We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 189. Abby for the 1st Time On Divorce & Her Unrequited Love

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

In Part 2 of our deeply personal interview with Abby, she reveals for the first time: 1. Her romance with an unrequited love – someone who strung her along hopelessly for years; 2. Her anguish and rebirth after being arrested; 3. Her sense of loss when being crowned FIFA Player of the Year;  4. Her divorce after fighting for marriage equality – inside her own family and on the public stage; and  5. The night she met Glennon. Before you start the episode, please go back and listen to Part 1 of our interview with Abby: We Can Do Hard Things Episode 188 Abby Wambach: Will I Ever Be Truly Loved? And come back tomorrow for Abby’s *very* special Part 3 bonus episode! ABOUT ABBY WAMBACH: Olympian, Activist, Author, and Co-host of the We Can Do Hard Things Podcast Abby Wambach is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA World Cup Champion, and six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award. She was the United States’ leading scorer in the 2007 and 2011 Women’s World Cup tournaments and the 2004 and 2012 Olympics. Abby is the host of ABBY’S PLACES on ESPN+, in which she showcases what makes her beloved sport of soccer a worldwide sensation. An activist for equality and inclusion, she is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller WOLFPACK as well as the adaptation of WOLFPACK for the next generation, an instant New York Times bestseller. She is a founder and part owner of Angel City FC, the first majority-female-owned soccer team in history, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the non-profit organization Together Rising. Abby lives in California with her wife and their three children. TW: @abbywambach  IG: @abbywambach

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. If you have not listened to part one of this series about the Mary Abigail Wambach, please go back and listen to the first episode. We are interviewing my love, Amanda's sister-in-law, Abby Wambach. The theme that we keep coming back to in Abby's life is love. from birth till now, relentless pursuit of love in all the different forms it's come in her life so far. We've talked about her mom, her love story with her mama, Judy, her love story with soccer, the soccer, the love story of her first marriage. And now we're going to get into one of my favorite topics, which is addiction and what it is.

And I think it can be a different thing for everybody. What I've always thought of when I think about you and your drinking is that you seem to, like a lot of people, use drinking as a way of not knowing something that in your bones you know. For example, in the last episode, you talked a lot about knowing that something was missing in soccer because you got to the highest of the heights and it didn't, as you say, ease your angst. You also had a knowing, and this is all at the same time in your life, that your marriage was not working. But you could not let yourself know that because you are not a quitter. That's true. Because you felt like you were carrying the entire queer, like, future of marriage on your back and you couldn't let this marriage fail because then everyone would be right and it would be proof that gay marriage doesn't work. Because you loved your ex-wife.

And so you couldn't let yourself know that this was never going to work. And so you did what? I drank. You drank. Tell us about drinking and what it was in your life from the beginning. So, I started drinking when I was young, being the youngest of seven kids, being 12, 13, 14 years old, and brothers and sisters off in college, and they're doing the drinking thing. And then they come home for breaks or summer. And they're doing the drinking thing.

They're actively doing it. I learned that that was what people did for fun to, like, blow off. off steam, you know? And belonging, because that's what your big sisters and brothers are doing. Yeah. And I actually noticed, interestingly enough, when I was young, I noticed that they became more vulnerable people while drinking. Oh, that's so true. They would tell me their feelings, we would connect. It looked like fun, you know? And so I got like the memo, oh, this is what we do. And this also supports the idea of splitting myself from soccer player into normal person. Like, oh, I'm going to prove that I can be a normal person as much as I'm going to prove that I can be the best soccer player.

And so I took drinking on as like the thing I did whenever I wasn't playing soccer. I did it through college and then my young adult life. And if I were to be really honest with myself and looking back at all the heartache that I had in my life, it was the very thing that I went to to suppress. At least that's what I thought at the time to fix my heartbreak for whatever situation I was in. And it was a real love-hate relationship that Drinkin was. She was my best friend at times and also the biggest fucking bitch. Yeah. Yeah.

