Escaping a Covert Narcissist: Mia Hanks’ Story

Brad Minus: Welcome back to another episode of Life-Changing Challengers. Ladies and gentlemen, have a special guest today. Her name is Mia Hanks and she has written a book called Bride-Made. A memoir that has actually won some awards. She won the Literary Titan Book awards.

So this is something really, really special and she is going to share her story today and we're really excited to have her. So Mia, how you doing today? 

Mia Hanks: I'm good. Thank you. 

Brad Minus: Oh, and I am very happy to have you on board the show. I really appreciate that. Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood?

Where'd you grow up, and what was it like to be Mia as a kid? 

Mia Hanks: Yeah, so I grew up in the Midwest, and I'm an only child. I just had a very idyllic childhood. A lot of people don't believe me when I say that.

I didn't have any trauma. I don't have any traumatic stories to share. It was just very much, I kind of grew up in this bubble, so to speak. It was a wonderful childhood. The only problem was. It left me kind of very naive and, when I left my small little town in the Midwest to go to college in a big city, I really felt like, everybody out there was good.

Everybody had good intentions. There weren't bad people. I mean, I wasn't completely naive, but, you know, narcissism was not something I was looking for that I was on, on, on alert about. So I, yeah, just a real, simple idyllic childhood. And then I, I found myself with a narcissist, so, and just wasn't able, didn't know how to navigate that, you know, because I had never experienced anything like that as a kid.

Brad Minus: Alright, so let's step back a little bit because you and me have very. Similar childhoods. I grew up in a small town. I was an only child. 

Mia Hanks: Oh, wow. 

Brad Minus: I went to a school that was in a small town, so I didn't get out to the big city till later. Luckily my father grew up in Chicago. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago.

And he was very instrumental in making sure that I knew the ways of the world. So there's where we kind of differ. But on the rest of it, yeah. No kidding. Only child, small town. So, but tell me a little bit about like maybe we can start in high school. Did you play any sports?

Were you into anything? Just to kind of give us a little bit more background about you. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. I had a really great high school experience. I loved high school. I really did. I went to a.

Small school, I think maybe a hundred people in my graduating class. And, I was super into music. I went on to pursue that in college. Great high school experience and, good people, good friends. I hated to leave it behind, but I loved college as well, so I think I just like school in general.

Brad Minus: I get that. And music is his thing too. I played, clarinet and saxophone in the band and then went to Allstate and yeah, it was great. And then moved over to musicals theater, but Okay. Basically, yeah. Kind of stayed in that same, that same genre there. So there's another thing that you and I haven't talked about.

Yeah. 

Mia Hanks: That's interesting. Yeah. I don't know. 

Brad Minus: We didn't have anybody to play with, so we made up these stories in our head and then, you know, music kind of took a storyline to it. 

Mia Hanks: I think so, yeah. But yeah, I never was, lonely as a kid. You know, some people ask, isn't that lonely to not have siblings?

For me, I can't say that I ever was, I was never bored. So I don't know. It's an interesting experience, I guess. Most people don't understand that because most people have siblings. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. No, no, I get it. And you know what? I can't remember. I mean, there was occasion, but I used, I had a pretty good set, solid set of friends too later.

You know, even in the beginning my parents were very big on making sure that I knew the neighborhood kids, but on the whole, I was alone a lot, but I was never, I wasn't lonely. 

Mia Hanks: Right, right. So, yeah, I mean, I think I still like my alone time, even to this day. And I think that's rooted in.

Being an only child and not, you know, I don't like a lot of chaos because I wasn't brought up that way, you know? These large families that I knew, you know, there was always a lot of activity and chaos in their house, and it was fun to go over there and play. But, then I wanted to go home to my.

Peace and quiet. Right? 

Brad Minus: Yeah, that's exactly right. It was like, I had friends that, had three and four siblings in the house. And I knew them all. Families would be like, coming over for dinner and blah, blah, blah, blah. You were like, I'd like to go home now.

Mia Hanks: It's, it gets a little too overstimulating, you know? 'cause you're just not used to that, constant, activity. But it was fun to go play with those friends. But yeah, I always wanted to come back home. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. Yeah. There was, I mean, there was plenty of sleepovers, but most of the time it was a friend that had siblings that would wanna sleepover at my house.

Yes. So, you know, I think they like to peace. Peace and quiet once in a while. Yes. 

