May 2, 2023 • 35 mins
Shannon's story is quite uniqe. She actually married her person, and they are giving it another shot. Hear why they split, why they got back together and more in today's episode! Thank you for listening!
Around 10:40 my discussion with Shannon begins!
Around 10:40 my discussion with Shannon begins!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:13):
Hello, Welcome to Right Person,Wrong Time Podcast. I'm your host,
Allen, and I have three episodesleft for you four season one. Today
we'll be a guest with Shannon.Next week we'll have emails, and we'll
finish it off with Seth and he'llbe our final episode of season one.
I want to thank you so muchfor listening today. So I have had
(00:35):
a lot of like random things goingon. We have like a really fun,
busy weekend. I was gonna recommenda few things. If you haven't
watched Firefly Lane and you need alittle cry here and there, check it
out I have. I'm getting readyafter this. I'm going to go upstairs
and finish. I have like anepisode and a half left of it.
It's only two seasons, but they'repretty long seasons and it has ohkay,
(00:56):
here we go. I'm going tobe the worst with Catherine Heigel. And
I don't know why. Sarah GilbertI think is her name, but maybe
that's not her name. Either way, she was in Scrubs and I loved
her and that she played doctor ElliotReid. And I know that because my
dog's name is Elliott from her character. Because when I got Elliott sixteen years
ago that was like my favorite showon TV. Fun fact, but I've
been watching that it's for the firsttime. It's like I have so many
(01:19):
shows to choose from. We justfinished Jury Duty this weekend. Highly recommend.
It's on Amazon if you don't knowwhat it's about. It's like the
writers of the Office, a fewof those writers, and the idea is
that it's a case in a courtroomand they select a jury and everything.
Every single person is an actor exceptone person on the jury and he doesn't
(01:41):
know every once an actor and whatthey had to do to get this.
I mean, it is so hasthat awkward, funny humor like The Office,
with awkward, funny characters, andit's very heartwarming at the end,
and they show how they did itall and got away with it, and
it's really just such a unique show. So I wanted to recommend that.
And I also just finished a bookcalled Black Cake, which I saw there
(02:02):
turning into like a Hulu series.And I always like when they take books
in term into series because I likewatching them and kind of seeing who they
cast and you know, getting mad. They have that one right now and
it's like the last thing he toldme, and I don't even care to
watch it. I feel bad,but like, we read that in book
club and it was like one ofhonestly my least favorite kind of thrillers we
(02:23):
ever read. I was just like, so, I don't know, kind
of I want to know what happened, but I was so disappointed with the
ending, and honestly it kind oflost me. But I like Jennifer Garner,
but I didn't even watch it.I was like, I don't I
just the book wasn't very good.So there's that. And then I have
I do a book club at theradio station and a Jumenez. I always
(02:46):
screw up her last name, soplease forgive me. She is so funny
if you don't follow her on likeTikTok and everything she's author, she is
so good. She also owns NaughtiaCakes, which are like the best cup
cakes ever. And but she hasa new book called Yours Truly, So
I'm starting that book now because she'sgoing to be at my book club in
May, and I've just been gettingso excited because I get to see my
family, like my sister and nieceand nephew and brother in law. Here
(03:09):
in a couple of weeks, we'regonna go to Florida for my nephew's graduation.
I can't believe he's graduating from highschool and they live in Orlando,
which is actually just a delightful treatbecause I am like, we can just
go to Florida and stay for free. You know. Also, my sister,
and while I love her very much, her guest bedroom bed is so
(03:30):
uncomfortable, and it's what inspired Jakeand I to just upgrade our guest room
beds. We had like a fullwith kind of a cheapy metal frame and
a mattress from Ikea, and wewere like, you know what, this
bet sucks. No one like weshouldn't expect couples to sleep in a full
size. So we upgraded about apretty lovely wooden bed frame from Facebook Marketplace,
(03:52):
and then I bought I went toAmazon. Honestly, I looked for
cheap mattresses, but this one hadso many good reviews for a low price,
I'm like, all right, let'sdo it. So I got that
set it all up. It's thekind you unroll and the big plastic thing
and then over a couple of daysit inflates. So she's all set up
and ready to go. And thisweekend I went to an estate sale.
I learned a lot. So Ifollow one of my I have like two
(04:15):
or so favorite Instagram people, andone is Emily Schumann. I have followed
her for probably fifteen years. Shewas honestly what I would consider like an
og blogger. Cupcakes in Kashmir washer. That's still her company name,
but that was like her blog name. I don't even look at her blog
anymore. I just honestly just followher on Instagram and she is just such
(04:39):
a lovely person. And what asmall world. If you are from Minnesota,
you know Sweetmartha's cookies. They arejust the most famous food if you're
not from here there the Minnesota StateFair is basically the second biggest state fair
on the country, behind Texas.With the amount of people that attend,
it's chaos. And they have Sweetmarthascookies. They're these deliciou buckets of cookies.
(05:00):
And the woman who runs it isthe sweetest ever. I'm lucky enough
to know her daughter, and herdaughter is just beautiful and lovely and kind
and talented. Anyway, she's friendswith Emily just like randomly, one day
I saw this and I was like, what are what the world? So
that's how another reason I can gaugethat Emily's like a really good person,
not just on social media, becauseyou know, you hang around with like
(05:24):
usually like minded people. Keep thatmind. By the way, if you
have a really crappy friend, peoplemay judge based on that person's horrible ways.
But anyway, she Oh my gosh, where am I going with all
of this? I am absolutely like, what am I talking about? Regarding
Emily Schumann? Now, holy cow, I have completely I'm gonna go back,
(05:46):
hold on, I gotta go backand listen to this and see what
the heck I was talking about.Oh my gosh, I dis rewound and
remembered what I was going to talkabout. She goes to estate sales.
Wow, Falin, that was alot of unnecessary information just to say she
goes to estate sales. Anyway,I like her. She lives in California,
so the estate sales in California areso cool, you know, And
(06:08):
I'm sure she doesn't post the crappyones, but I'll see them occasionally.
And she's the one where I sawyou go like download the app estate sales
dot net and I'll look and seeand they'll kind of give you like preview
photos of what's going to be there. In ninety nine percent of the time,
I'm like, I don't have anyinterest, but this one caught my
attention. In a little laketown herein Minnesota called Excelsior because I had a
(06:30):
bunch of paintings and I love paintings, so I went and it was such
a lovely home. Anyway, Igot a few things there and I learned
something, So here's my viable lesson. Find them. And then when you
get to the estate sale, you'resupposed to knock on the door, even
if it's not open yet, andthey'll give you a number so that you
don't just stand there and just likewait in line forever, because they'll call
you in by number and let ina few at a time. And I
(06:51):
didn't know that, So that's myfun fact. I'll pass along. I
think it shares that in kind oflike details on the listing of the sale,
but I didn't read details. Ijust showed up at like ten am
when it was going to start.But luckily there weren't a ton of people
there, so I got in andthen more and more were coming as I
was leaving. But I got ahandful of things, and if you have
any interest or care at all,you can look on my Instagram. I
(07:13):
created like a real that shows someof the cool things I got. But
busy weekend between going to the estatesale, I took all of my three
year old to get her first manicure, which, as you know, was
just painting her little fingernails pink andpurple. And then went out from my
friend Harry's birthday and it was sonice because we went to a lovely dinner
and then we went back to hisplace, him and my friend Tina and
(07:35):
I and we sat around and wetalked for probably three hours straight. And
usually, you know, I ama very joking person. We kind of
joke around. We have a goodtime, we'll laugh. I mean,
we share what's going on in ourlives. But it got really deep and
in depth, and I really justfeel lucky to have people like that in
my life. I don't know ifit's getting older or what it is,
(07:58):
but you know, I've had oneof my best friends from back home has
been going through a lot with herdaughter. And I'll probably get to mootion
all a little bit. Talking aboutthis, and it's been really hard not
being there with her and feeling alittle bit strange, just like theven mowing
my other friend money just to buyher dinners and help with gas or something.
