318. Divorce Unfairness: The Lie We Tell Ourselves That Keeps Us Stuck & Resentful (Premium Panel Rant)

This is us. Moms who’ve lived it — sitting together having a real, unfiltered conversation about the one thing that keeps so many of us stuck: the feeling that it’s all so damn unfair.

We talked about the hard parts of co-parenting after divorce — the uneven load, the chronic illness with no support, the special-needs kids mostly on one parent’s shoulders, the guilt, the waiting for him to step up or see what he lost, the resentment that still flares even when we think we’ve done the work.

We named it all.

Then we went deeper.

We explored how that loud “it’s so unfair” story is often rooted in something quieter: an old belief that we’re not quite worthy, not quite enough, not safe unless someone else makes it right. We talked about the moment we realized we chose these men (the signs were there), how guilt can quietly turn us into over-functioning parents, and why acceptance doesn’t have to feel like giving up.

We also got honest about what finally started to move the needle for us: looking at the resentment in the body (especially the liver), using gentle homeopathic support to help clear what talk therapy alone sometimes can’t touch, and doing the slow work of reclaiming our own worth instead of waiting for fairness from the outside.

There were a few mic-drop moments. There was laughter. There were tears. And there was a lot of “oh… that’s why it’s been so hard to let go.”

If you’re tired of carrying the unfairness like a quiet weight in your chest every time you co-parent, this conversation might be the one that helps you see it differently — and finally feel some space around it.

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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.

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Transcript

Setting The Thesis: Unfairness And Worth

SPEAKER_01 0:00

But this is the thesis of what we're saying here, right? Is that this entire belief about how freaking unfair it all is, right? How unfair my childhood was, how unfair my the ending of my marriage was, how unfair even how my frickin' wedding weeks leading up to and wedding day went, like how unfair it all felt is all grounded in a deep sense of insecurity and unworthiness. 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. So, darlings, this Thursday, this particular episode is a panel rant on the unfairness of co-parenting after divorce. And what I want to say about that, but please feel free to catch me, check me, is this panel rant is a different way to learn and apply the things we talk about on Tuesday. It's just a different way of learning. Would you say that differently?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

No, I think learning is is because when you hear someone else in that same situation where their epiphany, their light bulbs that went off in their brain, you're like, oh, so yeah, I do absolutely believe it's a different way of learning.

Personal Stories Of “Unfair” Divorce

SPEAKER_01 1:53

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. Wow, there's so much we could all say about the unfairness of what goes on during divorce. Especially to do with co-parenting. And I would actually argue that my experience with co-parenting after divorce is more as the girlfriend of the guy who got also right, the guy I was dating after divorce had a young daughter. But first things first, when I was getting divorced, I had a chronic illness, a pre-existing condition. This was before Obamacare. I was such a sick person, and I did not have the support of my family. And he did, right? He had money and a degree and a job and a family and all of the things, and I had none of those things, and it felt very unfair. And I felt entitled. And I don't know how to explain the difference. Maybe I'll find it between entitled and empowered, but I felt entitled, not empowered, right? I felt like a victim. I felt like it was unfair. I felt like I didn't know how I was gonna take care of myself. I was gonna do it, I was gonna force myself to do it, but it didn't feel easy, it felt hard, I felt stacked against, I felt like a victim.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

I absolutely relate to I felt like as a victim. Like I had done all the right things. I automatically became a single mom of just turned, like he moved out two weeks after my special needs daughter turned six. So like I had a six and two four-year-olds, and I had done it. They were all special needs, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:00

The the two, they were all it was, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Um I I mean, I look back at that time period and just laugh because I'm like, oh yeah, like yeah, yeah, yeah. But absolutely I felt like I was so hard, like I was so harmed, I was so um unjust. Like I was the perfect wife, and I did this and I did that, and you went out and destroyed your family because of your ego or whatever. And so it was probably the most pivotal, oh actually it was like it was such a pivotal moment in my parenting and myself because I deserved better. Like I it was owed to me to deserve better.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

