Uncovered: Life Beyond

34. From Judgement to Joy: Navigating Divorce in Conservative Communities (Part 2)

July 21, 2024 • Naomi and Rebecca • Episode 34

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This is a continuation of the previous episode where we pull back the curtain on Naomi's divorce journey and her perspective six years later. We address systemic issues that often leave women feeling trapped--issues such as financial dependency, lack of education, and inadequate support from family and faith communities. We also discuss the benefits of no-fault divorce laws, which have been proven to reduce female suicides and domestic violence. The evidence makes a compelling case for seeing divorce not as a failure but as a path to empowerment and healthier, more authentic relationships.


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Speaker 1:

This is Rebecca and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.

Speaker 2:

We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we've questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.

Speaker 1:

Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers.

Speaker 2:

We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.

Speaker 1:

So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. Hello everyone, welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi, and this episode is part two of my conversation with Rebecca about my experience with divorce. If you haven't heard part one, that is episode 33. I strongly recommend going back and listening to that first, because that will give you a lot of important background for what we're talking about in this episode. Thanks so much for listening, and here's the rest of the show the show.

Speaker 2:

So I'm really curious, like imagine yourself back. How long have you been divorced? Five years, 10 years, Not 10?

Speaker 1:

No, no, no, not 10. Five, yeah, okay, five separated more like six.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so imagine yourself like five or six years ago. What, at that time, were you needing most from your conservative Anabaptist friends and family? What were you needing and what were you hoping and longing for?

Speaker 1:

That's an interesting question, because what comes to my mind is more about things I was hoping to not get. Yeah. And then then, to even even go so far as to wish for something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, one thing that one thing I definitely didn't want or didn't need was anyone's homophobic sympathy yeah, didn't need was anyone's homophobic sympathy, and that was what I was afraid of and that made it really hard for me to be honest or, to be frank, to share with people, because my view is that homophobia is what created the situation in the first place. And I think if people were free to be true to themselves early on instead of feeling pressured to fit into certain boxes, then we wouldn't be getting into the kind of situations that I was in.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

So the way that I protected myself from homophobic sympathy was to not talk much, and I know that some family members really expressed genuine concern and care and regret that they couldn't be there to support me. But what I didn't say but was thinking was like but I couldn't tell you because I knew what your support would look like and that wasn't what I needed. So I don't need to be reminded about the evils of divorce. I don't need to be reminded. Think about how this is going to impact the children.

Speaker 1:

I can assure you and anyone, anyone, especially someone from our background, but even beyond that, someone who's considering divorce is considering it as a last resort. Believe me, they have tried everything. They have already thought about what kind of impact this is going to have on the children. They have done everything they can imagine to prevent this. And when folks come at them going well, you know God hates divorce or you know, kind of reminding them, don't forget. You know you think this is going to solve all your problems, but everywhere you go, there you are. Yeah, it's so horrible.

Speaker 1:

If you haven't solved you know, if you haven't come to terms with these conflicts now, you'll just run into them in another relationship. Oh, my goodness, please let me assure you everybody who is considering divorce has already thought about that long and hard. And all the personal narratives that I've heard, the stories that I've heard. Nobody is chomping at the bit. Anyone who is going into a divorce happily is doing so because it is coming on the heels of years of frustrated efforts. So, I think, genuine expressions of care, how are you doing? I'm thinking of you. I think of one, when our split was made public on Facebook, a friend who I knew through my ex so she wasn't someone who I was close to particularly, I knew her through my ex and she just sent me a Facebook post, a Facebook message, that said something like I'm thinking of you or you know, love you, or something really sweet. She didn't even address the situation specifically.

Speaker 2:

She just talked about you, but it really touched me yeah.

Speaker 1:

It really touched me. Yeah, it really touched me Because she understood, she understood the implications Right. So I guess what I'm saying. I think whenever anything devastating happens, whether it's a divorce or a death, or somebody gets fired or you know just million and one horrible things that can happen in life it's hard to know sometimes how to express that care and concern without being nosy or coming off that way. And I guess that is an example of the kind of way that someone can reach out. Even someone who does not feel very close can reach out and express love and support.

Speaker 1:

Now let me say too, this is a person who is not from our conservative background but who is familiar with it, who is familiar with some really homophobic church groups. So when I say she understands what was the implications, she really understood, she got it. She got it and I don't know where she stands, to be honest. But she may disapprove of same-sex relationships too, for all I know. I don't know, I don't know where she stands on that, but I was really touched by her expression of care.

Speaker 2:

And I think it so beautifully speaks to the way that so often we think that we can't do anything or that you know, I can't, I don't know, come have coffee with you so I can't do anything, right, or I don't want to be nosy and ask for details, but all it really takes is a three-minute Facebook message saying I see you and I'm sorry, and I love you. I mean, that's really all that has to be done to show care.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and, and it means more than we think, and I forget this all the time. I forget this all the time. Yeah, but then when I yeah, when, when I'm on the receiving end, whoa.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's it's, it's really meaningful. I think some other things that especially those of us who have not been around divorce don't think about are we are programmed to see it in a negative light. We're programmed to see it as here's someone you know, to see it with suspicion, but the reality is, again, it is an incredibly difficult, complicated, messy time in life. Right, difficult, complicated, messy time in life. Every situation is different, which I mean, so it's fair to go. I'm not sure what's going on here, you know, like you know, especially if some stuff is kind of getting leaked out, information's getting leaked out here and there and you're not sure what's the rumor mill or what's. You know, and it can be hard to know.