(08:24):
And you know, I've talked aboutgoing to visit, but her daughter
is in a very specific room ina hospital where like they only have like
you have four people on a listof visitors, so I wouldn't be able
to go in. But it justreally puts things in perspective and how important
friendships are, and it just makesme want to be a better friend and
(08:46):
be there for the people that havebeen there for me. And anyway,
I guess maybe this is just mesaying, Hey, if you've been thinking
about, oh, I should reachout to X y Z, maybe this
will be your little push to doit, just like a casual like hey
how are you or a check in, because we are lucky when we have
those people that you can sit andhave a three hour conversation with or as
(09:09):
I say, with Abby and Heidimy friends from Indiana. I have other
friends from Indiana Indiana as well thatI'm like that with. But you can
just not see each other for monthsand you're immediately back in that great spot,
the moment you see each other likeno time is lost, and that
is a really cool thing to have. So h not to get all sentimental
and emotional here, shesh. I'msorry, I've been like kind of carrying
(09:33):
that with my friend. And it'snot really something you like overly talk about
on the radio because it's a it'sa weird thing because I'm sad about it,
but it's not about me, youknow what I mean, Like I'm
it's just it's just it's not aboutme, and I don't want to make
it into like a quote unquote radiobit talking about this anyway. I feel
(09:56):
like I'm all over the place today. I like to like this is kind
of why, you know, afterthis first season wraps up, and I
want to do maybe a different podcastalso where it's just like we talk about
random things like this and we getinto maybe deeper discussions about different things and
things I've liked, things that youand I both have liked, We've talked
(10:18):
about on DM maybe on Instagram andvarious things. But today's episode is with
Shannon, and Shannon I immediately waslike, oh, I want to have
her on and we kind of jokeI think in the episode. But Shannon,
we were set up and then shehad she had like a tooth surgery
and all these things. But we'vefigured it out, and so Shannon has
(10:41):
a different story. We haven't hadone like this on the podcast yet,
and so we'll start with me askingShannon, how did you and your partner
meet? So we met. Weactually met out of bar. I actually
had just finished a different relationship andso I was actually waiting there to pick
up someone else, and my buddybrought his younger cousin. So when we
(11:05):
were sitting at the bar, wetook out our IDs and we realized we
had the same birthday, and itkind of all went from there. I
mean, I was in my earlytwenties. This was two thousand and six,
so nobody needs to do the math. But we went to our friend's
house down the street. We hada night of booze and yeah, I'm
among other things. I you know, I we had a good time and
(11:30):
I didn't expect to see him againuntil he actually asked my cousin for his
cousin for my number and called mea couple days later. So that was
a totally different direction than you expectedyou were like, oh, we're gonna
try dating. Yeah. Yeah.I had a long history of a really
low self esteem and a lot ofunfortunate relationships, so I was kind of
(11:52):
used to just meeting someone and notexpecting anything to come out of it.
So when he asked me to meethim at that, you know, to
go out on a date, Iwas. I was pretty surprised and excited.
So we had our first date atthe Olive Garden and it was during
senior proms, so I remember itwas really hard to find a spot,
(12:13):
yep. So we grabbed a chairat the bar, and I just remember
this elderly couple walking in and rememberwe were in our early twenties and they
were looking for a place to sitand he got up. Patrick got up
immediately gave them his spot and stood, and that was the moment I was.
I really just felt like he wasjust, you know, someone that
I could really like. I readthis study to day that said, you
(12:37):
know someone like you, you've madea decision on someone like in the first
twenty seven seconds you meet them,like your first impression. But one of
the top things it said was you'llnotice their manners, and that is a
clear sign that you noticed he hadreally great manners very early. Absolutely,
I will tell you, given mypast history prior to him, most of
(12:58):
the people that wouldn't even have noticedthose old people walking into the bar,
you know, they would have beentoo immersed and when am I going to
get my next beer? Yeah?Exactly, So, so that to me
was really telling as his character andsomeone that I knew that I could I
could like. And from there on, note, we just had a really
good friendship kinship we had. Imean we were in our early twenties,
(13:20):
so a lot of fun, alot of drinking, a lot of the
same friends, and it just feltright. We dated for about a year
and then I will be honest,I thought maybe the grass would be greener.
We got bored with each other.I found I started dating an attorney
for a short amount of time,and I just I was in my early
(13:41):
you know, mid twenties, andthought that I could find I found him,
can I find better? You know? So I dated that guy for
a little while. That clearly didnot work out. But in the meantime,
Pat and I always stayed friends.We always had a good relationship.
We always talked, you know,maybe once a week he would call me
and his uncle was not doing reallywell. He had a lot of mental
(14:03):
instabilities. And so we did endup getting back together. In so all,
this happened between two thousand and sixand two thousand and nine. We
dated for about a year, webroke up for about six seven months or
so, and then we got backtogether. And in two thousand and nine
when we got back together, itwas definitely different. And shortly after we
got back together, his uncle unfortunatelytook his own life. Wow. Yeah,
(14:26):
and that was that was really hardfor Pat and his dad. His
dad had a history of family thathad a lot of mental health concerns,
you know, so Pat was worriedabout that for himself, he was worried
about that for you know, hisdad, And so it was I was
glad and I felt like it wasnecessary for me to put back in his
(14:48):
life just to kind of help him, just to be there. Yeah.
Absolutely. Would you say, then, after dating the other person, did
you feel like, no, PatTrick is the one for me, like
I don't need to date other people? Yes, m I think I dated
him because I had never had anyonethat had a college degree and real success
(15:11):
just like me. You know.So I was so excited about that and
thought I should see this through.And I really realized that I really couldn't
care less what you do for work, if you're a good person, is
way more important. Absolutely so,you know, but sometimes you have to
go through the motions of it toknow you do. And you were so
young. There really is something toowhen you're that young, especially just be
like you're curious. People who youknow dated the same guy since they were
(15:33):
in high school. It's very commonto what to explore or try new things,
especially in the early twenties, youknow. Yeah, yeah, yep,
I don't regret I don't regret it, and actually still communicate with that
guy to the stay here and therebecause both of our kids played play hockey,
and so every once in a whilewe'll communicate about that. Two thousand
and nine we got back together hisuncle unfortunately passed, and then we just
(15:58):
kind of stayed together. We wehad the same birthday, so went on
my thirtieth birthday in two eleven,he proposed, and I didn't hesitate to
say us, because I knew thiswas my person at least felt that way
at the time. August of twentyeleven, We got married in a quaint,
little Lutheran church in Anoka with ahumongous reception of three hundred people.
(16:21):
Oh wow, yeah it was big. It was big. Looking back,
it was yeah, it was.It was fun, but I don't even
think I talked to half of them, I'm sure, but he was my
best friend. You know, Ithink that in some ways we are were
very different. I'm so much ofa planner. I wanted to be married
by the time I was twenty seven, kids by the time I was thirty.
(16:41):
You know, I had all thesethings planned, and he was kind
of like, I don't know ifI'm ready for all this, but I
know she wants it. And soI think that was a little point of
contention for him, because we gotmarried, immediately started trying to have kids,
and he just kind of went withit because he knew that I wasn't
going to stick around if we ifhe didn't, you know, man kind
of make that step. So westarted trying to have kids right after we
(17:06):
got married. We went about ayear and it didn't work out. We
just kept having negative tests and weknew something just wasn't connecting between the two
of us in that way. Sowe brought in a reproductive endocrinologist and for
about another six to eight months,it was a lot of pills, a
lot of injections, a lot ofultrasound appointments, treatments, and a lot
(17:26):
of tears. We were finally toldthe news after several attempts that we were
pregnant and judging by our hCG levels, we may have two or three kids
in there. Oh wow, okay, And I remember just bawling and calling
him terrified and he was just laughing, we'll be fine, We'll be fine.