Friend of me. Yeah. And I loved her. I really did. I really felt like this is a part of my identity that I'm going to hold on to for dear life. What did it look like, babe? You're out drinking and then you're private and drinking. It depended on where I was.

emotionally. If I was in a good place, then it was just like free, fun loving, you know, like everybody's out. We're doing, we're doing really fun things. And if I had any kind of heartache or something that I was trying not to know, it would be like me by myself pouring the biggest glass of whiskey you've ever seen as like a quote unquote nightcap. Yep. Wife goes to bed and I'm just sitting alone on the couch with like a six-finger whiskey, a ridiculous amount of alcohol. I was trying to black out. I didn't have the off switch. So until my body fell asleep, that's when I stopped consuming alcohol during certain seasons of my life. I always was struggling with, do I think that, do I think I'm drinking too much? And, you know, I would do it for short periods of time because

soccer for so much protected me from that part of myself. It was like this like safety mechanism that was in place. You couldn't go too far because then, yeah. When I was on the road, I'd be on the road for three weeks. I didn't have a single drink. Totally fine. That's why they say it's not how often you drink. It's how you drink. Even if you only drink once a year, but you lose all of your mind in your life and your relationships. Yeah, I was one of those people too that like was trying to get everybody to drink around me more. Mm-hmm. I had some friends that they could,

they could drink one glass of wine at dinner. And I'm like, the fuck. No. What? No, I don't. I'm like, the bottle is open. You can't just, you can't put that cork back in the bottle. Like, the bottle needs to be finished.

I'm so jealous. Once you pop, you can't stop. It's like crinkles out there. Aren't you just so jealous of those people who can just drink? So, babe, what was your FIFA player of the? year moment with drinking. Like, when did you finally realize, no matter how many rungs down I go on this drinking ladder, it's never going to love me back? Oh, man. Well, I think when she got my mug shot on the ESPN ticker. That'll do it. That'll do it. She did me dirty. She did you real

dirty with that. Tell us the story, please. Tell us the story. Yes. It was a few days after I moved out of my house because of the divorce. I was getting separated for my first wife. And I went golfing and drank too much, lied to my friends, told them I was getting an Uber, and I drove. Oh, baby. I got behind the wheel of a car and ran a red light going back to my apartment. And I was so deep in my own, I don't know, sadness and pity that I actually thought that I was sober. Like I actually believed in my, I was like, oh, I haven't, I will not blow. So I was like, yeah, well, let's do this. And then I blew into the breathalyzer thing.

and I was now convinced that the machine was broken. And I said, this is not right. I need another machine. And of course, I was just completely fucked. And so I remember, you know, they, I had, I had Birkenstocks on that night because I'm a gay person living in Portland, Oregon. They issue you those, right? Yes. And I remember.

being in the jail cell and the other women that were in there, they had all of their shoelaces taken out of their shoes. And so they just kept walking around, they're sliding their feet. And I kept thinking, these people are crazy. This is not where I belong. You know, I remember crying so much before they actually took that mug shot. I literally couldn't stop crying to take the mugshot. And it was a horrific photo. It looked like I was, I don't know, it was the worst night of my life. I think my life is over. As I start sobering up sitting there, I realize, oh my gosh, you do belong here. You are fucked up. You are exactly them. You just got lucky that you were wearing fucking Birkenstocks. What was in the car? So I had been moving all of my

stuff. And that morning I had went and got all of my gold medals, my jewelry. I got a for my hundredth cap playing on the national team. The most valuable pieces to my existence as a person were in my car. The car now is going to get parked on the side of the street because I can't drive my car. And I like begged the police officers. I was like, my whole life is in this one bag. I like need to bring this one bag, please. And so I begged them and they had to. And they had to to check it in at the police department when we got there at the police station. What were the days after that like? What were they like in your home? So surprisingly, my ex picked up the phone because I made my one phone call.

And she picked up the phone and she came and bailed me out of jail next morning. And I went back to the house that she and I. lived in and there were news cameras outside. I thought my life was over. Like, I thought everything that I had spent my life building and doing, playing soccer, traveling the world, fighting for women's equality, I now was going to be put in the category of canceled. And so I hold up in my house. And I remember, I remember just like crying and watching the ESPN ticker and just seeing my mug shot over and over and over again. You're watching it? Like you turned it on to watch it? Oh yeah. Wow. That's very. Yeah. And my my mystistic of you. Yeah. I had to create a statement like a public statement to put out to the press. And the one that I first created was much more mean to myself than the one put out into the world. I was really fucking doing a number. I was beating my.

myself up like nothing. Like I had never been beaten up. I don't know what was happening, but something was happening. And then my agent sat down, my lawyer sat down at the table the next day and explained the process. And in Oregon, where I was arrested, I could enter in what's called a diversion program. And this diversion program would require me to be alcohol and drug-free for one year. I'd have to take drug tests. I'd have to do victim impact panel. I'd have to do therapy that was court ordered and moderated. And when the lawyer told me that I could not legally drink for a year, I like, I let out a kind of, God, I'm getting emotional thinking about it, but It was kind of like the sob that like you scream when like you're a baby just born.