Speaker 1:

But I had the amazingly good fortune of having an amicable split and so my ex and some family friends helped me move. But there are other folks where it's not that way and like the move is a traumatic thing or it has to be done in secret or it is, you know, again, a million one different things and they're setting up a new place. Right, they split, you know if they've split household goods. Also, when you think about like a young couple who first gets married, and you know, in our communities, we, our society, generally, right, we have. We have traditions set up to support them. We've got wedding showers, wedding presents, all this community support around the wedding, all this.

Speaker 1:

But when you've got a divorce, it's kind of like a death and a. It's the complication of a death and a wedding combined kind of, Without the support systems, Without the support systems. Yeah, yeah, and so and I have got to give props to you you sent me, uh, an amazing supply of towels, new towels and washcloths, and I I still use them and I so appreciate them because it's as much what it symbolized as the things themselves. It's not that I couldn't go out and buy myself a few towels enough to get me through. It wasn't just the reality of the financial difficulty of the time, but having fresh linens when you have a fresh start is really meaningful. So, thank you, that really meant the world to me.

Speaker 2:

You are so welcome. I would have forgot that. I sent that.

Speaker 1:

And they came in batches, I remember, and I was like, oh, here's four. So no, it was awesome, they just kind of kept showing up.

Speaker 2:

They kept showing up. Yeah, yeah, if I remember correctly, it was Kohl's, wasn't it? And Coles does do that, like they send this and then they send this, and then they send this. And I always think are you guys not organized? Do you need me to help you?

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh. To go back to what I was saying a second ago about a divorce being like a wedding and a death combined, where the you know where the financial cost of a burial we know that's significant. We know the financial cost of a wedding is significant and let me tell you, the financial cost of a divorce is huge too, and I again had the amazingly good fortune of having an amicable split, and the more amicable that you can keep things, the less expensive it will be. You can't get away from it being expensive, but it will save you so much money if you can keep it amicable and I recognize that's not always possible. I mean, that's like that's.

Speaker 2:

Just like you can't dance the perfect dance to keep your marriage together, neither can you dance the perfect dance to make your divorce amicable.

Speaker 1:

Right, Because if keeping a marriage together is tough, keeping a divorce amicable is Right right. Yeah, because it's not well.

Speaker 2:

I guess it's like a wedding in reverse, except without all the good feelings, and I almost think sometimes the more resources you have, the more likely it is to get ugly. And I also feel like in those situations, oftentimes the woman is the one who loses oh, 100%. And I am here to say the system is broke. It is so broken. I am so frustrated with stories that I hear from my friends, from their attorneys who let them down, from their attorneys who just want more money, from their attorneys who aren't doing their work. And the husband leads them dry, yes, or the ex leads them dry. It's a thing, it is a problem. If I could solve anything on earth, I would solve that problem. And I'm also frustrated to death that out of all the brilliant attorneys we have, no one can figure out this problem.

Speaker 1:

Well, unfortunately, attorneys are incentivized to drag things out. Yes, they are, and finding a good attorney is huge, and I mean there's no way of knowing for sure Other than getting recommendations from others. That's like you're, and sometimes you don't have that luxury of having someone to ask for a recommendation, for a recommendation. It is terrifying to think of all the different ways things go. And I agree with you the more assets there are, the more likely things will get messy, because there's more to fight over, and in our case it was. We didn't have assets, we had debt and luckily we were able to split it. You know, it was kind of a it wasn't a complicated split and so, again, that was. That was an advantage I had.

Speaker 2:

A lot don't have I feel like I should throw this in while we're talking about attorneys and this is just for anyone who's listening, just so you're not taken by surprise and I think I can say this without crying with a woman who desperately needed an attorney, whose husband had so many affairs, whose husband was living well and she was pinching pennies and when I say he was living well, he was living well. The church was patting him on the back, all the things. The attorney looks at her and says you don't have enough money for me to represent you. I have sat with people who have that experience by attorneys who consider themselves Christian. I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to fix it.

Speaker 1:

And I'm so glad you brought that up, because I think that scenario is far more common than mine. I think so too, and so when we talk about what kind of support is needed, I think I'm so glad you brought that up, because having a friend to go with you, having a person who is less emotionally involved in the situation to be there with you when you talk with your attorney, can be so valuable, especially in a situation like that, If there's any way possible to get another person to go with you when you go talk to the attorney.

Speaker 1:

It's kind of like when you go to the doctor, when you get some really serious diagnosis. The recommendation is bring someone with you, bring a support person with you.

