#106 Divorce, Heartbreak & The Grief Within.

Divorce is often spoken about as a legal process… but not nearly enough as grief.

In this deeply honest and compassionate episode of Just For Today, I’m joined by relationship coach Gemma Hall as we explore the emotional reality of divorce and the grief that can live within it.

Together, we talk about the loss of relationships, identity shifts, loneliness, rebuilding yourself after heartbreak, and grieving a version of life you thought you were going to have.

This conversation is not about blame or the details of why relationships end.
It’s about the emotional experience of living through divorce as a woman.

Because divorce can bring with it so many layers of grief:
💔 The ending of a relationship
💔 The loss of future plans and dreams
💔 Identity shifts and rebuilding
💔 Loneliness and emotional overwhelm
💔 Trying to hold everything together whilst quietly falling apart inside

Gemma shares openly and vulnerably about her own lived experience, alongside the work she now does supporting women through heartbreak, separation, and healing.

This episode is raw, compassionate, deeply human… and a reminder that grief doesn’t only exist through death.

✨ In this episode we explore:
• Divorce as a form of grief
• Identity loss and rebuilding yourself
• Loneliness after separation
• Emotional overwhelm and survival mode
• Shame, judgment and expectations
• Letting go of the future you imagined
• Self compassion during heartbreak
• The collateral beauty that can emerge through healing

💭 A gentle reminder from this episode:

You are allowed to grieve the life you thought you were going to have.

And healing doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t hurt.

Below are some resources that Gemma has kindly shared:

https://www.teamyoucoaching.com/values 

Follow Gemma on Instagram , Facebook & LinkedIn or join her WhatsApp Group 

If this conversation resonates with you, please share it with someone who could also benefit from these insights. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and follow me on social media for more updates and inspiration.

If you are on Instgram we can connect HERE , I would love to be tagged in any shares etc.

Until next time, take care and be present.

Steph xx

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, and welcome back to the Just For Today podcast. Today's conversation is one that I know will resonate deeply with so many women because we're talking about divorce and the grief that can live within it. When I decided I wanted to create an episode around this subject, there was immediately one person I knew I wanted to speak to, and that was Gemma Hall. Gemma is a relationship coach. She doesn't work with couples. She works with women, supporting them through heartbreak, separation, divorce, identity loss, emotional overwhelm, and the process of rebuilding themselves after difficult relationships and life transitions. But what I love most about Gemma is that her work doesn't come from theory alone, it comes from a lived experience. Gemma speaks so openly about her own journey through divorce, grief, identity loss, fear, shame, and rebuilding herself after heartbreak. And that is exactly why I knew she was the right person for this conversation. Because today isn't about blame, the details of why relationships end. It's about the emotional experience of living through divorce as a woman. The grief of losing a relationship, the grief of losing a future you that you thought you were going to have, the grief of identity shifts, loneliness, uncertainty, and trying to reconnect with yourself whilst your whole world feels completely unfamiliar. This is a deeply honest, compassionate, and a very human conversation. And I'm so grateful that Gemma is here to have it with me. So wherever you are today, whether you're navigating heartbreak, rebuilding after loss, or quietly grieving a life that no longer exists, you are so welcome here. Gemma, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. Because um, there's so many things me and you could have had a discussion about, and the obvious choice would have been sibling loss. Yep, because we both have that in common, and our sisters have the same name. Um, and it seemed like the obvious choice, but actually I want this podcast to be about so much more than death. I really do. And divorce was something that I didn't recognise as a process I was grieving. Um, but on the other side of it, looking back, oh my gosh, I was deeply in the throes of grief, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

And I don't think a lot of people notice the degree, the grief until afterwards. And when if you haven't experienced it as well, I don't think you can recognise that that's what someone's going through.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

No, no. So tell me about your experience of not necessarily all the nitty-gritty details, but actually who you were when you were in the mix of a marriage that you realised was coming to an end.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

