Andrea Rappaport (00:00)

Today on our mini episode, I am talking about when I knew that it was time to leave my marriage

How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:09)

If you're going through a divorce or you're thinking about going through a divorce, then this is the podcast that you've been waiting for. Hosted by Morgan Stogsdill, the head of family law at the largest family law firm in the country, and comedian Andrea Rappaport, we are gonna help you avoid the biggest divorce mistakes with our expert guidance, So let's go.

This is How Not to Suck at Divorce.

Andrea Rappaport (00:39)

I think that often when we hear a personal story, sometimes we hear parts of ourselves in that other person and it helps us really wrap our arms around, am I in that boat? Does this feel at all like what I'm navigating? And sometimes in order for us to make that decision or to realize like, yep, I did the right thing, we need to hear more of these stories.

The first thing that I wanna share is an Instagram post that I wrote a few years ago back in 2023. And what it says is, at first red flags will whisper, something feels off.

If you ignore them, they'll start to speak louder. Hey, something isn't right. If you continue to ignore them, they will scream and shake you from the inside out until you have no choice but to pay attention. The moral of the story, listen to the whisper. Well, clearly, I wrote that after what I experienced and maybe

Some of you right now are in that whisper stage and maybe some of you are at the point where your body is grabbing hold of you and shaking you for dear life because you've been ignoring the whispers For me, I knew that something wasn't right in my marriage long before I even got married. I knew when

I was dating my first husband that there was something not right. There was something off. And I ignored every single red flag. Now that's like a term that we use. I don't know that we said red flags then, but now we say red flags. And part of the reason why I think I ignored them is it felt really familiar. I...

did not grow up in a happy house with functioning people and unconditional love. And so the back and forth ping-ponging that often happens when you're in an unhealthy or toxic relationship, that felt like home. That felt safe. It was not safe at all, but it felt normal.

And I think that it was on such a deep subconscious level, I don't even know that I was aware of it. I remember I had moments when certain events would occur while we were dating that felt like, this isn't right.

But did I leave? No. I stayed for more.

I was determined to make this person love me. I was determined to make this person want to marry me. When from the very beginning, it was totally clear that this was not right.

that I was not the right fit for this person and that this person was not the right fit for me. And I kept trying to shove this round peg in a square hole and it had worked. We got married. even on my wedding day, it didn't feel good. I remember feeling nauseous, really sick to my stomach like I was hiding something.

Like I had this dirty little secret that I thought no one else knew. Turns out joke was on me. I'm pretty sure everybody in the room was aware of the fact that this was not a good situation.

Andrea Rappaport (03:54)

And something that this episode is not going to be about is it's not going to be about my panic disorder and all the things that I have shared pretty publicly in the past, which is a result of remaining in this unhealthy marriage for as long as I did and a result of my childhood and all that stuff. Not going to get into that because I think that that kind of takes away from what a lot of people experience.

when they're trying to ignore the problem in the room. And here were some warning signs that I had. One of them was I never wanted to be home. I didn't really want to be out with people because that made me feel really lonely, but I avoided anything that involved being at home and like...

feeling like I was playing make believe in this family unit. I remember driving around in my car, circling the block, finding any reason that I could to not go inside, because I didn't know what was going to happen and how being in the house was going to make me feel. I remember having these moments where I would get really excited about

maybe a date night thinking, okay, if I try hard enough tonight, he'll find me pretty or we'll feel more connected to each other or we have this great experience with our kids, maybe that will bring everybody together. kept.

trying to fix something that really could not be fixed. It just wasn't there. And the more that it was blatant that it wasn't there, I think the more devastated I felt because I felt like such a loser. I felt like someone who just failed at life. Like, Andrea, you dummy.

You married somebody who's not even interested in being with you. I don't think this person even likes you.

I remember if I had friends come over, I would feel so comforted when friends filled my house because there was laughter and there was positive energy and it felt so good and comforting. Or if I had family come to visit, that felt really safe and comforting. And then the minute that they would leave or I would actually like anticipate their departure.

I'd start to get really anxious. Like, please don't leave, please don't leave, please don't leave. And then as soon as they would, I would have these tears in my eyes and this lump in my throat, like, shit. Now I have to go back to this reality that makes me feel so lonely and so just scared. Cause I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to get out of this thing that, you know, I created.

