Happily Even After with Life Coach Jen
Happily Even After shares weekly insights and tools to create more fulfilling relationships with yourself, your family and God. Jennifer is a certified life coach that was married for 26 years . She has 4 amazing children and 1 son in law. She doesn’t have it all figured out but she has lots of personal experience and has learned what to do and what not to do in relationships. I help women and men who have experienced betrayal in their marriage or have been divorced learn that their is happiness to be had even when your life doesn't go as planned.
Happily Even After with Life Coach Jen
180: Rebuilding Trust After Financial Betrayal with Guest Shayna Hutchins
What happens when financial secrets threaten to destroy your marriage? For Shayna, author of "Rebuilding a Marriage," the discovery that her husband had been making financial decisions without her knowledge became a pivotal moment that could have ended their relationship. Instead, it became the catalyst for profound healing and transformation.
Shayna's journey begins with a common scenario: as a stay-at-home mom caring for their daughter, she gladly handed over financial responsibilities to her husband, who ran a successful real estate company. With her history of depression and anxiety worsening, she "buried her head in the sand" about money matters while her husband shouldered increasing burdens alone, attempting to protect her from additional stress. When financial problems finally surfaced through an unexpected conversation with her father, Shaina faced a choice that many betrayed spouses confront: walk away or rebuild.
Despite the betrayal of trust, Shayna chose to honor her wedding vows—"in sickness and health, for richer or poorer"—and work toward reconciliation. Her path included a temporary separation, intensive therapy, and ultimately, the writing of a book to process her experience and help others facing similar challenges. The cornerstone of their healing became weekly family meetings where financial transparency replaced secrecy, and shared responsibility replaced isolation.
Shayna's candid reflections reveal an important truth about marriage: it's rarely a perfect 50-50 split. Some days, one partner might only have 20% to give, requiring the other to contribute 80%. This fluid partnership, built on communication and shared goals, forms the foundation of rebuilding trust after betrayal. For anyone struggling with financial infidelity or communication breakdown in marriage, Shaina's story offers both practical strategies and the priceless gift of hope that yes, your relationship can survive and even thrive after betrayal.
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My website is www.lifecoachjen.com
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.
Speaker 1:Hey friends, welcome to today's podcast. I'm so excited to have a guest on. Her name is Shaina and we met on Instagram and I just you know me, I love meeting new people on Instagram and it's amazing how the internet can connect us and help us find other people who are struggling, and I love that. Shaina, she reached out, talked about my podcast and I'm like you're totally going to be a guest on my podcast and she's written a book and I'm going to let her introduce herself, but I just her story isn't necessarily my story, but betrayal comes in all shapes and sizes and so I'm excited for you to hear her story of how betrayal happened in her marriage. And so, shana, first of all, welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm so, yeah, right now not so much, but right now yes, you are correct when you say betrayal comes in all shapes and sizes, although I feel like for my story there might be another name, not betrayal.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Not clarity, the Not clarity, the opposite of clarity.
Speaker 1:So fogginess or unclear?
Speaker 2:Fogginess around finances and it was due to it was kind of a 50-50.
Speaker 1:Partly you're saying you're taking some ownership and your spouse has some ownership.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, gotcha, it's a 50-50. A lot in my book. I wrote a book called Rebuilding a Marriage Is that the title of it? Yes, okay, I love that. Rebuilding a Marriage it's how to rebuild trust, partnership and communication in your marriage after it has been broken. And I put a pen name to it because I wasn't sure if I wanted my name related to the book or not. That feels scary, don't you think it's like jumping off a cliff and you don't know if you're going to land in the water or the rocks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a part of this I'm sure shame. We all feel shame in betrayal. Most people have a layer of shame and so it's like I don't know if I'm ready to take this off.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, a hundred percent. Well, the pen name is Olivia Lee and it's my daughter's middle name and my middle name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it still is connected to your heart. Exactly, tell us a little bit about your story, like how, how long have you been married? When did this start to unravel?
Speaker 2:My husband and I got married October 12th of 2013. So we are coming up on 12 years of marriage.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And 11 of them amazing. The last year has been incredibly tumultuous due to the fact, like I said, it was 50-50. Part of it was when my daughter was 4 and she's 7 now. I stopped working and I became a full time stay at home mom and my husband gave me that option. He said if you want to go back to work and at the time I had owned a salon for 16 years he said, then go back to work, we'll figure out childcare, whatever we have to do. And I said you know what, since we only planned on having one kid, I said I'm going to soak this up and I'm going to take you up on that opportunity. He owned a real estate company that was doing very well and is doing very well. He sold it this past November. So I stayed home and I've been a stay-at-home mom the last seven years.
