HER EMPOWERED DIVORCE EP 94

HOST: Beverly Price, Divorce & Empowerment Coach

GUEST: Martha Van Dam, State Licensed and Nationally Certified Psychotherapist, Owner of Living Beyond

SUMMARY:

Infidelity has many facets and while it is usually seen as the end of a relationship, it might be so much more than that. On this episode of Her Empowered Divorce, Host Beverly Price invites Martha Van Dam state licensed and nationally certified psychotherapist who owns her business Living Beyond and helps women heal from infidelity, betrayal and cheating on the daily. They discuss how it happens, how you can heal from it and even have wonderful things come out of one of the most traumatic experiences of life.

If you’d like to schedule a complimentary private consultation, reach out to Beverly at this link. You can also join her Empowered Divorce Women’s Meetup Group here.

Visit this link to access the entire archive of Her Empowered Divorce episodes and while you’re there, please subscribe, rate and review our show!

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

● Infidelity is one of the most painful things a person can deal with in marriage. Why?

Because it traumatizes you for life.

● Most couples, unexpectedly, do not divorce after infidelity occurs.

● Is it different if the cheater is the man or the woman, or if it is a one night stand or a long-term affair? Yes, it definitely is.

● You have to take care of yourself and heal yourself before you can take care of others. Prioritize yourself and your healing after a traumatic experience and only then can you help others through it.

NOTABLE QUOTES:

● So often we do not want to talk about the B word, the C word and the I word, which are Betrayal, Cheating and Infidelity but today we do, to move on from it. (Beverly)

● Infidelity is the most painful thing a person can deal with in a marriage or partnership. It genuinely does leave trauma and PTSD, life-scarring. (Martha)

● We do not hide the things that are okay. (Martha)

● You have to work to heal, you can not take care of your family if you do not take care of yourself. (Beverly)

● It is vitally important to listen to the little inner voice you have. (Martha)

● Don't let your experience be wasted, question what it has to teach you, so you can learn by going through it the first time. (Martha)

● There can be an amazing life after infidelity happens but it depends on how you choose to work for it. (Martha)

FURTHER RESOURCES/RELEVANT LINKS:

● Beverly’s personal Facebook page can be found here.

● Women’s Divorce and Empowerment group discussion available here.

ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Martha Van Dam is a state licensed and nationally certified psychotherapist. She has helped betrayed individuals heal, find empowerment and thrive as they move forward for the last 12 years. She is highly trained and experienced in working with multiple kinds of traumas and is certified in Terrorism and Disaster Response.

FOLLOW OUR GUEST:

WEBSITE | COACHING | FACEBOOK | LINKEDIN | EMAIL

ABOUT YOUR HOST:

Beverly Price is a CDC Certified Divorce Coach ® and Women’s empowerment coach with over 25 years of experience. Her passion lies in supporting women through every aspect of separation and divorce. She offers a comprehensive coaching experience that goes beyond just empowerment work to help clients develop their communication, conflict management, boundary setting and negotiation skills. Beverly also provides expertise on the technical, legal, and financial aspects of the divorce process.

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CHECK OUT MY FREE EBOOK:12 Steps to Empowerment https://herempowereddivorce.com/12-steps-to-empowerment-1



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Guest Links

WEBSITE: | COACHING | FACEBOOK | LINKEDIN | EMAIL

• http://www.marthavandam.com/

• http://www.livingbeyondbetrayal.com/

• https://www.facebook.com/LivingBeyondWithMarthaVanDam/

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• http://marthavandam@aol.com/

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Hi, beautiful. I'm so glad you're here with me today. You are gonna absolutely love this episode. My guest is Martha Van Damme, and she is a state licensed mental health counselor, national certified counselor, and her business is called Living Beyond. She's gonna talk with me today about living beyond betrayal. This is all about infidelity.

Martha Van Dam is a state licensed and nationally certified psychotherapist. She has helped betrayed individuals heal, find empowerment and thrive as they move forward for the last 12 years. She is highly trained and experienced in working with multiple kinds of traumas and is certified in terrorism and disaster response. Oh my goodness.

