Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce
This isn’t a breakup pep talk. It’s a full-body recalibration.
Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary—the only podcast for women navigating the messy aftermath of divorce who are done with quick fixes and spiritual fluff.
I’m Dawn Wiggins, therapist and homeopath, and I’m here to give you something the divorce advice space rarely does: real healing.
Through somatic therapy, EMDR, IFS, and homeopathy, we go deeper—into your nervous system, your unspoken grief, and your buried rage.
Every week, we hold the tension: the body-based anxiety you can’t shake; the hormonal upheaval no one warned you about; the unresolved longing for identity.
You’ll hear raw solo episodes, real voice notes from women in the trenches, and intimate interviews with experts who do more than perform healing.
Here, you won’t be asked to “just move on.”
You’ll be asked to feel.
If you’re tired of tutorials that leave your nervous system humming and your heart disconnected, hit subscribe.
Your nervous system already knows the truth—it just wants a safe space to embody it.
Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce
251. Guilt, Healing, and Kids: What to Do When Your Child Acts Like Your Ex After Divorce
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Have you ever heard your child use your ex’s hurtful words—and felt a wave of dread because it sounds just like them all over again?
As a divorced parent, nothing stings quite like realizing your child is picking up the same language, tones, or behaviors that once caused you pain. If you’re triggered when your kid starts echoing your ex—or even acting out patterns you’re desperate to leave behind—you’re not alone, and you don’t have to stay stuck in shame, guilt, or confusion.
In this episode, you’ll discover why this emotional gut-punch is so common for co-parents and single moms, how your own triggers say more about your unhealed wounds than your child’s choices, and what to do in the moment to avoid projecting old pain onto your kid—while still holding healthy boundaries and compassion. You’ll also learn how to reframe these moments as powerful invitations to break the cycle, model emotional honesty, and create a more secure, attuned bond with your child.
Listen now for real talk, practical healing tools, and some much-needed permission to feel it all—because navigating this pain can become one of the bravest, most transforming steps on your divorce recovery journey.
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A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.
The tone in her voice and the way she said you're too emotional was like hearing him all over again. My daughter is nine. What am I supposed to do with this? Punish her, break her heart? The way she sounds like him is so painful.
Speaker 1:Hi love, welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence. I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee. Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce Loves. Today is a very exciting day because this is day one of our new format, where you have not just me, but you have producer joy and coach Tiffany. And the reason we're doing this is because we're on season four.
Speaker 1:We've done so many epic episodes teaching you how to heal, but what we're learning as a team is that too many of you too often don't believe you are eligible for healing. You've got secrets, you've got pain, you've got stuff you're not saying out loud, or you are saying out loud but you can't shake it and it keeps resurfacing or coming back. So we decided screw it, we're going deeper. So our Tuesday episodes are going to be deep dives on mega pain points, things that you are struggling to say out loud or admit or talk with your friends about. Thursdays are going to be confessionals. Ooh, they're going to be spicy and hot and good, good, good, good, good, but they are behind a paywall and part of that is because they're so spicy. But Thursday we really want you to feel witnessed and held on Thursday episodes and like you can work through things that are the hardest things to say out loud to people.
Speaker 1:With that, coach Tiffany, producer, joy, welcome, hello, hello. With that, coach Tiffany, producer Joy, welcome, hello, hello. Hey guys. So, ladies, how does it feel this morning? What are you feeling? What's in your bodies? What is happening for you right now?
Speaker 3:I'm really excited, Like I'm on fire right now. It may be the coffee, but I think it's just because I'm with Sophia.
Speaker 1:How about you Joy?
Speaker 2:I'm really excited. I'm excited to be able to dive deeper and go to another layer of these women's journeys.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when I texted you, what was this like 10, 12, 14 days ago now? And I texted you in the middle of the night and said I want to blow up the podcast on Monday, what was your initial reaction, Joy?
Speaker 2:Well, it wasn't clear what you were going for. So, uh, my first reaction was like of course she does. Like yeah, that's kind of on brand of like wanting, um, wanting to dive deeper or to go bigger or to go better and sharpen and be better. So my first reaction was like yep, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:So then we sort of moved through um last week like shaping it, like shaping the concept Right, and anytime the three of us get into conversations where we're all like locked in, they're just so good. So I cannot wait to see what unfolds over the next couple of seasons. So today's topic is my daughter's starting to talk like her dad, and this is not just isolated to daughters, this is also sons. Obviously, right and off the cuff, I'm going to tell you I think this is one of the biggest struggles I've had actually with my mother. I think I remind her of my father. So, just as a child of divorce, that's my opening salvo and I think it has crippled our relationship over the years. And I don't think she's aware of that. Maybe she is, I don't know. We've never talked about it. What comes up for both of you when you hear this?
