Hal Cruttenden: no joke – the honest truth about divorce

Hal Cruttenden has found the funny side of divorce – most recently in his show 'Can Dish It Out But Can't Take It'. But in this conversation, he goes deeper and gets honest about what it's really been like.

Kate is joined by comedian Hal Cruttenden, who talks candidly about his own separation story – from infidelity to dating after divorce, and everything in between. 

We talk about:

• How separation affects your confidence and sense of self
• What lazy versus comfortable looks like in a relationship
• Why friendships matter so much during divorce
• Experiencing infidelity and how it shapes your co-parenting relationship going forward
• Dating after divorce and learning to enjoy your own company again

This episode is for anyone navigating separation who wants an honest, warm and at times funny perspective on what life on the other side can look like.

A quick note – this episode includes open discussion of poor mental health and depression, as well as sex. Please listen with care and out of earshot of children.

Meet Hal Cruttenden

Hal Cruttenden is a stand-up comedian, actor and podcaster. In his latest show, Hal Cruttenden: Can Dish It Out But Can't Take It, he discussed the devastation of his divorce - after 20 years of marriage his wife left him. Now, three years on, Hal is determined to stick it to The Man (as long as The Man doesn’t stick it back to him). Packed with hilarious pontificating on middle-aged dating, social media, the insanity of modern politics and the fragility of marriage, Hal talks about swapping supposed security and a silver anniversary, for dating apps and the unexpected shift of being offered life advice by your kids.

You can learn more about Hal and book a ticket to his show on his website. You can also follow him on Instagram, Facebook and X to hear more about his life post-divorce. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to the Divorce Podcast, where we explore all aspects of ending relationships, separation, and parenting apart. If your marriage or partnership has ended, or you have friends and family who are separating, this podcast is for you. I'm Kate Daly, a relationship counsellor, divorce specialist, and co-founder of Amicable, the online legal service for separating couples. In each episode, we look at relationships and separation from different angles, including the emotional, legal, and social. I'm joined by experts and special guests who share their own unique stories, experience, and tips with the goal of helping people end relationships in a kinder and better way. In this episode, I'm joined by comedian Hal Cruttenden, who opens up about his own separation story. Hal talks honestly about how his separation came about and the knock he took to his confidence. We explore what it means to feel lazy versus comfortable in a relationship and the role friendship plays when a marriage ends. Hal speaks candidly about experiencing infidelity and how that shaped his co-parenting relationship and sense of self. We also get into dating after divorce and learning to enjoy your own company again. Just a quick heads up. In this episode, we discuss poor mental health, including depression, as well as sex. So please listen with care and maybe out of the earshot of children. If you loved this episode, then please subscribe and rate us on your preferred listening platform. Welcome, Hal.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Lovely to be here, Kate. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