Speaker 1:No, and in that time I kind of buried my head in the sand and I let him take the lead on paying bills and which is very normal you know, and I wouldn't know if you just decided, like I think for a lot of women that's what we do, right, like, okay, we're in charge of the at home, because I was a stay-at-home mom for 26 years, oh my goodness. And so I'm rebuilding in my 50s, right? So we think, okay, you're working in a lot of marriages, you're in charge of the finances. Husband.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Not all marriages are like that. Mine was not like that, but I can totally see it. It's like you just took it off your plate. You didn't and you could tell it buried your head in the sand, but also you just took it off your plate because you're like I'm just taking care of the baby.
Speaker 2:Well, that, and also part of my attraction to my husband in the first place when we first got together, was his financial responsibility was so impressive and he taught me things about credit and building credit and helped me build my business that when he offered me the position I was like, okay, you know you take the lead, you know we were doing wonderfully financially and we were in a great position in life and I felt safe just to kind of let go and just be that stay at home mom, to kind of let go and just be that stay-at-home mom. But in that time I also, I say, buried my head in the sand. I don't mean that in a derogatory way to myself.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But I just kind of, yeah, I just let him take the lead and I kind of I take my responsibility in it that, yes, I stayed at home, I kept the home together, I kept it a very nice home, I kept our daughter very well mannered, very well taken care of private school, pta, making lunches, doing laundry, cleaning the house. And I kind of got stuck in that I'm just a mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I think a lot of moms we find ourselves in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the last three years, like once she hit four and started getting that kind of like personality. She's seven now. I hate to say seven going on 17, but it is wild nowadays how much… these kids have so much more information than we did at seven.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because I'm 41. Okay, so you start a little bit later in life. I mean, not like that. Well, no, when we married.
Speaker 2:we did not agree on having kids. What we were going to do is we were going to work until we were in our 50s and then we were going to retire, sell everything and travel the world.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. So your plan shifted Exactly. So the past three years, when you're like I don't know, this is harder than you thought it was, like what happened? How was the breakdown of money? How did that happen? Do you think in your marriage Like, how do you see that it happened? How did that happen?
Speaker 2:do you think in your marriage, like, how do you see that it happened? Well, three years ago there was no breakdown in money. Three years ago I started having some mental health difficulties. I was struggling with a lot of anxiety, a lot of self-doubt and a lot of depression. I struggled with depression most of my life. It just, I think, the last three years up until a year ago, and fine now, but up until a year ago it really took a hold of me and I stopped leaving the house. I stopped going out. I stopped leaving the house. I stopped going out. I stopped everything and I think it became a burden on my husband without me knowing.
Speaker 2:Right because he wasn't sharing with you. He wasn't telling me that. You know I'm having a difficult time and I think you know he didn't want to tell me. He wanted to keep me safe enough. He wanted to be the man that carries the load Right, which I can understand. And he is a wonderful man. He loves his girls so much. And let me tell you, when I hit my 33rd birthday and I looked at him and I said, oh shoot, I think something's missing. I think my body's telling me you need to have a baby. And he looked right back at me and he said All right, I mean, it was just like no, it was like okay.
Speaker 1:So he clearly felt like he maybe wanted a baby too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he jumped right on that train. It was like there was. It was just like okay, and off to the races. Two tries and we were friends.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:So we had our daughter and God bless her. She's an angel, he's the best father in the world. However, I think over the past few years my mental health took a toll on him as well as the weight of his job of a real estate company that started in Arizona grew to over 4,000 agents branched off to Washington, florida, other parts of Arizona, oregon. He was carrying a heavy load of work. He was coming home to a wife that was still. I was still the house together, still doing laundry, still doing everything I needed to be doing to keep the house a nice place to come home to, but I was no longer engaging in anything outside of the home, right so a war for his company, but because you put yourself last, you had nothing to give anyone else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah I mean I guess you could say that and in November him and his business partner sold their real estate company. Is this November 2024 or what year are we in? 2024, november? Okay, so they sold in November and at the time I think he was just the pressure was building so much up on him that he didn't want to do anything, to add anything to my shoulders, because I think he thought maybe I might break and who knows, maybe at that point I was at then I might have. So I give him a little bit of grace. However, he did make some financial decisions in 2024 that put us in a situation and not a horrible situation, also not a great situation and then there were some other.
