Welcome to my podcast. Happily, even After I’m life coach, jen, I’m passionate about helping people recover from betrayal. I rode the intense emotional roller coaster and felt stuck and traumatized for years. It’s the reason I became a trauma-informed certified life coach who helps people like you navigate their post-betrayal world. I have the tools, processes and knowledge to help you not only heal from the betrayal but create a healthy future. Today we begin to help you live happily even after. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast.
I’ve just been thinking a lot of thoughts lately and so I kind of wanted to just speak them to you and maybe you would find them helpful in your healing from betrayal or whatever you’re dealing with in your life, in your marriage, in just every day, and some of these thoughts I just, for some reason, I’ve had some aha moments. If you listen to last week’s podcast where I was interviewed by a friend of mine who’s also a fellow coach, jill Pack, I literally had two moments in that podcast that I was like I have never thought of it this way, and so I was just going to address those thoughts, because ever since I talked to her, I’ve been thinking about them and I just have been blown away. I’m like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe this, that I’m now just realizing these were like obviously deep down in my subconscious and I had never considered them or realized that’s how I was thinking in my marriage. And then one of them is just something that I just want you to consider. So the first one, you aren’t the same person your spouse married and they aren’t either. So I think so often, especially in betrayal, reality is really hard for us, right? It’s hard to grasp reality. We don’t want to. We want to pretend, right? We do a lot of pretending and betrayal and we look at our spouse like you know if you’ve had any of your kids or any friends, their children get married you just look at them. They look so innocent and lovely and so excited to like start their new life together and they’re just so happy. And then you know, fast forward 20, 25 years.
There’s a lot of hard that has happened and sometimes we can only see our spouse like they were the day on our wedding day. Right, and we change and we become different people I mean, I hope we do from I was 25 when I got married, but from 25 now to 54, done a lot of growing and changing, and so I think it’s helpful to think like, yeah, we are different people, and that’s okay, of course we are. Of course your spouse is different than who you thought you married, and if you’re divorced, it can still be a helpful thought because you’re wanting them to be different still, and so I just want you to think about that. You aren’t the same person your spouse married and they aren’t either, and that’s okay. Of course they are, of course we are, and that’s okay. Of course they are, of course we are.
So I just want you to consider that this is the big epiphany that I had I only saw my former spouse’s good qualities and he only saw my bad qualities. Now, I’m not saying all the time, but the general, I would say, view of our marriage was this I could only look at his good qualities and he only saw my bad qualities, and he only saw his good qualities and I only saw my bad qualities. So you see what a problem this is right. And so I just want you to consider, because the truth is, we all have amazing things about us and we also all have some really not so great things about us. No one is perfect, and so this dynamic really caused a lot of problems in my marriage and for me right, and so I haven’t been able to realize this.
Now I’m, you know, a few years out of my divorce and my marriage and I can see it so clearly and I’m so grateful because now I can see his good qualities. He definitely, definitely we all have good qualities, right but I can also see his bad qualities, and those bad qualities caused me to get divorced Because those bad qualities were dishonesty, not loyal, willing to lie to me, cheat on me. He was unfaithful in our marriage, right, like so. Those bad qualities for sure outweighed any of the good qualities, but I was so focused on seeing the good in him and ignoring the bad that it caused me a lot of grief and sadness. And then I would look at myself and I could only see all the negative that he saw in me. And now I can look at myself and see the good as well as the bad, but I focus on the good more and, you know, try to work on and fix the bad, but I don’t make it like something’s wrong with me. I am enough just as I am.
And so I just want you to look at your own life and your marriage, or whatever. And what if it’s true? What if each of us has really amazing things about us and we also have things that aren’t so great? But what if we looked at ourselves and focused more on the positive as well as our spouse? I think the dynamic would change. I think if he could have seen me through the eyes of wow, look at how amazing my wife is, or what a great mom, all those things, all the positive things about me, I don’t know what if that could have been different? Right, I think our marriage for sure would have been different if he could have seen that. But he chose not to and he focused on the negative. So I just think it’s something to consider in your own life. And what are you focused on? Are you focused because it only matters what you’re thinking about you? And I promise your life is going to be so much better if you can focus on you and all the great things, because we all have different things to offer. And so, what are you able, what can you offer? What? What are you good at? What are, what are great things about you?
