April 8, 2025 • 37 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah open with a discussion of things that seemed like they would be . . .well, better than they actually turned out to be. Then, author Jessica Turner joins Laura to discuss this topic, also covered in her new book called I Thought It Would Be Better Than This: Rise from Disappointment, Regain Control, and Rebuild a Life You Love".
Jessica experienced disappointment first hand when her husband came out mid-marriage, leaving her to grapple with the unexpected end of what she thought was a lifelong commitment. Her story and subsequent lessons learned inform this conversation and her new book. Find Jessica at @jessicanturner on instagram and her book wherever books are sold.
In the Q&A, a listener writes in asking how to handle it when kids want to spend money on things you don't approve or think are a waste.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
This episode is airing in early April of twenty twenty five.
I am sitting here in Sarah's closet for yet another episode.
This is exciting how many we've managed to get done here, Sarah. Yes,
this will be our last and a train of four
live episodes. Although the interview, the interview is not no No,
So this week we're excited to welcome Jessica Turner to
the show. Jessica Turner is a previous guest on Best
(01:07):
of Both Worlds. She joined us several years ago when
she was talking about making time for passions alongside being
a full time working mom.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
She had a lot of great advice with that.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
But she is now the author of a new book
that is called I Thought It would be Better than This,
which is the story of her long marriage coming apart
a couple of years ago in the divorce that was
a result of her husband coming out as gay, which
she was supportive of him and his new identity, but
(01:38):
also meant the end of the relationship she thought they
had to gather and how they have navigated that new
situation her life after this experience. A lot of fascinating
stuff in her story, and it's not just about her story.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Though, too.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
It's also a self help book about how all of
us can be more resilient when life gives you something
that's a little bit disappointing, hence the title I Thought
it would be better than This. So, Sarah, we're not
going to talk about recent medical issues. It's a little
bit soon for that, but that aside. Are there things
(02:19):
you've had in life that you thought would be better
than this?
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
One thing that comes to mind is that I had
this vision of my kids all going to the same
school all the way through Anna all finishing eighth grade.
This like cute little vision of just like dropping them
off and we're so comfortable, and you know.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
It didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
You know, the alternative has been a little more annoying.
But at the same time, it was a pivot that
we had to make, and I definitely think it was
for the best. So that was a good, good example
of something where I kind of had like a path
in my head, this little ideal that turned out.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Just to not not exists. Yeah, I thought it was.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, I mean, and this is something so silly, but
I think all of us have experienced it that the
vacations with your family, and particularly with small children. In theory,
a trip to I don't know, some Caribbean island sounds
luxurious and exotic and RESTful and relaxing, and then you're like,
but wait, I still have my own small children with
(03:15):
me for this trip to this exotic, luxurious place. And
so I think every time we take a vacation with family,
I have learned to keep my expectations limited to you know,
we are going to have some great moments. Not every
moment is going to be awesome, because if you expect
(03:39):
every moment to be awesome, and then you're like going
to be repeating the title here.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I thought it would be better than this, and.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
That can be be disappointing, But I think it's so
amazing what Jessica has her business, She's produced over the
past few years. She's a very well known influencer now
and how she has come through this situation with so
much resilience is very inspiring. So I'm looking forward to
the interview with Jessica. So Sarah and I are delighted
(04:06):
to welcome Jessica Turner to this show. So, Jessica, thank
you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
And in fact, you are glad to be back, because
it turns out we had you on the show in
twenty eighteen when you were talking about a different book,
The Fun The Fringe Hours.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
We talked a lot about side hustles and all that.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
But your life has changed a lot since twenty eighteen,
So why didn't you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
It sure has well. In twenty nineteen, my husband of
sixteen years came out to me and that completely rocked
my world. As one can imagine, we had three kids,
I had no idea. We kind of wrestled with the
idea of a mixed orientation for marriage for a while,
and then in twenty twenty the world shut down, and
(04:50):
so we remained married for a period of time and
decided that even though we were in the midst of
a pandemic, the best, most loving thing to do ourselves
and our family was to divorce, and so we divorced
in June of twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
And it was at that time where I just felt
like my entire life kind of shattered. All of the.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
Dreams that I had for what life would look like.
The companion that I thought I would grow old with,
like all of that was gone and was different, and
I had to really lean into finding myself. I met
my husband when I was twenty we were married when
I was twenty two, and so I didn't know adulthood
apart from being married to him, and so that was
(05:35):
a journey that I went on.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And my new book is titled I Thought it would
be Better.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Than This, And it is for anyone who's facing disappointment,
greed in the midst of it.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
It isn't a divorce book. It really is a book
for no matter what your disappointment is.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
If you thought your marriage would be better than this,
you thought your career would be better than this, You
thought your finances would be better than this, their parenting,
whatever this is is instead of putting it period on this,
putting a COMMA on it, and saying, Okay, I'm going
to I still have agency over my story, And how
can I look at this disappointment as an opportunity to
(06:11):
make different choices than I thought I was going to
have to make, but still choices that I'm proud of
in that building a life that I love.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I mean everyone has some area of their life that
they thought would be better than it turns out to
be whatever it happens to be. Yeah. Well, I thought
it was so interesting. We've talked a little bit on
social media. You guys considered not divorcing. I mean, you
just mentioned that as you were telling your story. I mean,
I'm very curious what the thought process was there. You said, Okay,
my husband is gay. That is obviously not what I
(06:39):
thought was happening here. Really, what was involved in that
decision and deciding that was as an imperfect choice as
it was, that that was the best choice.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Yeah. So he first told me that he was by
in the.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Spring of twenty nineteen, and then in the fall was
when he came out to me and said I'm gay.
And the book actually opens with that story. It's a
very vulnerable piece that honestly I can't read it and not.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Cry remembering that day.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
Then we, you know, we still loved each other, and
we loved our kids, and we loved our family. And
my ex husband is a writer as well, and so
our work was kind of enmeshed in some ways, and
it felt hard to stay married, but it also felt
hard to divorce. And I talk about, as you just
said in the book, the idea of imperfect choices, and
I think that's so much of what life is, where
(07:30):
we have two imperfect choices, and so we just have
to decide what is the best one. And on some
days it felt like the best, imperfect choice was to
stay married, and on other days it felt like the
best and perfect choice was to get divorced. And ultimately,
as we both grappled with it, both together and independently,
we knew that the best choice was for us to
(07:51):
get divorced. That the genie was out of the bottle,
so to speak, and you can't unknow what you now know,
and that was the best choice, even though it was
extremely difficult to make that decision.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, I mean, I've certainly heard from people who've gone
through divorces that it's not just the loss of your marriage, right,
which obviously is a huge thing, But then there's a
million little things, right like what I'm doing for Thanksgiving
next year, like in some world that probably involved in
laws or like you know, some distant cousin of your
exes or whatever that you would have been seeing, and
(08:27):
then that becomes less of a thing, like those smaller
things that along the way.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, And I.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Think that's true for any sort of grief, that there's
the big, capital g grief that happens, but then we
also grieve a lot of small things. I said, for me,
I kind of envisioned it like a battlefield, and I
was grieving all of these losses, all of these dreams
that and unmet expectations that were not going to come
(08:53):
to fruition. But that also makes way for new dreams
and new possibilities. And I'm thankful that Matthew and I
have a great relationship. We co parent really well, we
live in the same neighborhood, we see our kids every day,
and so I'm thankful that we were able to get
to a place where even though parenting and our family
looks different than we imagined, it's still family and still
(09:14):
something that we can do together.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, we're definitely going to talk about that, about navigating
a co parenting relationship. But what are the things I've
found so fascinating your book? You mentioned you planned a
funeral for your marriage and then canceled it.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Yeah, you know, you don't often get to cancel a funeral,
but I did.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
In fact, my therapist said, you.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Know what if you wrote a eulogy for your marriage
and you kind of processed the idea of all of
these things that you're mourning but also celebrating all of
the things that happened in your marriage.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
You know, I think that it is narrow minded.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
To consider a marriage that ends in divorce as being
a failure. And I think that I failed with something
that I wrestled with because my marriage didn't remain intact.
