The Price of Freedom: Navigating the Complexities of Divorce

And ... here we go. This is NOT a fun episode, but it is an absolute truth you have to prepare yourself to navigate. From state laws, to Tinder, we are journeying through all the ups and downs of divorce and what to expect if you're about to separate from your toxic partner. Do I give the best advice? Hell no. Do I give authentic advice? You bet. Listen in as I tell you the details of the most challenging 6 months of my life.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's time to wake up witches. I'm your host, cat Adams, and I'm here to remind you that, no matter where you're at in life, you're not stuck you. Welcome back to the podcast, where I tell you Like it is and what you probably don't want to hear. I don't sugarcoat anything, and that's kind of what this episode is going to be about. So if you listen to me, you can expect a hundred percent authenticity and no Bullshit. So hold on to your butts, because today we're gonna talk about the truth, about divorce. But first let me tell you a little bit about what's happening right now, and that is I am freaking home Free.

Speaker 1: 1:10

I took today off, and I didn't tell anybody in my family. I was taken today off Because anytime I have time off, it's like, hey, do this, do that, and I don't want to do anything Except sit in my robe. Today I want to work out. I've been falling behind on my workouts. I want to.

Speaker 1: 1:31

I have crab stone, crab claws being delivered today, because today is the day before Thanksgiving, and so I wanted to do something special and I told you all about this on a previous episode ordering from gold belly and so I ordered, like a shit, ton of crab. We had crab legs last night from San Francisco Dungeonous crab flown in from the budin bakery with the famous sourdough bread, and today we're having stone crab claws from Miami flown in. I know that sounds fancy right, because it freaking is and because we deserve it. So Treat yourself. You know I'm all about that life, romanticizing your life. Luxurious bougie vibes sometimes gets me in trouble, but oh my gosh, talk about high vibes. Dude, eat some crab, drink some champagne and celebrate life. So the last time you heard from me, I was having those tower card moments and this week I had some good news. I have mixed feelings about it. It's related to my job, so I can't expand on it yet, but I I think things are going to be looking up now because I had my moments where everything's like basically being dismantled and has to be rebuilt again. So I'm working on that and hopefully more news on that to come.

Speaker 1: 2:56

But I don't. I need to figure out a way to have less stress and pressure in my career life and I'm gonna work on that while I have this time off. I'm super excited about this time off. You don't understand. I have three days off because my work lets us all run Thanksgiving and the day after. So I took the day before and, oh my gosh, I mean it's a five-day job, five days of being in my robe, no makeup, no makeup, because I have to be on calls every single day, usually back to freaking back. So I have to be, all you know, have my face on. I put no makeup on these five days. I ain't gonna do it unless I go out, which I may do, but black freddy crowds, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 3:43

I'm thinking out loud here, but that's where I've been. I think I see now where things are supposed to be, falling card wise in my career and Trying to figure out what that looks like. But my husband and I were walking the other day and he's like you've gotten like five promotions in the past five years, can earn in the past two years. He only been working here for two years. He said can you imagine when you would be at now if your ex didn't hold you back? And I was like, damn, that hits hard. So for all you out there listening and you're stuck in these relationships, you are being held back. You are so talented, you have skills you might not even know about, you can go so far and you might get there fast. You might get there a little bit slow. I'm gonna bet you're gonna get there fast because once you get on the other side and you give it your all, you flourish, and it's a bitch to get there.

Speaker 1: 4:54

And that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the realities of Of divorcing a narcissist man. So I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you a lot about my story and my journey through divorce and we're just gonna dive in. And it's like, what time is it? It's nine o'clock in the morning. I slept, daniel, you know I usually get up at five. I slept in. I feel like I need a drink to talk about this, but it's way too early, so I'm just gonna raw dog this shit, all right.

Speaker 1: 5:28

So you know, this podcast is about not feeling stuck in every single situation and a bad career and a toxic relationship with maybe your mommy or you know, just a situation you don't want to be in, not even like something toxic. You might be stuck in a miserable marriage, you might have a dead marriage and you're just like you can't breathe life into it. That's not a way to live. I can guarantee you that is not a way to live. There is passion and chemistry and love out there for you and it is worth fighting for a million times over.

Speaker 1: 6:11

Oh, my gosh, I'm talking about this as my husband is away for a little over a week and he does this every November because he visits his family and he takes a long vacation to go there. They're out of state and I don't go because I don't want to. I would go if he really wanted me to but also I have, you know, my daughter here and work and things, and so we take this time apart because we are together 24 seven. Like, seriously, we both work from home and no, I'm not kidding, we're together 24 seven. So this is our like once a year, little time apart, and I miss him from the second he steps out that door and it's just.