Like you finally got your first breath. And, you know, somebody like took the keys away from me literally. And somebody like took my choice away. And that's all I needed. Like I needed that so much. I needed somebody to be like, can't do it anymore or else you'll be in jail. Like I needed and I needed every second of the shame that that ESPN ticker gave me. I needed all of the wake up call this opportunity gave me.

And it needed to be as big as it was for me to wake up, for me to actually like see what was happening in my life. And I remember in the moment being like, okay, I'm going to make this the best thing that ever happened to me. Like this is, this is horrible right now and sad. And I actually had a 10 stop speaking tour that was happening in one week to college campuses across the country. Oh, Lord. That is a kick in the shorts.

I had to go out into the world in a week. I remember actually being in my first airport a week later. and some person was standing close to me and they had Googled me because they thought it was me. I was wearing like a hat. And I could see my mugshot on their phone. That was the first thing that comes up. Yeah. I was like, oh, so this is how it's going to be, right?

Yeah. And I really wanted to process and proceed with all of that happened with honesty and truth and integrity. and I wanted to be as upfront and honest about it as possible. And so I don't know how this story necessarily ends, but I've been sober ever since that night in jail. That's incredible.

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Okay? But we cannot do a conversation with you about love and unrequited love without talking about the major romantic relationship. in your life that was an unrequited love. And how would you define unrequited? It's when you just desperately love something and it never loves you back. And I actually don't think that it's love. So there would be more, it would be a more complicated answer than that.

But like our cultural definition of unrequited love is when you love something fully and it never loves you back. Like drinking. is unrequited love. Soccer was unrequited love, but it was a lot of amazing things. It's one way love. It's one, but which isn't love. It's a relationship that you're having

with someone who is not having that relationship back with you. Yes. That is sort of this relationship, and you correct me if I'm wrong, that this was a great unresolved, agonizing romance. in your life, the one we're about to talk about.

How would you describe this relationship? How did it start, take us back? Oh. Real softball there. But doesn't everybody have one love where someone someone asks them and they just go, oh, absolutely. Mine parallels yours a little bit of me. So, I mean, I'm happy to go down with this ship, too.

That makes you feel better. Well, I think that I've had a lot of time to think about this over the last almost 20 years. But we met about 20 years ago. And it was early on in my national team career. This person was, she was just completely unique to the kind of person I'd ever met before. Adventurous, active, seemingly like super connected. She was just fucking cool. And I aspired to be the kind of person that,

somebody like her would love. I felt like, oh, this person's going to make me better. You ever met somebody like that where you're like, oh, yeah. Like me? Yeah. Oh, that's sweet. So we met and we fell in love. And I should have seen the red flags early on.

But I didn't because I was so into the fantasy and the idea of this love. And was she straighted? She was straightish. She was straightish. Yeah, she was straightish. Would that be one of the red flags you thought you should have noticed? Well, not always. Not at the time.

Not at the time. She was straight with the side of Abby, I would say. Okay, okay. And she was painfully honest. She had this way of being so brutally honest that it made me trust her. You ever met somebody like that? Yeah. Well, that's a thing with you.

You think if people are mean that that means they're honest and that that's love. Yeah. I don't know. We were living such different lives. And I guess one of the big red flags early on should have been that she was never able to, like, actually define the relationship with me. I was always trying to nail that down in some way. And it was like this elusive. Love is not definable and all this stuff.

But when we were together, it was amazing. And I'd see her for like a week here or a week there for months. And then not months. We would not see each other. And this is not back in the day where texting and stuff was a constant occurrence. You'd have to actually call the person. You have to pay for like Skype minutes. Like it was harder to stay in touch back then.

I know. Yeah. And this was something that went on for a little while, like a year or two. And I think ended. specifically ended because she got engaged. I went, gosh, when was this? I decided after we won the gold medal in 2004 that I was going to go on a solo trip.