It's a pleasure and thank you so much for joining us. I'm really excited to meet you and talk about your divorce today. So before we start, maybe if you could just give us a little bit of background, your life up to the point of marriage, divorce, and kids and what happened.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Well, I think I do you know what? I was thinking about this. I think I had sort of settled into being that sort of middle-aged cliched man of, you know, I was a bit of a I I don't know, maybe I'm I'm overanalysing this, but I but but seeing myself sort of getting into middle age, this sort of you know, middle-aged spread, getting sort of um a bit of a joke in my marriage, a bit of joke of joke to my friends. I was sorry, it's only because I was just thinking about this this morning that I sort of thought, God, I've changed so much because I've I've sort of become a very different person since my divorce. I would say in 2020, the year before my ex left me, and this was a strange thing, is that in 2020 she said maybe we should go into separate bedrooms. And it came, that was the most shocking moment of my marriage. Because I thought I was in this sort of quite cozy, yes, she she loves me, but yes, she thinks I'm a bit of an idiot. And I totally fall into that sort of thing of, and like many men do, I think men get very lazy in marriage, and I think I had as well. And that sort of blew my mind. I think I sat in my office and stared at the wall for about uh eight hours. I literally did nothing. It was really strange. And then about a year later, of me, I talked her out of that. I went, no, come on, let's be fine. But the very fact she was thinking like that, that was the first time I thought, oh, we're in real danger. And then a year later, in a discussion, then she said, I think we should break up. Which, as I said, it wasn't almost as shocking as what happened the year before. Well, I then had a very emotional day going to tell my kids the day afterwards they were both at university. And then I had a third section. I had this section where I went, Do you know what? Maybe I, you know, I am quite hard to love. I'm not a very attractive man. I felt I was very low self-esteem. And I I felt very guilty about what my job had done to my marriage, because I was away a lot. And actually, like most comedy, you know, I I was away a lot, but I what but I always felt quite guilty about that. I was always working quite hard to, I actually did have to work very hard because um my ex, when when the kids were tiny, she'd given up work, which I totally understood. She actually got ill trying to work, and also, and also I was away, so you had two tiny kids. So there's lots of things I felt guilty about. And I actually had friends going, don't feel guilty. She she didn't she didn't used to speak of you very nicely or anything. There were so many things I didn't notice. And it wasn't until about nine months after we'd broken up that, and I can't tell you exactly how, because there's lots of people listening, friends of mine who don't notice anything. Through an anonymous source, I found out that she'd had a long-term affair with somebody for a very long time. I don't know, still don't know the exact details of it. I know it started about about a third of the way into our marriage, and I think it continued on and off for most of our marriage. I don't know because I've never had the exact truth. So it was it sort of has a weird section. So I'm probably I'm starting off probably seeming a bit all over the place with my explanation there. But I was just, I was thinking about lots of things before I came on here and went, oh yes, it's sort of, you didn't have that year before, and then it actually happened, and then I had sort of nine months going, you know, and it was going to be quite an amicable divorce. And then you found out actually, or I found out I'd been deceived for a very, very long time. And again, I think I I'm obviously, as you can tell by the sound of my voice, I'm not a very manly man, but actually I've been a really typical man. Because I remember first of all thinking, oh, when I first read this, well, got this anonymous thing that told me that I was that that's that what had happened. I um I sort of felt, oh, maybe I'm not as bad then. So there is, it was almost like exciting. I was nine months separated. So I went, oh, I've got a reason, I've got a thing that lets me off the hook of being a bad husband and that I was rubbish. Um, because actually she's leading me for someone else. But it's it's really insidious the way it's gradually, it it just emerged how much that hit my self-confidence and how much that changed me has taken ages to realise. I think I still used to go, oh God, I'm really, you know, very insecure in other relationships I've had, very quite skittish in a way that I never was before. And but also, I don't know, I always think in in other relationships, I also was a bit lungy. I was desperate for, I was almost desperate for a new wife, a new partner for a few years. And I think that's now passing. I've gradually, I've got over a lot. I still still think I'm in the process of getting through things. That's why I'm not a great expert for this podcast because I still think I'm in the middle of it. You could probably be back in four years and I'll go, I was an idiot then, Kate. I knew nothing.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

That's so interesting, though, isn't it? Because as you're talking, you are beautifully demonstrating that having a nice, clear, crisp, clean narrative isn't something that happens when you're going through a divorce. It is messy. There are lots of different thoughts that come into your head about why this has happened or whether you should have seen it, or whether it was to do with your job or the affair or whatever. But ultimately, it's a process that's unfolding in real life in real time, isn't it? So you're right. If you come on the podcast again in four years' time, obviously we'd love to have you. It will sound like a very different story. And that's that doesn't mean this one's not right now. It's it's just it's just showing the kind of the thought process in in real time. Um you did mention a couple of things there that I just wanted to unpick as well. So do you think there's a difference because you use the word lazy and comfortable almost interchangeably? But is there a difference between being, and I'm not going to say it's a man thing, because that will get me lots of negative reaction. I'm going to say it's a person thing. Is there a difference between being a lazy person in a relationship and being comfortable in a relationship, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 7:38

I don't know. I mean, I don't mean physically lazy in terms of I was like my dad and did absolutely nothing around the house and things like that. Emotionally lazy.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

So is emotionally lazy emotionally lazy and comfortable, are they the same or are they different?

SPEAKER_00 7:53

I think there is. I think there's a laziness. The laziness comes from, I think I offloaded, like many men do, I offloaded my emotional life onto my wife. I do think that. I think I went, you're the only person I'm going to share everything with. You're the only person that I need you to help me through this problem. I am a naturally needy person. I am naturally. Someone told me about a m somebody they knew who was married, this man. And I know this is incredibly unhealthy, and this is quite common in old people's relationships. And this was a man who literally called his wife seven or eight times a day to ask her, shall I have this for lunch or that for lunch? So just he was like in his, you know, and he was six or seventies. And there was part of me that went, oh, that's lovely to find a woman who'll do that. I know it's psychologically incredibly damaging. But I went, Oh, she just completely is being his mum. It's like, so, so I mean, I'm I I don't think I was. Again, I'm slightly exaggerating, probably how bad I was, because my wife was very good at going, don't use me as your spare brain. Don't do that thing. And and actually that last year, before we broke up, when she'd said, I think maybe we you move into a separate room, I think I worked incredibly hard. I had some really hard things happen at work. I had really hard things happen that I kept totally away from her. And she was actually surprised that I'd not shared things with her because I went, right, I'm I share too much. I offload too much on her. I'm like a weight on her. So I really was aware of that. But I think I did do too much. I think I did, and and I'm probably copying a little bit my parents' relationship. My dad was a real figure in the. I mean, my dad died very young, so my dad died quite when he was only 50. But the feeling I had was my mum was really this strength behind this man. She was, um, and I think I saw that and and sort of had probably had that in my mind. You know, that my my wife was going to be my support. And also, you I mean, the it's the awful thing you do when you become a sort of 1950s couple. When she gave up work and she did odds and ends, but I was the big money earner. And that was a huge stress on me at the time. I mean, she had a great job, she's given up, and it did put me under huge stress. It also, you know, it made me work so hard. I was known as, I mean, I don't want to show off, I've mentioned this in other podcasts, but doing five gigs in one night in London, running around doing different Gominic Clubs, is known as doing a Hal Crutendon. Because when I was, because 20 years ago, I would literally pack in work and I would be working so much because I was so worried about money. So I did, but we became that classic thing where the man goes, Oh, I'm worrying about money, I've got this, and she's going, Yeah, but you're never, you're you know, how many times do I have to go, yeah? She has how many and she is she was someone who really needed attention. She isn't a she loves being a part bell of the ball. She's a real, very just socially. I mean, that's what I love about her as a person is that is that she was socially so fantastic. She'd go out and she'll be chassis and all that. And and she was having to do that a lot by herself because I was gonna I've got to do a gig tonight. It's a very, it's a very tough job to be married to.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

