Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - rebuilding your life to one you love.

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Today we made a new friend we know you’re going to love. Jessica N. Turner is a mom, content creator, blogging veteran, Wall Street Journal Bestseller, award-winning marketing professional, public speaker…you get the idea- she’s amazing! Jessica’s story is anything but ordinary and so is her optimism and perspective on how to get back on your feet. Her new book “I thought it would be better than this” touches on her story of losing her 16-year marriage when her husband came out as gay and how this life-shattering moment gave her the grit and determination to pick up the pieces and choose hope to build a beautiful next chapter. Whether you’ve faced disappointment in dating, at work, in marriage or anywhere else in your life (as we all have) this episode is for you! Love you guys! Shawn and Andrew Pre-Order Jessica’s book ▶ https://www.amazon.com/Thought-Would-Better-Than-This/dp/1546006710?crid=1ABSEPXAQYGD4&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZsKJLIfZhaQNpPWaO0GVuw45wpa3JvGnqcXwGf3zEhv6uu1-TT3ciytiNWaJT9lKPd7l-E9E5sR4kHTO6MEqtnq93N_n0JhM5kJf9iAzvbL4ZpSwB2JYGezbvfgET36SThCs_JAJBbcvZlg2xmLphB37MW_2ugU8LSgFDHYwTSyTci8h0bDwev9MlB2BIlVLekLiBEUIblvsv1TlQs4CM2eOfG0xwYsw9L8E2HBS75M.MZnf6AKh9gGUEq0YOgiSEdsRkWzg2xbuLAbluuMyMUE&dib_tag=se&keywords=jessica+n+turner&qid=1726166893&sprefix=jessica+n+turne,aps,123&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=jessicanturner-20&linkId=f953e9cb675184d11dbd249b56aadabc&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl Follow Jessica! ▶ https://www.instagram.com/jessicanturner/?hl=en Beam Kids is now available online at https://shopbeam.com/COUPLETHINGS Take advantage of our exclusive discount of up to 40% off using code COUPLETHINGS Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en #ShawnAndAndrewPods #BookRec #Disappointment #Expectations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things, interviews. With Sean and Andrew. Today we sit down with Jessica Turner, who we've actually known for years. Yes. We did some events at the Vandy Children's Hospital, and Jessica used to work there. She's also been a mommy blogger since 2006. Like a real OG. She was on the beginning times, the threshold of the whole social movement. I mean, the internet was just a baby when she started her blog. Yes.

And now, here we are. A couple decades later, she's still got the blog. Now she has three books. She wrote a book called The Fringe. She wrote a book called Stretch Too Thin. And her newest book is called I Thought It Would Be Better Than This, which is why we sit down with her. Her story is wild. Her story is wild. So she talks about how she was in a 16-year marriage with her best friend who came out as gay 16 years into her marriage and kind of turned her life upside down.

She now co-parents with him, Matthew, and talks about just kind of the hardships of navigating disappointment and grief. but how she came out better on this side of it and how to keep moving forward. That's right. They're divorced now, but I think her case is kind of an extreme example of what disappointment looks like. And she had some really wonderful things to say. You're interested in Jessica and her books. We'll link that down below. She also mentioned a course that she co-created with a therapy organization here in Nashville called OnSight, which is a pretty well-renowned organization. We'll link that down below as well. But I hope you enjoy this one with Jessica Turner.

Turner, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Two times and three days. I love it. You're at the beam event, which is so fun. Which was so fun. My kids wanting it now every day.

Awesome. Great, great. Now we have this forest of roses between us. Thank you for those. Those are beautiful. You bet. I had to bring roses since roses are on the cover of my new book. We first met years ago at Vandy Children's Hospital.

That must have been around 2018 or 19. Yeah, I worked there for 10 years managing their social media. And I think you guys came in. for an event and we said hi and that was the first time we met but then we've got mutual friends and now I've done a bunch of stuff yeah a lot has seemed to happen you've written several books since I have congrats on your new one thank you that's what we're here to talk about today comes out April 8th and it's title I thought it would be better than this yeah can we just jump into sure why the title yes yeah so I think everybody has there I thought it would be better

than this in their life. If they don't, they will. Disappointment is something that universally finds us. I say in the book, you know, they teach us in school how to do math and social studies, but they don't teach us how to navigate disappointment and loss and grief. And I found myself in the pandemic, I'd been married for 16 years, three kids, and my husband came out and we divorced. And my whole life kind of shattered. And I had to start over in a lot of ways. And the subtext, title of the book is rise from disappointment, regain control, and rebuild a life that you love. And that's because we all can do that. We all have agency over our stories. And what I'm hoping is by telling my story that it's going to empower other people to move forward in theirs.