Well, in November of twenty thirteen, we had twin Sullivan and Sawyer
(17:48):
were born and rads, thank you, thank you, and we had never
in this world, I guarantee thatwas the most joy and just ry emotions
when our babies were born, andit was just such a beautiful, wonderful
day and we were just on topof the world. But with comes kids,
comes a lot of chaos and alot of emotions. That's a lot
of kid and then I immediately that'sa big change. And it was a
(18:15):
huge change. And he was anonly child and grew up with parents that
were divorced and really fought for histime. So all of a sudden,
he goes from all this attention fromme and his parents, and all of
a sudden were the first ones tohave twins on both sides of the family,
so everybody just walked to these kids, you know, and I had
two little babies to take care of, and so I think that kind of
(18:37):
sent him in a spot where hejust really went in to feeling unhappy,
kind of resentful, angry at mefor kind of kind of pushing him to
get married and have kids, Angrythat now all of our attention was on
these kids, but he's in thewhole thing. I don't want to I
don't want to make it sound likehe was just this bitter, kind of
unhappy person, because he was anamazing to add to those kids. It
(19:00):
was probably just something he was feelingand internalizing and building up and maybe wasn't
even communicating to you. Then maybeit was like you found this out later,
but he was still being an activeparticipant in the kids' lives, but
he was feeling all this okay,but otherwise he was pretty much checked out
and just really you could tell hewas just really unhappy. He was struggling
(19:21):
to find work, and so heended up working out a state for a
while, and so for the firstlike almost year of their life, after
they were like three or four months, it was just basically me with the
kids and he was gone. Hecome home every couple of weekends, and
you know, we'd hang out withour family, and then he'd leave again
Monday morning and be gone for anothertwo weeks. And then it was me
and the kids, and he wasa way of missing all of it,
(19:42):
and it just really got kind ofugly, and we just really struggled to
be on the same page. Well, that's nothing really hard for you.
I mean, that's hard for bothof us, I know, But we'll
go to him in a second.But I'm just saying, as you're the
one with the kids, you havetwo kids. I always say it,
even when I'll like watch my daughterfor like a day by myself, I'm
(20:03):
so exhausted, and I'm always like, gosh, how did my mom do
it as a single mom? Andthat's just with one and you had two
kids. That was probably I'm guessingyou were building your own resentment at the
same time he was building his resentment. You know, I won't lie,
I was, but I didn't takeit out in the way that instead of
(20:23):
like looking back, now, thiswas in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen,
so this was almost ten years ago. You know. I think I feel
like, in some ways emotionally,I'm matured a little bit later, and
so did he. Okay, Sothere were so many things that could we
could have, should have would havedone differently, you know. So my
resentment, I started just kind ofexercising more and trying to get attention from
(20:47):
other ways, okay, because hewasn't around to give it to me,
and when he was home, hewas in such a dark hole that he
didn't really give that attention to me. And I started actually getting that attention
from other people, okay, andhe just became I mean, he was
my best friend, and he justkind of became this very dark, unhappy
person, and it it just sucked. And I don't even know how.
(21:08):
Like I remember friends telling me whenthey would get divorced, it just one
day happened. Just one day happened. All of a sudden, they were
gone, And that was kind ofhow it went down for us too.
It was like one weekend we justgot in a fight and finally it was
like you can't be here anymore,I can't do this. He left.
Two weeks later, I had divorcepapers, and that was just that.
(21:32):
Do you think it would have happenedsooner if he would have been not had
a job where he worked away fromthe home. You know, it's so
hard to say, because I wonderif he was home or he would have
had a different view on life andwe could have maybe worked on it in
a different way. But I alsocould see where he was just so almost
(21:52):
resentful to me, and even goingthrough like our divorce, he would say,
I don't, I don't. Ididn't. I didn't want all this.
You kind of pushed it, andit was like I didn't, I
didn't. I guess I kind ofknew, but I didn't because he wasn't
saying it. Yeah, you know, so I will take accountability for a
lot of things that I should havedone differently. You know, I should
(22:15):
have looked back, or I shouldhave took more time to actually hear how
he felt, and I maybe didn'tdo that. You know, always in
hindsight, you can like it alwaysis, it always is, but you
know, sometimes you can learn fromit and girl from it, and hopefully
hopefully that's that happens for a lotof people. So, yeah, I
started exercising where I started meeting menmore, I started being more interested in
(22:37):
them. He was kind of checkedout for me, and one weekend we
just kind of hashed it out.He moved out. Two weeks later,
I got divorce papers and that kindof was at Things were ugly for a
long time, really ugly. Imean, you think you see worse in
a person until you have a divorcewith kids. That's I always hear that
I like kids because there's sometimes they'reused for leverage. Sometimes it's like the
(23:03):
argument of you know, someone wantsthem more than the other one. And
a lot of the time, I'mnot saying this happened in your case,
but a lot of the time,like the parent who's been primarily caring for
him, they're like, no,I'm not going to now split them fifty
fifty, you know, so Ican't go a lot of different ways for
sure. Yeah, And especially withhim working out a towne and then he
(23:25):
quit his job and he you know, it just got it just got really
ugly, and it just it wasa really hard year. But at the
same time, we always did whatwas best for our kids. Yeah,
he's always I mean, through everything, I can't there's not one time that
I could say that he made amove that wasn't in the best interest of
our kids. Yeah. So inFebruary of twenty sixteen, we were divorced.
(23:48):
So life looked like for you atthat point, did you you know
what was I was? I waskind of dating he maybe was. I
don't. We didn't talk about thosekind of things, but I remember I
was kind of seeing someone, andthat's what that would be a whole different
story for another day. Pa Um. Maybe if you have a podcast about
red flags and lying. I didbecause he had fake cancer, fake divorce,
(24:15):
and three other girlfriends. And Ihave heard so many people have fake
cancer stories. What is with people? I don't know because I work in
medical so I had enough knowledge toknow that like the cancer he even told
me about was like a cancer onlykids get, Oh my gosh. Oh.
And it just in going through adivorce with two little kids and having
this guy throw his fake cancer inthe mix was just like way too much.
(24:38):
Yeah. Yeah. And then andthen another girl came up to me
and said she was dating him too, asked me if he was a he
was a pilot asked me if hebought me, bought clothes for me in
like Punta Khana or something off ofher credit card, and he did.
Wow. So anyway, sets astory for another time. We'll stand subject
(25:00):
but still yeah, yep, butyeah, see that that story is probably
way more interesting than this one.So anyways, twenty and sixteen rolls around,
we get a divorce. For years, we were both you know,
very amicable at our kids school activities, sporting events, doctors appointments, holidays.
It wasn't uncommon to see both parentsat you know, family Christmas,
(25:22):
and nobody really questioned it because wejust did everything with our kids, and
our kids were so used to usdoing things together. We dated other people
here and there, had kind ofsemi semi serious relationships with other people,
but none our kids really got toknow. And then you know, to
twenty twenty, COVID came and weco parented. We got through it.
We both struggled kind of financially atdifferent times, but we held the other
(25:45):
one up and we still called eachother daily, you know, not just
about our kids, but about life, family work. You know. I
would help him clean his house ifhe needed help. He would fix my
broken doors. He's in carpentry,so we had a genuine love even through
that, but you know, reallynot enough to fix our family. Yeah,
Labor Day of twenty twenty one wasprobably the most pivotal moment in my
(26:07):
life because it rocked me in mykids's world. My dad passed away.
