Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

272. The Secrets Divorced Moms Carry: Shame, Silence, and the Search for Freedom

Subscriber Episode • • My Coach Dawn • Season 4 • Episode 272

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Divorced moms carry secrets no one talks about.
The things their ex did behind closed doors.
The moments with their kids they can’t admit out loud — not because they’re weak, but because protecting their children comes first.

In this premium episode of Dear Divorce Diary, we crack open the hidden stories that weigh the heaviest:

  • His secrets you’ve protected — and the resentment that builds from carrying them.
  • Your own secrets — the rage, the shame, the things you fear make you a “bad mom.”
  • The deeper secret about secrets — why it’s rarely the story itself that keeps you stuck, but the shame welded to it.

What if true freedom isn’t about being believed… but about finding peace without anyone else’s validation?
 Let’s dig in.

If you’ve felt secretly bound to your grief, know this: you’re not broken, you’re caught in a pattern that can shift. Take the Divorce Recovery Nervous System Quiz to discover how your nervous system type feeds the loop — and get tailored practices, resources, and episodes that help you move forward with confidence.

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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.

Post Divorce Road Map : 21 Days of Journaling

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SPEAKER_02:

Divorced moms keep secrets that no one talks about. The things their ex did behind closed doors, the moments with their kids they can't admit out loud, not because they're weak, but because protecting their children comes before calling out the truth. And in this episode, we are cracking open those hidden stories and asking, what if freedom isn't about finally being believed about those secrets, but about finding peace without anyone else's validation? How do you do that? 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, Don Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and divorcee. Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce. Okay, today's episode is intense. We are going to talk about his secrets that you're keeping. It's not, it's the secrets that you carry, you hide what really happened, and people who would be shocked if the truth slipped out, right? There's these things that you don't know if or when or how to say them to your kids, and you often want to blurt them out, but you just, you know, are invested in protecting your kiddos. So first we're gonna talk about his secrets. Then we're gonna talk about your secrets and your own shame, right? Because we all have our own secrets, the things that we are terrified if other people saw us or knew we did this thing or that thing, that they would be for sure that we are a bad mom. And those secrets feel really, really heavy, and we carry those as well. And then we're gonna talk about the secret about secrets, because that is really the key to unlocking all of this, right? The part that no one tells you is the secret itself is rarely the problem. Rarely. Every now and then, but not typically. It's actually the shame welded to it, and the shame, shame in general, is the one thing that you cannot heal in the dark. Let's dig in. Darlings, thank you for being with me today. Thank you for being with us today.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm so glad to be here. That sounded so stupid. I know, me too. Um it's an honor. It's an honor to be here. Every podcast host ever.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for being here, every guest. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited, right? I know. I know.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm excited to talk about this topic today. I'm very excited to do it. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

The fact that we're excited to talk about secrets is a testament to our the amount of secrets we have unburdened ourselves from.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. I like to now put my secrets on the internet because I feel like if I can own them and I can share them with the world, then the world can't get me with them, right? Like they're already out. I've already made peace with them. You can't, you can't, I can't get blindsided by you knowing something about me that I'm afraid for you to know because I already told the whole world. So congrats. I'm a weirdo. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And my list of stuff that I refuse to talk about on the pod is getting shorter.

unknown:

I love that.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm just like, fuck it. I'm gonna talk about everything, right? Like it's fine.

SPEAKER_00:

I remember in the very beginning of the podcast, and we would um, you know, do our noodle sessions or whatever, and Don would say she would, you know, sp sp spew out a secret, and I'm like, Are you Don, are you sure you want to say that? Like, are you sure you want to put that on the podcast? She was like, Fuck it, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, okay. Yeah, like herpes and I don't know what else. I don't know. Things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um you've had some doozies, but doozies. Okay, so let's start with the secrets about him that we carry. And I would say I still struggle with this. You so for anyone who's a longtime listener, anytime I reference my ex, I immediately start filtering myself. And it's exactly in this heading, right? Like, I immediately am like, do not full on bad mouth your ex on this show. He's a lawyer. Um yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And it's like I'm protecting myself probably by like protecting him, but I think that's what codependency does, right? It like that that's the thing. It's like I want to protect someone to avoid feeling some pain or discomfort or whatever, right? So I very often audit and edit what I say about my ex. But if you haven't heard me recently say this, uh, his second ex-wife and I have become chummy this last year. Yeah. And so she and I definitely have been able to connect over all of the secrets we have held over the years about both of our lived experiences. And it's ooh, it's heavy when we talk and unpack all those things. But she's been, I think we've been a beautiful ally for each other in validating those lived experiences. But yeah. A lot of dark shit. And I know you both relate to holding secrets for your exes and protecting your children from them. Or uh can I say that better? I know you both relate to carrying secrets about your husbands and protecting your children around those secrets. Sure. Sure.

SPEAKER_00:

I lived lived I didn't realize it at the time, so there's a little bit, but like I lived such a a dark life knowing I would have protected him at all costs. I still do. I would have never told my children the truth about anything. I'm so thankful he did because I don't have to keep that from them any longer. However, I would have died on that hill that I would have never I would have carried that. I would have taken right and I would have taken the blame for it. Not necessarily um the details, but like I would have yes, I'm the one that kicked him out because that's the truth. You know, I I had a line and he crossed it and I kicked him out. That's that's literally what I had said to them as they were little. So I think that, but when everything fell apart, everyone, our families, like everyone was so shocked because I curated this this per picture perfect social media, Instagram worthy life of only posting. I posted this picture um one time and it was for our anniversary, and we were standing in the river, and he was literally every fiber of his build being was like pulling away from me, and I was going in and I posted it so proud of oh, it's our blah blah blah anniversary. I love him so much. I'm so thankful for him. And I knew what I experienced in taking that picture. He was not, he did not want to kiss me, he didn't want to be like celebrated, he didn't want to. Right. And I posted that picture because we're kissing in the river. How cute are we? Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00:

But looking back, I'm like, wow, I was so um intentional on how I wanted to be perceived and how I wanted every but then when it fell apart, everybody was like, What the fuck do you do? You know what I mean? Because how can he love you so much, but also do this? Do this, right? And so um, and everybody it was so it was so hard to kind of backpedal and like no no no no, this is the way it's been, or this is the reality in which I had to walk on in shells and I couldn't breathe, and dah dah dah dah. And he would shame me and like all the reality of my actual marriage, and nobody it was so hard for people to kind of grasp because it was it was so shameful. I I could not I couldn't preach.

SPEAKER_02:

I relate to everything you're saying. So it was so shameful. Like the truth was so shameful, so shameful and like to know was unbearable because I equated it with my failure.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, right. I think society, like I don't think necessarily now, but previous generations, like if the if if I literally had someone tell me that if we got divorced, my mother-in-law, my mother-in-law showed up at my house and told me that if I divorced, it would be my fault. And I'm like, um, excuse me, your son did XYZ. This is what is happening, this is what and she was speechless and left. Because, like, no, I'm not I'm not responsible. This is not, I I it takes, um, I don't want to say it takes two to tango because I do believe that there are but I owned my part in it as well. But like, because I kept everything so secret and so locked down that when it did fall apart, yeah, like yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, nobody really knew what was going on in my marriage except my mom and my best friend, and it was just kind of towards the end when I was getting ready to leave, and I'm like, I need an exit plan, like this isn't working. But I kept so much inside. Everything that we would post online, everything that we would when we would be around friends and family and things like that. There would be certain times I can remember where we were at a party one time at his parents' house, and he had he had gotten drunk and started like spewing bullshit in front of all of our friends and family, and I lost my shit. Like I lost my mind. It was the first time that I was ever angry in front of anybody at him. And I remember everybody just being like so shocked that I reacted that way in response to him because I had just put up with it for so long that it was just like so. I felt like for me, when the facade started going away, you ever have those couples that like start fighting in public? Like that's when you know shit's about to get real because it's just like you can't, it's like a dam that's about to break, and that's what I felt. And I carried so much of his secrets, even from his childhood, like so much shit that I kept in to protect him, and even I still feel the same way because we share a child together, and even though she's grown, I still feel this need to protect and defend in certain settings.

