Shownotes
Amy Singleton lost everything, including her marriage, career, and health. This is her story, and she is RESILIENT A.F.
About the Guest:
Powerhouse Amy Singleton is an entrepreneur based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Originally a Registered Nurse, Amy’s own health forced her out of a career she loved. Looking for purpose in ALL the wrong places, she wound up alone & desperately suicidal. Amy now dedicates her life to helping others see HOPE & PURPOSE beyond their own failures. Too many people struggle to navigate their careers AND families without sacrificing professional or personal achievements. She uses stories, humor and practical insights to inspire women to carve their own path for success after failure. Whether we’ve failed ourselves, been failed by others, or been failed by our own bodies– there IS hope ahead when we CUT through the BS & dig into living our most authentic lives.
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/therealamysingleton/
https://www.facebook.com/therealamysingleton
https://www.instagram.com/therealamysingleton/
https://www.youtube.com/@therealamysingleton
https://www.tiktok.com/@therealamysingleton
https://www.listennotes.com/@therealamysingleton/
Gift: A personal branding Canva Template set to help you get your own message out on social media using professional-looking memes. https://amysingletonpersonalbrand.plannerpack.co/
⚠️ Content Note: Some episodes may contain themes that could be distressing. Please take care of yourself while listening, and don’t hesitate to seek support from a mental health professional if needed.
About the Hosts:
Blair Kaplan Venables is a British Columbia-based grief and resilience expert and coach, motivational speaker and the Founder of The Global Resilience Project. Her expertise has been featured on media platforms like Forbes, TEDx, CBC Radio, Entrepreneur, and Thrive Global. She is named the Top Grief and Resilience Expert of the Year 2024 by IAOTP. USA Today listed Blair as one of the top 10 conscious female leaders to watch and she empowers others to be resilient from stages around the world. 'MyStory,’ which is a television show available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Google Play, showcases Blair's life story. She is the host of the Radical Resilience podcast and specializes in helping people strengthen their resilience muscle using scientifically proven methods and guides grieving high performers with her Navigating Grief Framework. The Global Resilience Project’s award-winning book series are international bestsellers, and her fourth book, RESILIENT A.F.: Stories of Resilience Vol 2, will be published in January 2025. In her free time, you can find Blair writing, in nature, travelling the world and helping people to strengthen their resilience muscles.
Links:
https://theglobalresilienceproject.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/blairdkaplan
https://www.facebook.com/blair.kaplan
https://www.facebook.com/BlairKaplanCommunications
https://www.instagram.com/globalresiliencecommunity
https://www.instagram.com/blairfromblairland/
https://www.facebook.com/globalresiliencecommunity
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-global-resilience-project
Alana Kaplan is a compassionate mental health professional based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She works in the mental health field, and is a co-host of the Resilient A.F. podcast. Fueled by advocacy, Alana is known for standing up and speaking out for others. Passionate about de-stigmatizing and normalizing mental health, Alana brings her experience to The Global Resilience Project’s team, navigating the role one’s mental health plays in telling their story.
Engaging in self-care and growth keeps her going, and her love for reading, travel, and personal relationships helps foster that. When she’s not working, Alana can often be found on walks, working on a crossword puzzle, or playing with any animal she sees.
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Transcripts
Welcome back to another episode of Resilient AF with Blair
Speaker:and Alana without Alana. Just Blair, but not just
Speaker:Blair, with also Amy. So I'm really excited
Speaker:about this this chat because I met Amy through
Speaker:actually another Amy. I seem to have a lot of Amy's in my life. But
Speaker:this Amy, there's just something about her. There is just something about
Speaker:her and I can't wait for you to have a chance to dive into her
Speaker:world. So Amy Singleton is an entrepreneur based in Oklahoma
Speaker:City, Oklahoma. Originally a registered nurse, Amy's
Speaker:own health forced her out of a career that she loved. Looking for purpose
Speaker:in all the wrong places, she wound up alone and
Speaker:desperately suicidal. Amy now dedicates her life to helping others.