Martha learned the value of good counseling when her own life took an unexpected turn and she found herself in a counselor's office dealing with issues with her own marriage. Following her own divorce, she went back to school and went to work and became a certified sex addiction therapist. It was working in this environment she learned about trauma and the impact of infidelity.

She currently lives in Florida with her musician husband and three cats. I have five dogs, so I'm right there with you. I'm Martha, thank you so much for being my guest today. This is gonna be such a great conversation.

It is going to be good. Beverly and I just need to make one little correction. I am not a certified sex addiction therapist. I worked with a certified sex addiction therapist, learned so much from him, certainly learned so much from him and then began treating the partners of his clients. And that's how I was introduced to working with sex addicts and their families.

Very good.

I see.

Oh wow, that certainly would be a trauma to be married to someone like that.

goodness. Oh yes for sure for sure.

So we talked a little bit about, I mentioned a little bit, a tidbit about your own personal story. Can you tell me a little bit about why you became interested in betrayal and infidelity and its impact on women?

Sure, absolutely. Well, like I mentioned, when I first started, I was working with another therapist who, he'd been in practice for two decades as a certified sex addiction therapist. And he also then became my supervisor. So it just was natural, a natural flow. A lot of his clients were coming through the office naturally. But all of his clients left these injured, mostly women, because he sees generally men. So most of these women in this,

HMM

the wake of this horrible, horrible trauma. And so I started seeing the wives of the addicts or the significant others of the addicts. And then I was learning so much about infidelity and so much about this kind of betrayal that also other people who had been betrayed, I started seeing those as well. So they didn't have to be married to an addict, they had just been betrayed in somehow in a relational way. And it was one of those things that kind of fortuitously happened by accident

Right.

working with this population and I absolutely loved it. I love trauma work anyway and it was so wonderful to be able to work with these women.

Yeah.

at such as I believe that infidelity is the most painful thing that a couple can deal with or that a person can deal with when within their marriage. And, and so then to be able to come alongside and work with these women, I absolutely loved it. And I learned so much from it. And I started learning how, how this genuinely is a trauma, and it genuinely does leave PTSD, and it leaves all the grief and all the things that go along with trauma. And so just over time, I learned more and

and have grown to absolutely love working and helping women find their empowerment and their strength, whether they stay or leave, but to find their strength within that circumstance.

Wow. So do most couples divorce when infidelity has come along into their relationship?

Thanks for watching!

Yeah, actually that's kind of can be a surprising answer. The majority of couples do not. It's like 60% stay together. But it's that one of those funny statistics where when you're looking at people who are divorcing, a proportionately high number of divorces are because of infidelity. It's that weird thing. No, they don't. The majority of them don't. Little bit more than half stay together, about 60%. But...

Wow.

Right.

But in order for that to still be a successful marriage, there has to be a lot of work and a lot of healing. There just has to be.

Yes.

Do you think there's a difference between if the infidelity involves like a one night stand versus a longer term relationship?

I do, I do because a one night stand generally does not involve the emotional component that and oddly enough most women when they start doing you know the research and the questions men tend to be more incensed and upset by a woman having a physical connection with another man but women tend to be more upset and bothered just by the emotional connection. They may have never had sex before.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

his care, his concern, his thoughts to another woman, that is enough. And I always find it interesting that different people have ideas of exactly what betrayal is. And my thought is, if it's betrayal to you, honey, it's betrayal. Within reason, within reason, you always have to be sure that there's not something else going on in the woman's life that, you know, if he opens his eyes, he's betraying. But, but for the most part, just for the most part, for the most part, it is

Right.

Sure.

Quiet. Let's see. And I'm losing my train of thought. So can you clip that out when we get to that? Thanks.

Sure, absolutely. I had a question that popped into my head and that is do you also treat women who have severe jealousy to the point that it's that the spouse isn't having in an affair isn't you know committing cheating but they just have this humongous jealousy thing going on. Do you ever see that?