And it's lonely, it must be very lonely. Do you think that's about how men and women have different friendships as well? So do you think, you know, we talk quite a bit on this podcast about men not having the same social network, social support, and therefore everything does get channeled through a partner. Whereas women tend to have more diverse social networks, and therefore they will talk to their friends about divorce and separation. And so it's not as intense.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Absolutely. I mean, just I had friends, I still have tomorrow nights, I'm going out for a drink with my friend who lives around the corner. But until my divorce, no one knew anything about problems in my marriage. I think I might have told one friend the year before we broke up that we'd had this moment, and then I kind of brushed it off when he next asked, going, How are things? And I went, Oh, it's fine, it's fine. Because I felt, because you basically make too many men do this thing of having not, it's not that their wife is their best friend, which is a nice thing to say. It's their only really intimate friend that they really can share everything with. And I don't know, again, I've I've not read enough psychology books, and I always think whenever I'm having this conversation, I always go, I like to pontificate on things. But I I think it's to do with competition. I think it's to do with not wanting to be seen as vulnerable, not wanting to you feel like you're slight- Am I being slightly disloyal to my wife by bringing up by marriage with a friend and letting them know about something that she might not want shared?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

I pretty much promise you, women do not have that same feeling. We talk about you all all the time. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

And I know my wife absolutely talked to everybody because since then I've met friends who've gone, oh yes, we you were having a terrible time, weren't you? About five years in. And I went, Were we? I mean, literally friends. I thought, you know, so so yeah, so so there was a lot of chat. I have got better male friends now. I still think, I don't know. I still don't know if if if I if I got married again, if I was in a very long, intense relationship again, whether I would still share everything with another friend. I might do, but I also think I might slip into the whole thing, going, well, my best friend is the person I'm with. So I think it's just women are so much better at being empathetic. And again, this is huge generalizations. I have one of my best friends is is a woman from uh drama school, and who I've been friends with for 30 years, uh 35 years, and she probably hears the most of what I'll share with people because she's a woman. And yet, men are trying so hard, aren't they? We are doing that, mate. Do you want to talk about it? All those sort of chatty ads, and you go, oh, but just so bad at it. We're just just not we, I mean, especially my generation, I think the younger generation, I think this is all improving. I went, you know, I was sent to all boys' private schools where, oh my god, I remember every single time I, you know, the the the the three times I cried at school as a little boy, where oh, I'll I'll just go, you do not do that. So you learn that you're shutting off part of yourself with in male environments. So I think men are just, you know, we are just very bad as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

That's the thing. I think you're you're right. You know, the average age of a divorce, if you're a man, is about 44, and if you're a woman, it's about 42. So even the generation who are now divorcing, um, there's been a massive rise in 50 plus divorces as well. So that generation, as you say, our generation, are people who've grown up in a different kind of zeitgeist to what we have now? There are the people coming through, I think, will be different, and I think they will treat it in a different way. But do you think right now, do you think you and your wife, or men, I'm gonna say men and women, but it's kind of you and your wife, did you approach the divorce in a different way as well? So obviously the build-up was different because there's an instigator and there's somebody who's hearing the news. So you're on different kinds of emotional journeys from that perspective. But then once you got into the nuts and bolts of it, well, did you have a different way of handling it, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 15:20

