Okay, So Here’s The Deal

Marilee Grace
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Okay, So Here’s the Deal is a divorce recovery podcast for women who are done playing small after toxic or high-conflict marriages. Hosted by Amazon Best Selling author Marilee Grace, the show dives into healing after divorce, narcissistic relationships, identity shifts, self-love, and rebuilding life with clarity and confidence. We talk growth, grief, joy, boundaries, self-care, and reinvention—without sugarcoating it. If you’re navigating divorce, recovering from a toxic relationship, or ready to rewrite your story and rise unapologetically, this space is for you. We’ll laugh, cry, and grow together. Buckle up, beautiful—it’s time to rise.

  1. 6d ago ·  Video

    What if the person you've been waiting to rescue you is you?

    After a high-conflict relationship or emotionally toxic marriage, it's easy to spend years waiting for someone to recognize your worth, protect your heart, or make everything right. But healing begins when you start recognizing the strength you've been building all along. In this episode of Okay, So Here's the Deal, Marilee Grace talks about becoming your own Shero and what it means to stop waiting for someone else to save you. Through personal reflections and familiar fairy-tale stories about Prince Charming and happily-ever-after endings, Marilee explores how women can lose pieces of themselves while trying to make a relationship work—and how they can begin finding their way back. Discover why being your own hero doesn't mean doing everything alone. It means learning to set boundaries, protect your peace, recognize your worth, and stop sacrificing yourself to save a relationship. In this episode, you'll hear about: Becoming your own Shero after a high-conflict relationship. Rebuilding confidence and self-worth after divorce. Finding courage to walk away from what hurts you. Setting boundaries and protecting your peace. Rediscovering your identity and creating a life that feels like your own. You don't have to be fearless, and you don't have to have it all figured out. You simply have to recognize that you are worth showing up for. You are beautiful. You are brave. You are not broken. Buckle up, gorgeous. It's your time to rise! Hosted by Marilee Grace, life transformation coach, author, and speaker. Okay, So Here's the Deal — conversations to help you navigate and build an amazing life after leaving a high-conflict personality relationship.

  2. Oct 23 ·  Video

    Divorce and Toxic Relationships: Navigating Family, Friends, and Boundaries

    When you leave a toxic marriage, you know your relationship with your ex is changing. But what happens when your relationships with your children, parents, in-laws, and friends change, too? Divorce doesn't happen in a bubble. And after a long marriage—especially one marked by toxic behavior or high conflict—the ripple effects can reach far beyond the couple. In this episode of Okay, So Here's the Deal, Marilee Grace gets real about the complicated, emotional, and sometimes heartbreaking experience of navigating family and friendships after divorce. Drawing from her own experience leaving a 29-year marriage, Marilee shares personal stories about navigating relationships with her three sons, her parents, former in-laws, and shared friends. Some relationships required firm boundaries. Others needed distance. And some losses still hurt. She also explores how children can respond differently to divorce, why adult children may feel caught between parents, and why your ex's behavior after the separation can influence those family dynamics. Every family is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer—but there are ways to navigate these challenges without losing yourself in the process. One of the most important lessons Marilee shares is a strategy her former divorce coach called “The Long Game.” Rather than reacting to every accusation, defending yourself to everyone, or trying to force people to understand your side, you can choose to remain steady, maintain your boundaries, and give people the opportunity to form their own understanding over time.