Speaker:She sees hope and purpose beyond their own failures. Too many
Speaker:people struggle to navigate their careers and families without sacrificing
Speaker:professional and personal achievements. She uses stories,
Speaker:humor, and practical insight to inspire women to carve out their own path
Speaker:for success after failure. Whether we failed ourselves,
Speaker:been failed by others, or been failed by our own bodies,
Speaker:there is hope ahead when we cut through
Speaker:the BS and dig into living our most authentic
Speaker:lives. And let me tell you, she is here.
Speaker:She tells it how it is, and we're gonna dive in today to talk about
Speaker:how she lost everything, including her health, her career, and her
Speaker:marriage. And she's gonna walk us through that journey. So,
Speaker:Amy, welcome to the pod. Thank you for
Speaker:having me, Blair. I even I didn't even plan this. It's just like one of
Speaker:those humid days, but I wore my sounds like bullshit what you have to come
Speaker:to is like, sounds like bullshit to me and make a different choice. That's what
Speaker:I had to say to me.
Speaker:Yeah. Let's talk about love to say that to others, but I had to say
Speaker:that to me at some point. I love it. I love, that you're a little,
Speaker:like, cussy like me because some people are not.
Speaker:Yeah. I'm a little cussy cussing. You know? I mean, our
Speaker:book resilient AF, you know? Yes. Stories of resilience volume
Speaker:2, you're gonna be in it. Yes. I cannot wait. I can't
Speaker:wait. I can't wait to showcase you there, but we're gonna talk
Speaker:here live and in the flesh. Unless you're listening, it's just
Speaker:live and in the voice. That's right. Let's talk about your
Speaker:story. Yeah.
Speaker:So, you know, where should I start?
Speaker:It was a long way to, to resilience,
Speaker:and and my story talks about, it was it was a
Speaker:1,000 tiny steps. Right? I I
Speaker:married my high school sweetheart, lost that marriage.
Speaker:After almost 20 years together, 2 kids,
Speaker:found out he was gay. Then I had a series
Speaker:of severe health problems. I'd had a
Speaker:gastric bypass surgery, then I broke my back, and then I was
Speaker:diagnosed with cancer and just like a million things happened that just
Speaker:kind of demolished my life one
Speaker:one notch at a time. And
Speaker:I found myself, you know, like, living back at home with my
Speaker:parents in a wheelchair, not able to work. And and,
Speaker:basically, what had happened was that I had built my life
Speaker:on the identities of other people and on
Speaker:what I now understand to be finite projects
Speaker:instead of an infinite purpose that I could serve no matter where I
Speaker:went. And and the loss of
Speaker:everything was in direct correlation
Speaker:to not having anything really that was for me.
Speaker:That was that was true to my purpose. And and that's a
Speaker:lot that you went through, and thank you so much for sharing.
Speaker:Any one of those situations would be
Speaker:very, very hard to navigate. Let's let's go back to kind of the
Speaker:beginning of what you shared with learning that your husband
Speaker:was gay. Yeah. That was
Speaker:wild. So Let's all take a drink of
Speaker:our water? Let's all take a drink of our water. So for
Speaker:6 and a half years, thank God, but I'm still on coffee at 4 PM
Speaker:somehow. But the it's another we just train one addiction for
Speaker:another. Right? That's late to drink coffee. You might
Speaker:like, good for you. I don't know. I probably should
Speaker:be off of it by now. But, yeah, so I met him
Speaker:when we were age 12, 7th grade. You know, we were both kind of
Speaker:that awkward, chubby child that didn't quite fit
Speaker:in, and we found a lot of synergy with one another. And
Speaker:we're just like fast friends, and I really pursued
Speaker:him. And kind of it's funny because looking back, I joke
Speaker:now with my friends, like, I have the worst gaydar in history because I was
Speaker:in love with gay men from the start. Like, George Michael, I think, started it
Speaker:all in the eighties for me, and it was just downhill from there. Like, Ricky
Speaker:Martin, I was just let down over and over and over again by all the
Speaker:men I love. But, you know,
Speaker:ironically, like, where we live, which is is in
Speaker:Oklahoma City, you know, it was the nineties.
Speaker:And we're in, like, a very
Speaker:you know, we're in the bible belt. It was not a time when it was
Speaker:safe for young men to be gay or say they were gay.