Speaker 1:How did you find out about him? Did he finally tell you or you discovered it on your own?
Speaker 2:So what was weird was my dad called me one day and my dad asked me can I come over and stump you and ask you a couple questions? And so he came over and he handed me a file folder and he looked inside the file folder and I saw what I was looking at and I was like, okay, yes, I signed all of this. What are you asking me? He's like, okay, well, I'm just hearing some stuff. And I'm like, who are you hearing stuff from? And he's like, well, I don't want to say their name. I mean, it's one of those things where people are like they want to be all up in your business, but when it comes to the brass tacks, yeah that wasn't meant to be a bomb.
Speaker 2:But, it blew off like a bomb, because that's how everyone else presented it to me, yeah, and because my head was buried so much in the sand, I wasn't maybe aware of everything all of our investments, responsibilities, bills, things, everything that was going on, and everything was on my husband's shoulders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you were stuck in survival from your stuff and he was in survival from his stuff.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so it all kind of just collided, last like November December.
Speaker 1:Was there ever a point where you're like, maybe we should get divorced? Or were you like, no, we can figure this out?
Speaker 2:So in my brain there have been self-thoughts, yeah, but the thing is and I tell myself this all the time and I promise this to my husband and I don't want to say it in any kind of foul-mouthed way but if he didn't, if it wasn't infidelity and if it's not leaving bruises on me physically, I swore in sickness and health.
Speaker 1:Yes, rich and poor.
Speaker 2:Rich or poor or better or for worse, till death do us part and we have our good days and we have our bad days, and on those bad days I am quick, draw that D card and that's kind of what I'm hard on myself about. I'm hard on him about a lot of things. I'm trying, because I'm on a podcast right now, not to like throw a bunch of stuff out there yeah, no, that's fine, but like.
Speaker 1:so, from that point when you had discovery, when your dad came over, you discovered this bomb that you didn't know really was there. Yeah, what led you to then writing a book about it?
Speaker 2:So our communication broke down.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was not understanding him and he was not hearing me, and it got to the point where our household was so tumultuous that the only thing I thought would kind of take a little bit of pressure off my chest, because it was like that tightening in my chest, yeah, your nervous system was reacting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, was reacting, yeah, yeah. So I just packed a bag and I thought maybe a little bit of distance will give me some clarity. So I packed my bag and I came to my mom's, which is not far from where we were living, and I was at my mom's for about a month and that's where I kind of really started doing the self-discovery. And, shana, you got to stop out of this and talk therapy twice a week, yeah, and leaning on any support I have, which I have a lot of support, had and have a lot of support still.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:And I left and there were a few requirements that I asked of him in order to come back home and do you want to share what those were or not? Not necessarily. They were just two large financial requirements that are just necessary to life. To get by in life you need two things. Pretty sure most women can figure out what those two things are to survive. And he did it, he took care of it. So we went home and I wrote my book, beginning, I would say, end of February, and then I published June 13th.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's remarkable. I mean, it takes people years to write a book. It's really impressive. Were you a writer in general or it just came out of your body?
Speaker 2:So I have journaled since the age of 10. My mom is a book writer, an author Okay, and ever since I was little, even when I speak on the phone with my sister, and especially at that time when I left the house and I was speaking with my sister, she, on the phone with me, she was saying Shana, if you just took what you write down in your journal and what you say, if you wrote a book or like a memoir about your life, anything would fly off the shelves. And so I kind of thought to myself, like well, if I didn't put my name on, it.
Speaker 1:you're like I'm not ready to be that open, but yeah.
Speaker 2:But then I thought you know what? I can't write a memoir because I've never published a book before, so I don't really have a platform to stand't write an memoir because I've never published a book before, so I don't really have a platform to stand on. So why don't I start with a book? That's kind of just about the basics and it's got a little tidbit of my story in there, enough to connect with people who might be in my boat rowing with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you think was most connected?
Speaker 2:Because I think a lot of couples struggle financially, communicating financially, regardless of how much money they make yeah, so, and the thing is, even till this day, we have our good days and our bad days. Like we're still figuring out, yeah, our balance financially, but I am now engaged in the conversation. Yes, yeah, several of you know kind of clouds yeah, so that would be a.
Speaker 1:Would that be a an important thing that people need to come together weekly, or how often do you think you should meet together?