  3. Oct 16 ·  Video

    Stop Trying to Change Them: 2 Tools for Dealing With Toxic People

    Have you been exhausting yourself trying to get someone to change, understand you, or treat you the way you deserve? What if protecting your peace starts with changing how you respond? In this episode of Okay, So Here's the Deal, Marilee Grace wraps up the Narcissism 101 series with two important tools for navigating toxic relationships, narcissistic behaviors, and high-conflict personalities: the Grey Rock Method and Radical Acceptance. After eight weeks of learning the terminology, recognizing manipulation tactics, and identifying patterns of behavior, it's time to talk about what you can do next. First, we'll explore the Grey Rock Method, a communication strategy that involves keeping interactions brief, neutral, and uninteresting. When you need to communicate with a difficult or manipulative person, grey rocking may help you reduce unnecessary engagement and protect your emotional energy. Marilee walks you through a relatable example of what grey rocking can sound like, shares Kate's experience using the technique, and explains how she has used it herself when communicating with her children's father and navigating difficult people in the workplace. Next, we'll explore Radical Acceptance, a psychological skill associated with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Radical acceptance means acknowledging reality as it is—even when that reality is painful—instead of continually fighting against what you wish were true. This can be especially difficult when you're holding on to the hope that a toxic partner will change. Accepting the reality of a relationship can bring grief, guilt, fear, and sadness. It doesn't make the behavior acceptable, make the hurt disappear, or mean you have to stay. But it can help you see the relationship more clearly, recognize patterns, stop blaming yourself for someone else's behavior, and begin considering what choices are available to you.

  4. Oct 9 ·  Video

    When Your Ex Turns People Against You: Triangulation, Flying Monkeys & Smear Campaigns

    Have you ever discovered that people were talking about you, taking sides, or believing a version of your story that you never got the chance to tell? If you’ve ever found yourself wondering, “How did I suddenly become the bad guy?”—this episode of Okay, So Here’s the Deal is for you. Welcome to Narcissism 101: Lesson 7, where Marilee Grace breaks down two powerful manipulation tactics: triangulation and smear campaigns, along with the role of “flying monkeys” who may become involved along the way. Triangulation is a divide-and-conquer tactic that brings a third person into a conflict to create division, stir up jealousy, spread gossip, force people to take sides, or help the manipulator maintain control. Then there’s the smear campaign—the deliberate use of rumors, lies, half-truths, and distorted information to damage your reputation and influence how other people see you. And sometimes, other people get pulled into the story to do the manipulator’s dirty work. These people are commonly referred to as flying monkeys.

  5. Oct 2 ·  Video

    First They Confuse You. Then They Ignore You. Then They Come Back.

    Have you ever had a conversation that started with one simple question… and somehow ended with you defending yourself for things you didn't even know you were accused of? Or maybe they stopped talking to you completely, leaving you wondering what you did wrong. And just when you finally started pulling yourself back together… suddenly they're back. An apology. A gift. A declaration of love. A made-up emergency. Or a casual little, “I saw something that reminded me of you.” Welcome to Narcissism 101, Lesson 6 of Okay, So Here's the Deal. This week, Marilee Grace breaks down three more terms that can help you understand the behaviors you may have experienced in a high-conflict personality relationship: word salad, the silent treatment, and hoovering. These three tactics may look completely different on the surface, but they can all create the same result: confusion, self-doubt, insecurity, and a loss of emotional control. First, there's word salad—the exhausting cycle of circular conversations, topic shifting, blame shifting, irrelevant accusations, and so many words that you eventually give up simply because you're mentally exhausted. Marilee introduces the acronym DARVO—Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender—and walks you through an example so you can recognize what word salad can actually sound like in real life. Then comes the silent treatment. Not every quiet moment is abusive. But when silence is deliberately used as punishment, control, or a way to make you chase after someone and apologize for something you didn't do, it becomes another tool in the cycle. And then there's hoovering. Just when you have started creating distance, they may suddenly reappear with affection, apologies, promises to change, gifts, dramatic declarations, a crisis, or a seemingly innocent message designed to see whether you'll respond.

  6. Sep 26 ·  Video

    Micromanipulation and Projection: The Hidden Tactics That Keep You Off Balance

    When you've spent weeks, months, or years being told that your feelings are wrong, your reactions are the problem, or someone else's behavior is somehow your fault, trusting yourself again can feel very strange. Start small. Notice the pattern. Notice how you feel. Trust your gut. Set the boundary. And don't take the bait. Remember our Narcissism 101 mantra: We don't diagnose. We educate ourselves. We identify patterns. We learn what happened. And then we learn what to do next. You deserve to be treated with respect. You deserve to have your feelings respected. And you don't have to keep explaining yourself to someone committed to misunderstanding you. Buckle up, gorgeous. We're learning the language so we can recognize the patterns—and learn how to stop participating in them. You are not meant to do this alone. Together, we continue to rise.