I'm so sorry. And up untilCOVID, my kids took or my parents
took sole care of my kids whenwe were working. So once COVID came,
we just felt it better to keepmy dad safe as far as his
health was declining. Yeah, andhe was in and out of the hospital
several times, and then yeah,on Labor Day into twenty twenty one,
(26:30):
he passed away. And I washis main caretaker and power of attorney and
I learned a lot watching him passI learned a lot about what I felt
like was important in life. AndI just in the end, what is
it all? You know? Wespend our whole life trying to build a
career or build friendships and build havethings, and in the end you just
(26:53):
lay in a bed. Yeah,and what do you have is just the
people that love you absolutely And I'mlooking They always say, like, if
you quit if you quit your joblike tomorrow, an employee, you know,
your employer would like fire you andreplace you with someone else the next
day, but your family would bethe ones there for you always. So
yep, yep. And I workin medical and I see patients come in
(27:17):
all the time that just don't feelgood and they're with their person, and
I'm like, Who's going to dothat for me? Yeah? You know,
like my mom and dad loved eachother so much. My mom couldn't
even go say goodbye to him.It just hurt too bad. Ah.
And that's and so watching that itjust really was a very life changing event
for me. And from that momenton, I kind of knew pat was
my person, but I still neededsome time to kind of figure that all
(27:40):
out and be on my own andjust grieve my dad passing. And he
I think was maybe dating, I'myou know, and then I kind of
started dating again and we'd kind ofdid our own thing for a little bit,
and then this last summer, mymom fell and went into like a
really bad mental like almost comatose situationswhere she would like almost go into a
(28:04):
coma state and we'd have to callan ambulance for her, and at a
couple of points we had hospice involvedand it just got really that just got
really ugly. We ended up findingout she has an autoimmune disorder and she
has being treated and right now she'sdoing pretty well. But I did have
to move her. So now myparents' house. I'm working on getting that
sold and it's been very busy.Yeah, but throughout all that, we
(28:29):
finally just sat down with each otherand said, what do we want to
do? Because I love you andyou love me and maybe, like the
name of your podcast, maybe itwas the right person in just the wrong
time. Yeah, And so wedid. We sat down, we were
both kind of seeing other people,and we just said, what do we
want to do in with this situation? And we decided to give it another
(28:52):
dry Wow. So how many yearshad passed at that point since the divorce.
We have been divorced since February oftwo thousand and six, team,
and we got back together this lastlike summer fall, and you guys were
both just totally on the same page. You sat Yeah, I had this
conversation. Was he like, I'vebeen feeling like this for a long time.
Yes, he has been honest aboutthat like he wanted to get back
(29:15):
together several different times, and Iwas like, I don't know, I
just I don't want this to happenagain. Our kids are at an age
where if we want to be together, they're nine years old. We cannot
up and down. We cannot getback together for a month and decide we
don't want to do this again andbreak up because we have two little kids
that we have to think about theirfeelings. Yeah, and how convention you
know, so true? We hitit from for a while. Yeah,
(29:37):
yeah, we hit it for alittle while and then just this most recently
thinks wrong. Thanksgiving, his dadgot put on the hospice. So that's
been really hard because he's been livingwith his dad, taking care of his
dad. But that, to me, I love him so much more for
that because he literally moved in,took kids, taking care of his dad,
wakes up with him in the nightto help him go to the back,
(30:00):
through him and feed him and givehim his pills, and literally has
changed his life. That is aman to me. Absolutely, What what
is so? What does your relationshiplook like? Now? Do you uh,
well, I know you said he'staking care of his dad, but
do you guys live together outside ofthat. Normally that's the hopefully the plan
in the future, but everything kindof happened so fast between my mom us
(30:21):
get back together and his dad there. Right now, we have like several
houses. Okay, gotcha, becauseI have my house that I that I
bought before we even got married,and then he moved into his own house
after we split, and then he'smanning his dad's house, and I'm trying
to sell my mom's house. Andthen I have my mom and I an
assisted living. Oh my gosh.Yeah, you're a little and you're also
juggling the schedule of nine year oldtwins. Yes that are that are in
(30:45):
baseball, hockey, and your careerand his full time jobs. Oh my
gosh. So but you know what, I wouldn't change a thing. I
mean, I wish that our parentswere healthier, but I am so proud
of the person that he is.There are so many things I would have
done differently at the time. ButI don't know that either of us were
(31:07):
even though we were in our earlythirties. Maybe we just weren't mature enough
at the time. I think that'svery possible. I mean, you guys,
it seems like he caught up toyou eventually, but you were ahead
of him in some areas. AndI think it's important to to just realize,
like you said, what is actuallyimportant in life and you need someone.
(31:30):
It's funny you mentioned who's going tobe that person for me? Talking
about your mom and dad, who'sgoing to be there for me? And
it's so true. We all wantthat person that's there with us helping take
care of us, and we don'twant to put that burden on our kids
and things like that. So it'swhat really is important at the end of
the day. I'm so happy thatyou guys kind of it's funny. I
(31:52):
wonder how long you guys were onthat same page and still just randomly dating
other people, probably for a while. I've always kind of and even all
my friends would be like, whydon't you guys just get back together.
You guys are like so close becausewe talked every day, yeah, about
everything that happens in our family.Even if we had other people, he
(32:13):
was still my main goal to soit really wasn't a big surprise to other
people. But then it kind ofwas because always said, no, no,
that ship is sailed. I wantto make sure that he's living his
life happy. And maybe there's someone, you know more that like I like
to run, so somebody that wantsto run with me, you know,
and that's not his thing, butthat doesn't need to be his thing.
It could just be my thing.Did the kids Did your kids always want
(32:37):
you guys to get back together?Were they surprised when you did get back
together? No? No, theyliked both houses because they have friends of
both houses. So to them,they're nine years old, they're like,
oh crap, are we still goingto be able to play with Connor?
You know, it's such a kidoutlook. Yeah, that's great. So
(32:57):
I love that you said you woulddo it all again. You wouldn't change
anything, because really, I mean, it is what got you where you
are. Is there any I mean, is there any takeaway from this that
you would share with someone who mightbe listening wondering about someone that they had
a relationship with. I think alot of time it's pride. It's I
(33:17):
think it's probably probably difficult for youtoo, since you had so much and
there was like that kind of darktime during the divorce and after you get
divorced, it's like I don't knowif there's like some kind of guilt or
embarrassment or ego that gets in theway pride that you don't want to like
ever relook at that situation. Isthere any advice you would give to someone
or thoughts after everything you've been through. I would say that if you think
(33:43):
that you found someone that loves youand you feel that love from who cares
about pride? True, you know, like truthfully? I mean I sat
and watched my dad lose all ofhis pride dying in a bed. After
that, it taught me so muchabout what is important in life so much.
And you're really relationships that the bondsyou build with people, the people
(34:04):
that love you no matter how flawedyou are, because we are all flawed.
And I will be the first oneto say that I fall high on
that list of floss and he patstill loves me for all the goofy,
quirky, weird ways that I amand I still love him for all of
those. And if it is sohard to find someone like that, that
your pride is very short lived,yeah, compared to the whole life that
(34:27):
I can have with my family.That's my family, you know, with
my kids and vacations, and youknow, I can't imagine somebody else holding
his hand, you know, whenhis dad is only a couple of weeks
away, probably from meeting my dadagain in heaven, you know, and
I can't imagine somebody else holding hishand through that. Wow, that's isn't
(34:49):
that the truth? Well, Shannon, I am so thankful you shared your
story today. Yeah, we've beenthrough it. Are you fairly better?
So we were going to record thisone day and then she had dental surgery.
She set me, I feel bad. She's like, look at this
photo. Her face is like completelyswollen, and it was swollen my collar
bone and it was just awful.It was. He had used a saw
(35:12):
to get it over, and Iwas going to record it an hour later,
and I was like, I don'tthink this is going to happen.
So, yes, I'm on theend. I'm doing well good. I
was gonna I'm like, I hopeyour mouth is okay, Yeah you are.
You were a trooper for even thinkingyou could do it, And I'm
like, You're like, I wouldn'twork. You're insane. You know what.