How is the rising from disappointment going for you? It's five years in? Yeah, it's five years. I can't believe it. And it's interesting when I wrote the book, I finished it in January of last year. So just over a year ago. I finished the big, you know, first draft. And it felt really important to me that I be single when I was writing it, that I was writing it from a place of wholly myself and not distracted by anything else. And I had had several relationships post-divorce, but just really felt like I was supposed to be alone as I was writing this book. And I turned it in. He's actually March. And the next month, I met somebody. And I've been with him since. And I said, gosh, when I finished, that book, I felt like I had really risen and now I have like this new love in my life and it

feels even more exciting and better than it was when I finished it. But the rising happens for all of us. I don't think that we're ever meant to stay in darkness. Like there's always light to be found. And so it's really great. I couldn't have imagined it in the midst of my sorrow when I felt like I was literally laying on the floor of hell, crying every single day, wondering how I would move forward how life would be and now I'm just so wildly happy it's a really great place to be during the heartbreak and during you know as you had said your world got flipped upside down how did you navigate going through that because you still co-parent with matthew you guys are still friends you still live life together yeah so turning that page in that chapter and kind of

looking at life differently how did you like continue through that process and just kind of take a step forward one day at a time so that was something that was really hard for me when i was in it i was like well what's it going to look like when matthew starts dating and what's it going to look like when i start dating and what's it going to be like for the kids and i was like looking way far in the future and my therapist was like jessica you have to stay really in this like what do you need today what do you need tomorrow like you can't be running really far ahead and i have given myself that advice so many times since that moment um so It was moving through it really slow, a lot of therapy.

I had never really done therapy prior to this experience of going through my divorce. And that was really helpful to have kind of a neutral place to land. Listening to what I needed, listening to my body, what I was noticing in my body, just kind of paying attention to myself. You know, I met Matthew when I was 20. We got married when I had just turned 22. He was kind of all I knew of in adulthood. I didn't know myself apart from him, apart from. being a wife, being a mom.

And so there was a lot of work for me to do and kind of a growing that happened is I became more confident and aware of myself and my own needs solely dependent on myself. There's a couple dynamics at play there. It's a really unique and complicated situation. Divorce is one thing I want to talk about. You're married to Matthew for 16 years. Comes and tells you that he's gay. How does how does the process kind of unwind itself?

Our marriage had not been in a great place for a couple years and I thought it was me. I write about in the book about like how I saw my body. Like I thought three kids, my body had changed. That's why, you know, things weren't great and really putting a lot of onus on me. And so we finally started going to therapy and it was couples therapy and he came out and he first said he was by. And so then we were navigating, like, can we do a mixed orientation marriage? Like, what does this mean? What do you want?

And it just felt like we were circling the drain for a really long time. That was in spring of 2019. And then finally, a year later, so this is a lot of therapy, separate together. A year later, we decided that he was going to move out. He had come out to me, said, I'm not by, I'm gay. and we just couldn't see a path forward. And I talk about in the book about imperfect choices, I think so much in life we have to decide between two imperfect choices.

It's not like one path is perfect. It's like those choose-year-own-adventure books you probably read with your kids, right? Like, both of these seem bad, but which one am I going to pick? And that's really what it was like for us. And so we decided we were going to separate in March of 2020. You might remember that was the month the world shut down. So he was just about to sign paperwork on. an apartment. COVID happened. We decided, well, we're going to stay in the same house. We're not

going to start this right now. We don't know what things are going to look like. And so we stayed in the same house. And I still was like hoping that something was going to change. Like I was fighting for that marriage. And I remember doing walks in my neighborhood. Remember we couldn't go anywhere. So that's all we did. And I was walking in my neighborhood one day. And there was a house that had a for rent sign in it. And it was literally a 10 minute walk. It's a 10 minute walk. It's a 90 second drive from my house. And I remember standing in front of that door, it has a red door and just praying, please, if we have to get divorced, well, my kids land here. And they not be far from me. It still like chokes me up thinking about it five years later. And we decided that the most

