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.
So for those of you that have been listening to me for a while all several hundred podcasts I started doing this podcast with my former husband, which I know that sounds crazy and now that I think about it it’s kind of slightly embarrassing and uncomfortable. But you know, when I made that decision I had just become certified as a life coach and I loved Jodi Moore, her podcast Better Than Happy, and I thought let’s do a podcast together. This could be really connecting. We’re like working on a goal which is very helpful in rebuilding a marriage and, of course, my former spouse was all on board. This is going to be amazing. He is much more well. I would say my thought about him in my marriage. He was much more entertaining. He was a better, more articulate than I was. Right, I did have all the knowledge from life coaching that I wanted to share and I really kind of maybe my niche at the time that I was considering was like I still was kind of focused on betrayal, but kind of how you could create this amazing marriage after betrayal right, rebuilding your marriage. And I was going to be the poster child, the poster person for that niche. Right, like my spouse and I, we were the ones, we were the couple that could make it through multiple betrayals and stay married and have this amazing marriage. Okay, so this is what happened. And when you start a podcast, we were told you need to do 10 podcast episodes. Right, have those like in your bank. So we recorded 10 podcasts and I think we did it probably over several sessions before we actually launched our podcast. So we first introduced ourselves and then we have this concept we did our very first podcast episode on content communicating. Now the podcast started, I think, in May of 2021, but we probably started recording February or March, april, right, a few months before this to get the 10 episodes we needed.
And now I know which I didn’t know then was my spouse was cheating on me during our entire year of podcasting together, so that makes it even more painful, right and more like I can’t believe that I did this. So why it’s embarrassing? Right, like here, I thought we were working on our marriage, yet he was not working on our marriage, he was still having affairs, so it was, in a way, feels like a lie, but actually, like the information I was saying, like I really believed it, like I picked all of our topics and I really wanted to help people, and I still really want to help people. But I just have a totally different perspective now because I am divorced about my former marriage, as well as betrayal and how devastating it is, because at that time I also didn’t know how much trauma I was holding on to and how much trauma I had that I had for over 20 years, and so, anyways, I thought I would revisit our very first podcast together and what we talked about. We called it content communicating, and it was a good podcast.
I re-listened to it the other day and I didn’t erase them from the world, which my kids were like why not, mom? Why would you want those out there? But for me I think it’s a good reminder where I was, who I was then and who I am now. So they are out there. I don’t usually talk about them, but I thought, why not? Because it’s actually good information. And I have a little different spin on it.
But it was called content communicating and it was something we actually taught our kids and we did in our family. It’s say what you mean and mean what you say. And there was Dr John Lund. He was like a I don’t know a psychiatrist or something. He wrote a book and we read his book and we actually listened to it on CDs. So that’s how it was like in the early 2000s that we learned this concept, when you used to have a CD player in your minivan and anyways. So we talked about this and we, you know, taught our kids like say what you mean and mean what you say.
And now, like fast forward to the things I’ve learned with coaching and I love Jodi Moore. She’s like I learn so much from her. I listen to coaching every day because I want to be a better coach, I want to help my clients better. So I always am in training and learning and growing and really it’s more about telling the whole truth. That’s kind of the premise more about telling the whole truth. That’s kind of the premise back when Dr John Lund was around, but now what Jodi Moore she’s named it is like telling the whole truth, and what that means is the whole truth is that I was working on like, if we’re going to go to the podcast, I did a podcast with my former spouse and I was really trying to save my marriage.
I did not want to get divorced. I had an amazing life. I had four kids. I had this dream that my family was going to be forever and that I could do hard things and that I could become the version of who my spouse wanted me to be, like I could change for him. Right, he for sure was not willing to change for me, but oh, I could, because I could fix it, I could rebuild it, I could do these things, I could become a good podcaster, I could become a great coach.
All these things were true and my spouse was unfaithful to me and he lied to me. And he lied to me while we were doing our podcast and I was devastated and it broke me in ways that I never knew. I could feel broken. It fell at times that I would be destroyed. How would I ever recover from that, knowing that he was lying to me during those podcasts, knowing that he was lying to me during those podcasts? And how embarrassing was that and how uncomfortable and what are people going to think of me? And how will someone trust me if I didn’t even know that he was doing that? How can I trust myself? How could I ever recover?