So um we dragged it out of it, and I think for all the right reasons, um, you know, we'd done our best to make it work, so there were lots of conversations, but there had been so many small wounds in the build-up to our relationship breaking down, and I fought for my marriage, tooth and nail. Um, I actually don't recognise the person I was when I was fighting.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Can I ask you what that looked like though? When you say you fought tooth and nail, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So I there was there was begging, there was crying, there was sacrificing parts of myself to bend and make myself what I thought I needed to be in order for the marriage to survive. And so um the priority became saving the marriage rather than living a full, true, happy, authentic life. It became like, you know, we cannot have a broken home. And I hate that term. We're gonna come back in a minute. But it I literally I completely disregarded who I was, what I wanted, what I wanted my life to look like, because the priority was saving the marriage for the sake of the children. Now I has no divorce in my family. Um, my ex-husband was from divorced parents, and it was a very unamicable divorce. Uh, so it was just like I remember the first time, and he was the first person who raised it, like two years, two years before we screwed up, when he was like, I love you, but I'm not sure if I'm in love with you. You're the classic bollocks. And um, I literally said to him, You don't get to make that decision. You don't get to leave me to destroy this home, like just by making that decision, as if it's only you who gets to choose. I mean, ultimately, that is where we ended up. But I wasn't, it was such a shock to me. Like I knew, and I see this so often, Steph, I knew things weren't right, I knew they weren't great, but I just put it up, you know, that's marriage, it's tough. We've got young kids, you know. When that first conversation happened, my youngest was six months old. And so I was just like, well, this is all normal, you know, everything we're going through is normal. But actually, it wasn't good enough for either of us. But I was not prepared, you know, I was completely blindsided, even though all the signs were there that we were not actually in a happy marriage. So, yeah, my default response was I will fight to the death to keep this marriage together. Actually, that's what it would have been a fight to the death. And that's that's not a marriage that I want. And also, it's not a relationship that I want to model to my children. And there was um a book by Clennon Doyle called Untamed, fabulous book. I read that in lockdown. Amazing. It was a lockdown when I read it as well. And one of the, she does lots of little short stories about her journey in her life, and one of the stories was how her daughter asked her to do her hair and she'd all do it like yours, mummy. And she had this moment of, oh my goodness. I am modelling to my child what life should look like. And would I be happy if my child was in the marriage that I'm in? And it was such a moment for me where I was like, no, I I wouldn't. I would not want the relationship I have for my daughters. And so something had to significantly change, or we had to go our separate ways. So I sacrificed too much of myself in order to save the marriage before I realised what was actually important.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Broken home. What a lovely term. I am from a broken home. My parents divorced when I was around nine. Um and it had a significant impact on me, especially in the 80s when people did stay together for the sake of the kids. So it there was less um children in school that would go to their dads at the weekends and things, and I became an alien. I felt like I was different to the crowd, and I never wanted to be different from the crowd. So um that programmed me into marriages for life. You work, you go in, you make that commitment, you stay, you fight because of that stigma of maybe broken home, but also because I was a child of divorce and I didn't want my children to experience that either. And when you're in the depths of that, all you remember is the sadness of divorce as a child and facing step siblings that you don't like that get more of your dad than you do, and all of those sort of things come into the mix of do I want my children to experience this? Versus actually, but my parents were happier, separated at some point when all that heart um heart heartache disappeared. My parents actually went on to meet better people for themselves, but you can't remember that as a child, you've got that wounded child that's in your body and is making the decisions.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

And I think even still now, actually, but more so in the 80s, people, it was still taboo. And so adults didn't have anyone to learn from how to do divorce. And I have a friend who, when I separated from my husband, she literally said to me, um, well, me and my husband would never split up because we're both from broken homes, so we know what the damage it does to the children. You know, you're like, oh, talk about a knife to my heart. That's like my biggest worry is the impact it's gonna have on my children. So like you've literally got my biggest fear, and a knife right through it. Yeah. And so, but I also then recognized that actually it's not the divorce per se that's the problem. Children suffer when they are in unhappy homes and high conflict. That's where the pain is. And so, you know, in the 80s, each parent was doing their best, and that my friend was bringing her wounds to the table and saying these are real still, and they're not real anymore. We don't have to, and and I've got another friend who still to this day says, Are you sure you two can't work it out? Like, no. Um, but you know, everyone's doing their best. And now we're so lucky because we have so much more education, we have access to so much more to support us, but we still have to be prepared to do the work. We still have to be able to take our pain, take our anger, our resentment, um, our trauma, and go, I'm going to do the work to deal with that so that I don't pass it to my children. Yeah. Because I don't want them to carry it. I want to, and you know, always spoken before, but for me, being a parent doesn't end when a child turns 18. And you'll see I know that too. Yeah. And but so many times you'll see on like socials, oh, baby daddy's, you know, when the kids turn 18, I no longer have to deal with that dickhead. Absolutely not. If you want to be a full part of your child's life, obviously there's always exceptions, but they're gonna have weddings and big birthdays, and you might have grandkids, and you might have all of these key milestones throughout your child's entire life. So you are parents to that child for life. And your child should not have to worry about, oh God, who can I sit, who should I sit dad next to, or oh god, mum won't be in the same room as so and so. Oh, do you know what? Let's just elope. Like your children should not have to carry your pain. And that's why I'm so passionate about, you know, dealing with your shit.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Rather than handing it on with your child and going, well, once they're 18, I won't have to deal with it because it would be their problem.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

It always makes me smile when you see those posts of, oh, you know, I'll never have to deal with them again. And I guess if it's a toxic as there's domestic violence, and those are caveats, obviously, make life a bit different. But me and my ex-husband made the decision quite early on that the pivotal moments we would always be present for. And don't get me wrong, they've not always been easy. There's been times where I've had to stand and bite my tongue because something I don't agree with, or I don't want to do that particular thing. Um, but 18th birthdays, 21st birthdays, we've done them all all together. My husband, my ex-husband's remarried, obviously, I'm remarried, and as a four, we do it together and we make decisions together, but it's not been easy. And people look at the our dynamic and go, I don't understand it, I don't know how you can deal with it, I don't know why you would want to be in the car. Well, because I choose my children. Yeah. I'm choosing my children's piece because I know the opposite to that. I know the having to park round the corner so that the other parent doesn't see the other parent, so there's no conflict and getting out as that child. So I'm I like you say, the importance in that moment is I'm choosing my children. And I have very little interaction with the kids' dad now, purely because they're adults. Yeah. But it's not because I'm like, thank God, it's just we don't need to have much in you know, involvement in each other's lives. But there are still moments where he'll be the first person I will call. One of the boys is struggling with this, or what do you think about that? Or you know, and he'll be the person I call because he's their dad and he's who I chose to be their dad. But it's not easy, and I think it's it comes with healing.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