Speaker 1: 7:03

We've been together for four years now and I didn't know relationships could be this way. I didn't know they could be this good. I didn't know the honeymoon stage never goes away, sometimes for some people. This time last year we were texting. We were dirty, texting back and forth for four hours straight when he was gone to on his trip and like I mean, who does that? After years and years together, you still have this amazing chemistry and passion and love and trust. Oh my gosh, it's so nice to trust someone Because before him I never, I never knew I could trust like anybody, because I just didn't have anybody in my life to show me that or show me how the relationship and I know I'm going off on this, but I want you to know that if you're stuck, even if it's not toxic, if you and your husband just don't get along anymore, don't see eye to eye, don't have the same dreams, hopes, goals you might have outgrown him and that's okay. But it's not okay to stay stagnant because you're comfortable, because that's not the life that's meant for you. No one is supposed to be miserable. So grab life by the balls. And we're going to talk about grabbing life by the balls right now.

Speaker 1: 8:31

I think some of the first things that come to mind when you think about you think about divorcing an abuser or narcissist is your danger level, which needs to be the very first thing you think about. So you need to have an exit plan. You know. You know your danger level. Okay, some of you might be being emotionally abused, like you know. They just put you down with words or whatever and not, and you know that they're not going to like escalate into physical. But you know, some of you are in really dangerous situations. I can't make that call for you. You have to evaluate your situation but no matter what level of abuse you're experiencing, you should always have some kind of safe exit plan. You need to look at the numbers that I've posted on my show notes. Call them for help. Blah, blah, blah. I am not like a therapist, I'm not a doctor, I'm not advising you anything. I'm telling you my experiences. And number one, it's for you to be safe.

Speaker 1: 9:33

I've talked about my go bag. I had a go bag for forever. I had to use it quite a few times and it's you know the things. There's a whole list in my you're not stuck book, but it's things like you know, copies of your birth certificates and your kids birth certificates and yada, yada, yada, things like that. So have a go back. But I'm gonna talk more, not about, like, the physical things I want to talk to you about, like the emotional things and things that happen to me that you might not know about and that you might could expect from this decision, because it's a big decision, but if you're in a shitty relationship. It is absolutely the right decision. It's never gonna be the wrong decision.

Speaker 1: 10:19

And do not say I'm staying for the kids. No, I Promise you. The kids are so much happier when their mom is happy, when their mom is safe, when they're safe and plus, they're not gonna be picking up on that behavior, because that is gonna cause anxiety, depression and it could even like they could even mimic that behavior one day. You know, that's what they learn, it's what they see. They don't know what a healthy relationship looks like. Don't do that to your kids. All right, I'm speaking from experience. It's hard. All right, I'm with the show. I know what I'm doing, I'm talking, so I don't have to talk about it. But let me just tell you how I'm down.

Speaker 1: 11:05

So I Finally decided to get a divorce in 2019. It was July, I think it was like July 3rd, I was around the 4th, because I remember it was like Independence Day and I was like, wow, that's, you know, kind of ironic and it, it, my, my marriage had just escalated so much that my daughter was getting older and she it was affecting her. It. You know, kids pick up on it. She was picking up on it to the point where it was making her sick and I was also, like you know, I had been on reddit a lot and I talk about reddit a lot Because it's like my escape and I had learned about, you know, writing. So I'd started writing to try to like write myself out of my divorce. If you want to hear more about that, you need to go check out that podcast I was a speaker on I think I talked about it in my previous episode before this one but I had, you know, tried my best to get on my feet because I knew I had to get out of there.

Speaker 1: 12:16

And I knew because I had been to the divorce lawyer two or three times before this, because I shopped around and that was years ago and he talked me out of it every time he found out you know you went to divorce lawyer you would talk me out of it. So I knew this time I can't go back, no matter what. And Through the entirety of our relationship that's 15 years I left several times and he always used threats to Bring me back or guilty feelings and that's a sign of abuse, you know. I know I've talked about it before, but that's how they get you back, that's how they keep you under control. I knew it was coming and I knew I Couldn't let it get to me.

Speaker 1: 13:04

I had to be strong for my daughter, like she's Pretty much the reason why I fall, you know to, to get out of my situation. She is like I didn't want her to suffer like I did. I don't want her to think that's normal and healthy and, you know, fall for a man who did the same stuff. And if you're single, you can still fight for yourself, like because you shouldn't think that's a healthy relationship. So the average time a woman leaves a man in a toxic relationship I don't know if this is just you as specific, but it's seven times Before. It's like she's like I'm just done and that's a damn shame. We need to pull together and work on chipping away at that number. Seven times it's just, it's too much. Honestly, returning once is too much and it's a threat like it's a real threat, like a lot of women lose their lives when they try to leave. So again, assess your danger level before you do this. Find a safe shelter, a trusted resource. Don't tell anybody what you're doing either, because you know you could even put your life in more danger.