SPEAKER_02:

Do y'all believe I t I tell my daughter a lot like what happens in the dark comes to the light? Like you could keep secrets for a period of time, but eventually the truth comes out. Do you subscribe to that theory? Like, because I think there's such a resentment around having to keep secrets to protect our kids. And I think so much that's often because A, like developmental developmentally appropriate information, right? Little kids, right, right, right, younger children, right? Like, it's just not appropriate information, A, and then B, because oh, they're half half him, half you, and we don't want to provoke shame inside of them. But I do think eventually we all have to rec I know that a huge part of my healing journey was me having to ask myself, am I as much like my mother and as much like my father and the darker parts of them? Like, is that in me? Am I like them? Am I them? And I had to wrestle with those things. I don't think there was any bypassing that, right? I I spent years really, really having to reconcile the light and dark parts of me and where that overlapped with them. And I think that we can keep these secrets from our kids, and then we bury, we bear the resentment of having to keep the secret, but at the end of the day, I don't think there's any actually shielding our children from having to do their own identity work about who their light parts and their dark parts and where they come from.

SPEAKER_00:

I definitely think that there is resentment from having to keep the secrets, both with my children and with and I family and friends will family and friends. And I've seen so much proof over this journey that we have been on of shh like it always comes to light. It's biblical, like darkness, like there you can't hide it forever, like it will come out one way or another, whether it's a disease state or um right, like it's it's gonna come out. You can't keep secrets like that, and it's been beautiful. You can edit this out if you want to, but like Kenzie, one of my children, is on a new remedy, and the other day I scooped her up and we just went someplace to she and I, and she just like started vomiting all these secrets that she's been keeping because AI gave her Yeah, be AI gave her the space to do so, but also the remedy, but also like telling her that kind of find out like it it happens, like it's you know, so like you can tell me or the school can tell me or the friend can tell me or whatever, but like the truth will always come out. It's easier, the truth will sell you free free, right? Like it's always easier for you to own it and get your self-awareness snaps than um try to suppress it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I think the astrology shows us that too, right? There's been so much astrologically over the last year where things that have been happening in the dark are being surfaced, right? Whether we call it the Epstein Files or like whatever, right? But like, yeah, the truth is always ultimately revealed. And so I wish that moms everywhere could sort of unburden themselves from like this is it's just temporary, but like prepare yourself because eventually your kids are gonna have to sort it out, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

But I think the resentment comes from being attached so much to shame. Like for me, like I was so resentful that I had to keep his secrets because there was a lot of shame in me looking back and saying, How the fuck did I end up with this person? Why did I put up with XYZ for so long? Like I allowed myself to be treated this way, and here I am. And so what are my children gonna think of me? You know, like I'm raising my daughter to be this force, you know, the strong force, and here's her mom putting up with this absolute bullshit, you know? And um made me react in a way that wasn't great either, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

So, like, yeah, like uh yes, which brings us to our second point, which is our secrets, right? Like, oh my goodness, if I showed y'all video of the times that I have like literally raged at my kid, like you would fire me. You would fire me for sure. You would be like, you are a monster, and because I was in those moments a monster, right? Like, and it's so hard for us, I think, to sit with and own and be willing to be seen in our dark, shadowy spaces.

SPEAKER_04:

I had a few times where, and her and I can laugh about this now because she's 20, but it was not funny back then, but there were several times where I would have to lock my bedroom door to get away from her because she would go into this rage state after I had gotten into my rage state. And so she would be pounding on the door, wanting to get into my room and wanting to like figure it out and fix it and yell and scream and do all the things, and and I didn't trust myself physically to be in the same space with her because I felt like I was going to lose my shit. And I was talking to a woman the other day, she has three small children, and I felt so sad for her because she said, You know, Tiffany, I have all these mom groups, and she said, But anytime I start to talk about something hard that I got angry at my child or I spanked my child or something happened, nobody fucking wants to talk about it. Everybody wants to pivot and talk about all the great things that are going on, and I think that's bullshit. I think it's bullshit as mothers that we cannot sit there and fall apart during the times when we feel the messiest. Like there's nobody there for that. And that's why we carry so much shame.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, how about the time I was so sick I forgot to pick my kid up from school? You know, like it's there are so many moments like that where like we are so afraid of being judged because we are judgmental of each other rather than coming alongside and saying, like, I see you and I get you and I do that crap too. Um or I've done it, right? I've done it. And yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