loving decision we could make was for us to divorce. And I remember saying to my therapist, like, how can we get divorced during the pandemic? She's like, just the pandemic's not going to change where you guys are. You need to get out of this. It had been so long. And so we told our kids and he came out to the kids. And it was really important to me that he come out when we told people we were getting divorced, that it wasn't like we were just going to say we were getting divorced. He has a public profile as well. And I just felt like it was going to be a lot harder if he waited. And there's so much freedom and truth telling. And so he came out to the kids. He came out to his family and my family and moved just down the street. And then, you know, we started navigating co-parenting

really well. And I'm grateful that we're still like really close friends. We do life together. We have a shared meal together pretty much every week with our kids. We still travel once or twice a year with our kids and show up at sports practices and all of those things. And I feel really grateful for that. It's not the way I imagined I would be parenting. It's not the way I imagined family would look, but that doesn't make it less beautiful or rich. I'm really grateful for that. What did you imagine? I'm curious. I think I imagined the fairy tale that we all do, that I found my person and we were going to

grow old together and we were going to always be together. I think that's what everyone imagines when they get married, you know. I certainly didn't imagine not being with my kids every single day. I certainly didn't imagine having to navigate dating in my 40s. I didn't imagine having to start over. I didn't imagine having to walk through all of that publicly with having a public platform. I also don't think that I could have an imagination for how beautiful my life could be after divorce. I think both of those things are true.

And so I'm really grateful that in a lot of ways, divorce expanded my perspective of what life could be, of what beauty could be, that there's more than one way to feel healthy and whole and fulfilled because I put so much weight on my marriage. You were an OG mommy blogger starting in 2006, which is truly OG, but you have developed a following to where your life is on display for people. Did that help the process of grief and getting through the change in your life? Or did that make it harder because you felt like you had more people to account for? Oh, no, it did not make it easier. I'm grateful that I've been given a platform that I hope that by sharing my story, it helps other people in their journeys.

But it made everything harder because I was having to show up online when my world was blowing up. And it's really important to me to have a platform that is honest and vulnerable and showing up as my full self, but you all know this. Like the internet is still only like one percent of your actual life, right? So it's easy to show up in stories for six or eight slides and tell about a funny thing that happened or whatever and then get off. And so no, it was very, very difficult. And I talk about in, I thought it would be better than this, how it's important to have community around you when you're going through grief and disappointment. And how in my situation, I had to be slow to let people in on that. So we didn't, Matthew didn't come out and say he was by and then come out and say

he was gay. And I was like, had my family on speed dial and telling all of my friends, right? Like it was a very small group that knew what we were walking through. And part of that was because I couldn't carry the weight of everyone else's disappointment in that, of everyone else's grief in that. So I was really slowed for that. And so it felt like such relief when we finally could share that we were getting divorced and that Matt. Matthew was gay. It felt like I said before, just freedom to be able to do that. And certainly as I have gone through this process, writing about some of the things that I have been experiencing and learning has been helpful. It's been helpful to have people say me too. I think it's also been

helpful for so many people who privately messaged me and say, I'm going through this. What was one book that you read? What was one thing that you did? What is one piece of advice that you can give me? So I feel grateful for that. But I'm a big proponent of like not putting everything out there in real time, you know, having time to think about it and process it before you do that. I think for all its downside, social media is wonderful for the reasons you just said where people authentically are trying to like thank you or ask you questions to a really unique situation that you went through. Yeah. There's a handful of other people that are also experiencing that. Like what a wonderful tool to connect people through. But there is,

this ability for like I don't know emotional promiscuity for lack of a better thing where like right dude people love when you get on social media and cry or like yeah like kind of vomit it before it's been filtered and uh I appreciate your diligence and processing through that and then unraveling and unrolling things uh slowly I'm curious so as the information's coming out this could apply for your situation or an affair or a handful of other dramatic moments that can happen in marriage what would be your advice to people as they're navigating it like you said do it slowly but like is it hey just talk to one person because if you include three then it becomes a whole thing and you have to you have to deal with other people's grief

which I think is an interesting thought how would what would be your prescription to go through it my number one prescription would be to go to therapy to have a neutral party involved I think that if you are just navigating anything painful, it doesn't even have to be related to marriage. It could be a loss of someone important to you or something financial or with your career. Having a neutral party who can help you process and speak into things in a very neutral manner, I think is really helpful. You know, I ultimately couldn't get advice from other people because they have not sat where I've sat. Right.

