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A lot of times when you're in a relationship for a really long time, whether it's 19 years or it's five years, you really start to mesh into the relationship. You don't know who you are by yourself. You don't have any hobbies. You don't have any stuff of your own. When you divorce, that's one of the hardest things, right? Because you were a part of this whole family. You had all these in-laws and holidays.
Fourth of July parties and all of that kind of stuff, and now you're not invited anymore. So figuring that out, sometimes what a lot of times people don't tell you with divorce is just like the furniture and just like the house, sometimes friends get split, right? So you might not have those friends that you thought you were really good friends with. Sometimes divorce freaks people out.
And they oftentimes treat it kind of like death. Like they don't know what to say, so they don't say anything. So they just pull away and they stop calling and they stop inviting you. And you're like, you were one of my closest friends and you just left me when I needed you the most.
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Today's topic is not a pleasant one, divorce. To say the least, divorce is painful and extremely complicated.
But what I think often gets unsaid is just how lonely and publicly embarrassing it often is. Even when it's the best decision you could make and even when it's something you wanted or maybe something that you're excited about, it's still incredibly messy and complicated. And if there are children in the mix, just forget it. To help us get an ownership of this area, I invited certified divorce coach Cari D'Angelo to the show.
In our conversation, we dive deep into the sobering decision making that precedes the solution of a marriage, and we explore some of the common reasons that lead to separation. And of course, what's next? How do you move on? How do you heal and continue on with your life when it looks completely different now?
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So buckle up as we confront the myth, acknowledge the pain, and celebrate the resilience and fulfilling connections.
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So I thought an interesting place for us to start would be, how did you become passionate about supporting people through divorce? Because you could have gone the other route, right? You could have gone, let me try to keep them married, but you actually chose to support them through the transition. How did you end up there and give us a little background on that? I think honestly, it kind of started when I was a kid, right? My parents got divorced when I was a kid.
I'm the youngest of four, I was the only one left at home, and I think that I didn't get a lot of the support and consideration that I needed. And so my passion is really to support the kids of divorce, but kids of divorce don't have any control over the situation, the adults have the control. So I found that the more supported and the better...
The kids are, I'm sorry, the better the parents are, the better that the kids will be. I've also been divorced twice and I found that, and working with kids and families for 20 years, the kids really are impacted by divorce and I wanna help them through it. It's the number two most stressful thing that a person can go through.
So that's kind of what made me go that way. But like, why not trying to keep people together instead of like supporting them through, like, you know what I mean? Like it's, I think we have to answer that question because most people would go, well, why would you choose to support them separating instead of when all, it feels like all the forces are mostly organized around trying to keep the marriage intact in some way, if that makes sense, right?
And I think that's a great question. And I would say like, I'm probably the least pro divorce divorce coach. Right. Because if there's an opportunity to keep people together, I want to do that. Yeah. But sometimes the best thing for everybody, including the kids, is divorce. Right. It's better to have a single parent happy home than a two parent miserable fighting home.
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I remember being that kid, I remember being in the backseat of my parents' car, we were going on vacation for the weekend and they were fighting in the front seat and I remember saying to them, you should just get a divorce. And I think that was a big wake up call to my parents. They were just in a very bad place together. They weren't on the same page. It wasn't gonna work.
And I feel like sometimes the divorce is inevitable. It's going to happen. So I wanna help people through that hardship that will come. Yeah. I think divorce is this interesting thing because it almost, first of all, it's very public. When you're separating, it's not like you're going through a private health matter that you can reveal at your own. It's a very public experience.
And it almost feels like a social failure. Like you, it's like this thing, you're heading part of like reaching a grownup in life if you get married, right? Like that's kind of the narrative. And then when it doesn't work out, there is this epic social failure that is very public. And it feels, I mean, that's the word.
It just feels like there's something about it that's embarrassing and humiliating in some way. I'm speaking from personal experience, of course.
