Chicken Nuggets and Sweet Tea

The weirdest part of divorce isn’t the paperwork. It’s realizing you’re grieving something everyone else treats like a punchline, then going home to a house so quiet it feels loud. We get honest about that “sapness” and why divorce grief for men is often ignored, minimized, or brushed off with a quick “you’re better off” that doesn’t leave room to mourn.

We talk through what actually gets lost: not just a partner, but your routines, your future plans, and the version of you that knew exactly what to do every day. We dig into male loneliness after divorce, how friend groups collapse, how couple friends disappear, and why the grief of being a part-time parent hits different. Then we hit the hard stuff: shame, the looping question of “what did I do wrong,” and how a marriage can fall apart when attention shows up somewhere else, sometimes in embarrassingly small ways that still cut deep.

From there we pivot to what helps in real life: naming sadness out loud, finding one or two people who can handle the truth, auditing your circle, rebuilding your identity beyond “husband” or “provider,” and why therapy for men can be a game changer even if it takes a few tries to find the right person. If you need a place to start, reach out at divorced dudespodcast at gmail.com. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s white-knuckling it, and leave a review so more guys find the conversation.

Transcript

Welcome And The Word Sapness

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome back to the Fort Seats Podcast. I'm Zach and I'm Matt. This is episode two. Today we're gonna go into sapness. Also known as sadness. Sorry. We have a whiteboard. Matt wrote the topic of the day on it. It says SAP. Just a little P. Your D looks like a little P. It's fine. The sapness is real. It sure is. Um, anyway, in an effort to keep this a little more structured, we've come up with some talking points that we're just gonna kind of short answer go through.

The Grief Nobody Warns You About

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Um starting off with uh the grief nobody warns you about. Um divorce grief. Uh real as it is. Um men don't really have a way of getting rid of that. Like we don't have the support structures usually that women have. We don't have Matt's fucking with his microphones then. Oh my god. It's working so well. Um my god, oh my god, oh my god. It'll be fine. Are we good? We're good. Okay. Anyway, uh, we have some talking points that we wanted to go through. Um, one of the first one is uh grief that nobody warns you about. Um, divorce grief is real and often disenfranchised. Society doesn't give men the same permission to mourn a marriage the way it does other losses. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 1:30

I felt that. Let's be honest. I uh going post-divorce, right? All of this is post-divorce. Post-divorce, I didn't know what I was allowed to feel.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, like you lose a dog, you can you can say that's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Like you're allowed to cry about a dog. Yeah, exactly. You're allowed to cry about a kid, you're allowed to cry about a family member.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Right. You go to work and you're like, yeah, I'm I'm getting divorced, and everybody's like, Congratulations, she was a bitch.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

I was like, wait, well, calm down. That's the mother of my children. Yeah. I as much as I dislike her right this second, that is still a person that was very important in my life. Yeah, exactly. Um, and it's weird to go through that grief and also not want hatred. Yeah. Me personally, I didn't want hatred to my ex-wife. Right. But also, I didn't know how to grieve her. Correct. I didn't know how to grieve the loss of the relationship. I didn't know how to grieve the loss of the family dynamics.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

