Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Lee HaLL, Clarity Media. We're here for the first episode of Divorce the Aftermath. And you can't see my camera because I'm not on camera, because this podcast is about divorce and I haven't had the opportunity to be divorced yet. Well, I have been in an engagement that ended, which is kind of similar to a divorce, but I haven't gone through the marriage licensing, living together, married, and all that great stuff. So I have three amazing women here, and before we dive into that and introduce them.
What did I say? Three, four.
Hey, I know you will. I know you will.
So, yeah, four amazing women here to share their stories. And before we dive into that, the main objective for this podcast is to not only share your stories with others so that they can learn, but also sometimes releasing this information from your body gives you more relief. And I think that in our world today, we don't share content that's meaningful enough to help each other. Right? Imagine all the information we need existing in the world inside other people's minds, and it's just never shared. And so this podcast is meant to express some of the things you've all experienced in your divorce. How it happened, why it happened, so that people who are going through those things can be reassured that there is life after divorce. And more importantly, so that they can see that, hey, you're not alone. But my stance on it is I believe that we're designed to be with someone. I think that that's the way the universe created it. I don't want to use God because I don't know how people feel about religion, but I think we were designed. Our body tells us that. And so during this podcast, you guys can share your stories. Say as much as you want, or as least as you want, but promise me you'll be okay. So with that, without further ado, I'm going to let Danielle take it away.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: All right. I'm Danielle. I am 42. I work in advertising in the automotive space. I was with my ex for 15 years. We were married for 13.
We have a 10 year old and 3 year old, both boys.
We've been officially divorced for couple months. So fairly, fairly recent. Separated for about six months.
And that's. That is me in a nutshell.
[00:02:23] Speaker C: Thank you. Well, my name is amy and I'm 57 years old, happily 57 years old for the most part. I can't say that there aren't times when I Wish I was 22 again, but not too often.
I was in a relationship and married for over 23 years.
We just missed our 20th anniversary.
Just a few days before our 20th anniversary, our divorce was final. And I left the courthouse with a smile on my face. I have to say, I felt like divorce for me was the separation was far more painful, that separation, being married that long. And we were managing the death of a child. Our twin son died when he was three months old and he was premature in the hospital, so technically he was supposed. He died on his due date. And so there was a lot of pain in our marriage and a lot of unspoken, unmanaged issues. As much as we worked at it, and especially me, I got therapy and he chose to dive into work and become a serious workaholic. Started drinking too much and, you know, from there we just stopped making good decisions together and started seeing the world differently about year 10. And so we didn't, I wouldn't say we lived separate lives. We lived very well as a family unit, but we didn't have a marriage, you know, in every sense of the word. And so I decided when I separated and left the marriage that I was going to be my best self and that nothing, not money, not what people think of me, I was going to do good in the world and make a difference. And I have already done that in several capacities, but not major impacts. And so I decided to just put it all out there. And so I'm now taking risks and pushing myself with two businesses. One's a youth soccer program and the other is as a recording artist. And I've done quite a bit of incredible work on those sides. And my ex is still my friend. I still care for him. I still want him to live his best life. I think a lot of what happened to us is very common with the death of a child. And I think that divorce rates around 90% in those cases.
And so yes, therapy can help and everything, but a lot of times that doesn't even do it because it's such a trauma to the, to the family unit. So, you know, he's being more supportive and clearly knows that, you know, withdrawing from me over many years and not having my back and not giving me the credit that I was due for all the work that I did as a, as a, as a stay at home mom, a child essentially with special needs. Not in the most significant way was she special needs, but, you know, I had, I could not go back to work, you know, a few months after she was home, it was not possible. There was too much that she needed care for and to get her developmentally ready.
So I, I feel like things are Going, well, what I'm doing right now with my life and with the support of my daughter and my ex is, you know, limited, but it's better than it was before is, is something that's, it's going to be special.
And, and I'm happy to, you know, motivate myself in a couple different ways. And one of my biggest motivations is the people that don't believe in me.