Speaker 3:So last night I was actually in the kitchen hanging out with my daughter. We were having a conversation actually about her dad around her dad, right, and it was just like an informal chat, like my daughter's 20, right? So, whatever, we're past the whole parenting phase.
Speaker 1:We're on to kind of like the friend phase, if you will.
Speaker 3:But I kept noticing you know she's the same age now that her father was when I married him, and so she was having this conversation with me and then all of a sudden she would make these facial expressions or words would pop out of her mouth. And I had experienced that when she was little, growing up like seeing little nuances, and even like my family, my mom would be like, oh my God, she's like little him, you know, like that was her thing. But seeing her as the same age as him and seeing her reactions, it was just it kind of took me back a little bit.
Speaker 2:It was just odd, because I was like, wow, that has to be so complex of being triggered, but also the unmeasurable love that you have for your child. But also it has to be hard.
Speaker 1:I think this is a really familiar struggle for many of us. So my brain's just sort of working on this right now and I write to the woman who submitted this to us. I think the amount of complex emotions that go into this moment, right, the amount of I'd be super curious to hear Coach Tiffany's perspective from an IFS perspective right. The various parts that would be activated here, right, because this is the definition of inner conflict, right, yeah, but I think very often our brains are, they see they. Our brains seek efficiency, right. They. They look for patterns, patterns, they get in grooves and they see things and they look to confirm. The brain looks to confirm its own biases, right.
Speaker 1:And I think that when you get triggered like this, it's so easy to lose track of who your kid is versus who your kid isn't right, and I think, in transparency.
Speaker 1:I think that happens for producer joy and I in our relationship, because we're we're cousins and we have the same parents, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Like my dad is her uncle and her mom is my aunt, and so we have mannerisms like each other's parents, and so those triggers get popped in, right, and it's like so easy to forget who this person in front of me is when I'm projecting that person who triggers me so much onto them, right, and so I think this is such a familiar struggle for more people than they even realize. But when anyone I don't care who you are, but when, especially a mom is so used to experiencing I think quite often right a lot of our identity and our joy and our happiness through our children, it's like if my kids are happy, then I can be happy, which is not true, that's not real. But we've really gotten sort of lulled into that idea, right, that my kids are happy, I'm happy. That's not actually my own personal joy, that's a whole other podcast episode. But and then when your kid is no longer a source of joy for you in that moment but a source of pain, like that's like a freaking triple whammy, like a gut punch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like there's definitely a guilty part that comes up because you know, from an IFS perspective, those feelings of guilt and shame around. I'm looking at my child with disgust, disgust.
Speaker 1:You know, whatever that feeling is coming up for you.
Speaker 3:I think, too, one of the biggest parts is when you're hearing your child say things to you that your ex has said to you at some point, having the urge so badly to correct them, as if you would have corrected your ex.
Speaker 3:If you didn't have a voice back then, Making sure that you're not projecting and trying to close or get closure through your child rather than through your ex, if that makes sense. You know like, hey, she's going to drop this truth bomb on me and I'm going to push back and hold her accountable because I never had a voice in my marriage. I never spoke up. I just made myself small.
Speaker 1:Right, like it's easier to to say the thing to your kid than it is your ex.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I'm going to put her in check to make sure that she doesn't repeat patterns that he had.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, so I don't have to feel pain, or I can feel right, yeah.
Speaker 3:I deal with a lot of clients that have this issue, that tell me that they see their, their children, you know, have all of these qualities of their ex and it's something they're afraid to talk about. It's not fun to talk about, you know, and I think that a lot of them struggle with this guilt of feeling some sense of repulsion against the thing that is supposed to bring you the most joy in the entire world.
Speaker 3:And so how do you rectify that in your mind? How do you look at your child making that facial expression?