That was the next point that we were going to bring up is uh you're not just losing a partner, you're losing a version of yourself, a future you plan, daily routine, and identity. There's so many things that you don't think about on the daily basis in your marriage. There's, you know, getting up. You cook breakfast, you take care of the kids, you get your lunches ready. Once you're divorced, you really don't have that routine anymore. So now you're just stuck with your thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Yeah, what used to be peaceful. Oh, the kids are at a birthday party, the house is quiet.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah. Oh my God. So thankful that the house is quiet. Yeah, Danny yourself. I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna play some video games. I'm gonna go do a project in the garage.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna finish working on the kitchen or the bathroom or whatever the project might have been.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Now it's deafening.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Now you sit at home and it's like no one. It's just you. It's you and the thoughts, Jesus Christ. Sometimes the thoughts are excessive.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Well, that's a topic that we can get into in a little bit. Um, there is a road that a lot of guys go down after divorce, uh, where they feel like they have nothing left to live, nothing left for. Like life doesn't really have a meaning anymore. They've lost their identity as the provider, as the caretaker. Um and then they're they're just out there floating around searching for a purpose, right? Your work has become your work, it's not your purpose anymore. Most people don't go to work with the drive that today is gonna be the greatest day ever because I'm gonna succeed at this job, right? They're they're there because I need a paycheck, I got bills to pay. Now I probably have an attorney to pay for, I have children, I have alimony, like I have things that I have to take care of. So that job that you were like gunning your whole life to get to, that success, that career that you needed is not your lifeline. So it's not really your uh your passion, right? It's your necessity.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Yeah. During marriage, my job was to provide. Right. And providing meant making as much money as humanly possible to make sure that there was zero needs that the family went without.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah. The kids need shoes, they need clothes, the you need food on the table.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Absolutely. Right. And then um and also desires, right? Oh, we want to go on this trip, we want to do this thing. Now it's just me. Yeah. I'm still still making the same amount of money, and I'm putting in the same amount of effort, and I come home and it's empty. Yeah. And the silence is terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah. And then that that hits you. Right? You're alone now. What are you gonna do? You get that sadness. That's what today's topic is about. Um you've realized now that you're on your own, right? You still have your kids, you still have your ex-wife, but I mean they're typically in in this society, not with you. Correct. So now you just have your thoughts. Um, and that kind of goes into some of the other topics that we were going to talk about today.

Loneliness And Part-Time Parenting

SPEAKER_00 6:04

There is a specific flavor for male loneliness after a divorce. Um, you don't have your social network anymore, right? That kind of collapses. Your your friends choose a side. Typically, they choose your wife's side. Um, your married couple friends don't want to hang out with you anymore because you're not the married couple, right? So it's awkward for them to be like, hey, bud, we're all going out to dinner. Do you want to third wheel it?

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah, third or fifth wheel uh dinner date. Yeah, I'll I'll stay at home.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Exactly. Exactly. Um, if the kids are involved, the grief of part-time parent hits different than any other losses. Um because you know, now you don't have that uh uh the homework activities, you don't have the sports to go to practices or games on the weekends. I mean you can, but then you have that stigma that's the dad.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

That really that that unfortunately hits home, right? That's um, you know, having two children, um both older, right? So this didn't happen when they were young, this happened when they were older. Uh, one's off to college and another one's still in high school. Yeah. And there is a lot of missed time doing exactly that, the homework, the, you know, just coming home from school and how are you doing? Because unfortunately, my kids were old enough to choose, choose what they desired to do, and I didn't force them to do something they didn't want to do, uh, which meant that they lived full time with their mom.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Um, you know, I get weekends and you know, some holidays that flip-flop, etc. Um, but the kids live full-time with their parent, and I do not wish to speak ill of their parenting style or anything like that. Um, I think she's a great mother. She just wasn't a great wife. You know, there's a there's a there's a difference there where why we separated was for infidelity, and that separation was for her and I, right, not for the kids. Right. Um, us staying together wasn't for the kids because they don't benefit from that. And that sadness that you feel from not having them every day is real. And unfortunately, it's something that too many people out in this world get to deal with, and you don't know what to do with that. And I don't have the answer. All I know is we just kept moving forward. Yeah, and you reach out and you go to the events and you you do what you can. Um, and everybody's situation's a little bit different. Some people have court orders for what time they get to spend. Um me and my ex was not that way. We were a no-contest. We really allowed the kids to make their own decisions.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Assets divided equally, like 100%. Just want to make it clean cut, I'm gonna have my stuff. She's gonna have her stuff, the kids can make their decision on what they want to do. Correct.