Mia Hanks: Exactly. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, absolutely. So you went to a big, a large college, it sounds like a large university. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah, medium size, in Nashville, Tennessee. So, you know, not, not a huge, huge city, but much bigger than where I was from.

So it felt like I was going to the big city. 

Brad Minus: And did you find yourself, adapting pretty well, or did you I did, yeah. 

Mia Hanks: I think I surprised myself. I wasn't sure if that I was cut out for that, leaving home and going, you know, I don't know, 10 hours away or something.

But yeah, I adapted really well, made friends quickly, had a great college experience, so I loved it. 

Brad Minus: Did you find a job right away? 

Mia Hanks: So, I actually got married, after my junior year.

College. College, okay. And then finished my senior year, and then as soon as I graduated, my husband, had already started a job and so I moved straight away, with him to another city where his job was. So yeah, I didn't have. Any experience. You know, I lived in the dorms all four years.

So I technically lived on my own, I guess you can say, in the dorm. But then I went straight from a dorm to, a house with my husband. So there wasn't that in between, you know, getting a job and living on my own kind of thing. 

Brad Minus: Okay. This is getting kind of scary. 

Mia Hanks: Okay. 

Brad Minus: I got married outta high sch. I got married my junior year too. 

Mia Hanks: Oh my goodness. 

Brad Minus: Right after sophomore year. 

Mia Hanks: Yep. 

Brad Minus: And yeah, so I had, I know I didn't go with you. Went through. Yeah. Isn't that, that's that crazy, crazy. I actually, left school for a year. Make my way in the world and then came back and finished up. Okay. So yeah, but I was, I was married. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: So, yeah. 

Mia Hanks: Young, so I was 21 when I got married. 

Brad Minus: Oh. So awesome. That was young. Yeah. Sometime, yeah, I was about 20, 20 something. Wow. Talk about coincidence. Okay. So you married, so you moved away to, to a place where your, your husband at the time. Was working. What did he do? 

Mia Hanks: He was an engineer. 

Brad Minus: Okay. Yeah. Like a civil 

Mia Hanks: Civil. Oh, what did, oh, civil, no, in like the, the oil business. 

Brad Minus: Okay, 

Mia Hanks: great.

Brad Minus: All right. So oil and engineering, was he away a lot? 

Mia Hanks: He really wasn't, no. Okay. Occasional business trips, but no, he was mostly home. 

Brad Minus: Alright, so you were college sweethearts, it sounds like We were, 

Mia Hanks: yeah. 

Brad Minus: Were you working as well? 

Mia Hanks: I worked a little bit like, you know, the first year, the first two years we were married, I just, I, I was teaching private teaching, so not, not a full-time job. And yeah, I never did work a full-time job, the whole time I was married. And you know, I, I think looking back, I'm not sure that he, would really have wanted me to work, honestly.

So I never did. Yeah. I was just, part-time for a couple years here and there. Alright. 

Brad Minus: Oh, you were teaching music? 

Mia Hanks: I was, 

Brad Minus: well, at least you got to do something that you loved. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah, I did. 

Brad Minus: But you weren't performing. 

Mia Hanks: I was not performing and no, I didn't wanna perform, 

Brad Minus: so all in all, when you first got to your new home. Would you say that you're pretty content? 

Mia Hanks: You know, there were a few red flags early on that I tended to sweep under the rug because I thought. We're newly married, this will get better.

I just need to give it time. So I thought I was pretty happy, but in retrospect, you know, something was off from the very beginning. 

Brad Minus: Okay. Could you just elaborate on the red flags that, obviously these are hindsight, but what were some 

Mia Hanks: yeah.

Brad Minus: What were some of those red flags that you swept underneath the rug? 

Mia Hanks: Definitely the biggest one was this lack of empathy that I saw from him very early. You know, not being able to put himself in someone else's shoes, you know? And having very little compassion, you know? For example, if I was sick, his response would not be to say, oh, you know, how can I help you?

I'm sorry you're feeling bad. Whatever his response would be to be angry. Because, you know, that disrupted his day. That was not in his agenda. I, you know, it was an inconvenience to him. And so I learned really early that anything that inconvenienced him made him very angry. And again, I just thought, well, you know, it's just a personality quirk, whatever.

And, I try to just look past those things. The problem is those things. That you see early, those red flags, so to speak. Those become bigger issues later on. And that's what I didn't know, you know, I was just too naive to realize that these things were not gonna go away. I thought if I just hang in there, you know, if I just hang in there and just try to be the best wife I can, this will all fix itself.

