watergate. And Martha was a B-list celebrity before she married him and before he went into politics. And she resented him going into politics, she just wanted to live their life. How you can sort of picture Melania Trump being offline. She was a very, very early whistleblower saying, "Hey, my husband and this president are getting into trouble, they're doing crazy things." And because of her personality and her being a little flamboyant nobody believed her, they thought she was the crazy one. But it turned out Martha Mitchell was 100% correct about all of it. Psychologists have coined the phrase or the effect of the Martha Mitchell effect. When someone who is saying crazy things or trying to bring out something that's going on that is crazy-
Pete Wright:
It sounds ludicrous.
Scot McKay:
They seem like the crazy.
Pete Wright:
Our silent partner, he who never speaks, Andy, has just told us they just made a miniseries about her played by Julia Roberts called Gaslit.
Scot McKay:
We watched that show.
Emily McKay:
Great. Yes.
Pete Wright:
Okay, there we go.
Seth Nelson:
Weekend for me, I know what I'm doing now.
Scot McKay:
Sean Penn plays Mitchell-
Pete Wright:
Oh.
Scot McKay:
Actually, and you'll never recognize him. But that's true. But the Martha Mitchell effect is exactly that. And I felt I had the Martha Mitchell thing going on. Because I mean, I was a successful businessman, I've come from a good family, I have no reason to try to throw my wife under the bus. But these people I would say, "Hey, I have this little problem where my wife seems to be doing this and that," and I would make outcries to people, and they would go, "Oh, impossible." And I'm thinking well, then I guess I silently suffer, I hope it goes away. And this, of course, degenerated to the point where she was disappearing with our daughter.
Pete Wright:
Unreal.
Scot McKay:
Just leaving and turning up somewhere. And her family was in denial because nobody wants to admit you got crazy people in your family, right? I firmly remember she was moving out of the house after the divorce ... The divorce lawyers didn't believe it.
Pete Wright:
Okay, that's where I want to go because, obviously, a law podcast. How do you make that transition in this space to, I have to get out of here, please, somebody sever this divorce?
Scot McKay:
Oh, she divorced me.
Pete Wright:
She divorced you.
Scot McKay:
Oh, yeah. She thought I was ruining her life, and had plots to kill her, and she wanted to take me down.
Emily McKay:
It gets better, she moved in again.
Pete Wright:
Wait, what?
Scot McKay:
We don't want to get way ahead of ourselves. There was a moment, there was a beautiful, wonderful moment where we were showing the house ... She had actually one day, in her craziness, come back and claimed eminent domain on the home. I'm not leaving. She moved back in against my will. And, of course, the sheriff couldn't do anything.
Pete Wright:
Right. Okay.
Scot McKay:
It's diplomatic, the judge. And it happened that the movers were trying to bring her stuff back in the house against my will, and we were actually showing the house at the same time.
Seth Nelson:
That is such a positive thing to do when you're selling the house is having a ... Literally a couch going in and out of the front door by the owners.
Scot McKay:
At that point, that was way in the rear ... Way down the priority list because the most beautiful thing happened, okay? Right there in front of everybody, in front of real, actual unknown people she started going to town on me in public. She started announcing, "Hey, this guy right here," and saying preposterous accusations to me. Basically that I could ... I sprouted wings at night and flew around the house like a vampire bat.
Seth Nelson:
In that moment, Scott, you got independent third-party verification from unbiased witnesses to go into court and say, "This is what she said."
Scot McKay:
Vindication par excellence, boom. And then-
Pete Wright:
Unreal.
Scot McKay:
Everybody was like ... I mean, I remember the day my lawyer said, "I'm never going to doubt you again, she's nuts. I'll never doubt you again."
Seth Nelson:
I have a question about that, Scott, I have a question about that. What happens a lot is a client will tell me that their spouse is X. Narcissist is the big one, right? Gaslighting me all the time, right? And I tell them, "Do not give me a diagnosis. It is not persuasive, you're not a medical professional. Talk to me about behaviors."