I think people can look, so myself and my ex-husband and children are still quite young, and we co-parent really successfully together. And I think people can assume, like I say, someone still thinks we should get back together because they see uh a well-rounded front. That has not come by accident. No, no. You know, that is not something, oh, aren't we lucky, we just grew apart. No, there was a lot of pain, there was a lot of wounds, there was damage done. And so the work had to be done too, by both of us, um, to create that safety and to, you know, to to go, no, no matter what, the kids come. Our egos will be bruised, they will be hurt, they will be, you know, there'll be times when they flare up. The kids come first, always. And if we have to deal with our own stuff privately, but uh children are energy sponges and they pick up on those tensions, those unspoken words, and they start to hide parts of themselves. And so for me, I never wanted my girls to come home and feel like they can't go, I love dad more than you. Of course that's gonna hurt, but that's normal. And I want them to have a normal, safe space where they can throw all their crap at me and I absorb it because I'll have boundaries, don't get me wrong about how we talk to each other, but I don't want them to feel like they have to, I never want them to have to feel to themselves. Yeah. That doesn't happen by accident.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

No, no, it doesn't. And I remember right at the start when the boys would go for the weekend, and me and Grange were in a new relationship, and the boys would come back and be really angry at him and just call him names, and we knew why they were doing it, and we would just let it go, obviously, respectful that it wasn't disgusting things they were saying. But we knew there was a transition they were making from dad's time to mum's time again, and the conflict of feeling all of these emotions of how does dad feel about mums now in a relationship and all of that stuff. So there is there is that, but with regards to the grieving, when what do you think your grief looked like?

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Messy, really messy. Like there were, I remember there were times where I could not pull myself together, and it was horrible. Like I felt completely on my knees through my grief, like I couldn't cope, I was crying all the time, and I've always been someone who's really good at putting on a brave face. I never cried, I'm always the strong one, always the positive one, and it flawed me without any shadow of a doubt. And my my sister was going through um her first diagnosis, and I couldn't be there for her. And because I couldn't, I literally had nothing to give, and that was incredibly hard for me and my identity as to this superhero that I was. Um it and it do you know? I felt like that infatuated 15-year-old where you are obsessed about what they're doing. You know, this is he'd moved out of the home. What is he doing? Who is he with? Who's on the scene? Like literally obsessively stalking, 2 a.m., my brain's going. It I was so scared because I thought I knew what my future looked like. Even if I didn't love it, it was good enough. And suddenly that was gone. I had no idea and I had no control, or I didn't feel like I did. And that literally put me on my knees. I had I have I've had all kinds of different grief, as we all have. But from a powerlessness that one, my marriage breaking down, that was just not part of my future, like at all. I was a good wife, I was a good mum. I had done everything, in my view, to give him the life he wanted. You know, he wanted to change career, we changed career. We wanted to go on certain holidays, we went on those holidays. Like I literally moulded myself as a people pleaser that I was around his dreams and his wishes. And I, in my view, gave him everything he asked for, and it wasn't enough. So there was a huge amount of shame. Like to me, it felt like I'd failed, like there was something wrong with me. And um, yeah, it was it was brutal. I I look back and I struggle to identify who I was at that, like to look at myself then because I was so, so broken in a way that had nothing else had broken me. But yeah, it was like that 15. When you've 15, you have that first heartbreak, your very first heartbreak, where you feel like you're never gonna recover. It was that level of heartbreak, heartbreak, because I didn't know if I was gonna recover. I didn't know how I was gonna survive this, I didn't know how it was gonna impact my children. And it was so scary. And I had a lot of shame around um that we'd failed, and I was saying those comments for friends, it impacted um relationships with friends and family. Um, my, you know, I'd have comments from like my mum, always so supportive, but there was always that, oh yeah, but does she think we should work it out? Like, and I don't know what her perception was, and I don't know that it was that, but it it was my internalization of we should be able to fix this. Marriage is hard, but you work through it.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Um so that's so you make sure marriage should be hard, is hard.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Do you still hold that's an a that's an absolute that people put out there?