And so that exercise of planning a funeral, writing a
eulogy for this disappointment in my life was a way
for me to kind of turn that thinking on its
(10:08):
head and really celebrate all of the good things in
the beauty that came from.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
It, Yeah, because it's definitely a complex thing.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I mean, obviously, had he acknowledged at age twenty five
his orientation, you wouldn't have had this marriage that produced
three amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Children, that's right.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, And so these are the things, the complex choices
that happen here.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
And there's good and bad things right from that, you know.
And so it is one of those situations where there's
both good and bad, and I think that is really
what life is. I think it's interesting that we learn,
you know, chemistry, equations and physics and weird math stuff
that we never use in life, but we don't know
learn how to navigate disappointment and grief, which is something
(10:51):
that is prevalent in everyone's story at.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Some point, pretty much universal.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and
then we will be back with more from Jessica Turner. Well,
I am back with Jessica Turner, who is the author
of the brand new book. I thought it would be
(11:15):
better than this about her experience navigating divorce, the aftermath
of that, and then figuring out how you can create
a new life after some sort of disappointment. I want
to talk about your co parenting because I mean, when
I have seen some of the things you guys do together,
I mean it sounds like everything is hunky dory, but
(11:39):
I am imagining it took some work to get to
that place.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Is that true?
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Yes, and certainly not everything is hunky dory every day.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
So while we have made it.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
A priority to put our kids first, to try to
have some major moments together, you know, like we always
do Christmas together, We try to travel as a unit
of five once or twice a year together. It definitely
takes work.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
And I went.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
To Portugal with Matthew and the kids in March and
scheduled a therapy appointment for when I got home.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Because I knew that I would need it.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
So, you know, I think that it is prioritizing our
kids and making things work, and also, you know, continuing
to invest in a friendship. You know, though our relationship
is different, we're still really good friends and we ultimately
want what's best for our kids. And one of the
things that I've consistently heard on social media.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
I'm on Instagram.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
My name's Jessica and Turner there and people message me
all the time saying I wish my parents had done this.
I come from a divorce family, and I wish that
my parents could have tolerated being in the same room,
and so that was just not going to be a
way that we wanted our kids' lives to be.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
But isn't that hard.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I mean, I imagine that even if you feel different
now several years after the fact, in the first year
or two afterwards, that had to have been more challenging.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
I mean, I think that there was certainly pain from
the divorce, but there was also a lot of tenderness
and love. You know, maybe that is partly because of
the way my marriage ended with Matthew coming out, and
so I certainly had tenderness for him, and I saw
(13:23):
how it was good for my kids, and you know,
certainly we would put different boundaries in place of space
that we needed and that sort of thing. But I
wouldn't ever say, gosh, it was really hard to do
Christmas with Matthew or anything like that. I think that
that is a notion that people often expect, but I
think that probably comes with relationships that end in a
(13:44):
lot of volatility, which is not the way our relationship ended.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, that probably does make it a little
bit more straightforward, and you've also logistically arranged it so
it is easy for you guys to coparent.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Write you said he lives in the same neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
Mm hmm, yeah, and that is a grace. I don't
know that, but it will always be that way, but
at least for this first part of our post divorce life. Yeah,
we have been fortunate that he lives just on the street,
which has made it really convenient for the kids to
have two houses in the same neighborhood and for us
to navigate co parenting with a little bit of ease.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And do you wind up pretty much splitting at fifty
to fifty or is there some other sort of arrangement.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
No, our arrangement is a sixty forty split, So he
has the kids Sunday to Wednesday morning and then I
have them Wednesday to Sunday. Ex But we're really good
about like being flexible if someone has a work event
or you know, like I have basically every weekend with
the way we have it split, So if I am
going to go away for the weekend or something like that,
Matthew's always willing to be flexible on that, which I'm grateful.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
For Yeah, well, I laughed in the part of your
book where you mentioned calling him over to plunge your toilet.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yes, he's still on husband duty occasionally.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Yeah, absolutely certainly. Now that I have a sixteen year old,
I have someone else in the house who.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Can help with some of those.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
But yeah, I I didn't know how to plunge a
toilet and was definitely one of our sons, So Matthew
came on over and helped.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Me with that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So absolutely.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Part of it is you said you had to learn
to navigate adult life on your own afterwards, because you
guys married when you said you were twenty two.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, so you had probably never really lived alone as
an adult.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
That's right. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
I never had, literally, except for the couple months after
I graduated college before I got married. Was the only
time that I ever lived alone. So there was a
lot that I just never had to do, and so
I had to learn it myself or I had to
get help or hire people.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
And I talk about in I thought.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
It would be better than this, the importance of bringing
in experts when you don't know something, and the experts
can be friends that you know that are in fields
that you are interested in or that you need support in,
or it could be hiring people, it could be going
to the library. But sometimes we just don't know what
we don't know, and we have to be open to
learning or getting help.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, I mean, especially on something like finances, right, that
was I think an area that you felt particularly was
not something you'd learned about.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
It was something that certainly I knew how to manage
my own personal finances, but in terms of managing my
businesses finances, that was definitely something that I needed some
support in and that I was really grateful that I
found a financial planner who could help me navigate that
and be also a sounding.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Board for me.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Something that I didn't realize until I was divorced is
just how lonely it is to make one hundred percent
of decisions by yourself to not have somebody to be
a sounding board. And so for me having experts like
a financial planner, like some other people that I've hired
on my team, that they have been there to help me.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Sort of excellent. Excellent.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Well, let's talk a little bit about that business, because
when you were on here in twenty eighteen, we were
talking about your side hustle. You you know, were the
mom creative doing various cool crafts and like all sorts
of lifestyle content and things like that. But during this
whole time, you'd also had a pretty traditional job as well.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Correct, that's right, yep.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
At that time, I worked for a large healthcare system
doing corporate marketing and social media, and then was doing
blogging and book writing on the side. I literally wrote
my first two books while having a job in corporate America.
And when the dream of my marriage died, I was like,
I am not letting another dream die, and so worked
to save to a place where I felt comfortable with
(17:28):
leaving that corporate job. And now, gosh, it's been over
three years maybe four that I've been a full time influencer,
which has been just amazing and really a dream come true.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, and I'm curious why you hadn't necessarily done that before.
I think you mentioned in the book that you know,
you guys had become comfortable in a lot of sort
of roles that you were both playing in your marriage,
and yours was the one where you went and brought
in the health insurance.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Correct.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
Yeah, that's right, And I think health insurance is one
of those things that feels scary in America. And you know,
I was working for a healthcare system and so I
had very good health insurance. And it was just the
idea of like, gosh, two of us having volatile incomes
where we don't know what the consistency is going to
be month after month and having the security of that
healthcare and that four oh one k It just felt
(18:18):
like it.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Was too risky.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
Now since doing it, I'm like, gosh, I pay practically
the same and well, the insurance isn't quite as good.
It's I am fine, and if something happens, we're fine.
And I wish maybe that I hadn't been so fearful.