But then also for the women who have secrets that they're holding from their divorce, you know, like there were things in my divorce that took me to a whole other level of reacting in a way that I never would have normally. Like everyone saw, you know, the affair that ended my marriage. That was something that I did. However, they didn't see everything that he did leading up to it. And I never let anybody know about it because I was like, you know what, I'm gonna take the fall for this. I'm gonna be the one to plunge on the sword and just say, fuck it, because I didn't want his career to be ruined, so I'm gonna take the role as the woman that stepped out of the marriage. Like, that's fine. But I never wanted my daughter to know that because I just didn't want her to be disappointed in me, ashamed, like all of that. And then, you know, these arguments that we would get into, my women out there that like to get a little violent sometimes, that can get a little ragey, like that shit is toxic. You don't want your kids knowing that about you. Like, that's a terrible thing to say, like, hey, I put hands on your dad sometimes, or you know, we got in these terrible fights, like it changes, you don't ever want your kids to like have it change the way that they look at you. And I think that there was a lot of fear in that for me for a long time. And I've opened up more with my daughter, like she's 20. I've opened up more with her in a very neutral way, like never talking shit about her dad, but sharing my own experiences because I want her to understand that things that she might experience in her relationships now or as a person that she gets from us, it's very normal. Like I never want her to think that she's there's something wrong with her because of the way that she processes relationships or does things.

SPEAKER_02:

But say more about that, right? Because we do all have like something wrong with us. No, but we have how can we say that? Disease state, right? There are disease processes going on inside of us, whether they're in our thoughts, our beliefs, the way we see ourselves or the world around us, the way we judge ourselves or others, and it does it leads to there being ailments, right? It leads to disease processes. And I do think that to be healthy, we have to root those out.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and the only way you can do that though is being honest with your kids and giving them space to also be able to tell you if they're experiencing the same things in their relationships or friendships or whatever it is, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Right, yeah. Right, like normalize the dark darkness, right? The shadow work, the b the normalizing, yes, that's what I yes, normalizing the shadows that live inside of all of us.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and I think the biggest injustice you can do for your kids is not to share that. Right, because then they'll be afraid to come to you without right, and then they feel like they're on an island, and that's where they start getting depressed or anxious or feeling like they don't have an outlet. There's something that they're different, like yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. I um the yin and yang, you can't have the good without the bad. And so being able to own your part and own yourself and know yourself well enough to understand and teach that to your children, like you can't I can't teach my children that when I'm not doing it. Because, you know, so being able to hold space for the dark, twisty parts or the um, you know, in Bible standards would be the sin, or in Hun tricks it would be the tattoos, you know what I mean? Like it's you have to be able to hold yourself and give yourself grace and understanding in order to be able to do that. Freaking love that joy just brought K-pop demon hunters into the that's it.

SPEAKER_02:

That's the whole that movie like nails it, right? It's the idea that we all have shadows in light, and then until we own and expose our shadows, they they get they grow more powerful, they grow more powerful, and that is right, sort of the crux of this episode is like until we can bring our our shame into the light, yeah. Uh K-pop demon hunters is is the is it Brene Brown?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh, right. If you haven't watched, even if you don't have kids, you need to watch that movie because it's so beautiful, it's it's a very beautiful soundtrack is awesome. There are a bunch of bobs. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But didn't Brene Brown, isn't she famously quoted as saying, Shane, shame dies when truth is told in safe spaces? Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Well done.

SPEAKER_00:

Like well done. Be your be yourself, be your own safe space, be your children's safe space. Yep. I'm so glad you just told me that. You know?