That's what I was trying to get out around entitlement, right? I felt it owed. And I know God's promises are that, you know, it can be multiplied, pressed over, overflowing, right? But that but I wasn't trying to get it from God. I was trying to get it from Him. Him. And that's the thing, right? I was trying to get it from Him, yeah. And we don't have control over people, or I was trying to get it from family members that didn't want to give it. You know, it was like I was trying to get it from everywhere but myself or an aligned relationship or an empowered place. I felt so broken. I didn't, I don't know, I didn't I didn't understand what I didn't understand that I felt so broken and injured, yeah, and yeah, owed.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

How about you two for doodle? I think because I felt so much guilt around me being the primary cause, um, ultimately, right? Not the primary list of Hello, but whatever, the final act, right? Like the final act and the scene, like cut and scene, like yeah. It was almost like I asked for way less in the divorce. I did not push on a lot of issues, I didn't fight in the way that I should have because I was too afraid of being exposed on different things. And so I basically just accepted what was given to me. But that was a whole freaking metaphor for my entire fucking marriage. I just accepted what was given to me.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

I'm watching a friend do a very similar thing right now. It's very hard to watch.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yeah, and it's it's god, like if I if I would have known now what I knew about like whatever, like I know back then. It's like I I wish that I would have had the ability to fight back then because but I was so wrapped up in the guilt of being the one to make the choice that I was trying so hard to walk on eggshells and and take care of him and make sure that he was okay at the end of the day.

Entitlement Versus Empowerment

SPEAKER_01 6:40

But this is the thesis of what we're saying here, right? Is that this entire belief about how freaking unfair it all is, right? How unfair my childhood was, how unfair my the ending of my marriage was, how unfair even how my freaking wedding weeks leading up to and wedding day went, like how unfair it all felt, is all grounded in a deep sense of insecurity and unworthiness. And that's why shit feels unfair because we feel so unable, so unworthy, so small, so helpless, hopeless. I don't know what other words would you use for it.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

I felt rejected. Like when everything went down, like everybody's tune changed, you know. Like again, but I was in a military community, so I was literally cast out. So I lost my community, I lost friends. His family was with the exception of his dad, his family was terrible to me.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Same.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

And it was like everybody wanted to stick up for him and act like he was this fucking angel. And they had no idea what I had gone through. No idea. And even some people in my own family have just found out like in the past couple of years, literally truly went to, you know what I mean? Like, no one ever knew what I went through because I didn't say it.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Yeah. Yeah. And my mother-in-law literally showed up at my door. Now her son, XYZ, right? And he moved out. She literally showed up at my door and told me that if we got divorced, it'd be my fault.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Like you can only see Joyce's face right now.

Guilt, Settling, And Not Fighting

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Yeah. It's insane. It's insane. But I think that what pissed me off the most about co-parenting is I don't know. Like, I just thought that there would be a time when he would switch and realize everything that he lost and at least would want to try to salvage everyone with his daughter.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

How much do we watch women grapple with that? My word.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

My word. And it was like, I cannot tell you how many years I spent feeling it over and over and over. Like this overwhelming sense of disappointment, of grief, of shame, of guilt, of everything. And I stayed in that spiral for a very, very long time.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

I say to women all the time if he could make the choice, if he was gonna make the choice to learn, to grow, to shed, to shift, to empower, to embody, whatever, you wouldn't be getting divorced. You wouldn't be getting divorced, right? And so this narrative around unfairness that us women carry, wear like a frickin' Wonder Woman cloak post-divorce, right? We carry it as a badge of honor, like how unfair it is. We have to surrender the badge, right? We have to surrender the cloak, we have to surrender the shit. Because I think we would all sit here today, today, and say it wasn't unfair, it was a series of choices we made.