And I think there's something to be said where when
I only had myself to depend on, I felt maybe
a little bit more freedom and that I just had
(18:42):
to do it.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah, I just had to do it.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That you could bet on yourself, right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
But let's talk a little bit about that transition, because
I think we probably have a reasonable number of listeners
who are like, Okay, I have my side hustle. I'd
like to try going out and doing it full time.
But boy, that seems like a big leap, So was
there anything sort of practical you did, I mean, or
that you'd recommend having in place before you make that leap.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
I think it's going to be different for everybody. I'm
very risk averse.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
So I had at least six months salary saved before
I left, and so I think that number is going
to be different for everybody.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
But I had a lot saved also because of the
work that I do.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
I also worked really hard to network and have contracts
in place, so it wasn't like I was leaving and
I wasn't going to have any work, you know. I
left in the spring going into summer in Q four
is a lucrative time for influencers versus Q one and
Q two is quieter. So I think I would have
been more afraid to do it at the beginning of
(19:45):
the year than.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
In the season that I did it in.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
And so I also just had a lot of encouragement
and I had been thinking about it for a really
long time, so by the time I did it, I
was just very very ready to do it.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Do I have regret that I didn't do it sooner?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Sometimes, But also I think that there's something about the
fact that I did it after I got divorced and
then could really lean on work when I was sad,
and you know, I was like working a lot of
extra hours in the beginning, and that was kind of
filling me up in some ways that I think it
was really special. So I think, though you do have
(20:22):
to be smart about it. I mean, it was people
looked at me and.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Thought, oh, gosh, you're leaving Vanderbilt to work for yourself
as an influencer, Like are you kidding me?
Speaker 5 (20:32):
But I had contracts like Nike and Target and Walmart,
you know, like it was not like I was an
influencer that was going to be just getting by. I
had been working at it since two thousand and six,
and so I was in a pretty good place when
I left.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Excellent Excellent.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, we're going to take one more quick ad break,
and then we're going to be back talking about relationships.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Apart from marriage and all that's been going on with Jessica.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
There. Well, I am back talking with Jessica Turner, who
has a brand new book called I thought it would
be better than this about the end of her marriage
and about finding life on the other side as you
(21:18):
rebuild everything. So one of the things you talk about
at helping you get through these rough times was all
your friendships. And now people are probably listening to this
and be like, I have no time for friends. I
also have a full time job, side hustle, three kids, whatever.
You know, where were you making time to sort of
nurture these friendships to the point where they were so
there for you when you really needed them.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
So I really balk at the statement of I don't
have time for xyz.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I know you do as well.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
I think that we make time for what's important to us,
and friendship has always been a priority for me. So yes,
I was working a full time corporate job, writing best
selling books, blogging, supporting my husband, a mom, and I
still made time for friends. And it was just because
I wanted friends. And I think we need friends and
(22:06):
we need community, like we're not meant to be alone.
And so some of those friendships were cultivated at my job.
Some of them were cultivated on the side of the
soccer field when my kids were playing sports. It was
also I think, being intentional. When I was driving to
in front of work, I was usually like calling and
checking in with friends. I would make time on my
lunch breaks to get together with friends that had more
flexibility and could beet in that way. I mean, I
(22:28):
think there's lots of small ways that you can invest
in friendship that over time, putting those coins in the
bank really add up. And I also think that when
any of us are in crisis, we're going to be
there for our people. And so when my friends found
out what I was walking through, they dropped everything to
(22:49):
be there for me in the same manner that I
would do the.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Same for them. Right.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
It's sort of like you don't have time to be
in the hospital until you're in the hospital kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
And so I think that's what it.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Was like for me and my friends, that this was
just a dire situation. And I'm thankful that I guess
I had enough coins in the bank that they were
there for me, and it really did make a huge difference,
particularly because in my case, I didn't feel comfortable with
telling my family initially with what was going on, and
so I needed other people to help me through that
(23:23):
really fragile time.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Totally understandable. Well, let's also talk dating, because this.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Is something that you I mean, getting married at age
twenty two probably had not been a huge part of
your life before then or just you know, as a teenager.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
So it's very different than dating as an adult.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
And so different with dating apps and the like that.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Was not around for us right in the which I'm
personally I feel kind of grateful for. But you know,
it's also good to know that it's out there, if
you know, if anyone needs to be back in the market.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
So, I mean, this is a whole new world. Like,
how did you approach it?
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Slowly? Fuly? Okay, Yeah, So I definitely took time.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
I talk about in the book the importance of therapy
and really taking care of myself first, and so I
did that for a solid year before I started dating.
And therapists generally are there just to like ask you
questions and have you process things. They don't generally push
you too much. And my therapist this was one of
(24:26):
the things where she was like it's time, Like you
enough processing, Jess, Like you need to do it. I
was so nervous, and so I started on the dating
apps and made some mistakes, met some cat you know,
got matched with the catfish and those sorts of things.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Thankfully didn't give anyone any money or send any illicit
photos or some of the things that other women do.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
But I just started navigating those waters. And thankfully, because
I had done enough work on myself, I knew what
I wanted, what I didn't want, And then as I
started to have relationships and those relationships ended, I learned
more about myself and learned more about what I wanted
and didn't want. There's I think a really profound story
(25:08):
in the book where I'd been dating a man for
a few months, it was already starting to feel serious.
We were saying I love you, and he got very
upset about something and started yelling and swearing at me,
and we were on FaceTime, and I had never encountered
him acting in this way, and I very calmly said,
I remember like it happened yesterday. I said, I love
(25:30):
myself more than I love you, and I will not
be talked to you that way. And it was this
line in the sand moment for me where I was like, Wow,
I don't even know that Jessica in her marriage would
have stood up for herself in that.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Way if I needed to.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
I think I would have rather like been on eggshells
or tried to make things right or felt like it
was my fault and it just demonstrated to me so
much growth in myself. And a couple of weeks later
that relationship ended and he said to me, you know,
I've thought a lot about what you said, and the
truth is I need to work on loving myself and
I need to work on myself before I should be
in a relationship, which I.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Think really demonstrated like this was a solid guy.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
He just wasn't as far enough along on the path
as what I needed in a partner. But those types
of moments have been really powerful, and I'm happy to
share that I've been dating someone for a year now
and it's just been awesome. And my therapist said to
me when we first met, you know, I think this
is the first time I've seen you as your whole self,
(26:29):
dating someone who's totally confident in their whole self, so
that there wasn't this like codependency of like feeding off
of like I need this from you and you need
this from me to feel like we're complete. Like I
think that whole Hollywood notion of like you complete me
is not a good thing.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
To have in a relationship.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Be needing in a relationship, and so dating in my
forties has certainly been different than when I experienced in
my late teens and very early twenties, but it's been
also really, really beautiful, and I'm thankful that my story
brought me to where I am today and.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
To the relationships that I have yet.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
That's wonderful having been successful.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I'm very curious if you have any tips, I mean,
any practical strategies as someone is testing the waters here.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
So my favorite tip for people, and this is the
quickest way to discern if someone is a catfish, or
to discern if someone is really interested, is after you've
been chatting in the app for a little bit, ask
them to send you a photo where you have them
take a piece of paper and write down the date
on it and they hold that up in the picture.
Because that lets you know that they are who they
(27:37):
are in their pictures and that they are willing to
do something that maybe feels a little weird and a
little uncomfortable because they want to get to know you.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
And that worked for me one hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
The solid guys who I was going to go on
a date with who wanted to get to know me
were like, this is cheesy, but yes, I'll do it
kind of thing, and the ones who were catfish, they
wouldn't do it, and so I think that's a great
easy way to protect yourself. It's funny that guy I'm
dating now he did that, but he wrote on the
piece of paper, I can't believe I'm doing this because
(28:12):
it just showed me a sense of humor right off
the bat, and you know, it was kind of late
at night, and he like did it like right then,
and we still laugh about that.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
So yeah, I think that's a really good tip for people.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
That's someone told me that I used a lot, so wonderful, wonderful. Well, Jessica,
what are you looking forward to right now?