(35:32):
The only time I've been happy inthe last year that I could still
wear a mask at work. I'msure. Oh well, I'm glad you're
doing better, and I really appreciateyour sharing your story with me today.
You're welcome. Thank you for havingme. Thank you
Hello, Welcome to Right Person,Wrong Time Podcast. I'm your host,
Allen, and I have three episodesleft for you four season one. Today
we'll be a guest with Shannon.Next week we'll have emails, and we'll
finish it off with Seth and he'llbe our final episode of season one.
I want to thank you so muchfor listening today. So I have had
(00:35):
a lot of like random things goingon. We have like a really fun,
busy weekend. I was gonna recommenda few things. If you haven't
watched Firefly Lane and you need alittle cry here and there, check it
out I have. I'm getting readyafter this. I'm going to go upstairs
and finish. I have like anepisode and a half left of it.
It's only two seasons, but they'repretty long seasons and it has ohkay,
(00:56):
here we go. I'm going tobe the worst with Catherine Heigel. And
I don't know why. Sarah GilbertI think is her name, but maybe
that's not her name. Either way, she was in Scrubs and I loved
her and that she played doctor ElliotReid. And I know that because my
dog's name is Elliott from her character. Because when I got Elliott sixteen years
ago that was like my favorite showon TV. Fun fact, but I've
been watching that it's for the firsttime. It's like I have so many
(01:19):
shows to choose from. We justfinished Jury Duty this weekend. Highly recommend.
It's on Amazon if you don't knowwhat it's about. It's like the
writers of the Office, a fewof those writers, and the idea is
that it's a case in a courtroomand they select a jury and everything.
Every single person is an actor exceptone person on the jury and he doesn't
(01:41):
know every once an actor and whatthey had to do to get this.
I mean, it is so hasthat awkward, funny humor like The Office,
with awkward, funny characters, andit's very heartwarming at the end,
and they show how they did itall and got away with it, and
it's really just such a unique show. So I wanted to recommend that.
And I also just finished a bookcalled Black Cake, which I saw there
(02:02):
turning into like a Hulu series.And I always like when they take books
in term into series because I likewatching them and kind of seeing who they
cast and you know, getting mad. They have that one right now and
it's like the last thing he toldme, and I don't even care to
watch it. I feel bad,but like, we read that in book
club and it was like one ofhonestly my least favorite kind of thrillers we
(02:23):
ever read. I was just like, so, I don't know, kind
of I want to know what happened, but I was so disappointed with the
ending, and honestly it kind oflost me. But I like Jennifer Garner,
but I didn't even watch it.I was like, I don't I
just the book wasn't very good.So there's that. And then I have
I do a book club at theradio station and a Jumenez. I always
(02:46):
screw up her last name, soplease forgive me. She is so funny
if you don't follow her on likeTikTok and everything she's author, she is
so good. She also owns NaughtiaCakes, which are like the best cup
cakes ever. And but she hasa new book called Yours Truly, So
I'm starting that book now because she'sgoing to be at my book club in
May, and I've just been gettingso excited because I get to see my
family, like my sister and nieceand nephew and brother in law. Here
(03:09):
in a couple of weeks, we'regonna go to Florida for my nephew's graduation.
I can't believe he's graduating from highschool and they live in Orlando,
which is actually just a delightful treatbecause I am like, we can just
go to Florida and stay for free. You know. Also, my sister,
and while I love her very much, her guest bedroom bed is so
(03:30):
uncomfortable, and it's what inspired Jakeand I to just upgrade our guest room
beds. We had like a fullwith kind of a cheapy metal frame and
a mattress from Ikea, and wewere like, you know what, this
bet sucks. No one like weshouldn't expect couples to sleep in a full
size. So we upgraded about apretty lovely wooden bed frame from Facebook Marketplace,
(03:52):
and then I bought I went toAmazon. Honestly, I looked for
cheap mattresses, but this one hadso many good reviews for a low price,
I'm like, all right, let'sdo it. So I got that
set it all up. It's thekind you unroll and the big plastic thing
and then over a couple of daysit inflates. So she's all set up
and ready to go. And thisweekend I went to an estate sale.
I learned a lot. So Ifollow one of my I have like two
(04:15):
or so favorite Instagram people, andone is Emily Schumann. I have followed
her for probably fifteen years. Shewas honestly what I would consider like an
og blogger. Cupcakes in Kashmir washer. That's still her company name,
but that was like her blog name. I don't even look at her blog
anymore. I just honestly just followher on Instagram and she is just such
(04:39):
a lovely person. And what asmall world. If you are from Minnesota,
you know Sweetmartha's cookies. They arejust the most famous food if you're
not from here there the Minnesota StateFair is basically the second biggest state fair
on the country, behind Texas.With the amount of people that attend,
it's chaos. And they have Sweetmarthascookies. They're these deliciou buckets of cookies.
(05:00):
And the woman who runs it isthe sweetest ever. I'm lucky enough
to know her daughter, and herdaughter is just beautiful and lovely and kind
and talented. Anyway, she's friendswith Emily just like randomly, one day
I saw this and I was like, what are what the world? So
that's how another reason I can gaugethat Emily's like a really good person,
not just on social media, becauseyou know, you hang around with like
(05:24):
usually like minded people. Keep thatmind. By the way, if you
have a really crappy friend, peoplemay judge based on that person's horrible ways.
But anyway, she Oh my gosh, where am I going with all
of this? I am absolutely like, what am I talking about? Regarding
Emily Schumann? Now, holy cow, I have completely I'm gonna go back,
(05:46):
hold on, I gotta go backand listen to this and see what
the heck I was talking about.Oh my gosh, I dis rewound and
remembered what I was going to talkabout. She goes to estate sales.
Wow, Falin, that was alot of unnecessary information just to say she
goes to estate sales. Anyway,I like her. She lives in California,
so the estate sales in California areso cool, you know, And
(06:08):
I'm sure she doesn't post the crappyones, but I'll see them occasionally.
And she's the one where I sawyou go like download the app estate sales
dot net and I'll look and seeand they'll kind of give you like preview
photos of what's going to be there. In ninety nine percent of the time,
I'm like, I don't have anyinterest, but this one caught my
attention. In a little laketown herein Minnesota called Excelsior because I had a
(06:30):
bunch of paintings and I love paintings, so I went and it was such
a lovely home. Anyway, Igot a few things there and I learned
something, So here's my viable lesson. Find them. And then when you
get to the estate sale, you'resupposed to knock on the door, even
if it's not open yet, andthey'll give you a number so that you
don't just stand there and just likewait in line forever, because they'll call
you in by number and let ina few at a time. And I
(06:51):
didn't know that, So that's myfun fact. I'll pass along. I
think it shares that in kind oflike details on the listing of the sale,
but I didn't read details. Ijust showed up at like ten am
when it was going to start.But luckily there weren't a ton of people
there, so I got in andthen more and more were coming as I
was leaving. But I got ahandful of things, and if you have
any interest or care at all,you can look on my Instagram. I
(07:13):
created like a real that shows someof the cool things I got. But
busy weekend between going to the estatesale, I took all of my three
year old to get her first manicure, which, as you know, was
just painting her little fingernails pink andpurple. And then went out from my
friend Harry's birthday and it was sonice because we went to a lovely dinner
and then we went back to hisplace, him and my friend Tina and
(07:35):
I and we sat around and wetalked for probably three hours straight. And
usually, you know, I ama very joking person. We kind of
joke around. We have a goodtime, we'll laugh. I mean,
we share what's going on in ourlives. But it got really deep and
in depth, and I really justfeel lucky to have people like that in
my life. I don't know ifit's getting older or what it is,
(07:58):
but you know, I've had oneof my best friends from back home has
been going through a lot with herdaughter. And I'll probably get to mootion
all a little bit. Talking aboutthis, and it's been really hard not
being there with her and feeling alittle bit strange, just like theven mowing
my other friend money just to buyher dinners and help with gas or something.