Shame And The Chicken Nuggets Story

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Um this actually leads into another talking point that I wanted to hit today, which is shame. Um, there's a lot of guys that go through a divorce, um and they don't understand kind of how they got there. So they feel like uh a failure almost, right? The shame of, oh, I wasn't a good husband, or I wasn't a good father, or uh why, like you said, yours was infidelity. Why did she cheat on me? What wasn't I doing right to prevent that from happening? Chicken nuggets and iced tea. Dive into that a little bit. So I love chicken nuggets and ice tea.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

It's it sounds so stupid and simple, but in in my reality, for my situation, uh, you know, I got married at 19. I do not suggest this for the world. That's your prefrontal cortex is fully developed, certainly. 100%. We don't know who we are. We were definitely children at 19 and 21. She was a little bit older than me, but like still, we were children getting married. And no, we didn't get married because we were having kids. We got married and then had kids two years later. So everybody calm down. It wasn't shotgun marriage. It wasn't some shotgun marriage. We thought we knew what we were doing. You know, we did the premarital counseling prior to, and you do all these things thinking you've got it figured out, right? And almost 18 years later, you find out not only is it not okay, but there's another person involved. Yeah. And this separation not only needs to happen, but should have happened years ago.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Years and years ago. But they're they're wild animals, they're little beasts.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

We love them, they're they're mating.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Um what were we talking about? Uh you were you were letting us know about your so there are times, like during my divorce, that I was like, man, I should have done this a long time ago. Because while we had a good thing, like it was fine, right? We were more roommates than partners. Um there was never really the fulfillment for me in the relationship, and that's where kind of like my shame came in is like, what could I have done differently to get her to give me what I needed? Like I failed, I feel like I'd failed her at some points during my divorce because uh she kind of gave up on me, right? Um and I know there's a lot of guys that go through that, yeah. Absolutely. You were talking about, I mean, chicken nuggets and iced tea. Yeah, I mean, that's what is that like what she fell for? Did did you like not provide her enough chicken nuggets and iced tea?

SPEAKER_02 12:24

So, because of the type of job I had working in the medical field, my my job meant that I went to work at 5:30 in the morning. Yeah. And I would get off around three. And in that time, while I'm operating, um, I cannot just answer my phone. I can't just leave and go take care of things. I'm in the middle of a surgery. Right. So there is this situation where when I go to work, I'm stuck. I am not the parent in which anyone can call to say, hey, your kid's sick at school. That's great. I'm here at the hospital. Bring him here because that's all I can ask you to do.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

See, we both actually have kind of the same situation. I also work in surgery, um, doing essentially the same thing he used to do. Um, so I know exactly what you're talking about. Like you get scrubbed into a case, you can't touch your phone. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Like people can call you, you could have the nurse answer it, which is really awkward, by the way, to have have another woman answer the phone to your wife while you're like, oh yeah, sorry, he's scrubbed in. Unless she knows it. Is there any information you'd like to relay to as long as she knows him, it's cool because she understands like your situation.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

But if it's some random woman picking up your phone, this is Matt's phone. Oh, that that lecture later is gonna be real bad.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah, no, and and so there was a person at her job. Now, she didn't require to work. I provider. That was that was something that I strived for, was to be a provider for the family. But when the kids are at school and there's nobody at home, and she's just sitting there, I I'm not a I'm not looking to have a trad wife, right? Like I'm not looking to have someone who just stays at home and does nothing. Um and not to say that they do nothing, but like to say I didn't need someone to pick up after me or be my mother.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

I wanted a partner. Yeah, and that partner was bored at home and desired to do something more. Yeah. So she went and got a job. Okay. And at this job, it's fine. Again, she meets someone who is sweet on her and desires to make sure that she knows that she is desired. And that desire was as simple as at lunchtime bringing her chicken nuggets and a sweet tea from a restaurant that will be remain unnamed. You guys go ahead and decide who it's from. But sweet tea. And it was as simple as that. That was the introduction um between the two of them. And it was it was very sweet and innocent uh introduction between two individuals who happened to work together, and unfortunately, that developed into a relationship because my ex-wife allowed it to. Yes, she did not stop it. Correct. And the reason she allowed it to was because there was problems at home. We were not happy at home. There were issues because I worked too much and I wasn't home because I was too busy trying to be a provider to make sure she didn't have to work. So now while she's at work, someone is doing sweet little things and spending $2 on a $1 iced tea and a $1 nugget, and all of a sudden that meant more than the paycheck I brought home. That meant more than the 50-60 hours a week I was working. That meant more than the house we lived in.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Do you think that's because she got comfortable with those things?

