Episode Transcript
Hey guys, it's Jana Kramer, one of your hosts of I Do Part two, and we're back with part two of our chat with some amazing content creators and their journey through divorce.
They've got such great advice, so let's jump back in.
Next up, we've got Sheila.
Speaker 2Hi, Jannah, how are you Hi?
Speaker 1I'm good.
How are you doing?
Speaker 3Good?
Speaker 2Good?
Speaker 1I love your Instagram.
I was watching your videos and one where you're just like the perks of being divorced, because I feel like a lot of I mean a lot of the stuff that I've done was like crying and like sad and then like and then you find healing, but you're like, you made it so funny where you're just like I don't have to clean up beard hair and I you know, the trash is empty and I don't and I was just like, yes, girl, like all all of that, the enjoying that singleness of living in your own space and not having to like, yeah, just highlighting that and I love that.
Speaker 3Thank you.
It did not always start that way when I sure, yeah, first had my separation, I had my sad girl face, you know, eating chocolate, crying.
Speaker 4Watching the Barbie movie.
Speaker 2Actually that got me.
Speaker 3Yeah, And so it started that way, and I had a lot of self blame that I had to work through that kept me from actually embracing the fact that this is a new start and this is like a time for me to rediscover myself.
So I have definitely progressed.
We're all in that phase.
But now I definitely hope to be that light to women, to show that, hey, there's happiness in this.
You're gonna go through a lot of dark a lot of hard times, but there's gonna be a little happy moments and you should embrace those as they come.
Speaker 1So, yeah, did you do anything new to your house?
Because I remember when I got divorced, I sold all the ring and the diamonds and there wasn't many, but like, you know, like there was a few, and I got all new furniture and I was just like, I wanted to make the space how you know, it would be best fit for me and the kiddos, And it was the best revamping that the whole energy of the house.
Speaker 3Yes, so I actually ended up moving into a different place, so I didn't stay in the house that we were married in.
But immediately I have girly ties.
I don't know what the word is for.
That made my house very feminine.
There's lots of flowers, there's lots of pink, and I just was like, I want to come home and I want to feel like happy to be in a space.
I want to have a reading book, I want this, And it was like any dream I had in my head.
I was like, I'm going to make it happen.
And it's funny because I have a son.
I have a three year old son, so it's not just.
Speaker 2A girl house.
Speaker 3I like to say it's girl house, but there's a boy room in the house.
And he had to love the pink room and everything.
You know, he's young, so he thinks it's lots of fun.
But other than that, I've just really embraced my style, learning about it, doing fun things that you normally wouldn't do in a house that would be like a marital home.
So yeah, just kind of exploring, trying things that I never would have probably put in a house that I knew, you know, having a grown man live in, I would never do that.
So I experimented a lot and added a lot of things that made it feel like I would be happy to come home to or relax in and it was kind of my safe space.
Speaker 1So yeah, no, for sure, I love that.
What is something that you've learned about yourself through the is divorce now or because you said separated at one point, so is it?
Are you still through the process or so?
Speaker 3Yeah, our process has taken a while in September of twenty twenty four, so we're going on over a year of the separation process.
So yeah, it should be ending.
But through that process I did learn a lot.
In the beginning.
One of the best things that I learned was I was having a lot of self blame.
I was the one that initiated the divorce.
We have a kid, and so I put a lot of that shame onto myself and I immediately got in therapy, which is the best thing anyone can do going through the situation.
And what I learned there was to have empathy for myself and that to ask myself what did I not know or what skills did I not have coming into the marriage that now I can have now that I can learn and work on, which helped me empathize with myself.
And then once I broke through the being down blaming myself, then I hit this phase where I was like, look at all this time I have now that I was investing in another person, in trying to save a marriage that wasn't working.
All this time that I have, you know, I've already spent a lot of time with my kid.
What can I do with this time?
And I put it back into myself and that was a big unlock.
I started learning so much about myself, experiencing so many different things, and I started a fitness journey and I started, you know, just like doing things I never would have tried, and I learned a lot about who I was.
So there's definitely a lot that you'll you'll have so many phases after separation, but the best phase is when you're willing to be a little more selfish and willing to reinvest that time back into yourself because it's really going to help you also protect your peace through that time.