And that was not the way to approach it. 

Brad Minus: It's so interesting, I have to tell you. So like I mentioned before, I've got a few episodes, of people in your situation and you know what, that is a common denominator. Yeah, it is very interesting that that is the lack of empathy very much.

Yeah. And you're not the first person to sit there and say, and give the sick example mm-hmm. Of you. Sick and they and, your husband or hus or what? Who Your ex them getting angry. Yeah. That's not the first example. That's not, you're not the first person to say that. That is unbelievable. So, yeah, that, 

Mia Hanks: it's typical of narcissists, you know, they, everything's about them. So anything that is inconvenient or doesn't flow with their plans or how they think the day should go, you know, a narcissist can be the nicest, most charming person in the world as long as everything's going their way.

But as soon as something disrupts, it, it's like Jekyll and Hyde. So, I definitely saw that very early. 

Brad Minus: Wow. So did you have like, date nights? Did you have friends that were couples? Were you active in the church or anything like that? 

Mia Hanks: We had a few friends, you know, not a lot.

We never really had a lot of friends. Early in the marriage, we had a couple of other couples that, we would go out to dinner with, out to movies. We were active in church. Not a lot of church friends, but we definitely had, a few friends, but not just a huge social circle.

No. 

Brad Minus: What was he like while you were in public? 

Mia Hanks: So in public, so he is, you know, if he were to be diagnosed, he would be diagnosed as a covert narcissist. These people in public, they are. Just the life of the party. They're wonderful. They're kind, they're compassionate, they're generous.

Everybody thinks they are. You know, he is husband of the year, father of the year. So, and it, it's, it's all a lie. It's all a lie. But the problem is, being young and naive like I was, I sort of helped him and I didn't realize I was doing this at the time, but I sort of helped him. Wear that mask.

Yeah. He's so great. You know, and I, I'm telling everybody else. Yeah, he's, he's a great husband. Everything's great, everything's perfect. And I was sort of helping that false image along, you know, and I look back now and realize, yeah, I was, I was kind of living that lie with him. And, I guess I, you know, to me it seems like what I needed to do, protect his image, make him look good.

And I, I did my job pretty well. You know, I think everybody bought, the lie he was living 

Brad Minus: not a different story. So I guess I can start to see how, doctors and psychologists are able to put things in the PDR. Because it is, it's just very interesting that, the stories become so similar.

Mia Hanks: They do The narcissists really. I mean, if you talk to very many people who have been in relationships with narcissists, you'll find that these people, it seems like they're all playing from the same playbook. It's like they all have this, unwritten set of rules of how they act.

It's amazing how narcissists are so alike and their traits are so similar, 

Brad Minus: Did you have children? 

Mia Hanks: Yes, we have two children. 

Brad Minus: How long after you got married did you have your children? 

Mia Hanks: I think that my oldest was born about seven years into my marriage, something like that.

Six years, seven years, and then, four years later, my second one. So we have, two kids. 

Brad Minus: Wow. Okay. Was it for lack of trying or was it planned? That it would be better. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah, there were fertility issues and so that's why it was seven years for the first one.

I wanted kids earlier and, looking back, I thought that maybe, in addition to me just wanting kids. I also thought it might change him a little bit. You know, it might make him a better husband. At the time, it seemed, reasonable that I might see a better side of him, once we had kids.

Brad Minus: No, that makes all the sense in the world. 'Cause you hear it all the time. People, fathers every day sit there and say, my God, you know, the minute I held my little boy, my little girl in their hands, it changed me forever. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: I wanted to live for this, for, for this baby. So, no, I do not think that that was a bad idea.

And I do not think that you were being naive I thinking that way, at all, because I know it changes people. 

Mia Hanks: But I think that was in the back of my mind that maybe these behaviors that I didn't like, that I, that I saw in him, maybe those would fall by the wayside once we had kids.

Brad Minus: Right? 'cause you would think that, okay, now he's gonna hold this little bundle of joy. And that is going to be his fixation. The fixation is now going to be on his child, right? Yes. Nothing more than to make sure that that child is protected, that they're cared for, and that they're supported.

But not a narcissist. 

Mia Hanks: No, it really doesn't. And it's so interesting. You know, I thought it would make him more compassionate, more empathetic. That doesn't happen unfortunately. They just, they don't possess empathy. And it's really wild, to learn that narcissists oftentimes are jealous of their own children.