And then this leads me to the last thing that I had an epiphany about, because I mentioned that. Oh, I mentioned like, okay, what kind of mom do I want to be? I really like that question. What kind of person do I want to be in the world? Who am I? Right, something that I need to talk to him about, or whatever. I always think, okay, how would the best version of me show up right now, and especially during like a hard conversation or something like that, or they’ve done something and I need to address it. So I always think, okay, what kind of mom do I want to be? What kind of friend do I want to be? What kind of coach do I want to be? Who is that version of me, the best, highest version of me?
Now, I often fall short and that’s when you can make repair. But I mentioned like, well, I’m not a wife, but it’s true, I’m not a wife yet, but I could still consider what kind of wife I want to be, or I’m not a wife right now. I, I was a wife and there’s been lots of things about me being a wife in that marriage that I didn’t love, but also that I did love, that I didn’t notice or I wasn’t paying attention to, right, because, remember, I was looking at all the negative things I was doing. And then that leads me to what kind of ex former spouse do I want to be? Okay, and I’ll tell you why I don’t like to say ex in this right. But what kind of former spouse do I want to be now that I’m divorced?
And I haven’t ever thought about this, because I have an unusual like I don’t think it’s normal. Why don’t I’m not going to say normal, it’s not that it’s not normal, it’s just unusual. My kids I didn’t have to do custody really with my kids because they were all older. So I have very little interaction with my former husband, which has been good for me, but there are many of you, which has been good for me, but there are many of you and the reality is most people get divorced and they have kids and so they do have to interact more, and so I’ve just been considering I wrote some questions down to maybe help you think about right, and the thing is sometimes, when we think about this, it it’s like, well, but they’re not being that way, so how can I show up?
So we can’t control your former spouse and if they are a jerk or whatever they’re doing, but you can control how you’re showing up. So I want you to go inward instead of outward and focus on what they’re doing or not doing, and focus on what you’re doing or not doing. So I want you to go inward instead of outward and focus on what they’re doing or not doing, and focus on what you’re doing or not doing. So I want you to think about your boundaries, like, okay, what are your boundaries? What are your non-negotiables? Right? How do you want to communicate with your spouse? You can decide that Now they might not listen or agree, but you can say no, I’m only texting you or I’m only talking to you through email, especially at the beginning when it might be really hard to have a phone conversation.
So just consider okay, what are your boundaries, what are your needs? How are you going to get those met? What kind of attitude do you want to be Now? And I get you need to heal. That’s why healing is so important. That’s why I’m encouraging you If you haven’t healed from betrayal. That’s very important, because you’re not going to be able to access the CEO part of your brain to even consider what kind of ex or former spouse you want to be, because you’re going to be just covered with shame and anger and bitterness, right, you’re going to have all those really negative emotions. So ask yourself, and you can decide who you want to be at the beginning of your divorce, and then every year you can re aside, or every five years.
And why I say that is because I’ve been thinking okay, maybe I could dip my toe back into having just a little bit more of a relationship with my former spouse Now, not much, and it’s more of my mind having a relationship with him than like actually having a relationship with him. But for me I had to go from loving him to hating him, to feeling neutral about him. And so now that I’m in a neutral space about him, I’m like, okay, well, what if? Because we do have four kids together and they need help, they’re struggling, or we have things going on, our daughter’s getting ready to move to a different state, and so there’s always just things happening, anyway. So you know your attitude towards them, right? And it doesn’t mean that you just, even when you’re just by yourself, like what kind of attitude? What are your thoughts about him? Because that your thoughts, it’s not your former spouse that affects you, it’s your thoughts about them and that is going to determine. You know how you think and you feel and your actions, and so it’s important your thoughts matter, because you can go down a really dark rabbit hole quickly when you have those negative thoughts about them. So what kind of involvement, right?
When I first got divorced and I talked about this on, I think, one of our episodes, but I’m thinking he’s coming over for family dinner we for sure could probably like meet on Christmas morning. Like that for sure did not happen. Like the second he moved out, I realized like, oh my gosh, I don’t think I can have him step into this house ever again. Like I, my body was just reeling, like I didn’t feel safe. That felt very unsafe, and so you could maybe try an idea and then decide, oh, oh, that didn’t work. Or like, oh, we could probably sit together at the baseball game. And then you do that and your nervous system is going crazy and you’re like, okay, no, I can’t do that. I need to sit on the opposite end. And even if he’s like that’s so rude, why aren’t you sitting by me? You don’t owe them any explanation. Like you can just choose. You know what, For me, it feels better to just sit over here.