Speaker 2:

Well, and we talk about how setting foot on a college campus is scary, and it is Going to the guidance counselor's office and saying I have no earthly idea what I'm doing here. Help me, it is, it is. I don't think it is nearly as scary. Nearly as scary as going to an attorney and having the very real chance that he can look at you and say you don't have enough money for me to represent you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and for folks who find themselves in those situations, there are resources to reach out to. I can't promise they're going to be I mean, they're not going to fix everything but don't take that. Don't stop there. If you get that response, don't stop. Keep looking for help. You will find help. Sometimes you have to beat the bushes because you know if there, if there is an attorney who's going to do pro bono work or if there is some kind of an office that assists people in your situation, they're not going to have a big budget to market and promote their services, right? So it might be hard to find out about them, but keep asking for help.

Speaker 2:

Don't just give up and the other thing we need to make sure we have in our show notes is I have recommended the podcast Survival's Guide to Divorce to so many of my friends and so many of my friends.

Speaker 1:

What is it? Divorce?

Speaker 2:

Survival, divorce Survival Guide. Okay, so the podcast Divorce Survival Guide to so many of my friends, and many of them come back and say thank you, thank you, thank you. And this podcast just does an amazing job of preparing you. They're not preparing you for college, they're preparing you for divorce and they're making you, or they're setting you up so that you can go into it smart and savvy. And I just think it is such an important resource and I'm so glad, naomi, you've shared it with me because I have passed it on so often and I just think it's a really important tool because I think it's one thing to go into the college and be absolutely in the dark about what's happening. You don't want to go into an attorney's office and be in the dark.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I mean, an attorney is supposed to be helping you, you are hiring them, they are working for you and yet, but we know the power differential there because of all these other reasons, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And you're going to be paying him $350 an hour, I mean right, right, I mean, that's when we talk about the financial impact.

Speaker 1:

It's real, we, it is real, oh, oh. But I do want to say one other thing about financial impact before we move on, and that is I have heard more men talk about oh, divorce just wrecked them financially, it just ruined them financially, and I'm sure it did. I'm sure it did. But I can give you the stats, I can link you the stats, I can link to the stats.

Speaker 1:

The evidence is incredibly clear that divorce typically puts women in poverty, not men. If men are hurting financially from divorce, let me assure you the women are hurting worse. And I'm not saying that because of my feminist opinion. I'm saying that because that's the facts and I think that is something. A lot of men, the ones who are talking about that, are often not thinking about that. So, again, not to say men aren't impacted financially, they are. But the data are clear that the impact on women, women are the ones who tend to fall into poverty as a fallout of divorce, because of these very reasons.

Speaker 1:

And I also want to add here part of the reason is that the things that society tells us to do to invest in our marriages, so society tells us to give up our careers. Society tells us, focus on the family. The society tells us to sacrifice, to be just. You know, let go of our hobbies, just give our whole, all our attention to the family. And what happens then? When you find yourself in a situation where you're forced to divorce, you find that all that effort that you put into it doesn't count for squat in the divorce courts. It has set you up to be. It has set you up to be the loser in that outcome, and so the very thing society is telling women they should do to make their marriages work are the things that make them incredibly vulnerable if they ever do need to get a divorce.

Speaker 2:

The other thing that we're told is that we are supposed to trust our husbands, that we're supposed to assume good intention, that we're supposed to be submissive, we're supposed to just kind of follow their lead. And when I see women going into divorce assuming that their husband is, or their ex now is doing it in good faith, because that's what they've been taught to assume man that'll blow up.

Speaker 1:

That's exactly what I'm talking about. That kind of thing, yeah, yes.

Speaker 2:

And of course, I think in most relationships we should assume good intention. But if the results from these quote good intentions are consistently harmful and damaging, you need to reevaluate and be very aware if you're being harmed in a marriage, your divorce is going to be equally harmful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, worth it, but harmful, right, right, right. And I think this is again where there can be so much social judgment kind of like, well, you know this kind of suspicion and yet when you go into that it's obviously, I think, most of us. We don't want to be that bitter, suspicious kind of person. But I think this is where radical acceptance comes in. And radically accepting as much or consciously saying as much as I wish this relationship could be resolved, as much as I want to not have to go through the divorce, what I have to accept is that I'm in a situation where it cannot be fixed. I'm in a situation with someone who may not be acting in good faith. And radical acceptance does not mean rolling over and saying and making yourself even more vulnerable. Radical acceptance means recognizing your vulnerabilities. And here's the thing your children are not served by your vulnerability. Your vulnerability makes your children even more vulnerable. So when you are advocating for yourself in your divorce, you are advocating for your children.

