September 23, 2025 • 47 mins
At the end of a 26-year marriage, exploded by an affair, one can choose to wallow in blame and self-pity or, as Jen Hatmaker has, WAKE UP and live! Jennie and Jen share a triumphant hour of the good, terrifying and really hard work of finding your better, stronger, more vibrant self for a new chapter. A BONUS episode is also coming with practical tips for those just starting out and those starting all over again. SUBSCRIBE now to I CHOOSE ME to never miss a thing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garland. Hello everyone,
welcome to I Choose Me, a podcast about the choices
we make. So this week's guest is not only birdening
a new book, she is also a brand new grandmother.
(00:24):
But welcoming Weston Joseph is not her only new beginning.
From the heartbreak of waking up to a marriage in
crisis to the treacherous work of rebuilding a life, Jen
Hatmaker has walked through fire and come out stronger, more vibrant,
and wide awake. Join Jen and me as we laugh
(00:47):
and cry through choosing ourselves the hard way and reaping
the rewards that only come from fierce self awareness and
uncomfortable healing. Oh I'm so excited to talk to you.
You have no idea. Okay, first, all things aside, you
are a hattie.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Oh my god, this is the most important thing we
could discuss.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I've heard women tell me in time, like lately more
and more how becoming a grandmother has changed their life.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh my god, how does that feel for you? It's
so it's so insane. This is my oldest son and
his wife. So this is first grandbaby and in our family.
This is first kid, first son, first grandkid, first great grandkid,
first nephew. Like he's doomed, Like he's absolutely doomed. And
(01:43):
we have this massive family prepared to over respond, over
attend to him. I mean they'll just I don't suspect
we'll have any restraint at all. And it's perfect, which
is great news for us. We got a perfect baby.
Thank you, thank you. We're dreamy over here.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I bet West and Joseph.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Western, Joseph, I mean, I can't handle it. Like, and
these are new parents, if you know what I'm saying,
Like they're the young version of parents. They're different than
we were, and so they have a lot of boundaries
and like rules and whatever. And I just keep thinking,
that's fine. I want to be respectful. This is your kid,
you're the parents. But I swear to God if you
(02:27):
revoke my privileges in any way, I will mutiny. Mutiny.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
You have to. I mean, yeah, that's not going to
be acceptable.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Oh gosh, I want to just talk about your.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Book, Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I loved it. I felt so connected to your story,
even though it is not mine at all. There are
similarities in situations, but your upbringing very different from mine
and the way your early life. I mean, I feel
awake for you just from reading the book, because it
(03:03):
is the ultimate story of like figuring out who the
fuck you truly are, finally for yourself. Yeah yeah, And
I love how you start the book from the end
and then you go back and give it all context
and great storytelling. Well done, and clapping for you, I think.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
No, wonder, Oh god, what a nice thing to say.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I mean it because I'm looking at a strong, vibrant woman,
and before all this happened, you didn't even know how
to pay your mortgage. You know, you were in a
very different life than you are currently.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, it's so crazy to like say that. It's so
crazy to hear it back because even you know, I
lost my marriage five years ago after twenty six years
of marriage. You know, I was a child bride. You
were nineteen. It's insane. But even five years ago though,
(03:58):
I still had like this kind of career and this
this big life. But then when you strip away some
of the crutches, the places that I had been phoning it,
in the places where I had simply made assumptions of
trustworthiness or competency inside the marriage, that goes away and
(04:24):
I finally went shit, I don't know how much money
I make in a year? What am I doing? What
have I been doing? Like? What have I been doing?
And so the process of it was so chaotic because
on one hand, I am trying to simply get through
the day because the marriage, the ending of our marriage
(04:44):
was so disastrous and so traumatic and.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So shock for the people that don't know, give us
the tragic to the dates of the tragic.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
It just ended in an affair, but not the kind
where I have something to tell you you I it
was all shock and all accidental, just middle of the
night discovery. Like everything, it's not original. It's not an
original story, it really is. I am offering nothing new
to the middle aged male lexicon here, but when it
(05:18):
happens to you, it is so so disruptive. It is
so tragic. And we have five kids, two of them
were in high school at the time. You know, we're
in it like we're in the thick of life.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
And you're in business together. You're you know, you're doing
everything together as you were taught you should.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
We were in lockstap we were running a nonprofit together
and previously had been in a ministry like that was
sort of our come up and was this very specific subculture.
And I just had never known as an independent adult
minute in my life. Again, I was a nineteen year
(06:01):
old bride, So we literally grew up together. We grew
up together, and sometimes, like this isn't a prescription to
say that never works. I've got plenty of friends who
had young marriages and they grew together, and yes, I'm
nice for them. How nice for them? We felt the
(06:27):
tension of our connective threads frying for quite some time
as we grew up and into sort of different spaces,
and well, we just grew up. You know, I didn't
know what kind of adult I was going to be
when I was a teenager, and neither he didn't know
what kind of adult he was going to be.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
You guys, had you had the dreams. Sure you thought
you knew, and it seemed like you were so in
it together from the beginning of creating this magical, harmonious,
beautiful life that your parents lived and that the people
around you and your community are living.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And I was prepared because that structure works best when
the woman has a degree of subservience, when she is
saying you are kind of the leader of our marriage
and of our family and home. Your job matters the most,
(07:24):
your preferences. You're the tip of the spear, right and
and the rest of us are kind of back here,
just pushing you forward. And so, because that was the
environment that I grew up in a faith world, I
was prepared. I'm like, great, that's that's my gender limitation.
Like that is that I'm in lockstep with that job description.
And I will be a very good wing man, and
(07:48):
he will always be a trustworthy leader. And thus we
plugged ourselves into this outlet that promised a handful of
guaranteed outcomes. You know, everybody play their part, and you
do your thing, and you do yours, and you stay
here and you come forward, and then you get a
happy life. That's the transactional like structure. And so I
(08:09):
believed it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Why wouldn't I work for my parents? I saw it
work elsewhere. I you know, I didn't come up in
a generation where a ton of the women in my
ecosystem were questioning any of that. They were the cogs
in the machine. Of course, women are. I mean, it's
not as if the men are actually leading every system
(08:34):
and structure that exists on earth with integrity and excellence.
It's the women you know back there in the behind
the curtain. But it was fraying already. It was fraying
already and then disintegrating toward the end until it was
a catastrophe.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I have a certain level of respect for what you
just said about that, you the cog in the wheel,
like so many women feel. I have never felt that way.
So that's how different our stories are, but also so parallel. Yeah,
well I love I love hearing your story and hearing
(09:17):
what a different version of this looks like.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so interesting. Right when I talk
about awake, I'm like, Okay, look, there's a small story
in here, and the small story is the story of
my divorce and recovery and rebuilding process. But there is
it is nestled inside a larger story, which, on one
level or another, virtually everybody in our generation and our
(09:43):
age group would go, oh, same on that one, same
on that one. We all grew up inside a patriarchal
culture in various rooms that we all found ourselves playing in.
There were some gender limitations, and they those existed in
different ways and they manifested differently, but we know what
they look like. We certainly got a story about our
(10:05):
bodies from the time we were what four younger, and
so that is ubiquitous for our age group. This story.
We this is what your body should look like, This
is what your body is good for, This is how
your body can be used. This is who your body.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Girl. Be a good girl, yep, make girl pleasant, smile.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Walk into every room, read it and give it what
it wants. And the problem is we're good at that.
We're so socially and emotionally competent that most of the
women I know do know how to walk in a room,
gauge the temperature, and adjust accordingly. And so it's a
(10:51):
skill set that can be used for our own empowerment,
but we were taught to use it for the comfort
of everyone around us.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
True, very true. Yeah, after I read what happened, where
you came from, how it all transpired, I felt immediately
excited for you, like genuinely excited for what is next
(11:20):
for you, because yeah, it sucked, it hurt, it blew
up your universe. But my excitement really comes from what
is basically what it feels like your rebirth.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for saying that. I
love hearing that, and that that thought, that perspective comes
from women who have already figured out how to live
in their own freedom, in their own autonomy, in their
own agency. And here's the good news about that that perspective.