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Of course it's hard, marriage is hard, working, you work hard. Um, yes and no. Like all things, I think you can have two truths. Like, yes, there will be moments of hard, absolutely, because life is hard, but the the relationship should be one where you're pulling in the same direction. I think the most important thing is that you can have truly honest and vulnerable conversation, like to be emotionally vulnerable with someone and know that you can argue, you can fall out, but you're both headed in the same direction together. You don't have to agree on everything, you don't have to have like the same hobbies and do everything the same. You can absolutely have conflict. You should have conflict. But yeah, of course, it's not meant to all be like a Disney movie where everyone reads each other's minds, like, oh, love means you don't have to communicate because you're just so connected that you just understand each other, like absolute bullshit. Um, so yes, I do believe marriage could be hard, but I don't think it should be so hard that you sacrifice who you are to make that work.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah, that's interesting. Just thinking about um that that whole word of being vulnerable, being able to be vulnerable with each other, that in itself is is self is not always an option that's available. Certainly for the women that I've worked with in the past, the woman I was in the past, being able to communicate from a vulnerable space wasn't a natural default for me. So, how did I know how to even communicate vulnerably? Because I it I didn't know what I didn't know at the time, and divorce and all of the stuff that I've experienced has taught me that about myself. But at the time, I didn't even I I couldn't get words out of my mouth, let alone say I'm not happy. How do I even communicate that to him? I don't feel safe to communicate that anywhere in the world because my vulnerability has never been acceptable, or I've never seen it exhibited to me in marriages that I've been exposed to. So, how are we supposed to do that when we don't even know we're not doing it? Does that make sense what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Absolutely. I think we do know we're not doing it. I think it's we don't know where to go to learn the tools to change that. And I think that's that's the bit that's so important because I genuinely believe and know and see there are so many couples living in relationships that are not happy, they just coexist, they're like roommates, you know, they're you know, they're living this life, they've got on, and they're they're just carrying on. And I don't believe those relationships are doomed. Some might be, but I think a lot of them, if they can actually, as the woman, the man obviously needs to do the work, but I think as individuals, let's put it that way, as individuals, if they go, actually, I'm not happy, so what do I need to do about this? And this isn't about the other person, it's me. I'm not happy. What do I need to do in order to be happy? Because I genuinely believe when we learn that skill of how to communicate, and it is something that you have to learn. Yeah. And very few of us are taught. No, because we just pick up what's been demonstrated to us from our parents. Um, everything can change for the better. So I 100% agree with you. I didn't have those skills, didn't know how to be vulnerable, didn't the the fear of rejection was so strong, but I would rather have made myself small and not be honest, you know, keep shrinking, keep bending, keep twisting myself rather than be honest. Because if I was honest, well, then they might not like me, or he might leave me, or well, you know, he left anyway. Um so actually learning to find your own voice, doing that piece of work is so important. It's important for everyone, but I think it benefits everyone in your life when you do that.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah, and you're coming back to the word shame that you've used a few. Few times as well. I know now again, this is all hindsight because you'd yeah, I was in my twenties when I was discovering late 20s when I was discovering that I wasn't particularly happily married. Um, but I attached that to I'm not doing something right then. What is wrong with me? Because people looking at our life would have seen the beautiful home, we were together from school, lovely kids, this whole beautiful um picture. Why can't I just be happy in this picture? What's wrong with me? Because he meets the the needs of us all in in financial security and all of that stuff. What is wrong with me that I just can't push those little things to one side and just go, they don't matter? What is wrong? And I remember a parent of mine saying to me, So what if he does that? What's the big deal about that? And just thinking, what is the big deal about that? Actually, why can't I just move through this and just accept everything as it is and and just shut up about that one thing or put up with that one thing? And that's not even a a fault on his part. It was just a it was my again, my programming saying shut up and put up with it. Your expectations are too high. Yes, no one's perfect. So just accept him as he is, he's doing his doing his best. And I should just be acceptance of good enough. And I'm still working through that. You know, I'm 51 and I'm still sometimes going, Am I too much for Grange? There is still a bit of that noise that says, Am I too much? And it's it's been in me for my whole life. So it's it takes a bit to work through that. But uh there isn't a part a countervoice that says, Don't be so ridiculous. Look, of course, you're you're exactly what he wants, you know, whatever. But that shame piece is just so overwhelming of what society thinks, of what people in the school playground are gonna think.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

All of that, it's it keeps you isolated. Shame keeps you quiet, it keeps you lonely. Um, I have never felt as alone as in that moment. Yeah, like I say, we had layers, um, but there was so much of shame, and I think shame wants you to stay small, it wants you to stay quiet. The minute you start talking about it and naming it, it loses its power.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Um, and ultimately it's about measuring yourself based on other people's standards and expectations. Like even that, am I enough for Grange? Well, only Grange can make that decision. It's not for you to go, oh, I need to be less for him. It's for you to go, well, this is who I am. And it's so easily said, isn't he? Doing it takes practice. It you know, you have to push through that um uncomfortable period of testing out yourself and figuring out who you are, um, and seeing what happens when you do speak your truth. And oh, actually, that wasn't as scary as I thought it was.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

You do in a walk away. No, but it also comes from the amount of people that said to me, because Grange doesn't have biological children of his own.

unknown 25:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Oh my goodness, what an what a man. He married a woman with three children and he financially supports you, he supports your career. What a man. And I just and up till a few years ago, I thought, well, yeah, he is, and I still he is still a fucking incredible human being. I'm married to just the greenest of green flag guys, right? But I finally he will stand there and go, but what a woman, and he will balance that argument. He'll go, but look what I've achieved this because she's beside me. But that voice, my mum said it to me, and I again it was it was from a place of positive intention.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Oh my god, Steph, oh my god, you're so lucky. And you believe that for a while. Like, I've got baggage, yeah, I'm less than.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah. But it's that whole concept of someone else's light doesn't take away from yours. So Grange being an amazing total green flag man doesn't take away from who you are. But it's that, isn't it? It's our internal dialogue is well, if he's an amazing man, I must be less than. Yes. Actually, no, he is an amazing man, and that's why he's chosen me, because I'm an amazing woman. It's it's whereas we we like one of my I hate that saying, um, my better half. Oh yeah. Um we should be two whole people and bringing out the best in each other. And we should look at our other half and think they're amazing. And that should hopefully go both ways. Yeah. Doesn't mean they don't get on your nerves, and you know, you also think they're a bit of a dick sometimes. Oh, absolutely. But yeah, you know, it's the there's no if they're amazing, then that makes me look less. Yeah, and I should be grateful, eternally grateful that that you chose me.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah. I mean, he went through a huge vetting process off the back of being divorced. I knew what I didn't want. And I knew what I needed to nurture me and the support system. So he went through quite it got specific. Do you like camping? No, brilliant. Next question. We got very specific, but it wasn't by accident that I'm in a relationship with this man. It was very um intentional, um, off the back of all of the sadness and heartbreak and utter devastation of my marriage coming to an end. And you know, the hardest part for me was saying I couldn't use, I couldn't say my mother-in-law was my mother-in-law anymore. Right. And we had to readjust our language. Um, and we begin to, I just used to say she's my she's one of my very best friends. But that part was one of the hardest, saddest parts of my divorce because she's past now, so she's not here anymore. But letting go of her was one of the most difficult parts of my divorce. And if my ex-husband's listening, they put him in cheers. Thanks very much. He knows what incredible woman she was. But I found that as well, this dynamic of she's not I can't call her my family anymore, and adjusting to that. And actually, I could, of course, I could. Yeah, but society has now deemed she's your ex-mother-in-law, therefore she's no longer yours to kind of say is in your family. And that shift in itself was really, really difficult. That just the the sort of the the family network that goes around you that changes as well.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