Speaker 1:Okay, but can we just normalize feeling disgust towards your child period? Like I felt that in the last 48 hours and it had nothing to do with my kid acting like her dad, so I actually think it had to do with my kid doing something that I'm afraid I do. So it's really interesting, right, this we're we're talking about it through the lens of she's acting like my ex, but also maybe we experienced this more often, like this just sort of split, like complex emotions about being moms in general. Right, and maybe this is an opportunity for us to be more aware of the ways we project our identity onto our kids, or expect them to fulfill our identities or our roles, or to satisfy our emotional wellbeing or our nervous system regulation. Right, like, maybe this is I hate to call it a gift, but like the thing that points with a neon arrow like hey, mama, you got to integrate some of this shit because it's affecting your attachment, right, a secure attachment between mama and kiddo.
Speaker 3:I had someone tell me the other day that you know, their biggest manager from an IFS perspective is inner critic, like always pessimistic in their mind, like ruminating thoughts, and so she gets severely triggered when she hears her daughter do the same thing. So it's almost like we can be triggered by the things that we see in ourselves that we don't want our daughters or kids really repeating our cycles Right.
Speaker 3:So that can be extremely triggering, because it's like no, no, no, I have to save her, please don't go there. And then it's like how do I prevent my kid from making the same mistakes that I did? Yeah, I think I would ask the audience like what do you normally yell at your kids for? What do you get the most passionate and heated for? Because I feel like that is the stuff that gives you the most fear around repeating your cycles.
Speaker 1:Oh, what would be your answer, Joy? What are you most often?
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, that hurts, what am I? Most I get very dysregulated when my children are unkind, because I traditionally have a very deep identity as being a mom and I've said since they were born, I don't care what, how they do their hair or what they wear, as long as they're kind. And so when they're not kind, I'm just like what have?
Speaker 1:I done. Oh, it's like you're failing yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, like what have I done, you know? And so it's only been the last, what five years that I've really kind of scaled back Like everybody has a part. That's not kind and letting that have that's coming from place, of them wanting to be seen or them needing to be, whatever you know like um right.
Speaker 2:I have. I have one that's tries to be funny and so she makes jokes that might not necessarily be taken as funny. That's kind of a hard one. For me is like letting myself have grace to understand that they aren't going to behave or say the right thing 100% of the time, their uniqueness, their people-ness.
Speaker 1:And did that happen in our marriages too, where I know this was certainly one of my strategies from an IFS perspective, right, a controller manager that I really wanted to be perfect and wanted everything to look perfect in my marriage. And so by trying to control the person, control the way it looks right and I definitely have evolved with that with my daughter over the years but really trying to control how it looks so that I don't get rejected or abandoned or so people don't question whether or not my marriage is okay, right. So I definitely resonate with what you're saying, joy, about like we end up squashing their unique little spirits, right, when we expect them to be a particular note to satisfy our insecurities.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I relate with that a lot. What about the idea and this is a question for both of you what about the idea Because in the example that our listener wrote in right, her daughter accused her of being too emotional? What about the idea that the thing that hurts the most is the thing that we probably need to consider, is potentially true?
Speaker 2:I actually think this, this reminded me um shortly after we started this podcast and we were in the kitchen and we were in the thick of it and you called me dramatic or something along those lines. Like maybe, maybe, when one of the kids because we have four between us, it's like one of the kids called me dramatic and I got all huffy and she was like you are dramatic, right, it's like it's the thing I love about you.
Speaker 1:It's like your life's purpose, right, is to be this bright, to be loud, yeah, but like.
Speaker 2:It's the permission of like. Yes, I am, I take up space you know like I own a more. Yeah, did you see that?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, but like to the woman who wrote it in yes, exactly like women are supposed to be emotional, you're supposed to take take you're supposed to right.
Speaker 2:God created us to be emotional and say, fuck, yeah, I am emotional, like that is, I'm created to be so, and like I'm allowed to take up space and like I'm allowed to be heard, I'm allowed to be seen, that's my whole purpose on this planet is to be me and to be and, like you know, like we're always trying to. You know, like I think that the goal is to always try to be the healthiest version of you and make sure you're taking up space and the correct motivation, like, if you're, but yes, I am fucking dramatic and that's okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think my coaching to people is often don't weaponize your emotions or don't offload them onto people. Yeah, I think if there was one note I could give people on this podcast. It's like yes, be emotional, feel your emotions. Because not feeling our feelings and not expressing them is killing us, it's making us diseased, it's perpetuating trauma. It's like the reason you can't unhook your patterns is because you're not feeling your feelings, you're not emotional enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that gave me chills.
