S2E4:Laura Howe -The One Who Rewrote Divorce Endings

Divorce doesn't have to be a negative or a dirty word—just ask Laura Howe. In this episode, the woman behind Dispatch Divorcée shares how she built a sanctuary for women to rewrite their own endings. We talk healing through storytelling, the evolution of her powerhouse event, the Ladies' Night in Lausanne, and why the best love stories aren't always romances. Grab a coffee and join us for a conversation that is as inspiring as it is essential.

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Transcript

Shazeera.Zawawi (00:05)
I'm looking outside from my window actually and happy to announce spring is indeed here. It's very lovely and sunny down here or up here, depending where you are in Rol, Switzerland. But there are no regrets, no regrets for me to be in my living room recording this podcast instead of going outdoors now because I have a very special guest today. And for that, I will go enjoy the sun afterwards.

So before we dive in, allow me to share my connection or how I get to know today's guests. my single friends and I were looking for an outlet or a place to go during this year's Valentine's Day So we Googled, we searched, and finally we were pleasantly surprised to discover an event in Lausanne called Ladies Night.

that our guests today organize. And the outcome of that was we bawled our hearts and eyes out. We were crying after listening to uplifting, funny, and empowering stories from three gorgeous, strong women. And the rest is history. So joining us today

Laura Howe. Now Laura, is a woman who took the collapse of a picture perfect life and turned it into a global adventure. Originally from Seattle, land of grunge, she's the author of the upcoming book What Happened After, lived in Tokyo and eventually finding her home in Lausanne.

But then in Lausanne, she founded Dispatch Divorceé, dedicated to helping women build, define, and thrive in their next chapter. So whether she's sharing dispatches from her fierce and fiery expat life or helping others find their joy, including me, please welcome from her home away from home, Laura Ho. Laura!

Laura Howe (02:08)
Thank you Shazeera! That was amazing! You did fantastic!

Shazeera.Zawawi (02:09)
Sorry, that was a long introduction.

Oh, thank you. I was sick for the last few weeks. So I really need to hear that. And the feelings are genuine, are sincere. I really, really adore what you're doing. And it's such an honor to have this conversation with you today. So thank you for accepting my invitation to be my guest on Storytellers.

Laura Howe (02:38)
Thank you, Shazira. It's such an honor to be here. And what an amazing, mean, my life is all about telling stories. And so it's so wonderful to be a guest on your podcast and have a conversation about it.

Shazeera.Zawawi (02:41)
You

And I hope we have all the

time in the world because I think there's so much we can talk about. I remember when I went to that show, it was amazing. And there you are on the stage. And one thing that you said that really stuck with me until today was that the fact that you built this patch divorcee.

because it was the space you wish you had. So what inspired you actually to create such a wonderful, uplifting space for women?

Laura Howe (03:23)
Essentially, like a lot of stereotypical Americans, I got married young. So I got married at 21. And my

husband at the time was a couple of years older. We started dating when I was going off to university. ⁓ And so it turned into this, you know, as I was a kid who was very, very ambitious, went to school early, university early, all that stuff. And dating was kind of like an afterthought or not something I pursued when I was a kid. My priority was university, figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. And then all of sudden,

there was this man who was you madly in love with me and you know you're madly in love when you're 20 so we got married shortly after it was like check check that thing's done let me focus on other things

It was actually

on the eve of turning 30, my marriage fell apart and for various reasons that ⁓ we might go into here, but also I document it in this ⁓ memoir in progress that you mentioned. ⁓ yeah, and so I was one of the first of my friends to get married and one of the first of my friends to get divorced. And it was a complicated process because we had been together for over a decade. ⁓

Shazeera.Zawawi (04:12)
Ooh, can't wait.

Laura Howe (04:28)
not high school sweethearts, but almost, you know? And there was a lot of stuff that went into that split. And the biggest challenge was that as I kind of joked around a bit, I chose to get married. ⁓ I come from a family of, you know, where people get married young and that's also the culture a lot of Americans do.

so did he, but, and then when things fell apart, it was something that I took personally. Like I like really digest ingested it and felt like a failure and just felt like, how is this something that I really, really wanted growing up? So to speak. it was almost like a default. Like I was going to get married at some time, you know, growing up watching Disney movies, et cetera. but then when it fell apart, you know, I, I'm the one who called it for divorce.

and drove the divorce. So there was just all these complicated feelings happening. And ⁓ as I got divorced, we'll go into that later, but I was also like at the same time getting head hunted by a job based in Switzerland. That was kind of my light at the end of the tunnel. So there's lots of change happening and I ⁓ did not know that inside I was also having this huge identity shift.