Speaker 1: 14:18

But back to what happened to me. I went to the divorce lawyer and I Signed the papers and I was scared shitless y'all. But I knew I Did not want to be married to this man anymore. We didn't even have a A relationship, we didn't have like any intimate life. We, you know I hated him. I hated him still do. Instead of getting sad about it all the time, like I was, and I was just like crying a lot and yada, yada, yada, I started getting mad and anger fuels you Like. I was so mad at my situation and what he'd done to me and that was like the driving force to keep me going. So I also had the writing thing and I poured everything out into that writing. But I signed the papers in July and my ex is very much a person who has this ego where he's just Mr Amazing Big Shot, and he had gotten the papers delivered to him. What is it called when they do that? What is it? I can't remember. But you know like they have, oh, you being served papers at his work and he became furious because everybody at his work always had to think you know, perfect home life, perfect man, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And of course he took it out on me. He was furious, yada, yada, yada, but I stayed strong.

Speaker 1: 16:09

It also helps to have a good lawyer who's going to prepare you for everything that's going to happen, and I found one that specializes in. It's a whole group of women lawyers and they specialize in handling these types of narcissistic men. They can call it, they know it, they know what's going to happen, they know the place they're going to use and it was amazing, like she was amazing, and she also like, just prepared me for everything, looked out for me. Now they're expensive, y'all. They are so expensive. Oh my gosh, lawyers are expensive. My retainer was like 5,000 and I mean I even went over that because you know it's expensive and it sucks, it sucks, it sucks, it sucks. But there is some free resources out there.

Speaker 1: 16:56

I'll try to find the link to this women's law thing. I found that might be helpful because not everyone has that. I didn't have that. I was, you know, I wasn't even working and I didn't want I couldn't take that out of the account, like my husband would have freaked out. I had to borrow that money and it was freaking well worth it. So there's a reality it's freaking expensive as shit. So my lawyer.

Speaker 1: 17:25

She prepped me for everything, and there's probably a lot of things, if you've never been divorced, that you don't know about regarding laws around your state. So again, I'm going to find this website and it says, like you know, laws by state or whatever there's usually a separation period. It's called a cooling off period. It's a bunch of bullshit and this is why women need to be in power so we can change these laws, because why the fuck do we have a cooling off period? I don't need to fucking cool off Like. I know what I want, not questioning my decision. I want to get away from this man. I forget what it was in Tennessee. Maybe it was like 60 days or three months or something, I don't know. But you can't get a divorce like right away. You have to wait before you can even like go on to the next step. In North Carolina it's a year. You have to be separated for a year. Oh my gosh, y'all. It's insane. So get the ball rolling now.

Speaker 1: 18:23

One of the things also that your lawyer is going to tell you is she's going to have your best interests in mind. So if you won't like the house, if you won't custody things like that, she's going to figure out how to get it for you. And in Tennessee, one of those things is like I don't know if other, what other states have this, but I always have a fear of being homeless because I grew up in a broken home and it's just a long story. I wanted my home and I wanted custody. Obviously you may go in there thinking, okay, well, if I say if, if, and you have to be honest with your lawyers, okay, you got to be pretty honest, even if you don't want to know some stuff. And I was like I let my lawyer know, you know, I wanted the house, I wanted my kid.

Speaker 1: 19:17

He's dangerous and I was like I don't want to go to the court anyway, like I, the courts can give you know custody to him or for any amount of time. I don't want him to have shit, and that's not the case. Now, if you're I don't understand all your strategies, but if you're like in a super serious situation, yes, you can do protective orders and things like that, but going through a divorce, working with a divorce lawyer, it's like a game. It's like you don't put all your cards on the table. It's a lot of manipulation, it's like just lawyering, and so one of the things she let me know was like, yeah, judges, especially if you're in the South, they believe you know men, your, the dad, should have equal time, even if you know he's, even if your abuser is abusive towards you, if he's not towards a kid, they're going to give the dad time, all right. So that's disheartening and again, why we need to change the laws as women, because men suck.