Speaker:You know? And we were best friends, and we just kept we came from a
Speaker:time when our parents really, were all doing
Speaker:the best they could, but our parents really just there was a lot of
Speaker:expectation put on us to kind of commit and finish and
Speaker:follow through with the things that you started. Right? Back in I mean, that's
Speaker:just how it was when I was younger, and so we just
Speaker:kept taking the next step and doing the next thing that we were thought we
Speaker:were supposed to do. He knew full well walking down the aisle
Speaker:that he was gay, but he just didn't know how
Speaker:to how to manage that as a person. And and so there were there were
Speaker:things over the years that probably should have triggered me to know that,
Speaker:But, ultimately, I I had some intuition that I
Speaker:ignored, which I even still work on to this day. It's it
Speaker:gets stronger and stronger and louder and louder all the time, and I'm learning
Speaker:to listen to it more. But there were cues and clues,
Speaker:which is really part of the recovery from all that. Right? Like, a lot of
Speaker:people I lived in the victim mentality for
Speaker:so long, Blair. I thought I was the only human
Speaker:being that that had ever happened to, like and, well, little
Speaker:did I know there's an entire, like, whole subsect of
Speaker:women and men who have been through this exact same thing as
Speaker:me, but I felt really alone because I isolated after it.
Speaker:It wasn't my news to tell. He wasn't ready to tell.
Speaker:And so Like, how did you find out? Sorry. I'm interrupting you because, like Oh,
Speaker:no. Okay. Before, like, telling people, how did
Speaker:you find out? Because you're probably one of the more important people
Speaker:to know since you were the other partner. For
Speaker:sure. Okay. So how we had been having trouble.
Speaker:Right? We had 2 young kids, and we were just having a lot of
Speaker:communication issues. I was very type a. He's very beta guy,
Speaker:and it just, like it was always just a struggle. So we were going to
Speaker:counseling and all you know, we were doing all these things, trying to make things
Speaker:work, and it was our 9th wedding anniversary. And we had
Speaker:left our kids who were, I think, 2 and, like,
Speaker:2 and 6 at the time, with my parents. And we
Speaker:went down to, like, a bed and breakfast about an hour and a half away
Speaker:from our home, and this was, like, kind of our if you've ever been in
Speaker:a relationship where you're like, we're gonna take this last trip, we gotta make it
Speaker:work. Like, we're gonna romance the hell out of each other, and it's all gonna
Speaker:be okay by Sunday morning. Right? Yeah. No. Like,
Speaker:whoops. No. I mean, there was just nothing left
Speaker:romantically. Like, he was super depressed. I was so
Speaker:until we were on our way home from that trip, and we were like, okay.
Speaker:You know? Like, no. We we we now refer to it as our divorce trip.
Speaker:But we were driving home, and it was just
Speaker:that that gut intuition feeling in my belly that was
Speaker:saying, ask him. We had actually sat
Speaker:with a male counselor 18 months,
Speaker:2 years prior to this moment, and that man looked me dead in the face
Speaker:when my ex was not in the room, and he said, he's gay. And I
Speaker:was like, I don't know. And I was so oh
Speaker:my god. I was running away from every clue. Even that
Speaker:man looking me dead in the face and saying it, after we explored
Speaker:some of the problems we were having. He's like, no. He is completely gay. And
Speaker:I was like, I don't know. And then we quit seeing the guy. So I
Speaker:just had that feeling in my gut. We're driving on the highway where everybody knows
Speaker:you're sitting side to side. It's easier to have that hard conversation. And
Speaker:so I just mustered up every bit of
Speaker:gumption I could possibly manage, and I said,
Speaker:have you ever thought that you might be
Speaker:attracted to men?
Speaker:And I I thought that was a pretty nonconfrontational way of asking. I I
Speaker:amused and muse on how do you word this. And he didn't say
Speaker:anything, and he just kept driving for, like,
Speaker:the longest 2 minutes probably of my life. My gosh.