Speaker 2:

Well, and I think, even when you're advocating for yourself and your relationships because even if you choose to stay, even if you're in a good relationship, we are in a good marriage we still have those narratives that were taught to us and, at least in my relationship, we're both, at some level, still operating at times from those old narratives, and I think it is important to advocate for yourself even in those situations and be like whoa, whoa, whoa I'm not sure how I feel about that, or wait, can you explain what you mean by that? Because I think your kids need to see you challenging scripts that are seen as normal, and I think your kids need to know what kind of relationship you want them to be in. Do I want my kids to be in a relationship the same way I am is something I often ask, and what do I want my kids to learn from the way I navigate my marriage.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely. And there's a narrative out there. I mean, the dominant narrative is all about self-sacrifice, right, but when I think about my children, nothing is more upsetting to them than for them to be worried about me and my well-being. Yeah, yeah, and I think about myself too, like when I think about my mom, if I'm concerned about her well-being, like that. That is so. That's disturbing to me on such a deep level.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

When I got the oven my mom had my mom and dad has sent me some birthday money that I had kind of tucked away over the last. It's been a while. Anyway, that helped me buy the stove and I texted my mom. Yeah, I texted my mom and I took so much joy. Now let me say my parents should not be sending me that money because they can't afford it. But it's so sweet of them and it gave me so much joy knowing it was going to give her joy to know that she helped pay for my stove. And I guess I'm just saying I just want to lift not that anyone needs my permission, but if it helps, I want to lift that burden from all the moms out there who feel that their misery is somehow benefiting their children.

Speaker 2:

It's not.

Speaker 1:

It's not. It's not. What children need is a happy mom, and we could have a whole podcast series on that, but kids need a happy mom and kids need a happy mom period.

Speaker 2:

Right, so moving on. What surprised you most about the divorce?

Speaker 1:

Well, as I mentioned earlier, when I was first considering it, first thinking, okay, how do I go about finding out about this? I was shocked at how difficult it was to get the information I needed, to even know what my? Options were Every state has different divorce laws or it's not divorce law, family law, family law.

Speaker 2:

Not to interrupt, but this is statistically true too. The more conservative your state, the more a female is going to struggle in family law. So for whatever that's worth.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and I think that's good to be aware of for sure what the options are, what the laws are. So, for me, what surprised me was the divorce. It was how hard it was to find information, because we have grown up with this idea that divorce is rampant and it's like this thing and I thought, oh, there's these evil Jezebels out there are just wanting a divorce.

Speaker 2:

They just want to get married and get divorced, and get married and get divorced, and somewhere there is, just for the fun of it.

Speaker 1:

That's what these harlots, yes, and somewhere there is an escalator and I can just get on the escalator and boom there it is.

Speaker 2:

Take a ride with those Jezebels and harlots.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Yeahots, yeah yeah a highway. Well, I never found it, so I also, as I mentioned, I found a lot of moral support, helpful advice and Facebook groups. I think oftentimes so these are usually private Facebook groups, so just like the Divorce Survival Guide.

Speaker 1:

You know there's a Facebook group that accompanies that podcast and they have a vetting process to make sure that the people who are in the group should be in the group, because people are sharing really personal information in there. So there was a lot of useful information there. But I do think that part of the reason it was hard to find the kind of information I was looking for because my frustrations were like what do I even want? What do I even want to ask for, what are my options to even want? And that was what I was having a hard time finding and part of it is because every situation is so different. Every state has different policies, and so that was a big surprise, and I hope that the resources that we link to can help with that. Something someone said and I don't even remember who it was, maybe it was on a podcast was you will be surprised who your support comes from, and I think this is probably true in other kinds of traumatic events, you know there's a death in the family.

Speaker 1:

That's often the case as well. I can think of one person in particular who, when I looked at her, she represented to me the pinnacle of. She was a mom of a large family, many of whom were adults, kind of the pinnacle of the nuclear family.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And I was a little bit hesitant. I was like this is someone who I'd had really positive interactions with before and and, and this person's Catholic too. So you know, I was like, is this going to change our relationship, our working relationship? She was so supportive. She talked about people she knew she was close to, who had stuck it out through a marriage, an unhappy marriage, for the sake of the children. And she said now the children are adults and none of them are speaking to each other.

Speaker 1:

And so that was one of those moments where I was surprised where the support came from the emotional impact of the divorce on other people. Now, this is something I experienced before my divorce came along. Now, this is something I experienced before my divorce came along. But like where, even though I fully supported somebody's right to get a divorce fully, fully supported it, when I learned that someone that I cared about was getting a divorce, I had this resistance to it that I could not explain. Like it was such a cognitive dissonance, I mean such dissonance between my emotions and what I actually believed. And I think I saw that as well and I kind of knew to expect it, and I think there are lots of complicated reasons for this and I recognize it now and I mean, it's true, Divorce is catching, as they say. I was in a friend group at this time and I thought our divorce is going to really complicate this friend group.

Speaker 1:

It was a friend group that a lot like what you described last week about you know, and it was so much like that and it was wonderful. And sure enough, within a year or so, like very shortly after our split, one of the other couples in that friend group split, and so it's just an anecdotal example, but statistically it's true, and so I think there's sometimes a fear uh-oh, what if I catch it? Or either can also be a fear why can you get out of your unhappy marriage? And I can't, and I'm stuck and I think it's buried deep. It's buried deep and then that stuckness.