So I still refer to my father-in-law as my father-in-law, um, funnily enough, but um friends was the big thing for me. Like the impact it had on our friendship groups and my, you know, we'd done a lot of things as couples, and suddenly what happened is I noticed that I wasn't invited to certain things because probably because they felt awkward or they assumed that I wouldn't want to go if I was the only single person. Now that sort of thing doesn't bother me, but uh when as in going on my own doesn't bother me, when that I noticed that, oh, that hurt. That really hurt. I felt really um that sense of rejection. It wasn't just my marriage I'd lost. People were judging me, is how I internalized it. Um, and you know, they say divorce is catching, and I I joke sometimes. Wow, yeah, they do. They say that, do you? Yeah, they do, they do.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

They do, they do, and uh I think Well don't be around you too much in case their marriage falls apart. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

And I part of me thinks that obviously says a lot more about their marriage than it does about my divorce. But um, yeah, it was I had some real grief around what my life looked like socially. Um, and obviously, yeah, the children that was that was really tough.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember the day. I still remember it telling the three boys with their dad. We sat down and we told them the news, and my eldest was about just going into year seven, so like 11-ish. Um, and he was heartbroken. And then the next my next son was uh nine, absolutely heartbroken. And we laugh about this now already, but my youngest son was about was four, and he looked round the room and he went, Why is everyone crying? No one's died, and we sort of chuckle about it now, and even like when I talk about Jack and he's like, Well, kind of was true, there wasn't it, no one had died. Yeah, but I've still that was one of the hardest days of my life, and I've had to tell my brother that our sister had died. I would still put that above that because what I felt like I was doing in that moment was shattering their entire childhood and changing the landscape of that forever, and I'd made that decision. I'd made that decision. Whether or not we both recognized that our marriage was not as we wanted it to be, I still made that decision, and I was sort of following through with that, and I had to really um work through that pain. Yeah, it's so hard, awful.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

And it's so hard, and it can lead to beautiful things. Oh, 100% because I am a massive believer that we are not raising our children to be children, we're raising them to be adults, yeah, and so they will have their own heartbreak, they will have to have difficult conversations, they will be hurt, they will go through pain. So the better equipped they are because we have modelled how to have difficult conversations.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

We've modelled choosing you over familiar, but then choosing you, uh that whole kind of it comes back to that that parenting model that I experienced, like you're so selfish to choose you in that moment. Interesting choice of language. Because as soon as you just said that, I thought you shouldn't, you shouldn't. And I'm 20 years on, like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Yes. Well, it's an it's one of those and isn't it? You can choose you and still be, they can still be the centre of your universe. Yes. But what you do is you're looking at what gift is in this experience. And I of my divorce, the the pain and the grief and the identity, there were so many gifts that came later. Yes. And it's that it's the gifts that we give our kids by showing them how to live a life that is emotionally rich and joyful, and don't sacrifice so much of yourself. And I even, you know, when I go away with girlfriends or whatever, and my girls will be like, Mummy, why are you going? I don't want you to go, I want you to stay. And I'm like, but it makes me joyful. And what's my job? My job is to keep me happy, isn't it? And what's your job? My job's to keep me happy. And I'm like, yeah, exactly. And we do it together most of the time, but sometimes mummy has to do things that are just for me. Um, and I want them to grow up not being people pleasers, I want them to grow up knowing that they are the main character in their own story. They have to do things, they do it with kindness, they do it with compassion, they do it with empathy, but they don't make themselves so small and they don't bend themselves into this person they think everyone else wants them to be. And the only way I can show them is by doing it. Yeah, 100%. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

I mean, I had a couple of conversations with my two oldest boys not that long ago individually, where when I was working through some of my pain and some of my heartbreak and my trauma, and I had recollections of times I wasn't so great for them in those moments, and I know that I was possibly in the angry phase of separation and divorce, and I they were struggling, and I would shout a lot. I shouted a lot at that time of my life, and it was pure frustration and anger, and it was definitely in the grief cycle. And I remember saying to my eldest, if you don't like the way I'm handling things, go live with your dad. Oh my god. And my it was said to me as a child, Well, if you don't like it, go live with your dad. And at the time I didn't recognise I'd done it, it was only maybe 10 years later, and I had this moment and I was devastated for him. So I text him and I said, I just need to apologize to you for da da da da da. And he came back and was like, What are you talking about? I said, There was a moment, I remember it, and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, I don't recall that. I said, Well, it I'm telling you it happens, and I want you to know I'm sorry. And if your unconscious just heard that, I'm really I'm all right with that. And I did the same with my middle son, and he came back the same, he's like, I don't recall that. And I'm like, Well, I do, and I'm sorry. I wasn't good enough in that moment for you. Okay, mum. You know, and it was it was those moments where you just look back and you go, I was not, but I was also heavily grieving. I was so angry. I was so angry at the world for making my sister die, and then for making me get into a relationship that didn't fulfill mine. And I'd made all those choices, of course I had, and I was so angry at the time. So, and I think we can do that as parents. I was reflecting on a reel I watched the other day, and it said it was a woman and she was probably mid-50s, and she said, You know what? The best thing in life as a mother is seeing your children and just knowing they're really good human beings, and it means that you've done a good enough job. And I was I was in conflict with it. And I said to Grange, and I showed him, and I said, She thinks she's done a good job. I want to ask her kids how they feel about that reel. Because there's all these perspectives.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Absolutely, and it's that external validation again. Yeah. It's it's not for because we can all go back and unpick our childhoods and tell our parents what they've done wrong. And any parent who thinks their kid won't be able to do that is a little bit delusional in my opinion. Because what we put out doesn't mean that that's what our child's gonna pick up.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