Speaker:And then we exited off the highway. I will never forget. Every time I pass
Speaker:this exit on, the interstate 35 that runs right through Oklahoma, I
Speaker:just pull, like not anymore, but, like, for years years when I saw that exit
Speaker:sign, I was just like, ah, there's where it happened. And he pulled over,
Speaker:and this 6 foot to 250
Speaker:pound bear of a man, best friend since age
Speaker:12, just
Speaker:he just crumbled,
Speaker:and we both started crying.
Speaker:And I, like, unbuckled and I moved over. And I sat
Speaker:on his lap, and I just, like, held his ginormous head
Speaker:as he just sobbed and sobbed. And he said,
Speaker:why aren't you walking down the highway? Why are you why are
Speaker:you loving me? Why are you here? I was like,
Speaker:you're all I know. I love you. You're my best friend. I don't know what
Speaker:this looks like for us, but I know that this doesn't
Speaker:change the fact that you're important to me and that we've been in
Speaker:this together for a really long time.
Speaker:And so, you know, we we drove home,
Speaker:and we, he went to pick up our kids and I went over to a
Speaker:friend's house. She bought the wine. I was like,
Speaker:hey. Are you home? Because I'm coming to spend the night. And she's like, what?
Speaker:And I was like, I can't talk about it. She's like, do I need wine?
Speaker:I was like, yes. And I just went over there. I was so angry.
Speaker:But at the same time, feeling, you
Speaker:know, vulnerable and all these things. And I knew, like, he was like, please
Speaker:don't tell anybody. I'm not ready to tell. And so I was like, great.
Speaker:Okay. I did tell that friend at work, which ultimately the one person I
Speaker:told, it did get back to everyone at work and all across town in the
Speaker:medical community. It was crazy. But,
Speaker:so that's how I found out. And then, like, you know, my
Speaker:my ex husband was kind of the son my parents never had. He
Speaker:actually lived with my family. Right after we graduated high school,
Speaker:he had a a bad home situation. He moved into my home and lived in
Speaker:my parents' spare bedroom for, like, a year and a half before he got his
Speaker:own place when we got married. So, like, they were really close with him.
Speaker:And when I told my parents, that when we
Speaker:went together to tell my parents that we were getting divorced,
Speaker:my mother looked me dead in the face and asked me, are you cheating on
Speaker:him? Yikes.
Speaker:Yeah. Because I was I was actually prepare I was already in the
Speaker:preoperative process to have gastric bypass surgery, and so I'd
Speaker:lost, like, £40 on my own leading up, and people just thought, oh, maybe she's
Speaker:feeling herself. I mean, they didn't know, and I can't fault them, but, like, I
Speaker:couldn't tell. Like, Blair, I wanted to go, he's gay. I'm
Speaker:so angry. You need to be lazy. When you told your parents you're getting divorced,
Speaker:it wasn't that you you weren't sharing the reason. Mm-mm. It
Speaker:was, like, over a year. Hard. Yeah. It was really hard
Speaker:because there were so many people. And then when it finally you know, maybe,
Speaker:like, a year or so later, it finally came out and he started being
Speaker:comfortable with coming out and stuff. The sheer number of
Speaker:people that when I would tell them or when they would learn that
Speaker:would just go, oh my gosh. That must have been so hard for
Speaker:him. I was just like,
Speaker:yeah. Darn. Yeah. And maybe me.