Sorry, Lowe. Who's that? Go ahead. I was just going to say, I remember making that decision of like, okay, divorce is the best situation here and feeling like a failure. Feeling like I couldn't make this work. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I tried so hard to make this work and I couldn't make it work. And what I realized is that I'm not the only one in the marriage. I'm not the only one.
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responsible for making it work. Sometimes I think you go into marriage with kind of rose-colored glasses, right? Or like you're not really being honest with yourself or maybe you're not being honest with your partner, vice versa. It's kind of a bad match to start with. So it's hard to make something work that wasn't really a good fit to begin with.
For the people listening, I just raised my hand and like, me. That's me. That was me. Well, and I think you're marrying what I'm trying to say. It's like, I think the part of going back to this idea of when is a should person, when do you separate and why supporting them through a separation?
I think part of what makes divorce so complicated is that there is all this social pressure and expectations. And sometimes, in my experience, people stay much longer than they should. I mean, I have a dear friend who's been in a bad relationship for 19 years. Wow. I mean, that's a long time for her to be unhappy, right?
And she's now in a place where she's taking the steps to go through this and is going through all the pain and the mourning of it now. But I also, but part of what she's dealing with, like I have wasted 19 years, right? Like, and waste in mindset and I don't know, it's a real waste, we can kind of get into that. But that's the experience that she's in, right? I stuck something out way longer than I should have. And I think part of it is because there is all the social pressure to make it work.
It does feel like a very public failure that you're trying to avoid. And yeah, a lot of times you end up rushing into these things because the romanticism of it. So it's a very complicated area, I think, for people. And so this is why I love the work that you're doing, because you're really working with them when they are probably the most upside down.
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Right. And I think too, I definitely fell victim to that. I would like to say, oh, the first time I got married, I was just so young. I wasn't really that young. I think I was like 27, which I think is old enough to know better. But I had that social pressure of like, you should get married, right? Like you need to get married. Like now is the time to get married. Everybody's getting married.
And so, that's what I did. I wasn't honest with myself about who he was and accepted him for who he was. I kind of had this perception of him, of his potential. Right? Because a lot of times we fall in love with potential, not reality. So I do take some responsibility for picking, right? But then when it does fall apart, you do have that like, oh my gosh, I've just wasted.
I wasted all of my 20s on this person. I've wasted all my 30s on this person. I've wasted 19 years of my life. And you kind of mentioned mindset. And I like to work on mindset a lot with my clients because so much of life is about mindset, right? You can wake up in the morning and say it's gonna be a great day, or you can wake up and say it's gonna be a terrible day. And whichever one you choose, that's the path you're going down.
So instead of saying like I wasted however much time, think about all the lessons that you've learned. Even if it, oh wow, I need to be real about who I pick. I need to be honest with myself. I need to be honest with the other person. I need to find somebody that is, I like to say, not a fixer upper, but a turnkey, right? Like doesn't need a lot of work. All you need is your toothbrush kind of a thing.
But you know, really being honest about everything and kind of taking the lessons from it. You've grown, you've learned, maybe you've figured out what not to do. And it takes time, takes time. And unfortunately, growth does not come from the comfort zone. The comfort zone is comfortable, but not much happens there. Nope. Say hello to the people in the back.
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It really doesn't as much as y'all try. Right. I mean, the comfort zone is comfortable. Don't get me wrong. I love the comfort zone, but not much growth there. Not much. Let's go deeper into that. What is the work that you do with your clients as a divorce coach? What's the process? So I get clients throughout the process, right?
There might be a client that calls me and says, I'm thinking about divorce, right? Maybe I found this out, my spouse doesn't want to be married anymore for whatever reason, and I'm doing my homework and I'm trying to figure this out. They have not hired an attorney, they don't know what divorce looks like. Sometimes they're the first one of their group, whether it's their family or their friends, that are facing divorce, right?
It could also be I have when she contacted me, she said, we're stuck, right? We need to get unstuck. We're stuck in this process. I need help with the next step, whatever. So I kind of jump in to that point all the way until the end of like, hey, we got our final judgment and I'm heartbroken. I can't move on. I don't wanna do life without my other half or I don't know how to share the kids or my ex is terrible and I don't want my kids to go with him.