(11:58):
It's true. You're right, it is true. We are so
interesting and capable and powerful. And I don't love the
system that sometimes something has to die in order for
that truth to live. But it is the truth. That
(12:19):
is how it is sometimes. And had I been more
honest back then, before I lost my marriage, I would
have already known that. I've already said that, And if
I would have been more courageous, I would have chosen
that before all this trauma chose me. Ye, But I'll
never know. I was too afraid to lose it all.
(12:41):
I couldn't. I didn't have vision for what it might
look like on the other side of that. The disruption
of it was such a deterrent that I was willing
to sit in my own unhappiness, in my own misalignment.
I guess forever, I think I would have stayed. I
think I would have stayed, So.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I feel exactly the same again. Completely different situation and circumstances,
but I hear you. I felt the same, like I
am supposed to keep this family together. I am supposed
to be the glue, you know, and if i am not,
then I'm a failure and I'm ashamed and all the
things we do to ourselves.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Totally totally and then even lacking the imagination for what
my kids, how resilient they are, I felt also in
a codependent way, responsible for their life experience, which meant,
if I'm a good mom, i am absolutely shielding them
(13:45):
from pain, from disruption, from loss. I'm certainly not going
to choose it for them. I you know, that is
such a ridiculous way to live and not true, not
true at all. But also so that kept me from
thinking with a clear head, what was the right thing
(14:08):
to do, what was the next best thing in my
life because I had this overdeveloped sense of responsibility for
literally everybody else in my life except myself.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Oh, this is where it gets good, because it wasn't
until your rebirth, I like to call it that that
you started to live in a completely different way, and
this is where choosing yourself really started to happen for you.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yes, I mean At first it was so terrifying. I
felt like I was in a constant free fall where
I was so used to my safety nets. I had
always had a partner, another person. I'd always had these
institutions that I had a lot of traditional success inside,
(14:51):
which looked like marriage and to some degree like the
institution of church or faith or however you want to
put that. And I had so I had these like
big systems as my scaffolding, and so having like fail
fail on both of those, having lost a partner. So
now I'm all by myself in my upper forties trying
(15:14):
to figure out how to pay my taxes. So at
first it was just like a tailspin. Every single thing
was new, like everything, and everything was sort of consequential.
I mean, these weren't small things. But once I figured
out pretty quick, oh my god, I'm good at all this.
(15:35):
I'm smart, I'm super capable in my story, and this
is what mattered to me the most. I am trustworthy,
like I do not have to outsource my will being
to another person who is not safe ever again, ever again,
and hope that they treat hope that they have integrity,
and hope that they I will never do that again,
(15:57):
and I don't have to do it again because I'm
good enough for all of this, Like because you don't.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
You never know when you put that kind of like
faith or responsibility or whatever it is that on someone else,
the good in you wants to think, if I have
faith in this person and I just believe it will
be so and they will take care of their end
of the responsibilities and treat me with respect and grow
(16:23):
old with me. But that doesn't do it.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
It doesn't. And I had that story for a really
long time. You know, I didn't have twenty six years
of a tragic marriage, right, you know, I a lot
of that muscle memory was built in in a genuine
way where we were partnered and we were in the
same boat, growing in the same direction, and those were
(16:51):
like really lovely years and really beautiful years. And I
don't have regret. I don't know how to. I don't
know that regard wrehat has a place in anyone's story.
If I regret my whole marriage, I would have to
regret my whole life.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And all the good things that you learned.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
That's right, and the children, that's right, the all of it. Yeah,
that isn't I can't. That doesn't actually make sense to me.
But I think integrity would have been way more honest
when the train was beginning to leave the tracks, And
hindsight shows me I knew my body, knew my wisdom,
(17:29):
knew my intuition, knew my body was raising the flares
yep and going listen. We got some alarm bells, and
we would like you to pay attention.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
And that always happens, but we don't. We either ignore
it or we pretend that it's not happening and we
just shove it aside because it's real inconvenient.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Oh my god, it's so inconvenient. And you know, I've
had some folks ask me, do you feel like you
ignored your own red flags, your own sense of knowing
that things were absolutely going wrong because of optics? Because
you have this public life and you had a public marriage,
(18:09):
and you want you wanted people to think of you
in a certain way. And I would never be like
so unself aware to say that had No, that's a
non factor. But I feel like I can say, truthfully,
it's less that I wanted to appear a certain way
to other people and more that I actually wanted my
(18:32):
marriage to work. I just didn't want to face what
I knew I needed to face. I didn't want to
look directly at all these red flags waving in front
of my face because I did not want them to
be true. It's not that I didn't want to I
just didn't want it to be true. I'm like, I know,
(18:52):
I'm going to find our way through this.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yes, you want that picket fence life, you know, and
you're building it and you seem to have and you
don't want to break it down.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
No, And I even though I knew things were going
so wrong and we were so sideways and something at
the time, I couldn't exactly say what it was. Now,
of course I know, but something was very, very, very wrong.
But my little brain of denial just kept going, we'll
get through. We'll get there. I don't know how, but
(19:25):
he will get over this. He will come back to himself,
and then he will come back to me and this marriage,
and this will be a rough bump on the road,
but we will get over it. And I just told
myself that over and over, but without the necessary subsequent
steps of actually engaging everything that was wrong. It's like
(19:49):
I just kind of closed my eyes hence the title
of the book, awake and just went maybe this will
just work itself out while I'm not looking at it
seems like a great approach, like what could go wrong?
Why didn't that solve problems?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
One of the things that I admire about women and
about you in situations like this, and I honestly admired
about myself. I spent a good amount of time and
blame and pointing the finger and being the victim. But
there comes a point when you have to stop pointing
the finger and start pulling the thumb and you have
to look at your pardon things. Yeah, and that's when
(20:29):
real change starts to happen.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Undoubtedly, I am so glad I did not write this
book three years ago. I was still living inside a
bit more of a trope of victim, villain, good, bad, guilty,
innocent that the earliest version of the story, which maybe
(20:58):
even has its place. Yep, I'm not even I'm not
even judging us for sitting in that place of just
absolute like betrayal and tragedy and loss to just go well,
just you know, fuck that guy. There's a place for that.
But to your point, that runs out of fuel. And
if we do not look at that differently and began
(21:20):
to go, all right, what's my part here?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
What? What? What did I bring to this table? Where
was I complicit? And what did I sign on for?
Then we will just become this miserable, resentful victim. And
like my counselor told me a billion times when she
was working with me on all those codependent behaviors that
(21:45):
apparently I had deeply exhibited my entire marriage. She's like, look,
this is your problem. She's look at your problem where
you either deal with it? But yeah, I was like,
that's so, don't pay you to be mean to me,
Like I came here for you to tell me this
is his fault and poor me. But she's like, you'll
(22:05):
just walk these habits and these patterns right into your
next relationship. You will keep them up with your kids
where you're already exhibiting it. And I'm like, yeah, so
you're right.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And that's when you ask yourself, is that the life
I want? Is that the woman I want to be?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That's right? Is that the rooleman I want to be?
And I had nobody else left to take the blame.
And so part of independence includes being responsible for yourself
and your garbage and your dysfunctions. And that is where
(22:45):
I finally found myself after I got through the just
the bottom of the ocean season of grief where everything
is just chaos. By the time I kicked to the
surface and had some fresh air again, I went right,
what's my deal? And I hope that that comes through
in the book. I hope that I was at least
(23:08):
self aware enough to go, Here's where I made our
marriage harder, worse, more difficult, and more unlikely to heal.
And I can see that now with much clearer eyes.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, I think it happens for so many of us,
because living in codependency or living in that world where
you are catering to someone or supporting your husband, your kids,
your household, you get so lost in it, and it's
really easy to not look in the mirror, to not
face the reality of your part in how things got
(23:46):
to where they are. And that is hard work.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Oh, it's horrible. It's so horrible, and that is the
crucible for everyone who struggles with dependency because, by definition,
like our approach to all the people around us, the
ones that we married, the ones that we birthed, the
ones that we came from the friends that we've chosen.