Speaker 1And it's rediscovering yourself too, and like, what what do you want?
You know, what do you want to be doing right now?
And you know, I love that And that's one of my favorite pieces of my divorce too, was going to therapy and having that healing journey and truly figuring out, you know who I am and what I want and what I want for the future.
And have you started dating or do you have to wait until after the separation.
Speaker 3I did start dating.
Yeah, and my ex is dating as well.
Speaker 1Okay, great.
Speaker 3Yeah, dating is like it feels like a rodeo when you've been in a marriage for a while, you haven't dated in a long time, and it feels like so uncomfortable at first, because I know at the beginning, I was putting so much pressure on it and I felt like I couldn't mess up in the dating process.
I had to be so careful.
I was so highly critical and I approached it and I wasn't having any fun.
It was like it was I was like, why am I doing this to myself?
And also I just had to learn what is dating again?
Because I've been playing wife, I've been playing mom and like to shift into almost feeling like a teenager again or young again and dating.
It's a weird thing.
But yeah, I have started dating again.
I do have a boyfriend actually, eh outing last year, and you know, there's a lot of duds out there.
There's a lot of people that you're not gonna mesh with, but yeah, there is potential to find someone out there.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I always tell my divorce friends too, and this is something that someone told me when I was you know, dating, it's all gathering information.
So it's like the next the first person that you go ot with most likely isn't going to be the one that you marry, and then one after that it's probably not going to be the one too.
But each one you gather information about what you like, whatch you don't like, and then within it then you start molding like Okay, I don't like that.
Okay, we're done.
That's I'm not going to continue on with trying to put you in this puzzle piece that you're not going to ever fit in.
And you know, I think there's so much that you learn about yourself through that process too, like, oh yeah, I don't know how I was attracted to that back in the day, but I'm definitely not now and that's not the type.
Okay, we're going to move this way now.
And it's just like every every date, every time you meet someone, it's just the information and how do you feel.
You know, at the end of the night, you know, you just keep one on other date?
Cool?
If not, you'll know, you know, I was new second date, like I'd maybe like I'll give you like one more date.
Yeah, and it's like new.
Speaker 3Love that did you ever struggle with?
I had a big click through my dating process that I felt like I was being interviewed and I had to show, okay everything.
Speaker 1So my therapist told me the best tip I ever got and she goes, Janna and because it was this guy that I was kind of hung up on that I was dating, and she goes, would you please stop putting yourself on trial?
She's like, you are the judge.
They are on trial.
She's like, you are being like am I Am I good enough?
Am I this?
It's She's like no, She's like are they good enough?
Do they fit your pieces?
Do they you know, fit the box of this, that and the other.
She's like, you are the judge.
You are putting them on trial.
You're not on trial.
And I was like, okay, I love that.
Speaker 3Great when I locked that that like, I'm not the one being interviewed in a way, I'm interviewing them.
Do I want my life?
And hostly, if I do want them in my life, they'll want that back.
But you can't control that.
Speaker 1No, But I think that comes a lot to the piece for me, Like I was always like I my core wound was like I'm not good enough, so I want them to choose me.
And I had to flip that script when I got divorced to go, no, I choose myself and I'm going to choose them, like they don't they get they get to you know, like love me if I choose them?
You know, yes?
Speaker 3And I think that ties back into the being more selfish.
You truly love yourself and you know what you bring you're not.
You come into these situations and you think, what what can you add to my life?
Because you're not going to add chaos to the piece you've just created.
Speaker 4You're not going to.
Speaker 3Add something into your life that's going to destroy what the bubble you've created for yourself.
So the self love, the selfishness, it unlocked a lot for me in dating, and I could tell the quality of men that I was dating and encountering was just continuing to increase as I continued to love myself more.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I will say if you if because I saw this, if you after divorces, if you're dating kind of the same men, you still have to do the work on yourself, because yes, there's something Anya that's wanting, uh, that hasn't healed yet if you're going to if you're still attracting that same type of person.
Speaker 3Yes, that is so funny that you say that the people I dated prior to my marriage nothing like the people that I have dated posts marriage.
It's very interesting the differences.
Back in the day, I was dating a lot of blue collar, very like manly men, you know, the stereotypes.