Scot McKay:
Yes.
Seth Nelson:
What does she say when? Where are these things said? What is she doing? I want to be the proverbial fly on the wall. If I was the fly on the wall what would I see? How does this stuff manifest itself? Those are the type of behaviors that I then bring to the court to try to persuade the court. If I'm in court I'm trying to persuade the judge to do something. When I'm doing that I'm trying to persuade the judge to get a psychological evaluation, I'm trying to persuade the judge that you should have your child more because of these issues for the child's safety. How were those conversations? And same with you, Emily. How were those conversations with your lawyer?
Emily McKay:
My situation ... It's funny. Although we have crazy exes our experiences were somewhat different. My divorce ... I finally had enough of the crazy and it got really bad in the household. Like I said, my ... I didn't realize it, but I sort of knew it, I was ignoring it, that my life was in danger. He finally admitted to me in one particular episode he was having that he needed me to stay away from him because he's hearing voices in his head that's telling him to kill me.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Emily McKay:
And so when I was trying to divorce him it was very ... Incredibly difficult. Not so much from him ... I was afraid he'd kill himself and I was going to feel guilty for this-
Scot McKay:
Well, he tried.
Emily McKay:
And it was going to be my fault. He did try.
Scot McKay:
There were attempts.
Emily McKay:
But the other obstacle I was having, which was probably maybe larger than that, was family because the family did everything in their power to keep us together.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Scot McKay:
They don't believe it, it's too real.
Emily McKay:
And they thought he was the victim, poor him, and he played that like a fiddle.
Pete Wright:
Just a question. How does that work legally about suicide threats? Seth, that's a thing.
Seth Nelson:
No, it's a thing that happens a lot. Emily, you described it very well from all of my experiences of dealing with clients when they said, "I'm stuck in this marriage." And I say, "There's always two people required to get married, one to get divorced. You're allowed to make that decision." And they say, "He will harm himself, he will kill himself."
Emily McKay:
It'll be all my fault.
Seth Nelson:
"And It will be all my fault." And I said ... The way I deal with this a lot is I would say to Emily, "Emily, if your best friend came to you and said, I am staying in this marriage because I'm afraid if I leave I will feel guilty the rest of my life because my spouse committed suicide. What advice would you give to your friend?"
Emily McKay:
Well, the one that I got was, he's an adult. He's a full-grown adult fully capable of making of his own decisions, and I can't be responsible for what he does. And so I had to let go and hope for the best. He did try committing suicide which I saved his life. I just had an intuition that something went wrong, and woke up my son in the middle of the night said, "Let's go" and went to his apartment. Because we were separated. He didn't answer, I called the police. They thought I was the crazy one.
Pete Wright:
Oh my goodness.
Emily McKay:
I'm like "Look, he's schizophrenic, I think he's trying to harm himself." We had to get his parents to come.
Seth Nelson:
You called for a wellness check.
Emily McKay:
Yeah but they wouldn't, they wouldn't. They thought well, he's probably in there with another woman and I'm being jealous. I'm like "I'm the one who initiated the divorce, jealousy is not here." We got his parents to show up and his father talked the officer into breaking down the door. He was in intensive care for I think a week. He has a disability to this day from it. He meant it.
Scot McKay:
Emily was like "Told you so."
Emily McKay:
But what's interesting is the family didn't believe he was schizophrenic.
Scot McKay:
No, they were in denial.
Seth Nelson:
No.
Emily McKay:
His mother was like, "Honey, you need to believe in God and God will save" ... "He's not schizophrenic he just needs to go to God and the demons will leave him alone."
Scot McKay:
There's a spiritual element on both sides of the equation in this ... In these stories also.
Seth Nelson:
Okay.
Scot McKay:
But it wasn't until once his ... Once he moved in with mom and dad after the second attempt ... Well, the first attempt at their house and then the third ... Well, which is the second attempt, right, was be the first one at his house. The third attempt at their house the hospital called me because they still had me listed as the contact.
Pete Wright:
His contact.