I don't know because, well, I discovered she had a partner there already. It was me. So all that part of it, I don't really know how she was how she was dealing with it. The feeling I tend to have is probably quite bitter that I was just I'd become an obstacle. I was this person that was a relationship. Now I was this obstacle to what her happiness is now. And she's still with the person she left before they're getting married this year. You just become that road bump they need to get over. That's how I felt. And it that does sound really bitter because also she will say lovely things. We will get on really quite well. We will meet up, we will be, you know, there are things that graduations we've had to go through. We don't see each other, you know, at all often. I gave up uh picking, I was going to try and see the dogs quite a lot, but actually it was too much, it wasn't good to keep seeing each other. It felt, it felt I needed that total break. I don't think it was a reminder. I mean, she's a reminder that she's a lovely, sociable, warm person. But actually, I needed to have no, you need to be, I need to be away from you because I feel almost like I'm betraying myself sometimes by getting into lovely chats and going, well, oh, this has happened, or has that happened. Okay, I it's not that I don't want to get on with her. I have children with her, you know, grown-up children. But I also, there is a way in which I don't think, I mean, this sort of sounds really depressing, but I'm not sure that I can ever treat her with the same respect as I can treat other people because of what was done to me. Because there was a thing of going, it's not the cheating. If someone's, you know, for for me, um if someone cheats and then sits down, holds your hand and goes, I have to tell you something. It's that is so huge. And to anybody now who's cheating, don't try and hide. I had another friend who was cheating on his wife for age and said to me, he said to me, This is this is just after I got married. And he said, if you ever cheat, never oh or tell her, she'll gonna find out anyway. But so I think and I think it's quite true because I I think it will come through. And also you are you're not honouring the relationship, you're not respecting it, you've kind of thrown it away, and you're and it's so unfair on the person you're leaving because they're living in a completely different reality. Their story of the marriage is completely different. And and I do all those things. I look at photos now and go, was she with him then? Was she not? Was it off? I think it was sort of off and on. So I think I just think honesty, and I've bit dated people who've said they had affairs and they sat down, told their partner, and I think that is so hard, but so brave that you have to just go, you have to do it because it does honour them. And the people I know who've done that st have good relationships with their exes.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Well, because there's a there's an honesty in that, isn't there, I suppose, as well. Because you're actually you're you're being brave enough to have a conversation where you don't come out looking good and yet you're still putting yourself out there, aren't you? That's that's the key.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

And you're saying you're worth the truth to me. And you know, it's it still means you had value.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

I care about you enough to to say this to you and so that you can get on the same page. Yeah. I think the other thing that you just said then about this kind of confusion we have about trying to do things amicably, because, like you say, if your parents, even if your kids are grown up, there are graduations, there may well be their partnering, whether that's marriage or whatever they're gonna do, there may be kids for them in the future. And all of those things will unite you as a family, as a first family. So there are all of those things that you want to navigate, and therefore that need to be amicable is absolutely burns bright, doesn't it, when you've got kids. But at the same time, there is that authenticity need that you spoke about. You know, you said I felt like I might be sort of betraying myself. There's that need to be authentic with how you truly feel, and balancing those two things, I think is really hard. And I think, you know, a lot of the work that we do at Amicable is all about trying to look after that first bit of making sure you can pitch up to graduations and christenings and bar mitzvahs or wherever they are. And yeah, at the same time, I would never want anyone to think that doesn't mean they can't own their feelings within their breakup or what they've done.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Yeah, and I think it's like because I I do have, I mean, honestly, I have a laugh with my ex. She's a very funny woman. And, you know, we I was there at my at my daughter's graduation last year, and I've done my other daughter's two graduations. She got a B A and an MA. So we do those things, we meet up those things, but yes, it doesn't have to be. Maybe it's a thing of saying, it doesn't really have to be okay. I think my ex very much wanted, I want this to be a happy divorce. I want us to be best friends now afterwards. And I'm going, no, it doesn't have to be that. It doesn't have to be perfect. There can still always be problems, but you get along on the day and you're you're all fine. But you're not gonna have, you know, don't, you don't, it doesn't have to end up with you being, oh, we're such good mates. And I love it when people can be great maids with the people they've been married to. That's so wonderful because you're so honouring what your mat that your marriage meant something. But it's when there's been so much deception, it's very hard to forgive somebody, I think, properly for making that marriage seem like it was valueless or or just making you look a fool, I think.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

You talked, you talked earlier as well about the this idea that you you said, oh, I'm I'm very different now, but at the time my self-esteem was on the floor. It sounds like the self-identity was a bit lost. Talk to me a little bit about that. What how did you feel? And then how did you build back that sense of self after the betrayal?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