And now I have found you know, I work my own stay at home, or I work a remote job, I work in corporate, and I actually do better with men who also work in corporate or work jobs very similar who can talk to me about work.
I love that type of banter.
So it was very interesting.
And also a lot of my old dating preferences relied on unhealed wounds of things that I had encountered in my childhood and therapy.
Before marriage, I thought, you know, therapy is for people who really need help.
So not true, So not true.
Now I am such a huge therapy advocate and it really does help in the dating process to have someone to talk to.
Speaker 1Yeah, one hundred percent agree.
Where can our listeners find you?
You're a sweetheart.
Speaker 3Yes TikToker Instagram, Facebook as well, Sheila M.
Harrington, I would love if you gave me a follow.
It's a girl party on my page, celebrate.
Speaker 1I love it being single again, Barbie World, Let's do this.
Okay, thanks girl, great chatting?
Speaker 4Yes, thank you?
Speaker 1All right by Henny.
Next up, we've got Melinda Long.
I'm here, Hey Melinda.
I was watching your video and it's it was so timely because I was making an album of my daughter because she's about to turn ten, and I was watching some old videos when I was still married to max husband, and I'm watching these videos and I'm like, how was I married to him?
And I'm like who who is he?
And then I'm like and then I'm watching her Instagram and I was like I literally just had that same feeling of but like we have two kids together and and like how And I'm watching these videos and I'm like, wait that we live together and that was my husband.
Speaker 2Sometimes I'll be at a game and my ex will walk in and I'm like, oh I know.
I'm oh, wait that was married to him, Like you genuinely have this this this weird like fe I just never expected to feel that way in the midst of everything, and now I'm like, this is somebody I slept in bed with every night and I told my deepest, darkest secrets and there are strangers sitting over there, and I don't even even feel much of anything, you.
Speaker 1Know, I know.
And that's the craziest piece, because like the same when I see him at a volleyball game or whatever, when he comes over, I'm just like, I mean, there's this zero feeling and I'm like hot, how like we have two kids and we were married for these many years.
Speaker 2And but I also look and I think to myself, like I terrible to say, what was I thinking?
Speaker 1Yeah, totally I'm not attracted to him.
Speaker 2Yeah, like is everybody else in the room thinking the same thing?
I Am like, what were you do?
Speaker 3You know?
Speaker 2And it's just like still a little I said it, this little ick factor.
I'm sure he has the same feelings.
Speaker 1For me, totally.
I'm sure my laugh and my voice and my like the heck out of him, you know.
But I mean my husband now, yeah, he's like I don't ever see guys together.
I was like, no, same, Like, I don't know how.
Speaker 2But I also am thankful for that because could you imagine if you still had those feelings like when you saw the person like that, you had this longing still or this like I still wish I don't have, so maybe I'm really thankful that that didn't happen to me.
Speaker 1That's where I always go to when they say like, I'll always love you, and I'm like, but will you?
Speaker 2Because I mean, it's okay, we have we have love for our kids, like I think.
I think the only thing is like I'm always thankful for that moment because of the three blessings that I have from it, and I know I gave it my own.
I know it was a space.
So we'll be able to move past that and thank goodness, I don't still have that longing.
Speaker 4Like, yeah, I always still gonna love me.
Speaker 1So you were married for twenty years, right, okay, And so I think my mom really struggled because she I believe she was married to my dad a little over fifteen years, and I remember that being the thing for her that was I might have even been funny, gosh, I can't remember now, but yeah, no, it was definitely long.
Oh no, it was twenty plus.
Yeah, where she was just like I don't know anything different, you know, and I don't don't even know who I am because I dated him when I was so young, like in my early twenties nineteen, you know, and so.
Speaker 2You know that is your identity.
Speaker 1Yeah, Like she was just like even changing.
She's like, I've been a Kramer longer than I was a Kaufman.
Speaker 3You know.
Speaker 2Now you walked, I would say that was the hardest part is accepting that that it's no longer my identity.
I'm no longer a wife, We're no longer that picture perfect happy family that we put out there, you know, you put this image out there.
And also you know, for my kids where this it is a process.
I should share that along the way, I lost one hundred and twenty pounds before I got file for divorce.