Speaker:And me too. I Yeah. But but now it's funny. I mean, I
Speaker:can talk about this now. I can almost always talk about it without crying. Thanks
Speaker:for bringing out the tears in me. Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. But
Speaker:it you know, we we are best friends again now. Me and him and my
Speaker:my husband, Joseph, that I've been with for 8 years now are like an
Speaker:absolute tripod of parenthood to our 16 year old and our 20
Speaker:year old. Like, we're just thick as thieves again. It took a
Speaker:really long time to come back around to that place,
Speaker:but but we're there. And and so we're, I
Speaker:feel like sharing these stories gives people hope that I mean, that's my
Speaker:entire life's purpose is to be like, dude, I was here, and now I'm
Speaker:here. My relationship is crap, and now it's so much better. And you
Speaker:can absolutely go from cussing out an ex and never
Speaker:wanting to talk to them again to actually sitting at Thanksgiving and
Speaker:being there together in a loving way for your child. I mean, that's
Speaker:just one of the many things I learned through this journey was that it it
Speaker:is possible. No matter how mad you are, you can actually take some
Speaker:ownership and get over yourself and and do it. I mean, I guess
Speaker:there's like, first of all, thank you for sharing that and for being so vulnerable
Speaker:and, like, letting your feelings flow because,
Speaker:you know, it's a grief. Right? And, you know,
Speaker:it's so many layers. Like, you've known him since you were
Speaker:a kid. He's the parent to your children, you know, the
Speaker:relationship with your parents. Like and I think it's beautiful that
Speaker:you've found your way back into each other's lives in in a new
Speaker:format, and there's no instruction manuals. Like, I
Speaker:mean, I I I I think it's it's a
Speaker:really beautiful, journey because,
Speaker:like, your kids are so lucky to have that. And Yeah. To
Speaker:show that love is kind of boundless, and it does stretch and
Speaker:reform in different ways. I wanted, you know, I wanna
Speaker:go back to what you said about, like, your mom asking if you were having
Speaker:an affair. When your mom found out, what like, or when your
Speaker:parents found out, what was that like? And did you get any apologies?
Speaker:You know yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have I have totally
Speaker:reconciled with my family over so many things. I put them through absolute
Speaker:hell after all of that. Like, my like, I got very deep
Speaker:in a bottle. It was really bad for my family.
Speaker:I can't fault my parents for their level of understanding
Speaker:of the situation. But, when they found out,
Speaker:then they really see, this is where I I
Speaker:failed and learned a number of times throughout my divorce and through
Speaker:navigating that super volatile relationship. Like,
Speaker:are we family? Aren't we family? How does this all work?
Speaker:Like, they really took my lead. So at first, it
Speaker:was like they were pissed. Like, especially my dad. Like, he
Speaker:was very mad on my behalf, and I welled
Speaker:that in them. I was like, no. No. No. We're not gonna be angry.
Speaker:Even though inside Blair, I was I was
Speaker:ablaze with anger. But for my
Speaker:kid's sake, I was trying so hard not to show that publicly
Speaker:and try to include him in family functions still.
Speaker:Like, for all the years right after that, like, he still came to my family's
Speaker:Christmas. Like, he has a pretty small family, and I have a pretty big family.
Speaker:And so, like, my family was his family. But then it got to the point
Speaker:where when I started dating, things got
Speaker:harder because, like, he wanted me to be happy, but it was really hard
Speaker:for him to see me happy with someone else. Like, I want you to be
Speaker:happy, but not with anybody else. Like and he very much admitted
Speaker:at one point, kinda during our reconciliation, that he
Speaker:really just wanted his cake and eat it too. He's like, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker:I miss the family unit. I miss doing homework together with the kids and
Speaker:having dinners, but I also wanna go be a gay guy. And I'm like, well,
Speaker:I'm really sorry for you, but I can't live like that. Yeah.
Speaker:But, but yeah. So it was,
Speaker:it was good to reconcile that. It's
Speaker:I'm thank you. Thank you for
Speaker:showing up on this podcast and sharing that. I
Speaker:didn't know if we were what we were gonna go deep on. And I'm alright.
Speaker:I think well, I know that you're not you're not alone in this,
Speaker:and there's people listening to this that know someone going through something
Speaker:similar or maybe they're going through something similar. And by
Speaker:you sharing, it's such a gift.
Speaker:Yeah. You know? We did get to dive into all your health and and, you
Speaker:know, like, I love that we're both sober and you know? I guess what we're
Speaker:gonna have to do is tell our listeners to just basically, like, dive into your
Speaker:world. All your links are in the show notes. Go read the book if you
Speaker:wanna know the whole story. The the bottom line is is that every
Speaker:person in Blair's universe that she has so
Speaker:beautifully created with this book, with this podcast, with with this whole community
Speaker:is showing up for people in a way that is not shameful and smashing the
Speaker:stigmas of all the bullshit that we've been through, whether it's addiction or health
Speaker:crisis or managing relationships or divorces or
Speaker:bankruptcy or whatever the shit is that we go through, it's it's my
Speaker:deep responsibility to stand up and say me too, but it doesn't have to stay
Speaker:that way. Let us guide you. Let us guide each other. That's what this
Speaker:human experience is about. Like, if we don't have that and we can't be vulnerable
Speaker:with each other and help each other, then what the hell are we here for?