And so we kind of work through all of that. And I let my clients know that I'm going to help them with their emotions. I'm going to help them with that mindset. I'm going to help them with the paperwork. If anybody's ever been divorced, you know that there is a lot of paperwork. It's insane. It's crazy.
It all you need is one tiny little piece of paper to get married, but you need mountains of them to get divorced. Right, right, right. And a lot of it can be really overwhelming. When you meet with your attorney for the first time and they give you this 27-page financial affidavit that you have to complete that talks about car maintenance and gas and electricity and health and medicine and all this stuff, it's overwhelming.
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So I work with clients like, okay, how can we get this done in a reasonable amount of time for your attorney? Can we work on five pages at a time? And I really try to empower my clients to where they're doing the work, right? Because I don't want to take it away from them, but that it's indigestible bites, right? If you've ever heard the expression, how do you eat an elephant? Do you know how to eat an elephant, Harry? One bite at a time.
So that's kind of how you tackle that paperwork, right? But also a lot of times parents will come to me and they say, well, we're getting a divorce and our kids don't know. Okay, how old are your kids? Well they're three and five. Okay, yeah, your kids probably don't know. Oh, my kids are 11 and 14. Chances are your kids are a lot more tuned in than you realize.
And they're concerned about what to tell the kids, how to tell the kids. Do we tell them together? My ex told them without me. So I kind of coach them through that. Whatever the case might be, again, a lot of mindset, but like how to tell your kids and what to tell your kids. So your kids aren't having to recover from this experience. Right? Or recover so much. Yeah.
Couples together or I mean, I'm sure you work with individuals a lot as well, but do you ever work with them together? I'd be curious. Typically, it's one party contacts me and I work with the one party. I have had a couple of couples come to me together. Typically, one person is a lot more open to coaching and the other person isn't as much. And if they were both open to coaching, they'd probably stay married, right? If they agreed on everything, they'd probably stay married. But yeah.
Couples can, I've done a couple of couples together, but typically it's one party. Got it. And how, I guess, I think it would be interesting to kind of, how do you know you're ready to talk about it? How do you know it's time or do you have advice for people who are in that conversation of this might be me and how do I?
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How do I do this in the best way possible? Yeah, I think that when you're facing divorce, first of all, the only people that know your relationship are the people that are in your relationship, right? So if a client calls me and says, A, B, and C happened, what do you think? Do you think I should get a divorce? That's not up to me. That's not my decision. I can ask you some questions and we can kind of talk through it to where maybe you're gonna reach a decision.
But ultimately, it's the two people in the marriage that it's their decision. Now, I know from personal experience, you can't make a marriage work by yourself. I've tried, I've done the legwork, it doesn't really happen. So that's one part of it, right? The other piece that I would say to consider is what has happened, right? Typically, there's something that has happened to drive these two people apart.
Is it something that you can forgive? Is it something that you can move past? And that's an individual answer. That's an individual decision. And you might think you can move past it today and change your mind tomorrow. And that's fine. But making that decision is really up to those two parties. Again, definitely can have a conversation about it. And but I feel like it's a it's a long term decision.
Right? Like, I don't think that people should throw around the word divorce. Let's just get a divorce. I'm going to divorce him. Divorce, divorce, divorce. It takes the power away from the word divorce. It kind of makes you all talk and no action. Right. You toss it around so much. And then it kind of if you're saying it around your kids, it puts your kids in this state of anxiety. Right.
Because they have friends whose parents are divorced and maybe they get along or maybe they don't. And then they're like, are mom and dad going to get a divorce? What's going to happen? Right. So I definitely caution people. I think divorce is a last resort. I think it's best to try, try, try again. But divorce is a very personal question and one that should be taken very seriously. What are the I don't want to say reasons.