Speaker 4 (28:31):
I think I'm.
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Looking forward to people reading. I thought it would be
better than this, As you know, a book takes years
to write and get out into the world, and I'm
so happy to be having these conversations and be interacting
with women as they're reading the book and already hearing
stories about how people are doing some of the exercises
in the bookcause the book is definitely one part memoir
in one part self help where you can really grab
(28:53):
onto tactics, and so I'm just excited about it being
in the world and people reading it and sharing it.
I think it's a great book to give to somebody
who's going through a hard time.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
So that has me.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Really energized right now. Yeah awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
We always you've had to do this before, as you've
been on the show before.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
We end with a love of the week.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So is there something in particular that is making your
life really good right now?
Speaker 5 (29:16):
Well this is kind of shallow, but I just finished
the show Paradise on Hulu.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Have you watched it?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I have not.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I have not.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Oh my gosh. It is so fantastic. It's definitely a
show you're gonna.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Binge if you choose to watch it.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
Really fun and creative and different and action packed. And
I would say that is definitely my love of the week.
Really great show.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I don't have a show, but this is airing in
early April, and we're recording this a little bit before.
But I am already looking forward to the cherry trees
because that's about when they bloom in my yard. Every year.
We have different ones of the Yoshino cherries, which are
the white ones, these weeping cherries that are long branches
with pink flowers, and then the quons and cherries bloom
(30:01):
a little later, but it's like this progression white and pink,
and it's so exciting because like everything has been gray
and brown and cold and dead for so long.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Right in a couple of weeks, it's all beautiful.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Oh gosh, that's true.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
Well, if I think to April, what Jessica would probably
answer is p and e season, which is sort of
the same things I love pa Andy flowers and I
talk about in the book how pe and ees need
a cold, hard winter to boom really beautiful. And how
true is that in our own stories as well, that
sometimes we need something hard for beauty to bloom. So yes,
(30:34):
I'm you're ready for cherries and blossoms, and I'm ready
for those peonies to bloom.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And do I recall that your boyfriend there was something
involving flowers with him when you guys were early on.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Yeah, yeah, this is such a great story.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
So I had we met in April, and I mentioned
to him that I love paeonies because April is like
when peanies start to bloom late April early May. And
he said, oh, I have peonies in my yard. I'll
to show them to you. Sometime, you know, just kind
of nonchalant.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
Well, we met for lunch for our first date, and
he said, walk with me to my car. And I
walked to his car.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
And he had a huge bunch of p andis that
he had cut from his yard, that he had remembered
that thing and then cut them and brought them to me.
And I just felt so seen and so grateful. I
like got in my car and just wept. And I
talk about p and ees all spring, as I shared,
you know, I don't normally talk about dating. Definitely not
a first date. But the guy brought me p andies.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Can you believe it? To my audience, and somebody said
to me, maybe you should press one of.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Those just in case, just in case.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
And here we are a year later, and I have
that dried p andy in a frame on my nightstand,
and yeah, it's really really special.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
That is awesome, awesome, Well, Jessica, thank you so much
for joining us. It's been a great conversation. Where can
people find you?
Speaker 5 (31:51):
You can find me on Instagram Jessica en Turner. That
ends for Nicole Jessica and Turner. My website is the
same Jessica Andturner dot com. And you can buy I
thought it would be better than this. Wherever books are sold,
whether you want to go to a big box like
Amazon or Target, or your local independent bookstore, you can
find it there. And it's also available on all the
audiobook platforms as well. And I read it and it's
(32:12):
got a special bonus at the end. That's really fun.
We're a conversation with one of my girlfriends.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
That's some awesome. We'd love to hear that. All right, Well, Jessica,
thank you so much for joining.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Well we are back.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
That was a great discussion with Jessica Turner, author of
the brand new book.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I thought it would be better than this. So, Sarah,
question for this week.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
My kids want to spend money on things that I
don't feel are a good use of money. So the
list for various ages that came up with this is
in app purchases designer handbags, even if they are spending
their own money and such. Should I be saying something
about this? Should I be discouraging them from it?
Speaker 4 (32:54):
What do you think? Sarah?
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, I mean we've definitely started to see some of
this as the kids want all kinds of different things
for us what has worked just doing the allowance thing.
So they do have a certain amount of money to spend.
They're able to use the green Light app. We're not
sponsored by them or anything, but they're able to look
to see how much money they have, so it's easy
to track, and they know that if they ask for
(33:18):
something like another in app purchase after they already spent
all their money on innup purchases, that it's going to
be like, no, you're gonna have to wait until you
get your next allowance and then beyond that unless it
is something harmful. I really try not to judge again
separating the screen time issue from the screen to spending, Like,
we're not having that conversation right now, we're just focusing
(33:39):
on the purchases.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
But I think back to.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
The nineties and how I believe I blew all of
my cit counselor and training tip money on a pair
of Doc Martins that were one hundred and three dollars exactly.
We know this number, yeah, because my parents thought it
was a terrible, outrageous numb and I treasured those shoes
(34:02):
for many, many years, and hey, I still remember them now.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I don't have them now. They did eventually kind of
wear out.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
But you know what, like zero sadness about that purchase,
despite the fact that my parents were probably like not
what I think.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
It should be used for.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
So I will support my kids on their own spending adventures,
and you know who am I to judge if it's theirs.
If this is more of like a gift situation, then
I try to be careful about, like, well, what would
we spend on the gift and get them what they
want within that reasonable amount. I'm not going to buy
a two thousand dollars handbag for a kid's twelfth birthday
(34:37):
if normally I would not spend anywhere near that.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, I mean, I think you can.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Also there are certain things, obviously, if there's value, like
if a child wants to buy a shirt that has
something offensive on it, like I think you can speak
up about this, or clothing that will not pass Muster
for the school dress code so they will not be
able to wear it there, or something like that. I mean,
I think there are certain things that you can steer
(35:04):
them away for reasons of that. However, within the realm
of sort of normal purchases that are not offensive to
somebody or something I would probably let the kid do
what they want to do. And sometimes kids learn a
lesson of like, oh, yeah, well, I spent four ninety
(35:24):
nine on that in app purchase and it only lasted
fifteen minutes, and now I don't have that money anymore
and I can't do something else with it. And sometimes
kids are like, oh, that was fun, and I'm going
to spend more money on it too. But people are different,
Like some people get a lot of joy from spending
small bits of money on silly things.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Some of us probably a little bit less so.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
But then I tell myself, wait a minute, my kids
spent ten dollars of their money on an in app purchase.
I mean I probably bought a margarita somewhere. It was
probably more than ten dollars Starbucks.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Starbucks. Oh, I didn't need all that Starbucks.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I didn't all sorts of things that I have probably
spent money on that I didn't really need and would
not have appreciated someone judging me for. So I try
to keep the judgment out of things like that.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess you could have a
conversation about it, but sort of in a non accusatory way.
I mean, you could be sort of like, oh, what
do you think so cool about that? Tell me about it, right,
like why do you like this? Maybe have the kids
show you like what the in app purchase is going
to do, and get excited about it with them. I mean,
you're not dignifying it in any way, but you're at least
(36:36):
having a mindful conversation about spending.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
You could maybe even if there you could be like, well,
how long did you get to play with that new feature?