So the whole truth is a lot more nuanced and painful and interesting, right, and so Content communicating 100% is important. Right, it’s important to speak our truth, but sometimes the truth is really hard to hear and sometimes it’s really hard to say of your story. I think the stronger you will be, the more confident you’re going to be, the more honest. What if both are true? What if the truth is just more complicated? We’re human beings living a human life and I think it’s important to teach our kids like, yeah, mom, I want to do the dishes, I want to help you do the dishes, but I can’t right now, but can I do them later or whatever. I mean it doesn’t have to be like heavy things, right, it can be with everything, like, hey, can you watch my child? You know well, the truth is, I really love you and I want to watch your child. However, I have a lot going on today and just today is not going to work. That’s the whole truth. So the more you can get clear about what the whole truth is, just the more happier, the more fulfilled your life is going to be.
And in a marriage, it can be really hard to say the whole truth. In a family, it can be really hard to say the whole truth, because the truth was I desperately wanted to save my marriage and yet I ultimately chose to get divorced. Because also the truth was I wanted to be married to a man that loved me for me and that was going to be honest and not lie to me and not be sleeping around with other women Like that’s not who ultimately I wanted to be married to. So I had to face the hard truth and ultimately decide to choose to get divorced. So I’m going to put the old our past content communicating episode in the show notes and if you want to listen to it, it’s fascinating. I mean we talk about things that are trivial, about dishes and like going out with friends doing things. I did listen to it, but now I can’t remember. As I’m talking to you.
I can’t remember exactly the scenarios we gave, but like one of them was a couple that he gave in his example, a couple for like years and years. She would ask her spouse like hey, have you read your scriptures? And he finally was so fed up with his wife asking him if he’d read his scriptures that he said quit asking me that. And she’s like I don’t care if you read your scriptures or not, I just want to know if I can turn the light off, right. And so we have these little things in our marriages all the time. That he was assuming, right, we know what happens when we do that. And then she wasn’t really clear of why she was asking him the question. She wasn’t saying hey, babe, are you done reading? Because I want to turn the light off and the lights on my side of the bed, right, so we could just be a bit more clear, right? Or the couple, that is, one starving or one, has to go to the bathroom. And they’re driving and they say, hey, do you need to go to the bathroom? And they’re like no, and then you sit and get mad, right? Well, because you weren’t telling the whole truth. You weren’t telling actually hey, babe, I need to go to the bathroom. Could we stop at the next stop or whatever, right? So those are kind of the things we talked about Fascinating, I think it’s a great concept. Fascinating, I think it’s a great concept. But I like the idea of the whole truth, the whole truth, the whole like. Looking at it, there is probably some good truth, right. Like, yes, I really want to help you and I’m booked today. I can’t. Or, you know, I have things all the time I have. If you’re working or have a schedule, like, someone will ask you to do something and it feels disappointing. You want to do that, that fun thing, and you’re like, oh, I have a doctor’s appointment, but you can’t really change that. You need to keep that commitment. So the whole truth is, yes, I really want to go no-transcript if you tell the whole truth and some conversations are harder than others I love you, son or daughter, and the truth is we can’t afford it or I don’t feel comfortable giving you money for that. Could we brainstorm another way for you to get money for that or I don’t know. I’m just randomly thinking of these things right now, but anyways. So that was my very first episode of my podcast. Actually used to have a different name as well, but I thought it was important and so I just wanted to revisit it, because I actually use telling the whole truth, like I’ve reframed that content communicating into is this the whole truth? Like I’ve reframed that content communicating into is this the whole truth? And sometimes I’m not even saying it to anyone, I’m just introspectively deciding what’s the whole truth for me in this situation. Right, the truth is I am going to get really dysregulated if I have to go to that event and see my former spouse, so I value my regulated self more than I value going to that event. So just really getting honest with myself and I think it’s a really important thing to practice doing. Anyways, hopefully you enjoyed the flashback of my very first podcast that I ever did. Besides, like the introducing of ourselves, and I think the concept still stands, I just did a little different tweak on it. 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 at lifecoachjenwith1ncom. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Happily Even After. Coach, let’s work together to create your happily even after.
