The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast - Third Time's The Charm?

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Would you give up on love if you were married and divorced 3 times? Jennifer Fessler is passing the mic to her sister Robin to share her unique road to finding love after a handful of heartbreaks. What has this marriage counselor learned when it comes to communication? Why does she still desire companionship? These sisters unpack how one relationship even tore them apart for a period of time. Plus, you'll be shocked to find out what kind of relationship she's currently in and who it's with!Email us at: [e-mail] or call us at 844-4-I Do Pod (844-443-6763)Follow I Do, Part 2 on Instagram and TikTokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hi, guys. It's I do part two and I am one of your celebrity mentors, Jen Fessler. And today I am so freaking excited because normally I'm talking with, I'm talking, we usually talk to like celebrities on the show. This celebrity is actually none other than my sister, Robin Gutterman. And she's not really a celebrity, but she's a celebrity to us. Hi, Robbie. Hi, hi, Jenny. So happy to be here. Oh, I am thrilled to have you. And like most people, you guys, though, she has gone to Robin's rather unique story. So, firstly, a little bit about, I guess, just us. So you guys may think that Robin is the older one just based on looks, but I'm actually 14 months older than my sister. Yes, and she's always been perfect, beautiful little blonde. Not true. of you it is so true and uh but robin and i are as we've gotten older i mean we had our fights

right over the years you had lots of them there's a time actually with your second husband who we can remain nameless but um where we didn't speak for like over a year right yeah yeah we didn't get along during that relationship i think you weren't happy with that relationship at all and it was tough one for you to watch, I think. Yeah, it was. But it doesn't really matter when it comes to sisters. You know, where Robin and I are very, very close. So we're going to get into all things Robin's love life. So, Robbie, let's just like, you know, this show is about love the second time around. And in our family, a lot of times there's a second time around, there's the third time around, there's the fourth time around. Our parents have been married and divorced.

I don't know. You want to count? I mean... I think seven, six or seven combined? Between them? Yes. Yes. Well, now add me in.

And now, yes. Yes, and you're the only one who's been on the first. Yeah, but you know what? I host this show because I'm also kind of on my part two in the sense that we were separated for a year and a half and things definitely changed after that. But for once, you'll be happy to hear Robin. It's not about me. All right. So let's just like, you know, talk a little bit about let's go one marriage at a time. So Robin has been married. Well, you tell everybody. I've actually been married three times. Married three times, divorced three times. So, but we'll get, you know, let's start with your first marriage. Tell us a little bit about how you met your first husband, what that was like, what you think happened there, how that ended in divorce. My first husband, I met in college in Austin. And we were best first. friends. Our personalities were very similar. We just, we were kind of the partiers, and we had a little

group of partiers, and we were just friends. But I started to like him, and I was actually dating someone at the time, and I started to like him, and I moved to New York after college, and he moved back to Miami, and we remained friends. And he started coming for business to New York, and we ended up going out one night and that was it we were dating long distance for a year i think it was a little over a year and then he basically said either you need to move to miami or you know this is over because he didn't want to continue with the long distance all right why not i was living in new york city at the time waiting tables had just finished getting my graduate degree and so i moved and And, you know, he was my best friend, the person that I laugh with.

I don't know if I ever felt a crazy in love spark. I felt a, you'd be the best father. You have a phenomenal family. And we were best friends, and he was Jewish. I mean, he kind of checked all the boxes, right? He was good looking, tall. We all loved him. I mean, you know, everyone loved him.

Everyone our family loved him. Yeah. I mean, he's just good people. Like, there's nothing that I can really say in a negative way about who he is as a person at all. Do you think that when you were walking down the aisle, did you know it was wrong? Like, I think about how mom always says that when she was walking down the aisle with dad, she knew what was wrong and grandma had no problem telling her she was making a mistake. I think I got emotional before I walked down the aisle because my friend was actually getting together with a guy I used to date on the day of my wedding. and I still had like a little tinge left a feeling for him. So I was walking down the aisle and that was the thing I was thinking about. You know, like F you're sitting here dating someone I dated. I don't, I don't know.