SPEAKER_03:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm. Me too, right? Yeah, she's she talked a lot about me too before the Me Too movement, right? I feel like the phrase me too, like lost like its meaning changed when we had the Me Too movement, but before the Me Too quote unquote movement, Brene Brown was talking about the power of Me Too. Um, in all contexts, right? Like I think dark thoughts about myself or about other people or about the world around me or whatever it is, or I do I've done dark things or I've whatever, right? Like, yeah, me too. And uh yeah, yeah, it's so freeing. And the more we suppress, it's like the beach ball you try to hold under the water, like eventually that thing is slippery and it's going to surface, it's going to erupt, it's going to pop up, right? And the more we try to I remember I told this story like not that long ago. Oh Lord. Um, where my kid told me about the tingly feeling. Mom, I've been keeping this secret my whole life. There's a tingly feeling between my legs, right? Poor sweet girl. And I was like, oh my goodness, kiddo is so normal. And she's like, I've been trying to push the thoughts away forever. And like, that's the thing, right? Is when you try to push the thoughts away, like it drives you. That's shame. She was she was carrying the shame. And she told me that after she was on a new remedy, also. Yeah. Yeah. I know. And this is why the power of healing in groups is such an essential part of healing our attachment style. Because until we can share our shame with other people and feel and perceive safety within our nervous systems, love and acceptance from within and from without, right? There's not true recovery. And I think that's why, well, I know that's why we built a group element into our 12-month program. That's why I know that I got better quickly to an extent, right, in that initial post-divorce phase because I immediately joined group therapy and Alan, and both of those were places where I was sharing shame in groups. And I know that it creates it helped me develop more shame resilience, right? It helped me to immediately start to develop a healthier self-concept and to not be burdened by all the secrets I had been keeping my entire life about who I was and how I saw the world and myself. Yeah, from growing up in an environment where, yeah, you know, everything had to be a secret.

SPEAKER_00:

I really um I really loved the episode where we talked about um oh gosh, it was something about the kid not liking your kid because he reminds you of him. Like that right there is so powerful and being able to own that and being able to recognize that because when you know when you are faced with the the trauma and the trigger right there, and you suppress it or you don't face it, or you don't you know I mean like that secret that I don't like my kid. That secret I don't like my kid because he's you know, he, she or whatever. They they're they're they're my ex and is either reminding me of myself or my ex.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. I think it's both. I think that I think I trigger both things inside my mother. I think I remind her of all of the parts of her she's suppressing or repressing, and I think I remind her of my dad. I think it's both. And I think, yeah, super interesting point. She can't she can't be close to me because yeah, she's constantly feeling feelings. She doesn't want to feel.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I think every mother carries secret shame. Every mother carries secret shame. Every woman, period, right? We all have secret shame. And until we can really sit with that shame and bathe it in love, like oh, we suffer. We suffer, we suffer. It keeps us separate, it keeps us separate from ourselves, it keeps us separate from a higher power, it keeps us separate from our communities, it keeps us separate. That's why I put my secrets on the internet.

SPEAKER_01:

Because I want connection. I want connection. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Tiff Tiff. Tell the ladies about what we have planned for premium subscribers in the later this fall.

SPEAKER_04:

So later this, yeah. So later this fall, we're super stoked to start doing monthly workshops with our premium listeners. This is a chance for you to spend an hour with us every month exploring all of the different modalities and things that we talk about on the pod and get an opportunity to get some community, some love and support from the other ladies, and to just learn a lot about different techniques and things that you can use in your everyday life to help you navigate your post-divorce chapter.

SPEAKER_02:

So look for that in your email and maybe an announcement, probably in cocoon, right? If you're not in cocoon, you'll want to get into cocoon because and you could do that link in show notes all the way at the bottom, claim your free PDR, post-divorce roadmap, and then make sure you jump into Cocoon because yeah, that's where we'll host, right? That's where like the notifications and the things will come from, probably, right? Yeah. Monthly workshop, super exciting. All right, loves. We love you so much. Peace.com.

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Divorce Recovery Maven Dawn Wiggins

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