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
252. When Comfort Comes From Your Ex's Best Friend and Other Post Divorce Secrets We Carry
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Would you ever confess to sleeping with your ex’s best friend before your divorce was finalized—or would you keep that secret buried forever?
Divorce is messy enough, but what happens when real human needs for comfort, connection, and validation push us toward choices we never pictured ourselves making?
If you’ve ever worried that your own healing process might be "too messy" or that your search for pleasure and being seen makes you less deserving of compassion, you’re not alone. This episode dives deep into the shame, loneliness, and judgment women so often face after divorce, especially when it comes to reclaiming their pleasure and self-worth in ways society doesn’t always approve of.
In this honest, no-holds-barred listen, you’ll discover:
- How moments of vulnerability—like sleeping with someone unexpected—are often more about healing loneliness and feeling truly seen than about reckless decisions.
- Why women are judged so harshly for seeking pleasure or comfort, and the layers of jealousy, insecurity, and societal expectation at play.
- Real stories and confessions from women who have stood in their truths, moved through shame, and learned to embrace every complex, imperfect part of their journey.
Ready to feel seen, supported, and inspired to embrace your own messy, honest healing after divorce? Hit play and join the conversation with women who get it.
Post Divorce Roadmap - 21 Days of Guided Journaling
Join The list for A Different D Word, our personalized healing program.
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On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com
A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, 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 forgiveness and letting go.
Post Divorce Road Map : 21 Days of Journaling
Promo Code: MAGICDROP
Okay. So it was after we split up technically, but we weren't legally divorced yet and it was with his best friend. I know I didn't mean for it to happen. He was just there. He asked me how I was and he actually listened and I haven't told anyone because I know what this sounds like. But honestly, I don't even regret it. 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. Thursday episodes are a place where we're not given advice. We're not necessarily telling you what tool to use. We are hearing your deepest, darkest fears, concerns, secrets, worries and stuck spots. Coach Tiffany, when we had, when you heard, this listener's experience, what did your body say and what did you want to say to her?
Speaker 2:It gave me a little bit of anxiety, just because I can relate, and it just literally made me want to just grab her hands across the table and make her feel seen.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, I have chills. You can relate. Yes, producer Joy. What did your body say? Ooh, this is going to be good. What did your body say, and what did you want to say to the woman who sent this to us? And what?
Speaker 3:did you want to say to the woman who sent this to us? I think I felt.
Speaker 3:the immediate felt was deepness and let me explain, because when I heard that, I understood that in that moment she felt seen. In that moment she felt seen in that moment, she felt, um, that she was called jane. Right, like that, jane felt like jane for the first time in a very long time. And there is beauty and power to that. And, yes, it comes with complex emotions. It comes with complex emotions, it comes with shame and it comes with like what did I do?
Speaker 1:What did?
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 3:Right, what did I just do? But it also comes with. In that moment I was seen. In that moment I felt powerful. In that moment I felt taken care of. In that moment I felt-.
Speaker 1:It felt like medicine, medicine.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, like just to be able to be in that moment and whether, whether you regret it or not, there's a little bit that like and also like or I can't also like that little bit of um. I hurt him.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 3:You know. So I just think that that being able to say that out loud and and ride in to tell us that she was going through that is just super powerful, like it's just powerful, and I'm proud of her and I'm proud of her being able to stand in her truth of this is what I did, yeah loves.
Speaker 1:What are her haters gonna say about this? What are the inner critic, the outer critic? What are they saying? That she's an idiot she doesn't deserve to be in pain. No, what else? What about like yeah, what else? What about like slut, is that a word? Do we still use that word? Do people still say that? I think it might be ho, it's so cool like these, right, the things that we're saying out loud right now. These are her fears, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, people are gonna judge her, absolutely yeah, that it's gonna feel gross. Our future partner is gonna judge her, if they find out right, because then they're like are you looking at my friends like what are?
Speaker 1:you? Can I trust you? Are you trustworthy? Are you're not a trustworthy person or something? Right like sinister? So what's real about that? Right, because there's a lot of swirling thoughts. Was real about that because no one is all good or all bad no one. We are a yin and a yang. So I didn't sleep with my ex's best friend, but I did sleep with my high school boyfriend's best friends, and my best friend had a nickname for me and man. I definitely carried a lot of shame about it, but it was about comfort and it was about I don't know familiarity. Definitely carried a lot of shame about it, but it was about comfort and it was about I don't know familiarity. I had a lot of shame about sex in general and I don't know why. It felt safer to me. It's bizarre. There's a lot of reasons we make the choices we make.
Speaker 2:So I think for me post-divorce I was playing a part in every single part of my life.
Speaker 3:Playing a role like a role A role.