Speaker:Right. And you know what? I think that's so important because, you know, we're not
Speaker:meant to go through it alone. Like, we're meant to heal in community,
Speaker:and it's not like, we're not, like, stiffer wives or, like, we're not
Speaker:in Pleasantville or whatever. Right? Like Right. You know, there is the
Speaker:duality of the good and the bad, and you don't necessarily need to be like,
Speaker:Amy Ryan, like, show up on a podcast and be like, hey. Like, everyone died.
Speaker:My husband is gay. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. You know? But
Speaker:your neighbor, you know, showing up at your church or at your
Speaker:neighborhood or at the park for another mom. Like, just like Exactly.
Speaker:We did it. Right? It doesn't have to be so public, but, like, we are
Speaker:not okay. And, like, you might have might have stories that or
Speaker:things you've gone through that you've never really shared, and that's completely fine. But if
Speaker:you see someone going through something similar to what you went through, reach
Speaker:out to them because these things are hard. Like,
Speaker:navigating this shit is hard. Like, there's no, like,
Speaker:rule book. Like, I when I this is different. Like, my husband
Speaker:is not gay. I I don't I'm Shane, I don't think you are.
Speaker:So I don't know. But, like, an example of, like, not knowing what to do
Speaker:is, like, people like, when I I got pregnant, I
Speaker:couldn't get pregnant. I didn't no one talks about how hard it is to get
Speaker:pregnant from some people. And then no one talks about, like, how hard it is
Speaker:to stay pregnant. And so, like, fertility challenge wasn't on my
Speaker:mind. Miscarriage wasn't on my mind. And so when I got pregnant and
Speaker:then miscarried, I didn't know how to do that and run a business. And I
Speaker:went to Google, and I couldn't find anything. So I wrote an article with, like,
Speaker:my findings on, like, what I did. But, like, there really isn't
Speaker:a manual or or, you know, maybe there's a a LinkedIn article or something that
Speaker:someone wrote like me.
Speaker:But by sharing these stories,
Speaker:we often can find the strength and the tools and the hope
Speaker:to apply them to our situations that we're trying to bounce forward
Speaker:from. That's right. And I have found at least the
Speaker:truth for me was when when things got hard
Speaker:because I was the strong person in my family, in my community,
Speaker:in my job, in all these places, I felt so weak that what I did
Speaker:was retreat. And like you said, we're meant to heal in community, and I had
Speaker:zero community. Yeah. And it took an outsider
Speaker:reaching out to me as I told him my story that that finally started that
Speaker:first step of a 1000 to recovery. So you're absolutely right. We have to
Speaker:heal together, and I'm so grateful that you have brought together this
Speaker:group of people. Now for the 2nd time and I can't imagine how many
Speaker:volumes going forward there will be, but it's meaningful. It's it's
Speaker:meaningful work. Aw. Thank you. Thanks, Amy.
Speaker:Just such a love bubble. I know. So,
Speaker:yeah, so Amy's links are in the show notes. I feel like we're gonna have
Speaker:to have you back to talk about some other things. I mean, I just love
Speaker:chatting with you whether it's recorded or not, and,
Speaker:you know, it's an honor to have you as part of our community. And I
Speaker:guess I need to come to Oklahoma because there's so many phenomenal people down there
Speaker:and a lot of people. Yeah. So,
Speaker:you have something you're giving away. I know this isn't a marketing podcast, but because
Speaker:I love your humor, and I think the gift is, like, quite fitting. It's
Speaker:it's, what what is it? Something about let me I'm just trying to find it.
Speaker:Oh, here it is. You're giving away a personal
Speaker:branding Canva template to help you get your own message out on social
Speaker:media using professional looking memes. So I think this
Speaker:is applicable to anyone who uses social media and not just people in business.
Speaker:Because, like, who doesn't love a meme? Who doesn't
Speaker:love turning, you know, something a little serious and
Speaker:a little, like, blase or a little, you know,
Speaker:boring or just anything into something funny.