It really can create a difficult dynamic. 

Brad Minus: I've never heard that. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. My ex-husband was very possessive of my time. He wanted 100% of my attention a hundred percent of the time. And when kids come along, you know, that's just not, my kids came first and, you know.

My kids came first when it came to my attention, and that just did not fly well with him at all. 

Brad Minus: So you had your first child seven years into your marriage. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: Wow. I mean, that's crazy. And then what, you said it was four more years before you had your second.

Mm-hmm. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. That's right. 

Brad Minus: So what made you decide that you wanted the second one? Or was it an oops? 

Mia Hanks: It was kind of, you know, I just, we both kind of wanted two kids. I didn't, as much as I loved being an only child, and I still do, I really didn't want my oldest to be an only child.

I just thought, you know, because thinking about when you're an only child, my kids then don't really have many cousins. Because they don't really have any aunts and uncles. It just felt like there weren't enough family members and, I really wanted her to have a sibling, so, yeah.

Brad Minus: All right. That's definitely, hypocritical of your ex. He was so infatuated to make sure that he wanted all your time. And all of a sudden he's, not, I'm gonna assume that he wasn't behaving very well because, 

Mia Hanks: You know, narcissists get worse with age. So every year was a little bit worse. And, you know, toward the last four or five years of our marriage, it was awful. But you know, we still had good times in those earlier, earlier years, I would say. I mean, you know, we made good memories. It's just that it wasn't all good.

Brad Minus: All right. So there is some happiness in there, just 

Mia Hanks: for sure. 

Brad Minus: And it would have to be you. 

Mia Hanks: I mean, otherwise you can't stay right. For three decades. I mean, there's definitely good stuff, and that did make it hard when I left, you know, because you're thinking, well, every day wasn't bad, you know, and I really had to deal with that and say, is it okay that I left?

Because there were some good times. But it doesn't cancel out the bad. 

Brad Minus: So, how was he with the children, because I'm sure that, I mean, you had to give him time with his kids by himself, whether you were sleeping or sick. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah.

Brad Minus: How was he with his, with your children? 

Mia Hanks: He, he was good as long as it was fun for him. He, he only wanted to participate in the fun part. He did not want to be inconvenienced or deal with the day to day. And so really for the most part, I felt like a single parent and he just got to come along and play when it was, when it was good.

But if anything went sideways. I was the one that was blamed, for anything that didn't work out the way he thought it should. He sort of wanted to have this Norman Rockwell type image and he kind of looked to me to provide that. And so he wanted everything to, flow perfectly.

And when it didn't, it was my fault. So, yeah, as long as everything was, it was fun and games. He was a fun dad. When it was fun and games, but when it wasn't, he wasn't interested. 

Brad Minus: Interesting. So can you count all the jersey diapers that he changed? Oh yeah, 

Mia Hanks: For sure. Yeah. On one hand.

Brad Minus: Wow. And I'm getting to this, there's a method to my madness here. What was, so let's go forward. To a point where the, the children could feed themselves. Let's say that. Yeah. Like, you know, eight and five or nine and five and 10 and four, 10 and six, something like that.

Did you have regular dinners? Was dinners sit down at a table? 

Mia Hanks: They were for a while and then. Life gets crazy and it became less frequent to do a sit down dinner. Everyone was eating on their own schedule, especially as the kids were getting older.

It started out that way. It's always the idea that you wanna have family dinners and, all of this. Unfortunately reality doesn't always come out the way that you think. 

Brad Minus: And the reason why I was getting to it was, I was gonna ask what was behavior like, so I mean, if you've got a, if you've got a couple of kids that are kids, 

Mia Hanks: yeah.

Brad Minus: Mean, yeah. They can hold a fork, they can hold a spoon, they can put it in their mouth and they can do it without making a mess, but sometimes they don't. 

Mia Hanks: Right, 

Brad Minus: that was my question, was the behavior at the table when, things could be good, maybe they weren't strictly because kids are kids.

Mia Hanks: Yeah, I mean he would be very upset with me if, say the kids were fighting. My kids fought like cats and dogs, so it was difficult. He, for whatever reason in his perfect world that he thought he lived in, the kids didn't fight. Everything was great, and everybody got along.