Speaker 1:

There's a reason we feel the stuckness. It's hard to get out of that, but I think that really surprised me. Why do I have these strong emotions that are completely opposite of what I actually think, right? So one of the last things that I'll mention here about things that surprised me about divorce, was how, when you are in an unhappy marriage, or maybe you're in that limbo place of figuring out, it's like, day after day, life is pretty, life can be miserable, right, or uncomfortable or unhappy, but then on the special occasions, on the holidays, right, we get it together and we present this a good front to everyone. Everything looks good, right, you have your little magical Christmas.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, everybody knows what to do. And when you go to church or family reunions or whatever, everybody knows what to do, right. And so when you get divorced, your day-to-day life suddenly is much better, it's much more peaceful. And then those special days get more complicated and awkward, right? Because the kids? Where are the kids going to be? How are we going to do this? How are we going to do that? Right? And so how is it going to be with, you know, extended family or social groups, family, friends, that kind of thing. So I mean, you can think about it and go, oh, but you know how's this going to be at Christmas, you know. So maybe, how's this going to be at Christmas. So maybe I should stay in this situation, so that Christmas is okay. But what about the 360 days for the rest of the year? Are you going to sacrifice 360 days for the five days when life is less awkward because your nuclear family is together? So I think it's an uncomfortable reality, but I think it can be helpful to kind of get clear on that.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of a way to rewrite the narrative there you go. You're reframing the script.

Speaker 1:

Instead of saying, oh how sad on Christmas, right? Well, let's talk about how well things are going 360 days of the year. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

So is there anything that you think about the process that you had and you're like, eh, I might've done that differently, or I wish I would have known about this?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think a lot of what I wish I would have known about this. Well, I think a lot of what I wish I would have done differently are things I wish I would have done differently in the years before the divorce. Yeah, the divorce helped me learn these things, kind of helped me have these realizations. But I wish I'd believed in myself more. I wish I had exercised more radical acceptance of what is, rather than what I wanted it to be, what I hoped it would be, what it could have been. I wish I would have trusted my embodied experience instead of blaming myself for feeling what I did, you know, instead of saying, oh well, that's just me being discontented, that's me just being hard to please, well, that's just me being picky.

Speaker 2:

It's not just the blaming, it's the shaming that's included in it.

Speaker 1:

It's like if you would just be.

Speaker 2:

If you'd just be a better wife, if you'd just be a better person, if you just look at it differently, or yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, and I wish I had given my needs more. Well, let me say this it felt selfish. Again. This is again. I keep coming back to. This thing of my head believes one thing and my emotions are doing something different, and in this case it felt and I emphasize, feel it felt selfish to say here's what I need. I was afraid I was being judgy by saying I need this kind of security, I need this kind of thing, and what I want to say loud and clear in this podcast is that those needs matter, and I don't know what that might mean in somebody's individual situation, but it could mean a million and one different things, but your needs matter.

Speaker 2:

I'm coming to the conclusion that, for some of us, we have to go through a period of feeling selfish to get to healthy, because we're so accustomed to playing small, putting ourself away, ignoring ourself, denying ourselves that to get to healthy feels incredibly selfish. Now, if you feel selfish for a period of five years, maybe you need to reevaluate some things. Well, no, I mean, I still have moments, though, when I advocate for myself, that I do feel selfish. So I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Isn't it about a scenario where there is space for everyone's needs to be validated Right? Unfortunately, so many of us women are only. The only tools we're given for relationships are self-sacrifice and subservience and self-denial. Those are the only tools we bring for some of us and we measure our happiness based off of how happy everyone is around us. Exactly, exactly. Whether or not we're doing a good job is by how happy everybody else is.

Speaker 2:

But I think we're even taught to find happiness in that. Oh, yes, if everyone around you is happy, then you should be happy too, which is frightening.

Speaker 1:

Right, and along with that I wish I had with that learning to advocate for myself sooner and again. That does not mean invalidating other people's needs. It just means there's space for both people's needs. Right, and I wish I had known to recognize resentment as a signal that I was waiting too long to set a boundary or to express my needs or make a request, because I saw that resentment as a moral failing on my part. Right, because love doesn't hold a record. Love doesn't yeah, it keeps no record of wrong.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, yes, yeah. First Corinthians 13. Yeah, yeah, and again, this is that knee-jerk reaction, right Like, again, the narrative is if you're feeling resentful, you need to work on yourself so you don't feel resentful, so you can keep this relationship together, keep this marriage together. What if the other person needs to be set free so they can get needs met that you can't meet?

Speaker 1:

I wish I had realized the limitations of self-help books, that they aren't magic potions and that they cannot override another person's autonomy. I can do my best to implement the strategies and learn from them, but I can't control anyone else's emotions or feelings or actions or perspective. And when we're talking about a relationship of equals, we really can only improve it or grow together in it, deepen it, strengthen it if both people are actively working toward the same goal. If we're walking down a path and the other person is on a different path, if we have a goal for our relationship to look a certain way, and if I do and the other person has a different vision, no self-help book is going to overcome that difference.