I don't know with our family what I thought I was supposed to feel or have. I just thought that he was going to be just a great man to be with. You know, he was just going to be, he was smart, ambitious you know um had a business degree i mean he checked he checked the boxes and he was my best friends and that's just i just thought that it was going to be him so you guys were married how many years was it i think it was seven when you had jake and daniel yeah and what do you think happened well we ended up um there was the period of time where you know most Ben. He was the breadwinner for a minute. And he had a business with his parents and they shut

down his business in Miami. And so I think he fell into quite a bit of a depression. It was the only thing that he had really known. They were in the toy business. And so I think it was really, really difficult for him after that. And at the same time, I had decided I wanted to get a second master's degree. So I was looking at doing that. And then I got it. opportunity in Boca. We were living in Weston at the time. I got an opportunity in Boca to run a treatment center. And so my salary went up. Just tell the people. So Robin is a therapist. And was specializing in the time in drug and alcohol. Yeah, an addiction. Addiction. So I had gotten an opportunity to run a treatment center, a big treatment center in Boca. And so my career was kind of

going up up and he could not find the right job for him at all and he was very depressed he was kind of became a stay-at-home dad he was the one taking the kids to school and picking them up and he was basically in his underwear every day on a laptop trying to create business in the same field and it wasn't working out um and my my life was crazy I was driving an hour back and forth from Boca to Weston every single day, leaving early in the morning, getting home late. And I don't think that helped our marriage at all. There was no nurturing going on in the marriage. It was really just about the kids and work at that point in time.

And then if I'd be brutally honest about it all, I ended up meeting someone while I was working at the rehab and ended up having an affair. And he found out about it. When you look back on that, where do you think without, if you hadn't had an affair, do you think you guys would still be married? You know, it's funny. People ask me that all the time. I don't know. I mean, when I talk to the kids, they say absolutely not. We wouldn't have. But there was nothing. He is an awesome person. You know, as a whole person, he's a good person. I don't always think he was the best parent, but he was a good husband and he was a good friend. And I can't say anything negative. I just think I was never really in love with him. And I found someone that I became head over heels with. And unfortunately, he found out about it.

We tried to make it work. He also, right, you guys tried. And he didn't want it to end. I remember him saying to me back then, I think I said to him at one point, his name was, well, okay, we're not going to say his name, actually. Like, you got to, you should go. This is not, because I knew that you were, you had checked out the marriage, right?

I had definitely checked out. I would probably say, talking about addiction, I came into this almost obsessive, addicted state with the person that I was seeing at the time. And it was a lot. It was a lot, things that happened. We tried to go to couples counseling. And, you know, of course, the contingency was,

I could never talk to this guy again, see him again, whatever it was. And I knew while I was doing couples counseling, I was not going to stop. I had no doubt in my mind. I thought maybe I could go to counseling, and the counseling would put my head back in the right direction, right? Your family, your kids, all the things that people talk to me about on a daily basis, right? Their priorities, their work, their family, you know, their home, all of those things. And people don't get divorced for that reason.

Most of the time in my profession, and now I work as a marriage therapist, which is the most hilarious. Yes. But at this point, that's what I hear about. People don't want to get divorced because they don't want to mess up the kids and their fear of what would happen to them. I didn't have any of that fear of what was going to happen to my kids. I knew I was a great mom. But I figured give it a shot. Maybe something in me would change with the counseling. All these years later, you've said to me, it always sticks with me. You always say like how you don't really get jealous of me and I don't get jealous of you. There's one thing I'm jealous of you for. Jeff Fessler? Jeff Fessler. Not Jeff Fessler per se, my marriage. Correct.

Because you have said to me, right, like, that you, I guess at the time, when we came from so much divorce. Even when I was separated, I wasn't, I just thought that's how the world worked. I wasn't really that worried about my kids. Yeah. I was worried about them, of course, it's natural to be. And then when I saw how sad they were, like they would go with Jeff away for a weekend or he would take them and they would come back,

distraught. I don't think, well, we actually, when we would leave, we would, we would, we would I would, we would leave dad. I was, we had that sadness. But the thing is, I didn't foresee it to me. Divorce is just, that's what people do, you know, it didn't. And all of a sudden, I was like, wait a second. Yeah. And I was, the kid thing was brutal. Your kids were older though. Yeah. Right. My kids were three and four years old. I don't even think the only conversation, the only thing they remember, which Jake likes to tell me, my. 27-year-old, that the only thing he remembers about us living together was the day that we sat them down and told them we were getting divorced. Now, my son doesn't remember what he did