That's not reality. And so, yeah, I mean, he was mad at me most of the time because the kids were fighting or the kids were doing this or that, or they were interrupting him and, he was trying to work and why aren't you making them be quiet? So it was challenging. Those were some difficult years, I would say those elementary school years.

I had a lot on my plate, trying to keep the kids somewhat under control so that he wouldn't be mad at me, and it was a lot going on. 

Brad Minus: So basically he wanted Gilead. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. And then of course, you know, you move into the teenage years and it gets even more complex. So yeah, it was challenging for sure.

Brad Minus: I was just trying to spike the moment there, and I thought if you got that reference, that's all. 

Mia Hanks: I didn't, no. 

Brad Minus: Oh, okay. So there's a series, called, Handmaid's Tale. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: Yes. So that the environment, you know, yes.

This, everything, it's called Gilead. 

Mia Hanks: Mm-hmm. 

Brad Minus: Really liked that. 

Mia Hanks: And that's what he wanted. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. Kids were seen and not heard. 

Mia Hanks: Yes. 

Brad Minus: And, but everything was Norman Rockwell, you know, white. That's what he 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. 

Mia Hanks: Not, it's not reality, you know? For me, I put a lot of pressure on me, because then I start to internalize, you know, they narcissists use these, these tactics, you know, gaslighting, you've heard of that term.

They do a lot of that and this like kind of coercive control and they really make you feel like you are responsible for anything that doesn't go right. I was buying what he was selling, you know, and he was saying, it's all your fault and all of this, if I had been clearheaded at the time, I would've said, well, no, it's not my, all my fault, but he had me in such a fog.

There's a term called trauma bonding, which really is the same thing as Stockholm Syndrome. And you really do find yourself defending this person. And, that's what I was doing. I believed everything he said, which right now that I'm talking about it sounds crazy, but I really did. I believed that I was the problem.

I believed everything was my fault. And so that's kind of how you keep going. You just say, well, it's all me, and if I just do better, things will be better. 

Brad Minus: What were some of the tactics that you took in order to keep to peace? 

Mia Hanks: Definitely the main tactic I did was I caved to anything I needed to do to keep the peace.

For me, again, going back to that growing up as an only child, and, you know, I grew up in a peaceful environment. I don't do well with conflict. I don't do well with confrontation and so. Whatever I had to do to keep things peaceful and running smooth, I just did. Rather than stand up and say, you know, no, this isn't right, or I don't like the way you're treating me, or I don't like what you say to me, I would just smooth it over, sweep it under the rug.

It's all gonna be okay tomorrow. Just to keep that peace. 

Brad Minus: Interesting. So, okay. Last question before we start going in. We start making a turn, turn the corner a little bit. So in order to keep his narcissism at bay going 2020, what would a typical day look like where things would be super smooth?

Mia Hanks: Basically anything that, however he wants the day to go, I have to agree with it and be happy about it. You know, don't give, he doesn't want, doesn't want anyone to give him any options. Don't give me alternatives. Don't give me options. This is what I wanna do. This is what we're gonna do.

And if you just go along with it and you're happy with it, and he gets his way. All day long. Then he's happy. It's all good. You know, if he wants to go out to eat at this particular restaurant and he wants to see this particular movie and. Whatever he wants to have this for lunch. You just, yeah, that's great.

Absolutely. And you agree with him. You build him up all day long. You compliment him, and make him feel like he's the greatest guy in the world. And he'll be super nice on that day. But that was not every day. With the narcissist, the problem with them is, you hear the term moving the goalposts, they move the goalposts.

There's nothing you can do for these people that is enough. You could give them the moon, the sun, the stars, and they would come up with something that you didn't provide. So you think you're doing everything they want you to do. And they're still not happy,

well, but you did. He he could always find fault. But you didn't do this. If you complimented him 10 times a day, he would be upset that you didn't compliment him 11 times. So you just can't win with these people. 

Brad Minus: So when and what sparked the initial. I need to get outta here.

I need to start setting a strategy to start moving. In a direction that's safer for, that's safer for you. 'Cause it sounds like to me, you basic, you stayed a lot for the kids. 'cause obviously I did. Sounds like they were grown and done before you finally left. They were. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah, they were. And that was, a consideration for sure.

I wouldn't let myself go there in my mind, earlier in the marriage because there was no way I was gonna share custody of my kids. I mean, to me that seemed like the worst thing in the world. You know, hindsight is 2020 and I realized that I did my kids a disservice by staying, but at the time I thought I was making the right decision.