(24:13):
Is this sense of responsibility for them, how they feel,
what they think, how they're behaving, how they are responding,
what is their environment? Is there any way we can
control the outcomes of their choices, because I'll sure try.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah. I also want to make sure that everybody sees
them in their in their best light.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
God, I know you, you know.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I read that in your book. That takes a lot
of energy.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well, and back to your point, I don't have time
to look in the mirror. I'm too busy looking at
everyone else's mirrors. I'm making sure their mirrors are all
shined up for the world and for themselves, and I
am taking on responsibilities that should be theirs. And so
that's at least with my care I robbed them of
a lot of independence because I came in with too
(25:07):
much control, which, by the way, isn't even true. You
were never in control of somebody else. That is a lie.
That's an absolute lie. That's what you learn. It's an illusion.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
It's more fun to live in that illusion, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
It's just so much easier. I have so many ideas
about how everybody else should live. I mean and they're
such good ideas. If they would all just listen to me.
I have a vision for your behavior, and I just
if you'll sit down and listen for thirty five minutes,
(25:41):
I will give it to you. But it doesn't work
that way. That only creates resentment, that deteriorates relationships, It
steals autonomy from everybody around you. It's that is a
sinking ship.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
For sure. Okay, So speaking of your children, you said
that two of them were in high school when this
all went down, but they had grown up in that house.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
They were suffering the dysfunction in their own ways, but
probably oblivious also because that was just their life. Yeah,
how did they take the news initially? And how are
they doing now?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That first year when I was so afraid of their
own of their pain, I was just so afraid of it.
I remember one day my daughter Sydney, who at the
time was twenty, and we were in the living room.
I remember where I was standing when she was talking
(26:44):
about how she was feeling and what felt sad and
what felt hard and what still felt really confusing. And
I was so committed, I was so uncomfortable with her
pain that I did what I do what codependents do,
which is try to huh somebody else through their actual
experience to get to the ending I want for them.
(27:06):
So I'm I'm ten miles down the road trying to
protect her future relationship with her dad, her future wholeness
and wellness. I have this thing that I want her
to get to, like down the street, and so I'm
shoving her that direction with you know, don't forget, and
(27:26):
I'm massaging the truth. Well, you know one thing that
you know, I hope you can understand, was And finally
she just stopped me and she said, Mom, when you
do this, when you do what you're doing right now,
you are making me feel so lonely, like I am
the only person still sitting here in this room, sad, hurt, confused.
(27:51):
You are making me feel all alone in my pain,
like you are well past it, and you are dragging
me try to get past it, and it's making it work.
And I was like, holy shit, wow. And I took
that to my therapist of course that week and told
her all this and she goes, all right, Jen, here's
(28:11):
what you need to know, especially the ages of your
kids period. And this is probably a rule for me
for the rest of my life. She's like, at this point,
you need to prioritize comfort over coaching. And she's like,
if you reach for coaching first, you isolate your kids
(28:32):
and you make them feel alone.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Oh my god, you're right, so true. I can relate
to that as well. Trying to fix it for them,
trying to give them the tools that you know they're
going to need, help them get to where they can
be healthy again and not be saddled. Oh my gosh,
it's so true. And all you need to do is
just hug them and just let them have their feelings because.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
They're going to have them. It doesn't matter what we
do or don't you do, they're going to have them.
So we might as well get in there with them,
hold their little hands and say I cannot fix this.
You're going to have to just feel this and experience it.
But I at least will never leave you alone in it.
I'm right next to you.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
You know. One of the things I learned in therapy
was because I want to fix things too, I so
badly want to make everybody feel better and know that
you're going to end up okay. Yeah, But I learned
a saying that I've used many, many times with my
girls throughout the many years that we've gone through this.
I say I wish I had a magic wand and
(29:36):
I could change things h or make everything better perfect,
but I won't have that. And it kind of gave
them a new way of understanding and also me that
like realization that I can't fix it.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
That's right, but it's such a nice thing to say,
I wish I could. I do not wish this pain
for you. I do not wish this suffering. I can't,
but I wish. Yep. It's such a lovely that's sitting
next to them saying I'm at least here, I'll feel
it with you. I can't change it, but you at
(30:19):
least will not be alone in it. I think that's everything.
I think our kids are just going to have to
live a real life like we did. It's unfortunate. I
really wanted to work around Yeah, it's inevitable.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Oh my gosh. Okay, so let's widen out for a second. Okay,
life exploded, hard work, self awareness. Now you're on what
you rightly call a midlife renaissance. In this stage of life,
you know you are reconnecting with yourself how are you
doing that? And are you intentionally choosing how you want
(30:56):
your life to look more moving forward?
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Some of the some of the bones of that new
person came from necessity, because I had to learn how
to become just a functional, daily independent person for all.
And I have a big life, just like we have
big lives. They have a lot of moving parts, we
(31:23):
have a lot of people in them. Work is big.
I have a big family, like nothing as small in
my whole life. And so some of just the functionality
of all right, here's all my own, here's my own
retirement plan, here's I drafted a will like boring life adulting,
(31:49):
which I had to do and had a incredible It
was an accelerant to this deep, new growing sense of
pride like I can not only can I do all this,
I've done it, I learned it, I tackled it. I'm
(32:12):
better at it than even my partner was. I'm more responsible,
I'm more trustworthy, I am in charge of my own future. Period.
I do not have a plan.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
B You abolt to identify in that stage a newfound
love for yourself.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Oh my god, every day felt kick ass for a while.
Every day was just like I'm doing it. I am
making so awesome. I'm so awesome, Like I've done so
many hard things while by the way, we're all trying
to recover emotionally and like psychologically, and then there's all
(32:52):
these logistical things that just happen. So all of that together,
I think coming to terms. And this is for anybody
with what we are actually capable of is pretty incredible
to bear witness to. And so some of that was
(33:13):
just by nature of doing which I don't need a
parade because I had to. So it's not even like
I like, I'm going to choose to figure out how
to pay my quarterly taxes, you know, had Yeah, I
had to. I had to. But then I did it,
and then I was like, oh, wow, what else can
I do? I guess I can do anything. I guess
I can do anything.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
And so that when you survive something like what you
went through, what we go through, when these things happen, yeah,
you realize like there is nothing I can't handle.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I kind of that is true, and this is a
dark version of what you just said. But also it
built something else strong in me, which was now I'm
not there's nothing else I can lose like I lost
what was so precious, what felt so important to me
(34:09):
and so valuable that I didn't even have a vision
for my life without my marriage, like without my intact
family in the way that I had always known it
and built it, And so having lost it, I also
ended up going well, I'm way less afraid to lose
anything else at this point. I feel like I am
(34:33):
less risk averse. I'm less attached to what anybody literally
in the world thinks of me, or their assessment of me,
or whether they understand me or they're misinterpreting me. I'm
just less connected to it. I feel like I've already
done my losing at such a high level, and I'd
(34:57):
already lost a version of my career before, right, So
I'm like, what else? What else? I those external factors
now have less power over me because I lost them
and lived, And so I like this version of me
(35:18):
on the on the downslope of suffering because I go, okay, okay,
I don't have to make decisions just based on fear anymore,
because I'm too afraid to lose something. I I think
I can make decisions more out of integrity, more out
(35:38):
of alignment, And that goes into a lot of categories,
and so that was a really unusual and surprising outcome
to loss.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Mm hmm, it's the best outcome. Okay, So a little
bit of a fast forward. I adore what you found
your met Camp. Oh, I know, I love it so much.
