Comments from Divorce Groups & Their Cry for Help

This week, I’m sharing something that’s been weighing heavily on my heart. After reading post after post in divorce support groups, I felt compelled to speak up—especially after seeing a woman ask what she should do after her husband hit her for the first time. That question alone stopped me in my tracks, and I knew this conversation couldn’t wait.

In this episode, I talk openly and passionately about self-love, self-worth, and why abuse is never something to tolerate, justify, or normalize. I also share parts of my own healing journey, what it took to pull myself out of the darkest place of my life, and why doing the inner work—no matter how painful—is the only way to truly break destructive cycles and reclaim your life.

Episode Highlights:

[0:02] – Welcoming listeners and why this episode needed to be recorded now
[0:22] – A disturbing post in a divorce group sparks outrage and concern
[1:10] – Zero tolerance for physical abuse and why staying is not an option
[2:01] – Breaking the cycle starts within, not with someone else changing
[3:36] – Turning to God when isolation, betrayal, and despair felt unbearable
[5:00] – Three years of intense healing, solitude, and emotional excavation
[6:37] – Reclaiming self-worth, identity, and the courage to choose growth
[8:30] – “Pick your hard”: healing versus staying stuck in pain
[9:34] – Introducing my one-on-one mentorship program and how it works
[11:37] – Where to find me, connect, and what’s coming next

Links & Resources:

Be sure to follow, share, and leave a comment if this show resonates with you! Send me a message at podpage.com/themusicoflife to share your experiences, or to leave a comment. I'd love to feature it in a future episode. Check me out on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caryn-levitt-8a09263a6/