And so I drove my Jeep across the country. I was going to go to Moab and Zion and Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon. And on my drive from Florida, I just took a U-turn and went to her house. And I'll start my solo trip by going to visit someone. And if every time you try to take your metaphorical solo trip and your car veers to a certain person or substance or whatever, that might be a sign that this is the distraction you're using from yourself. Yeah.

I drove through the night. It took me 32 hours to get there. A short detour of 32 hours. It was so ridiculous. And so I get there and she's surprised to see me, opens the door and won't let me into her apartment, which I thought was like kind of weird. And so we went and sat on the hood of my Jeep. And then she proceeds to tell me that she slept with somebody that day. And that's why I couldn't come in to the house.

The person was there. I don't know if they were there or not. They were there. She wouldn't let you in the house, for God's sake. I actually don't really have vivid memories of that, the whole experience, but I remember feeling pretty heartbroken. Yeah. And went on my little solo trip by myself. And I was just so sad.

I was so sad and so confused. A couple months later, maybe a year later, I don't know exactly the timeline. but I'm at practice, national team practice. And one of my friends says to me, did you hear so-and-so is engaged? And so-and-so is this person that I've loved. And I, like, you've never, you have probably never seen the blood drain from a human being's face like it did that day. I just, I shut down.

I was like, what? How did this happen without me knowing? We were still in kind of contact, but not like as consistent before. because the sleeping with somebody else was a little bit really hard for me to accept. Well, she goes on. She gets married. She has kids. The whole thing.

And during this time, I get into relationships and get out of relationships. And every single time I would get out of a relationship, I would call her. And there was always still this energy, this, I miss you, I love you, thing. From her too. Yeah, this vibe that was like always there. She was keeping you hang in there. She liked you exactly where you were. And for whatever reason, the fantasy of this love was keeping me there too.

You know, like this wasn't just a horrible one side of like, she's a horrible person and I'm like the good person here. Like I was also a part of this toxic experience. Granted, she was married with children and. probably should have had the integrity to say, I'm going to, I can't do this anymore because I have this whole other life. And she knew that's what you wanted more than anything in the world. So she also knew that keeping you hanging there with her would allow her to have the thing. Yeah. And have you. Yeah. And would keep you from ever having the thing. Yeah. And you would only have this 10% version of her. Yeah. Do you think that there's any part of this.

that has to do with growing up queer in the time you grew up in. In terms of this tragic... Yeah, like broke back mountain. This idea that queer kids are taught that like the, since they can't have out in the open love, that the only kind of love that they can have is like dark and brooding and incomplete. And that what we tell ourselves about that is that that's better. that that's the only real love is the dark underneath mysterious love. And so you stay there because you don't think you can ever have the other thing and you just tell

yourself that that's what's real. Yes. And also P.S. Sister Brokeback Mountain was and is one of my favorite movies to this day because it reminded me so much of this unrequited love. It made me, it like every, I feel like every gay person, at least my. age understands that movie on a totally different level. And in your head, you're like the love that that person has, like broke back love, is they just feel like they have to do this family thing, but their real love is with me.

Yeah. But you actually don't know if that's true. That could be true. And in some of the stories that is true. And in some of the stories, those people have their real love. in that family or that other relationship they're living out. And they're just super interested in this drama and having the best of all possible worlds by having this undefinable, can't get me in trouble because I'm not technically doing anything wrong love on the side.

Yeah. And that's a very precarious situation to be in. Because that's not real. What I have here, that's not real, but you were very real. Yeah. I have a question too. Did you call when you, And your ex broke up was my ex-wife. Yes, your ex-wife. Was so-and-so the first person you called? Yep. Yeah, and I hadn't gotten arrested yet. I hadn't gotten sober yet.

So I was, I made the phone call after a long drinking night out. And I actually, I think in my memory, because I was pretty intoxicated, I asked her to leave her husband and to be with me. Yeah. Thinking, oh, this has to be the thing. This is the thing that's going to fix me. This is what my problem has been all along. God, we so badly want to make sense of ourselves, right?