And so she should be able to think she's done a good job because she does it knowing she has done the best she was capable of doing. Yes. And that's all any of us can expect.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

And you're you I remember being in my kitchen once, and Laura, I was on the phone, I think my eldest woman on the phone to someone, and and she went, Oh, mummy's crying again. And it was that when I was in there right in the the right in the depths of the grief, and I literally could not keep myself together. And that made it even worse. Like that was just like I really thought I was doing okay, and I'm really not. Um, and I beat myself up for that, that I was because I was raised that I never saw my mum cry, I never saw my dad cry, didn't see them argue, there were there was no conflict in my family home. It was very peaceful, very calm, very neutral, which meant I had no idea how to handle big emotions. And that's so I could go, I criticized my parents. Absolutely not, they've done an amazing job, and I'm so grateful for the childhood I had, but it left gaps. As an adult, it left me with gaps in my toolkit. I did not know how to have conflict, so I didn't. I avoided it. You know, I didn't ever deal with big emotions, I hid away. I just didn't cry, and I took that as a badge of bottom. I never cry.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Like it was is a badge of bottom, isn't it? Look at me, I'm so strong, I'm so strong.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, absolute rubbish. I think it takes far more strength to cry and be vulnerable in front of people. Oh my god, yeah. Than it does to put on a brave face. So um I had this, you know, this moment of like, oh my god, I'm failing my children because I'm so emotional. And then it was like, no, because they're gonna cry and they're gonna find stuff hard. And now they know that that's okay. And don't get me wrong, I didn't allow myself to stay there too long. Um, it was still a reasonable amount of time, but I have I have to, the way I function is by going, I couldn't do any better in that moment. I will save for my children to have therapy rather than a wedding. Yeah, yeah. Because there is no such thing as a perfect parent, and no matter what we put down, we cannot guarantee how our children will pick that up. And my um, my eldest at one point, probably about a year and a half after me and her dad had split up and he'd moved out and everything, and she just went, Mummy, are you and daddy gonna get a divorce? And my instinct was to go, Well, yeah, we are. But actually, what I'd done was said, Well, what does divorce mean to you? And she was like, Well, it means you're gonna marry someone else. Interesting. So helpful because we can assume we know what's going on for our children, what they're picking up, but we don't know. We don't know how they're internalising things. No, we don't. So totally different conversation because I found out what she was actually asking was, Am I gonna marry someone else?

SPEAKER_01 37:58

And do you think the skills that you have to parent are the result of your broken down relationship as well?

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Some of the skills that you have. Absolutely, I think you know, it's a combination of every challenge I've had in my life, is is you know, that my own parent pet childhood, um, my relationship with my sister, like absolutely my divorce. Um, because I think the biggest gift my divorce has given me is it gave me a voice that I'd never used. I'd spent my whole life trying to be what everybody else wanted, being so amicable. And even, you know, I remember having a conversation with someone about I'm the best ex-wife ever. Because I'm so amicable and I have never aired all my dirty laundry um on what went on in our relationship. I don't, I don't do that. So you could argue well that makes me the best ex-wife ever, but it doesn't. It means I am responsible and I take accountability for the I think if you put all the blame on someone else, you miss massive, you miss out massively, you miss out on the opportunity to grow. Yeah. And so that's not that's why I know when you said at the beginning, this isn't about blame, this isn't about oh, what happened? It's give me the you know, the knee gritty. It's about saying we got there together, we both made choices that I'm sure neither of us um are proud of. Some regrets probably are bigger than others, but the reality is it it enabled me to go, I don't want to repeat that. I don't want to put everything into a relationship and lose myself in the process. So absolutely it's a gift, and I I have that strength, but I will still get it wrong with my kids without any shadow of a doubt.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

But I will absolutely do my best and I will apologize when I need to and I'll hope that they can see it from my perspective. Um I can only do my best and it won't be perfect.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

No, no, and I think the the mantra that I've held on to for a very long time is doing the best I or I did the best I could with the resources I had available to me at the time, and when you know better, you do better. Um, and I continue to evolve that. And I think um the beautiful gift of my divorce was the same. It I went on to heal, and I'd been holding off on that healing because I just didn't make myself a priority. I didn't maybe think I was a priority. When you're knee-deep in parenting, a woman, and I'm generalizing here, but a woman to say I matter, or I I feel sad, or I feel these difficult emotions, and I now want to take this much from our budget and spend it on me to heal is not an option for many. And maybe financially it isn't, right? But let's just say there is a pot of money there, they're still not going to prioritize that for themselves because there's other things the rhetoric around is we always kids always come first, kids always come first. And yeah, we can say put your gas uh oxygen mask on first. We we know all of this stuff, yeah. But the I guess the collateral beauty of my divorce is that I finally started healing. I made my I was forced to make myself a priority, actually. I was on my knees and I had no other choice, but it did force me to face some stuff, and I think the accountability is so important because it can be so easy to go, well, it was his fault or it was her fault or their fault.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