Emily McKay:
And she was upset by that, his mother. But she finally sat down and said, "You know what? I finally understand what you've been living with." She finally had to admit to it.
Pete Wright:
Wow. Again, that's a little bit of vindication. I'm really curious. All of this story, for both of you, it feels like it's all taking sort of forever to lead to the actual divorce. How easy or hard was the actual divorce itself, right? I mean, was it a thing that happened very, very slowly then all at once?
Emily McKay:
Well, it should've been fast, but because he tried committing suicide ... And I was the breadwinner of the family, and the insurance was through me, I went ahead and delayed the divorce so that he could have insurance as long as possible. I think my attorney called saying what his demands were. They wanted full custody of my son, they wanted alimony, which in Texas doesn't exist for the most part. It's hard to get alimony here, and he didn't qualify, but they were demanding it. And so I-
Scot McKay:
He didn't meet the requirements for it.
Emily McKay:
My attorney laughed she said, "Emily, you don't have to worry about it." I said, "I understand." I said, "This is what we're dealing with." If I had to guess, I think his dad and the attorney were talking and finding ... Were upset and finding ... We got to ... Let's fix this. And so I called Fred and I said, "Hey, we got two choices. Either I fight your dad and the attorney and you'll lose because you're schizophrenic and I have a full-time job, or we could do this the civil way, which is how it should be done, you and I work together and figure out something that's healthy for our son. We'll share custody and we'll split everything down the middle. What is it going to be?" And after that, when I had that firm conversation with him ... It was, "You're not going to get what you want. We're going to either do this fairly or you're going to lose." He got the message. And after that it was ... I think we were done in 30 days.
Scot McKay:
Seth, you mentioned briefly the functional utility of viewing a situation as if you're a third party. We do that even in our dating coaching practice nowadays because people will come to us and go, "Listen, why don't you have an out-of-body experience to look at this as if you were looking at another couple?"
Seth Nelson:
That's right.
Scot McKay:
"Then what would you say?" Especially when we get confronted with legality, I think most non-legal professionals fear the legal system and just want to stay out of it. Again, if you're an optimist, generous person ... An optimistic, generous person, you want out of it. But if you're a borderline personality sufferer, bring it on. I mean, the more legal ... The lawyers get all the money, the more it gets dragged on, the more pain, the more drama the happier they are.
Seth Nelson:
Scott, that's my analogy. If you wrestle with the pig, the pig likes it, and you get dirty.
Scot McKay:
What did Will Rogers say? Never argue with an idiot they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. Arguing with crazy is a lot like that. You'll get into crazy town, you'll be in crazy town city limits. Well, I have two things to add to what Emily said. 20 years ago I think things were a little different than they are now. Contrary to a lot of the angry guys out there, I think the legal system is becoming more equitable with dads than it used to be. But in Texas 20 years ago, because I'm the dad, because I'm the man, I was assumed to be the aggressor and that the mom was supposed to come out on top.
Seth Nelson:
Check your local jurisdiction on this, Scott. Florida just passed a new statute, parenting plans presumption 50/50. That is pro-dad.
Scot McKay:
That's the way it should be because boy, do we ... We've seen it all as dating coaches. We know that women can be awful, men can be awful. When you start talking about what's going on and you start saying things like ... Again, this is the other thing I was going to piggyback onto to that. When you're a full-grown man and you say, "I fear for my safety, I think my wife will hurt me, I think she's trying to kill me," then people will go, "What are you some kind of wuss, women can't hurt you you're a guy." But I mean, if I fall asleep at night, she stabs me in my sleep, well, voila. You know what I mean?
Emily McKay:
Not exactly the way you want to say, "I told you so."
Scot McKay:
Well, exactly. There's not be anything left to say.
Pete Wright:
No, that would be dark, Emily.
Scot McKay:
You're not going to be there to-
Pete Wright:
Like you said, take it to a real dark place.
Scot McKay:
Well, I mean, but now-
Seth Nelson:
Wow. I didn't see that coming, Pete.
Scot McKay:
Well, it's funny. If you can't laugh at this stuff.