And if they're like two hours, you could be like, oh,
so you spent this much per hour and then see
you know, that might make an impression on them, or
they might be like, that was an amazing deal.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Yeah, it's so true.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
People are so different, so it goes, oh, well, well,
this has been best of both worlds. Interviewing Jessica Turner,
author of the brand new book. I thought it would
be better than this. We will be back next week
with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
This episode is airing in early April of twenty twenty five.
I am sitting here in Sarah's closet for yet another episode.
This is exciting how many we've managed to get done here, Sarah. Yes,
this will be our last and a train of four
live episodes. Although the interview, the interview is not no No,
So this week we're excited to welcome Jessica Turner to
the show. Jessica Turner is a previous guest on Best
(01:07):
of Both Worlds. She joined us several years ago when
she was talking about making time for passions alongside being
a full time working mom.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
She had a lot of great advice with that.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
But she is now the author of a new book
that is called I Thought It would be Better than This,
which is the story of her long marriage coming apart
a couple of years ago in the divorce that was
a result of her husband coming out as gay, which
she was supportive of him and his new identity, but
(01:38):
also meant the end of the relationship she thought they
had to gather and how they have navigated that new
situation her life after this experience. A lot of fascinating
stuff in her story, and it's not just about her story.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Though, too.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
It's also a self help book about how all of
us can be more resilient when life gives you something
that's a little bit disappointing, hence the title I Thought
it would be better than This. So, Sarah, we're not
going to talk about recent medical issues. It's a little
bit soon for that, but that aside. Are there things
(02:19):
you've had in life that you thought would be better
than this?
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
One thing that comes to mind is that I had
this vision of my kids all going to the same
school all the way through Anna all finishing eighth grade.
This like cute little vision of just like dropping them
off and we're so comfortable, and you know.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
It didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
You know, the alternative has been a little more annoying.
But at the same time, it was a pivot that
we had to make, and I definitely think it was
for the best. So that was a good, good example
of something where I kind of had like a path
in my head, this little ideal that turned out.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Just to not not exists. Yeah, I thought it was.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, I mean, and this is something so silly, but
I think all of us have experienced it that the
vacations with your family, and particularly with small children. In theory,
a trip to I don't know, some Caribbean island sounds
luxurious and exotic and RESTful and relaxing, and then you're like,
but wait, I still have my own small children with
(03:15):
me for this trip to this exotic, luxurious place. And
so I think every time we take a vacation with family,
I have learned to keep my expectations limited to you know,
we are going to have some great moments. Not every
moment is going to be awesome, because if you expect
(03:39):
every moment to be awesome, and then you're like going
to be repeating the title here.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I thought it would be better than this, and.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
That can be be disappointing, But I think it's so
amazing what Jessica has her business, She's produced over the
past few years. She's a very well known influencer now
and how she has come through this situation with so
much resilience is very inspiring. So I'm looking forward to
the interview with Jessica. So Sarah and I are delighted
(04:06):
to welcome Jessica Turner to this show. So, Jessica, thank
you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
And in fact, you are glad to be back, because
it turns out we had you on the show in
twenty eighteen when you were talking about a different book,
The Fun The Fringe Hours.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
We talked a lot about side hustles and all that.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
But your life has changed a lot since twenty eighteen,
So why didn't you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
It sure has well. In twenty nineteen, my husband of
sixteen years came out to me and that completely rocked
my world. As one can imagine, we had three kids,
I had no idea. We kind of wrestled with the
idea of a mixed orientation for marriage for a while,
and then in twenty twenty the world shut down, and
(04:50):
so we remained married for a period of time and
decided that even though we were in the midst of
a pandemic, the best, most loving thing to do ourselves
and our family was to divorce, and so we divorced
in June of twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
And it was at that time where I just felt
like my entire life kind of shattered. All of the.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
Dreams that I had for what life would look like.
The companion that I thought I would grow old with,
like all of that was gone and was different, and
I had to really lean into finding myself. I met
my husband when I was twenty we were married when
I was twenty two, and so I didn't know adulthood
apart from being married to him, and so that was
(05:35):
a journey that I went on.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And my new book is titled I Thought it would
be Better.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Than This, And it is for anyone who's facing disappointment,
greed in the midst of it.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
It isn't a divorce book. It really is a book
for no matter what your disappointment is.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
If you thought your marriage would be better than this,
you thought your career would be better than this, You
thought your finances would be better than this, their parenting,
whatever this is is instead of putting it period on this,
putting a COMMA on it, and saying, Okay, I'm going
to I still have agency over my story, And how
can I look at this disappointment as an opportunity to
(06:11):
make different choices than I thought I was going to
have to make, but still choices that I'm proud of
in that building a life that I love.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I mean everyone has some area of their life that
they thought would be better than it turns out to
be whatever it happens to be. Yeah. Well, I thought
it was so interesting. We've talked a little bit on
social media. You guys considered not divorcing. I mean, you
just mentioned that as you were telling your story. I mean,
I'm very curious what the thought process was there. You said, Okay,
my husband is gay. That is obviously not what I
(06:39):
thought was happening here. Really, what was involved in that
decision and deciding that was as an imperfect choice as
it was, that that was the best choice.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Yeah. So he first told me that he was by
in the.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Spring of twenty nineteen, and then in the fall was
when he came out to me and said I'm gay.
And the book actually opens with that story. It's a
very vulnerable piece that honestly I can't read it and not.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Cry remembering that day.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
Then we, you know, we still loved each other, and
we loved our kids, and we loved our family. And
my ex husband is a writer as well, and so
our work was kind of enmeshed in some ways, and
it felt hard to stay married, but it also felt
hard to divorce. And I talk about, as you just
said in the book, the idea of imperfect choices, and
I think that's so much of what life is, where
(07:30):
we have two imperfect choices, and so we just have
to decide what is the best one. And on some
days it felt like the best, imperfect choice was to
stay married, and on other days it felt like the
best and perfect choice was to get divorced. And ultimately,
as we both grappled with it, both together and independently,
we knew that the best choice was for us to
(07:51):
get divorced. That the genie was out of the bottle,
so to speak, and you can't unknow what you now know,
and that was the best choice, even though it was
extremely difficult to make that decision.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, I mean, I've certainly heard from people who've gone
through divorces that it's not just the loss of your marriage, right,
which obviously is a huge thing, But then there's a
million little things, right like what I'm doing for Thanksgiving
next year, like in some world that probably involved in
laws or like you know, some distant cousin of your
exes or whatever that you would have been seeing, and
(08:27):
then that becomes less of a thing, like those smaller
things that along the way.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, And I.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Think that's true for any sort of grief, that there's
the big, capital g grief that happens, but then we
also grieve a lot of small things. I said, for me,
I kind of envisioned it like a battlefield, and I
was grieving all of these losses, all of these dreams
that and unmet expectations that were not going to come
(08:53):
to fruition. But that also makes way for new dreams
and new possibilities. And I'm thankful that Matthew and I
have a great relationship. We co parent really well, we
live in the same neighborhood, we see our kids every day,
and so I'm thankful that we were able to get
to a place where even though parenting and our family
looks different than we imagined, it's still family and still
(09:14):
something that we can do together.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, we're definitely going to talk about that, about navigating
a co parenting relationship. But what are the things I've
found so fascinating your book? You mentioned you planned a
funeral for your marriage and then canceled it.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Yeah, you know, you don't often get to cancel a funeral,
but I did.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
In fact, my therapist said, you.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Know what if you wrote a eulogy for your marriage
and you kind of processed the idea of all of
these things that you're mourning but also celebrating all of
the things that happened in your marriage.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
You know, I think that it is narrow minded.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
To consider a marriage that ends in divorce as being
a failure. And I think that I failed with something
that I wrestled with because my marriage didn't remain intact.