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Do you think it was just because an expectation that this is just my life? This is normal. This is how it goes. Um and the things I'm missing is someone to pay attention to me outside of work.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

And I wasn't making phone calls in the middle of the day to check in on her. But I couldn't because that's the way my job.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Right. You get like 10 minutes between cases to actually like catch up on life for a minute.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Right. My lunches were split over five different cases where I would grab a handful of something, shove it in my face, and go to my next case. And then 20, 30, 40 minutes later, sometimes two hours later, I get another I get another handful of food in my face before I'm running off to the next one. And that just happened to be my scenario. And everybody has a different one. But I was undone by iced tea and chicken. Chicken nuggets. And that's unfortunate, but it's true.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Them nuggies are pretty good though. Not gonna lie. Them little chicken minis. Uh fuck me up, some chicken.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

What would you do for a Klondike bar? No, what would you do for some chicken nuggets?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Fuck the Klondike bar. That's just chocolate and pepper. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Apparently, throw throw away an 18-year marriage is good enough for chicken nuggies.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

I mean, there were some pretty damn good chicken nuggies. Speaking of Chick fil A, you guys want to sponsor this? I don't think you're going to because we swear a lot, but divorced dudes podcast at gmail.com. Um so yeah, that that I'll bet your story is very similar to thousands of other men that have gone through this.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

And it's really it's unfortunate because I think thousands of men out there feel the same way I did afterwards, which was what in the world could I have done differently? Yeah. How in the world could I have saved my vows?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Because they meant something to me. It was supposed to mean something. It wasn't just words you said, it wasn't empty statements. It was supposed to mean even at 19, that meant something to me. Was to say, till death do us part.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

And here we are, parting before death. I was there with you. Mine was burnt cheese on a plate. So my ex had this habit of making nachos, which was just chips with the cheese on it that you pop in the microwave for two minutes and melt all of the cheese onto the nice you know, bone china ceramic plates that we had. And uh there was one day during COVID just having a really bad day. And uh I was scraping and scraping and scraping, and that plate fell out of my hand. It just so happens we were in a huge argument at the time. And uh it didn't go well. And that's kind of when I realized I was like, I'm just not happy in this anymore. Um but that goes back to our talking point earlier about once you're in it, you're like, I kind of think this should have happened a long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Like, yeah, it's and it's really it's both fortunate and unfortunate all at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

I to this day could not say I'm happier than I've ever been, because it's true, I am happier than I've ever been. Yeah. But still disappointed in myself for what feels like a failure. And that sadness that comes along with failing at what I thought I understood at 19, which I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

I mean, you even even after 18 years, right? The pre people that you were when you fell in love had changed. 100%. Like you both grew up, you both realized that you needed different things out of life, you you realize that uh there are things that that matter and don't matter to each other that are different from your partner. Um and that's it's kind of life, right? Uh it's really easy to fall in lust with somebody and think that it's love. Um it's also very easy to fall in love with somebody. It just isn't right.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

It just isn't right. I hate to say that out loud, but she just wasn't right. Yeah, same. And had I given myself time to grow up, I might have figured that out.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

I feel the same way. We met me and my ex met the first year of college. Immediately we're like, all right, this is the person I want to be with. And then 19 years later, I mean, I'm in a different state, she's in a different state, she's got some other boyfriend I've remarried. Um who we love, by the way. Yeah, she's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

She is absolutely amazing. I I love my wife. She is I'm over here very jealous.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

She is she's the reason I'm still here, honestly. Um so let's get back to our talking points. Let's go back to our list. Um we've hit on the the shame. Um let's kind of turn this around a little bit.