Seth Nelson:
What were his nine words? I told you so.
Pete Wright:
I told you so.
Seth Nelson:
Wow. And notice Emily wasn't like "But don't worry I'll call the police and do a welfare check on you."
Pete Wright:
They won't believe me anyway. No. Right.
Scot McKay:
You go back in time and it's hard to really put yourself back in that psyche, that mindset you had back then. If it were all going to happen again, which, of course, it never will because I got the right one here.
Pete Wright:
No, look at you. God, cutest bookends. Stop it.
Scot McKay:
She's the cute one. She makes me look ... Your glow reflects on my-
Pete Wright:
Right.
Scot McKay:
You repress the negative memory. You move on because you're optimistic and generous, and you don't remember why. You don't remember what it felt like you don't want to. But then you realize man, I just felt ashamed, I felt like no one was listening to me, and I just felt like it was my private battle. And then you take the spiritual dimension of for better or worse till death do you part, in sickness and in health, and this was sickness and I can't leave I'm trapped. And so after she left me ... I mean, among the other things she did just to make this quintessentially brutal, is she never cheated on me. I don't think to this day she's ever had sex with anybody else. So from a Judeo-Christian perspective, I'm not allowed to move on. But see, she's not the woman I married, she's a completely different human.
Seth Nelson:
I've heard this before-
Scot McKay:
Yes, so have I.
Seth Nelson:
Where people will say ... People will say, "I can't get divorced." "Okay, what leads you to that conclusion?" And they'll say, "They haven't cheated on me, there's been no domestic violence, they handle money appropriately." And I say back, "Let me be clear, you're saying that you" ... And they're like "I just wish I could get divorced." And I said, "So you're wishing that you will be the victim of domestic violence because then it's okay to get divorced. You're wishing that your husband would cheat on you because then it's okay to get divorced."
Scot McKay:
Well, but there's a dogmatic religious mandate behind that sometimes.
Seth Nelson:
Sometimes there is and I appreciate where you're coming from on that. And I will tell them ... And I've been in court where the court has told you, "I appreciate and I respect everyone's religion but this is a civil court of law." It takes one person to get divorced. The most difficult cases that I deal with are when there's mental illness, including addiction. I'll just lump that in for this conversation.
Scot McKay:
Agreed.
Seth Nelson:
And children.
Scot McKay:
Well, for sure.
Seth Nelson:
And I didn't realize how much mental illness and addiction there was out there in the world until I was doing Florida family law, divorce lawyer.
Scot McKay:
Here in Florida.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Emily McKay:
You almost need a counseling degree at this rate.
Scot McKay:
No, listen, me too.
Emily McKay:
[inaudible] counselor.
Scot McKay:
I grew up in such a healthy environment. I remember the first time I moved to a town that was a little rough around the edges, it occurred to me the Jerry Springer show probably wasn't fake and scripted. Because I started really meeting people-
Pete Wright:
Right, right. Because those things are out there.
Scot McKay:
Who weren't functional.
Pete Wright:
I want to ask you because you just brought up kids. So much of this show we talk about co-parenting after a divorce. That seems like a rocky road in this scenario.
Seth Nelson:
And not the good ice cream. Not like the good ice cream kind, right?
Pete Wright:
So, Scott, you didn't have kids before. Was that true?
Scot McKay:
I did. We each had one.
Pete Wright:
You both. Oh my God.
Emily McKay:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
How do you co-parent? How do you come to an agreement where co-parenting is possible? Is that remotely-
Scot McKay:
I was Mr. Nice Guy, I let the court split it. She got crazier and crazier. And, of course, I love my daughter, my older daughter. What happened was there were clauses, and her family was protecting her when those clauses were breached because she moved five hours away back to be with her family.
Emily McKay:
Because she could hide a lot of stuff.
Scot McKay:
And then my daughter was rather young. To this day ... And I don't really want to make this about my daughter because I don't think it would be fair to her because she's an adult with her own identity nowadays. By my daughter's own admission nowadays she was basically Stockholmed Patty Hearst style into taking her mother's side all the time. Lest mom kill herself because oh my God, I've lost my daughter. It was very manipulative.