And so I think what you have to be careful about is when you're, gathering a bunch of advice from a lot of people who don't understand all the details, it can actually cause harm. And so I think pay attention to your body, get therapy and go slow. And it's really just one day at a time and you are going to get through it. I love, there's a quote that some, who knows, somebody said that you have gotten through 100% of your worst days and I remember there were some days where I got to the end of the day and I was like well that was true again this was the worst day yet and I got through it's really important though because you also mentioned honesty and like the freedom that comes with that yeah I think to

prevent another worst day in the future like making tomorrow another bad day you have to be honest and like kind of get it out there right otherwise you just have this this cloud hanging over you That's right. That's why it was important for Matthew to come out when we announced that we were getting divorced because that's like otherwise there's going to be a lot more bad days. Like we're getting divorced because you want to be in relationship with a man. Like that's the whole reason this is happening. So let's just rip this band-aid off and tell the full story at once so that we can really walk forward in the freedom of your truth. You can feel free and honest. And even though it's going to be painful initially and there were a lot of painful. parts of it. There were people that, you know, said a lot of horrible things to us and about our family. His family is not in relationship with us after he came out. And so it was very painful to do, but we both stand by that it was the right decision. Something that caught me, Andrew picked it up too, was the way you said carrying other people's grief was really hard. And it's also not your responsibility. Yeah. But how,

did you navigate that even saying like Matthew's family is not in relation with you anymore there are so many people who will put grief on themselves for an issue where at the heart of it it's not theirs to carry and it's not theirs to have any how do you manage reminding yourself through grief and loss of actually your opinion does not matter and I'm not going to sit here and hold your hand because it's not to be held a boundary without a consequence is just a suggestion. And so I had to be firm in my boundaries with family, with friends around things that I didn't want to talk about, that things that I was feeling too vulnerable to discuss and say that. I had to stand up for myself and say that. And so I might say

something like that's too painful for me to talk about. So I'd rather not talk about that. If you want to process that, will you process it with mom or dad or if I was talking to my sister or something like that, right? So having a firm boundary. Also, that was preparation that I did before Matthew came out, that I was in therapy saying, okay, when I tell my family, this is probably how they're going to react. How do I do that? What do I say? And like role played and prepared for it so that I did feel strong enough. It was also, you know, I had gone through the loss of Matthew for months and months and months by the time we told our family and invited the public into our story. So I was also not moving through it in

such a fragile place. I was still very fragile. But it's like you said, Andrew, it wasn't a real-time thing. By the time we published it on social media, it was July of 2020. And he told me he was by in like March of 2019. So there had been a significant amount of time. Sounds like the divorce you went through is amicable. You're on friendly terms now. How do people get to that point? You know, I think it is different for everybody. People have said, you know, is it easier for you because Matthew came out as gay and he

wasn't, you know, having an affair and leaving for another woman or whatever. There was still painful parts of our story, right? Like a marriage doesn't end happily even if it was, you know, in the manner that ours ended. And so I think it is listening to what the other person needs. I think it's respect. I think it's also thinking about your kids. So the most frequent comments that I get when people see Matthew and I traveling with our kids, they will say things like, my parents were divorced and they couldn't be in the same room.

And you are giving your kids such a gift by being able to do those things. And so I think Matthew and I both move through our relationship through the lens of what do our kids need and putting them first, well, also still being firm in our boundaries of like what feels right and good for us. But by being focused on what the kids need, that really, I think, makes a big difference. And again, it's one day at a time, right? Like, it's not perfect. We still have arguments sometimes and want different things and it evolves and changes. And that's okay and appropriate too.

Within the boundaries of co-parenting, we've had, I've even read comments from a lot of people asking about co-parenting questions. How do you keep boundaries firm? because I feel like part of your heart and part of Matthew's heart will always have each other. How do you travel the world and go on vacations and keep those boundaries, though, still firm in saying we are co-parents, our best interest is in our children, and then it's in, like, one another? But how do you not blur lines and cause each other more heartbreak, even as you're progressing and moving on with your lives? Well, I think it is not stopping in terms of continuing to want to make ourselves better. So we both continue to go to therapy, work through things. And so I think that helps because we're bringing healthier whole selves to the relationship as co-parents.