First of all, I didn't realize quite how low my self-esteem was until I realized certain certain ways in which I was treated with a bit of a. Yes, because I'm very famous. I think being a comic, I think being a comic, it's very handy to be very self-aware. So we do tend to rip ourselves apart. And I have ripped myself apart in comedy. I put myself down, I will rip the way I look, the things I say, my voice, everything. But I tend to do that quite naturally in life. I tend to be someone who is a little bit needy. And I think I actually think I did that so much that probably my wife ended up going, I sort of agree with you. I sort of think you are a bit pathetic. I think you are a bit rubbish. Yeah. And but the thing is, I think that comes from it's almost like the ability to rip yourself apart comes from being quite comfortable. Going, I've got people around me that love me. I mean, I was a classic. I was the youngest with two older sisters. And my mum, my dad was often working, then my dad died when I was like 20. But it's still that family unit is very female and very cuddly, funny little howl. I'm still, I mean, it's ridiculous to say this as a grown man, but my daughters, my daughters, my sisters, Christmas is funny because I'm still very much the youngest and the idiot. And I love it. It's a kind of off the hook thing. It's it's sort of not taking responsibility as well. It's sort of going, I'm a bit rubbish. And I think I slipped into that in my family situation. So, but also that sort of low self-esteem of obviously not being attractive to my wife, not her not being attracted to me, her wanting to end our marriage. And I think that I didn't see myself as an attractive person. So I didn't see myself as somebody that anybody would really fancy. I sort of knew it was probable that I would get, I thought I would have relations because I don't really think I was some horrendous, disgusting person. But I didn't think of myself as a sort of sexy or anything like that. And that's been mind blowing. Dating afterwards has been mind-blowing.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

I was gonna say, how do you how do you get back out on the dating scene if that's kind of your starting point then? Because that would scare me.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

I didn't go straight onto dating apps or anything. I just met people through events, through uh I was gig I was at once. And I was kind of mind-blowing, going, Oh my god, you find me attractive. And that was actually really dangerous because what it was was I went, You like me, then we must be together because who are so and forcing things that weren't right into being right because I was I I think those parts of me wanted to desperately move straight into a relationship, even though I talked about Noah. You know, when everyone would say you've got a you know you've got a time being alone. And the truth is I haven't had a lot of time being alone for the last four and a half years. I've found it uh which sounds cocky, and it's not a I don't think it's a fame thing, because I don't think I'm famous enough. Someone said this to me. It's not it's not that I'm famous enough for women to go, oh my god, it's Al Groton that I'm gonna bring.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

He's on the shelf letter on. Yes, yes, just this man.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

But I mean, someone laughed with me about comedians. I was with this young comic, Darren Harriet's lovely guy, and he's like mid-30s, gorgeous looking guy. And I was sitting with him at a gig and he went, So you're dating girl? I went, yeah, it's been it's been amazing. Women, you know, I can't believe that the women I've gone out with, the gorgeous women. And and I went, I don't think it's the fame thing. Is it being a comedian that he went, have you just worked this out, mate? I mean, he is a I mean, he's uh has uh always seems to have but but I've done a lot of dating, which has been lovely, and probably for the uh too much early on that was sort of like, oh yes, save me, save me. And I've probably done my you've done you know quite a bit of damage. I've been quite narcissistic, I've been quite love-bommy. When I look at narcissists, like I'm a sort of narcissist, but I'm aware of it. Is there a name for that?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

And does that make it better?

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Yeah, I know, but yeah, exactly. But so I have been, I was a bit love-bommy. I was sort of with people and crazy about them because I wanted to tie them into feeling the same about me. And I wanted, and it was, and I sat back and went, oh, you're really insecure. You're really scared. And I think that and it took me ages to realize I was scared. I wanted uh, I did not want to be hurt again. So I did an awful lot of you know, love bombing and then go, oh no, I'm not sure about this, you know, three months later, or and be and too many sort of too much of that. And so I think I've yeah, so I think so I so that's been really bad. Even though I lovely women, I think when people go, what are your terrible dating stories? I've not had terrible dating stories, and I'm not doing this to suck up to women and become one of those creepy, um what's the creepy male feminists? But when you hear the stories of what men get up to, compared to the women I've dated who've been so nice and so balanced and so fair, and have done a lot of listening to me going, Oh, I've been through this and look what's happened in my life.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

I've been on nearly all of your dates then, because I'm sitting here thinking, oh yeah, okay, there's been a few men where it's just been too intense too quickly, and quite a few dates where I've literally sat and nodded along and smiled politely as they've given me their whole life stories.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