yesterday, but okay, that's what he says. I remember telling my kids that day. I remember all of that. I remember Rachel saying to me, what about all our traditions? What about going that's so Rachel? I know. And I'm sick. Even saying it out loud, I want to throw up. But I guess we're just talking about it because weighing it now, you know, and knowing that you feel that way and you didn't realize you were going to feel that way, maybe at the time, just like, I don't think I realized how hard it was going to be watching my kids, you don't deal with it. But anyway, but would you do it differently? No. I wouldn't do it differently, but just as you had started saying, the moments that we're like at Thanksgiving, right? Because no one in our family is divorced except for me. I always thought of think of everyone's divorce because of our kids of our all of us right the kids yeah yeah all the I'm the only one divorced so when you guys are preparing things and fun things are coming up and making family memories I'm making them but I they're the connection that you guys have right with your children together that bond I guess is what I always say to you

I don't have that yeah I don't have that and that's definitely sad for me that makes me Sammy, I just want to cry. Everything makes you want to cry. That's true. I mean, if I was to go back, no, I wouldn't change it. Do I feel, listen, the kids know about the affair. I was never dishonest with my children when they were old enough to know. Marriages, though, don't die from an affair.

They die from the things that led up to the affair that you didn't deal with. And, of course, the betrayal from the affair hits differently than other things that are problematic in a marriage. But it's so funny. While you're saying this, I'm thinking, I wanted you to come on to tell your story. And we could just spend a whole session because you're a marriage counselor. Like that whole part of it, I was like, oh, you know what? I was telling Heather my producer, I got to have my sister on.

She's been through it. Not at all thinking, but it's different. This is personal. This is your stuff that's, you know, it's a different discussion. It's personal, but it's also, you know, interesting that I ended up doing this, right? Because this is where I feel probably the most connected with my clients and my ability to jump in and understand where they're at. Hey, everybody, this is Matt Rogers and Bowen-Yang. And you're never going to guess who's our guest on Los Culturistas.

It is Bradley Jackson, Elle Woods, Tracy Flick herself. Reese Witherspoon. Grace must go in a girl's trip. I have to have a tequila. We must. Oh! The Q rating. They run diagnostic on you guys.

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Listen to the Chinatown Stang on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. I was going to ask you, like, after the divorce, what was dating like? And, of course, now I'm thinking there wasn't dating. You were in a relationship. And that's what you tell our listeners a little bit about that. That's the one that I would probably say in a lot of ways. I end up regretting emotionally, for sure.

You got married again. We did. And I guess for some reason that that made my ex-husband, my first husband, actually feel better. He said that to me once, that I didn't just have an affair and that was it. I ended up getting married to the guy that I divorced him for. Like it was more, like it was, it was more important. You didn't just give up on the marriage for fling. Right. Right. He was a very different person than I had probably ever met before. I met him. He was exactly like your father. I don't know what you're talking about. I met him when I was working at the rehab. Yes, they both have

narcissistic traits. But at the time, right, like anyone who gets suckered by someone who has narcissism, he was the most charming person in the room. He would walk in and command attention. He had gone through it. He was an addict in recovery. And right into recovery, he had opened up a halfway house. He came from, he's Egyptian. So he had come from a very well-to-do family. in Boston. So he was highly educated. He had a nursing degree, but was a drug addict. So he was in recovery, ended up very quickly, like moving up the ranks in Boca. He had come down for treatment from Boston and ended up staying. Anyway, so when we first met, it was almost an immediate attraction. Do you think you were addicted to him? Speaking of a, I think you just said that before.

Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. We lost you. You were gone. Yeah. And listen, there was maybe that piece that he definitely had traits of her father. He was brilliant, for sure. He was the most driven person I've ever met. He basically took himself out of the slums to being, I don't know, worth about $80 million now. He built an entire rehab. But along the way, I met him when he was first starting out, but I knew that he was going to be successful. He made me laugh. He flaunt as well, because I know he came from a wealthy family. He didn't come, no, he didn't come from a wealthy family initially. They were actually very, very poor. They came over from Egypt when they were 18 years old to go to school. So dad went to Harvard. Mom went somewhere else. They were very poor and dad made his money in his profession. But yes, he did. They made a lot of money over time. He was in real estate in Boston and was a nurse as well. And yes, one of the traits of his was when he started making money, the whole world had to know he was making money. I mean, it was so narcissistic. I have more than you. I remember when he told Randy, my best

friend Randy, the first time he met her, he said, how much do you make? This is how much I make. I bet I make more than you. She still brings it up. You. Yeah. So, listen, he was driven and dedicated and charming. And I was enamored. I really had never met anybody like him before in that capacity. And I was taken in. Do you think that you were, because I'm comparing it to your first marriage, right, that was, I don't think you were ever scared of your first husband, but I always felt like you were a little scared of your second. You always say that, which is so interesting. Is it not true? I was never physically scared of him. I don't think I was emotionally. I was scared of losing him. Yes, that's what I was scared of. Right. I always felt like I loved him more

than he loved me. He's Muslim. And the way that he sees the world was that we were never going to be partners. As long as he made more money than I did, we were never going to be partners. So what happened in the end? I mean, this relationship was, it became very emotionally abusive. It was, I worked for him. And he had a rehab.