So, what finally prompted me to say, I've gotta get outta here. It was really the decline of my physical health. I was suffering from chronic pain, headaches, stomach aches. I was sick every day. I was having panic attacks almost daily, sometimes more than once a day, and I was falling apart.

I mean, I reached a point where I thought to myself, this is not sustainable. I physically cannot live like this. And it was just that stress that I was living under. It's a constant state of fight or flight. 24 7 and our bodies are not meant for that level of stress for that long.

So it really just became, you know, in order to save my physical health, I had to get out and, and when I did leave, I would say within two weeks, maybe less. I felt like any person. I had been so sleep deprived for so long, that was a huge factor too, just being in that fog of sleep deprivation. When I left and I was able to get the rest I needed and start taking care of myself, it was almost an immediate turnaround in my health and how I felt.

Wow. 

Brad Minus: So you recognized that your health was declining. Was that the switch? 

Mia Hanks: It really was. It was that and the fact that, as I said, narcissism gets worse with age. And he had just reached a point, it seemed like when he turned 50, something just got orders of magnitude worse.

And I don't know if he was having some kind of midlife crisis, but he got so controlling that it almost became frightening. And while nothing ever got physical, I really had a strong sense that it could, he was just, having like childlike tantrums and it just reached a point where I thought, this is not safe.

And, you know, I feel like I'm dying. So, it was kind of just. The culmination of, of everything sort of just fell apart all at once, and I kind of had an opportunity to get out and, thankfully, I took it. 

Brad Minus: So can you tell us a little bit about that story? About, you know, maybe how you planned it, and then finally how you finally decided that, you know, alright, this is the day, the time and I'm, and I'm leaving.

Mia Hanks: Yeah. We had decided because our kids were grown and our. Youngest was graduating high school. We had decided to downsize, our house. We sold our house, we had our house on the market, and we were going to, just go to interim living and, take our time looking for, kind of our retirement home, I guess you could say. It was in that transition of selling the house that I realized I've got an opportunity here, you know, I can get out. There was something about selling that house that, you know, it was sort of, we're coming to this crossroads and this life change and the kids are out of school and it just felt like.

I think I could make this work. And, but I was terrified to leave. Of course. I didn't know what he would do. So what I did was, I more or less just told him I needed a break. I was, you know, the whole sale of the house and all of that. It was very stressful, the move. And so I went and stayed with my parents.

And I told him, you know, I just need a mental break. I'm just gonna do this for a while and see what happens. And that's what I did. And I secretly knew when I left that I was not going to come back and I didn't. 

Brad Minus: So were you able to get any proceeds from the sale of the house? Were you able to start your new life off with or did you start from scratch?

Mia Hanks: Well, fortunately my parents were able to help me because as soon as he realized that I was not coming back, he drained the bank account. He tried to make living extremely difficult for me. His hope was if he just chokes me out enough, I'll come back. But I didn't because I did have the financial support of my parents.

It took me a year to file for divorce. In retrospect, that was not a good decision, because it gave him a lot of time to plan. But, it took me that long to get to a point where I could get the courage up enough to serve him with those divorce papers.

That was just terrifying to me. So it did take a year, and then the divorce took almost a year, so it was a very lengthy process. 

Brad Minus: How did you tell your kids that you weren't coming back? 

Mia Hanks: I think they all found out about the same time. My kids really weren't surprised.

I thought that it would be shocking to them. They were actually, both, reasonably happy that I had done this. In fact, maybe a year later, my oldest told me, I wish you would've done this years ago. I definitely had the support of my kids, and they both have a relationship with their dad.

He's their father, but, I felt like they've really been supportive of my decision to divorce. They've been happy with the outcome. 

Brad Minus: Oh, good. I am. I'm happy that you got away. By listening to the story, I feel like I have a connection with you now. That's great. So I'm happy that you got out.

What did, what's life like now for you? 

Mia Hanks: It's very different, than what I lived for so long. There's so much freedom. I was never used to this level of freedom and waking up every morning and saying, how do I wanna spend my day? What do I wanna do? Who do I wanna talk to? You know, what do I want to eat?

Making all those decisions, it's a little overwhelming because I've never had so much freedom. But at the same time, it's really exciting. And, yeah, I just, you know, I'm enjoying getting to go on podcasts and talk about. Some people say, why do you wanna keep rehashing that? And I say, well, because it's amazing how many people out there are in these situations and they don't realize it, or they think they're the only one.