So Dispatch Divorce is a project that I was thinking of for number of years that is to help with almost the emotional aftermath side effects of what happens after a divorce.

because we have a, like there are a lot of resources. There are a ton more resources now 10 years after I got divorced for like how to, you know, help with finances, lawyers, like all of the, almost like the hygiene level, you the basics of what you need to like get out of a marriage. But there isn't a lot of talk around what do you do with your identity, your insights, whether it's therapy, et cetera.

but I really wish that there was like a crew of women, a crew of old divorcés who could have swapped me up and said, girl, let me help you. Like you're gonna go through X, Y, Z. So that's essentially what Despatch Divorcé is. Like it's a clubhouse, it's a membership club filled with women from all around the world who are maybe either going through their divorce, entering their separation, or a lot of where the magic goes is kind of once the dust has settled, paperwork signed.

you're in your new apartment, it's three in the morning, you're like, fuck no, what do I do? So that's where Dispatch Divorce is, comes in, is to help you remember who you are, who you wanna be right now, a lot of the identity shift in the kind of a support group setting. It isn't a place where we just gather and bitch about our exes, that's boring. Also, we have maybe one hour, one month that we do that. But it's really to help put the focus back on yourself.

Shazeera.Zawawi (06:59)
Yeah.

I think that speaks volume as well to, I love this term that I think you coined in a way, because you never think, or the idea is that, that you're leaning into is that women aren't broken, right? After you're divorced, it's not the end of the world. But then this term in between, right? You are in position to something maybe better, maybe greater, but...

But then as a storyteller, and I really want to pick your brain on this, why is that distinction so vital for the stories that we tell ourselves? That we're not broken, but we're in between.

Laura Howe (07:45)
So this is so kind of the, you're not broken, you're in between. That's like the ethos of the women who are in despatche divorcee in the community. And kind of for that, honestly, like it comes out of this, an experience that I had when I was going through it, an experience I still have whenever I'm in kind of moments of transition. And it comes from also being a recovering slash still active perfectionist.

Shazeera.Zawawi (08:01)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Laura Howe (08:10)
You know, I gotta

have it all figured out now and done. Zipped up, done. Like.

Shazeera.Zawawi (08:14)
We saw

how perfectionist you were. kidding. ⁓ Which is amazing.

Laura Howe (08:18)
Haha!

Are you talking

about the show? How perfect the show was? ⁓ girl, tell me more. Tell me more. I'm in my receive era. went to this, yeah. Or I'm trying. So.

Shazeera.Zawawi (08:24)
Just Laura Ho in general. Come on.

Laura Howe (08:36)
So exactly so as women right we are conditioned to like be perfect and like good student this happens from like you know growing up in the 90s and they're like 2000s like that's the ethos around it. Yes, there's a lot of people trying to change that now. Just open up Instagram and you'll find that ⁓ but it's really hard to like acknowledge like especially life after divorce right you're in between two different things you're in between depending on how serious your vows were you know till death do us part ⁓ and then what the fuck.

you know? And so like in between and then eventually you'll get into that like Nirvana era of just you know what I like to call the the fantasy of the the alumna you know the Madame de Vosay who's been like divorced for a long time she has you know her lovers whatever your fantasy is you know so there's somewhere in

Shazeera.Zawawi (09:23)
Yeah, by the way, not the band,

right? We're talking about the proper nirvana here.

Laura Howe (09:29)
Exactly.

I didn't realize that I slipped that in just a little bit of the grunge roots as I'm here in my sub pop sweatshirt ⁓ So yeah, so yeah, so it's in between like anytime that you're going through a shitty time of not knowing who you're not knowing who you are Feet not quite on the ground change transition. It's uncomfortable. It sucks and all we want to do is get through it

Shazeera.Zawawi (09:35)
I'm

Laura Howe (09:53)
But just like anything, if you rush, rush, rush, you might end up, I don't know, in another marriage that you don't want to be in anymore. And instead of questioning what was holding, what did I feel suffocated about when I was in my marriage? So really what we lean into is this in-between. Like you're not broken, there's nothing wrong with you. Just stuff, you know, the dream crashed or the dream was not meant for you. So try, it's trying to slow things down and realize that, or not realize, but wrap our arms around.