So I had this kind of giant life shift of my appearance at the same time as my marriage falling apart, which I thought it would have brought us together, but it brought us apart.
Speaker 1Did you get fit to try to keep him?
Is that was that the no?
Speaker 2I got I got fit after COVID, I got fit after losing my father.
I got fit after realizing that my health was really taking a toll and I need to be here for a long time.
But perhaps in that journey, I also started to realize that maybe some of the food and some of that was a mask for other issues that were going on, and maybe gave me a little more confidence to do what to finally file for divorce.
Actually I filed for divorce twice.
I went through the second time.
I dropped it the first time.
But that change was the thing I was most scared of.
That was the hardest part.
I really didn't have an identity.
Everything was wrapped up in my life, my family, and my kids were getting older.
I have two in college and one in high school now.
So that's been the biggest struggle, and I think that a lot of sleep lost in it, but also a lot of growth, a lot of personal growth, and a lot of finding myself.
I've really taken to fitness.
I've always loved to cook.
I still love to cook.
I've been able to travel a little bit more, and honestly, I've connected with my kids in a whole different way that I did was possible back in the middle of the divorce.
They respect me more.
I think now, watching my own personal journey and me doing what was right and what was right for our family.
But one hundred percent think that that is the scariest part, and I think that helped me back.
It's the reason that I dropped the first time of divorce.
It's that fear.
Speaker 1Well, and because what age were you when you finally filed?
Speaker 2I'm forty nine now would it be fifty this year?
I guess I was forty six when I filed.
Speaker 1Forty six, Yeah, and that's a that's a tough age to go.
Okay, you know, what is this?
What does this look like?
But there's also gosh, I know so many women that have had such beautiful Like my one girlfriend's fifteen, just got married, you know what I mean, Like she's the happiest she's ever been.
So it's like, don't stay because you're afraid to not be with someone for the next part of your life, because we have so if you think about it, you have another at least forty years, you know, that's a lot of life.
Speaker 2Yeah, And there's and there's love out there.
I mean I've had love at the second time around.
There is love out there, and it's different, and you know, I just don't think I realized that that was a possibility that to feel a certain fulfillment and to have a connection with somebody that's like that, it is possible and it is real.
I think I settled for what I thought was real because in my twenties, I was supposed to get married, and I was supposed to have kids, and I was supposed to live a certain life.
Speaker 4And while I.
Speaker 2Certainly did love my husband, it wasn't the connection that I found later on, or that I realized exists.
And life gets in front of you.
Speaker 4But you're right.
Speaker 2I'm forty nine, I'm going to be fifty this year.
There's a lot of life left.
And I certainly, in no way, shape or form, wanted to get divorced, nor did I picture myself ever here in a million years.
But now that I'm here, I'm not disappointed with the life that I'm living, and I'm realizing that there's so much more to live.
And yes, there is love, second time around, third time around, whatever it might be for everybody.
Speaker 1Have you found that love?
Speaker 3I have?
I have?
Speaker 1Oh, look at you?
Did you find that love?
Where did you find it?
Speaker 2Companionship through a friend who was going through the same as myself.
He's awesome, my personal trainer.
So it's very cliche.
Oh hey girl, but friendship, companionship, going through the same thing, feeling at the same age.
Speaker 1What do you think the craziest part of divorce that no one talks about?
Speaker 2Literally how you can feel this tremendous immense hatred, bitterness, all this and then two years later and you're looking like, what was I so afraid of?
Yes, why was this so scary?
What was I It's really the what was I thinking?
There's so much more to life, and there's there's I'm not wearing a scarlet letter.
I thought I was wearing a scarlet letter and that's shame.
That was the biggest shot for me.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 1My therapist would always say, what's the worst thing, Like, what is your biggest fear?
If you get divorced?
And I'm like, well, and then I'm alone, and she goes and then what, well, then you know no one loved me.
And then she's like okay, and then what you know and she's just like but then we go to the positive.
It's like, your kids are good and you're okay, and so it's the worst thing that can happen is really not the kids is the other.
Speaker 2Big piece, I think, especially for women, I don't want to say not for men, but especially for women.