Speaker 2:I sit down with him at least once a week to kind of digest what the bills are, where the finances are, what needs to happen and what the game plan is.
Speaker 1:And that has been extremely helpful.
Speaker 2:We are still kind of in that season of rebuilding. We're not done yet like we're. I'm still referring to my own book yeah because I still sometimes forget the understanding of basic communication. Emotions get a hold of me and I will fly off the handle just because I'm overwhelmed with the day. Because now I'm taking on this new role of not just a stay-at-home mom but now a book writer and a content creator, so every day I am on my computer at least 12 hours a day. Oh wow, multitasking doing a million different things.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So yeah, so you're trying to find the balance of what you were and had before to now. Okay, I need to be paying more attention. I want to do this because that feels like more fulfilling than it is. Being a stay-at-home mom, in my opinion, is the hardest job in the world, and people don't really understand that. I had four, four kids, and I had them very close together. So, yes, it is hard and challenging, and if you're not feeling your cat first, you have nothing else to do. Yeah, so suggesting having weekly conversations about money?
Speaker 2:Not even necessarily money. Just sitting down and going through the game plan, like here's what's going on this week, this is what's in the mail, or these are the appointments that I have or we have, or the errands that need to be run. Or like this is what needs to happen this week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a family agenda, family calendar, like a family meeting. Yeah, I think it's brilliant, and do you have a certain day, a time that you do it on and a time frame?
Speaker 2:Well, so he sold his company and he's taken the last couple months to just kind of we have like investments, and so he's just kind of taking this time to figure out his next move.
Speaker 1:Have you found building trust hard for you, or how is that going?
Speaker 2:Yes, building trust. I think for me in particular, with my story, is difficult Because on one hand, I want to move forward, not back. I don't want to look in the rearview mirror, I want to look ahead, but in the same sense, there are still some issues in the rearview mirror that need to be dealt with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just have to try and feel healed from those.
Speaker 2:Yes, we haven't quite closed the last chapter on a few of those things, and I think once we do I will finally be able to say all right, forward, pacing in the driver's seat, let's go.
Speaker 1:What do you think is preventing that healing from happening?
Speaker 2:uh, just the fact that there are a couple of things we need to take care of financial obligations so maybe when you're taking care of then, you can move on exactly. Yeah and those things are being taken care of. It's's just, unfortunately, it's taking time. Yeah, and I was not blessed with an abundance of patience.
Speaker 1:Yes, we can all have more patience sometimes with these things.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So communication, partnership, trust, it's an ongoing effort and everyone likes to say it's 50-50. Yeah, some days it is 50-50. Some days it's none. Yeah, some days I'll come to the family meeting and I'll say I'm going to 20. Yeah, he'll be like, okay, all right, I'll try and pick up the 80. Like, I'll try and do that, I can try and do that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Well, that's what partnership is. I believe Exactly so. What did your husband think of the book? Did he read it? I believe Exactly so. What did your husband think of the book? Did he read it?
Speaker 2:So he has not sat down and read it front to back. No, I don't know if that's because he's afraid I might have put something bad in there about him, and that's not the case at all. Nothing bad in there. My book has blips of my story that probably three out of ten women could say the same exact thing, right? So a lot of my book is just like a chapter and with a paragraph about my story and then I flip that and use the communication, partnership and trust, the three foundational basics, to navigate our way through this. And I'm still doing that. Yeah, it's a time.
Speaker 1:It's a process, right? Exactly, yeah, I love that. Well, it was so fun to have you and you did a great job on your first podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you so much, I appreciate your honesty.
Speaker 1:I think people want to hear that I mean what I love about it is like, yes, there's the struggle, but there's the hope. Exactly, I want hope, right, we want to feel like there is hope. Not every marriage is doomed to fail, right, and especially when both partners are working at the marriage and it sounds like that's what's happening in your marriage as long as we both have the same end goal.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's great and I love that you wrote a book from your pain. I think we can help people in our pain and it sounds like you've been able to help a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, and I hope to help many, many more.
Speaker 1:Yes, because not everyone's willing to be honest and vulnerable and share their story, and that's okay. Yes, not everyone needs that, and so for those of us that are, it helped lots of other people in that process. So 100% yeah. So anyway, thank you so much. If you like this podcast, please share it with your family and friends and leave us a review 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 life coach Jen with one ncom, follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let's work together to create your happily even after.