Pete Wright:
The exact same tactics that were pulled on you, right?
Scot McKay:
Yeah. I mean, she is who she is, I'm not special. You know what I mean? So once this all came really ... I mean, it came out.
Seth Nelson:
I want to ask you about that real quick because you just said you're not special in-
Pete Wright:
We think you're special, Scott.
Seth Nelson:
Very special.
Scot McKay:
No.
Seth Nelson:
I say this a lot, and I'm asking you whether you agree with it. Pete already knows that If you agree with it I'm going to brag about that.
Pete Wright:
So watch your answer, please.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Pete Wright:
For me.
Emily McKay:
I think I know what he's going to say.
Scot McKay:
I'm with bated breath until what comes next now.
Seth Nelson:
Well, what comes next is ... I tell people that your divorce is one of the most personal feelings, that you'll be feeling attacked all the time through your divorce. But in actuality, it has nothing to do with you because your spouse would be doing the same if they were divorcing someone else.
Scot McKay:
Oh, 100%.
Seth Nelson:
And that's the mental illness. He said 100%, Pete, just saying.
Pete Wright:
I know, I know, Seth, God.
Scot McKay:
Let me frame that up for you.
Seth Nelson:
Sure. Please do.
Scot McKay:
And I hope this doesn't come as a curveball, okay, but this is the voice of experience. At the time of my divorce, it was extremely easy for me to forgive and not have any bitterness. You have all these men going their own way who they have a bad experience with a woman. I'm going to swear off all these women, they're all conniving crazy bitches and I don't want any more of them. Well, I'm not going to give my ex superpowers over my future happiness like that. I'm not going to let her corner me ... Paint me to the victimization corner because then she continues to rule me from a distance forever. The best way I can heal from it is to forget about her and thrive, okay, which is hard to do when you share parenting. However, it was particularly easy for me to forgive my ex because she was sick.
Seth Nelson:
And that's not a curveball, I get that.
Scot McKay:
It's just blaming someone for being diabetic or having cancer or whatever. I mean, look, she couldn't help it. Now, here's where the curveball comes in. More like a slider, okay? It's fast and furious, it's insidious. For the next decade, that woman took that and ran rough shot over me with it. Ultimately she's not a nice person.
Pete Wright:
So she's sick and not a nice person.
Scot McKay:
Ultimately she's got some evil in her.
Emily McKay:
Evil. I had told him for years, yes, she's schizophrenic but she's also evil.
Scot McKay:
I told you so is a running theme here, isn't it?
Emily McKay:
Sorry.
Seth Nelson:
Man, let me tell you, that's not just in your marriage. I've been married for literally six weeks,
Scot McKay:
Literally six weeks.
Seth Nelson:
I've never heard ... Six weeks. I've never heard so many I told you so's.
Emily McKay:
We don't really say I told you so.
Scot McKay:
No, we don't really ... We make mistakes together.
Emily McKay:
There's been more I told you so's in this episode than in the 17 years.
Pete Wright:
We I told you so on podcast. It should be the new title of the show right now.
Scot McKay:
Listen, this is a huge takeaway, gentlemen and ladies. There's two of you, what are you schizophrenic? At least you'll always have each other.
Pete Wright:
Ouch.
Emily McKay:
Seeing double.
Pete Wright:
Interesting.
Scot McKay:
We have very dark humor about this. I do stand up about this. All right. So basically what happens is it occurs to me she's evil. You know what? You can be crazy and not be a good person.
Pete Wright:
Those two things can be separate.
Scot McKay:
So then I started holding her accountable for her actions instead of saying, "Oh, well, you know what? She's crazy." I just got to navigate it.
Emily McKay:
Which is different from my ex who's crazy but not evil.
Scot McKay:
That's true.