  7. Sep 18 ·  Video

    Gaslighting and Breadcrumbing Explained: Recognizing Toxic Relationship Patterns

    Gaslighting? Breadcrumbing? In a high-conflict relationship, breadcrumbs aren't something you crunch on your chicken strips—and gaslights aren't an old-fashioned way to light a room! So what are they? Welcome back to Narcissism 101, Lesson 4 of Okay, So Here’s the Deal, where Marilee Grace breaks down two terms you may have heard all over social media but may not fully understand: gaslighting and breadcrumbing. This series isn't about diagnosing your ex or throwing around labels. It's about giving you language for the behaviors you experienced so they become less confusing—and so you can learn what happened and what to do next. In this episode, Marilee explains how gaslighting can cause you to question your own memory, perception, judgment, and even your sanity. She shares a powerful real-life example of a woman who was so certain she remembered an important family event that she began wondering if she had actually imagined it—until she found the program and tickets that proved she was right. It wasn't her. She wasn't going crazy. Marilee also explains breadcrumbing: the pattern of giving someone just enough attention, affection, and hope to keep them emotionally invested, followed by criticism, distance, or rejection. That push-pull cycle can create confusion, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, and a powerful craving for the next bit of attention. In this episode, you'll learn: What gaslighting actually means How gaslighting causes you to doubt your memory and perception The common tactics used in gaslighting, including denial, trivializing, and blame shifting Why documenting facts can help you reconnect with your own sense of reality What breadcrumbing looks like in a relationship or marriage How the pull-in/push-away pattern creates false hope Why intermittent reinforcement can make the cycle so difficult to break How gaslighting fits into the trauma bond cycle Why breadcrumbing is especially common in modern dating and dating apps Grounding and self-regulation techniques you can use when these patterns trigger a strong emotional response Why practicing your regulation tools now helps you use them when you really need them And remember: Not every behavior is gaslighting. Learning these terms isn't about labeling every difficult person or every disagreement. It's about recognizing patterns accurately so you can understand your own experience. Our Narcissism 101 mantra remains: We don't diagnose. We educate ourselves. We identify patterns. We learn what happened. And then we learn what to do next.

  8. Sep 11 ·  Video

    You Didn’t Miss the Red Flags… They Weren’t There Yet

    The person you fell in love with may have shown you exactly what you wanted to see. The intensity felt like connection. The attention felt like love. The future planning felt like security. And then things changed. Understanding the pattern isn't about blaming yourself. It’s about educating yourself so you can recognize the pattern if it ever appears again. Remember our Narcissism 101 mantra: We don’t diagnose. We educate ourselves. We identify patterns. We learn what happened. And then we learn what to do next. This episode covers some heavy ground, so give yourself permission to pause. Breathe. Haven. Tap. Get outside. Journal. Do whatever helps you return to a grounded, regulated place. You can do hard things. And you don't have to do them alone. Buckle up, gorgeous. We’re learning what happened so we can learn what to do next. Together, we continue to rise.

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About

Okay, So Here’s the Deal is a divorce recovery podcast for women who are done playing small after toxic or high-conflict marriages. Hosted by Amazon Best Selling author Marilee Grace, the show dives into healing after divorce, narcissistic relationships, identity shifts, self-love, and rebuilding life with clarity and confidence. We talk growth, grief, joy, boundaries, self-care, and reinvention—without sugarcoating it. If you’re navigating divorce, recovering from a toxic relationship, or ready to rewrite your story and rise unapologetically, this space is for you. We’ll laugh, cry, and grow together. Buckle up, beautiful—it’s time to rise.

Information

  • Creator
    Marilee Grace
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Okay, So Here’s The Deal