Speaker:Right? That's right. Yeah. I love it. That's in the show notes. So so get
Speaker:her little meme template. I love it. I go through phases where I try and
Speaker:make memes that I have to, like if I'm in, like, a funny phase, my
Speaker:sister and I will sit down, and we'll bang out a bunch of memes. I
Speaker:go through it. But, you know, humor wins all. People wanna be
Speaker:edutained. Right? People, like, turn in the darkness. Like, look at us. We're talking about
Speaker:such heavy stuff, and we're able to crack some jokes. You have to.
Speaker:Yeah. You have to. Yeah. No. Definitely. Okay. So as
Speaker:we wrap up, do like, if someone's
Speaker:listening to this and they're they're in a similar situation where they're learning their partner
Speaker:maybe into, you know, the as the same gender
Speaker:or a different gender than, you know, who they currently are,
Speaker:and they haven't had that conversation yet. And they're
Speaker:wanting to have that conversation in the car when they're both
Speaker:facing forward driving home from their last from their divorce trip.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Or anyone else who's, you know, thinking
Speaker:that their their partner may be, you know, LGBTQ
Speaker:plus and haven't admitted it and that their marriage or the
Speaker:relationship's gonna have to shift. Like, what's your advice for someone who's wanting to
Speaker:have that conversation? Yeah. I think
Speaker:that, you know, my theme
Speaker:for the last couple of years, and this has not ever
Speaker:it it's not ever served me in a in a wrong way, is just to
Speaker:approach it with love and try
Speaker:really, really hard not to place a lot of blame. Find
Speaker:where your responsibility is and everything and your
Speaker:responsibility to the person that you love because you did make that vow to
Speaker:love them. Mhmm. And ask questions in a loving and
Speaker:open way and just give them the space, to talk
Speaker:it out and and be open
Speaker:be open to the options. You know? We even my ex and I talked
Speaker:about staying together, having an open relationship, divorcing, and getting a
Speaker:bigger house. I mean, we really we explored everything, and, ultimately, I think we both
Speaker:knew that the answer was gonna be complete divorce and separation. But just the fact
Speaker:that he he knew that there was a trusted path forward, that I wasn't
Speaker:gonna break his confidence, and that I did love him even though I
Speaker:was very angry, and it took me years to get over that. It was we
Speaker:were able to navigate it well just because I approached it with love.
Speaker:So beautiful. Approach it with love.
Speaker:Approach it with hard when you wanna choke them. Yeah.
Speaker:And I think it's not about blame. Right? Like, it's Right. It's
Speaker:about having that conversation. Mhmm. And I'm sure
Speaker:if you are in this situation and you wanna chat with Amy, I'm
Speaker:sure she she Absolutely. Yeah. Check me on my DMs. Check me
Speaker:on my DMs. Just it always, you know, it always helps when you can approach
Speaker:it with love and truly put yourself in someone else's
Speaker:shoes. And when I really did that and thought, okay. I'm a 16 year old
Speaker:boy in Oklahoma in 1996. Like, really? Like,
Speaker:what are my options? Give me a break. You know? And that really it
Speaker:helped. It didn't it wasn't perfect, but but loving
Speaker:love love always wins. Yeah. Love empathy, really. And,
Speaker:you know, that's for, like, any situation. You know, approaching everything
Speaker:with love and understanding and empathy, it's definitely, like, changed the
Speaker:lens on how I look at situations and how I respond when someone,
Speaker:you know, triggers me. So Yeah. I think Yeah. That's that's
Speaker:advice. Well, thank you so much for joining us on Resilient AF.
Speaker:It's my pleasure. And thank you to everyone who tuned in for another
Speaker:episode. Thank you for spending some time with me and Amy.
Speaker:We really appreciate you. You know, life is full of ups and downs,
Speaker:left and rights, you know, hard conversations in the car
Speaker:and beyond. Just know that you're not alone, and it's okay to
Speaker:not be okay. Let us be that lighthouse in the storm and
Speaker:res remember. Remember.
Speaker:I'm tongue twisted. Remember, friends, you are resilient
Speaker:AF.