Speaker 1: 20:17

But I was so upset about that, so upset about that, and my lawyer was like look, I specialize in this. He's going to fight for your daughter, he's going to fight for the kids. They all say I want this much time with the kid. I want this much time with the kid and it's because, one, they're trying to manipulate you, to backing down and disdain, and two, they don't want to pay child support. She said he's going to sign up to have the kids like 50, 50 or whatever, and he's not going to do it. They never do. It's just all a show with them. I promise you. And damn, if she wasn't right. Like he's supposed to have my daughter like over a hundred days. I'm going to say maybe is it over, I don't know. It's a lot. He gets a lesson, 30 a year. All right, that's all a show. No-transcript. Yes, have your kids front and center in your mind, but also, your lawyer's gonna advise you what's gonna happen. And this is what mine said, and she specializes in these types of men and their manipulative behaviors, and she was right. So don't let that scare you. All right, talk to a lawyer, they will guide you through this.

Speaker 1: 21:31

So, during this cooling off period, my ex would not leave the house and I wanted them. And if you vacate your property for like I forget what the amount of time is you're forfeiting your property, which would be if I left, if me and my daughter left and I took her and left, then he would have like automatically gotten the home. You can imagine what a battle that was with an asshole, narcissistic, abusive man. He stayed here until the very end. He would not leave. I begged him to leave. It was not healthy for me, it was not healthy for my daughter. I begged him to leave and he would not leave until the day on the paper, after mediation, and I'm about to get to that but yeah, it was horrible, horrible, and you go through so many emotions and divorce.

Speaker 1: 22:25

I'm not gonna lie. I like hated him. I hated him so much and he would come home screaming at me, begging me, crying, begging me not to do this, not to do this to him, not to do this for his family. He's sorry, he'll change. He'll whatever I want like he'll change, trying to win me back with money, trying to win me back with everything Non-stop, 24, seven, y'all the six months this went on. It was non-stop. And then he would, when his begging and crying didn't work, he'd resort to being violent, talking about killing himself. That was one of his favorite things to do killing myself, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's hard and this is a hard topic to talk about because I know some guys do that but this is not your problem. Your problem is you gotta be figure out how to stay safe for your child and your family. So I'm not advising you anything here. I'm telling you what happened to me.

Speaker 1: 23:26

I stayed strong during that and I don't know how, because, yep, I had doubts. I was like, am I really doing the right thing? Like, what am I gonna do for money? How am I gonna pay for this house? By the way, my lawyer let me know about child support and alimony. There's avenues for you.

Speaker 1: 23:44

And I just freaked out. I didn't know, like if I was making a dumb decision. Part of me was like, well, maybe for real he will change his time. Stupid me, right, stupid me. And so I remember the promise to myself that I'm not gonna go back this time, no matter what, because it will turn out the same. And I ain't gonna lie y'all.

Speaker 1: 24:03

I got through my divorce by drinking a lot of wine. I don't recommend this. This is horrible, but again I wanna be authentic and tell y'all the truth. So here it goes. I watched the girlfriend's guide to divorce on Netflix and she's not divorcing an abuser, it's just this guy. But they go back and forth and mixed emotions, because sometimes you're like you know, but I love him. And that's so true because even I went through that. I was like you know, this was the man I married that I thought I loved, and so I watched that like I binged it. I ate popcorn, I drank wine. I don't know how I stayed so skinny back then. I guess anxiety and I knew that I was gonna get divorced, no questions asked.

Speaker 1: 24:57

I really was lonely, y'all. I was so lonely for so long and I was ready to find chemistry and passion and romance and love. The second I knew I was getting divorced. So not long after I'd say a couple months after I I oh my God, a couple months after the divorce proceedings I got on Tinder and some other places where I could meet people from a distance, because I was a scared little big chicken. But I think I just wanted someone to talk to because I didn't have anybody in my life back then and I didn't have anybody to like help me get through this. So I talked to dudes. I talked to dudes and they made me feel really good about myself.

Speaker 1: 25:54

I ain't gonna lie y'all this is horrible. I know it's not horrible in the way that I feel bad about it because I mean I was going through divorce proceedings, but thank you, fucking Tennessee, for making that difficult and longer and drawing it out for me. But I needed a way and I needed distractions and I didn't like go meet anyone off Tinder or anything. But it did get to develop like friendships with people, dudes, who distracted me while I went through this. I don't know if this is horrible advice or not. First of all, know your danger level. Turn off your freaking wifi if you're gonna be on your phone talking to people. But I ain't gonna lie y'all. It got me through it. Like it doesn't have to be dudes, like if you have friends, I didn't have friends. I had one friend no, I had two friends back then, but they weren't nearby and they weren't. One of them was, but it was just. There was some drama surrounding that.