As mothers, we want to be the perfect mom and we want to get this perfect family, and we want to give them this marriage that they can look up to.
And I felt a real responsibility to make that work for my kids.
And I laugh now because my kids look at me like, who were you fooling?
We knew it wasn't good and we couldn't wait for it to be over, but in the moment, you really feel a responsibility, and that was the biggest hurdle.
I think that was really the reason I struggled to go to the next level.
Speaker 1So do you think your advice for someone getting divorced now is just, I mean, give it some time, like because you're not going to have that same anger in a couple of years.
Speaker 2You have to, yes, give it time, because everything is temporary.
You have to know in your heart that you gave it your all, that you tried everything, that you didn't walk away in a fight, that you didn't walk away for your own selfish reasons, that you really gave it all.
And once you know you've done that, you have to stick to your guns and know that you have to do better for yourself or your family, for your children, and ride it through because there's it's not going to fix itself.
If you've given it all, it's it's just not going to fix itself.
Speaker 1Yep, agree with you one hundred percent on that.
I always said I walk away when I know that I did everything that I could to try to stay, that leaving is the only option I did.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And then then then I got mad at myself that I stayed that long.
But at least I can say, Okay, I did, I did every step I could.
Speaker 2I feel confident that I did everything I could.
Now I'm in the stage of a couple of years later of forgiving myself for allowing myself to go through things I shouldn't have been, letting my kids see things they shouldn't have.
So now I'm in that forgiveness stage.
But I'd rather have that knowing that I didn't walk away without giving it my all.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Forgiving yourself is uh, it was harder than forgiving them, is what my journey was.
Speaker 2I agree.
I'm feeling that a bit now, you know, coming up on this fiftieth year and in a new relationship, I really have to work on that piece because if you carry those pieces into your future relationships and into your family and being the good role model, I really have to work on that healing journey.
So that's the part that I'm finding comes a little bit later.
But I'm thankful for that journey because I'm.
Speaker 1Sort of Linda.
How can we follow along in that journey?
Where can our listeners find you?
Speaker 2I know I don't stop talking.
Speaker 1I apologize, but I love it.
Speaker 2I'm on Instagram.
My Instagram handle is gritten Glow Underscore by mel I share my health, my fitness, my divorce journey, and my completely chaotic life with my with my kids.
Speaker 1So thank you love it so much.
Well, thank you for joining I do part two and we look forward to watching your journey.
Speaker 2Right, so nice to meet you.
Speaker 1Thank by Honey Seya.
And last up we've got Ashley.
Hi, hey girl, Well you look beautiful for being pulled over on the side of the road just leaving court with your exta girl.
We caught you in a time.
Speaker 4Oh my gosh, the worst time but the best time also because you know, the life could not be better on this side of things.
Speaker 1Okay, So I was watching her Instagram, which I love, and but one of the things, the tip that you were giving about the phone number, I had no idea that was even it.
Why would he want your number?
I was so confused.
Can you just like tell the listeners like a little and is this why you were in court?
I was just I'm so confused.
I'm like, please, I need to understand this, Like, this is her phone number?
Speaker 4What?
So I've had this phone number since I was fifteen sixteen, like twenty years.
It's a pre marital asset.
But when we got married, my dad released the number two you know, for us to join accounts, right, and so yeah, he paid for the phone number.
He had the phone number, but it's still my phone number that I used with both of my businesses.
It's the emergency contact at my son's school, Arsun School.
And he basically told me in June that I needed to get my own line.
So I did that.
I created my own account.
Apparently he is now claiming that that was fraudulent.
So T Mobile granted him the phone number back to his account, even though I was paying my own bill for three months.
I was paying my own bill on my own T Mobile account, and so he has had control over my phone number since September hasn't turned it off.
I'm still able to use this phone number.
But yeah, so ended up having to take him to court because he won't release the line to me even though it is premarital, it's attached to my businesses, which he relinquished his rights to.
So we're just waiting, honestly, for the judge to come down with her judgment whether or not I can keep it or not.
Speaker 1What was the sense from the judge?
Were you feeling hopeful or was she giving you.
Speaker 4I'm optimistic because she just kept looking at him like are you because she kept asking him why do you want the phone number?
And he couldn't give a reason.