And so that exercise of planning a funeral, writing a
eulogy for this disappointment in my life was a way
for me to kind of turn that thinking on its
(10:08):
head and really celebrate all of the good things in
the beauty that came from.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
It, Yeah, because it's definitely a complex thing.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I mean, obviously, had he acknowledged at age twenty five
his orientation, you wouldn't have had this marriage that produced
three amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Children, that's right.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, And so these are the things, the complex choices
that happen here.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
And there's good and bad things right from that, you know.
And so it is one of those situations where there's
both good and bad, and I think that is really
what life is. I think it's interesting that we learn,
you know, chemistry, equations and physics and weird math stuff
that we never use in life, but we don't know
learn how to navigate disappointment and grief, which is something
(10:51):
that is prevalent in everyone's story at.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Some point, pretty much universal.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and
then we will be back with more from Jessica Turner. Well,
I am back with Jessica Turner, who is the author
of the brand new book. I thought it would be
(11:15):
better than this about her experience navigating divorce, the aftermath
of that, and then figuring out how you can create
a new life after some sort of disappointment. I want
to talk about your co parenting because I mean, when
I have seen some of the things you guys do together,
I mean it sounds like everything is hunky dory, but
(11:39):
I am imagining it took some work to get to
that place.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Is that true?
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Yes, and certainly not everything is hunky dory every day.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
So while we have made it.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
A priority to put our kids first, to try to
have some major moments together, you know, like we always
do Christmas together, We try to travel as a unit
of five once or twice a year together. It definitely
takes work.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
And I went.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
To Portugal with Matthew and the kids in March and
scheduled a therapy appointment for when I got home.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Because I knew that I would need it.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
So, you know, I think that it is prioritizing our
kids and making things work, and also, you know, continuing
to invest in a friendship. You know, though our relationship
is different, we're still really good friends and we ultimately
want what's best for our kids. And one of the
things that I've consistently heard on social media.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
I'm on Instagram.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
My name's Jessica and Turner there and people message me
all the time saying I wish my parents had done this.
I come from a divorce family, and I wish that
my parents could have tolerated being in the same room,
and so that was just not going to be a
way that we wanted our kids' lives to be.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
But isn't that hard.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I mean, I imagine that even if you feel different
now several years after the fact, in the first year
or two afterwards, that had to have been more challenging.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
I mean, I think that there was certainly pain from
the divorce, but there was also a lot of tenderness
and love. You know, maybe that is partly because of
the way my marriage ended with Matthew coming out, and
so I certainly had tenderness for him, and I saw
(13:23):
how it was good for my kids, and you know,
certainly we would put different boundaries in place of space
that we needed and that sort of thing. But I
wouldn't ever say, gosh, it was really hard to do
Christmas with Matthew or anything like that. I think that
that is a notion that people often expect, but I
think that probably comes with relationships that end in a
(13:44):
lot of volatility, which is not the way our relationship ended.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, that probably does make it a little
bit more straightforward, and you've also logistically arranged it so
it is easy for you guys to coparent.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Write you said he lives in the same neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
Mm hmm, yeah, and that is a grace. I don't
know that, but it will always be that way, but
at least for this first part of our post divorce life. Yeah,
we have been fortunate that he lives just on the street,
which has made it really convenient for the kids to
have two houses in the same neighborhood and for us
to navigate co parenting with a little bit of ease.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And do you wind up pretty much splitting at fifty
to fifty or is there some other sort of arrangement.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
No, our arrangement is a sixty forty split, So he
has the kids Sunday to Wednesday morning and then I
have them Wednesday to Sunday. Ex But we're really good
about like being flexible if someone has a work event
or you know, like I have basically every weekend with
the way we have it split, So if I am
going to go away for the weekend or something like that,
Matthew's always willing to be flexible on that, which I'm grateful.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
For Yeah, well, I laughed in the part of your
book where you mentioned calling him over to plunge your toilet.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yes, he's still on husband duty occasionally.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Yeah, absolutely certainly. Now that I have a sixteen year old,
I have someone else in the house who.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Can help with some of those.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
But yeah, I I didn't know how to plunge a
toilet and was definitely one of our sons, So Matthew
came on over and helped.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Me with that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So absolutely.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Part of it is you said you had to learn
to navigate adult life on your own afterwards, because you
guys married when you said you were twenty two.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, so you had probably never really lived alone as
an adult.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
That's right. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
I never had, literally, except for the couple months after
I graduated college before I got married. Was the only
time that I ever lived alone. So there was a
lot that I just never had to do, and so
I had to learn it myself or I had to
get help or hire people.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
And I talk about in I thought.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
It would be better than this, the importance of bringing
in experts when you don't know something, and the experts
can be friends that you know that are in fields
that you are interested in or that you need support in,
or it could be hiring people, it could be going
to the library. But sometimes we just don't know what
we don't know, and we have to be open to
learning or getting help.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, I mean, especially on something like finances, right, that
was I think an area that you felt particularly was
not something you'd learned about.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
It was something that certainly I knew how to manage
my own personal finances, but in terms of managing my
businesses finances, that was definitely something that I needed some
support in and that I was really grateful that I
found a financial planner who could help me navigate that
and be also a sounding.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Board for me.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Something that I didn't realize until I was divorced is
just how lonely it is to make one hundred percent
of decisions by yourself to not have somebody to be
a sounding board. And so for me having experts like
a financial planner, like some other people that I've hired
on my team, that they have been there to help me.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Sort of excellent. Excellent.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Well, let's talk a little bit about that business, because
when you were on here in twenty eighteen, we were
talking about your side hustle. You you know, were the
mom creative doing various cool crafts and like all sorts
of lifestyle content and things like that. But during this
whole time, you'd also had a pretty traditional job as well.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Correct, that's right, yep.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
At that time, I worked for a large healthcare system
doing corporate marketing and social media, and then was doing
blogging and book writing on the side. I literally wrote
my first two books while having a job in corporate America.
And when the dream of my marriage died, I was like,
I am not letting another dream die, and so worked
to save to a place where I felt comfortable with
(17:28):
leaving that corporate job. And now, gosh, it's been over
three years maybe four that I've been a full time influencer,
which has been just amazing and really a dream come true.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, and I'm curious why you hadn't necessarily done that before.
I think you mentioned in the book that you know,
you guys had become comfortable in a lot of sort
of roles that you were both playing in your marriage,
and yours was the one where you went and brought
in the health insurance.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Correct.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
Yeah, that's right, And I think health insurance is one
of those things that feels scary in America. And you know,
I was working for a healthcare system and so I
had very good health insurance. And it was just the
idea of like, gosh, two of us having volatile incomes
where we don't know what the consistency is going to
be month after month and having the security of that
healthcare and that four oh one k It just felt
(18:18):
like it.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Was too risky.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
Now since doing it, I'm like, gosh, I pay practically
the same and well, the insurance isn't quite as good.
It's I am fine, and if something happens, we're fine.
And I wish maybe that I hadn't been so fearful.
And I think there's something to be said where when
I only had myself to depend on, I felt maybe
a little bit more freedom and that I just had
(18:42):
to do it.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah, I just had to do it.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That you could bet on yourself, right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
But let's talk a little bit about that transition, because
I think we probably have a reasonable number of listeners
who are like, Okay, I have my side hustle. I'd
like to try going out and doing it full time.