I certainly have seen that. Absolutely, I've seen that. And generally, that goes back into some sort of history where the person has had some sense of, there's been abandonment, there's been betrayal in some way in the past. And so their mind has learned to be hypervigilant and they become hypervigilant as a type of protection. And it's very painful and that is hard work because it's hard to let go of that for that woman. She needs to let go of what she feels like is her security blanket, keeping her safe. That is hard to do.

Gotcha.

Exactly.

very hard to do. But so absolutely I've seen that and that is a place where you have to be careful. It may be that the man has not betrayed her, but she is perceiving every conversation as something that's dangerous.

Yes, absolutely.

Yes. And I would think that almost risks him being unfaithful because he gets to the point of going, gosh, that's all she says, I might as well go ahead and do it, you know.

Well, sure, sure. And also it kind of creates an environment where he begins to hide things just because she can't handle. So a simple thing like he had to have a meeting with a coworker and it literally was a meeting and it lasted all of 15 minutes. He's just kind of gonna let that slide because he knows if he mentions it that she's gonna get all... So now you create an environment where there's lying going on. It's not okay to do the lying. I'm not saying it's okay,

Yeah.

Right.

and the

Absolutely, absolutely. So if we kind of step back and move back into the couple where there is infidelity Whether it's short term one-night stand or longer term. Is it really possible to trust again?

Absolutely, it's possible to trust again, but it depends on, I think, two things. One is the woman has to learn that her first priority is to trust herself. She needs to be able to be really tuned in to, you know, those feelings, those little red flags, and something just didn't quite seem right, and.

Oh yeah.

Very often as women, we kind of will shut those down. We don't want to believe them. And if something does come up and we ask our partner, very often the answer we get is, oh, you're just being overreactive. Oh, you're just being jealous. Oh, you're making too much out of it. And so we, the gaslighting, you know, we, and what most women do to that is just tamp it on down. So I have to help women in my office, I help them to find that listening ear again, and to learn to trust themselves

Right.

Right, exactly.

Hmm

Mm-hmm.

what it takes. Their brains are on guard for things that seem out of order. So to be so the more they trust themselves, then the more the safer they can feel. That's the trusting of themselves. Now of the person, over time watching to see if they literally have become someone who is worthy of giving their trust.

Mmm.

The more they trust themselves, the more they know they can better judge that. And so they're gonna be watching for, is that partner showing an ability to maintain truthfulness and character? Is he showing the character? Is he showing a motive of not just trying to please himself, but of also trying to have the couple's best interest and her best interest at heart?

not only, but all of that needs to be being. And so there's those sorts of things that a woman can be watching for, and that can help her to know, has he come to a place? Has he healed enough? Has he made the changes? Is he worthy of my trust? And do I trust myself to pay attention and make a good decision for myself? Actually, it's the trusting of self that I think is the biggest feature.

right.

That is fascinating. That is fascinating. And it sounds like it's more of seeing his actions rather than hearing his words. Okay.

100%. Yes, I had another therapist say one time, if the words don't meet up with the actions, believe the actions. The actions don't lie. The actions we can mistake our perspective of what the actions mean. We're not always real good at that. But an actual lie is a lie.

And if something is having to be hidden, that raises a whole world of other questions. We don't hide things generally that are completely okay, unless like we mentioned, this over maybe jealous woman, you know, that can create, but.

Yes.

Hmm. One of the things, the old adage I've heard is, once a cheater, always a cheater. Is that true or just make believe?

It's not true, but it has its basis in truth. You know, it's one of those things where, yes, there are people who have patterns, and if they don't learn why they have patterns and learn to change those patterns, then they're gonna keep on. Even if they don't want to, it'll crop up later. But if a person is willing to do the work and figure out, why did I do that? What, what, what led me to risk everything that I have here for this?

for the nice feeling I got, whether it's physical or emotional, what is it? If they're willing to do that, and they do that work, then I personally think they're actually safer than someone who's never done the work. And I think wives who've had this experience of being cheated on are safer than wives who have not. People who think that they are safe, this would never happen to me, those are the ones that are at the most risk.