Naming Sadness Out Loud

SPEAKER_00 21:53

So so how do we fix this, right? Um I think the first thing is to acknowledge The sadness and give it a name. Right? So you're at work and you walk in and you're going through this bullshit of a divorce, right? And you're depressed and you're sad and you're down. And uh your your coworker, your best buds at work comes up to you and goes, Hey, what's up? How you feeling? And you're here. Your response is I'm here. Or I'm fine. Yep. Or, you know, same shit the other day. I'm okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

And we're not. We're absol fucking not okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

But all you want to tell them is that I am struggling. I'm having the worst time of my life right now, but you're afraid to do that. Because you're afraid of what they might say to you or what they might think of you. That's the worst feeling, honestly, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Yeah, I I mean me personally, it wasn't even just the judgment. It was I don't want to be a burden on someone else.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

And if I tell them how I'm actually feeling, I don't want their fake sorries. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Because no one's asking me how I'm doing for real. No one's sitting down and saying, Are you doing okay? Right. It is in passing, in public, what's up?

unknown 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

How are you doing? It's uh more of a pleasantry, actual wanting or can desiring to be concerned about how you're actually feeling. Um, but I think that it's very important, especially for men, to realize that it's okay to talk about those things. It's okay for you to say, I'm struggling or I'm not doing great today. And to talk about it. Like I think that that's why we're here, honestly. We are here because we've all been in that situation where it's like, man, I'm about to jump off a building, but I can't tell you that because you might look at me different tomorrow. Yeah. Right? But I really want to tell you that because I really want somebody to talk to about this. But I'm a dude, and I just gotta rub dirt in it. I've got to just walk it off. Yeah, that's what I've been taught my entire life is that I need to just man up and push on, persevere. Um which kind of goes back into the next topic I want to talk about.

Building A Real Support Circle

SPEAKER_00 24:37

It's your support structure, right? Um, I tell people this all the time that those that matter care. Those that care don't matter. So, what I mean by that is the people in your life that you can talk to about these things and and know they're gonna give you a genuine response or they're actually like looking out for you, those are the people that care. Uh the people that care that I'm talking about in this situation are the people that just kind of want to have some gossip on you to talk about you behind your back, to talk about you know what what you're going through to make themselves feel better about themselves. Those people, they don't matter. So the people that matter don't care what you're going through. They're gonna be there for you no matter what, they're gonna help you out, they're gonna be your your support system. That's why we're here. Um, and people that care, they don't matter. So you need to audit your friend group, you need to audit the people around you, and you need to realize that A, you're not gonna please everybody, and B, it's okay to let some people go. Um that's a hard pill to swallow. It really is, because you're already sad, you're already alone.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

You've already lost the wife, the kids, the house. Right. And now you're telling me I also have to lose the people who at least on the surface pretend to care.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

You don't have to lose them, but you need to weed them out. And that's that's where I'm at. When I was going through mine, I had a buddy who was going through his. We would call each other and talk on the phone three, four hours a night. Because we were the ones that cared about each other. Yeah, right. We were the people that mattered to each other. I didn't need to tell the 25 other people that I interacted with every day all the shit that I was going through feeling. But I knew that I had my buddy to do that to, and he had knew the same thing for me. So I'm saying is like not everybody you interact with every day is a quote unquote friend.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Right? You have a ton of acquaintances you meet every day. Um you just need to like audit that, right? You don't need to have a friend group that's 50 people big when you're going through one of these things, but you do need to have a handful of people that you can talk to, and it's very important to find them out. That's kind of why we're here because we also wanted to give you guys a safe space to talk, to reach out to, um, to discuss, or maybe even come on and tell your stories. Um by the way, we have our email, it's divorced dudespodcast at gmail.com. So if you guys want to come out and like tell your stories, um, we would love to hear from you, talk to you. Absolutely. Um, send them in. We can uh get you on the show, we'll have you like Skype in or whatever. We're we're new to that.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

I mean, by chance, if you're local, maybe we'll have you here at the studio.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Like yeah, come on, come on down to my basement and we'll we'll get you on an episode. That's right. Um and then there's a couple of points I wanted to touch on to wrap up

Rebuilding Identity After Divorce

SPEAKER_00 27:46

to. Uh, one of them is rebuilding your your identity as somebody other than a husband, right? Because for so much of your life, depending on how long you've been with your partner, like I said, I was 19. I think Matt was 19 years. Um you are somebody else's husband.

unknown 28:06

Right?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

That's what I know how to be. Exactly. Um, but then when you're not that anymore, who are you? So I did the yes man thing. I got out.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