So do oh, because I thought I mean I do talk too much about myself. I do it for a job, but I do realise there are loads of men who really are not aware how much they do it. And obviously on podcasts I'm terrible because I'm being asked to. It's like a yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Well, no, no, you're allowed to hear. This is yeah, this is by invitation. I'm not gonna slag you off behind your back in the next episode. You don't need to worry.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Exactly. But it is, yes, it's quite there's just loads of ways in which I've been a bit of a typical man. And I do think, yeah. So I think that feeling of worthlessness, which I knew, you know, of course you can only find it through yourself, but I absolutely was looking for somebody else to provide it. I was looking for somebody else to come and go, Oh, hell, you're amazing. I want to be with you forever. I just want to look after you emotionally, unload all your problems on me. I'll take off by your wife, you know, and all that. So I think I've really realized how so much of it and it's so satisfying when it comes from yourself. So I mean, I'm so against, I've I've been always all my life sort of kind of can't bear those people that go, yeah, I go to the gym, I keep myself in great shape. I'm really positive about myself and I love myself and I hug myself and I do this thing. And the last time, I mean, I do hug myself now, I think, I think there's a I when I started doing comedy, I used to hug myself. I was like in my twenties and we're going, you're so brave, and give myself a hug. But it is when you're under pressure that you realise how much you have to do a lot of of cuddling yourself with.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Well, self-scaffolding, definitely. Yeah, that's it. Because ultimately you come into the world alone, you're gonna die alone at some in some way, shape, or form. So I kind of think you've got to be able to be alone. And for it's precious being alone. So it's a choice to be with somebody rather than the default of where you need to be. I was thinking if you look at it that way. And I know you look, I've been divorced twice, and after my first divorce, I'd never been on my own. I hadn't been on my own at all. And the therapy I did after that was all about how to be on my own. And like one of the experiments with my therapist was to stay in on a Friday night. I was in my very early 30s, late 20s, very early 30s, was to stay in on my own on a Friday night. I tell you, that's one of the hardest things I have ever had to do at that point in my life. So yeah, I I think that learning to be comfortable on your own, and now I treasure it to the point where I'm very reticent to give it up. That probably makes me quite hard to date, I think.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Again, it's something women are better at because my mum did it. My mum was 51 when my dad died. She was 51 and she never dated anybody. But now that's not necessarily a great thing, because I think it was probably quite scary in the 1990s, suddenly to be 51 and by herself. So she and my grandmother had got divorced during the war, during the Second World War, and she never, I think she had the odd date, I'm not sure. But all the time I knew my grandmother, she was alone. So I looked at this, went, how do they do it? How do they do being properly being alone? And to be honest with you, I think I could, but I'm still not properly alone because I am in a relationship now. We're taking it very slowly, but I have so I'm sort of going, Yes, I can be alone. I think I really could be alone. I think I really could, but going, how much have you really done it though? How much have you done? I've done bits of being alone, but but there's people, you know, there's there's women I've dated on and off. There's been situationships. That comfort, there's constantly someone going, You're okay. Oh, you you want to sleep with someone tonight? I will, you know. Um sorry, that sounds really brutal. But um turn off now, daughters, if you're listening. But um, but but that thing of having someone always there, I I'm beginning to see how my mum did it, I think. And I always I think when I first got divorced, could I do that? I'm going, there's no way I can envisage a future alone. But there's also so much freedom. I mean, because I'm in a relationship at the moment that we'd been at before and now we're going to be. And we are both so busy. We see each other about once a week, if that, you know, once, twice, possibly. We're incredibly busy. We're incredibly so so my life is very much not with someone. And the other thing in which I'm not really being alone is I have two daughters, grown-up daughters, living with me most of the time. So that's so I've got my commiserations. But it's it's actually brilliant. I keep going, hey, I'm alone, going, you're not really, because and they're incredibly lovely to live with my daughters. I mean, literally lovely. There will be things like, you know, dinner made and go, oh my god. You know, you've you've just you've grown up. But no, obviously they're they're 23 and 25. But so I'm not really living the alone thing, but I I can envisage that thing of if if the ratio I'm now doesn't work out, which I hope it will. But if it doesn't, I think I've beginning to see how emotionally I can be alone, how how you can do it. When I actually think, when I was first divorced, I thought I really probably I was thinking I could be alone and then going, but you do, you, you do need someone. And the weird thing is I lead quite a lonely life in terms of I'm often on tour, I'm often away, I'm often in, you know, most most people.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Pamierans in all the major towns and cities in the UK.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

I know them all. No, but but so I'm literally three or four nights a month, I would say I'm away. So I or I'm traveling long distances to do things. So I'm very and I don't mind that, but I I realized the pain was when I was divorced of going, I didn't mind being away because I knew there was the family and everything was waiting for me at home, and my wife was there at home, and my unit was there, and suddenly I'm in hotels going, this isn't that different to the rest of your life, is it? And that was a sudden, oh, you are quite alone. But you know, there's such freedom to being by yourself as well. It is fantastic. And you sort of feel like you get to know yourself better. You don't get defined by anybody apart from yourself, really.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

And do you think it's different? So when you date and you form relationships and in your 50s, do you actually learn any lessons from being younger and wiser, you know, and as you've grown, you've become wiser, or do you think you just make the same mistakes in a different format?