Interesting.

Absolutely. So what would be some of the reasons somebody, what are the reasons you've seen that someone would have an affair? What caused them to cheat?

Okay, so you have two things going on when a person has an affair. You have whatever is going on with them personally, and then you have whatever's going on in the relationship. I will never say it's the cause of the relationship, but you can imagine if the relationship has been distant and there's been no emotional or physical intimacy for a long time, you can see where a person might then be prone to find that sort of connection with someplace else.

Right.

Right, right.

That still doesn't mean it's the relationship's fault, because when we're in a bad situation...

there's no rule that says you have to solve, you think you're gonna solve your problem with an affair. That doesn't, so, so the person, so we have the relational component, but the biggest component is how does that person, the person who's the man in this case, or the person who's gonna have the affair, how does that person deal with their own needs, their own issues? And when you start digging into why someone has an affair,

Right, right.

maybe they have a need for newness or they have a need for feeling like they're really, really important. And by the time they've been married for seven years and there's a five-year-old and a three-year-old and the trash needs to go out and she's also working, they don't feel as important. And so they have to check, wait, where am I getting my sense of value? What is it that is drawing me to another person? Also, I think until most of us realize how

Hmm

really how easy it is to slide into an extramarital relationship, then if we're not on, we don't realize it, then we're not on guard against it. And if we're not on guard against it, we can very quickly find ourselves in a situation that we didn't want to be.

Yeah, I've always found that, for example, once you lie, it's easier to keep lying. So to me, once you would cheat, it seems like it would be more tempting, unless you do the work.

Yeah.

Unless you do the work. Yes, unless you do the work. Yes. Yeah, that likely especially if you've gotten away with it. I that would be that would clearly be a time where it just it that would just validate the idea of here is something I can do that makes me feel better. But it kind of meets whatever need it is for that person.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Does it mean that the person doesn't care at all about? Okay.

Absolutely not, absolutely not. And that's what is so hard to understand. Women will say, how can he say he loves me? And then he does this thing. Well, if he's got this internal need for newness, then all the love in the world from someone who's been around for a long time isn't gonna meet the need for newness. Because it's not new. It can't be new.

Gotcha. Interesting. So if we get into kind of the healing process that is going to need to happen, what are the real important ingredients to that healing process?

is such a great question. So many ways to go with that. So the healing, what has to happen for the healing is for the woman herself, you're talking about for the person who's been betrayed, right?

Hahaha

Yes.

Okay, so for that person, and I'm supposing that's the women we're really talking to, the first, the absolute first thing that I always lean in is you have been injured and you've probably had some things go on like there's, you've learned to shut down some parts of yourself. Don't be suspicious, those kinds of things. So the first thing I'm always going to point to is that self care. You just abs, this is such a shock.

Right.

And it's such a blow to the psyche, the emotion, the mind, spiritual, it's every piece of us is affected that we absolutely need to step back.

and we need to do whatever it is that's take care of ourselves. If it's make sure we're finding small things to eat, even if we can't eat just a granola bar here, a little bit of soup there, a banana someplace. If it's making sure that we're getting sleep and that's a tough one when your mind is all over the place. So what do we need to do to help that? And my personal opinion is if somebody hasn't slept in three days,

Right.

Right.

Ask a physician, get some help, make sure that your brain is getting some rest. I don't care if you've got to take a little Benadryl or some melatonin or something heavier to be sure that you're getting rest. Um, I'm also going to be saying to people, um, to begin with, get out and do something, something that does not revolve around this. You may not feel like it. It may not be as much fun, but you need to be out to kind of remind your brain and your heart that this is not the only thing going on in your world.

right.

Right.

Exactly.