You're not broken. You're okay. This is not, you don't need a whole like lobotomy and a new identity. You don't need to rebuild yourself. You need to build on what has come before. Like it's a new chapter, not a new you. You know, it's like these nuances in stories. Like what are the stories to tell ourselves? The stories to tell ourselves is even though we might feel like we're a hot mess, we're still hot.

Shazeera.Zawawi (10:33)
Yeah.

Laura Howe (10:42)
and we are, and this part is important. This transition is important. It's, the pain won't last forever, the discomfort won't last forever. Because of course, once we finish it, a new level of discomfort comes. So anyway, so the in-between is just to recognize this period that you're in, this chapter.

Shazeera.Zawawi (11:02)
And I really find that inspiring because after you, you know, got your divorced, you immediately felt the urge to fix yourself because you felt that you're not good enough or you felt like, my God, now I just go down to the bottom of the society for being a woman.

but also maybe abandoned by my husband kind of a situation. And so it's very hard to have that perspective in place that, you know, I feel, you know, women who are divorced are the best when it comes to confronting challenges, ⁓ getting back, into the game, very resilient in that way. So speaking of

Laura Howe (11:27)
Mm-hmm.

Shazeera.Zawawi (11:52)
putting yourself at the center of attention, right? Or putting yourself at the center of your story. One thing that I noticed, and yes, I've been stalking you and the things that you wrote online. Yes. And I do notice that one thing I find super interesting coming back to putting yourself at the center of your story is that one of your workshop rules says something about writing. You have to write, but...

Laura Howe (12:01)
Excellent. I love hearing that.

Shazeera.Zawawi (12:21)
You cannot center the story on your ex. And isn't that easier to do? Because it's easy to put the blame on someone and to say, what happened is because my husband did this, right? So why is it so difficult in your view, and yet so radical, for women to put themselves at the center of their own divorce stories?

Laura Howe (12:45)
Oh God, they're so multi-layered here. So, and for a little, yeah, and for a little bit of context, what you're referring to is the requirements for the Ladies Night stage. So Ladies Night, it's a storytelling show followed by a dance party for divorces and the friends who love them. So every time we have a new show, we do an open call for stories and the requirement has to be that it is your story so that it's true and that it is not about your ex.

Shazeera.Zawawi (12:48)
Go all over the layers, yeah.

Yes.

Laura Howe (13:14)
And the reason why we do that is because like, okay, it's a combination of things. I'm gonna answer probably the structure of this show first, then I'll go into almost like the, what it means as far as like why it's so important to put yourself in the center and your story. ⁓ Okay, so a couple of different things. That whole tagline was I think inspired by the Blushdill test. Do you know this? Okay.

Shazeera.Zawawi (13:36)
Yeah, okay. But maybe,

yeah, if you want to celebrate. Yes.

Laura Howe (13:38)
Your listeners. Yeah, so the blush test actually

was founded I didn't it was from a comic in the 80s Illustrated by Alison Blush shell and so and it was about how a lot of times in movies if you have two women in a single scene together most often they were talking about a man so in order to pass the blush shell test you need to have two women having a conversation in a movie that it's not about each other and So this is inspired a lot of work with Gina Davis and Gina Davis like ⁓

gender women in film institute. And so I love that as like a requirement because one of the things that I'm on my like high horse about, especially after divorce is just how I'm so fucking angry and mad all the time about how many like movies and series are all about fucking love stories. Like you just fall in love with a new man and everything's great again. Like Jesus fucking Christ. Like that's how we got into quote unquote this mess in the first place, right? If I didn't like.

Fall into love I want to have dispatched a horse a so okay. Thank you ex anyway, So that so kind of inspired by the blush test that's where the it's not about your ex kind of came in and also as I was building dispatch divorcee, I really Didn't want it to be a place about Where you just come to bitch about your ex because there's so much more to that and also in women I'm like remembering this, you know this

I'm like, remember your story, but I'm trying to figure out how to share it so that it doesn't violate that person who anyway, you know, ⁓ sometimes I've had conversations, actually, no, go ahead. Okay, I was at a dinner party once, let's go for it. And there was this woman who ⁓ is in the middle of a messy divorce or separation, has kids, her husband basically cheated on her. And so that causes a lot of different pain, right?