I did the exact same thing. I did think of it. And, yeah, she said no, obviously. Like she had been saying for 15 years or how, for 13 years. saying, no, but. Yeah. But I love you and I miss you. So I don't know how to, I guess the way that it kind of ends is when I get sober

with some like real helpful therapy, I was able to call her and tell her all of the way, the years of being, what is it called? Like being the strung along. Stung along. the side piece we call that well i mean there was nothing there was nothing physical that ever happened after she got married we never there was no physical it was just this emotional thing that that i think that i realized maybe i was experiencing on my own and and and for the first time as a sober person i got the courage to call her and say this is bullshit and the fact that you have

strung me along for this long, has prevented me from living a full life and probably in many ways prevented me from having a real relationship. Yeah. I told her it was unfair and she agreed. She agreed with everything that I said and was kind and I told her that I never, ever wanted to talk to her again. and not out of like meanness or self-protection, but like I don't want people like that in my life. I don't want people like that that say one thing and do another.

I don't want somebody that says that they love me, but won't ever do anything to prove it. Because that was a whole relationship that was provably making me believe that I was unlovable over and over. and over and over again. You weren't worth choosing. Yeah. And I know that that gayness and sexuality played a little bit of a role in this whole thing,

but I'm good enough to be chosen. You know, and I had to actually say those words. I had to actually be intentional and say the things that I really meant. And I really did love her. And in some ways, this fantasy of the love kept me company for a lot of years. It was a source of a lot of heartbreak. It was also the source of a lot of joy because having those in love feelings is wonderful at times. But I needed to stop it.

I needed to quit and, you know, in good old broke back mountain fashion, it was hard to quit her. But I finally did. Did she put up any resistance? Did she try to rationalize with you? Like, oh, but we can still keep in touch? No. No, she got, okay. She understood.

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Soccer ended and drinking really ramped up. So soccer is over. Your marriage is over. And the drinking is over. Yeah. This is where we are right now. Many of your unrequited loves are over. Can you talk to us about the night at the Palmer House?

It's a seemingly normal event. I have to go do. I'm just about to publish forward the memoir that I wrote soon after I retired. And I'm traveling with a manager kind of person. And they hand me the book of information of the other authors who are going to be there. who are also trying to promote their books for their upcoming releases. And so I scanned through the authors and I'm like, nah, nah, and then I see Love Warrior on there. And I read the little bio that Glennon had.

And it had something in there like about being sober. I was newly sober. And I remember being like, oh, that's a sober person. I've heard of those people, but I've never met one. Yeah, I'm going to talk to that person because the truth is, I really swear to you. Like, I had never really met a sober person before. She didn't know a single sober person. I had created a whole life around me that it was just people who partied to support my addiction, my habit.

So we walk in and we're like running a little late, which is like my biggest pet peeve. And I had said, I don't want to have dinner. And I guess all the authors who we were all going to be up on the stage giving little talks about our books to the librarians to the librarians. So I walk into this backroom backstage. And all the authors are all in there eating. And I'm late. I didn't know that this was like a private backstage event before the event starts. Is it a table with George Saunders, Terry McMillan, Maria Semple.

I didn't know any of those people. I still don't know any of those people. Yeah. All I cared about was meeting the sober person there. And so when I walk in and somebody stands up in the room, that was me. I recognize that it's the person that I actually am there to hopefully talk to at some point. So I walk around, we hug, and then I sit down in my chair. and the way that we were seated, she was away from me and kind of at a weird angle.

So she was in like the peripheral of my vision, not in my clear path. And so I kept talking to this one author and he seemed kind enough, but I kept looking over to her, like more interested in wanting to know what they're talking about over there with her seatmate than I was interested in talking to my seatmate. So then the dinner ends and all the authors like want to take a picture together. And we walk outside and Glennon's like nowhere to be found. I'm like, where is she? You know, she's the reason why I want to take a picture.

But now that you know me so long, you would know where I was now, right? You were in the bathroom. Hiding the bathroom as many times as possible and just hide there for as many minutes as it won't seem weird. Yeah, you were in the bathroom. And then you came back and we all took a picture. So when we are walking to the stage, I finally get the seconds that I'm like hoping to talk to you about. because I had yet to figure out what I was going to include in the memoir forward. And so I really wanted your advice about I just got the DUI.

I knew I could talk to you about it because you're sober. And you just said some things. Like you touched my arm. It was just like electricity. I was like, oh, like a shock. Something happened to my system. And I kind of didn't pay any real attention to it. And then when we sat on the dais, we were seated next to each other.