Literally. Right. Literally. I worked for him. He had a humongous rehab in Boga. I was the clinical director. And when we started having problems in our marriage, a lot of times it was related to our communication. And the communication being, if I didn't agree with you, then I was being dramatic and there was something wrong with me. Very narcissistic, right? That's the twist. Narcissists make you feel like you're crazy. Right? They're always right. They're always waiting to fill their ego if you do something that doesn't feel their ego. then you're the problem. So, you know, it was, I was so obsessed with him and keeping him,

but he had all the power in the relationship. I worked for him. He paid my salary. The home we lived in initially was his home. I moved my kids into his home. So there was nothing in my life as he was on the up and up in his career. He was great and generous with money, phenomenally so, because that was also the thing that helped to fuel.

fuel his ego. He helped my kids financially. He paid for camp. He paid for bar mitzvahs. He did all of those things. But he was completely and utterly emotionally abusive. Right. And think about how that affected all, although it certainly affected our relationship. It was just hard for me to watch it, I guess. Yes. Listen, I always stood up for myself. Let's not give myself. I am not some, you know, shrinking violet. I am not a shrinking violent. There was never a time that I did not open up my mouth and give my side, but it didn't matter what my side was because I was always wrong. In the end, what do you think was the clincher? Honestly, he'll never admit it, but he was cheating on me at that point.

I think he was cheating on me. He had a gambling problem at the time as well. And I think that he was going out. Who knows if he had cheated on me before? He had relapsed at one point. But that really wasn't a big part of the issue, to be honest. with you. I have great boundaries when it comes to relapse, and he didn't really. At least while we were married, I was told that he did at times drink, but he never did it around me

and I couldn't prove anything. But at the end of the day, it was what I believe was an affair. What I believe was impulsive behavior in a lot of different ways. If you were to ask him, he would say that the wedding was, us getting married was wrong from day one. that's what he likes to tell people. When you look back on it, would you do it again? No. I think it was a toxic relationship, and I was definitely part of the toxicity, you know, in terms of you have to be a really great codependent to be with a narcissist. God, Robin. I have to write that down. I'm sure you said it to me before. I have to put quotes around it and make it into a poster. Yeah, it's kind of that piece of you end up when people you say that you're codependent.

It's really that you kind of begin to do things at the expense of your own values. You cross your own lines of things you never said you do, things you never said that you'd put up with, right? Things that you felt that you never thought that you would stay involved in something that you felt hopeless in. And your whole life becomes about making the other person happy, trying to identify with the other person. right? You lose your own identity for the sake of fitting into somebody else's. And I think that's what happened. And by that time you get so worn down emotionally that you almost begin to believe that you're the problem. Yeah. So, you know, just in terms of family and how all this affects family. So we didn't talk for a lot of that marriage. You weren't married

for that long. How long were you actually married? Four years. Four years. So we probably didn't speak half. I don't remember. We didn't speak when you got married. We didn't. Well, we were together for 11 years, interestingly enough. Yeah. During that marriage, that was when we were, like, I almost didn't go to the wedding. And then we stopped speaking, but we reconciled, I think the day, the day like you knew that you guys were in trouble and you reached out to me and you like, I need my sister. Yeah. But, I mean, I think we didn't speak because I just didn't like the way you were when you were around him.