Also, like, logistically, like if we're traveling, we have separate rooms or we get bigger Airbnbs to give each other space. We've known each other for over 20 years. And so we also can be candid with one another, with what we need, what maybe works on a trip. that isn't the best, we need something different and being respectful of one another, certainly with me being in a relationship and he's in a relationship as well, you know, honoring the space that that person needs for their relationship and just ultimately being each other's cheerleaders and also being each other's cheerleaders with our kids. I think that really matters too.

Because our kids see that. I mean, I have teenagers. They're 16, 13, and 10, and they pick up on the little things. You know, my daughter has said to me like, Mama, you need to calm down. about daddy or she'd be like daddy needs to calm down about you you know like so they'll even our kids will sometimes call us out on it but ultimately we are really focused on what are the kids need and how can we give them what we need what they need while still listening to what we know we need ourselves we had the opportunity to meet two or two of your kids on

Friday is that right you just met Ezra okay seems like an awesome kid I'm curious it's been an interesting experience as I've navigated parenting I don't even know how you approach it, but like almost viewing myself from an audience perspective and like, all right, hey, you need to display these certain traits so that the kids can learn. What lessons do you hope your children have learned through this process? What would you hope to have displayed to them through separation, how you dealt with it and how you're continuing to deal with it? Well, that's a big question, Andrew. One I would say is that disappointment happens to all of us, right? And that our feelings are valid and that we need to move through

those feelings and pay attention to them, listen to our bodies. I also think our kids will have bared witness to seeing us taking care of our bodies in terms of like moving and how we eat and getting enough sleep and some of those types of things that I think I was cognizant of in some way when I was married, but really leaned in on post-divorce and knowing what my body needed. They have seen me working out. Obviously, your kids like see that. I didn't see that much in my childhood, like see my parents taking care of their bodies. And I think that that probably meant that when I was in early adulthood it wasn't something that was a priority to me.

So I think about some of those everyday habits and that they will have just seen that modeled for them and that that will then be an everyday habit for them, I hope. I also just really hope, you know, I thought about as I was writing, I thought it would be better than this.

Someday my kids are going to read this. They're not going to read it now. But someday they will. And I hope that they will just be really proud of the way Matthew and I navigated this the way I navigated it specifically as they have watched me and in my house that they'll just be proud of me and that they will know that they can trust me. I think trust with your parents is a gift that you can give your kids and I think they have seen me be vulnerable

enough that they know that their stories are always welcome, that they're always safe, that even in the hardest moments, they're safe to come and talk to me. and I think that's a really powerful gift that we can give our kids that will last a lifetime. I actually just had this conversation with a friend of ours who's going through a rough patch in life

and she was texting me and she's like, I'm just trying really hard to be strong in front of my kids. Yeah. And I think... I get that. Exactly what you just said, though, there's something so beautiful

and being vulnerable around your children. Yeah. Because it actually shows them how to be human. That's right. And that it's okay to break down and it's okay to cry

and it's okay to be sad and you can be strong and pick yourself back up. But I think being able as a child to see your parents be human and talk them through that is such a power. And that's stronger, I think, in my mind. I remember when we lost Andrew's dad and having like crying, bawling sessions with our kids and then being like, but we know it's because we're happy about Papa and like we love him. And I think there is a strength in showing that vulnerability and honesty and trust that takes your kids to a different level of understanding how to handle life that gets thrown at them.

Yeah. Also, thinking about what they can carry. Yeah. Right? So when Matthew and I were going through things in 2019, 2020, maybe my oldest picked up on a little tension, but certainly not the magnitude of the sorrow and the volatility. because we didn't know what we were going to do. So we were careful to really try to navigate that as adults, not in front of them. And so there is a tension, I think, as parents of, like, recognizing when it's appropriate to bring our kids in and when it might not be good as well that I think is tricky to navigate, but I think is really important to do.

I mean, we're all just learning every day, aren't we? Truly. hanging on for your life. Okay, so how and when are you navigating these conversations with Matthew? I guess we have young kids, so they're around us all the time, or how are you having those hard conversations that needs to get fleshed out? The book opens with Matthew coming out to me. I think the first words of chapter one are, I'm gay.