Transcript

Caryn Portnoy: 0:02

Hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life. I'm your host. Karen Portnoy, before I get into this episode, please comment, ask questions, share some of your experiences, and don't forget to subscribe. Hi everyone. I wanted to come on this week and talk about some of the posts that I've been reading in some of the divorce groups that I'm in on social media. I'm just outraged and horrified that this is what's going on. So a woman posted in one of these groups. It was yesterday, the day before, and she said, My husband hit me for the first time yesterday. What should I do? And the fact that she's asking an entire community of strangers what she should do just horrified me. You know, it was so apparent what level her self love is, and self esteem and self worth and self respect and all the things that got her to this point where her husband felt that it was okay to hit her and and now she's considering what she should do next, as if staying is an option, really. So my answer to that was go to the police immediately and get a restraining order and then file for divorce. Stat, there's zero tolerance about this, because if he can hit you once, he will hit you multiple times again, and I'm sorry, we're worth more. We deserve better, but it all has to come from within ourselves first, and if that's not there, then something like this is going to happen over and over again, whether it's with her current husband, or a boyfriend or another husband one day. I mean, you got to stop the cycle somewhere. And how do you do that? It has to start from within. It has to you can't put this on somebody outside of you. You can go to counseling. You can go to therapy. But who has that kind of time when you're in something so urgent and emergent, you know, it's for me. It was about turning to God because I had nobody else, my ex husband and his insane smear campaign against me. I mean, I was completely isolated and shunned and ostracized, and I had nobody. I had my small circle of friends that held me up, but like on a day to day, hour by hour, moment by moment basis, nobody knew exactly what I was going through, nobody no matter what friends went through, divorces that were equally toxic as mine, but totally different. And unless somebody has stood in your shoes and went through what you went through, nobody on this planet could understand that except God. And that's why I turned to God, because I needed the express lane. I needed the HOV lane. To God because I was in trouble and I needed help, and I couldn't do it alone, and I had nowhere else to turn. And isn't that when God wants you to turn to Him most, and I'm gonna say it again. I say it all the time. I'm not here to debate religious. You know who God is to you, religiously or otherwise. For me, I believe God is a power greater than me and thus all of us. But you know, whatever you think God is for, you go for it. And I look, I spent three intense years healing. It was not easy at all. I keep thinking that, you know, the amount of work that I did and how I went rapid fire into the fire, and I just I was not stopping. It was like I put myself in solitude so that I could block out everyone and everything around me, and I could focus solely on my healing. And it was intense. It wasn't pretty. There were billions of tears shed during this time, but God showed up for me, and God showed me what I needed to look at and what I needed to release and let go of and surrender, and what I needed to overcome and what I needed to break, and it was just relentless. So by the end of three years, you know, I God basically said to me in. Prayer, you know, in my spirit, was, you've done enough healing, it's time to live your life. And I mean, that was so unbelievable, but that's, that's what came to me in my spirit. And it made perfect sense, because I had done so much healing that, you know, I was like a hermit. I really, I was solely focused on that. And, yeah, I made time to see friends and go out and do stuff like that. But my mission was, there was no way that I was going to live the rest of my life, you know, as isolated and shunned and ostracized, and you know, the way that he treated me and the way that I just I can't even I've spoken about it in so many other episodes about, you know how I was like as low to the ground as I could be, but I pulled myself up, and I did it with God's help. And you know, I'm here to tell the tale and talk about how I survived and and pulled myself out of the depths of darkness, and now I'm living to talk about it, because I've gained so much wisdom from it. I mean, the amount of healing, and this is how it was explained to me in prayer or meditation. One of those was that I've done enough healing for like 10 regular people. So whatever that means, I'm just saying that it was an intense amount of healing. And so for me to explain and express my despair over these women and maybe men out there too, I'm not sure, but you know, to be physically abused and to be that, like low to the ground, or, you know, depths of darkness, or whatever you know in hell, or however you describe that, but to be that far away from who you truly are and the love inside you and the light inside you and all of that, it's like we have to get back to ourselves. We have to get back to a point of being able to love ourselves and feel worthy and valued and special. And you know, we all deserve that, and we all have, you know it's our birthright to be that. And I just, you know, I see how far off my path I went and and I'm a very self aware person, normally been in therapy for so many years, decades, and you know, it's just, we have to look within. It's our only way of getting better and growing and evolving and changing and shifting and, and, yeah, it's scary. And, yeah, it's painful. But you know what being in a life where you're getting hit from your husband who's supposed to love you? I mean, what's more painful? Pick your pain. It's just terrible. It's like, you know, marriage is hard, divorce is hard. Pick your hard. I mean, I picked the pain of healing because I knew at some point in my future I would be a much better off person, rather than staying in a horrible marriage and and a horrific divorce. It you just life is a choice. Life is picking. It's not even what what you can handle, because I assure you you can handle a lot more than you think you can, but it's a question of, are you willing to go forward? Are you willing to go through the pain to get on the other side and be the best damn person you can be in your life? You deserve that. Everyone deserves that. You know people in these groups, you know they ask like, what could you do to prevent somebody from cheating on you? Like, it's your responsibility and your fault if they cheat. And I say the same thing every damn time a man will cheat if he wants to cheat, it has nothing to do with what you do or don't do to prevent that. You can't prevent it. If some guy is on a mission and that's what he wants, that's what he's going to do, and you can't stop it. But these are the kinds of things that people are asking, and I just, I just want to offer better. Give you a picture of what life could be, If only, if only you were brave enough and courageous enough to take a step forward for your own healing. By the way, I have developed a mentorship program that I want to offer. It's a one on one. A mentorship program where I would meet with you virtually or over the phone. You know, ideally it would be over zoom once a week, for an hour each week for eight weeks. And I've curated a great program that I think really would help. It's not just me speaking to you and telling you what to do and all of that. There's there's work for you to do, there's journaling, there's there are exercises, there are tasks and tests and things for you to actually push yourself, but I'm there to help you the whole way. So you know, we'll have contact in between, we'll have texting, emailing, whatever you need to you know where I can support you, and I just want to offer that. So for anyone who's interested in that, please, you can reach out to me on my website. You can leave me a voicemail, you can text me. You can email me whatever it is. You just reach out and tell me that you're interested. I will get in touch with you, and we can move forward. Here you can reach me on my website, which is pod page.com/the, music of life, and all of my social media platforms will be listed there. So it'll be Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and LinkedIn. So that's all for today. I'm going to wrap it up. I know that was a little passionate today. It really gets me going. All right. I'll see you next week. Guys, please join me every Thursday for a new episode. You can reach me at my website, which is pod page.com/the, music of life, and you can find all of my social media platforms on my website, so that would be Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook. Thanks again for listening. I'll catch you next time you.