Speaker 1:Tiffany, what are your thoughts about right? Like okay, so your ex said some painful shit to you and maybe your daughter is echoing it.
Speaker 3:Right, but like I remember I was standing in my bedroom, I remember it, and she was like I don't know, maybe 13 or 14. And she had just said to me like just because I haven't experienced the level of what you have, doesn't mean that I'm still not impacted. So it was almost like comparing trauma versus trauma. And why is this a big deal? For you? Because in my world it wouldn't have been a big deal, but for her it was. Because, again, I raised her, you know, in a different way. So it's like being able to understand that just because people aren't on my level sometimes doesn't mean that they don't experience pain and they don't experience hurt and fear and all of that.
Speaker 3:And it kind of allowed me to take a step back and think like it's not a competition. You know it's not, but it hurt hearing that because that's what I had been told so many times over and over is. You know, just because I'm not on your level doesn't mean it doesn't hurt me, it doesn't mean that it doesn't. You know all of that, all of that shit.
Speaker 1:So there was a part, like some part that you had activated there, that a maybe felt like your pain hadn't been validated enough yet. But then also the mom who wants to be successful and good, right, it's like oh, did I get something wrong? Man, complex emotions.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and not really feeling like I was hearing her. So that's hard, but I think, again, coming back to the trigger, when they say something or they make a facial expression and your mind just kind of going back to that, there's got to be a way that you make peace with that Because again, you cannot heal that through your child. They do not understand that.
Speaker 1:Okay, but let's talk about that, because a way to make peace with that Tiffany means finding a way to feel love and acceptance towards your ex. If you could see my face right now that's the thing right.
Speaker 1:And PS, my life's purpose is unity, consciousness. So here we are. But but that's the thing right. It's like, are you open or willing to make peace and find warm feelings towards your ex? That's sort of the only path to not have to suppress or disassociate around your own child. Yeah, I agree, but like, all right, let me think about what that journey has been like for me. Like, all right, let me think about what that journey has been like for me.
Speaker 1:You know, because up to recently, my ex's ex-wife, his second ex-wife he's working on his third right now but his second ex-wife reached out to me and we have been in touch on Instagram lately. And the week we first started talking, it was heavy and intense and I was a little off and my husband noticed, and which is fine, right, I was feeling feelings and that's appropriate. But I would tell people that I am able to feel warm feelings towards my ex, but also, oh notice, there was still pain in there, right, and so can you feel pain without resentment? Can the pain just be the grief or the sadness or the rejection, but not, like, turn it into blame or resentment? What do you think? What are your thoughts about that?
Speaker 3:It was a journey for me, for sure. I feel like I did a lot of protecting Him. It was almost yeah, him, her. It was almost him and her right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like his reputation, or him and her eyes, they were still my posse absolutely right and I always felt this.
Speaker 3:I no longer feel that way and that's a very new feeling for me, but for 20 years it was almost one of those things where you know I could say what I wanted to say, but don't you dare talk about him. You know what I mean, because it was like there were things that were just private, there were things that were never aired. That you know. So for me it had to go from a period of trying to always see the intention behind it and realizing that his journey as a husband and father to me was not what it looked like, but I could still be appreciative of the fact that you know this person did give me a child.
Speaker 3:You know we did have good times. It wasn't all terrible. So it was almost like looking back at the good things. I think a bigger part of it, about letting go of the resentment of your ex is forgiving yourself for who you were when you were in that marriage, because a lot of women can't do that. Your ex is forgiving yourself for who you were when you were in that marriage. Because a lot of women can't do that, Tiffany that gave me chills, yeah.
Speaker 3:And they're looking back and they're thinking why did I make this decision? Why was he my choice? Why did I not see this or feel this or regardless? And I've done that in our child work to where I know exactly who the Tiffany was that chose him. I know why I chose him. I know why he chose me. We were both very broken people when we met. I had known him for a while but again, we were both battling things and that was okay. But then it's like we reached this point where we kind of look and we're like what are we doing?
Speaker 1:Before you're even able to forgive yourself for choosing this person, it's like first you've got to be willing to own your role in it. Oh, that's hard. That's hard, and I think it's especially hard when, when in popular culture it's like currently rewarded to call your ex a narcissist or to man, or be able to distance yourself from your own I don't know behavior patterns right by pointing that his are louder or I don't know I literally think that's rewarded in popular culture right now, to be able to pin it on him and not me.