I didn't like, I didn't, I wasn't a fan, you know, he, he and I just, we butted heads. But I mean, for you and I not to speak, I was also going through my shit. As a matter of fact, is that when I was separated? That's when you came to Florida for the summer. Right, that's when I went to Florida. And for that summer, Jeff and I had separated. And, I mean, I think you were a big Jeff Fessler fan. You probably could see that I was, you know, fucking things up in my life.

my own life we just but I don't think you could see that at the time either I don't think just kind of like when people were telling me what I was doing and I was so invested in what I was doing I couldn't see it I don't think at that time you were able to see the concern about you know some of what was going on on your end of it I think it was just I don't know you tell me I don't know what it was for you my shit is so complicated I think that a lot of had to do with our childhood that I thought I was always so insecure growing up and so miserable and needed this tension from men. I think I had such daddy issues. I mean, Jeff had an affair. Obviously, that set things in motion, but we'd stop connecting, really. I mean,

we were the cliche seven-year itch and the kids, the kids, the kids, and we weren't focused at all on each other. And I didn't feel the spark. And I defined spark today very differently than I did when I was in my 30s. It was also that attention piece for you, too. I think at that point in time, especially after how you felt with the betrayal of what happened, I think you were looking to be filled, right, by something outside of you that was just going to make you feel better. Yes. But I'm going to try to not make this all about me, which you know is difficult for me, my narcissistic tendencies.

I don't think so. Anyway, so, all right, so that marriage ends, and that was, you had a road to recovery, certainly. That was not easy. That was brutal. Were you thinking, like, first of all, did you think you'd ever get married again after that? No, because I didn't know how I was going to live another day without a minute, to be honest with you. Yeah. And if it wasn't for you guys and another friend who literally basically took care of my kids with me, but was at my house every night for a year.

And, you know, my best friend in Dallas, but I think that for me, it was just how am I going to breathe in and out. And that's the destruction of being in such a narcissistic relationship is I didn't even know who, what, where I was coming from after that marriage, how I was going to live without this guy who was emotionally abusive because that's what I had learned was okay. And I literally did. Like, I didn't know how I was going to survive it. It was the worst year or two of my life for sure. Yeah. It was a hard one. And then you started dating again.

You had several boyfriends, actually, right? That is when I did a Jen Fessler. So I decided I was going to date every human on the planet and just have fun and not care. That's what I was going to do. Like, whatever, I don't want anything serious. Did you have fun? Oh, I had a blast. I had a blast.

I probably dated more guys in two years and I dated my entire life. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. And so. So, I mean, would you recommend that? people, just personally, I don't mean professionally, but after divorce, like, because you

jumped into the first marriage, the second marriage, I mean, you ended up getting married again, but you would say, pick your time, right? For first take care of you, make sure you're healed, right? That, you know, put someone under you to get over the other thing. What is that expression? Well, yeah, that's dad or father, you say. The only way to get over someone is to get under someone else. Yeah, I don't necessarily I don't necessarily think that, but I think that rebuilding yourself is a process. So I think going out and having fun where you're trying to heal is more important, you know, than just acting stupid, but definitely go and have fun for sure.

And, okay, so tell us about your third husband. Yes, his name's John. God, we met a couple years. I was dating people for a couple years before I met John. We met on Match.com. I had been on some of those, you know, all of those stupid whatever sites. And he was the only one that I actually reached out to first, which I find so interesting. I do, too.

Yeah, he was the only person. That and the guy I dated before him. But, and we met at a bar restaurant in Boca Raton. And just, he was just such a breath of fresh. from the second I met him, like just manners. And I don't even know how to explain it. He was cute. He was well put together.

And we hit it off from the get-go. There was something about him Jewish, and I had been with someone who wasn't. So it almost felt like coming home a little bit, being with someone I could just connect to in that capacity. Yeah. And it was personality-wise from the get-go, we had so many things in common. Um, the things we like to do were both big wine drinkers. Um, very into red wine back then. Very into travel. The hobbies. Yeah. Movies. TV, working out. Just there was, it was, there was an easiness that I had not been with. Probably since my first husband. Right. I wasn't, there wasn't any

anxiety or you're saying the wrong thing or he just genuinely liked me for who I was. Um, And the fact that he just thought it was pretty was also helpful. A little cuter. I'm a little cuter than him. So, okay. So what happened? We started immediately dating and we just kept seeing each other, seeing each other. And this was at the point in time, I think, when I told you I wanted to move to New Jersey.

It was right before I met him. Right, right. So after our third date, I told him that I was still looking to move to New Jersey. and he ended it because of that. He's like, I don't want to do a long distance on here, you're there. So we didn't talk for a couple of months. And then on his birthday, which is the 29th of December, I decided, I had been thinking about him. I decided to reach out and wish him happy birthday.