You know? I didn't think there was anyone else when I was going through this. I did not believe there was anyone else that was going through what I was going through. And had I heard a podcast or, you know, read a book that opened my eyes, I would've been in tune to this a lot earlier than I was. I would've left a lot sooner.

Brad Minus: Well, for the audience and myself, I'm gonna thank you for having the courage and for going through it over and over again for people, to show them what this is like. You know, just the idea and you know, obviously hindsight's 2020, so when you're starting to see that very first red flag that you had, that you realized that, hey, the guy's got no empathy.

If you are sick and your new husband or new wife is like, oh, here's a Kleenex and here's a bottle of seven up, I'll see you after I get off the golf course. Yeah. You know, that is a red flag. You know this person that supposedly loves you. Are there any other red flags that you can give to our audience

that might help them realize that, this is something that they should be really thinking about. 

Mia Hanks: Yeah. You know, just that level of control. Narcissists have to control the narrative. They have to control their people around them. They have to control everything. But it's hard sometimes to know that you're being controlled.

One thing that they'll do, they tend to like to isolate you. They don't love it when you spend a lot of time with your family, they don't really love you having a lot of friends. And the reason for that is they don't want other people to look at the situation and say, Hmm, you know, he may not be all that great.

So they see it as a threat. If you have a bunch of friends that you're hanging out with, oftentimes narcissists control all the finances, little things like that you don't realize. I thought, I had my little, debit card with, access to our day-to-day checking account, and I thought I had it made.

I didn't realize he was being financially abusive. When I left I realized, wait a minute, I can't even access money to hire a lawyer. All I had was access to that checking account. Well, that was by design. He did that by design. All his other accounts I had no access to. And again, it was all planned.

It was all planned. And so here I thought, I just had it made and my life was great with my debit card, until I decided I wanna leave. I wanna get my own place. I need to hire a divorce attorney. And there are no funds for that because he's got all of that tied up. So, you know, you can, you can be controlling, being controlled and not realize it.

And you do, you just have to look for those little things, and is this person really jealous of my time, of my attention? Because control is, it can be a scary thing and it builds, you know, it can get worse with time. So that's definitely what I saw. 

Brad Minus: I would take that as if you ask your new spouse and you tell him that you are going on a girl's trip and he gets angry.

Mia Hanks: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: That's a red flag right there. 

Mia Hanks: It's a red flag. Definitely. I mean, if you feel like you are being isolated, there's a reason you're being isolated. And it's not a good reason. 

Brad Minus: Exactly so. Well, Mia, I can't tell you how much respect I have for you. For you to be able to do this and to bring these issues to the forefront.

And again, just like your friends were saying, 'cause I would feel the same way you reliving this and rehashing this, but you're rehashing it for people so they understand that this is a real thing and they could possibly. Be in one of these relationships. So thank you for that. I really appreciate it.

Now for the rest of you that, that are listening, again, if you go to mia j hanks.com, you'll be able to get to her blog and see some of her media. And there's also her book called Bride Made a memoir. MJ Hanks and there's a Buy now button, and that's going directly to Amazon in the show notes. I'll provide you with this link and I will also provide you with a, a direct link right to the book.

But definitely check out her, her, her website. She's got some other podcasts that she's been on.

This is gorgeous. It's blue and it's got whites in it and it's in silver and it's beautiful. Yeah, definitely check that out too. But yeah, definitely that's, again, that's mia j hanks.com and you can check out her book Bride Ma. If you are watching this on YouTube, which is probably gonna be one of the more boring ones because, Mia is decided, you know, for security reasons that she's not gonna be on camera, which is fine.

I have no problem with that. Most of our, most of the audience is audio. But if you are watching, go ahead and hit that. Subscribe in that and, the like button and the, notification bell so you always know when we're dropping a new episode. If you're listening on Amazon. I'm, well, I guess you could be living on Amazon.

You could also be living on listening on Apple and on Spotify. Go ahead and leave us a review and, you know, I don't even care if it's a good review, because I'll take any feedback in order to evolve this podcast to make it better and better, so that you are getting the information that you would like.

But for now, I would just like to say, Mia, thank you again. I really appreciate it. 

Mia Hanks: Thank you for having me. 

Brad Minus: So for Mia and myself, and for Magnus, he's back here. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you in the next one.