I'm currently in my yes man era, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

My my buddy called it the fuck tour. Like he went out to try to find who he was, and he did that with a lot of women, and it was unhealthy, to say the least. Um, not my yes man tour, by the way. No, but you're like trying to go party with Bert Kreishner and like hitting the right.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

He was he was in town. I went to a show, he you know, I DM'd him, he responded, he got sick. He unfortunately could not show up to what he you know said he could do the month before. But yes, absolutely. I am trying to do things like party with Burt Kreischer.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

I mean, like let's just go. I mean, you you've got to get out there and you've got to find out who you actually are. I think that's the one of the most important things post-divorce is trying to rebuild yourself as yourself and not somebody else's husband. Um, whether that's getting on meetup and going and you know, finding local groups to go, I don't know, fucking play board games, you know, go local sports groups, get on a local sports team. I played kickball for like five seasons and met a bunch of cool people, had a lot of fun. Um I joined volleyball.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Okay, not as a participant. Let me rephrase. I'm not a participant in volleyball, but I'm over here as a seasoned pass holder at our local college volleyball club. Yeah, and I go and watch them every time they play, and it is the most amazing sport. And I've also gotten into watching soccer, our local men's soccer team, and and going in, and I'm doing all these things, right? These things to not just stay busy, but to meet new people, right? And to reinvent who I am without a wife, correct. And trying to figure out what your identity is it I need. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

What makes me tick? Because I think that's a that's where a lot of guys kind of get it wrong in the early days of a relationship, is they spend so much time trying to figure out what somebody else wants or needs. And I think that's a of detriment to both you and your partner. I I think that most men would do themselves a very good service of figuring out what they want, who they are, and then for figuring out what who what what they can provide. I think that that would also attract women who are more in tune with the things that make you you, versus you trying to change yourself for somebody else and then resenting or regretting what you've done. Oh, now you're getting me started over here. It's a different episode. Different episode. We'll come back, we'll come back to that for sure.

Therapy And Taking Off The Mask

SPEAKER_00 31:18

And then one of the last things I wanted to touch on is therapy. And I know everybody's gonna roll their eyes and be like, I don't need to talk to I'm a man, I don't want to talk to no shrink and have my head shrunk. And but talking about this shit is probably the most beneficial thing you can do. And and by therapy, I don't mean you have to go and and find a therapist and get a psychiatrist to get you on fucking well butrin or some other antidepressant. Like therapy can be as easy as meeting your friend every Monday at a bar and just having a drink and talking about life and feelings. There's a stigma that men can't talk about their feelings, and I think that we need to reverse that. I mean, that's what we're doing right now.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

That's that's it's literally what we're trying to do right now is is to make sure that everybody understands not only do we have these feelings, we're allowed to have these feelings, and we're allowed to work through this thing. Yeah. And and if you don't currently have somebody in your life in which you can express these things to, find that person. And if it means going to therapy, go. Yeah. 100%. It's something that I did. So, unlike Zach, he had someone who he could talk to. Yeah. Who was going through the same thing around the same time and they were able to communicate. I didn't have that. I didn't have those people, and I didn't have that after the divorce. I had moved across the country, and then things went downhill. And during that time, we never really established relationships with other human beings who weren't couples. And as soon as the divorce happened, those couples all disappear. Yeah. And so I wasn't just alone, but I was without anyone to cry on their shoulder. Right. And I hate that, but it was true. And the one thing that I was lucky to have is that I had therapy, and I did have someone to talk to because of therapy. Right. And mind you, it took me seven therapists to find the one that made any sense to me whatsoever. And it is like going on a first date every single time. And I hadn't dated since my space. Let me tell you, dating's weird. But I find my therapist and I'm able to talk to someone, and they're able to talk to me in a way that I not only understand, but can grasp and communicate my feelings. Yeah. And it's important to have that. Yeah. And it's important whether that is someone at your church or someone at your work or someone in your friend group or someone in an office.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Yeah. Or us. Or us. Get in touch with us. Come listen to us. Get in touch with us. Divorce dudes podcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