The Core Thesis: Unworthiness Drives “Unfair”

SPEAKER_02 9:43

I think that that hurt, right? Like when my therapist literally looked at me and said, But you married him. I was like, wait, what? Like what? And it was such a reality check and a mic drop on my healing journey because all of a sudden I went from being victim, victim, victim. I can't believe he did this, and just like simmering and per um perseverating and just like looping constantly, constantly to like, oh shit, like I I married him. I am culpable in this situation.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

I realized very shortly down the road that I had used a marriage certificate to try to quell my attachment wounds, my abandonment fears, right? Like, if I'm married, I cannot be abandoned. Little did I know I could be abandoned over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again within a marriage, let alone, you know. Yeah, like like being married didn't heal anything per se, right? Like the thing that heals is healing, is like the trillion little baby steps that require, you know, require us to take steps towards our self-worth, towards um authenticity, towards self-esteem, towards self-respect, towards, you know, self-empowerment. I don't know, all these jargony words we use, right? But it's not a slow process. It's a I mean, it's not a fast thing, right? It's a slow, steady move towards recovery and towards empowerment, because I think that's why we say it's unfair, is because we don't feel powerful enough.

Rejection, Community Loss, And Disbelief

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Well, and we can't accept ourselves, and we can't accept the version of ourselves quite yet that chose that. And I get the clients that say, So what you're saying that I fucking deserve this. No, that's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying, you thought you did, you thought you did. You thought I thought I deserved that. Yes, that's I picked what I thought I deserved. Yeah, yep, yeah. Because I'm sorry, but very rarely have I yet to see a man that is one way in dating and another in marriage. Like everything is there, everything is laid out in front of me. So it's an asshole boyfriend. Yeah, what was I thinking? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Mine was lying to me during the dating phase and being sneaky. Like, what the hell did I think was gonna happen? And then what did I think was gonna happen when we got divorced? That he was just gonna magically turn into somebody that was compassionate and caring and loving and supportive. Like, no, that's a fucking lie.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Fairy tale land, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah. But I do like you said fairy tale, like Disney lied to us, like the romance novels lied to us. Like, all of that.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

That deserves a place in this panel rant, right? That deserves a place in this panel rant. Yeah, it's like so, but I believe that fairy tales or like magical endings can happen, right? But not the way, like, not from being quote unquote rescued. It's like from being in alignment, from walking a path, from doing discernment. I don't know. It's like it's there's a lot that can go into a magic fairy tale ending, but it's not the way that they sold us.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Right. It's a hot, hot mess of work. Like you have to dig in and do the work. And you get your because you, I mean, it's that law of attraction thing, right? Like you once you integrate to know that you deserve it, you attract it, you're worthy of it, then it ha then that's the fairy until ending. It's the love affair you have with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

That attracts where you're not settling for less anymore.

Surrendering The Badge Of Unfairness

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Like you're not you're not accepting that. So, in other words, when I was dating and I knew that he was lying to me about things, and there was no, it was all avoidant behavior, like we weren't having conversations around it, anything, like that should have been as a healed person in that state, I would have looked at somebody like that and been like, I'm out. Like, I don't have patience for this, I can't handle this. But back then, it's like whatever you were trying to seek out by marrying this person that didn't fully choose you or that didn't fully treat you the way that you wanted to be treated, like that is all like, do not expect this person to change in season of divorce. I mean, I can remember, and I think I've told this story before, but the thing that hits me around co-parenting is the fact that, you know, when I went to give my daughter her shots for the first time at the doctor, and he literally worked across the street and told me he couldn't come in because he was in a meeting, and then his buddy said, Oh, I had fun playing video games with you today. So that was like the first thing of like feeling like this person is not here for me as an active co-parent. Like they're just not.

unknown 15:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

You know, and and he kept showing it over and over again throughout the years to the fact that it was just became full-on abandonment, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah, I guess we could all tell so many stories like that, right? Of like dishonesty, betrayal, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

But it's hard to, you know, it I think the thing that took me a long time was the acceptance piece, right? Because we can look at our kids and we know that they deserve more. But it's like you can look at yourself. There's so much guilt around, God, I fucking chose this person that did this to her that's hurting her. And that is so much shame and guilt. And then, like I said in my email this past week, then you parent from that place and you start creating codependent children. And that's a whole codependent fuck. You know what I mean? And that's what I did. That was my whole story laid out on a platter to up until about a year ago, I was operating from a very codependent place because I was like, I'd rather save her more pain and just do it for her rather than teaching her how to do hard things, right? Letting her experience falling on her face. Um, so many of us do that, and I see so many of my clients that have young adult children that are stuck in that and you're not helping them, just know you're not helping them, and it all has to do with the fact that you have guilt and shame around the fact that you chose this person that is now hurting your kids.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

But I would also add, because I freaking hate that was really intense, Don. But I freaking hate it when people talk about getting a result or like having a magical shift, right? Like about a year ago, I stopped doing it codependently. Well, what else changed a year ago? We started treating her homeopathically, right? So so let's show our work. Just meaning, right? It didn't just happen magically. It's like she ended up having this additional layer of energetic support that allowed her to also, like both of you, right, to start responding. So did I. Yeah. Like so did I.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

So then I was able to let go in a different way. And so it was safer, right?