And uh you hear that language all the time, and it's something I find so frustrating that it's like putting all the blame on someone else's doorstep, and I just want to shake people and go, No, take responsibility for the part you've played, or else you make the same mistakes if you think everything was there, was their fault, you know, it's when there's been infidelity and someone's like, My marriage ended because my husband had an affair, and I go, actually, I believe affairs are a symptom of a marriage that is unhappy because happy marriages people don't cheat. Obviously, there's always exceptions when there's mental health, but I think generally speaking, and if we go, it was all them. The bits you took it, you know, actually, when you can sit and go, who was I in that marriage? What bits of myself do I want to heal, let go of, release? What bits do I want to take forward? Because I'm the one who's going to be in the next relationship. Yeah. So if I want that to be better, I need to do that healing, I need to do that work. And it doesn't absolutely the most impactful is if you invest in yourself, but there's so much out there now. Yeah. But but when you are not prepared to take any accountability, I think that's the saddest part.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

I agree. No, I 100% agree because I know that my relationship with my ex-husband was formed for a reason, and there was a need that it was fulfilled in me within that relationship, and things that he brought to the table that I very much needed at that time in my life, they became a point where it wasn't the priority anymore, and I wasn't uh fulfilling his needs and for the same reason as well. So the decision was made. But I'll be eternally grateful to him for my life, for not only for my children, but also for creating a space where I could see what I needed to do and for him holding my hand for a period of time until I felt safe to do that work, and I don't think he would look at it quite like that, right? I don't think he would, but I will be eternally grateful for that relationship because it led me to healing and led me to Grange. And I went into that relationship with my eyes wide open and not compromising, as this is this is going to need to be fulfilled for this to be a decent, happy relationship, and it has been.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

Do you know there's a one point I really want to pick up on is that he might expand it differently. Yeah. And I think when relationships Break down and we have that shame, we try desperately to prove to the world that our version of the relationship and the breakdown is the truth. And I think we have to release that, accept that that's our truth, but the other person will tell a different story. Yeah. And that that's okay. Yeah. Because I think so many people exhaust themselves trying to prove to the world around them that either they're the wronged party or they were the victim or da da da da. And that becomes their their identity. And we cannot, we see the world through a different lens, right? So when we're trying to convince everyone that our version is the truth, it's such wasted energy. And again, it just stops us from moving forward. You asked my ex-husband about our marriage, he will tell, I don't think a massively different version, but he will tell a different version to what I would. Yeah. And that's okay because that is his truth. Exactly. Mine is mine. Yeah. And we they don't have to align because I haven't had his childhood, he hasn't had mine, we experienced our breakup differently. You know, the pain I had was different to the pain he had. Like, so I think that's so important to not think that we should have the same story and to be okay with being the villain in someone else's narrative. You know, that if you can be okay with that, then you're taking responsibility for your path and your life. And I think, ugh, that's so empowering.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

It's like the uh famous people announcements, isn't it? Mutually agreed, or the what is this the conscious uncoupling. Yeah, yeah. Come on, you know, like just this this whole presenting to the world that we're a unified front, and actually that's not true.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

But if that's the message, like the so the reason I don't talk about everything that's gone on is because my children will go on social media when they're older, and I want them to have the privilege of loving both of their parents wholeheartedly because they know they are made up of 50% of each of us. So if they think one half of themselves is unlovable because of choices they made, because of mistakes they made, that's not good. Like, I don't want them to ever think, oh God, and I I'll use my ex-husband actually, like he was taught to not like one of his parents, and so he rejected a huge part of himself. If ever anyone compared him to that parent, that was like the worst thing you could possibly say to him. Yeah. And so I think saying you're consciously uncoupling or you know, you're putting on a united front, so what? Because it's between you, it's got nothing to do with anyone else. And actually, on uh you know, the stuff we see even most recently in the press with Vernon Kay and um Tess Daley, everyone's got an opinion. And actually, nobody knows what's gone on in their relationship apart from them, and even they will have a different version of what's gone on in their relationship. Exactly. So consciously uncouple if that helps you and your children navigate, you know your own truth, and that's fine, because it's got fuck all to do with anyone else. So consciously uncouple all you like to your heart's desired.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

Yes. What would you say to a woman that's listening to this right now that potentially is it that I know I'm not in the right relationship, I know this is not right for me, maybe I'm compromising myself in that kind of early stage, but having to come to terms with the sadness as well. Then maybe this might go that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

I would say it starts with you. Don't make it about everyone else. Like strip back to your core values. You know, what was the vision for your life when you were younger? Because you might have ended up somewhere totally different because of the circumstances, because of um, you know, the choices you've made. But go back to what's important to you and how can you build that? How, what do you want to attract in? And that might come from within your relationship, it might not. But the reality is if you have children, are you living a life you'd be happy for them to live? And I, you know, I really credit Glenn and Doyle for that because that was a game changer for me. But no, your children are not meant to be a blank canvas, they are meant to be covered in paint, and someone will come along and put a big blob of black paint right in the middle. And our job is to teach them how to use that black paint and turn it into something beautiful. You know, don't expect to protect your children from life because you are doing them a disservice. They are going to be adults, they're going to have heartbreak. So look at this as okay, where's the gift? Not just for me, but for the people around me. And then trust yourself, listen to yourself, do the work. You don't have to rush, you know, take your time. Um, and yeah, just really think about that inner voice first and foremost, because you're the only one living it.

SPEAKER_01 49:03

That's true. What about the woman that's on the other side now and the marriage is disab is is being dissolved? That's a horrible word. Yeah. You know what I mean though. And she's so sad.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Or she's greasing. This too shall pass. You know, it's an opportunity to it's similar actually. Focus on where you want to go. Don't get stuck looking at the past because you're not going there. Start to think about what do you want to invite into your life? What do you want to create for yourself? And if you have those shadowy emotions, you know, if there is anger and there is resentment, you own them. But they're your emotions. So do the work.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

Somebody said to me the other day about this podcast. Do you really think it's a form of grief, though? I mean, there's people out there that experience really awful things and you've seen it firsthand, so like the loss of a child. Right. You've experienced it as well. Surely these are the conversations. Surely, you know, how what would you say to someone that's listening to you right now and they they've had the worst thing happen to them, like the loss of a child, and they're and you're saying, Well, well, there's grief in divorce. What would you say to that?