And I was so glad to be seated next to you. I don't know if you remember what we were talking about on that walk, which is that whoever wanted you to write that book, like the shiny version of you. Yeah. Just when you talk about your two halves. Yes. Everybody wanted you to write it just as your shiny soccer self. Yes. They did not want you to include any of what you call your shadow side, which was really just all the real stuff.

Yeah. in the book because they thought that would tarnish your Captain America reputation. Yeah. You said to me, it was like you thought, it was like you were revealing the deepest, darkest secret. But the first thing you said to me was you probably know what's going on. Yeah. Because you had just gotten the DUI. And I was like, about what?

And you were like, well, it's all over ESPN. And I was like, that doesn't help me. And you said, I just got a DUI. And you said you wanted, you were thinking about including all of your struggles inside your memoir. But you were afraid that people wouldn't like you anymore or something. Yeah. I mean, I think I was afraid of tarnishing the soccer, Abbey legacy, the soccer star legacy. And when you touch me, you said, sweetheart, oh, sweetheart, we in the real world, like,

real people. And it was just like this really simple thing that I think like my intuition and my sober, my newly sober self was like feeling. And when you said that, I was like, yes. It was an invitation to integration. It was an invitation to say to you, you don't have to be these two things anymore. That's right. We want both of you. In fact, what the hell is a memoir, if not all this show? It was an invitation from the soccer world. to the real world where you'd get to be your whole self. That's right. That's interesting.

I've never thought of it that way. Me neither until now. You gave me an opportunity to integrate my two selves in that second. And then you went up and talked about your book that you were publishing. And I was so excited. First of all, you like made me laugh and cry and all the things. And there was just like this unmistakable, unquestionable energy. that was happening between us.

It felt like for the first time somebody was seeing the whole of me and not wanting to discard what I would have called then the shadow side, like the bad Abby, good Abby, bad Abby. You were like, no, like that's the good stuff. You've got this all backwards. And so, yeah, I went back to my room that night and I read. love warrior until one or two in the morning. I was a little disappointed with the way that it ended.

So was I, babe. So was I. That puts us completely full circle back at the beginning of the conversation we had in the last episode. Because when we were talking about how Dr. Franco says that if you're holding something back, you can't accept love because you don't trust it. And I wonder if the Palmer House was, it was the opposite of that moment because there wasn't anything you could do to hold back at that point or keep it in. Right. It was all over ESPN.

It was all over the ticker. And since it was all out there, if someone were to love you in that space, then that would mean that you could trust it. Whereas before when you only had shiny Abby at the front and Shadow Abbey, you would never be able to really accept and trust love because you'd be thinking, yeah, but you don't know about Shadow Abby. That's right. I think that's why I have so much feeling for your first wife. You're amazing at talking about what a great love we have and me and why you love me so much. And we do have an incredible love story, an incredible love. But what was different then was not just that me, was not just that I was a new person.

It was that for the first time, you were fully and completely present. Like you were fully available. The drinking was gone. The soccer was just like all. of you there. All of the unrequited love was also because you weren't there fully to love. And I know there was a moment where your ex-wife asked if you were having a conversation with her and you explained that you were in love and all the things. And she said, have you stayed sober? Yeah. And you said yes. And she burst out crying. And I just have such feeling. I know.

know it was messy. I know there's a lot there, but I do have this, like, big love for her because I feel like she knew in that moment that you were going to be available in the next phase of your life in a way that you weren't available in the last one. I feel like everybody has that in their life. The things that went wrong and then you know the person's going to be better for the next thing, but, like, you're the one who did all struggling. Yeah. And I don't have any tender feelings for the one that left you hanging on all the time. I'm just going to say that. But I feel like you are who you have always wanted to be. The way that you love, it's like watching someone who is like the greatest painter in the

world. And since they're painting you, everyone's looking at the painting thinking, she's amazing. Look at her. But the person's sitting for the painting only looks that good because the painter is so freaking amazing at painting. That's how you love me. And I feel so grateful that I get to be the one who is loved by you. Because you were right all of the time. Your whole life, you were right. You were meant to love big and love huge and love with all of your being. And what you needed was somebody who would be fully present in there and be in it with you. Yeah. And be 100%

with you. And I get to be that. Yes. And I think for a lot of my life, I just thought that there was going to be some other thing that's like other love that was going to fix me and make me feel lovable. And I think that what I've learned from our relationship and the work we've done is the only source of working through that heartache or that like, emo, angst. I don't know what it is that like this seeking for more. I had to figure out how to love myself. And we had a very amazing intense love story. But we've also created a lot of space, a lot of safe space for each other to be able to learn how to love ourselves really deeply. because in the end I think that that is what I've been searching for.