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But, I think what are some of the common behaviors or reasons that you see lead people down that path? So the number one reason that people get divorced is a lack of commitment, right? That's what all the studies say, lack of commitment. However, I feel- Say more about that. You don't mean, do you mean like infidelity commitment or do you- That's just a separate reason. Which I found very interesting.
Lack of commitment could mean so many things, right? It could mean infidelity, like you mentioned. It could mean that you're just not showing up for me. You're not keeping in communication with me. You're not here. But lack of commitment is number one. How where where was this the study you said? Yeah, I can't I can't remember the exact the exact study.
But I did some research not too long ago and found that and I found it to be very interesting. And fidelity was listed separately. So because I was like, oh, lack of commitment, fidelity. The leadership coach in me says, oh, that makes perfect sense. But I'm going to be surprised that I'm going to say I'm surprised to hear that. I would have thought people would have said things that are more circumstantial and not a context.
Like, no, it's just a lack of commitment, but it makes perfect sense. OK. Any other reasons? Money is a big one, right? One person spends too much, the other person saves too much. They don't agree on money. Infidelity is another one. I think that especially in this day and age with technology and apps and websites and things like that, I think infidelity is easier than it used to be. Right.
Way back when we didn't even have caller ID, right? Much less texting or anything like that. There was no website that you could message each other on. You mean if you're to get caught? Well, I mean, I'm saying like, you weren't, it wasn't as easy, right? Like now, there's a website that you can go to to have an affair. Really? There's a website that you can go to to have an affair.
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With other people looking to have an affair, not a relationship, like legit affairs. Wow. Well, a few years ago, when my parents were married, when I was a kid, we didn't have that. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Oh, I mean, I wouldn't know, but it definitely doesn't seem like something that would exist. Okay. And so what? So okay. So you've gone through some of the reasons why we think that it heads down that path.
Something that's missing for me in some of what you shared is you wait too long to get proactive about, well, there's two things. I think number one is you stop working on the relationship. I think there's something that you take for granted and we're married and that's it. And it's like, no, you still, it's like, so I just spent all this money doing landscaping and fixing my yard.
But that's just the one time thing. Like I still have to go out there and pick all the weeds and water it every day and pick up the leaves that are dry and put mulch and fertilizer. Just cause you do this big one time effort. And I think what happens over time is that people stop doing that. They stop doing the work to make sure that the garden is still growing.
And so, yeah, all of a sudden, a few years in, I haven't tended to the garden. Well, it looks like crap, but it doesn't look good anymore. It's like overrun and nothing has been trimmed and it's just a hot mess now. And now I'm like, eh, coming home is a burden, coming home is a... So I do think that that's one of the things that I see. The other thing that I see is that people don't get proactive about heading it up at the front.
Like, all of a sudden you start to get annoyed, you start to have undelivered communication, you start to have these issues and the intimacy starts eroding, but you don't interfere. You don't say, hey, you know what? We're not ourselves right now. Let's reconnect, let's go on a date night,
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let's go on vacation or you know what, why don't we do some therapy so that we can come back to each other. You let it bubble and fester and fester to a point where it just becomes impossible to come back to. Even if you want to, there's been so much history at this point. There's been so many things said. There's been so many, oh, another one. People don't know how to fight. Right, right. People don't know how to like, like, I think.
a good, I mean, tell me what you think. Productively. They can't fight. Yeah, like you, yeah, like you can, it's okay to have a disagreement. It's okay to have a fight. It's okay to be angry at each other, but are you doing it within the commitment of we're trying to get to the other side of this? And what people start to do is they do it within a commitment of trying to get each other, trying to dominate, trying to win the argument. Right.
I mean, that was something you talk about your 20s that it might be that you should have known better. And my thought was like, is it true? Because I can tell you in my 20s, I was really about winning. I really- Looking back, I've definitely, thankfully, I've grown and I'm smarter than I was in my 20s. But to go, so I love analogies. I'm a big analogy person. And I kind of want to go back for a minute to your landscaping example.