We'll put you, we'll put you on the mic, we'll get you on here, and we can talk about things.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

And it's okay to not be okay. That's probably the hardest lesson the men will ever learn. It's okay to not be okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

That's because we're not. We tell our friends, how you doing? Oh, we're doing great. I'm doing fine. I'm okay. I'm here. It's all lies.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Because you don't want to be the burden. Correct. Because your sadness isn't supposed to land on anybody else. The hardest part to realize is when someone asks you, How are you doing? and they mean it. They sit across from you at a campfire or your couch or their couch or the bar or wherever you were at in that moment. And they look at you and say, How are you doing? They mean it. Yeah. They want to know, they've opened up that door for you to express yourself that you're not okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

And it's okay to let it all out. 100%. It is. Those that matter don't care. They don't care. They're gonna be there for you regardless. So let people know how you're feeling. One, it gets it off of you, it takes that giant weight that's sitting on your shoulders and smashing you to the ground, and it releases it. And two, it allows people to see you as you, and that can actually be beneficial in a lot of relationships. There's a lot of times when guys come in, and the only thing that anybody ever sees is this strong, independent man, and that can be intimidating to a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Oh, god forbid anybody knew at work that I was struggling. Right. That was not going to happen. You knew me not long after the divorce there, Zach. There's no way, there's no shot that you had any idea. Not a clue. Not a clue. That I was struggling at all. Because I put on that mask and I went to work and everything's okay. I'm fine. Yeah. I'm doing great. Look at this concert I went to. Look at this bar I went to. Look at this dinner I went to. Look at this girl I dated. How great my life is. Whatever it was, I only showed you the parts I wanted you to see.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

It was an Instagram live. 100%. Literally, I mean that's that's why most people get on Instagram so they can show off their their highlight reel, right? They don't most people don't want to know or don't want you to know that they're insecure or that they're struggling in some way. That's why they put all of their highlights on Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Correct. And it's been it's been years since you and I have known each other now.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

And and you've scratched the surface. We're gonna learn things in this podcast in different episodes that neither one of us have known about each other. And that's part of this journey.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Is to expose our weakest points to everyone.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Yeah. We're gonna be completely vulnerable. Uh we're gonna be open. We're we're not gonna hide things. We're gonna we're gonna show you that it's okay for your struggles to be known. That on the other side of letting those out, you'll be a better person. You'll feel better. Uh it'll translate into everything down your looks. You'll look better once you get this off your chest. Like the confidence that that getting these emotions out gives you, knowing that you can get through them and that you're strong enough to handle literally anything now. Like there's a lot of dudes out there, I ain't scared of no man. You're scared of yourself.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

You're allowed to be scared.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

You're allowed to be scared.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

I look in the mirror sometimes and I wonder, is that who I want to be? Right. Is that looking back at me the person I want to show the world? That's terrifying.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Absolutely fucking terrifying. Yeah. It really is. And can I take that mask off and just be myself? You can.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

And that's why we're

Reach Out And Keep Moving Forward

SPEAKER_00 38:56

here. So we're gonna wrap this up. I'm gonna I'm gonna let you know again. Reach out to us, um, email us. We would love to hear your stories if you're local to Lexington, Kentucky. We'd love to have you on if you aren't local to Lexington, Kentucky, and you want to Skype in, we'd love to have you on. We just we we're we're trying to develop a community of dudes, by dudes, and for dudes. Love it. There we go. Absolutely love it. So uh on that note, um, divorced dudes podcast.com. Uh not yet. That's coming. Divorced dudes podcast at gmail.com. Correct. Uh, and then Matt's gonna be here with some some closing thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

So I've tried to grasp a thought, uh, uh an idea that just makes sense to me. And this is a quote I found today. I am not well. I could have built the pyramids with the effort it takes me to cling on to life and reason. And I don't think everybody truly understands some of the things that men go through trying to cling on to life and reason. The effort that we put in every single day to move forward. And I just hope that everybody listening and everybody out there keep moving forward. That is what we have to do. That is our calling, and that is our drive, is to just keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah. I agree. And on that note, divorce dudes out.