You've been like this beautiful space giver and the safety net that almost like I needed somebody strong enough and safe enough. And that would love me so hard and so well that I could fake myself into believing that it was possible for me to do it myself. You gave me this like runway of lovability. I keep looking at you and I'm like, okay, maybe it is possible. Maybe I am actually lovable. She's pretty smart. You think she could be onto something? For your child, as the school year continues, patterns start to emerge. You can see what's clicking and where a little extra reinforcement could help. That's where I-XL steps in, giving kids targeted practice so they can strengthen those areas early and keep moving forward with confidence. I-XL is an. an award-winning online learning platform that supports math, language arts, science, and social studies from pre-K through 12th grade. What I love is how seamlessly it fits alongside what's already

happening in the classroom. Your child can practice the same skills they're learning at school, which makes it easier to keep up, feel prepared, and really understand the material. I-Excel is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-Excel now. And we can do hard things listeners. can get an exclusive 20% off I-Exel membership when they sign up today at www. Ixl.com slash we can. Visit Ixel.com slash we can to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Abby, you mentioned in the first episode how you were at FIFA and that's the moment that you got the best player of the world.

World Award and the love didn't sink into you and you realized, well, if I can't feel the love after this, then soccer is never going to be able to fill that void. Have you ever had a moment where you have received love in the moment and you could feel it immediately, like, click that sinks in. I get that. This takes. Yeah. Well, it happened a couple of months ago. An unsuspecting Christmas morning, the kids are going around, they're unwrapping their gifts, and all of a sudden, Glenn's like, Abby, it's your turn. And I was like, adults go later in the morning, you know, what's happening. So I'm opening up this present, and it's this letter from a lawyer, that is essentially

Glennon has started the process with consent from Craig that the kids want me to adopt them as their parent legally. And there's like a lot of mixed feelings in that because, you know, we've talked before that like there is a grief that I will live out with the rest of my life for not biologically.

caring a child of my own, but that gets completely overshadowed with like the love and the joy of parenting these three children that Glennon and Craig brought into the world. And I guess it's hard to explain for like a step-parent who might not have like a biological connection to their stepkids or bonus kids like we call it. But I don't know. It was like one of those moments. It was like one of those moments in life that, no offense, honey, but it's one thing to have your romantic partner show you, tell you, marry you,

and make you believe that you are lovable. And it's like a whole another level of proof. that I am a lovable person when these three children, 14, 16, and 19 at the time, and their father and Craig, you know, I'm like, it's essentially like the most crying I've ever, like the hardest crying, like the whale cry, like there's a similar cry when I first got sober, like I don't know how to describe. describe it well enough. It's just, if it makes sense, there's like brief moments in a person's life where all of your heartache makes sense. Like every single heartbreak and issue that I had was because I didn't know that I would be chosen. I first had to figure out how to love myself

well enough and I had to find a love. But like, the kids don't have to do that. Our life would have been, would have gone forward with no problems. Like, they want that. They'd like, they want, they want me in a person way, in a parent way. And so that happened. And so we're in the process right now of getting, getting me added and not taking away any parental rights of Craig or Glennon, but getting a third

parent added to our kids' birth certificates. And it was just, obviously, it means a lot to me. It just, I don't know how, I just don't know how I'll ever thank you all. And I know that that's not how love works. It's just, I told Glennon, she better not leave me because now I'll take the kids. The kid said, the kid said, three Christmases. I don't think it's for you to thank them. I think that was their way of thanking you. I just so much of my life has felt like there was a threat of sorrow or shadow or darkness. And that's not true.

Like, it was all necessary and part of my process. And I needed every bit of it to feel that moment of, like, love. Wow. All right, Pod Squad, here's what we've decided to do. We can't just break that news of the, uh, Christmas adoption moment without explaining it more. So tomorrow we're going to give you a bonus episode where we talk about how the adoption has come together in that moment in our family when we told Abby and what happened. And all the implications of it for our family and for other families

because it's turned into kind of a big deal and we want to share it with you. So come back tomorrow for a short episode where we give you the deets on the adoption. We'll see you then. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do each or all of these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on follow.

This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.