SPEAKER_00 31:26

I have such vague memories of dating in my 20s. I had quite a hard time finding either people fancied me and I didn't fancy then, or I fancied someone and they didn't fancy me. I had quite a big relationship in my sort of mid-20s, and then I hadn't really been in a big relationship for about two or three years when I met my wife, and I was turning 30 then. And it's just the amount of relationships I've had now of varying length, is so much more than in my 20s, which I know it sounds like a creepy showing off now and go, yeah, a lot of ladies, but um, but it's it's really not. It's there's been so many people I've liked who've liked me, and that I've gone, oh, you know, it's not that I so it's been so much easier to meet people, and it's made me realize, well, if God, if you'd been someone who was more successful in your twenties, you probably you would have behaved quite badly. As I have, I mean, I haven't behaved badly. I've never, you know, I've not cheated on people, but I've said I really care about people. I've said I love you to pick to too many people, and then left them. Do you know what I mean? And then left them a few weeks later.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

And I was certainly at the beginning I did. I certainly said I'd love you to about the I don't know, but but it was I was so intensely thinking um this is it, this is it, because I was so incredibly excited by people that were found finding me attractive. I just was, I think I was coming from such a low point, and now I'm just yeah, I've I've learned masses through that. I've learned, I think, a lot about just being responsible. Just I totally understand why people take it slowly. I mean, I I literally used to watch films where people go, but she fancies him and he fancies her, and yet it's complicated. Why is it complicated? Just get together.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Just get together, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

In my 20s, it was that easy to go, no, but in our 50s, there's so much baggage, there's so much will this work? What will, you know, is this person right for me? Am I the right person for them? Are we, you know, going to be able to make this work on a sort of day-to-day level? I just what there's so much that's there's so much baggage in our life in our in our 50s.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

But I think as well, you're kind of at that stage, you know that you can feel very intensely about somebody in the first few weeks or months of a relationship, and you also know that that isn't necessarily going to last. So you can ride it and enjoy it once you get the hang of it without committing yourself to it totally, and therefore, as you say, stringing people along or letting people down or giving them the wrong impression. And I think when you do start dating again, it takes you a little while to remember that. And you're so unused to feeling that first flush of anything. You say, Well, this must be real, this must be it, this is must have what I must have been feeling when I first met my husband or wife or whatever. And I think you kind of it takes you a few goes at it, doesn't it? Before you're like, oh, okay, this is just that first flush feeling. I don't need to go all in on this feeling. I can see how this, whether it lasts, whether this thing I find totally adorable at the moment won't just irritate the shit out of me in another two months or two weeks and that kind of thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 34:32

And the strange thing is though, that kind of thunderbolt relationship going, oh, you're crazy, is how I got married. Is I met my I married my wife five and a half months after meeting. We had our first kid, Martha, a year and ten days after we first met. She was pregnant like, you know, three or four months after we we got together. So it's like, so we were bang. I and we were crazy people. We were like, I love you. This is gonna work. I want babies with you, I want to get married with you. And I still, I sort of took that, I think, into my dating life afterwards of going, yeah. And it's but it's it's such a trap to the other person because you are, you're trying to tie them down. What you're trying to get them in the same zone as you so that almost it's getting you in control, I think. I mean, this is not what I this is my obviously subconsciously, I've worked out what I'm doing. I want to feel safe, so I'm gonna go crazy and make sure that you come into the same zone and say that you're crazy about me. And then, oh, I'm not sure. Am I I've sort of gone off you now, you're crazy about me because my self-esteem is so lacky.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. In just a minute, I'm gonna ask you how to share your advice to anyone listening about, you know, how you get through one of life's toughest moments. But just before I do that, if you're listening to this and this episode has given you a bit of clarity or comfort or just a tip that's made things feel a little bit more manageable, then please make sure to follow the divorce podcast on your favorite podcast app. Each week we're here with expert advice and stories from real people to help and support you through your separation every step of the way. So, Hal, then, if you had to kind of give some tips to people out there who might be going through a divorce or separation and they're listening, what would you want to share with them? What have you learned that you think would be helpful?