But boy, that seems like a big leap, So was
there anything sort of practical you did, I mean, or
that you'd recommend having in place before you make that leap.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
I think it's going to be different for everybody. I'm
very risk averse.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
So I had at least six months salary saved before
I left, and so I think that number is going
to be different for everybody.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
But I had a lot saved also because of the
work that I do.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
I also worked really hard to network and have contracts
in place, so it wasn't like I was leaving and
I wasn't going to have any work, you know. I
left in the spring going into summer in Q four
is a lucrative time for influencers versus Q one and
Q two is quieter. So I think I would have
been more afraid to do it at the beginning of
(19:45):
the year than.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
In the season that I did it in.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
And so I also just had a lot of encouragement
and I had been thinking about it for a really
long time, so by the time I did it, I
was just very very ready to do it.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Do I have regret that I didn't do it sooner?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Sometimes, But also I think that there's something about the
fact that I did it after I got divorced and
then could really lean on work when I was sad,
and you know, I was like working a lot of
extra hours in the beginning, and that was kind of
filling me up in some ways that I think it
was really special. So I think, though you do have
(20:22):
to be smart about it. I mean, it was people
looked at me and.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Thought, oh, gosh, you're leaving Vanderbilt to work for yourself
as an influencer, Like are you kidding me?
Speaker 5 (20:32):
But I had contracts like Nike and Target and Walmart,
you know, like it was not like I was an
influencer that was going to be just getting by. I
had been working at it since two thousand and six,
and so I was in a pretty good place when
I left.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Excellent Excellent.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, we're going to take one more quick ad break,
and then we're going to be back talking about relationships.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Apart from marriage and all that's been going on with Jessica.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
There. Well, I am back talking with Jessica Turner, who
has a brand new book called I thought it would
be better than this about the end of her marriage
and about finding life on the other side as you
(21:18):
rebuild everything. So one of the things you talk about
at helping you get through these rough times was all
your friendships. And now people are probably listening to this
and be like, I have no time for friends. I
also have a full time job, side hustle, three kids, whatever.
You know, where were you making time to sort of
nurture these friendships to the point where they were so
there for you when you really needed them.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
So I really balk at the statement of I don't
have time for xyz.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I know you do as well.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
I think that we make time for what's important to us,
and friendship has always been a priority for me. So yes,
I was working a full time corporate job, writing best
selling books, blogging, supporting my husband, a mom, and I
still made time for friends. And it was just because
I wanted friends. And I think we need friends and
(22:06):
we need community, like we're not meant to be alone.
And so some of those friendships were cultivated at my job.
Some of them were cultivated on the side of the
soccer field when my kids were playing sports. It was
also I think, being intentional. When I was driving to
in front of work, I was usually like calling and
checking in with friends. I would make time on my
lunch breaks to get together with friends that had more
flexibility and could beet in that way. I mean, I
(22:28):
think there's lots of small ways that you can invest
in friendship that over time, putting those coins in the
bank really add up. And I also think that when
any of us are in crisis, we're going to be
there for our people. And so when my friends found
out what I was walking through, they dropped everything to
(22:49):
be there for me in the same manner that I
would do the.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Same for them. Right.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
It's sort of like you don't have time to be
in the hospital until you're in the hospital kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
And so I think that's what it.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Was like for me and my friends, that this was
just a dire situation. And I'm thankful that I guess
I had enough coins in the bank that they were
there for me, and it really did make a huge difference,
particularly because in my case, I didn't feel comfortable with
telling my family initially with what was going on, and
so I needed other people to help me through that
(23:23):
really fragile time.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Totally understandable. Well, let's also talk dating, because this.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Is something that you I mean, getting married at age
twenty two probably had not been a huge part of
your life before then or just you know, as a teenager.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
So it's very different than dating as an adult.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
And so different with dating apps and the like that.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Was not around for us right in the which I'm
personally I feel kind of grateful for. But you know,
it's also good to know that it's out there, if
you know, if anyone needs to be back in the market.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
So, I mean, this is a whole new world. Like,
how did you approach it?
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Slowly? Fuly? Okay, Yeah, So I definitely took time.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
I talk about in the book the importance of therapy
and really taking care of myself first, and so I
did that for a solid year before I started dating.
And therapists generally are there just to like ask you
questions and have you process things. They don't generally push
you too much. And my therapist this was one of
(24:26):
the things where she was like it's time, Like you
enough processing, Jess, Like you need to do it. I
was so nervous, and so I started on the dating
apps and made some mistakes, met some cat you know,
got matched with the catfish and those sorts of things.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Thankfully didn't give anyone any money or send any illicit
photos or some of the things that other women do.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
But I just started navigating those waters. And thankfully, because
I had done enough work on myself, I knew what
I wanted, what I didn't want, And then as I
started to have relationships and those relationships ended, I learned
more about myself and learned more about what I wanted
and didn't want. There's I think a really profound story
(25:08):
in the book where I'd been dating a man for
a few months, it was already starting to feel serious.
We were saying I love you, and he got very
upset about something and started yelling and swearing at me,
and we were on FaceTime, and I had never encountered
him acting in this way, and I very calmly said,
I remember like it happened yesterday. I said, I love
(25:30):
myself more than I love you, and I will not
be talked to you that way. And it was this
line in the sand moment for me where I was like, Wow,
I don't even know that Jessica in her marriage would
have stood up for herself in that.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Way if I needed to.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
I think I would have rather like been on eggshells
or tried to make things right or felt like it
was my fault and it just demonstrated to me so
much growth in myself. And a couple of weeks later
that relationship ended and he said to me, you know,
I've thought a lot about what you said, and the
truth is I need to work on loving myself and
I need to work on myself before I should be
in a relationship, which I.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Think really demonstrated like this was a solid guy.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
He just wasn't as far enough along on the path
as what I needed in a partner. But those types
of moments have been really powerful, and I'm happy to
share that I've been dating someone for a year now
and it's just been awesome. And my therapist said to
me when we first met, you know, I think this
is the first time I've seen you as your whole self,
(26:29):
dating someone who's totally confident in their whole self, so
that there wasn't this like codependency of like feeding off
of like I need this from you and you need
this from me to feel like we're complete. Like I
think that whole Hollywood notion of like you complete me
is not a good thing.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
To have in a relationship.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Be needing in a relationship, and so dating in my
forties has certainly been different than when I experienced in
my late teens and very early twenties, but it's been
also really, really beautiful, and I'm thankful that my story
brought me to where I am today and.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
To the relationships that I have yet.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
That's wonderful having been successful.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I'm very curious if you have any tips, I mean,
any practical strategies as someone is testing the waters here.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
So my favorite tip for people, and this is the
quickest way to discern if someone is a catfish, or
to discern if someone is really interested, is after you've
been chatting in the app for a little bit, ask
them to send you a photo where you have them
take a piece of paper and write down the date
on it and they hold that up in the picture.
Because that lets you know that they are who they
(27:37):
are in their pictures and that they are willing to
do something that maybe feels a little weird and a
little uncomfortable because they want to get to know you.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
And that worked for me one hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
The solid guys who I was going to go on
a date with who wanted to get to know me
were like, this is cheesy, but yes, I'll do it
kind of thing, and the ones who were catfish, they
wouldn't do it, and so I think that's a great
easy way to protect yourself. It's funny that guy I'm
dating now he did that, but he wrote on the
piece of paper, I can't believe I'm doing this because
(28:12):
it just showed me a sense of humor right off
the bat, and you know, it was kind of late
at night, and he like did it like right then,
and we still laugh about that.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
So yeah, I think that's a really good tip for people.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
That's someone told me that I used a lot, so wonderful, wonderful. Well, Jessica,
what are you looking forward to right now?