(08:24):
And you know, I've talked aboutgoing to visit, but her daughter
is in a very specific room ina hospital where like they only have like
you have four people on a listof visitors, so I wouldn't be able
to go in. But it justreally puts things in perspective and how important
friendships are, and it just makesme want to be a better friend and
(08:46):
be there for the people that havebeen there for me. And anyway,
I guess maybe this is just mesaying, Hey, if you've been thinking
about, oh, I should reachout to X y Z, maybe this
will be your little push to doit, just like a casual like hey
how are you or a check in, because we are lucky when we have
those people that you can sit andhave a three hour conversation with or as
(09:09):
I say, with Abby and Heidimy friends from Indiana. I have other
friends from Indiana Indiana as well thatI'm like that with. But you can
just not see each other for monthsand you're immediately back in that great spot,
the moment you see each other likeno time is lost, and that
is a really cool thing to have. So h not to get all sentimental
and emotional here, shesh. I'msorry, I've been like kind of carrying
(09:33):
that with my friend. And it'snot really something you like overly talk about
on the radio because it's a it'sa weird thing because I'm sad about it,
but it's not about me, youknow what I mean, Like I'm
it's just it's just it's not aboutme, and I don't want to make
it into like a quote unquote radiobit talking about this anyway. I feel
(09:56):
like I'm all over the place today. I like to like this is kind
of why, you know, afterthis first season wraps up, and I
want to do maybe a different podcastalso where it's just like we talk about
random things like this and we getinto maybe deeper discussions about different things and
things I've liked, things that youand I both have liked, We've talked
(10:18):
about on DM maybe on Instagram andvarious things. But today's episode is with
Shannon, and Shannon I immediately waslike, oh, I want to have
her on and we kind of jokeI think in the episode. But Shannon,
we were set up and then shehad she had like a tooth surgery
and all these things. But we'vefigured it out, and so Shannon has
(10:41):
a different story. We haven't hadone like this on the podcast yet,
and so we'll start with me askingShannon, how did you and your partner
meet? So we met. Weactually met out of bar. I actually
had just finished a different relationship andso I was actually waiting there to pick
up someone else, and my buddybrought his younger cousin. So when we
(11:05):
were sitting at the bar, wetook out our IDs and we realized we
had the same birthday, and itkind of all went from there. I
mean, I was in my earlytwenties. This was two thousand and six,
so nobody needs to do the math. But we went to our friend's
house down the street. We hada night of booze and yeah, I'm
among other things. I you know, I we had a good time and
(11:30):
I didn't expect to see him againuntil he actually asked my cousin for his
cousin for my number and called mea couple days later. So that was
a totally different direction than you expectedyou were like, oh, we're gonna
try dating. Yeah. Yeah.I had a long history of a really
low self esteem and a lot ofunfortunate relationships, so I was kind of
(11:52):
used to just meeting someone and notexpecting anything to come out of it.
So when he asked me to meethim at that, you know, to
go out on a date, Iwas. I was pretty surprised and excited.
So we had our first date atthe Olive Garden and it was during
senior proms, so I remember itwas really hard to find a spot,
(12:13):
yep. So we grabbed a chairat the bar, and I just remember
this elderly couple walking in and rememberwe were in our early twenties and they
were looking for a place to sitand he got up. Patrick got up
immediately gave them his spot and stood, and that was the moment I was.
I really just felt like he wasjust, you know, someone that
I could really like. I readthis study to day that said, you
(12:37):
know someone like you, you've madea decision on someone like in the first
twenty seven seconds you meet them,like your first impression. But one of
the top things it said was you'llnotice their manners, and that is a
clear sign that you noticed he hadreally great manners very early. Absolutely,
I will tell you, given mypast history prior to him, most of
(12:58):
the people that wouldn't even have noticedthose old people walking into the bar,
you know, they would have beentoo immersed and when am I going to
get my next beer? Yeah?Exactly, So, so that to me
was really telling as his character andsomeone that I knew that I could I
could like. And from there on, note, we just had a really
good friendship kinship we had. Imean we were in our early twenties,
(13:20):
so a lot of fun, alot of drinking, a lot of the
same friends, and it just feltright. We dated for about a year
and then I will be honest,I thought maybe the grass would be greener.
We got bored with each other.I found I started dating an attorney
for a short amount of time,and I just I was in my early
(13:41):
you know, mid twenties, andthought that I could find I found him,
can I find better? You know? So I dated that guy for
a little while. That clearly didnot work out. But in the meantime,
Pat and I always stayed friends.We always had a good relationship.
We always talked, you know,maybe once a week he would call me
and his uncle was not doing reallywell. He had a lot of mental
(14:03):
instabilities. And so we did endup getting back together. In so all,
this happened between two thousand and sixand two thousand and nine. We
dated for about a year, webroke up for about six seven months or
so, and then we got backtogether. And in two thousand and nine
when we got back together, itwas definitely different. And shortly after we
got back together, his uncle unfortunatelytook his own life. Wow. Yeah,
(14:26):
and that was that was really hardfor Pat and his dad. His
dad had a history of family thathad a lot of mental health concerns,
you know, so Pat was worriedabout that for himself, he was worried
about that for you know, hisdad, And so it was I was
glad and I felt like it wasnecessary for me to put back in his
(14:48):
life just to kind of help him, just to be there. Yeah.
Absolutely. Would you say, then, after dating the other person, did
you feel like, no, PatTrick is the one for me, like
I don't need to date other people? Yes, m I think I dated
him because I had never had anyonethat had a college degree and real success
(15:11):
just like me. You know.So I was so excited about that and
thought I should see this through.And I really realized that I really couldn't
care less what you do for work, if you're a good person, is
way more important. Absolutely so,you know, but sometimes you have to
go through the motions of it toknow you do. And you were so
young. There really is something toowhen you're that young, especially just be
like you're curious. People who youknow dated the same guy since they were
(15:33):
in high school. It's very commonto what to explore or try new things,
especially in the early twenties, youknow. Yeah, yeah, yep,
I don't regret I don't regret it, and actually still communicate with that
guy to the stay here and therebecause both of our kids played play hockey,
and so every once in a whilewe'll communicate about that. Two thousand
and nine we got back together hisuncle unfortunately passed, and then we just
(15:58):
kind of stayed together. We wehad the same birthday, so went on
my thirtieth birthday in two eleven,he proposed, and I didn't hesitate to
say us, because I knew thiswas my person at least felt that way
at the time. August of twentyeleven, We got married in a quaint,
little Lutheran church in Anoka with ahumongous reception of three hundred people.
(16:21):
Oh wow, yeah it was big. It was big. Looking back,
it was yeah, it was.It was fun, but I don't even
think I talked to half of them, I'm sure, but he was my
best friend. You know, Ithink that in some ways we are were
very different. I'm so much ofa planner. I wanted to be married
by the time I was twenty seven, kids by the time I was thirty.
(16:41):
You know, I had all thesethings planned, and he was kind
of like, I don't know ifI'm ready for all this, but I
know she wants it. And soI think that was a little point of
contention for him, because we gotmarried, immediately started trying to have kids,
and he just kind of went withit because he knew that I wasn't
going to stick around if we ifhe didn't, you know, man kind
of make that step. So westarted trying to have kids right after we
(17:06):
got married. We went about ayear and it didn't work out. We
just kept having negative tests and weknew something just wasn't connecting between the two
of us in that way. Sowe brought in a reproductive endocrinologist and for
about another six to eight months,it was a lot of pills, a
lot of injections, a lot ofultrasound appointments, treatments, and a lot
(17:26):
of tears. We were finally toldthe news after several attempts that we were
pregnant and judging by our hCG levels, we may have two or three kids
in there. Oh wow, okay, And I remember just bawling and calling
him terrified and he was just laughing, we'll be fine, We'll be fine.