So you think about landscaping, right? And whether you do it yourself or whether you hire a company, landscaping costs a lot of money, right? You got to buy the plants. You got to buy the mulch. You might have to rework some sprinkler systems or whatever. You might have to haul away all the old stuff or the old pavers and the old dirt and all of that kind of stuff. And you spend all of this money on this new landscaping.
Think of the wedding, right? The wedding is that new insulation. Everything is beautiful, everything is new, the mulch is nice and fresh, and everything is wonderful, right? But like you were saying, it takes time, and it takes maintenance, it takes going on dates, and being intentional with your relationship, right?
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And pulling the weeds and watering and all of that kind of stuff. And then when you see, oh my gosh, we have a problem here, there's bugs or we're really overrun with weeds or whatever and you can't do it yourself, you find a professional that can help you. Yeah. Right? Also known as maybe a therapist, maybe a relationship coach, whatever it might be, but you reach out to that professional to help you get your garden back into line, back at peak.
And when a plant dies, you don't leave the plant. You rip out the plant. You go get a new one. You put the new one in. You make sure you take care of it and all of that kind of stuff. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of maintenance. Because let me tell you, I have re-sotted my front yard probably three times. It looks terrible. I did not take care of it.
It's just a lot of it takes a lot of maintenance in relationships and intentionality dating, because I'm sure that other people have have heard this or seen this. But like, once you get married, it's not like, oh, thank goodness I got that person. No, you need to keep that person. Right. Yeah. That communication open, stay in line with them. And as you grow, I was I would always think of like,
And for those that are listening, think of like two parallel lines, right? And one of those lines start to veer off. Well, the other one needs to kind of veer with them, right? Instead of keep going straight. Now these parallel lines are growing apart. Those are the two people in the marriage. So you really have to kind of stay in line with each other to where you're moving with each other and staying connected.
Otherwise, the lack of commitment is going to sneak in. Infidelity might sneak in. If you're not communicating that money troubles are going to sneak in. But you really have to be intentional and be honest with each other, honest with yourself about what you want, how you feel, and being open to it. We're talking about people don't know how to fight. So many times I hear about fighting with name calling, cursing.
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And I love a good F-bomb. But cursing, name calling, the bad dicks. Cursing and cursing at you are two different things. Right, right. And cursing while calling names and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's bananas. And some violence, right? Punching holes in walls, throwing things. That's just, that's not good. It can't.
There's not a good ending to that, right? Yeah. Because a lot of times that's reactionary and not responsive. Yeah. And it's just, there are certain things that no matter what you do, you can't come back from. Right. Like once you chop that tree down, I can't replant that tree. I can try to plant another one, but that tree that you cut down in the garden is done. Like that will never come back.
And that's what happens a lot in those situations. So it's like, no, there are rules that you adhere to. There's lanes that you stay in. Something else that I wanted to throw in, I think is interesting right now, because we're in this time where our attention is just being pulled in so many different ways, right? Like we are overly stimulated. We have these devices that we are attached to is the first thing we grab in the morning is the last thing we put down at night. And
it'd be really interesting to see how that is also impacting how people are having relationships now. Because if I look at myself and my relationship, there are times where I can see us falling into a pattern where, okay, we've been watching TV for a week and we're tired, end of the day is very easy to sit yourself in front of the TV and just start to, and you're doing things together, right?
You're spending time together, but are you spending time together, right? And so if you do, we do it even ourselves, we have these moments where we're like, okay, no, TV down. Let's go for a walk or how was your day? Like, tell me, what was your favorite thing about you? Like where we even notice it with ourselves.
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So my point is that I think that that has to be another reason why people end up slowly disconnecting in some way. They start to use these other ways of escaping life or self-soothing or just naturally being pulled in all these different directions and you don't do the work of making sure that you're coming back to each other as well and tending to the garden. Right. And it's that intention, right? You have to be intentional. It's very easy.