Anyways, what do you call them and yourself? So I think this is important your name, okay, I prefer former spouse or former husband. I will call myself former wife and sometimes I say I was the first wife, right, like I don’t know, but that to me just feels better than I don’t like the word ex. But decide what do you want to say when someone asks you? I think for me that helps with my thoughts. And then also, when talking to your kids, what do you call their dad or their mom? For me I will say dad, or I say his first name, and so I think that’s important, right, like, decide what are you going to call them, because you also don’t want to call them, maybe what you’re thinking, right, which is a derogatory word, but that’s unhelpful, I think, with your kids. And so whenever I talk to my kids about their dad, I will just say your dad or his name, and I just think that’s helpful because it just feels very neutral and that’s what they say to me, right, and so I think it just helps in the conversation and you’re not bringing any ugliness to that.
So just decide with events with your kids, like, okay, you don’t have to sit next to them, you can sit anywhere you want. Don’t allow other people to control you right, especially like the family, the grandparents or whatever. Like you need to be the one watching out for you. So I just think that’s really important Give yourself permission. If you’re going to go see your child graduate, you want to have a good time. You don’t want to sit there and have like triggers and trauma and feel uncomfortable at your child’s wedding or graduation or school play. So do what’s best for you. Get really familiar with feeling that and being able to speak it. And if someone can’t understand, that’s a them issue, not a you issue. You’re not doing it wrong. You’re doing it so you can have a good experience there too. And just remember, especially as your kids get older, your kids can be the communicator.
It’s not your job. Like for me, I tend to. I was the one the calendar of the family. Like I made sure everyone got wherever they needed to go. I made sure their dad knew you know what time everything started, right, but that’s not your job anymore. When you’re divorced and that can be really challenging, but it’s their job now to figure out. Okay, what is the school play? What time does it start? Where is it out. It’s not your job to tell them. That is on them. Now you could.
If you’re like I’ve decided I’m the former spouse that still lets their dad know or their mom know about these events, great, that’s great. But I just don’t want you to think you have to still do that. You get to decide. You get to decide if your kids need something. Do you have your kids ask their dad or are you the one right? So just consider all these things and sometimes you don’t know what you’re going to do until the thing happens. And then you’re like, ooh, I’m going to do that different next time. Or like, oh, wow, I really like how I did that Another thing that I’ve had to really work on.
So my former spouse has gotten remarried and it used to be really hard for me to say her name, like for whatever reason. It made me very like. It just made me mad and uncomfortable and I had to practice. My coach said Jennifer, I want you to start saying her name, because I wouldn’t say it and I don’t know if that was probably because that would make it more real like she was a person, right, that would make it more human. And so I just practiced doing that and it’s funny because sometimes I say her name and my kids will be like who? Because they’re like so surprised that I’m actually talking. You know saying her name, which I’m not going to say her name now, but you know saying her name, which I’m not going to say her name now. But anyways, I just think for me that would that’s been very helpful to step into my reality, because the reality is my former spouse is remarried. He has a new wife, right, and so that’s my reality. Do I love that reality? No, I don’t, but that is the truth, and so calling her by her name helps me my brain say no, that’s the reality of the situation.
Anyways, I just want you to really brainstorm what kind of former spouse you want to be. What does that look like for you, especially if it’s been hard and especially if it ends with betrayal, like marriages end. I mean there could be lots of reasons that my marriage ended. We could say, of course there was lots, but the overarching one was my husband was unfaithful to me and I could no longer live with that type of husband, right, like I do not want to be in a marriage that my husband has to lie to me and have affairs right, and so that’s the overarching thing. So you get to decide after you’ve healed right? You can decide anytime what kind of former spouse do you want to be and that can look different for everyone. There’s not a right way or a wrong way and then decide like, okay, how are you going to best be able to heal and have this happen? Right, it may be you never can sit by each other and that’s okay or no. You can start sitting next to each other and watching your child play sports. I don’t know. You’ve got to be the one to decide that. I hope this was helpful. If you are struggling with this, if you’re struggling navigating divorce after betrayal, I would love to help you. I’d love to be your coach.
This, this is something that I couldn’t even see. This thought Remember the thought that he could only see my bad qualities and I could only see my bad qualities. He could only see his good qualities, I could only see his good qualities. That’s taken me three years to uncover that thought in my brain. Well, really, 20, 29 years, because I was married to him for 26 years and then I’ve been divorced for three years. So that belief. I thought that was true, and now I’m like, oh my gosh, that was not true, that was just a thought, and I’m not thinking that anymore. So have a beautiful day and I will talk to you next week. If you want to learn how to live happily, even after sign up for my email at hello, I will talk to you next week.