Speaker 4 (28:31):
I think I'm.
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Looking forward to people reading. I thought it would be
better than this, As you know, a book takes years
to write and get out into the world, and I'm
so happy to be having these conversations and be interacting
with women as they're reading the book and already hearing
stories about how people are doing some of the exercises
in the bookcause the book is definitely one part memoir
in one part self help where you can really grab
(28:53):
onto tactics, and so I'm just excited about it being
in the world and people reading it and sharing it.
I think it's a great book to give to somebody
who's going through a hard time.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
So that has me.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Really energized right now. Yeah awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
We always you've had to do this before, as you've
been on the show before.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
We end with a love of the week.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So is there something in particular that is making your
life really good right now?
Speaker 5 (29:16):
Well this is kind of shallow, but I just finished
the show Paradise on Hulu.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Have you watched it?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I have not.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I have not.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Oh my gosh. It is so fantastic. It's definitely a
show you're gonna.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Binge if you choose to watch it.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
Really fun and creative and different and action packed. And
I would say that is definitely my love of the week.
Really great show.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I don't have a show, but this is airing in
early April, and we're recording this a little bit before.
But I am already looking forward to the cherry trees
because that's about when they bloom in my yard. Every year.
We have different ones of the Yoshino cherries, which are
the white ones, these weeping cherries that are long branches
with pink flowers, and then the quons and cherries bloom
(30:01):
a little later, but it's like this progression white and pink,
and it's so exciting because like everything has been gray
and brown and cold and dead for so long.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Right in a couple of weeks, it's all beautiful.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Oh gosh, that's true.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
Well, if I think to April, what Jessica would probably
answer is p and e season, which is sort of
the same things I love pa Andy flowers and I
talk about in the book how pe and ees need
a cold, hard winter to boom really beautiful. And how
true is that in our own stories as well, that
sometimes we need something hard for beauty to bloom. So yes,
(30:34):
I'm you're ready for cherries and blossoms, and I'm ready
for those peonies to bloom.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And do I recall that your boyfriend there was something
involving flowers with him when you guys were early on.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Yeah, yeah, this is such a great story.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
So I had we met in April, and I mentioned
to him that I love paeonies because April is like
when peanies start to bloom late April early May. And
he said, oh, I have peonies in my yard. I'll
to show them to you. Sometime, you know, just kind
of nonchalant.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
Well, we met for lunch for our first date, and
he said, walk with me to my car. And I
walked to his car.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
And he had a huge bunch of p andis that
he had cut from his yard, that he had remembered
that thing and then cut them and brought them to me.
And I just felt so seen and so grateful. I
like got in my car and just wept. And I
talk about p and ees all spring, as I shared,
you know, I don't normally talk about dating. Definitely not
a first date. But the guy brought me p andies.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Can you believe it? To my audience, and somebody said
to me, maybe you should press one of.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Those just in case, just in case.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
And here we are a year later, and I have
that dried p andy in a frame on my nightstand,
and yeah, it's really really special.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
That is awesome, awesome, Well, Jessica, thank you so much
for joining us. It's been a great conversation. Where can
people find you?
Speaker 5 (31:51):
You can find me on Instagram Jessica en Turner. That
ends for Nicole Jessica and Turner. My website is the
same Jessica Andturner dot com. And you can buy I
thought it would be better than this. Wherever books are sold,
whether you want to go to a big box like
Amazon or Target, or your local independent bookstore, you can
find it there. And it's also available on all the
audiobook platforms as well. And I read it and it's
(32:12):
got a special bonus at the end. That's really fun.
We're a conversation with one of my girlfriends.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
That's some awesome. We'd love to hear that. All right, Well, Jessica,
thank you so much for joining.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Well we are back.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
That was a great discussion with Jessica Turner, author of
the brand new book.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I thought it would be better than this. So, Sarah,
question for this week.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
My kids want to spend money on things that I
don't feel are a good use of money. So the
list for various ages that came up with this is
in app purchases designer handbags, even if they are spending
their own money and such. Should I be saying something
about this? Should I be discouraging them from it?
Speaker 4 (32:54):
What do you think? Sarah?
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, I mean we've definitely started to see some of
this as the kids want all kinds of different things
for us what has worked just doing the allowance thing.
So they do have a certain amount of money to spend.
They're able to use the green Light app. We're not
sponsored by them or anything, but they're able to look
to see how much money they have, so it's easy
to track, and they know that if they ask for
(33:18):
something like another in app purchase after they already spent
all their money on innup purchases, that it's going to
be like, no, you're gonna have to wait until you
get your next allowance and then beyond that unless it
is something harmful. I really try not to judge again
separating the screen time issue from the screen to spending, Like,
we're not having that conversation right now, we're just focusing
(33:39):
on the purchases.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
But I think back to.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
The nineties and how I believe I blew all of
my cit counselor and training tip money on a pair
of Doc Martins that were one hundred and three dollars exactly.
We know this number, yeah, because my parents thought it
was a terrible, outrageous numb and I treasured those shoes
(34:02):
for many, many years, and hey, I still remember them now.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I don't have them now. They did eventually kind of
wear out.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
But you know what, like zero sadness about that purchase,
despite the fact that my parents were probably like not
what I think.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
It should be used for.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
So I will support my kids on their own spending adventures,
and you know who am I to judge if it's theirs.
If this is more of like a gift situation, then
I try to be careful about, like, well, what would
we spend on the gift and get them what they
want within that reasonable amount. I'm not going to buy
a two thousand dollars handbag for a kid's twelfth birthday
(34:37):
if normally I would not spend anywhere near that.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, I mean, I think you can.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Also there are certain things, obviously, if there's value, like
if a child wants to buy a shirt that has
something offensive on it, like I think you can speak
up about this, or clothing that will not pass Muster
for the school dress code so they will not be
able to wear it there, or something like that. I mean,
I think there are certain things that you can steer
(35:04):
them away for reasons of that. However, within the realm
of sort of normal purchases that are not offensive to
somebody or something I would probably let the kid do
what they want to do. And sometimes kids learn a
lesson of like, oh, yeah, well, I spent four ninety
(35:24):
nine on that in app purchase and it only lasted
fifteen minutes, and now I don't have that money anymore
and I can't do something else with it. And sometimes
kids are like, oh, that was fun, and I'm going
to spend more money on it too. But people are different,
Like some people get a lot of joy from spending
small bits of money on silly things.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Some of us probably a little bit less so.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
But then I tell myself, wait a minute, my kids
spent ten dollars of their money on an in app purchase.
I mean I probably bought a margarita somewhere. It was
probably more than ten dollars Starbucks.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Starbucks. Oh, I didn't need all that Starbucks.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I didn't all sorts of things that I have probably
spent money on that I didn't really need and would
not have appreciated someone judging me for. So I try
to keep the judgment out of things like that.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess you could have a
conversation about it, but sort of in a non accusatory way.
I mean, you could be sort of like, oh, what
do you think so cool about that? Tell me about it, right,
like why do you like this? Maybe have the kids
show you like what the in app purchase is going
to do, and get excited about it with them. I mean,
you're not dignifying it in any way, but you're at least
(36:36):
having a mindful conversation about spending.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
You could maybe even if there you could be like, well,
how long did you get to play with that new feature?
And if they're like two hours, you could be like, oh,
so you spent this much per hour and then see
you know, that might make an impression on them, or
they might be like, that was an amazing deal.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Yeah, it's so true.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
People are so different, so it goes, oh, well, well,
this has been best of both worlds. Interviewing Jessica Turner,
author of the brand new book. I thought it would
be better than this. We will be back next week
with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
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