And I'm going to kind of go off on a tangent a little bit, but it's so important and I just feel so passionate about it. I think that one of the big problems in society with all of the social media and the liking and the sharing and the commenting and all of that kind of stuff, it gives you this false sense of connectivity. You're not really connected and it's so much easier, and don't get me wrong, I'm the same way. It's so much easier to send somebody a quick text message. Hey, how are you?
Then actually call them or actually, see how I did call that shared my age, or actually like meet up with them to see them face to face, right? And we are so disconnected as a society that it's easy to connect to other people, right? To it's easy, what do they call them, like keyboard warriors or something like that, people that say all the mean things because it's right?
Because it's a comment or whatever, but they would never say it to your face. So I think that we really need to connect in a more authentic way with our partners, but also the people that are important to us. One of my very best friends, best friend that I grew up with, she lives like an hour away from me and we were roommates in college and all this kind of stuff. But like we're very different lives.
She's married with three kids and I'm a single mom. But every once in a while, my phone will ring and it's her. And she just calls me because she has 10 minutes to talk. And it's great because she'll talk to me and then she's like, okay, I just got where I'm going. I'll talk to you later. Okay, bye. And I can do the same thing with her. And a few years ago, we lost a friend unexpectedly to a heart attack. And it was kind of like, Just call.
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Whether they pick up or not, you just call. Make those connections, reach out to people. Hey, do you wanna grab lunch today? You wanna grab coffee? Just call them for, because you have the extra 10 minutes on your way to the grocery store. Yeah. And I think there's something really important about what you're saying too, because I think that one of the reasons that I've seen people end up in a divorce situation is because...
not only are they not tending to the garden of their relationship, they're not tending to their own garden. So if you're, if I often speak about it as integrity, if you're out of integrity with yourself, meaning you're not living your purpose, you're not living your authenticity, you're not doing the things that you wanna do, you're not eating healthy like you want to, you're not working out like you want to, you're not spending time with family, you're just not fulfilled, well, you're bringing that home every day.
Right? So I love what you're saying because it also is an important part of making sure that you are fulfilled in life and that you're tending your own garden so that you are whole and complete and then bringing yourself to another relationship, to the relationship whole and complete, not like a half-assed version of yourself that's now going to be a half-assed version of themselves in this marriage.
Like it can't work otherwise than the other person has to do the heavy lifting to pick up for the part that you're not bringing in to yourself wholly. Or we look for the other person to now fulfill and complete that other part of ourselves, which is a whole other podcast episode we can do right there. I agree. Yeah, you have to commit to yourself. Even if you put it in your agenda of like, okay, I'm going to exercise from whatever time to whatever time or...
I'm going to meal prep or whatever the case might be, you have to commit to yourself because you can't give what you don't have. 100%. So you do need to do that inner work and help yourself and heal the brokenness, right? Cause I think as I move through life, I feel like I run into all these different people that are talking about how they need to heal themselves how they need to do this work.
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And I'm like, I need to heal myself. I need to do the work. Like, are we all broken? I think we're all broken. I think we really are. I think we all have stuff we need to work on. Well, my take on that is that we all think we're broken. So we're caught in this illusion of brokenness.
And so now we're in reaction to that. But I do think that you're right in that we're all inside of the matrix together. Yes, I 100% believe that. A lot of the work that I do with my clients is like, you're fine, stop messing with yourself. You think you're the only one dealing with not doing that, but you're really not. Everybody goes through that or some version of that. Stop messing with yourself, leave yourself alone. Nothing's wrong with you. Okay, let's switch gears because there's, I'm sure there's a lot of people going like,
Okay, Cari and Gary, that's really great. Next relationship, I'll make sure that I'll do all that, but now I'm here, right? So let's spend some time giving people advice on now that you do find yourself in this place where you are transitioning out of your relationship, like what's the best plan? Like how do you do this with honor and grace and in the best way possible? What advice would you have for people?