(36:12):
It like rings all my bells. Tell our listeners about that,
because it's wow, what a thing you found for yourself
that helped you through such a difficult time.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
That was my favorite entry to write in the whole book,
by the way. I loved it. And you know that
the book is set up just in it's not in chapters,
it's just in vignettes, and so there's just three sections,
the end, the middle, and in the beginning, and met
Camp is the first entry in the beginning. It's that
(36:45):
back third of the story where the sun rose again,
where the sun came out. And I'm like, I'm going
to make it. I I'm not just gonna make it.
I'm going to be happy again. I wasn't sure about
that my first year. I'm going to be happy again.
I my life is in front of me. But me
Camp was an accidental life changer. I we had come
(37:07):
up on the first summer, so I was right at
the one year mark, and my youngest was going to
a month of camp, of summer camp, and she needed it.
We were both broken. Our bodies were broken, our brains
were broken, our hearts were broken. So she's going to
this pure, wholesome, beautiful camp in Maine. I had never
(37:30):
been to Maine in my life, but I know that's
the right response for anybody who's ever been to Maine.
They're like, oh Maine. Yeah, so dreamy, so dreamy. But
she's going to Maine. But she was still pretty fragile,
and so, in an absolute spontaneous blaze of glory, I
tell her, honey, how about this. This is three weeks
(37:53):
before camp starts and I had just signed her up.
We were just in crisis. That's a whole different story.
I'm like, if I come to Maine the whole time
that you're at camp, so that if you need me
for any reason, I can be there in two hours.
I just felt like I needed to put this emotional
safety net under her. Well, how am I saying?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Like?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
What am I even talking about? I've never even been
to Maine. I don't even know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Have you ever been gone on a trip by yourself.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I've never even been in the movies by myself. Like,
what am I doing?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
And so in like a minute, I had to figure
out what am I. I guess I'm going to have
to figure out a town in Maine and then maybe
a house. I don't know. So fast forward, I end
up renting this house in Bar Harbor for the duration
of her camp, this entire camp, and it changed my life.
(38:51):
I know that that sounds hyperbolic, but here I am
traveling by myself for the first time in my life.
I'm forty seven years old, I old independent, I'm I'm
paying for it myself. I'm on my own dime. I'm
in this beautiful, idealic Hallmark movie of a town. I
(39:14):
am delighted beyond anything I can ever explain.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Everything is like fresh and new.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
I'm in a movie. I'm in a movie. Every store,
every dog, every sweatshirt. It was cool and beautiful. I
just could not and all of a sudden I realized,
oh my gosh, I'm good company. I like me. I
choose me if you will, and I it changed me
(39:45):
so much that independent joy. It wasn't just independent. I've
been independent for a year, but it was that independent
delight to be able to just absolutely delight in life
again on my own, not because somebody, because I got
a new boyfriend, or you know, some some external thing
(40:07):
came into my life to bring me joy. Agan, it
was just just me, just me being happy by myself
and so delightful that I have repeated I called it
me Camp and I didn't mean. I didn't mean to
brand it, but remy my daughter was at camp and
I was like, well she's at camp. I guess I'm
at camp. I'm at me Camp, and I just branded
it on the spot. I have now done it five
(40:29):
summers in a row. So now every single July, I
travel by myself one small little town somewhere. I've never
been on the water somewhere, and it is maybe the greatest,
most outrageous thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I need to go to Mee Camp so bad right now,
I mean that sounds just so good.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Go. I know so many women since I I've done
me Camps now for five summers do him. And so
every summer, like my community starts going off on their
meat camp plans. I just nothing can make me happier
in life. And seeing all these women and some of
them are perfectly happily married. You don't have to have
your life fall apart to do this. But they're just
(41:18):
like and who travels for a month? I understand that's insane,
But a lot of them will be like, I'm going
for four days by myself.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I'm like, off, you go, there you go.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
You're a good company, you don't need anybody, but you
go do it.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Isn't it the best feeling to be able to take
tragedy in your life and turn it not only into
something that changes your life for the better, but also
you're able to change other people's lives because of it. Oh,
It's like, it's like, it doesn't get me better than that.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
It's everything. It's absolutely everything. I The joy and the
loyalty and the support and the encouragement that I have
received from my community just living the story in front
of them for the last five years is it is unmatched.
(42:14):
I don't even know how to I actually don't know
how to describe it. But it's like we take turns,
we take turns, going Okay, I have an idea. It's
called me camp, y'all go, And then they're like, okay,
we have an idea. How about you do this. It's
just beautiful. Women are the best. Women are literally the best.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
I didn't know that until I found my community, and yep,
it was on social like finding women that were in
similar situations, are going through the same life phases. And
I never knew how much comfort I could feel from
that support and then in turn the just absolute joy
of being able to help somebody else get there.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Oh my god, Jenny, it's the truth, and we're all
just doing that for each other. I was just writing
this to my community and telling them that because people
ask me a lot, and this is a very fair question,
why would you want to write such a personal memoir?
Like it's it's in there, man, like it is very vulnerable,
(43:15):
it is, and I put things in there that I
don't know, and they're like, why would you want to
do this? And when it all fell apart in twenty
twenty and I have such a public facing life and
I have this huge community of women, and also I
don't have I honestly do not have the gear to
(43:35):
carry on as usual when something is tragic. So I
just went radio silent. I just completely went offline. I
canceled everything in my life, pulled out of everything on
my calendar and went off social media entirely. So since
my community is located there, that's noticed. So everybody's like,
what is what is going on? And so when I
(43:56):
finally had to come and tell my community that this
marriage that I have been putting in front of them
for almost twenty years was destroyed, and I was so
afraid had I blown my credibility?
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Like had I had you let people down?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Had I let them down? I talked about marriage and
family for so long, like I just had no idea.
I just didn't even know. But the amount of love
and encouragement that I got back of women saying endless,
women less, I'll never get to the bottom, of them
saying we've been there, We've already walked that road. You're
(44:30):
gonna be okay, keep going, keep walking, keep coming. I
promise you your life is not over. And at the
time it fell over. So I thought this, I don't
know this truth yet, but I told them that for
me felt like all these women holding up these lanterns
from further and down the path, when at the time
I could not see two inches in front of my face.
(44:52):
Everything was I was in a dark night of the soul,
and here's all these women holding up their lanterns going
you're gonna be okay, keep going, we promise was so
meaningful and important to my recovery process, and so thus
to me, I feel like awake is my lantern. It's
(45:12):
my turn. It's my turn to hold up my lantern
and to tell women keep going, keep coming. The second
half of our lives, I suspect, are our best days,
no matter what, no matter what we've lost, no matter
what's changing, no matter what we're transitioning into or out of.
This is my lantern to say, keep walking and you
(45:35):
can do it. I believe it, I really believe it.
Live my story is not special. Yeah, and I'm not special.
I'm not. Nothing about my story is special and I'm
not so if I have lived it, anyone can period.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yep. Oh it's the best, the best, the best message. Okay,
you've had what sounds like just a season of choosing yourself,
which brah bah. But before I let you go, yeah,
jin hatmaker, I want to ask you what was your
last I choose me moment?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
M As you know, because you know this well, this
is a real busy season, like anytime you're putting a
book out. It is it is a it is a marathon,
and it is on the gas at all times, so
this is not a good time to take time off. However,
my three best friends all live right here. One of
(46:28):
them lives right across the street.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Two of them live on the street over, so we
are point zero two miles from each other. And in
case that's too far, we have a golf cart so
that we don't have to walk that far. And two
of us have August birthdays, and so the other two
planned this whole surprise three day birthday weekend. They didn't
(46:51):
We did not know where we were going. We did
not know what we were doing. They just told us
what to pack, and this was not a great time
to do it. I had I have enough work now
to last twenty days a week. And I just told
everybody in my whole team, I'm like, these days are
blocked completely. And they're like, oh wow, oh we hate
(47:14):
that for us. Yeah, I'm like, I ain't going for you,
but I know. And so I spent three days on
the lake with my girlfriends, acting insane and being idiots
and wearing matching pajamas they had made for us and
eating food and playing games and drinking wine and laying
by the pool, and it was just marvelous. That sounds
(47:39):
so nice, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
God, I'm happy for you.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
The book, you guys, is called Awake, a Memoir, and
it is out now. Be sure to get it because
you are gonna love it.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Thanks Jenny, thank you.