He's like, it's my property.
That's the only reason why he you know, he is claiming that this is his phone number, it's my property.
Honestly, he's probably just going to turn it off the minute he gets it back, so he doesn't really want it for a purpose.
So I'm hoping that she kind of takes that into consideration, that this is livelihood versus just being vindictive and petty.
Speaker 1So, I mean, can we say yay, you're not married to him anymore?
Speaker 3Yo?
Speaker 4My lawyer today was like, I can't believe you were married to him.
She's like he is he is slimy, he is like even during mediation when we went through our divorce mediation, the initial offer that we put on the table at ten thirty am is the offer that he ended up accepting at six thirty pm.
But he pushed it out so that way we would have to pay that whole time.
I mean, we ended up we were in mediation for yeah, over ten hours.
Speaker 1Isn't that hard to like?
You know, I felt that same thing where it's like, why was my judgment or how is my judgment?
How was I so fooled there?
It's to allow this to happen and then stay in it and be with someone like that.
Speaker 4And I wasn't even the one who filed for divorce.
He filed for divorce from me when I was actually I was in California with our son, visiting family in Santa Barbara for my step uh my stepmom's dad's birthday.
I came back, he had packed his stuff, moved out, brought me out in front of the ring camera, so he had it documented that he was leaving me, that he had filed for divorce, that we were going to be doing two two three custody and I should be getting served any day now.
Did he have a reason we had Nope.
We had no conversation.
He never sat me down.
He just filed and left.
And then about six weeks later he wanted to reconcile, and I was like, you know what, I've been asking for therapy for six years, Let's try going to therapy if you're putting it on the table.
Now now that it's his idea, We're going to go to therapy.
And we did therapy for about six weeks and I just had a gut feeling that I can't do this for the rest of my life.
This is not going to work.
And then a week later I received our financial affidavit and found that he was hiding money from me.
Meanwhile, I'm working three jobs trying to keep us afloat.
He chose not to work for years, and that money could have literally saved saved us, saved me so much stress, and I it was like boom, boom boom.
I knew I was done at that point because this was the final betrayal, This was the final thing that the nail in the coffin essentially.
Speaker 1Mm hmm.
So how does how do you now walk through everything that you know?
Because you seem like a very strong, put together woman.
Are you letting the what you know to be the truth statements come in your head or are you like, where are you at in that?
Speaker 4I know the truth?
I know my truth.
I know that I did everything in my power.
I had been asking for therapy for years.
I had addressed, you know, issues that I you know, I went to therapy by myself because at one point, I really he had me convinced that I was the problem.
I went to therapy by myself and he would never come to join, even though my therapist was like, we would love to have him bring his perspective to the table so that way we were not like just saying that you're you know, he's doing these things.
And I never wanted it to be like a he he he.
It was.
It's mutual, right, A marriage is mutual.
I know that I'm not a perfect person.
I know that he's not a perfect person.
But the fact that he would never meet me at the table to get help, you know, that is the truth that I hold on to, that I tried for years, that I did everything in my power to try and make this work, and then just to have him essentially walk out two weeks before Christmas and with no no conversation, no discussion, no nothing, and then just continuously being vindictive at every turn.
I mean, the phone number is just like the tip of the iceberg of just you know, the behavior that is being exhibited and you know, trying to be a productive co parent.
He wanted the divorce.
You know, you don't really hear about too many women paying child support.
I pay him child support.
Speaker 1I pay sixty percent.
Speaker 4I pay sixty percent of our child's expenses, even though we have fifty to fifty custody.
Speaker 3You know.
Speaker 4The fact that I'm giving, giving, giving, and he's consistently still wanting to take, take, take, It's hurtful.
And this taking of my phone number, the only person that really hurts is our son.
Because if I lose the ability to make money, like if people can't reach my business, what does that do to our son?
This is the only phone number that he has memorized.
What does that do if he's in an emergency situation.
He's not gonna automatically remember a new number.
You know, thankfully he has his number memorized.
But I think that that's the whole point, right, He's like, I want to be the primary parent, I want to be the primary contact.
And it's like, but you just started showing up now that we're divorced.
Speaker 1Yeah, And it's that feeling of someone taking, Like I get that.