Other than hiring you. Right. Hiring me would be a great choice. I think that going back to that honesty piece, right? Being honest with yourself, being honest with the person that you're in a relationship with, whether it's like, hey, listen, it's me, it's not you, right? Or this isn't serving me. I don't want to do this anymore. We keep staying in this stuck cycle.
and doing the work for yourself, whether it's you grab a book and you really try to figure out who you are. Because a lot of times when you're in a relationship for a really long time, whether it's 19 years or it's five years, you really start to mesh into the relationship. You don't know who you are by yourself. You don't have any hobbies. You don't have any stuff of your own.
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And when you divorce, that's one of the hardest things, right? Because you were a part of this whole family. You had all these in-laws and holidays and Fourth of July parties and all of that kind of stuff, and now you're not invited anymore. So figuring that out, sometimes what a lot of times people don't tell you with divorce is just like the, just like the furniture and just like the house, sometimes friends get split. Yeah. Right?
So you might not have those friends that you thought you were really good friends with. Sometimes divorce freaks people out and they oftentimes treat it kind of like death. Like they don't know what to say, so they don't say anything, so they just pull away and they stop calling and they stop inviting you. And you're like, you were one of my closest friends and you just left me when I needed you the most. So kind of really figuring out what you want, what you enjoy.
Taking care of yourself, drinking more water, exercising, going for walks, doing the things that you enjoy. Go get a book from the library, go to the beach, start walking. There's tons of exercise videos on YouTube, eating well, right? Because you have to treat your body well to feel well. So doing all of those things, one of the things that really helped me that I'll share.
Because a lot of times when you are faced with, okay, this is probably the best decision, right? Like divorce, this is it. And then you go back into that like, oh, but he's the father of my child. And then you're like, no, no, divorce is the best situation. Oh, but he knows my family. I know his family. Whatever, you're in that comfort zone, right? I made a list and I got this from a friend.
I made a list of all the things, all the fights, all the stuff, and I'm not going to get into detail, but all the things. And there was a long list of things. So when I felt that sadness creeping in, or I felt that loneliness creeping in, or I felt that urge to let me reach out and text this person and I wonder what they're doing, and I wonder if they miss me too or whatever, I would read that list. And it would help me so much of why am I doing this? Right? Why am I choosing to end this?
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Why is this the best case for everybody? Remembering the why and making that list. Obviously, you're not doing this list for your friend to read. You're not doing the list for your parents, especially not for your children. They should not have access to this. It's really just for you and your own peace of mind and healing and a way to help you move on.
So I would say, make the list, take care of yourself, find things that fill your cup, reach out for help. A lot of people are more willing to help you than you realize. I've never reached out to somebody for help and they say like, I don't want to. No. Most of the time I'm like, hey, I really like to do this or I'd really, I need this or I need a ride or whatever the case is. And of course, sure, no problem.
So I think that a lot of times divorce can be very isolating. It can be very shameful and you don't wanna reach out and you don't wanna put your stuff on other people. But sometimes that's what's gonna help you the most. Yeah. I mean, I find that that's advice that I often give anytime you're mourning anything or going through any transition, your self-care needs to increase. But I think it's especially true with divorce because it is a death of sorts.
And here's the tricky part, guys. I find this is true even when you're really excited about your divorce. Like when I stepped away from my marriage, I was like, whew, a sense of relief. It was like, oh my god, that's over. And finally, and I can breathe. But I was still mourning that something was over and that this vision of my life that I had set on this path was over.
And it hit me in weird times. Like all of a sudden I'd be driving down the street and I get emotional for some reason. And it was like, what? But like allowing that and writing it and working it through your journaling and through your self care practices and being really gracious with yourself really allowed me to move through it.
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And here's the other thing that I did that really was key for me. When people asked me how I was doing, I was actually honest. I wasn't, I didn't do the whole, I'm fine, every day is a, I was like, I really talked about, well, today's a crappy day. Or yeah, you know what? I, I'm doing okay, but then I see things in the house and I'm like, oh, I have to, or today I decided to rearrange the furniture just to changed the feng shui energy of the apartment.