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garland. Hello everyone,
welcome to I Choose Me, a podcast about the choices
we make. So this week's guest is not only birdening
a new book, she is also a brand new grandmother.
(00:24):
But welcoming Weston Joseph is not her only new beginning.
From the heartbreak of waking up to a marriage in
crisis to the treacherous work of rebuilding a life, Jen
Hatmaker has walked through fire and come out stronger, more vibrant,
and wide awake. Join Jen and me as we laugh
(00:47):
and cry through choosing ourselves the hard way and reaping
the rewards that only come from fierce self awareness and
uncomfortable healing. Oh I'm so excited to talk to you.
You have no idea. Okay, first, all things aside, you
are a hattie.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Oh my god, this is the most important thing we
could discuss.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I've heard women tell me in time, like lately more
and more how becoming a grandmother has changed their life.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh my god, how does that feel for you? It's
so it's so insane. This is my oldest son and
his wife. So this is first grandbaby and in our family.
This is first kid, first son, first grandkid, first great grandkid,
first nephew. Like he's doomed, Like he's absolutely doomed. And
(01:43):
we have this massive family prepared to over respond, over
attend to him. I mean they'll just I don't suspect
we'll have any restraint at all. And it's perfect, which
is great news for us. We got a perfect baby.
Thank you, thank you. We're dreamy over here.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I bet West and Joseph.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Western, Joseph, I mean, I can't handle it. Like, and
these are new parents, if you know what I'm saying,
Like they're the young version of parents. They're different than
we were, and so they have a lot of boundaries
and like rules and whatever. And I just keep thinking,
that's fine. I want to be respectful. This is your kid,
you're the parents. But I swear to God if you
(02:27):
revoke my privileges in any way, I will mutiny. Mutiny.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
You have to. I mean, yeah, that's not going to
be acceptable.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Oh gosh, I want to just talk about your.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Book, Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I loved it. I felt so connected to your story,
even though it is not mine at all. There are
similarities in situations, but your upbringing very different from mine
and the way your early life. I mean, I feel
awake for you just from reading the book, because it
(03:03):
is the ultimate story of like figuring out who the
fuck you truly are, finally for yourself. Yeah yeah, And
I love how you start the book from the end
and then you go back and give it all context
and great storytelling. Well done, and clapping for you, I think.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
No, wonder, Oh god, what a nice thing to say.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I mean it because I'm looking at a strong, vibrant woman,
and before all this happened, you didn't even know how
to pay your mortgage. You know, you were in a
very different life than you are currently.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, it's so crazy to like say that. It's so
crazy to hear it back because even you know, I
lost my marriage five years ago after twenty six years
of marriage. You know, I was a child bride. You
were nineteen. It's insane. But even five years ago though,
(03:58):
I still had like this kind of career and this
this big life. But then when you strip away some
of the crutches, the places that I had been phoning it,
in the places where I had simply made assumptions of
trustworthiness or competency inside the marriage, that goes away and
(04:24):
I finally went shit, I don't know how much money
I make in a year? What am I doing? What
have I been doing? Like? What have I been doing?
And so the process of it was so chaotic because
on one hand, I am trying to simply get through
the day because the marriage, the ending of our marriage
(04:44):
was so disastrous and so traumatic and.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So shock for the people that don't know, give us
the tragic to the dates of the tragic.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
It just ended in an affair, but not the kind
where I have something to tell you you I it
was all shock and all accidental, just middle of the
night discovery. Like everything, it's not original. It's not an
original story, it really is. I am offering nothing new
to the middle aged male lexicon here, but when it
(05:18):
happens to you, it is so so disruptive. It is
so tragic. And we have five kids, two of them
were in high school at the time. You know, we're
in it like we're in the thick of life.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
And you're in business together. You're you know, you're doing
everything together as you were taught you should.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
We were in lockstap we were running a nonprofit together
and previously had been in a ministry like that was
sort of our come up and was this very specific subculture.
And I just had never known as an independent adult
minute in my life. Again, I was a nineteen year
(06:01):
old bride, So we literally grew up together. We grew
up together, and sometimes, like this isn't a prescription to
say that never works. I've got plenty of friends who
had young marriages and they grew together, and yes, I'm
nice for them. How nice for them? We felt the
(06:27):
tension of our connective threads frying for quite some time
as we grew up and into sort of different spaces,
and well, we just grew up. You know, I didn't
know what kind of adult I was going to be
when I was a teenager, and neither he didn't know
what kind of adult he was going to be.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
You guys, had you had the dreams. Sure you thought
you knew, and it seemed like you were so in
it together from the beginning of creating this magical, harmonious,
beautiful life that your parents lived and that the people
around you and your community are living.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And I was prepared because that structure works best when
the woman has a degree of subservience, when she is
saying you are kind of the leader of our marriage
and of our family and home. Your job matters the most,
(07:24):
your preferences. You're the tip of the spear, right and
and the rest of us are kind of back here,
just pushing you forward. And so, because that was the
environment that I grew up in a faith world, I
was prepared. I'm like, great, that's that's my gender limitation.
Like that is that I'm in lockstep with that job description.
And I will be a very good wing man, and
(07:48):
he will always be a trustworthy leader. And thus we
plugged ourselves into this outlet that promised a handful of
guaranteed outcomes. You know, everybody play their part, and you
do your thing, and you do yours, and you stay
here and you come forward, and then you get a
happy life. That's the transactional like structure. And so I
(08:09):
believed it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Why wouldn't I work for my parents? I saw it
work elsewhere. I you know, I didn't come up in
a generation where a ton of the women in my
ecosystem were questioning any of that. They were the cogs
in the machine. Of course, women are. I mean, it's
not as if the men are actually leading every system
(08:34):
and structure that exists on earth with integrity and excellence.
It's the women you know back there in the behind
the curtain. But it was fraying already. It was fraying
already and then disintegrating toward the end until it was
a catastrophe.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I have a certain level of respect for what you
just said about that, you the cog in the wheel,
like so many women feel. I have never felt that way.
So that's how different our stories are, but also so parallel. Yeah,
well I love I love hearing your story and hearing
(09:17):
what a different version of this looks like.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so interesting. Right when I talk
about awake, I'm like, Okay, look, there's a small story
in here, and the small story is the story of
my divorce and recovery and rebuilding process. But there is
it is nestled inside a larger story, which, on one
level or another, virtually everybody in our generation and our
(09:43):
age group would go, oh, same on that one, same
on that one. We all grew up inside a patriarchal
culture in various rooms that we all found ourselves playing in.
There were some gender limitations, and they those existed in
different ways and they manifested differently, but we know what
they look like. We certainly got a story about our
(10:05):
bodies from the time we were what four younger, and
so that is ubiquitous for our age group. This story.
We this is what your body should look like, This
is what your body is good for, This is how
your body can be used. This is who your body.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Girl. Be a good girl, yep, make girl pleasant, smile.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Walk into every room, read it and give it what
it wants. And the problem is we're good at that.
We're so socially and emotionally competent that most of the
women I know do know how to walk in a room,
gauge the temperature, and adjust accordingly. And so it's a
(10:51):
skill set that can be used for our own empowerment,
but we were taught to use it for the comfort
of everyone around us.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
True, very true. Yeah, after I read what happened, where
you came from, how it all transpired, I felt immediately
excited for you, like genuinely excited for what is next
(11:20):
for you, because yeah, it sucked, it hurt, it blew
up your universe. But my excitement really comes from what
is basically what it feels like your rebirth.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for saying that. I
love hearing that, and that that thought, that perspective comes
from women who have already figured out how to live
in their own freedom, in their own autonomy, in their
own agency. And here's the good news about that that perspective.