We started texting back and forth. And I told him I was going to be with you at the Boker Resort for, remember, the New Year's Eve party? Yes, yes, yes. And he said he was going to be with you. was going there as well. He said, maybe you can come by and say, hello. I had another date. I know.

Remember that? Yeah, we had, yes, we had to like, like sneak away. And I came with you to go see John. It was like a whole thing. I felt terrible. Pulled me into your web of deceit. I know. I left my other, my boyfriend of two years at the time to go.

Well, he wasn't your boyfriend because you were seeing. No, John and I had broken up. And so I got back together with. my ex-boyfriends. I didn't put that in for like a brief minute in time. Yeah. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen-Yang. And you're never going to guess who's our guest on Lost Cultureistas.

It is Bradley Jackson, Elle Woods, Tracy Flick, herself. Rees Witherspoon. Rees must go in a girls' trip. I have to have a tequila. We must. Oh! The Q rating.

When they run diagnostic on you guys. I'd be scared. I'll run the Q rating. No, on the Q rating on us. My resiliency score is down to adequate because we were on a red eye. My resiliency score. My grit. I got to get my grit score up.

Now, don't think that you're going to come out Los Culture East. That's the podcast. And we're not going to at least bring up Big Little Lies season three. Whoever said orange is the new page. We seriously disturbs. Listen to Las Culturistas on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos.

Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time, as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians. I would be the first immigrant mayor in generations, but 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of this country. Artists and activists, I mean, do you ever feel... demoralized. I might personally lose hope. This individual might lose the faith, but there's an institution that doesn't lose faith. And that's what I believe in. To bring you depth and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. There's not a single day that Paola and I don't call or text each other sharing news and thoughts about what's happening in the country. This new podcast

will be a way to make that ongoing intergenerational conversation public. Listen to the moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. I would love for you to share your breakdown on pivoting. We feel sometimes like we're leaving a part of us behind when we enter a new space, but we're just building. On a recent episode of Culture Raises Us, I was joined by Volisha Butterfield,

media founder, political strategist, and tech powerhouse for a powerful conversation on storytelling, impact, and the intersections of culture and leadership. I am a free black woman who worked really hard to be able to say that. I'd love for you to break down. Why was so important for you to do C. You can't win as something you didn't create. From the Obama White House to Google to the Grammys, Belichia's journey is a masterclass in shifting culture and using your voice to spark change. A very fake, capital-driven environment and society will have a lot of people tell half-truths.

I'm telling you, I'm on the energy committee. Like, if the energy is not right, we're not doing it, whatever that it is. Listen to Culture raises us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more. And found the shrimp to make it to the other side.

My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast, it's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it has echoed, and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories.

I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of Tangled Up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of family secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Anyway, all right, so long story short, because I can't, you ended up married. And then you ended up divorced. Correct.

Tell us what happened. Yes. We dated for a year and then we were in love with each other and decided to get married. Same dream, same values, same everything. And three weeks after we got married, I think we were on our honeymoon. No, not on our honeymoon. A little while after that, maybe a couple, sorry, I lied, three months later, we were away on vacation. We were with you in Boston.

No, in Cape Cod. And John got a call on the way home that his father was in the hospital. This is after three months of marriage. Long story short, it was the worst thing. His father died soon after. And I think John and his father were best friends and had a business together. And, you know, he was his hero. He was John's hero.

And John fell apart from that. At the time, they had just switched businesses as well, one company to another. They were at a brand new transition to another company. They're both financial advisors. So new transition to a company that wasn't working out very well. His father's death. We definitely had differences in our parenting style.

He had a young child at the time. And my kids were in high school. And I initially didn't want to be with someone who had a young kid. I didn't want to be a parent again. Been there, done that. No desire. to parent your kid and his daughter at the time had been through a lot. She was young. She was four or five years old when I met her. Yeah. And we couldn't see I die on the parenting at all.