Speaker 1: 26:57

So I was trying to do better and be healthier for myself and the people I chose around me. That's such a contradiction because I'm like a been on Tinder and talking to dudes, but whatever, I'm not gonna sit here and be like oh you know, you weren't divorced yet. So that's cheating, motherfucker. I would have been divorced if Tennessee didn't have these stupid ass laws and if my stupid ass ex did not drag it out because he dragged his feet, he would not sign papers, he would not do this. He would not do that.

Speaker 1: 27:29

This went on for months and months and months and some of the people I talked to was also in like divorce groups and stuff that I had been on in Reddit and they were going through the same shit. So we found a lot of camaraderie and just texting back and forth. I would sit there and I would be watching girlfriends got divorced, drinking wine, eating popcorn. My ex was out doing God knows what. Some days he wouldn't even come home. So I'm sure he was like fucking around too.

Speaker 1: 28:00

Even though I wasn't fucking around, I was seriously. I was just talking to these dudes. I was just talking to these dudes and trying to keep my mind off of my emotions on should I stay, should I go? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and how I can survive until he's supposed to actually be kicked out and leave. And you know, yeah, I I got on, like the dating websites and things like that. I don't think I actually think tender was later. Tender was, I think. So I saw my divorce papers in July. I can't remember. I can't remember. I know I let. I met a lot of people in my situation on reddit and that's kind of the avenue that started, because I I believe the first time I got on tender was when I met my husband, my nail husband. I know it is your foggy when you go through this. Okay, you're not gonna remember stuff cuz your brain is gonna protect you and a lot of this is a fog for me, but I know when I was going through the thick of it it was horrible. So anyways, all right. Yeah, I had friendships with people and Develop that and it kind of carried me through.

Speaker 1: 29:11

There's things also you need to expect and that's I had to go because I was a divorcing and I had kids. I had to go to some kind of child parenting class. That's required in Tennessee again, get fucked Tennessee. So I had to do this. I had to sit in this room with other people who were going through divorce, listening to a bunch of men cry oh, my wife, she'd be a big old, whiny man babies. And this bitch conducting this class was going around asking us all while we were getting a divorce. I Was an abused woman who does not want to talk about her trauma at that point. Also, she can get fucked too. So expect that you may have to attend some course like that, depending on what dumb ass states you're living in. And that was hard. I Was just vague, I didn't want to talk about it, I was just like you know, whatever he's controlling her mean, left it at that. But like, how dare people put you through this when you are so freaking traumatized? So, anyways, expect that. Yeah, I didn't know that and it's mandatory. It is mandatory. You have to get that signature on that paper saying you went to that course on parenting or we didn't even talk about parenting. It was a vent session for everybody getting divorced, mostly big man babies. Yeah, expect that. So I did that.

Speaker 1: 30:31

Then we comes mediation. We tried mediation. I don't know if every divorce goes through mediation, but my, my lawyer recommended it, which is if you don't know what that is, it's basically you're sitting in different Rooms. I'm sitting with my lawyer, he's sitting with his lawyer we were even on separate floors in this building and there's this guy who goes back and forth and plays both sides and he's the mediator and he's like, goes to, he talks to me in my lawyer, my lawyers like she deserves $20,000 a month in alimony, you know, because they're gonna shoot really high y'all because this is a whole negotiations and Then he goes back and my ex-husband's lawyer is like ha ha ha, I'm gonna give her like $500 and then the mediator has to go back. Well, what do you think about this? What if you trade this for this and this and this and this? I think I was there for over eight hours in this room and it's basically just fighting. But you're not. They are fighting like sitting next to each other. You're in separate rooms and you have this mediator going back and forth to negotiate the details of your divorce, and I believe it was then, that was later, that was in November.

Speaker 1: 31:40

It was then that I sort of getting a little bit more serious about my tender shenanigans because I was like, finally we got negotiations to get him kicked out of the house on December I believe it was December 15th and and this was early November or late October we went through this and I was like I need to See what's on the other side. God, this sounds horrible. Whatever y'all, I was ready. I was ready 10 years ago, okay, to find someone who Made me feel good about myself. I think that's what it all boils down to. Because I didn't feel good about myself. I hadn't even done the work yet.

Speaker 1: 32:24

Y'all like I, I Wasn't in a bad situation. So that's when I got on tender, when mediation was over and we had signed the papers and Now I just had to wait till he left. And then I met my now husband, my sweet man, the D, that night on tender and he, we talked and we didn't even meet in person. He waited on me. So, sweet y'all, he didn't know we didn't have our first date or anything. Until that day. My ex finally left and so, yeah, I had to stay in this house with him, knowing we were getting divorced and we had signed the papers. It just wasn't. It hadn't gone to court yet. Because you have to do that to y'all?