(11:58):
It's true. You're right, it is true. We are so
interesting and capable and powerful. And I don't love the
system that sometimes something has to die in order for
that truth to live. But it is the truth. That
(12:19):
is how it is sometimes. And had I been more
honest back then, before I lost my marriage, I would
have already known that. I've already said that, And if
I would have been more courageous, I would have chosen
that before all this trauma chose me. Ye, But I'll
never know. I was too afraid to lose it all.
(12:41):
I couldn't. I didn't have vision for what it might
look like on the other side of that. The disruption
of it was such a deterrent that I was willing
to sit in my own unhappiness, in my own misalignment.
I guess forever, I think I would have stayed. I
think I would have stayed, So.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I feel exactly the same again. Completely different situation and circumstances,
but I hear you. I felt the same, like I
am supposed to keep this family together. I am supposed
to be the glue, you know, and if i am not,
then I'm a failure and I'm ashamed and all the
things we do to ourselves.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Totally totally and then even lacking the imagination for what
my kids, how resilient they are, I felt also in
a codependent way, responsible for their life experience, which meant,
if I'm a good mom, i am absolutely shielding them
(13:45):
from pain, from disruption, from loss. I'm certainly not going
to choose it for them. I you know, that is
such a ridiculous way to live and not true, not
true at all. But also so that kept me from
thinking with a clear head, what was the right thing
(14:08):
to do, what was the next best thing in my
life because I had this overdeveloped sense of responsibility for
literally everybody else in my life except myself.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Oh, this is where it gets good, because it wasn't
until your rebirth, I like to call it that that
you started to live in a completely different way, and
this is where choosing yourself really started to happen for you.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yes, I mean At first it was so terrifying. I
felt like I was in a constant free fall where
I was so used to my safety nets. I had
always had a partner, another person. I'd always had these
institutions that I had a lot of traditional success inside,
(14:51):
which looked like marriage and to some degree like the
institution of church or faith or however you want to
put that. And I had so I had these like
big systems as my scaffolding, and so having like fail
fail on both of those, having lost a partner. So
now I'm all by myself in my upper forties trying
(15:14):
to figure out how to pay my taxes. So at
first it was just like a tailspin. Every single thing
was new, like everything, and everything was sort of consequential.
I mean, these weren't small things. But once I figured
out pretty quick, oh my god, I'm good at all this.
(15:35):
I'm smart, I'm super capable in my story, and this
is what mattered to me the most. I am trustworthy,
like I do not have to outsource my will being
to another person who is not safe ever again, ever again,
and hope that they treat hope that they have integrity,
and hope that they I will never do that again,
(15:57):
and I don't have to do it again because I'm
good enough for all of this, Like because you don't.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
You never know when you put that kind of like
faith or responsibility or whatever it is that on someone else,
the good in you wants to think, if I have
faith in this person and I just believe it will
be so and they will take care of their end
of the responsibilities and treat me with respect and grow
(16:23):
old with me. But that doesn't do it.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
It doesn't. And I had that story for a really
long time. You know, I didn't have twenty six years
of a tragic marriage, right, you know, I a lot
of that muscle memory was built in in a genuine
way where we were partnered and we were in the
same boat, growing in the same direction, and those were
(16:51):
like really lovely years and really beautiful years. And I
don't have regret. I don't know how to. I don't
know that regard wrehat has a place in anyone's story.
If I regret my whole marriage, I would have to
regret my whole life.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And all the good things that you learned.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
That's right, and the children, that's right, the all of it. Yeah,
that isn't I can't. That doesn't actually make sense to me.
But I think integrity would have been way more honest
when the train was beginning to leave the tracks, And
hindsight shows me I knew my body, knew my wisdom,
(17:29):
knew my intuition, knew my body was raising the flares
yep and going listen. We got some alarm bells, and
we would like you to pay attention.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
And that always happens, but we don't. We either ignore
it or we pretend that it's not happening and we
just shove it aside because it's real inconvenient.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Oh my god, it's so inconvenient. And you know, I've
had some folks ask me, do you feel like you
ignored your own red flags, your own sense of knowing
that things were absolutely going wrong because of optics? Because
you have this public life and you had a public marriage,
(18:09):
and you want you wanted people to think of you
in a certain way. And I would never be like
so unself aware to say that had No, that's a
non factor. But I feel like I can say, truthfully,
it's less that I wanted to appear a certain way
to other people and more that I actually wanted my
(18:32):
marriage to work. I just didn't want to face what
I knew I needed to face. I didn't want to
look directly at all these red flags waving in front
of my face because I did not want them to
be true. It's not that I didn't want to I
just didn't want it to be true. I'm like, I know,
(18:52):
I'm going to find our way through this.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yes, you want that picket fence life, you know, and
you're building it and you seem to have and you
don't want to break it down.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
No, And I even though I knew things were going
so wrong and we were so sideways and something at
the time, I couldn't exactly say what it was. Now,
of course I know, but something was very, very, very wrong.
But my little brain of denial just kept going, we'll
get through. We'll get there. I don't know how, but
(19:25):
he will get over this. He will come back to himself,
and then he will come back to me and this marriage,
and this will be a rough bump on the road,
but we will get over it. And I just told
myself that over and over, but without the necessary subsequent
steps of actually engaging everything that was wrong. It's like
(19:49):
I just kind of closed my eyes hence the title
of the book, awake and just went maybe this will
just work itself out while I'm not looking at it
seems like a great approach, like what could go wrong?
Why didn't that solve problems?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
One of the things that I admire about women and
about you in situations like this, and I honestly admired
about myself. I spent a good amount of time and
blame and pointing the finger and being the victim. But
there comes a point when you have to stop pointing
the finger and start pulling the thumb and you have
to look at your pardon things. Yeah, and that's when
(20:29):
real change starts to happen.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Undoubtedly, I am so glad I did not write this
book three years ago. I was still living inside a
bit more of a trope of victim, villain, good, bad, guilty,
innocent that the earliest version of the story, which maybe
(20:58):
even has its place. Yep, I'm not even I'm not
even judging us for sitting in that place of just
absolute like betrayal and tragedy and loss to just go well,
just you know, fuck that guy. There's a place for that.
But to your point, that runs out of fuel. And
if we do not look at that differently and began
(21:20):
to go, all right, what's my part here?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
What? What? What did I bring to this table? Where
was I complicit? And what did I sign on for?
Then we will just become this miserable, resentful victim. And
like my counselor told me a billion times when she
was working with me on all those codependent behaviors that
(21:45):
apparently I had deeply exhibited my entire marriage. She's like, look,
this is your problem. She's look at your problem where
you either deal with it? But yeah, I was like,
that's so, don't pay you to be mean to me,
Like I came here for you to tell me this
is his fault and poor me. But she's like, you'll
(22:05):
just walk these habits and these patterns right into your
next relationship. You will keep them up with your kids
where you're already exhibiting it. And I'm like, yeah, so
you're right.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And that's when you ask yourself, is that the life
I want? Is that the woman I want to be?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That's right? Is that the rooleman I want to be?
And I had nobody else left to take the blame.
And so part of independence includes being responsible for yourself
and your garbage and your dysfunctions. And that is where
(22:45):
I finally found myself after I got through the just
the bottom of the ocean season of grief where everything
is just chaos. By the time I kicked to the
surface and had some fresh air again, I went right,
what's my deal? And I hope that that comes through
in the book. I hope that I was at least
(23:08):
self aware enough to go, Here's where I made our
marriage harder, worse, more difficult, and more unlikely to heal.
And I can see that now with much clearer eyes.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, I think it happens for so many of us,
because living in codependency or living in that world where
you are catering to someone or supporting your husband, your kids,
your household, you get so lost in it, and it's
really easy to not look in the mirror, to not
face the reality of your part in how things got
(23:46):
to where they are. And that is hard work.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Oh, it's horrible. It's so horrible, and that is the
crucible for everyone who struggles with dependency because, by definition,
like our approach to all the people around us, the
ones that we married, the ones that we birthed, the
ones that we came from the friends that we've chosen.