Pete Wright:
That's a-
Scot McKay:
He's just running parallel. So I was Mr. Nice Guy with her. Because she's BPD, borderline, back to the court system, back for another pound of flesh, and drag my daughter through it again. And I'm thinking, if I love my daughter you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to tell her and her lawyer to go F themselves the next time they show up because I've been Mr. Nice Guy. What happened was ... Remember I told you the family was hiding it. She got institutionalized. She did one too many crazy things. What she did was she attacked a police officer with rocks and then got locked up, and then she took the crazy plea and went and was institutionalized. Her family took the baby, I never got a call. I am a co-custodial ... We share custody. I'm supposed to have her. But the problem is they risked that legally because the jig would be up because now all of a sudden they knew that Sis was crazy.
Seth Nelson:
What happened in parenting plans is ... All I can do, as your attorney, in a parenting plan is say, "Listen" ... And we can go to the judge and the judge might order it, and this would be an extreme case. "Ma'am, you're going to be having medical testing on blood or urine or whatever to make sure that you're taking your medication regularly," right?
Scot McKay:
You bet you. All happened. I got temporary orders, daughter's with me indefinitely. Then when the temporary orders expired there was this ironclad thing, okay? If any of this happens dad gets full custody forever and you will get supervised visitation with a sheriff deputy once every two months.
Seth Nelson:
But you need to know. And if they have other people hiding it-
Emily McKay:
But you also have the strength ... You have to have the strength to enforce it.
Scot McKay:
You also have to want it badly enough.
Seth Nelson:
Right. That's right.
Scot McKay:
Am I in a position to really have my daughter constantly forever, okay?
Seth Nelson:
I've had cases where people say, "I just can't do this fight anymore."
Scot McKay:
So finally one day they called me. And I realized, with the help of someone who was looking at it as a third party, you can be crazy and be friendly. She's crazy and evil. Crazy has nothing to do with whether she's a good or a bad person. And yes, some people are bad people. There I said it. Some people just are evil. I have a very, very good friend, a mentor of mine, who's a very, very prominent psychiatrist who gave me the best definition of evil ever. It's deriving joy from the pain and suffering of others. She's that person, crazy or not. So I just stopped putting up with it.
And I met her and used her own stuff against her. And told her and her lawyer, "You know what? You bring it." And I told that lawyer, "Why don't you read page" ... I said, "Why don't you read page 26 of 2004 which was the temporary order. And when you do you MF'er you'll never ring my phone ever again. And you tell your client, one more peep out of her and I'm coming for it." And he is like ... He's this macho guy down in South Texas. "Oh, well, Mr. McKay we'll see about that." I go, "Oh, no. Use those exact words with your client, I have a feeling she's sitting right next to you. Four words. I'm coming for it." And I didn't hear from him ever again legally. You see, so it was no more Mr. Nice Guy.
Seth Nelson:
Well, part of this too is people will change their behaviors good or bad when you change how you deal with them.
Scot McKay:
Yes. If they're manipulative people they'll take everything they can get.
Seth Nelson:
What we've talked a lot about that show is how to deal with people that have different ... If they're a narcissist or if they're controlling, how do you communicate with them? People say, "Man, he knows how to push my buttons." I'm like "You're" ... "They're your buttons, you're allowed to disconnect them, right?"
Emily McKay:
So take back that remotes.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly.
Scot McKay:
It's funny how also being in this field with a lot of angry people who are single, and for a reason, and having an internet list of 64,000 anonymous users will give you a thick skin. You learn how quickly how not to take things personally. So I was already on that road. But boy, let me tell you, one of the things about being a man is ... We hear a lot about toxic masculinity and men are the problem. There's a dark side of providing and protecting for your family. And I don't want to get into it too much, but it started becoming such that there was a threat from ex-wife and older daughter that threatened the well-being of the family in my house who still loves me. And she was like, "Are you going to stand up to this? Are you going to put it to an end?" And that's when I realized I had to do something dark if I was going to be a provider and a protector. It's like hey man days all over again. You can't just be nice all the time and have this all be pleasant.
Emily McKay:
That's what they're thriving on.