Shazeera.Zawawi (15:08)
Yes.

Laura Howe (15:29)
and I remember I heard from the friend who was hosting, ⁓ later that basically this friend was like, why is Laura so upset about her divorce? She doesn't even have kids. Like just this like total entitlement of like making saying that like my divorce pain was not as valid as hers because I didn't have kids.

So she is someone who's in an active divorce situation. And I'm like, it was great that my friend came and told me this because yes, I don't have kids. So I didn't have to deal with the kid. Poet like my ex, you know, it's just the emotional aftermath that has stayed with me, not like having to see him regularly. Right. So yes, I understand that I do have privilege in that regard, but the pain is still real. And the pain is also something that I've that I think a lot of people do not like.

I was like, how do I phrase this? There's a lot of personal pain that comes through a marriage and a divorce or a divorce. So a marriage that has failed, right? And then if all of that pain just goes on your ex, there is a whole lot that you are not dealing with. and that, that sort of thing as far, and I was like, I'm, I'm going to go off. Sorry,

Shazeera.Zawawi (16:27)
Right, yeah.

No,

I think what you said is so valid and important to be said here. Because what I would like to build on what you said is that I felt sometimes when you want to look back at your story or try to understand what happened, when you start to shift attention to all the other factors,

you tend to focus on the noise, right? And not actually looking at the journey as yourself. What it means to you. All the elements, all the ingredients necessary. What did you learn? What will you not repeat again? What are the lessons? And if you tend to sort of like, shift the attention to the kids, to the money that you lost from the marriage, the husband,

you know, the lifestyle, then what does it leave you with, right? And I think this is where what you did was so powerful because I remember one of the conversations I had with one of my friends after that night. She was very, very much affected in a good way by the event. She was crying and she said to me, I have to go back now and spend time with my dog, which I think is cute.

But what she told me, which was powerful, she said, I never thought ever, I never thought and I never realized it's very important for me to look at my divorce, because she was also divorced, you know, as my story and not a story that belonged to my ex. But it is where I am the central character. So not all of us actually realized that and know about the bestial test.

So I think this is where there's a lot of breakthrough coming from the event that you organized, if I may say.

Laura Howe (18:42)
Thank you for sharing that, because that's the goal of this, is to like, it's easy to blame your ex, it's easy to blame other people, it's easy to blame the system of society, patriarchy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but we also are all humans and are all people. And stuff that like we can control is not just what happened to me, but what is my role in it and what I wanna take out of it. And that is the whole.

Shazeera.Zawawi (18:49)
I'm going

Laura Howe (19:08)
goal to be more eloquent. thank you for sharing. That's really amazing. That like, it's to put, you know, we are the main characters of our story. We are the center of fleet gears. You know, when I was divorcing, my individual therapist was telling me, when I asked her, was like, what do I tell people? Because, you know, she of course knew like all of the cracks in the foundation that happened over the years that led to our divorce. And I was just like, how do I summarize this? And she said,

The one who talks first owns the narrative. And you can say whatever you want. So then I was like, ooh. No, I did not take that like a challenge. Like I'm going to go and call all of our mutual friends and stuff. But it was more of like, I could say what I wanted. And I do, mean, I'm sure my ex has his own feelings and opinions about what I shared. But I tried to keep.

Shazeera.Zawawi (19:49)
Yeah.

Laura Howe (20:01)
the story to myself. Like there was a lot of people when I was talking about announcing my divorce, when I went to some mutual friends, they were like, well, what's going to happen to him? You you're always the one who organizes social things. And I was like, I don't know. You'll have to talk to him. Like, I'm not responsible to speak for us as a family. Probably never was, you know, but that's something that I thought was my responsibility as a wife. like through it.

through Ladies Night and exactly what you and your friend got out of it, which makes me so happy to hear that means like, yay, we're getting there, ⁓ is that, you know, Ladies Night is a way to put divorced women on stage to tell stories around their divorce. So it's not even about the breakup. Like the breakup hurts when you're in it massively, but for people outside of it, no. I'm interested in what came before, what came after, what pieces you continued.