(24:13):
Is this sense of responsibility for them, how they feel,
what they think, how they're behaving, how they are responding,
what is their environment? Is there any way we can
control the outcomes of their choices, because I'll sure try.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah. I also want to make sure that everybody sees
them in their in their best light.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
God, I know you, you know.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I read that in your book. That takes a lot
of energy.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well, and back to your point, I don't have time
to look in the mirror. I'm too busy looking at
everyone else's mirrors. I'm making sure their mirrors are all
shined up for the world and for themselves, and I
am taking on responsibilities that should be theirs. And so
that's at least with my care I robbed them of
a lot of independence because I came in with too
(25:07):
much control, which, by the way, isn't even true. You
were never in control of somebody else. That is a lie.
That's an absolute lie. That's what you learn. It's an illusion.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
It's more fun to live in that illusion, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
It's just so much easier. I have so many ideas
about how everybody else should live. I mean and they're
such good ideas. If they would all just listen to me.
I have a vision for your behavior, and I just
if you'll sit down and listen for thirty five minutes,
(25:41):
I will give it to you. But it doesn't work
that way. That only creates resentment, that deteriorates relationships, It
steals autonomy from everybody around you. It's that is a
sinking ship.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
For sure. Okay, So speaking of your children, you said
that two of them were in high school when this
all went down, but they had grown up in that house.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
They were suffering the dysfunction in their own ways, but
probably oblivious also because that was just their life. Yeah,
how did they take the news initially? And how are
they doing now?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That first year when I was so afraid of their
own of their pain, I was just so afraid of it.
I remember one day my daughter Sydney, who at the
time was twenty, and we were in the living room.
I remember where I was standing when she was talking
(26:44):
about how she was feeling and what felt sad and
what felt hard and what still felt really confusing. And
I was so committed, I was so uncomfortable with her
pain that I did what I do what codependents do,
which is try to huh somebody else through their actual
experience to get to the ending I want for them.
(27:06):
So I'm I'm ten miles down the road trying to
protect her future relationship with her dad, her future wholeness
and wellness. I have this thing that I want her
to get to, like down the street, and so I'm
shoving her that direction with you know, don't forget, and
(27:26):
I'm massaging the truth. Well, you know one thing that
you know, I hope you can understand, was And finally
she just stopped me and she said, Mom, when you
do this, when you do what you're doing right now,
you are making me feel so lonely, like I am
the only person still sitting here in this room, sad, hurt, confused.
(27:51):
You are making me feel all alone in my pain,
like you are well past it, and you are dragging
me try to get past it, and it's making it work.
And I was like, holy shit, wow. And I took
that to my therapist of course that week and told
her all this and she goes, all right, Jen, here's
(28:11):
what you need to know, especially the ages of your
kids period. And this is probably a rule for me
for the rest of my life. She's like, at this point,
you need to prioritize comfort over coaching. And she's like,
if you reach for coaching first, you isolate your kids
(28:32):
and you make them feel alone.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Oh my god, you're right, so true. I can relate
to that as well. Trying to fix it for them,
trying to give them the tools that you know they're
going to need, help them get to where they can
be healthy again and not be saddled. Oh my gosh,
it's so true. And all you need to do is
just hug them and just let them have their feelings because.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
They're going to have them. It doesn't matter what we
do or don't you do, they're going to have them.
So we might as well get in there with them,
hold their little hands and say I cannot fix this.
You're going to have to just feel this and experience it.
But I at least will never leave you alone in it.
I'm right next to you.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
You know. One of the things I learned in therapy
was because I want to fix things too, I so
badly want to make everybody feel better and know that
you're going to end up okay. Yeah, But I learned
a saying that I've used many, many times with my
girls throughout the many years that we've gone through this.
I say I wish I had a magic wand and
(29:36):
I could change things h or make everything better perfect,
but I won't have that. And it kind of gave
them a new way of understanding and also me that
like realization that I can't fix it.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
That's right, but it's such a nice thing to say,
I wish I could. I do not wish this pain
for you. I do not wish this suffering. I can't,
but I wish. Yep. It's such a lovely that's sitting
next to them saying I'm at least here, I'll feel
it with you. I can't change it, but you at
(30:19):
least will not be alone in it. I think that's everything.
I think our kids are just going to have to
live a real life like we did. It's unfortunate. I
really wanted to work around Yeah, it's inevitable.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Oh my gosh. Okay, so let's widen out for a second. Okay,
life exploded, hard work, self awareness. Now you're on what
you rightly call a midlife renaissance. In this stage of life,
you know you are reconnecting with yourself how are you
doing that? And are you intentionally choosing how you want
(30:56):
your life to look more moving forward?
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Some of the some of the bones of that new
person came from necessity, because I had to learn how
to become just a functional, daily independent person for all.
And I have a big life, just like we have
big lives. They have a lot of moving parts, we
(31:23):
have a lot of people in them. Work is big.
I have a big family, like nothing as small in
my whole life. And so some of just the functionality
of all right, here's all my own, here's my own
retirement plan, here's I drafted a will like boring life adulting,
(31:49):
which I had to do and had a incredible It
was an accelerant to this deep, new growing sense of
pride like I can not only can I do all this,
I've done it, I learned it, I tackled it. I'm
(32:12):
better at it than even my partner was. I'm more responsible,
I'm more trustworthy, I am in charge of my own future. Period.
I do not have a plan.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
B You abolt to identify in that stage a newfound
love for yourself.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Oh my god, every day felt kick ass for a while.
Every day was just like I'm doing it. I am
making so awesome. I'm so awesome, Like I've done so
many hard things while by the way, we're all trying
to recover emotionally and like psychologically, and then there's all
(32:52):
these logistical things that just happen. So all of that together,
I think coming to terms. And this is for anybody
with what we are actually capable of is pretty incredible
to bear witness to. And so some of that was
(33:13):
just by nature of doing which I don't need a
parade because I had to. So it's not even like
I like, I'm going to choose to figure out how
to pay my quarterly taxes, you know, had Yeah, I
had to. I had to. But then I did it,
and then I was like, oh, wow, what else can
I do? I guess I can do anything. I guess
I can do anything.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
And so that when you survive something like what you
went through, what we go through, when these things happen, yeah,
you realize like there is nothing I can't handle.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I kind of that is true, and this is a
dark version of what you just said. But also it
built something else strong in me, which was now I'm
not there's nothing else I can lose like I lost
what was so precious, what felt so important to me
(34:09):
and so valuable that I didn't even have a vision
for my life without my marriage, like without my intact
family in the way that I had always known it
and built it, And so having lost it, I also
ended up going well, I'm way less afraid to lose
anything else at this point. I feel like I am
(34:33):
less risk averse. I'm less attached to what anybody literally
in the world thinks of me, or their assessment of me,
or whether they understand me or they're misinterpreting me. I'm
just less connected to it. I feel like I've already
done my losing at such a high level, and I'd
(34:57):
already lost a version of my career before, right, So
I'm like, what else? What else? I those external factors
now have less power over me because I lost them
and lived, And so I like this version of me
(35:18):
on the on the downslope of suffering because I go, okay, okay,
I don't have to make decisions just based on fear anymore,
because I'm too afraid to lose something. I I think
I can make decisions more out of integrity, more out
(35:38):
of alignment, And that goes into a lot of categories,
and so that was a really unusual and surprising outcome
to loss.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Mm hmm, it's the best outcome. Okay, So a little
bit of a fast forward. I adore what you found
your met Camp. Oh, I know, I love it so much.
(36:12):
It like rings all my bells. Tell our listeners about that,
because it's wow, what a thing you found for yourself
that helped you through such a difficult time.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
That was my favorite entry to write in the whole book,
by the way. I loved it. And you know that
the book is set up just in it's not in chapters,
it's just in vignettes, and so there's just three sections,
the end, the middle, and in the beginning, and met
Camp is the first entry in the beginning. It's that
(36:45):
back third of the story where the sun rose again,
where the sun came out. And I'm like, I'm going
to make it. I I'm not just gonna make it.