Scot McKay:
Right. I head-checked this with another attorney at law who was also a life coach out in California and she was ... She went from being a family lawyer to being a coach and she was ... She's wonderful and still is. Everybody I knew who I trusted enough to let them in on this dark side of my life, I have never had one person say I was the bad guy. I've had everybody go "Freaking finally. Thank you." Including my daughter, and my son, and my wife. My daughter and son ... We have two together. A sigh of relief. You've just got to do something sometimes.
Pete Wright:
Sure. Incredible.
Scot McKay:
One thing we haven't talked about is ... Let's bring this full circle. Our first date, she found out somehow. She goes, "My ex-husband is schizophrenia."
Emily McKay:
No. We had somebody in common and she happened to know him.
Scot McKay:
I was giving you the short version.
Emily McKay:
Good, okay.
Scot McKay:
It's a small world.
Emily McKay:
So she gave me the news.
Scot McKay:
You ever see the Spider-Man meme where they're all pointing at each other?
Pete Wright:
Right.
Scot McKay:
You, right? First of all, she's everything I've ever looked for. She's precious, okay? She's wonderful, she's levelheaded. I wanted someone optimistic and generous who was sane. I mean, I'm the drama queen in this family and I'm pretty levelheaded.
Seth Nelson:
Shocking. Man. Let me tell you, Scott, we didn't pick up on that, I'm glad you just laid that out there.
Scot McKay:
What can I say? So I mean, she's everything I've ever looked for, everyone I've ever looked for. We have never had one day in this marriage that was like most days of my previous marriage. It's just this is what life's supposed to be like.
Pete Wright:
But she says the same, right?
Scot McKay:
Oh, yes.
Emily McKay:
Fantastic.
Seth Nelson:
You both have done something that is hard to do is you've learned from your previous relationship, and how it impacted you, and what you can change about it, and what you can't.
Scot McKay:
Right. And then when we didn't become victims. We didn't get negative and let it harm us.
Emily McKay:
And I know in my divorce I made lots of mistakes. I didn't listen to my attorney, first of all.
Seth Nelson:
Okay, let's wrap the show right there. Drop the mic. Pete, get-
Pete Wright:
You didn't know that was a particular dog whistle on this show.
Emily McKay:
No, I had a great attorney but man, she read me the riot act and I still didn't listen. She's like "You need to get what's yours." And I felt so guilty leaving him because he's ill, he tried committing suicide for legit ... Legitimately tried to. He was disabled. His boss fired him while he was still in intensive care. Actually, he asked me to do it for him.
Pete Wright:
Of course.
Emily McKay:
And we have a child. So he begged me he said, "Please, don't make me pay child support I can't afford it. But as soon as I started getting a job I'll help pitch in with the expenses." I'm like "All right, fine." I took on all the financial responsibilities, and I took on all the credit card expenses and tried to make the divorce as easy as possible. And, of course, I had to live with those decisions down the road. Like I said, listen to your attorney.
Pete Wright:
Well, you guys this is ... I mean, they're incredible stories. I can't believe you found each other after this whole thing.
Scot McKay:
We both had dated a lot. We both were diligent about not making the same mistake ever again. And we recognized each other because-
Pete Wright:
Well, I imagine you would.
Scot McKay:
We were honest in our dating profiles about who we were looking for. We weren't casting this wide net, hoping for someone who could fog a mirror.
Emily McKay:
And two optimistic, generous people make fantastic couples.
Scot McKay:
That's right.
Pete Wright:
As it turns out. Look at that, Seth, we've learned something here.
Seth Nelson:
That is not shocking.
Emily McKay:
Joy.
Scot McKay:
And on that same note. You mentioned, Seth, how the word gaslighting and even narcissistic have just become throwaway buzzwords. They're used so often they don't mean anything anymore. I studied gaslighting 15 years ago. I studied gaslighting before gaslighting was cool, okay? So I mean, wow. And the narcissism ... The way the narcissism works on a clinical level is they will be nice to people. They will be sweet, even generous to people, as long as it serves their needs. As soon as someone stands in the way of what they want and what they're trying to do they'll take you down under the radar.