Owning Choices And Attachment Wounds

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Because you didn't just, because very often I think any guru that teaches about codependency, or if you went to like Al-Anon, or if you went to Families Anonymous, or if you went to any church group or I don't know, 12-step-ish, you know, type group, they would say you have to set boundaries and you have to detach with love and you have to stop enabling and you have to do all these things, right? And that's all true. But also, had you done all those things without homeopathy, we would have got a very different result. She would be floundering and probably in danger, and she's not, because she had an amazing transformation, and that's a very big deal. And so I just want to make sure we're showing our work.

unknown 17:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Yeah. I can agree with that, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yeah. And it's what, and it's like not that you or she weren't doing the therapy too, but it's what allowed the therapy to stick, right? That's so much what we talk about over here is it's like the therapies have become so popular. Thank you, COVID-era TikTok, right? They taught us so much about codependency and attachment styles and nervous system, but it's like there are an entire world of people out there who can't get the therapies to stick because we're still missing a piece. Well, we're not missing it over here.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Over here we do it really, really, really sexy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I think it brings in a lot of pieces of the fairness, you know. And it's like, just know that, especially with the women who got cheated on, they're like, what? So I deserved that. No, nope, I'm not, I'm not pushing back on his action, right? The action sucked. However, all the signs were there of the breakdown of a marriage and a partner that was distancing themselves. Like, I'm sorry. I know you feel like women feel it. They just feel it. They know when their partners are disconnected, they know when something is going down. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

I was disconnected, right? I was distanced from myself all those years, but I knew he had a drinking problem. I knew he had a tendency to be violent. I knew he had a problem with sex and porn and all an addiction in general, right? But somehow I managed to distance myself from my knowing of those things, right? That's the deal. Like when when distance, right? Like when someone is distant or avoidant, in order to stay in a relationship with that person, we have to become distant from ourselves and our own knowing, our own intuition, our own gut instinct. Yeah. And I couldn't sit with any of those things because I didn't have the maturity, the wisdom, the experience, the self-esteem to sit with any of those things and believe that I could do better or didn't. I had to I had to work through it.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

And that you accepted it. Like you accepted it.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

100%. 100%.

Dating Red Flags And False Fairy Tales

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah. That made me really sad, I think, when kind of like everything hit a couple of years ago, and it was just like very clear to me that this is what I chose, and this is all I'm ever going to get out of it, and this is all she's ever gonna get out of it, because there is no more capacity, and like it was just kind of one of those things that hit me, and I was like, damn, okay. But then I also had to have love for that person, and that's what I said is like disconnecting love for myself, love for that girl that chose him because she chose from a place of wanting to fix herself so desperately and just wanting to be loved, right? Yeah, yeah. And that's where I think clients can turn the corner. You know, that's when I really started being able to let go of being angry at him, being upset, you know, the guilt and shame I had around myself is like being able to look back on those parts and just say, okay, you know, that that's what I chose, and and this is what it was.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

It's what it was. Yeah. It feels embarrassing, shameful though, right? Like, uh, cringey, cringe, cringe, cringe, cringe, cringe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Let's talk for a minute about homeopathically how we would start to approach this because we do have a product available. Um, the link is in the show notes, right? And where we would start approaching this problem, this particular issue homeopathically is around anger and the liver, right? Because feeling this deep-rooted resentment or sense of unfairness is a shade of anger. And the organ most associated with anger and where this stuff gets clogged is the liver. And when we start to detoxify the liver, when we start to detoxify anger, our liver detoxifies. And when we start to detoxify the liver, anger starts to dissolve, right? They work hand in hand. You can work at it from both ends, the mental end and the body end, which is what we recommend over here. So we have a liver detox that gets at both the mental and emotional patterns and gets at clearing the clogged liver. So, how would someone know they have a clogged liver? Habitual anger or resentment, waking up between one and three, one and four a.m. Hot flashes have a direct liver component. What else would you lady say? Indigestion, stomach aches, nausea, vomiting, all nausea is associated primarily with the liver. So stomach aches, nausea, vomiting, waking up between one and three or one and four. I don't know what else, what else would either of you add about liver stagnation, anger, resentment, and homeopathy?