Speaker 1:And listen, while I can recognize, based on my conversations with my ex's second wife, that my ex hasn't owned his stuff, right, he hasn't made significant change because he's still repeating the same patterns. I was absolutely a vibrational match for that hot mess when we met and got married. Like I was complicit, I was a volunteer and I think this, this is tricky, right when? Because what about the high conflict divorce? What about the narcissist that's still narcissistic, that, the actual narcissist, because they do exist, right. What about the, the active addict? What about the? You know the instances of abuse, like physical domestic violence and right, like this, the situations that really are very, very ugly. And then your child looks and sounds like your ex, like that's a lot of wounds to heal, that's a lot of wounds to heal.
Speaker 1:Before you, that inner conflict goes quiet. But what's the alternative? Because when we talk about attachment styles, we talk about not repeating mistakes, like that's the mission, right, and it has to be. You know, small segue, right, I have the best team ever. We are in the middle of building and preparing to launch a homeopathic organization. You know, the other day producer Joy had ordered a bottle filler and this has been a big thing, like how to fill bottles in mass like mass quantity to scale Right.
Speaker 1:And so producer Joy had ordered one and that one didn't work and we've been filling them manually and there was a day that she got the new one in and it worked. And if you could have heard her scream down the block and it was so joyful and, um, and I was like this, this feeling right here. This is the way you get. You eat an elephant one bite at a time and celebrate every single bite that feels successful Right.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the point is like when you are tackling something big with a big reward, you have to like really be in touch with the rewards along the way. Every time you have an IFS session and you have an aha moment and something integrates, every time you are able to reclaim some piece of yourself and feel some piece of joy, every time you're able to catch a good night's sleep or have a positive interaction or like you have to get so good at celebrating the small wins because otherwise the mountain looks too big yeah, absolutely yeah, and I think that's when I know too that my clients are getting close to that epiphany is when they can take a step back and take responsibility and accountability for their part in the relationship and start really understanding who they were and why they were that vibrational match for that person.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. And, as a mom, doing this work only leads to better conversations with your kid, like when the child said that the mom was too emotional. You're right, I am emotional, I'm designed to be emotional. And being able to have that conversation with your kid and have them kind of own their part and see you owning your part, that is how you transform. And pairing that with you know IFS and semantics and homeopathy, like all those things, that only creates deeper and better relationships with your kid.
Speaker 1:Right, because how cool would it be to be able to say, yes, I am. And why is that uncomfortable for you? How does that affect you? What goes on for you when I'm emotional. Yeah, what happens for you when I'm emotional?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right now it's about our relationship and it's not about what I did or what you did. Right now it becomes back to the relationship. How do we vibe off of each other? What works, what doesn't work, what needs to be held, what needs to be acknowledged, what needs to be released?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Wow be released. Yeah, wow, thank you. Thank you to the woman who wrote that in, because I think, it's probably more common than moms even realize and you gave us an opportunity to seek you and speak truth and love into you and to all the mamas that are facing that reality. You know it's really hard to navigate. So I'm proud of you for recognizing it.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that and for being so brave.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, I wish that every premium subscriber could know. I wish that every listener could know how excited we get as a team, and I mean like every level, like the individual who edits the podcast, the individual who creates the social media posts, like, as a team, we get so excited when we have a new premium subscriber, because we know what that means for the healing journey. We know what it means we're growing closer as a community. We know so many things and then I always love to go look at like what their little emoji that they picked and who their name is, and very often we'll put their names up on the board and all the things. Yeah, it's like we get excited over here.
Speaker 1:Today's premium listener shout out is Emily with the fire emoji. Emily, tell me what you love about the fire emoji and where you are in your divorce journey. Send me a DM at Dawn Wiggins. Thank you so much for being a subscriber. I use the fire emoji almost as much as I use the yellow twinkle emoji and it's one of my favorites and I love that it is one of your favorites. But I want to hear from you, so send us a DM and we can continue the conversation. Loves, we would love to know how you feel about this new format. Obviously, it is just born, so be patient with us as we find our stride, but we are excited to see where it goes.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to connect with these women.
Speaker 1:Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by my coach Dawn. You can find more at mycoachdawncom.