Seth Nelson:
Things changed.
Scot McKay:
Where it's more under the radar than your own home behind closed doors.
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Scot McKay:
It's hard to play the narcissist game with me anymore because I can call it out, I know how to ... The sad part is you married this person because you loved this person, you didn't bargain for the mental illness. You don't want to be this cold-hearted person who completely disassociates from the person that you married because you love them, but you got to do what you got to do or else you're feeding the disease.
Pete Wright:
At some point, you make the turn. Like Emily was saying, at some point, you feel guilty because they're sick but at some point, you're the one who's sick if you're staying around that long.
Scot McKay:
And some people have just forfeited the right to be part of the adult conversation anymore.
Pete Wright:
All right. You guys, we got to wrap it up. This has been fantastic. What an incredible set of stories and circumstances that you've overcome.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, I will tell you, this is such an amazing topic and just such great guests that I don't really want to end the show, especially because they keep agreeing with me. I mean-
Pete Wright:
I'll weigh in.
Seth Nelson:
I think you're the first lawyer I've ever agreed a whole lot with ever.
Pete Wright:
Oh my goodness. Stop doing that, Scott, for crying out loud. Have you learned nothing in the last 45 minutes? You're feeding the bear, God.
Scot McKay:
I love you too, Pete, don't worry.
Emily McKay:
This has been fun.
Scot McKay:
I don't really know what you do for a living, it probably involves pizza, but I love pizza if that helps.
Pete Wright:
Hey, I'll take it, I'll take it. But tell us-
Seth Nelson:
That's my favorite hat he has.
Scot McKay:
Take it easy.
Pete Wright:
Give us a plug. I want to say tell us about your podcasts. And the BMX racing, and all the stuff that you guys do. I don't know how to encapsulate it. How do you plug yourselves right now?
Scot McKay:
Fun and adventure is what we decided is a great way to raise a family instead of strife and drama. Our podcast that we do together is X & Y On The Fly. You can find it on podcasts ... Anywhere you get podcasts. Apple. I guess Spotify's out of business. You know where to find it. Google podcast. My podcast, that I do almost uniquely for men, is called the Mountain Top Podcast. That is by far a bigger show. It's a good show, I have great guests on. You can find that as well. A lot of women lurk and listen to it. If you go to Scotmckay.net/couples we will accommodate ... Whether you're a man or a woman and whether you like to read or listen, we've got all kinds of great information for you, and we welcome you. We'd love to talk to you too.
Seth Nelson:
We'll put it in the show notes.
Emily McKay:
And we want to help people find joy and happiness. Going through divorce is just ... Even through the best of easy divorces, I'm sure it's still very difficult.
Seth Nelson:
It's a grieving process.
Scot McKay:
No, it really is. And listen, we have a lot of people who come to us who have gone through something similar. And here's my message to everybody as a mic drop. You're not mentally ill yourself, you're not crazy, you don't need a mental health professional. That's why coming to a coach helps you move forward, win, and go live the rest of your life. You're not the broken one. You simply need to believe, gain the confidence back, get the skills you need not to make that mistake again. And that's what we do for a living.
Pete Wright:
We'll let you have the mic drop. Scott, Emily McKay, thank you so much for hanging out with us today.
Emily McKay:
Thank you.
Scot McKay:
Thank you.
Pete Wright:
Fantastic. You got an awesome vibe. That's it, everybody. Thank you so much for downloading and listening to this show. Don't forget, head over to how-to-split-a-toaster.com and click that button. Submit a question, we'd like to see your questions come in. If you have questions for Scott and Emily too we'll send them their way see if they'll answer them. Maybe they'll answer them on a future episode of their podcast.
Scot McKay:
Sure.
Pete Wright:
That would be fantastic too. On behalf of Scott and Emily McKay, and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney. I'm Pete Wright, we'll catch you right here next week on How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationship.
Outro:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce & Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce & Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