Like I really talked about it. And that talking about it allowed me to process all that energy very quickly, I'm gonna say. So instead of holding and suppressing and just going into like a darker place, it just allowed the energy to flow. So I definitely would encourage you, cause the instinct I think a lot of times is just to hide it and pretend you're okay and put on the smiley face and try to avoid embarrassment.
But find those safe places in your life where you can do that and use them, right? Use them. It doesn't have to be from a place of soaking in your pain and just whining. It really can be from a place of like, I'm sharing this to get it out of my body. I'm sharing this to process it and release it. Super powerful as well.
I couldn't agree more. I think that there is a lot of healing when you put words to it. When the words actually leave your mouth, it is so healing, but it has to be done, like you were saying, in a safe space with somebody that cares about you, that can validate, you know what? Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it stinks. It's sad. All of those things, but going through that and sharing it verbally, right?
And not romanticizing the past relationship and really focusing on the truth, right? Yeah. I think another piece of advice that I wanna give people is, if you still have enough workability in the relationship, meaning there's enough partnership and a commitment to end in the greatest way possible.
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I find creating almost like an agreement, like a contract, like what are the rules? Like what's our new vision? Now that we're co-parenting, like we're still in each other's lives. How are we going to transition and create, like really like storyboard it, like create your new relationship in words? And then what are the rules? How are we going to handle disagreements? How are we going to handle conflicts with our child? How are we going to co-parent together?
Like get all those things in paper because when you articulate them and you create agreements, it creates a roadmap at least. That's not to say you're not gonna have moments where you go out of, you have a technical file. But if you have two people that are committed and they still want to work on this, I think it's a beautiful process to go through and create a new vision to replace the old one.
Because the old one is dead. So then what's the new thing guiding you? What's the new thing giving you your direction? So that's also a really powerful exercise that I've seen couples do. I think it's a powerful exercise to do when you're in a relationship as well and things are working. Like what are the rules of engagement? How do we handle disagreements? How do you like to know when you're, how do you like to express love to? What do you need from me? And those types of things.
So that's another powerful exercise to do. I wanna thank you for coming on the show. Divorce is interesting. It's this thing where there's so much shame, there's so much confusion, there's so much pain that's all just swirling around in a hurricane of emotions. And it's all valid. It's all valid and there's nothing wrong with you.
And I hope that if you are going through this process, that you have found some inspiration in this conversation. And just know that you're not alone. You're really, really not. There's some really amazing, great people that have gone through this experience as well, and they have gone on to have amazing lives, Carrie and myself included, when you're going through it. It feels like the end of the world. But there is hope. It does, it does.
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In the human experience, we don't want to be alone. And with divorce rates being 40 to 50% of all first marriages ending in divorce, I promise you that you're not alone. Whether you know somebody, whether they're talking about it or not, you're not alone in divorce. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Kari. If you want to connect with Kari, we're going to put her website and social media handles in the show notes. So definitely reach out to her.
She's an amazing resource. And I wish you all the luck in the world through your transitions in life, listeners. Carrie, thank you so much for joining us. You've been a joy. And I hope that we have you back on the show again. Absolutely. Thanks so much.
Divorce is an incredibly personal experience. And ultimately, you have to make the call to determine if it's the right choice for you and your family. What I can say is, I promise you, you're not alone. And with time and some personal work, you and your kids and your ex partner will all be okay. Whatever you do, don't hold on to the anger and the hurt. I know it's easier said than done.
And you may have to invest in yourself by getting a coach or a therapist to help you do this work, but it's 100% possible for you to heal and release the pain and come out on the other side thriving. Lastly, don't underestimate the power of forgiveness. Not just for your ex. Yes, your ex. But also for yourself. From my own experience, I can tell you there is no better medicine than forgiveness.
And I'm gonna go as far as saying that until you do, you can't really move on from the divorce. You'll get stuck in a loop reliving the experience in different iterations. What happened happened. And if you would have known better, you would have done better. The key is, what can you learn from it now? How have you grown from it? And what's now possible in your life because of those lessons? As always, thank you for joining us.
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