Shazeera.Zawawi (20:35)
you

Laura Howe (20:55)
and just a way to tell different kinds of stories really outside of the kind of going back to Blushville Test homage and just my annoyance with how the majority of movies you fall in love and then it's the end and it's really fucking annoying. But it's like what like we're in this beautiful age of storytelling in the world where like people are playing with different narratives, different styles of memoir, different personal stories. And so that's where like Ladies Night is.

you know, my hand putting up of like, what if we told different kind of divorce stories, you know, what if what if we, you know, shine a light on the hot mess, the different kinds of love stories, the one that's coming next month about on silence, the stories that we couldn't have told, you know, it's just like a different pizzazz. And as with the name, yes, this entire the storytelling night and the storytellers like the audience is intended for to talk about.

experience of being a divorcee, a divorced woman, but it is not limited to only divorced women to attend or tell stories on stage or people who identify as women in the stage. Yes, we welcome men, but just, you know, the ethos of the night is for the ladies, which is why it's called Ladies Night.

Shazeera.Zawawi (22:06)
Yeah,

yes, no, it's amazing. And ⁓ speaking of the events, right, I also see how it is evolving. Before, perhaps you started off with stories about divorce. And then the one that I attended was really stories about non-romantic love that I really adore because, you know, there's also this cliche or stereotype that

You only talk about love in a romantic sense. And that night is really interesting to hear about platonic love, love to a mother, love of yourself. And so there is a great evolution going on with the event as well. So do you want to tell us a bit about what's going to happen in the next one? For instance, I let you plug the next event.

Laura Howe (22:55)
I know and I'm like, my talk,

it's so fun because as you know, cause you've been helping work with it. ⁓ Sorry, I'm pulling out my little talking points on silent stories because we've had three shows, three Ladies Night shows.

Shazeera.Zawawi (23:08)
Thank you.

Laura Howe (23:11)
⁓ And each one just kind of builds on the last which is really cool. Definitely I am, you know, there's parts of me that are still ⁓ trying to be a perfectionist and things like that and with anything that has to do with like arts, community-based things that you involve other people, like each show is like a collaborative effort. Like we kind of like to talk about that there's this magic that gets created. So the First Ladies Night Show, ⁓ I collaborated with two of my friends.

who are both comedians and happen to be divorced. So it was more of a straight, just kind of like woman's standup night. And then ⁓ in the fall show of this past year was the first time that we themed it. And the theme was Hot Mess, which was the stories that you tell when your life's falling apart.

And that was also the first time we did like kind of open call for storytellers and like the people who come and apply, just creates this like, the show comes together based on the stories. And so that one was really cool because there was, you know, a ⁓ sexual revolution. The second story was a vagina monologue. And then the third one was finding a sense of home while everything was falling apart. So was just beautiful chapter.

Shazeera.Zawawi (24:13)
Okay.

Laura Howe (24:21)
And then chapter three was different kinds of love stories. And as you mentioned, this was on Valentine's Day. This had been one of my dreams of reclaiming Valentine's Day in something different. I loved it. I had talked to some other women who came to the show and said that they were so happy to tell their friends at work that they had plans for Valentine's Day. And I was like, yeah.

You know, ⁓ yeah, and that one was love for a mother, ⁓ love for a neighbor that started as an enemy and then love for thyself, which was really beautiful. So what we're doing for this next show, which is coming up this May, is on silent stories. So I'm going to and. ⁓

What again, I love about this is this, theme for Unsilence Stories came from actually one of the performers from last show, because it's something that she brings into. So the word unsilence is actually not a real word. Like if you type in unsilence, like your dictionary is gonna say, it's, you know, wrong. ⁓

Shazeera.Zawawi (25:13)
Hmm?

Yeah, why was I here?

Laura Howe (25:21)
And

it's one of the, and so ⁓ Kathleen, one of the storytellers, you know her, she's been using it on Silenced a lot. And so she talked about it with someone who attended, and then apparently that turned into like a three hour conversation, almost like your kids, like up late at night on a slumber party about like the history of Unsilenced and what it means. So I'm sharing with that of like Ladies Night is really transformed into exactly what you'd expect, which is a community project.

And I'm going to go ahead and out you, but Shazira and I have been working together on design. Shazira has illustrated the look and feel of what unsilenced looks like. And I'm so excited to put that out there.

Shazeera.Zawawi (26:04)
Thank you so much, Laura, for actually giving me the chance to collaborate with you. And I really, really appreciate the experience that we had ⁓ in coming up with the look and feel of the logo for Unsilence. So now back to Unsilence. Can you tell us a bit more about what is Unsilence is all about as a team for the next Ladies Night?