I think that is a big thing that I learned as an athlete in college that, you know, anybody that tells you that you can't do this or you can't do that, use that as fuel to prove them wrong and don't let that get in your way. Don't take it personally. It's never about them or it's never about you. It's about them. When they come at you with the not believing in you or not believing you're capable of things, use that as fuel. Never let that take away from who you want to be. And so I'm experiencing middle age enlightenment, not crisis.
[00:06:41] Speaker D: I like that.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: It's awesome.
[00:06:42] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:06:44] Speaker D: I'm erica. I am 41 years old. I have three children. They are currently 15, 18 and 21.
And I was 15 when I started dating my now ex husband. And we got married at the stupid age of 19.
And I was pregnant with my oldest son at the time. Even though I said that was not a factor in why I got married. Of course it was.
And we were together a total of 14 years. I filed for divorce the month before our 10 year anniversary and I am very happily, freely divorced with. How long has it been?
Oh, I told y'all, today was a significant date in my, like divorce journey.
It was like the night of a big fight that I was just like, I'm, I can't, I can't keep going. I'm done. And so that was 12 years ago today.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Really? Yeah.
[00:07:41] Speaker D: I'm very like calendar oriented, so I remember dates and it's continued to be a significant date in my life. But it was also our first original anniversary. Our like high school, you know, sophomore and high school anniversary. So just like interesting full circle. Yes. So I'm spending it with you all.
[00:08:00] Speaker E: Oh, I'm Anna. I'm 46 years old. I have two kids. 16. My son's 16, my daughter's 12.
My ex and I were together since we were 17. That's when we started dating.
And we were together for 26 years.
26 years together, married, 17. And so I've been divorced for two and a half years.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: We went through a pretty stressful six month, a year period of time.
My ex had been an insurance agent and we had decided to sell his agency because it was just a long drive where he was located. And initially he was going to open another agency closer to home. And we came away from the sale with a decent amount of money where we had no business debt. And he and I had talked and I was like, hey, I'm only going to say this once, but if you, if this is not what you want to do, this is the right opportunity to make another choice.
Because, because of me being a fairly type a person, he had kind of let me accidentally steer some of his career decisions over the years. And he was very good at the insurance business, but I wasn't sure that it was something he really loved. And so it was like, this is, if you want to make a different choice, this is the time to do it. And I didn't say anything more than that. I'm like, almost a month went by and then he was like, hey, I've been thinking about what you said and I really don't think this is what I want to do. I was like, okay, then what do you want to do? And he said, I honestly have no idea. So at the time we had downsized our house because we were trying to make time more of a commodity than money. It was like, okay, if we can try to right size things where we don't need more money, we can try to start prioritizing time. Which was part of the reason we were trying to move his office closer. We were trying to make all these life changes to prioritize time. And so during that time he found a job just to have something to do, but also have a little bit of income coming in while he was trying to figure out what he wanted to do. And one day he came home and was like, I think I really want to be a cop. And I was like, okay, if that's what you want to do. He was worried about the scale, schedule and stuff. But when he and I had first met, he was an operations manager for ups. So we were very familiar and comfortable with nights and crazy hours and things like that. We're always, we've always been very independent people.
So I was like, that's fine if that's what you want to do. Well, the process to become a cop is extensive. So this was, you know, three, four, five month process of interviews and polygraph tests and health, you know, health test, all these things. So he finally got hired on and they decided that they were going to send him to an academy that with rush hour traffic, was almost two hours away from our house. And so we decided to basically pay for an RV spot in that city park, our RV there. He was going to live there during the week, come home on the weekends. That way he could be engaged in school and be engaged with kids at home instead of just being exhausted and useless.
But because of that, I was managing all of our finances. I was managing the kids, my job and everything. And so when he would come home on the weekends, a lot of times, because I show dogs as a hobby, I would leave. Like, he would come home on Friday and I would be so tapped out that I would be like, it was great to see you. Bye, bye, I'll see you Sunday. And so we went through a several month period where we really were not spending any quality time together.
And so a couple months into that, we had some not great behavior on his part come to light that kind of led to a come to Jesus meeting between he and I that we, you know, tried to address when a couple months more down the road, we thought things were okay.