Pretty big one. And then also another one is gather your support system. Now the support system may not know everything, but it's pretty beneficial for there to be at least one person you can talk to, at least one to share. And that's fabulous if it's a counselor. I certainly want someone to have a counselor on board, but I also want them to have somebody, that friend, that they can call at two o'clock in the morning or just a girlfriend to go have lunch with occasionally who's going to say, how are you holding up?

Right.

Right.

We need that kind of support. And then even if, then we wanna build the other support, even our friends who don't know, they can still be connected with them. So I would strongly say those are the things. If you're a person of faith, leaning into your faith, if that's something that's important to them, you do that to begin with. Then you want to dig into, what does it look like to have a healthy, even look like to have a healthy relationship?

Right.

I would strongly suggest most women not to make a decision on whether I'm staying or leaving immediately because You know to begin with the emotions are all over the place One minute you want to stay in another minute. You want to send him off on a slow boat to another country You know, you just don't want to you don't want to

Right.

Right.

Right, right.

is up and down, up and down. So giving yourself time to make that decision, understand that you're gonna be all over the place. I would suggest that to begin with a woman, journal everything she can, just write it down because those thoughts are flying around in our head, constant, just pinging. And dumping them onto paper does a lot of good to help let go of it. And our brain gets the message, oh, she's dealing with it, I don't have to keep reminding her. And...

Right.

can help to settle the thoughts. I know that you're a big proponent of journaling as well, but I think that's a big one. I think making sure that you find some way to get active in the day. Often we feel like going and getting on the couch and just watching TV or calling in the bed. No, find a way to go back to the gym. If nothing else, go take a walk. Take the dog for a walk, do something to get out. So those kind of, all those self-care things, major, majorly important. And then the next thing is start doing the,

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Right.

into how did this happen, how do I strengthen from here, and then the answers will come with time as far as do I want to stay in this relationship or am I just not willing to do it any longer? And I will say anybody in my office, no judgment no matter which way you want to go.

Right.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I was thinking of a couple things when you were talking. One, in regard to the support system, I think it's important that support system is positive for you, as opposed to some people reach out to family who can be very judgmental or offer advice that isn't the right advice. So I like to say positive support system.

sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

great idea.

And then I had a question for you. Why do you think it's so hard for us to actually do self-care? It's like I talk to my clients all the time, and I say just what you said, journaling, self-care. And I don't know. It's in some ways like we're allergic to it or something.

Isn't it funny, we get mixed, we get mixed messages kind of from the world at large, from society at large, because we see all the things on all the social media about self care, you need to do it, blah, blah. But at the same time, we'll see things on social media or hear them from our family of origin about how moms always eat last. Moms always will give everything to be sure, and that's held up as the standard. Now,

Yeah.

Yes.

don't hear me say it shouldn't be. Yes, we want to give, we want to do the fine things for our families and especially our children. But in a way, we're sort of sold the idea through some of those teachings that our care is not as important as everybody else's care.

Yeah, we sacrifice ourself. Yeah.

Yes, yes. And so there's a difference in sacrificing time. Oh, what a good way to put it. I love that, Beverly. There's a difference in sacrificing time and sacrificing yourself, continuing to shut yourself down as though you don't matter. And you do matter, we do matter. And we can't even be fully present for our kids and our spouse and our friends and our job or whatever if we are not the healthiest that we can be.

Hmm

Yes.

Absolutely. I also think that another phenomenon like that is we've been taught to invest in our family, to invest in our children, to invest in our husbands, but not invest in ourselves. So when it comes time to seek help, many of us go, oh, I can't afford that. Oh, I need to do other things. When in fact,

in order to be a full and happy person, you need to do that work. So it's the most important thing because you can't be there for your kids or your family if you aren't doing that work.

It's...

Mm hmm. It's true. And I've heard women say effort in my office, I've had them say, well, this is getting expensive. So I need to cut back to once a month or something, because he needs to keep going. And they're making the decision based on yes, he's the one who's had the affair. So he clearly needs Oh, he needs all the help. But again, it's the automatic kind of putting ourselves to the back burner. And

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yes, there's limits to finances. Yes, we have to make some decisions there sometimes, but it doesn't always, always need to be the wife, the woman who's backing herself into a corner or giving up her care.