Well, in November of twenty thirteen, we had twin Sullivan and Sawyer
(17:48):
were born and rads, thank you, thank you, and we had never
in this world, I guarantee thatwas the most joy and just ry emotions
when our babies were born, andit was just such a beautiful, wonderful
day and we were just on topof the world. But with comes kids,
comes a lot of chaos and alot of emotions. That's a lot
of kid and then I immediately that'sa big change. And it was a
(18:15):
huge change. And he was anonly child and grew up with parents that
were divorced and really fought for histime. So all of a sudden,
he goes from all this attention fromme and his parents, and all of
a sudden were the first ones tohave twins on both sides of the family,
so everybody just walked to these kids, you know, and I had
two little babies to take care of, and so I think that kind of
(18:37):
sent him in a spot where hejust really went in to feeling unhappy,
kind of resentful, angry at mefor kind of kind of pushing him to
get married and have kids, Angrythat now all of our attention was on
these kids, but he's in thewhole thing. I don't want to I
don't want to make it sound likehe was just this bitter, kind of
unhappy person, because he was anamazing to add to those kids. It
(19:00):
was probably just something he was feelingand internalizing and building up and maybe wasn't
even communicating to you. Then maybeit was like you found this out later,
but he was still being an activeparticipant in the kids' lives, but
he was feeling all this okay,but otherwise he was pretty much checked out
and just really you could tell hewas just really unhappy. He was struggling
(19:21):
to find work, and so heended up working out a state for a
while, and so for the firstlike almost year of their life, after
they were like three or four months, it was just basically me with the
kids and he was gone. Hecome home every couple of weekends, and
you know, we'd hang out withour family, and then he'd leave again
Monday morning and be gone for anothertwo weeks. And then it was me
and the kids, and he wasa way of missing all of it,
(19:42):
and it just really got kind ofugly, and we just really struggled to
be on the same page. Well, that's nothing really hard for you.
I mean, that's hard for bothof us, I know, But we'll
go to him in a second.But I'm just saying, as you're the
one with the kids, you havetwo kids. I always say it,
even when I'll like watch my daughterfor like a day by myself, I'm
(20:03):
so exhausted, and I'm always like, gosh, how did my mom do
it as a single mom? Andthat's just with one and you had two
kids. That was probably I'm guessingyou were building your own resentment at the
same time he was building his resentment. You know, I won't lie,
I was, but I didn't takeit out in the way that instead of
(20:23):
like looking back, now, thiswas in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen,
so this was almost ten years ago. You know. I think I feel
like, in some ways emotionally,I'm matured a little bit later, and
so did he. Okay, Sothere were so many things that could we
could have, should have would havedone differently, you know. So my
resentment, I started just kind ofexercising more and trying to get attention from
(20:47):
other ways, okay, because hewasn't around to give it to me,
and when he was home, hewas in such a dark hole that he
didn't really give that attention to me. And I started actually getting that attention
from other people, okay, andhe just became I mean, he was
my best friend, and he justkind of became this very dark, unhappy
person, and it it just sucked. And I don't even know how.
(21:08):
Like I remember friends telling me whenthey would get divorced, it just one
day happened. Just one day happened. All of a sudden, they were
gone, And that was kind ofhow it went down for us too.
It was like one weekend we justgot in a fight and finally it was
like you can't be here anymore,I can't do this. He left.
Two weeks later, I had divorcepapers, and that was just that.
(21:32):
Do you think it would have happenedsooner if he would have been not had
a job where he worked away fromthe home. You know, it's so
hard to say, because I wonderif he was home or he would have
had a different view on life andwe could have maybe worked on it in
a different way. But I alsocould see where he was just so almost
(21:52):
resentful to me, and even goingthrough like our divorce, he would say,
I don't, I don't. Ididn't. I didn't want all this.
You kind of pushed it, andit was like I didn't, I
didn't. I guess I kind ofknew, but I didn't because he wasn't
saying it. Yeah, you know, so I will take accountability for a
lot of things that I should havedone differently. You know, I should
(22:15):
have looked back, or I shouldhave took more time to actually hear how
he felt, and I maybe didn'tdo that. You know, always in
hindsight, you can like it alwaysis, it always is, but you
know, sometimes you can learn fromit and girl from it, and hopefully
hopefully that's that happens for a lotof people. So, yeah, I
started exercising where I started meeting menmore, I started being more interested in
(22:37):
them. He was kind of checkedout for me, and one weekend we
just kind of hashed it out.He moved out. Two weeks later,
I got divorce papers and that kindof was at Things were ugly for a
long time, really ugly. Imean, you think you see worse in
a person until you have a divorcewith kids. That's I always hear that
I like kids because there's sometimes they'reused for leverage. Sometimes it's like the
(23:03):
argument of you know, someone wantsthem more than the other one. And
a lot of the time, I'mnot saying this happened in your case,
but a lot of the time,like the parent who's been primarily caring for
him, they're like, no,I'm not going to now split them fifty
fifty, you know, so Ican't go a lot of different ways for
sure. Yeah, And especially withhim working out a towne and then he
(23:25):
quit his job and he you know, it just got it just got really
ugly, and it just it wasa really hard year. But at the
same time, we always did whatwas best for our kids. Yeah,
he's always I mean, through everything, I can't there's not one time that
I could say that he made amove that wasn't in the best interest of
our kids. Yeah. So inFebruary of twenty sixteen, we were divorced.
(23:48):
So life looked like for you atthat point, did you you know
what was I was? I waskind of dating he maybe was. I
don't. We didn't talk about thosekind of things, but I remember I
was kind of seeing someone, andthat's what that would be a whole different
story for another day. Pa Um. Maybe if you have a podcast about
red flags and lying. I didbecause he had fake cancer, fake divorce,
(24:15):
and three other girlfriends. And Ihave heard so many people have fake
cancer stories. What is with people? I don't know because I work in
medical so I had enough knowledge toknow that like the cancer he even told
me about was like a cancer onlykids get, Oh my gosh. Oh.
And it just in going through adivorce with two little kids and having
this guy throw his fake cancer inthe mix was just like way too much.
(24:38):
Yeah. Yeah. And then andthen another girl came up to me
and said she was dating him too, asked me if he was a he
was a pilot asked me if hebought me, bought clothes for me in
like Punta Khana or something off ofher credit card, and he did.
Wow. So anyway, sets astory for another time. We'll stand subject
(25:00):
but still yeah, yep, butyeah, see that that story is probably
way more interesting than this one.So anyways, twenty and sixteen rolls around,
we get a divorce. For years, we were both you know,
very amicable at our kids school activities, sporting events, doctors appointments, holidays.
It wasn't uncommon to see both parentsat you know, family Christmas,
(25:22):
and nobody really questioned it because wejust did everything with our kids, and
our kids were so used to usdoing things together. We dated other people
here and there, had kind ofsemi semi serious relationships with other people,
but none our kids really got toknow. And then you know, to
twenty twenty, COVID came and weco parented. We got through it.
We both struggled kind of financially atdifferent times, but we held the other
(25:45):
one up and we still called eachother daily, you know, not just
about our kids, but about life, family work. You know. I
would help him clean his house ifhe needed help. He would fix my
broken doors. He's in carpentry,so we had a genuine love even through
that, but you know, reallynot enough to fix our family. Yeah,
Labor Day of twenty twenty one wasprobably the most pivotal moment in my
(26:07):
life because it rocked me in mykids's world. My dad passed away.