Speaker 1:

And what I needed to? Not to say that self-help books don't have their place right, because there is help to be gained from many of them, but at some point I needed to just stop. Stop with the self-help books and because so many of them just focused on what I needed to change about myself right, I need to start listening to what my emotions and my body were trying to tell me. I needed to get clear on what was important to me and radically accept the situation I was in, not for what I wished it would be, not for what I hoped it could be, but for what it actually was To your point about self-help books, and I also am a huge fan of them.

Speaker 2:

I've read them all. But sometimes I think those self-help books, and maybe particularly Christian marriage books, are set up to keep you busy. So if I am frustrated in my marriage and I'm busy reading, I'm busy doing the work, I'm busy working, I'm busy trying, I'm busy doing this, busy doing that. It sustains the marriage. It might not change the marriage or the relationship, it might not be particularly healthy, but it keeps at least one person engaged, it keeps at least one person hopeful and I think it's so true. Those self-help books are needed. Well, some of those Christian marriage books are needed, but those self-help books are important. I have learned a lot from that. But if they keep me busy with this false sense of hope that somehow I can magically change a situation, no one else is interested in changing. It's madness. It's not help.

Speaker 1:

Oh, absolutely. And when you think about it from the sense of marketing somebody trying to sell a book, a publisher trying to sell a book right oh, this will change your life. You have agency to do, blah, blah, blah blah blah. And they often sell you a false sense of agency and we end up just spinning our wheels.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. First of all, thank you for all of this. Absolutely so. First of all, thank you for all of this. I know you put a lot of thought into it and I know talking about your experiences can be emotionally exhausting, and I am loving finding out more about your process here. I'm really curious what are you most proud of? I can think of so many things I think you should be proud of, but when you think back to this journey and this process, what do you look at and think I am so proud of this?

Speaker 1:

Well, first let me say that, yes, this is a topic that I've had a lot of mixed feelings about talking about. On one hand, I want to pay it forward, I want to help others who are in situations like I was in, but also it can be tricky. But thank you for asking such awesome questions and for making this feel really comfortable, because I feel like I'm now at a point where I want to share and I'm glad to have this conversation and hope it can be helpful to others. So what am I most proud of? Well, probably first and foremost, I'm proud of my children and the relationship I have with them.

Speaker 2:

And they are awesome kids. Thanks.

Speaker 1:

I think so too, and not because our relationship is perfect, but the way it worked out in our situation was when we split, I was the one who moved out of the family home for a whole bunch of boring reasons that aren't really relevant, but just logistically it worked out that way and, you know, my children were young at the time. They were like six and nine, I think, something like that, five, five and eight, somewhere around there. You know young, and so for them it seemed like mom left, even though they were splitting time with us 50-50.

Speaker 1:

I think the perception was at least by one of them that mom left and I think that came out in a lot of really tough behavior. And let me say, you know, again, let's talk about self blame, you know. I was like I was, like I don't have any reason to have a kid who has issues. I must be doing something wrong.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know I'd hear all these gentle parenting voices in my head and there's one in particular. I have, I kind of, I have a, I have a special place of bitterness in my heart for her because I'd hear her voice and in this well, if you had just done this, if you had just anticipated this and I know I'm sure she doesn't actually mean it that way. But here's the thing that, speaking of self-help books, I wish more of them said hey, when the problem gets to this point, you need a professional.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, get outside help.

Speaker 1:

I thought you know I'm probably being too, I'm probably being dramatic to get you know to think I need outside help. Finally, somebody one of those Facebook groups I was describing some of the struggles we were having and they said you need professional help. I was like, okay, I can.

Speaker 2:

And it's like someone gives you permission to be honest about what you're experiencing.

Speaker 1:

Right Right, and I was talking with my therapist about it too and I said that you know, I hear these voices of the experts in my head and she says you can't control your children, but you can control the voices in your head. So that stuck with me. It kind of released me from a lot of that pressure that I was kind of putting on myself. And so, thanks to therapy, thanks to a lot of learning I've had to do, because part of it was this was going to be a reality, divorce or no divorce but the divorce kind of ratcheted it up. Added pressure, you know, divorce or no divorce, but the divorce kind of ratcheted it up. Added pressure. You know, we've grown up with very punitive parenting approaches and I knew I wanted to move away from that. But then when I would parent the way I think I would have responded to as a child, my kids didn't respond the way I expected them to Dang it.

Speaker 2:

So then I'm like now, what do I do? What's up with these turkeys?

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, yeah, and what tools do I have? Yeah, we had none Right, because I don't want to use the tools I knew about. I didn't want to use those and so parent-child interactive therapy, pcit the first phase of that. I don't endorse the whole program, but certainly the first phase. I really learned how to develop a close relationship with my son. It was nothing mysterious, it was nothing I didn't already know, but it was just modeling for how to do it and how to build that relationship more and with the help of a therapist, and I was really the one who was learning. It was therapy for me as much as it was for my son, and I'm really proud of where we are now. I think, as the children are getting older, you know, things are falling in. They're making more and more sense of the world and they're understanding some of the complications. Yeah, I'm really proud of that.

Speaker 2:

You know, when I think about your relationship with your kids. Earlier you said you know well, it's not perfect.