And that happened at like 7, 10 in the morning. Kids were downstairs eating breakfast. We were getting ready to take kids to school at 7.35, and he told me right before then. I mean, it was early in the morning. after they went to bed was it sometimes on my lunch break i would drive 15 minutes home so we could have a 30 minute conversation and then 15 minutes back and then i'd be back to work like it was extremely difficult to manage that was the way we did it it sounds like this is something you want

to teach your kids like having daily disciplines for your physical body for having conversations or work you still you still shut up for work during this time like there is a bit of value in the routine and sticking to that and going about one day at a time. It seems like it's of value. So did you ever take a sabbatical though from work or time off? I didn't. I didn't. I really love to work. And like you said at the beginning of the episode, I was working at Vanderbilt. But then I also was blogging and doing creator work. And after my divorce, I said, a friend actually said to me and I really kind of grabbed onto it. She said, the dream of of your marriage died. You cannot let the dream of being a full-time entrepreneur die as well.

And so I worked and saved and left Vanderbilt to be a creator full-time. And honestly, I think it was work that saved me a little bit in those early days when I was alone or I didn't have my kids. I was like pouring a lot of energy into work. But I did several years after the divorce go to OnSight. Are you guys familiar with OnSight? So I went to OnSight for a week. And that was incredible for those that don't know, it's a world-renowned counseling program, and they do these different intensives. And you go, there's no phone, no television, no outside world at all. They say it's like eight months of therapy and six days. And it really was transformative and it was that for me. And I was working on this book when I went there and loved it so much that we created a free course that

everyone who gets the book gets that course for free on navigating disappointment with an on-site therapist because I'm like I want everybody to have access to this so that's the closest I wouldn't call that a sabbatical but where I left work to really do some work on myself I think something that's really cool and I talk about this is like every single day we have a choice of either being unhappy or happy in whatever situation you're dealt and we go through hypothetical situations a lot where it's like if we lost everything tomorrow are we going to be fine like are we going to be happy? Are we going to be able to like still live life to the fullest? And I think something that's really beautiful about your story and how you've written this book is you've been handed a lot in

life. Things that you don't dream for, right? They're not in your fairy tale ending. Yeah. But yet you've created a life and you've continued going and you've made something beautiful out of it. To be able to co-parent with your best friend and still be able to go on vacations and have now a new relationship and him have a relationship and have a cohesive unit with your family, I think is really, really powerful to saying you woke up every day and you decided to fight for having a happy life for you and your children. And I think that's really, really powerful. Thank you for saying that. I think disappointment for so many people tends to be a period in their story that this happened to me this diagnosis happened my husband came out like you have the the choice is like you said be

happy or be angry or sad or wallow in it and I think it wasn't an intentional choice for me to rise but it was very much like this is not going to be the end and so I hope that when people read I thought it would be better than this that they feel empowered to put a comma there instead of a period and to take control of what they can control because we do have a lot of agency in our stories, even if our circumstances were kind of forced on us. The dream of your marriage died and that hit me. I'll never forget a conversation. Sean and I had about 12 months ago when our youngest was two or three months old. And yours is an extreme case of how your dream of your marriage died. Ours was a logistical scheduling thing that I have just neglected to, to improve on for the first nine years our marriage where it's like I'll just say yes to everything that comes my way which is not great it's fun it's not it's fun while I'm doing it's not great after our third kid it really caused a pretty big conflict between us and

it did strike me like the dream of Sean's marriage kind of died like I like let her down and it was kind of hard for me to reconcile and it was really hard for her to reconcile And I think everyone goes through that dream of the marriage dying or the dream of my career dying. Like we talk about transitioning out of athletics all the time. And it's like it's such a beautiful thing to have those expectations and the vision on the one hand. But it's also such a dangerous place to be just expecting that that's how it is going to turn out. Yeah. So I don't know how you walk that line.

But that hit me because I still don't know how to properly communicate it to her where I'm not asking her to lower her expectations of me but I think it's it's kind of a great place it's it almost feels like a second chapter of our marriage where it's like hey just I am going to let you down like I'm not perfect that's right you know and I don't know how to tell you that like I just hate that terminology but you know you're right like that I thought it would be better than this you had a moment yeah where you were like this is not what I imagined yeah being married to you and parenting with three kids was going to look like we all have that the reason why I thought it would be better than this Every person who sees it is like, I get it.