I kept saying to myself, well, Andrea, you wanted this. You wanted this marriage. You wanted these kids and now you have these kids and you have this marriage. What the fuck did you do? And so I just stayed. I ignored all of those flags that were pulling at me and eating at me saying, wake up, you dummy. Wake up, this is not good.

I know that you thought you wanted this, but that doesn't mean that you live out this life sentence. You can be a big girl and say, this is not working.

I was just talking to a friend earlier today who is a business owner and she is having a business divorce, which I hear is not very fun and I really don't want to go through one of those. But she was saying how she had to approach her business partner and say, this doesn't feel right.

and that it's really scary and it makes you feel really sick to your stomach, but then the feeling afterwards is just relief. Finally, I said what needed to be said. This agreement, this arrangement, whatever we had in place that was working for a period of time is no longer working. And it's time that somebody says it. I wish that I would have said it sooner. I wish I would have been braver and would not have put it off and put it off and put it off.

until I was drowning. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, okay, but how do I know? Well, I don't have a crystal ball. I don't even have a magic eight ball. I got no balls. But you know if you're taking care of yourself, meaning you're finding you have someone to talk to, you're going to therapy and the other areas of your life are working.

If it's not your friends, if it's not your work, if it's not things that are just going on with you, you can rule all of that out, then you've got to look at this relationship. The fact that you're even listening to this episode should be an inkling that there's a lot of you that's thinking, ⁓ could it be this? I remember once asking my therapist, this is never going to get better, right? And she looked at me and she said, no, Andrea, this meaning.

my marriage is never gonna get better.

Listen to the whispers. Listen to those little parts of you that are saying, I don't think that this is right. I don't think that this is healthy. Keep talking. Keep gathering information about should you decide to leave your marriage, what does a divorce look like where you live and what does a divorce look like with your particular circumstances? Go and talk.

to an attorney. doesn't mean that you're filing. It just means that you're having a conversation to get more information. You have options. Don't hide this from the people around you. Don't share this with every single person you know, but you've got to have a safe place where you're unloading some of this. If you're in the private community, keep hanging out in there. Hopefully you'll have stories and people who will

inspire you and make you feel more comforted and just know that there's no real right way of doing this. there's no way of pulling the trigger and getting a divorce that's like, yup, this person gets an A plus. It's messy. It's yucky.

I went the route of I stretched this whole thing out, asked to go to couples counseling, because I thought that would be a safer way to do this. I couldn't even get through a handful of sessions of couples counseling. And I told my now ex-husband on the way home one night from couples therapy, we were sitting at a stoplight. And I said, I can't do this anymore. I want to get divorced. Blech. Just fell out of me.

Do I, I go back in time and do it another way? I don't really think so, but I just wish I wouldn't have waited as long. You have the whole rest of your life to get to. I don't want you to have that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach every day when you get home, like I had. I don't want your kids to live in a house where they think that all of that's normal.

It's not normal. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have laughter. You deserve to be with somebody, if you choose to be with anybody, who makes you laugh uncontrollably, not somebody who makes you feel sick to your stomach and makes you question everything that you do. So for what it's worth, those are some of the things that I experienced. I hope that something resonates with you.

And keep listening to How Not to Suck at Divorce. We have a full episode coming up for you later this week. And let us know what you think of these mini episodes. We're trying something new. Some of these weeks, they're gonna be more informative. Some weeks, it's gonna be more entertaining, like last week's mini episode. And sometimes it's gonna be just something personal that we share. To give you as much support.

as possible because we know that this process is draining. We say it at the end of every show, divorce is a marathon. It is not a sprint. There are days that feel harder than others. And sometimes you don't want information. You just want to feel seen and heard. So I can't see you unless I'm looking through your window right now, but I'm not, promise. I can't see you, but I do hear you.

I know that it hurts and I'm sorry that you're suffering. And I hope that you can get to that point where I finally got where you get brave and you say what needs to be said. Your life will get so much better. You can do this. I know that you can do this. And remember, you've got this and we've got you.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (12:31)

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