That's how I felt in my entire last marriage, is just always wanting to take, take, take, And you know, I think there's going to be a place I've and I through therapy, I was able to let that anger go in time.
Speaker 3Like.
Speaker 1It still comes up a few times, but mostly I've been able to keep that anger at bay, just because you know, there's nothing I can do about it.
I can either stay angry or I can just go.
This is unfortunately the way of the courts at the moment, and this is who he is and I can't change that.
I'm not going to be like, hey, can you take care of the kids since you only have them eight days a month?
You know, and do I do I have to pay you this pop amount for you know?
But it's he'll never get my point.
He doesn't see it as taking.
He sees it as well, it's just the way the court.
Speaker 4You know, the way the cookie crumbles, and yeah, and I hold no resentment, right, I'm like, you gave me my son, you gave me like the person that I love the most in my life.
You know, I'm in a new relationship that is that makes me extremely happy.
I see.
I don't I never reminisce, and I don't live in the past.
I really, like I said, I don't hold resentment.
The only things that I hold are like, what is the purpose of this?
Why are we behaving this way?
Why are you treating me this way when this is exactly what you wanted.
You wanted this divorce, you asked for it.
All I did was follow through with it.
You know, he I think he has deep regret.
I think he thought that he was going to file for divorce and that I was going to be like, no, please don't leave me, like I needed that.
But it's like I was already primary parent, I was already the breadwinner of the family.
I was already doing my own thing.
I lost during the last three years of our marriage.
I lost one hundred and ten pounds, got plastic surgery, really got my health back on track, and there was really just there was no there was no tether, there was no codependence, there was no, there was none of that.
And so you know, when I started posting, I hesitated posting on social media about my divorce because I was like, you know, it's really nobody's business.
But then when this whole phone number thing happened, I was like, but what if other women don't know?
What if they don't know to ask or their phone number.
What if they don't know that they can put this in their parenting plan that they can bring it to the table.
What if they don't know?
I feel like, you know, we talk about a village all the time when it comes to our kids, but what about our village together of like making sure that we all stay good?
And that is why I like started feeling more comfortable talking about here are things that I wish I had done.
Here are things that I you know, I regret.
Here is you know what what could come next for you?
But I also want to free women from the thought.
I had a video that is getting a lot of attention right now about how many women I saw on TikTok the day after Christmas with nothing in their stalking, nothing under the tree.
And I'm like, so he places no value on you, He doesn't He can't even take an hour of time to find something that you would love, to make sure that you felt important on a day in which that you made everyone else feel important.
Divorce him.
It's not going to change.
He doesn't hold he doesn't hold you in regard.
He doesn't hold you, you know, in anything.
And the amount of men in the comments of that video stating well he paid for Christmas, he's the one who works.
Speaker 1I can say that's actually not true because in my last marriage, my stocking was never full and I had I paid for Christmas, and I'll say my husband, now my stocking overfills, and I'm like, it's the cutest thing ever.
And I'm like, oh no, it's fine.
It's like, no, he makes it like Santa put the things in the stock, you know.
So I've never been spoiled like that ever, you know So it's I hear you.
Speaker 4I'm eighty percent of us household women work, women contribute to the household in addition to the unpaid labor of being a mother.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Absolutely, Well, I'm excited to see where this whole phone number thing goes.
I want.
I've got a good feeling.
Are you going to update us on your social media?
Speaker 4Yes?
I will I definitely will keep you guys posto.
Speaker 1Okay, what's your what's your Instagram again for our listeners to follow along.
Speaker 4It's at bostdence boss F I, D E n C.
Speaker 1Okay, great, Ashley, You're drive safe because I know you're driving right now, so dodrive safe.
Speaker 4Thank you.
Speaker 1I'm excited for you.
I'm excited for your part two.
And it sounds like this was the destiny to have this part two because you got a beautiful child out of it, and that's usually what the only redeeming factor of being with these people are.
Speaker 4Okay, one hundred percent, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1Thanks girl, have a good one.
Well, thank you ladies for coming on and sharing all that great advice.
Do you have breakup or divorce tips you want to share and need some more advice from our crew, We'll call or email us.
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I Do Part two an iHeartRadio podcast where falling in love is the main objective.