You would have stayed married, even with all of that. You always say that. You would not have gotten divorced. No. You did not want another divorce. I would not have gotten divorced. I don't think he was in an emotional space to deal with the things that I was bringing to the marriage of things that weren't working, things that I wasn't okay with, things about parenting that I didn't like, the custody stuff he had going back and forth. It was a lot. And listen, obviously, he has his side of who I was. I can't really think about anything I did wrong, but other than being a bitch, because I am. But I really can't. Like, I can fault myself for a lot of things I did wrong in my marriages. I think that the aftermath of my second marriage, I can say, emotionally for me at

times. And I was still going through it with him in terms of finances, even when John and I married, I was still going through it with my ex. And I think that there were so many issues there. I think he knows that this guy still had a piece of my heart as toxic as I knew it was at this point. I think the issues that arose from that relationship were difficult

financially. He had a lot my second husband was very, very wealthy and John has a good living. But the only thing that I could count on in that second marriage was the money. And it was probably more money than I had ever had in my own right or been with

someone who had that kind of money. That definitely. Right. And it kind of took away the emotional pain at the time that I had money. And so John was just a guy who made a good living. Right? I mean, successful in his own right. You argued about money. Always argued about money. Because now I felt like I needed to be taken care of financially because I was taking care of financially. I didn't have anything else in the second marriage. But I was taking care of financially. So now I wanted to be taken care of. And John wasn't really in that position. We had both been married before to take care of me. right right so okay so you ended up getting divorced so okay but there is after a year after a year right after year of marriage so that what happened tell us about where we are today so after that marriage i'm like that's it i'm done i'm not getting married i moved out got an apartment and for a year we didn't really speak at all only when it was in reference to things we needed to speak about out, right? So the belongings, the divorce. Selling the house. Selling that's right. All of that stuff. But there was always an underlying kind of, I miss you. But he wanted the divorce. I did not. And even though

there were issues in it, I'm like, I am not doing this again. I love this guy. I married him. I wanted it to work. So I felt very betrayed. He was the one who asked for the divorce. He was the one who couldn't do it anymore. And he knew that it wouldn't have been me who wanted to do this. And he was in a bad space. So we talked, didn't really talk, but talked, you know, for the, for reasons we needed to. But every now and then there'd be, and I miss you, I miss you too. But I'm too hurt. And I don't, you had your chance and you lost me. And that's it, right? Black and white thinker. So it went on like this for a while. And then one day he called. He called. called me up and said, I really need to make amends for our marriage.

Are you willing to meet me? So I did. I met him at a cute little place we used to go to together. And he was crying. And he said, I did this all wrong. I gave up on you. I gave up on us. I wasn't emotionally capable of being present in this marriage.

I wasn't able to take on, you know, any accountability. for why it went wrong. And he, you know, he basically just fell apart. He said it was my fault. I should not have given up on this. And I didn't with all the other trauma and all the other things going on in his life and us disagreeing on certain things. We couldn't handle it.

So he apologized. We started talking after that. And it was a lot of talking, you know, hours and hours and hours of talking. And I still was like, that's it. I'm not, you know, I can't. can't go backwards. I've done this enough. And he wouldn't stop calling. And eventually he asked me if I would meet him again. And I did. And slowly over time, we got back together. I wouldn't sleep with him for months. I remember that. That was like the punishment, right? Use sex as the

thing. And not really because, not because I wanted you to wait. Because I was so angry about what had happened, even though I was kind of bringing him back in my life. I wasn't going to let myself lose that part of this kind of control that it was going to go the way I wanted, how I wanted at my pace. So, yeah, so we've been back together. Ten years plus. Ten years plus. Robin, the big question, the burning question, why didn't you get married again? I hope he's not listening to this podcast right now. Why? I don't think you're saying anything. No, I can't ever say, that I wouldn't get married again. At this point in my life,

he lives in Boca and I live in New Jersey. Which, by the way, I think has worked out beautifully. I'm a big fan of not being on top of each other in a marriage. I mean, that's really not on top of each other. No, I mean, he comes every two weeks, right? So I see him a lot. Right, of course. I see him a lot.

He would love to be together more. He's heard me say it. I'm okay with it. Like, I find that it has really, made our relationship blossom. He's the greatest man to me. No man's ever treated me better than this man treats me. You always tell me that.

My whole family tells me that. He is so good to you. He's almost too good at times. So I want to say, you know, get some balls somewhere. Be mean to me every now and then. He just can't do it. It's not in his DNA. So he wants to get remarried.