Speaker 1:

No, it's not perfect, but it's safe and I think all of us would take safe over perfect, right, and I think, especially those of us coming from these very kind of traditional backgrounds, it's easy for us to measure our parenting, the success of our parenting, by what the people around us think. If they approve of us, then we must be doing a good job. If they don't, then we must be doing a bad job. Please, please, let go of that. Instead, I'm trying to think what is going to help us have a relationship five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, because that long view and building a relationship rather than trying to control them is really where it's at Right. You're so wise. I'm not saying I know how to do it, that's just what I'm aiming for At least you're aiming.

Speaker 2:

That's a good target.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, and I know you are too, and you're doing an amazing job at it. You are a true inspiration. I'm proud of us for keeping the divorce amicable and that we can co-parent together. Now I've heard some stories about amicable splits where they say oh, we're still best friends, we have dinner together one night a week and da, da, da. Good for them. Good for them. That's not my experience. I have really kept to Bill Eddy's formula of keeping communication brief, informative, friendly and firm. B-i-f-f.

Speaker 1:

That's good, yeah. So this is where, especially if there are a lot of emotions involved, as there can be especially at the beginning, express those emotions to your Rebecca person or your therapist. Express those emotions to a friend, not to the ex. Focus on what is needed, what specifically? Keep it brief, informative, friendly. Doesn't need to be aggressive. Firm, yeah, stick to what you need. Frame it in terms of what do the children need, not what's convenient for the parents. What do the children need in this situation? I think that has been really helpful advice for me and it has kept things amicable yeah, not best friends, but amicable.

Speaker 2:

And I think that's good advice for any dicey relationship. Well, and even not everyone has to be my best friend. Not everyone has to love me. Not everyone has to see how amazing I am or acknowledge how amazing I am. But even if they can't see that, which obviously is there, even if that's not there oftentimes, we still need to communicate and we can still do it and be nice about it.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And firm.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and firm, because I mean being a pushover, and I think that so often being a pushover is the tool that we bring to relationships. That's our definition.

Speaker 1:

And then we feel resentful, and then we yeah, and then it'll come out passive, aggressively, yeah, absolutely. My final thing that I'm really proud of is well, let me give the background on it. So I mentioned way back that the logistics making sense to stay in a marriage is not a good enough reason to stay in it, and part of that for me was a need for financial security. At the time of our split, we had moved here to Dubuque, I had been in my job a few years, we had reached a level of financial stability I wouldn't say security, but stability that we had never had before. If we were going to split, it was going to disrupt all that, and so I'm very intimately familiar with financial insecurity and I don't like it, and so that was a concern of mine.

Speaker 1:

But I'm very, very proud that today, you know, six years out, I'm more financially secure than I ever was when I was married, and some of that's through my decisions, some of those things out of my control. But I just say that I think it's almost inevitable that when someone does go through a divorce, it's going to be tough for a while, but in the long run, given the ingenuity, given the creativity, given the tenacity that we have to have to survive a divorce that's going to come back to benefit us and I think in the long run we're going to find that we're secure. And even if we're not more financially secure, just the piece of having a place that's our own, a place that we can really be who we are, is worth so much and I'm really proud of having that.

Speaker 2:

I am proud of you as well. I think it is incredibly brave because you didn't know the outcome. No one can know the outcome. So true, and it's scary as heck. It is Absolutely. You really did it with determination and you did it with compassion for everyone involved and I am so proud to see you where you're at. And it's kind of affirming, because sometimes I feel like the compassion side of me has gotten me into trouble and I see you navigating with compassion but with boundaries, and it's like, oh, it doesn't have to always get you into trouble. We can be compassionate, but we can still stick to our boundaries.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that is such a good point. Thank you. That is a high compliment, especially coming from you as someone who is very compassionate and very giving, and I know that I have been there so many times. You know of that feeling, that resentment, and I think that's where knowing what our needs are is so important. If it's selfish, be selfish, but knowing where your needs are is where you know. Okay, here's where I can't give more than. And also, to speak about compassion for everyone involved, I will say too, maybe this is a little bit tangential, but I did feel, I genuinely felt compassion for my ex because I understood why he had kept that information to himself all those years I understood the pressures that he had been under as a young man self.

Speaker 1:

All those years I understood the pressures that he had been under as a young man. You know I am committed to people's liberation, everybody's liberation, you know. And so for me it was easy to feel compassion on that and, and I will say, part of the reason it was easy to feel compassion is because there was nothing that was being done behind my back. Everything was out in the open. There wasn't a sense of betrayal. So I guess what I'm just saying is yes, yes to compassion, and also I'm really grateful that my situation made it easier than it could be in a lot of other situations. Right, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I am sure we have people listening who are identifying with parts, maybe all of what you're saying. Do you have any advice you can offer to our listeners?

Speaker 1:

Well, that's a dangerous question to ask because the floodgates might open here. Open those floodgates, it's all good, I'll try to go through my list. Maybe not exactly rapid fire, but I'll try to try to get through it all. I think that the first point of advice that I would give to someone in a similar situation is give yourself time. There will be voices who say stick with it, stick with it. There will be voices who say stick with it, stick with it. There will be voices that say get out, get out, get out, get out now, get out now. If you don't get out now, like people will say, if you don't get out now, I won't be sympathetic. If you're staying in a bad situation. And people will also say if you get out now, if you get out of the situation, I won't be sympathetic to you. Because you've got like.