I get it. Like, we all have that. And so how can we be brave enough to say, I thought it would be better than this in our own way? And then navigate through and build something better, right? Like, how do we navigate through you wanting to do all of these things? And me, Sean, is still feeling supportive and seeing and my things are also on the table. And you talk through that, and that takes maturity and growth. I mean, who we marry when whatever age we marry them, they're not going to be the same throughout our relationship.

We both are going to grow and change. And so I think it's so important to be having those honest conversations to not be scared. I think as I wrote, I thought it would be better than this and thought about my marriage and thought about my growth afterward. I was like, man, I was so scared to have those conversations about. what I wanted about what I needed about what I needed to feel loved like I don't know I don't know if it's because I was married young if it's because of my personality type and Matthew's personality type but what I know now is that Jessica is dead and the Jessica now is going to advocate for herself and what she needs and what she wants and is going to want a partner who's going to

advocate for what he wants like we're two whole people coming in instead of being so codependent on one another this is where I get confused though okay tell me feelings are important you said that before i also agree with that honesty is also important part of me though is is more stoic and it's like hey the feelings will pass they'll come and go so that's that's not on it like your feelings are not honest with you i don't know how to balance those two of unfiltered emotions yeah being quote unquote honest versus hey i'm a man i got kids i got responsibilities this is a phase that will pass let me just steal man it and push through which is also a little dishonest in that. I don't know. Yeah, I don't feel great about that second statement.

It's my core emotion when I hear that. You know, I think that a good rule of thumb is to recognize when something's coming up for you repeatedly. Yeah. So if you are repeatedly feeling, I'm just going to use yours as an example, not as an attack on you, but if you're repeatedly feeling like, feeling something and you're like, oh, I'm just going to push through because I'm a man, and you're feeling that in your belly over and over again, then you probably need to have a conversation, hey, this keeps coming up for me and I don't want to maybe you say I don't want to make a big deal about it but I'm noticing that I'm continually feeling like this can we talk about it and you're going to feel so good the next time you do that and that is that paying attention to your body like your gut is never wrong so if you're feeling away even if it's an emotion consistently then that's something that probably needs to be addressed that would be what I would say to that that takes a certain amount of discipline too though and awareness it does it also takes safety Right? It does.

You need to feel safe with your partner that you can say that. And I think sometimes people don't feel safe with their partner, maybe because they haven't expressed that before or how they might react. Maybe their personality types are really different. And so that's where it can be helpful to have a therapist or even just a really good friend say, hey, I'm really feeling like this. How do you think I should go about navigating or can I just talk through it with you and have a safe place to land to process that?

What do you think, Andrew? No, it's good. We talk to this a lot. It's always something that we bounce back and forth on because I'm a feeler. I feel everything and I always want to talk about it. But there is a fine line between what am I momentarily feeling and what is actually honest in my mind. Because like if I slept on it, am I going to feel the same way in the morning or am I

going to reflect back and be like, I should have eaten a sandwich that was really hungry. Yeah. And so we always talk through what's an impulsive emotion that you feel in the moment? and is it truly honest with how you deep down feel and that gets confusing especially as a parent because rage comes in

and emotions come in and overwhelming sensations come in and you're just like I just need a second to breathe and I lashed out or to exactly what you were saying is like what's reoccurring what keeps popping up

that I can't deny you have to have impulse control because you kind of become the boy who cried wolf if every day I'm lashing out with impulsive emotions, but at the same time saying I still feel this all the time, that can get very confusing for you to navigate. If you're lashing out every single day,

that's on me. Something's causing that, right? And so then that's figuring out, what's the root of this? Because it isn't like the cereal bowl is left out. It is probably that you're like feeling unsupported or, you know, whatever, whatever the thing is. My second book is called Stretch Too Thin,

how working moms can lose the guilt. Work smarter and thrive. And that's all around, like, kind of identifying those pain points. So we could sit and have a whole other hour conversation about that. So you need a glass of wine for that one. Yeah. All moms are stretched too thin. Yeah. Since you mentioned the second book, and you briefly mentioned fringe hours. Yeah. What is that one about for the list? So fringe hours is all about making time for yourself. It's a book for women around making time for self-care because it's so important. I think so many women are not operating with that oxygen mask philosophy of taking care of yourself before you take care of everyone else. And so it's how do you find those times? How do you prioritize it and kind of have it be part of your

every day? And then stretch too thin dives into working motherhood. And then now we're here talking I thought it would be better than that. You know what is funny about the thing you said about the oxygen mask? And it just goes to show my moms every single time I hear that when they're like, make sure you put the oxygen mask on yourself before. I'm like, no way. I will ever do that. It's going to my babies first. Put it on yourself before. Right, but you could pass out and not be able to help your babies because you didn't do it. I get it.