Speaker 2:yes, like I was trying to be a great mom and I was trying to be the corporate girl. You know I hadn't worked in my marriage, so you know I had this job and I was trying to work my way up the corporate ladder right. And then I was also trying to date and I just never felt myself ever in any of those roles, and so that's why it felt safe to me, because in those moments like I felt like this was someone who is very familiar, who knew me, number one, who I couldn't bullshit.
Speaker 1:Call me out on it. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean, but also someone that I felt very seen and protected by and you know, I feel like too as a woman, when you are doing everything and you're carrying it all, when you're around someone that can make you feel protected and like just kind of pull you in away from the world for a while and make you forget everything like that's magic that feminine energy that you get to step into, that you're not necessarily get to every day when you have all the hats.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so let's briefly talk about the wound inside of this decision tree, right? So does it make sense, like let me know what I'm thinking feels true for you, right? Like afraid to be alone, or or feeling feelings of abandonment in this instance, do you think? Did you, tiffany, feel?
Speaker 2:I felt very much alone in my life. I could be in a room full of people and still feel very lonely. Today, not today, then yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So loneliness, loneliness, yeah. Invisible, needing attention, but not in the way that the world says. Attention seeking, right, like genuinely needing attention and connection, like needing to be seen.
Speaker 2:Like I never felt like I had anything to bring into a conversation. You know, and I think the age I got divorced and I've talked about this before was traumatic for me because in military standards like it was normal the life I was living. But when I got out into the civilian world and I'm 24 years old and I am divorced already and I have a two-year-old child, I just never fit in. The girls that were my age weren't even married yet.
Speaker 2:So when I'm dropping my daughter off at daycare. All the moms are like 10 years older than me.
Speaker 1:They seem to have their shit together Right, and so I just felt like I had nothing intelligent to add to conversations Like I. It was awful Like I just never felt like myself for years. Can we touch on how we judge women for pursuing pleasure?
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Whether it's the cookie or the dick or what are all right, like. What are the ways in which taking time for herself, the ways we? I don't know, because in some ways it's like we celebrate it in certain pieces of culture. But it's like what is that? What is that thing we do with women in pursuing pleasure? Is it religious issues? What is it?
Speaker 2:I think part of it's jealousy Jealousy, I was just going to ask that, and I think it's an ability to. When you're talking about everyone is. There's two parts of us, right A and A and a yang Like. There's those of us that want to walk that line and we want to always do the right thing and we want to dress modestly and we want to, you know, be this and that, but then there's that other part of us.
Speaker 1:And I think seeing it triggers something deep in women that feel like they can't be authentic and embrace that part.
Speaker 2:Correct and suppress. Yeah, Like I can't wear the low cut shirt, you know relatable and then we're mean to each other, and then we're mean to each other about it. Yes, like we're nasty, like women judge other women for shit, like that all the time I've been talking with my husband.
Speaker 1:I've been talking about this in general, but I brought it up to my husband the other day because in high school this really segues with the. I slept with my um, I was voted class flirt, shucker, um, and I'm sort of thinking like what was the remedy then? Right, and I'm going it's like giving pulsatilla vibes, like fear of abandonment, like attention seeking. I bet I was in a pulsatilla state in high school. I bet that's right Um, because puberty pulsatilla is also a puberty remedy and so she could be clingy and um, right, I bet I was in a pulsatilla state. So I was class flirt and I am so far from that in my present life and it sad, like it's sad, like there's something I'm not currently in touch with as much as I would like to be in touch with it, and it's probably responsibility that has killed it. Yeah, responsible in the way that I parent and dress and you know, just like across the board right the way, I way, I speak the way I yeah.
Speaker 2:What's the fear there, though?
Speaker 1:Are you fear of like judge from other moms?
Speaker 3:I think there's two things, I think one of them is about protecting my daughter's reputation, she goes to a conservative school right.
Speaker 1:So it's like I'm going to protect her reputation, right? I don't think I care as much about mine, and I think historically it's also been about being a business owner. I think it's a little different now, the way that my business is sort of spread, it's sort of global, it's less reliant on any one geographical location. But I think it's become about my daughter's reputation now.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I think that those are the parts that you want to hide about yourself right, especially now that my daughter's reputation now okay, and I think that those are the parts that you want to hide about yourself right, like especially now that my daughter's older, like there's certain things that I used to be so afraid that she was going to find out, and now I just feel like we're so close to the point where, if all of my, if everything just came out and she just knew it, I feel like it would be okay like I think for all yeah but when they're younger, right it's oh yeah, it's too much for them to, it's too much for the process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, you know yeah okay, so our listener that submitted this, we want to be friends with her avi, right like yeah, welcome to our club, friend, you fit right in I want to know about it like I want to know yeah okay, if you are loving this new format and you want to send us something, send me a dm. Make it an anonymous profile. I don't care how you do it right, but, like girl, we are your people. We love you so much. Peace, dear. Divorce. Diary is a podcast by my coach, john. You can find more at mycoachjohncom.