SPEAKER_00 50:16

What I would say to that is there's no comparison. Like, as in don't compare, there is always someone worse off than you, and there's always someone better off. This is your own unique, authentic journey, and there is as much weight in the smaller griefs as the bigger ones. They all have the power to change your life for the good or the better, depending on how you choose to move through them, but they're all an opportunity to learn. And so I have had three big griefs in my life, and they've all impacted me in different ways, they've all felt painful in different ways. Some the grief was drawn out and it was long, so I had time to acclimatize, but others it was a shock, and so it was a different, and so I think you do you, that if you are feeling grief, and I think whenever there's a loss of identity, there's grief. Like the loss equals grief. Yeah, loss of a relationship also means loss of a future, loss of a child, yeah, that's such an awful grief, like all-consuming, and so is the loss of a marriage and a future.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

So they don't um I don't think there's a comparison continuum of well, this is worse than the other. Um it's all relative, it's all felt by that person, no matter what it is they're experiencing. And I would say every every form is valuable to bring to the table to have a discussion about it, because if it the whole intention behind the podcast is for people to feel less alone because it's lonely. It's lonely when you're in a marriage that's not working for you. It's so lonely. When you're caught up in turmoil of anger, frustration, why this, why that? Why can't he just do this? Why can't I just do that? The loneliness in that itself.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

The loneliest point was when um he'd had that first conversation with me and I didn't tell anyone. Like because of all of that shame and all of so, yeah, absolutely there's loneliness in all forms of grief. I think shame can attach itself to all forms of grief, regret. And ultimately, why are you worried about whether someone else's grief is defined as grief? Like if they're hurting, they're hurting. You don't need to justify, we don't need to justify our pain to other people. And um when I when I lost my little boy, people would come up to me and they'd try and make comparisons to like miscarriages and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

And it used to make me really angry until I was able to go, actually, they're just trying to meet me where I am, and that's the closest, it just shows they're nowhere near close to where I am, but that's as close as they can get to it. And they're just trying to give me an olive branch. So um, if someone said divorce isn't a form of grief, first I'd say, so you haven't been divorced then, right? Um and secondly, I'd say, but if it is to them, what does it matter to you?

SPEAKER_01 53:11

So my last question for you, I ask everybody, and I've used the words already, collateral beauty. We had touched on this, but share with me what your collateral beauty is from going through divorce and on the other end of it, on the other side of it, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

Yeah. I honestly I think the collateral beauty is my daughters, I really hope will have the the voice that I squashed because they've seen what it means and that hurt them. And I'm not saying it didn't. I'm not saying there's still times where, in fact, quite recently, my youngest was like, Why can't you and Daddy just live in the house? But she the same house, and that's because she didn't want to pack a bag. You know, so inconvenient. Yeah, but ultimately that at first you're like, Oh, I'm I'm ruining her life. But no, it was because she didn't want to have to you know go to another home. And um, so the collateral beauty is whilst my children have felt pain from my choices and our choices, that will be a gift because I am confident it will give them a voice and give them the ability to deal with their own heartbreak when it happens, which it will.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Of course, of course. Do you want to share the work you do now?

SPEAKER_00 54:28

So um I work with women in relationships, whether they're still in the relationship or they're coming out the other side, to do exactly what we've talked about, to rediscover who they are, find their voice, have healthy conflict. And I think, you know, like I say, the loneliest person is the person in the relationship who doesn't have a voice. And that doesn't mean the relationship is doomed. So I think finding your voice as soon as possible, then you'll figure out if the relationship's gonna stay with you or not, or whether it's gonna be something that that you have to let go. Um, but that's what I do. I work with women to find their voice and stop abandoning themselves in their relationships. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

I will put um all the links to you in the show notes and um resources for anybody that is listening today and has is experiencing what we're talking about. So if you feel that you've been affected by something we've spoken about today, I'll put some resources in the show notes as well. But Gemma, thank you. Thank you for this conversation. We will talk again because I think the sibling loss is a big conversation to have. We will definitely have that because I have much to say on sibling loss as well. But for now, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

Thank you so much for being here and listening in this week. I never take for granted the fact that you've chosen to spend time with me, and I'm so grateful for that. If something in today's episode resonated with you, helped you feel seen, or made you think a little differently, I'd really love for you to share it with someone else who may have benefited from hearing it too. And if you haven't already, leaving a review on your favourite listening platform really does help this podcast reach more people who may need to hear these conversations. I'd also genuinely love to hear from you, whether that's your thoughts on this week's episode, maybe your own experiences, or topics that you'd love me to explore in future episodes. You can connect with me over at Instagram at the JustFa-Today podcast. But before I leave you today, I want to leave you with this final thought. So, just for today, I want you to be present in your life. Because the reality is that tomorrow isn't promised to any of us. And whilst that can sometimes feel frightening, it can also be the very thing that reminds us to slow down, to soften, and to truly appreciate what is here whilst we have it. The people that we love, the moments we often rush through, the conversations, the laughter, even the ordinary, everyday moments that can so easily pass us by. Life can change so quickly. And sometimes all we really have is this moment that's right in front of us. So just for today, be mindful not to miss your life because you're busy worrying about until we're gonna have to do that.