SPEAKER_00 36:19

If you're leaving someone for someone else, tell them it's so much better in the long run. It's so much better if you just show, if you're the lever, if you have the respect for your partner to just it just makes everything so much easier. I also think if you're a man, please be aware how I know if women did this, obviously. I I'm so sorry, I'm doing male men, women, but I'm so much in my experience. Just realize how much this has hurt you, even when it you don't feel it does hurt you. I'm I was so good at repressing things. I mean, I'm a comic, so comedy is partly a repression of emotion. It's partly a repression. It's how we deal with bad things as we make a joke about them, and it's why it's I've got two comedy shows out of my divorce because there's so many jokes come into it. It's so, it's so easy to make up funny stuff. And it does, it is a lovely relief. But own it, realize I definitely, without realizing it, I've had the worst depression. I I thought I was depressed, I'm an artist. I started as a, you know, an actor and became a stand-up. I thought I knew about depression. I was always like really messed up. I've had some of my worst depressive moments since this. It hit me in ways I didn't realize. I've had, you know, I've never had that thing of uh actually, I and there was one time I I was alone and actually I've never been so depressed. I had to be with people. I think I'd just spent Christmas with my sister, and my kids were with my ex, and I had a day in my house, a night in my house where I went, I've got to go back to my sisters. I can't, I'm so down. So it was depression like I'd never known. I'm not saying this is gonna happen to everybody, but that's about not dealing with how much this is hurting you. And it's suddenly, this was a year and a half after we'd broken up, this realization of going, oh, I do need to go to therapy and talk to someone about everything that's going on. So just be aware how hard it's gonna be. And also just be aware that it's so annoying when all you want to do after a long marriage is go and sleep with someone else because you're just you're divorced and you go, I want to know what's like to have, I'm gonna have sex with someone else. And and it is, let's not admit how incredibly exciting that is when you've been in a long marriage and going, Oh my god, you're scared, you're excited, you're everything, but you are probably gonna have to work through this, get your head around it by yourself. No one is going to save you unless you do meet the magic. If you are the sort of man who wants to be with a woman who tells you what to eat and you phone her eight times a day and she becomes your mum, and that works for you, and it works for her, that's fine. But you are going to have to find the strength from within yourself. And it's so rewarding. We're like the royal family. My me and my sisters have all been divorced. And my middle sister, my middle sister was oh no, I think Edward still isn't divorced, the royal family. My middle sister was divorced many years ago, she's much younger, and she was the one that said to me, You're really going to grow through this. And it sounds like such psycho babble nonsense. But she said, You are going to grow, you're going to change so much, you're going to find out so much about yourself. And she went through a divorce in her early 30s. And she said, You're really going to learn so much about yourself. And that's so true. I'm so much more aware of who I am as a person and feel stronger and resilient and different. But obviously, I'm older as well. So maybe that would have happened anyway within the marriage. But there was a way in which the dysfunction of my marriage had made me become somebody that wasn't the best version of me. And it probably I am, I'm never going to find the best version of me, but you know, I'm more on the road to being more honest about who I am now.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

And it definitely sounds like, you know, talking to you, it sounds like it's a real revelation. It feels like you're engaged and you've woken up and you're there, and you're like you say, you might not get everything right, that you might have those moments of slipping back into wanting the seven phone calls a day. But ultimately, you can see Can I just point out I was never that person.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

I was never calling my wife seven times a day. But but but also that thing of going.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

I like the way you admire it though. Well, it just would be like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Wouldn't I just I mean I'm being really dark here? It would be lovely to marry your mum, but unfortunately, that's a whole nother podcast. I need so much therapy still. But but I also think that age thing of, you know, because I was I was 52, no, I'm now 56. And you do go, oh, why did this have to happen now? But, and it does, you have maybe maybe you made me say, maybe it would have been better if we'd broken up in our 30s. Um, I don't think it'd be better in terms of my kids, because I got to be with my kids all this, you know, as well.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

All rights lead to here, don't they? Ultimately, you can only deal with the present you've got in front of you.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Yeah, and also just it's really exciting to be living this life in your 50s. 50s is not meant to be exciting, and you've got to admit it's fun. And lots of people are having a lot of fun out there, and it's kind of it's just interesting. It's just interesting having uh living this life.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Now, where can people find you at the moment? What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Well, I'm on tour sort of everywhere. Yes, you can find me halcruttenden.com for tour dates. That's my website, and I do, I'm I my agents told me to do all this. So it's what the young the young do. Instagram at hcruttenden, Facebook Hal Cruttenden. That's where I put a lot of stuff out on. If you want to see me rant almost totally about politics and try and wind up people, it's Twitter. So I do little videos and stuff, but I'm all over. If you go on hellcruttenden.com, that's my tour dates, and that's the best place to find me. And you can see the funny side of this divorce.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Well, I'm loving your Insta reels though. Uh they've given they've given me a lot of laughs. I'm now practically stalking you and all of that because it's just so funny. So definitely go and look at those if you're uh if you've enjoyed this podcast today. For separation and co-parenting advice and support, you can visit amicable.co.uk where you can explore lots of our free resources and book a free advice consultation. And you can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram and hear about our new podcast episodes by subscribing for updates and visiting thedivorsepodcast.com or find us on your favourite listening platform. Don't forget, we would love to hear from you and love to find out what floats your boat on this podcast. So please get in touch at hello at amicable.co.uk. And the topics you ask us about and bring up might just form the next part of our episode. So we look forward to hearing from you. Hal, it's been an absolute delight talking to you this afternoon. Thank you so much for joining me and being so candid and sharing your divorce story with us.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Thank you, Kate. Loved it. Thank you.