I'm going to be happy again. I wasn't sure about
that my first year. I'm going to be happy again.
I my life is in front of me. But me
Camp was an accidental life changer. I we had come
(37:07):
up on the first summer, so I was right at
the one year mark, and my youngest was going to
a month of camp, of summer camp, and she needed it.
We were both broken. Our bodies were broken, our brains
were broken, our hearts were broken. So she's going to
this pure, wholesome, beautiful camp in Maine. I had never
(37:30):
been to Maine in my life, but I know that's
the right response for anybody who's ever been to Maine.
They're like, oh Maine. Yeah, so dreamy, so dreamy. But
she's going to Maine. But she was still pretty fragile,
and so, in an absolute spontaneous blaze of glory, I
tell her, honey, how about this. This is three weeks
(37:53):
before camp starts and I had just signed her up.
We were just in crisis. That's a whole different story.
I'm like, if I come to Maine the whole time
that you're at camp, so that if you need me
for any reason, I can be there in two hours.
I just felt like I needed to put this emotional
safety net under her. Well, how am I saying?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Like?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
What am I even talking about? I've never even been
to Maine. I don't even know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Have you ever been gone on a trip by yourself.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I've never even been in the movies by myself. Like,
what am I doing?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
And so in like a minute, I had to figure
out what am I. I guess I'm going to have
to figure out a town in Maine and then maybe
a house. I don't know. So fast forward, I end
up renting this house in Bar Harbor for the duration
of her camp, this entire camp, and it changed my life.
(38:51):
I know that that sounds hyperbolic, but here I am
traveling by myself for the first time in my life.
I'm forty seven years old, I old independent, I'm I'm
paying for it myself. I'm on my own dime. I'm
in this beautiful, idealic Hallmark movie of a town. I
(39:14):
am delighted beyond anything I can ever explain.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Everything is like fresh and new.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
I'm in a movie. I'm in a movie. Every store,
every dog, every sweatshirt. It was cool and beautiful. I
just could not and all of a sudden I realized,
oh my gosh, I'm good company. I like me. I
choose me if you will, and I it changed me
(39:45):
so much that independent joy. It wasn't just independent. I've
been independent for a year, but it was that independent
delight to be able to just absolutely delight in life
again on my own, not because somebody, because I got
a new boyfriend, or you know, some some external thing
(40:07):
came into my life to bring me joy. Agan, it
was just just me, just me being happy by myself
and so delightful that I have repeated I called it
me Camp and I didn't mean. I didn't mean to
brand it, but remy my daughter was at camp and
I was like, well she's at camp. I guess I'm
at camp. I'm at me Camp, and I just branded
it on the spot. I have now done it five
(40:29):
summers in a row. So now every single July, I
travel by myself one small little town somewhere. I've never
been on the water somewhere, and it is maybe the greatest,
most outrageous thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I need to go to Mee Camp so bad right now,
I mean that sounds just so good.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Go. I know so many women since I I've done
me Camps now for five summers do him. And so
every summer, like my community starts going off on their
meat camp plans. I just nothing can make me happier
in life. And seeing all these women and some of
them are perfectly happily married. You don't have to have
your life fall apart to do this. But they're just
(41:18):
like and who travels for a month? I understand that's insane,
But a lot of them will be like, I'm going
for four days by myself.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I'm like, off, you go, there you go.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
You're a good company, you don't need anybody, but you
go do it.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Isn't it the best feeling to be able to take
tragedy in your life and turn it not only into
something that changes your life for the better, but also
you're able to change other people's lives because of it. Oh,
It's like, it's like, it doesn't get me better than that.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
It's everything. It's absolutely everything. I The joy and the
loyalty and the support and the encouragement that I have
received from my community just living the story in front
of them for the last five years is it is unmatched.
(42:14):
I don't even know how to I actually don't know
how to describe it. But it's like we take turns,
we take turns, going Okay, I have an idea. It's
called me camp, y'all go, And then they're like, okay,
we have an idea. How about you do this. It's
just beautiful. Women are the best. Women are literally the best.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
I didn't know that until I found my community, and yep,
it was on social like finding women that were in
similar situations, are going through the same life phases. And
I never knew how much comfort I could feel from
that support and then in turn the just absolute joy
of being able to help somebody else get there.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Oh my god, Jenny, it's the truth, and we're all
just doing that for each other. I was just writing
this to my community and telling them that because people
ask me a lot, and this is a very fair question,
why would you want to write such a personal memoir?
Like it's it's in there, man, like it is very vulnerable,
(43:15):
it is, and I put things in there that I
don't know, and they're like, why would you want to
do this? And when it all fell apart in twenty
twenty and I have such a public facing life and
I have this huge community of women, and also I
don't have I honestly do not have the gear to
(43:35):
carry on as usual when something is tragic. So I
just went radio silent. I just completely went offline. I
canceled everything in my life, pulled out of everything on
my calendar and went off social media entirely. So since
my community is located there, that's noticed. So everybody's like,
what is what is going on? And so when I
(43:56):
finally had to come and tell my community that this
marriage that I have been putting in front of them
for almost twenty years was destroyed, and I was so
afraid had I blown my credibility?
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Like had I had you let people down?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Had I let them down? I talked about marriage and
family for so long, like I just had no idea.
I just didn't even know. But the amount of love
and encouragement that I got back of women saying endless,
women less, I'll never get to the bottom, of them
saying we've been there, We've already walked that road. You're
(44:30):
gonna be okay, keep going, keep walking, keep coming. I
promise you your life is not over. And at the
time it fell over. So I thought this, I don't
know this truth yet, but I told them that for
me felt like all these women holding up these lanterns
from further and down the path, when at the time
I could not see two inches in front of my face.
(44:52):
Everything was I was in a dark night of the soul,
and here's all these women holding up their lanterns going
you're gonna be okay, keep going, we promise was so
meaningful and important to my recovery process, and so thus
to me, I feel like awake is my lantern. It's
(45:12):
my turn. It's my turn to hold up my lantern
and to tell women keep going, keep coming. The second
half of our lives, I suspect, are our best days,
no matter what, no matter what we've lost, no matter
what's changing, no matter what we're transitioning into or out of.
This is my lantern to say, keep walking and you
(45:35):
can do it. I believe it, I really believe it.
Live my story is not special. Yeah, and I'm not special.
I'm not. Nothing about my story is special and I'm
not so if I have lived it, anyone can period.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yep. Oh it's the best, the best, the best message. Okay,
you've had what sounds like just a season of choosing yourself,
which brah bah. But before I let you go, yeah,
jin hatmaker, I want to ask you what was your
last I choose me moment?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
M As you know, because you know this well, this
is a real busy season, like anytime you're putting a
book out. It is it is a it is a marathon,
and it is on the gas at all times, so
this is not a good time to take time off. However,
my three best friends all live right here. One of
(46:28):
them lives right across the street.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Two of them live on the street over, so we
are point zero two miles from each other. And in
case that's too far, we have a golf cart so
that we don't have to walk that far. And two
of us have August birthdays, and so the other two
planned this whole surprise three day birthday weekend. They didn't
(46:51):
We did not know where we were going. We did
not know what we were doing. They just told us
what to pack, and this was not a great time
to do it. I had I have enough work now
to last twenty days a week. And I just told
everybody in my whole team, I'm like, these days are
blocked completely. And they're like, oh wow, oh we hate
(47:14):
that for us. Yeah, I'm like, I ain't going for you,
but I know. And so I spent three days on
the lake with my girlfriends, acting insane and being idiots
and wearing matching pajamas they had made for us and
eating food and playing games and drinking wine and laying
by the pool, and it was just marvelous. That sounds
(47:39):
so nice, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
God, I'm happy for you.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
The book, you guys, is called Awake, a Memoir, and
it is out now. Be sure to get it because
you are gonna love it.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Thanks Jenny, thank you.
Hosts And Creators
Tori Spelling
Jennie Garth
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.