I just don't know if I necessarily. see a point. We've already separated everything the first time. We went through lawyers the first time. It didn't work out. Do you think that a lot of that is just about the fact that you're now after three marriages just like how great can marriage be, really? I mean, I'm thinking about it like it didn't work out. It didn't work out. Now things are working out. Right. Have worked out. They actually did work out. I mean, you guys are going to be together forever regardless. Yeah, they did work out. And I think that we already consider ourselves married. You know, we both wear our rings at this point. We're completely committed. We're not with anyone or have any desire to be with anyone else. We, our relationship, he would say it too, is the best it's ever been. We laugh all the time. I always tell you, everything, we have so many things in common, finish each other's sentences, or take that back. He thinks he can finish mine all the time, which actually annoys me. but right I talk and then he finishes my sentence I'm like hi I'm sitting here you don't need to finish my sentence I got it

but um I don't need to I don't I don't we're together I don't see a reason for it at all I'm on his insurance without being married right so it's it just it works for us um I know he really wants that I think it's very important to him but at this point of my life I'm not ready yeah they're doing it again yeah no I mean I mean, listen, for me as your sister who loves you more than anyone, I just see you so happy now. It's like, but then again, and I think also maybe part of that is that you don't need the financial security like you used to. I mean, I think that for a lot of women, you know, they're home raising kids and they're not necessarily working and although the hardest job in the world. But, you know, their career hasn't blossomed like their husband's has. And that can be scary, right?

but yours, you have a full, serious career. So I don't know if that's, you know, how much that would have to do with it. I mean, listen, it wasn't, he wasn't taking care of me financially when we were married. So, John, I mean, we were 50-50 all the way through. So there wasn't, he wasn't taking care of me, and that was part of the problem in the marriage at the time, is that I just, you know, again, call me traditional. I just always felt like he should pay for a little more. He's the man. And he didn't.

And that might be an unwoke way. way to say things, but that's the truth. I just don't. It didn't happen. And you are right, though. There is a freedom in not having to rely on anybody, right, for your life and to have someone in it because you want them in it, not because you need them in it. Yeah, I love that.

I mean, any, like, I don't know. I mean, obviously, you give advice for a living. I mean, that's what you do. And I know you believe in marriage. I mean, I know how much you love my marriage, how much you love. my relationship with Jeff, well, you're so close to Jeff. But, I mean, that's, maybe we need another to do another pot on it. But like, you know, for your kids in terms of like, because I always say to my kids now,

like it's, it's probably the most important decision that you'll ever make, right? Who you pick as a life partner. It's so funny because I don't say that to my kids at all. You don't? Nope. Both my kids believe in divorce. I don't. And not because they don't want to be in a loving relationship.

They do, obviously. everyone goes into a marriage hoping that it's their life partner, but you know what? Sometimes your life partner's not your first partner, sorry. And we grow and we change and we have to do our best while we're in a marriage to try to nurture it, to give it the presence, the time that it deserves, right, to deal with the things that keep it together and make it the number one priority in our lives. Our children should not be a number one priority. They are as important, but they should not be the number one priority in a marriage.

The marriage should be. And I don't think, I don't think we do that enough. So I think if we put in all that we can put in and things happen and things change and you, you fight like hell to try to stay in it, but if you are unhappy, you do not stay. That is not your most important decision to stay in something. You stay in it for the things that, right? I always mean it like, well, I just think I see so much, obviously, what is it, more than half of marriages end a divorce. But it's just, I don't know. I think if you have to really like the person and love, but also really, it's a choice that I think is, can just affect you.

Can affect your happiness? I don't know. That's for another pod because. It is. It is. But they, I think they, they're good with where, with where I'm at. And I think that, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. They love John. I mean, I think they'd be happy if you got married, but I think they're okay if you don't. I mean, they care more about their own lives than giving a shit if I get married for a fourth time, to be honest with you. Yeah, that's true, too. You know what I mean? He's the guy for the last 10 years and they love him and they treat him like he treats them like they're his.

So, I mean, he's the best and they love him and I'm happy and it works. Third time around. Fourth time. Four time. I don't know. I don't know. It's a lot. It's a lot.

Thank you. I love you so much. Thanks for having me. I'll talk to you later. Love you. Bye. Wow. Right?

She's the best. I'm very, very, very lucky and blessed to have her as a sister. and she's actually helped me so much in terms of my marriage and our issues, and she's been through it. So, but it worked out, and that's the point, right? Well, that's what we hope for anyway. So, one more time, Robbie, if you're listening, thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing your journey. You guys, are you thinking about reconciling with an ex?

Have you been through a couple of divorces? Do you need help finding love again? Call us or email us. All the info is in the show notes. Follow us on socials. Make sure to rate and review the podcast. I do part two and I Heart Radio Podcasts where falling in love is the main objective. Tequila.

We must. Oh! Whoever said orange is the new pink. We seriously disturbs. Listen to Las Culturistas on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through

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