Co-Parenting Reality Checks

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah, I think you kind of touched all of that. It's so funny that once you see it and you kind of walk the walk of clearing it, now I pick it up. I was with my um, I was out on Friday, Saturday night, and I woke up the next morning, and the first thing I said was Mike has a clogged liver. I see it now. Yeah. Like when other people, like when you're out in the world. Right. Right. So freeing, right? It's like, yeah, yeah. Like, I know how to solve that problem.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I started assessing my hairdresser too this week, and she was telling me about her kids. And so by the time the appointment was over, I'd sent her a bunch of links for remedies and essential tools and stuff like that. You know what I mean? And she was just like, oh, she's like This is wonderful. So, but it's hard not to share it with people, right? And it's like we're not even selling it. It's like the the we don't have to sell it. Like it works for itself.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

You know what I mean? It's one of the weirdest things I would say, like, you know, uh like remember that time I became a doctor in my spare time? But it's so weird to walk around the world and know and hear people's pain, like whether it's their relationship pain or like their children's illness stories, or like so-and-so has cancer, or this one is that, and like to know that homeopathy can heal all of it, and people can't can't receive that solution. It's like it's one of the weirdest. This is a different panel rant for a different day. So weird to know that there's a solution for all of your pain, and you might not be able to hear it. Probably can't hear it. It's reminds me often of there's a verse, and maybe Joy knows where it is, but there's a verse in the Bible that talks about it's easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than it is for a wealthy man to go through the gates of heaven. And like, whatever about what that's about. But I think it really is about being a vibrational match for the solution or choosing alignment. It's it's not common. It's we often choose denial and avoidance and addictive like behaviors over the truth. And homeopathy can heal your life, man. I mean, amongst other things, it's not any one thing. Like that's I'm not trying to celebrate one thing. Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful integrated pairs. Yeah, we don't we don't recommend one without the other around here. But it's the missing piece, I think, for most people. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else about the unfairness of co-parenting and what we want women to walk away, like truly understanding in their bones. You can get unburdened our liver cleanse link in show notes. We can ship it directly to you.

Shame, Codependency, And Parenting Patterns

SPEAKER_00 25:00

I just think it comes back to a big part acceptance, really, really just feeling into that. Yeah, like when he when he's triggering you. Yeah, it's like, what about it? Like, what is underneath of it? Like, yes, you're pissed off, but underneath of that, it's shame, it's guilt. Like those are the things that you keep carrying with you that make every interaction with him feel like hell sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

People often hear the word acceptance as resignation, though, like as in like tapping out, and that's not what we mean, right? What we mean is tap out on the external argument and tap into your underlying patterns that are driving your distress.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Well, because again, it's like that's the whole preface of IFS is like people that stay stuck in the shame loops for years and years in constant like chronic anxiety, it's because they keep reaching for external validation. And IFS speaks that everything is within you. But the more you keep, and again, it's like so every time he misses a phone call with them, every time he misses a pickup, every time he says, Hey, I have plans, can you just handle this? Like you keep reaching for him to make it feel better and go away. And for him, yeah, and that's that is gonna keep you stuck.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

And that's the difference difference between codependency and agency or empowerment.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah, yeah. So hard to trust at the beginning, though. All right, my darlings. If you are, because you're a premium listener, we want you to attend our premium workshop this month. So be sure to check your email and your heartbeat app to check out when that is scheduled to attend live with Coach Tiffany. Be sure to grab your homeopathic preparation of liver cleanse link in show notes, and we love you so much. Have a beautiful rest of your day. Peace.