Speaker 1:

There will be so many conflicting voices and everybody telling you what you should do and, to the best of your ability, you have to just shut those voices out, go deep with it inside yourself and say what do I need to do? Nobody is going to have as clear a sense of your situation as you do. And give yourself time. It will take time. Divorce is hard enough that you need to go into it with a resolve that this is the right thing to do. So you will know when it's time. And it's unfortunate if you have to stand up to the people who should be your supporters. But you work on your own timeline and do not feel guilty for not moving fast enough or moving too fast for some people. You do what you need to do because you are going to have to live with the outcome. The outcome is going to have a bigger impact on you than anyone else.

Speaker 1:

Now. If you fear for your safety or if divorce just is not feasible right now because of situations beyond your control, but if you know that this is probably in the future, focus on making a plan. In fact, that's essential. The more vulnerable you are, the more important it is for you to have a plan. The more important it is for you to have a group of people around you supporting you. If you don't have that in your personal life, reach out to a domestic violence shelter in your area. I think a lot of those of us from shelter in your area, I think a lot of those of us from conservative, stable families, think that the domestic violence. Shelters are for other people. It's for those people that are dealing with addiction, or you know, welfare or you know all these other kind of derogatory terms that get used for people in need. No, it's for us too. I have not needed to use them, but it's for everybody, and everybody All socioeconomic classes, have a need for domestic violence shelters. So make a plan.

Speaker 1:

It's never too early to make a plan, and make sure that that plan is based on accurate information, not just assumptions, not just things you've heard. I mean, laws are different from state to state and then they also change over time. So talking with an attorney long before you have any intention of filing for divorce, just to find out what your options are, is so valuable, because then you're working with actual facts, with what is, and, yeah, maybe you're going to decide, maybe the marriage is going to work out, and that's great. Just talking with an attorney is not. You're not signing a contract that you're going to get divorced. You're exploring your options. So that's really important. Get a plan and make sure that plan is based on accurate information. Talk to an attorney, someone who actually knows what they're talking about, long before you think you need to.

Speaker 1:

Another thing is, one of the ways that we were able to keep our split amicable was letting the attorney be the bad cop, as it were. I had one attorney who helped us with the initial divorce and that was great. In fact, we only used one. She represented me and my ex represented himself. But then, when it came time to reconfigure things down the road, I was actually working with a different attorney and that was kind of a situation where I was the only one who was really motivated to change the situations and change the terms, and in that case I let my attorney put the pressure on so that I didn't have to be aggressive and then things could stay amicable.

Speaker 1:

Okay, when you are in that interminable phase of having decided, yes, this is done, I got to move on, and actually moving on, that can be months, maybe even years for some people, and once you're not trying to salvage the marriage anymore, your ex, or soon to be ex you can expect that they will double down on all the things that were creating a problem before because they even less incentive, or it'll just be annoying things before because they even less incentive or it'll just be annoying things. This is where you don't want to get into unnecessary conflict. Focus on what is really really the most important. Pick your battles, in other words, and remind yourself oh yeah, this is why we're getting divorced, this kind of thing, this is why, thank you for reminding me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly Exactly. And so, and similarly, don't expect them to quote, unquote, shape up. And I'm not talking here about violent, you know, the really egregious, physically violent stuff. I'm talking about more of the kind of annoying, immature you know, those kinds of day-to-day kinds. Things can, can get worse, and just to not be surprised by it, I guess, is what I'm saying. You know, even if you want it to be amicable, yeah, they, they may not care as much as you do, right? So, in conclusion, thank you all so much for listening. I really appreciate it. Thank you, rebecca, for your patience and your kindness, your support all along the way, your support has been just incredibly meaningful to me.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you, but let me just say thank you again for sharing today. I think it is such an important story, an important process, and I think I probably speak for everyone when I say thank you. We are so inspired and honored to hear your story and the process involved.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely, and my concluding thoughts are that, to anyone who is looking at this, who is facing the possibility of divorce, divorce will be one of the hardest things that you do in your life, but the only thing worse is a life where divorce is not an option, and even though divorce is often heartbreaking and difficult, just know it can be a portal to a life that's far better than anything you can imagine right now. So we'd love to hear from you Curious if your views on divorce have changed over time. What have you observed? What have your life experiences taught you about these relationships? We'd love to hear how that has evolved for you and any of your thoughts on this topic, so you can text us in the link in our show notes and we'll look forward to hearing from you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond.

Speaker 1:

What are your thoughts about college and recovery from high demand religion? We know you have your own questions and experiences and we want to talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom. At uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom. That's uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom.

Speaker 2:

If you enjoyed today's show and found value in it, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app. This helps others find the show While you're there. Subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode Until next time.

Speaker 1:

Stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.

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Naomi Clark

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Rebecca Coblentz

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