Or I might not make it to my babies in time if I take too long for me. But it is exactly what you said though. Moms think about themselves last and you should work on it a little bit. Yeah. Are you hopeful to get remarried? I would love to be remarried. Yeah, I

loved being married. I love being a partner. I love what it feels like to have an everyday companion so I hope that that is part of my story someday um but I feel like I have to hold all of it loosely you know but yeah I do hope that's my story it has been very different being with a heteronormative man like it just I in ways that I couldn't imagine having only ever having been with a husband who turned out to be gay but I mean it is different it's definitely different is it better worse oh guys it's great yeah it's great I was cheerlea.

Yeah, no, it is. But it's funny, the guy that I'm dating, John, he's, like, very into sports. Yeah. Matthew was not into sports. I mean, let's just talk about a fun stereotype right there. Matthew was, we never had football on or anything. And John, it's like, football's on or baseball, something's always on. And I'm like, I know most women would be like, can we turn it off?

But I'm like, I love this. I'm here for, like, the manness of this. So we joke about it a lot. You mentioned a lot of times about listening to your body. Was there ever a point during your grieving process that you hadn't done that or you didn't do that, that you can contrast, hey, this is what it looks like to listen to your body. This is what it looks like not to. I think I have a real awareness of what I need and recognizing and then taking care of that need. So before, I just ignored it.

I really put myself last in a lot of ways. whether that was a physical need, an emotional need, a spiritual need. Like, I just ignored it because I was trying to take care of my kids, take care of my husband, save my marriage, grow my business, whatever. I was not paying attention to my body at all. And now I'm acutely aware of it. I have yo-yoed completely in the other direction. And I am really aware of, gosh, I haven't been eating well. and I am noticing how I'm feeling and I haven't slept a lot.

I need to get more rest or I haven't been with my boyfriend in a bunch of days. Man, I really could use some company, you know, like just recognizing how all of those things feel and not ignoring them. I think I spent a lot of years ignoring my needs for the purposes of taking care of everyone else. And that was detrimental. And when I only had myself, I started to focus on that more. And that was really transformative for me. In church yesterday, they did baptisms. And it was interesting.

I never really thought about this. The whole thing has always been awkward to me. We go to like this non-denominational church. And they always give these people like the old school gym shorts that are cotton. And then they're whispering to each other and they dip it. And you're like, it's great. Did you just say and they dip it? Yeah.

They need a dip and it's good. But what was fascinating is I was actually almost brought to tears yesterday. I didn't tell you this. Two adults got babes. baptize sequentially and they had a kid. Just the realization that the dream can die of the marriage or the career or whatever, everything in your context may remain the same. You have kids still like you did before the marriage ended. You still have kids now. You know, you're working a similar job, but your approach to it totally changes, you know, and like just that the representation of that

kind of hit me yesterday of, man, really nothing changed, but everything can when you approach it differently. And so I think your book does a great job at walking people through how to navigate that. Like, yeah, I thought a lot of things could be better than it than they are. But I guess it's kind of up to us to make them a little better, you know, and get it to that vision. So thank you for the book. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. It was important to me to be able to tell my story. I think it's kind of a unique book because it's not just self-help and it's not just memoir. It really straddles the line of both where people might be able to see themselves in different parts of my story but also there's so much that they can grab onto there's like a SWAT analysis and different

questions that you answer and like just different things that you go through it so that you really can apply your story to it so it was it was fun to put together but I was really intentional in that so thanks for saying that I love that so happy you came on thank you had to come back please we got to talk through all these other books too yes I mean I've got a lot more to say yeah do it for those listening that want to hear more about Jessica and check out her book I thought it would be better than this, releases this spring. You can click down below for links to our social media and the book. But Jessica, thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having me.