I'm so sorry. And up untilCOVID, my kids took or my parents
took sole care of my kids whenwe were working. So once COVID came,
we just felt it better to keepmy dad safe as far as his
health was declining. Yeah, andhe was in and out of the hospital
several times, and then yeah,on Labor Day into twenty twenty one,
(26:30):
he passed away. And I washis main caretaker and power of attorney and
I learned a lot watching him passI learned a lot about what I felt
like was important in life. AndI just in the end, what is
it all? You know? Wespend our whole life trying to build a
career or build friendships and build havethings, and in the end you just
(26:53):
lay in a bed. Yeah,and what do you have is just the
people that love you absolutely And I'mlooking They always say, like, if
you quit if you quit your joblike tomorrow, an employee, you know,
your employer would like fire you andreplace you with someone else the next
day, but your family would bethe ones there for you always. So
yep, yep. And I workin medical and I see patients come in
(27:17):
all the time that just don't feelgood and they're with their person, and
I'm like, Who's going to dothat for me? Yeah? You know,
like my mom and dad loved eachother so much. My mom couldn't
even go say goodbye to him.It just hurt too bad. Ah.
And that's and so watching that itjust really was a very life changing event
for me. And from that momenton, I kind of knew pat was
my person, but I still neededsome time to kind of figure that all
(27:40):
out and be on my own andjust grieve my dad passing. And he
I think was maybe dating, I'myou know, and then I kind of
started dating again and we'd kind ofdid our own thing for a little bit,
and then this last summer, mymom fell and went into like a
really bad mental like almost comatose situationswhere she would like almost go into a
(28:04):
coma state and we'd have to callan ambulance for her, and at a
couple of points we had hospice involvedand it just got really that just got
really ugly. We ended up findingout she has an autoimmune disorder and she
has being treated and right now she'sdoing pretty well. But I did have
to move her. So now myparents' house. I'm working on getting that
sold and it's been very busy.Yeah, but throughout all that, we
(28:29):
finally just sat down with each otherand said, what do we want to
do? Because I love you andyou love me and maybe, like the
name of your podcast, maybe itwas the right person in just the wrong
time. Yeah, And so wedid. We sat down, we were
both kind of seeing other people,and we just said, what do we
want to do in with this situation? And we decided to give it another
(28:52):
dry Wow. So how many yearshad passed at that point since the divorce.
We have been divorced since February oftwo thousand and six, team,
and we got back together this lastlike summer fall, and you guys were
both just totally on the same page. You sat Yeah, I had this
conversation. Was he like, I'vebeen feeling like this for a long time.
Yes, he has been honest aboutthat like he wanted to get back
(29:15):
together several different times, and Iwas like, I don't know, I
just I don't want this to happenagain. Our kids are at an age
where if we want to be together, they're nine years old. We cannot
up and down. We cannot getback together for a month and decide we
don't want to do this again andbreak up because we have two little kids
that we have to think about theirfeelings. Yeah, and how convention you
know, so true? We hitit from for a while. Yeah,
(29:37):
yeah, we hit it for alittle while and then just this most recently
thinks wrong. Thanksgiving, his dadgot put on the hospice. So that's
been really hard because he's been livingwith his dad, taking care of his
dad. But that, to me, I love him so much more for
that because he literally moved in,took kids, taking care of his dad,
wakes up with him in the nightto help him go to the back,
(30:00):
through him and feed him and givehim his pills, and literally has
changed his life. That is aman to me. Absolutely, What what
is so? What does your relationshiplook like? Now? Do you uh,
well, I know you said he'staking care of his dad, but
do you guys live together outside ofthat. Normally that's the hopefully the plan
in the future, but everything kindof happened so fast between my mom us
(30:21):
get back together and his dad there. Right now, we have like several
houses. Okay, gotcha, becauseI have my house that I that I
bought before we even got married,and then he moved into his own house
after we split, and then he'smanning his dad's house, and I'm trying
to sell my mom's house. Andthen I have my mom and I an
assisted living. Oh my gosh.Yeah, you're a little and you're also
juggling the schedule of nine year oldtwins. Yes that are that are in
(30:45):
baseball, hockey, and your careerand his full time jobs. Oh my
gosh. So but you know what, I wouldn't change a thing. I
mean, I wish that our parentswere healthier, but I am so proud
of the person that he is.There are so many things I would have
done differently at the time. ButI don't know that either of us were
(31:07):
even though we were in our earlythirties. Maybe we just weren't mature enough
at the time. I think that'svery possible. I mean, you guys,
it seems like he caught up toyou eventually, but you were ahead
of him in some areas. AndI think it's important to to just realize,
like you said, what is actuallyimportant in life and you need someone.
(31:30):
It's funny you mentioned who's going tobe that person for me? Talking
about your mom and dad, who'sgoing to be there for me? And
it's so true. We all wantthat person that's there with us helping take
care of us, and we don'twant to put that burden on our kids
and things like that. So it'swhat really is important at the end of
the day. I'm so happy thatyou guys kind of it's funny. I
(31:52):
wonder how long you guys were onthat same page and still just randomly dating
other people, probably for a while. I've always kind of and even all
my friends would be like, whydon't you guys just get back together.
You guys are like so close becausewe talked every day, yeah, about
everything that happens in our family.Even if we had other people, he
(32:13):
was still my main goal to soit really wasn't a big surprise to other
people. But then it kind ofwas because always said, no, no,
that ship is sailed. I wantto make sure that he's living his
life happy. And maybe there's someone, you know more that like I like
to run, so somebody that wantsto run with me, you know,
and that's not his thing, butthat doesn't need to be his thing.
It could just be my thing.Did the kids Did your kids always want
(32:37):
you guys to get back together?Were they surprised when you did get back
together? No? No, theyliked both houses because they have friends of
both houses. So to them,they're nine years old, they're like,
oh crap, are we still goingto be able to play with Connor?
You know, it's such a kidoutlook. Yeah, that's great. So
(32:57):
I love that you said you woulddo it all again. You wouldn't change
anything, because really, I mean, it is what got you where you
are. Is there any I mean, is there any takeaway from this that
you would share with someone who mightbe listening wondering about someone that they had
a relationship with. I think alot of time it's pride. It's I
(33:17):
think it's probably probably difficult for youtoo, since you had so much and
there was like that kind of darktime during the divorce and after you get
divorced, it's like I don't knowif there's like some kind of guilt or
embarrassment or ego that gets in theway pride that you don't want to like
ever relook at that situation. Isthere any advice you would give to someone
or thoughts after everything you've been through. I would say that if you think
(33:43):
that you found someone that loves youand you feel that love from who cares
about pride? True, you know, like truthfully? I mean I sat
and watched my dad lose all ofhis pride dying in a bed. After
that, it taught me so muchabout what is important in life so much.
And you're really relationships that the bondsyou build with people, the people
(34:04):
that love you no matter how flawedyou are, because we are all flawed.
And I will be the first oneto say that I fall high on
that list of floss and he patstill loves me for all the goofy,
quirky, weird ways that I amand I still love him for all of
those. And if it is sohard to find someone like that, that
your pride is very short lived,yeah, compared to the whole life that
(34:27):
I can have with my family.That's my family, you know, with
my kids and vacations, and youknow, I can't imagine somebody else holding
his hand, you know, whenhis dad is only a couple of weeks
away, probably from meeting my dadagain in heaven, you know, and
I can't imagine somebody else holding hishand through that. Wow, that's isn't
(34:49):
that the truth? Well, Shannon, I am so thankful you shared your
story today. Yeah, we've beenthrough it. Are you fairly better?
So we were going to record thisone day and then she had dental surgery.
She set me, I feel bad. She's like, look at this
photo. Her face is like completelyswollen, and it was swollen my collar
bone and it was just awful.It was. He had used a saw
(35:12):
to get it over, and Iwas going to record it an hour later,
and I was like, I don'tthink this is going to happen.
So, yes, I'm on theend. I'm doing well good. I
was gonna I'm like, I hopeyour mouth is okay, Yeah you are.
You were a trooper for even thinkingyou could do it, And I'm
like, You're like, I wouldn'twork. You're insane. You know what.
(35:32):
The only time I've been happy inthe last year that I could still
wear a mask at work. I'msure. Oh well, I'm glad you're
doing better, and I really appreciateyour sharing your story with me today.
You're welcome. Thank you for havingme. Thank you
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