Absolutely, absolutely. So one of the things I like to ask all my guests, and you've just been an awesome guest, is to share three actionable tips that women can take. In this case, to deal with and recover from infidelity. What would you suggest to them?

So yes, and I love that question. That was a lot of fun. And I also remembered that I couldn't come up with three. I came up with four, and I couldn't limit it to that. So.

That's quite alright.

That's okay. So the first one is it is so important. It is vitally important to learn to listen to that little inner voice that we have. We have our the cells in our being react. Do you know there's research now that says our body reacts differently when we are in the presence of a lie. From when we are in the presence of a truth that literally our muscles are stronger when there is truth around us and when there's a lie. And they've done this by testing people's muscle strength while they're telling a lie. And there really is a significant difference.

Right.

interesting.

Fascinating.

isn't it amazing? The cells in our body react differently. And so the more that we can be tuned in and we can be aware of that didn't feel right. What I've learned, it'll happen in here. A client will say something and I'll get a little feeling. I won't even know what it is, but it'll be a little bit of just a feeling and it'll pass.

Mm-hmm.

But I've learned to pay attention to that. I may not know what it's about. I don't know what the answer is, but I've learned to say, okay, there was something there. I don't know what it is, but I'm not forgetting it. And that's what I mean, being just tuned into those little feelings. And then I would suggest not immediately asking, hey, what was that you said?

Right.

I would suggest pulling it back and thinking about it a little bit ourselves. And then when we're sure, you know what, I'm going to, I want to ask about that, or at least I'm going to let it be known that was my concern. That's what I felt. Then do it with an intention, not as a reaction, but with an intention. I'm bringing this forward. I'm being truthful to myself and I'm going to speak the truth of what I experienced so that being tuned in to the reactions, feelings and emotions while they're moving forward.

so they become to know themselves better than ever. That's my number one. Number two is that we can always find things to learn from our own experience about ourselves. And even if a person decides quite early, I don't wanna be a part of this anymore, I'm moving on my own way, still don't let the experience be wasted. Dig into it and ask, what does this experience have to teach me? What does life have to teach me about this? Anything this painful, we do not want it to be wasted.

Mm-hmm.

good things to come out of it. So

Right. And I find that if we don't pay attention to it, chances are we're gonna put ourselves in a similar position going forward. Yeah.

Yes.

Yes, yes, that's yes, absolutely. Then the then number three is that we have always had this internal chatter going on, you know, our mind, it just does that. And it affects how we move forward. So learn to listen to your internal chatter, learn to listen, literally to the point where you can acknowledge, oh, that was a thought. That's what I was thinking about. Oh, that was a feeling I'm just having interesting. What does that mean? Where did that come from?

analyzing, at least being curious about what we're thinking and what we're feeling. We're paying attention.

Hmm

And then the fourth one was, I just wanna state emphatically that there can be amazing life, either after divorce or after infidelity. There can be amazing life after either one of those things. And it can be as magical and wonderful as you choose to work to make it happen. It's not magic. There is work involved and intentionality involved, but absolutely it can be there. And most, I think,

Absolutely.

in the past, one of the things we talked about was, can life go back to normal? And I would say the answer is, no, it never goes back to normal, but we don't want it to go back to normal because whatever was in the history allowed this to come out, we want it to go back, we want to create a new forward that's better than it ever was. This new chapter of our life, married or alone.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It really sounds like there's some commonalities between how you deal with clients and how I deal with clients. And the one I'm particularly thinking about is not to let their emotions hijack them and respond quickly, but to step back with self-awareness and with thinking before you react. Because what I've found is when you...

Really.

let those emotions rule you, you can't think clearly and you can't make good decisions. And I think that's what I'm hearing you say too.

Absolutely, absolutely. That's one of those things that there's this physiological reason going on. At that point in time when our emotions are in charge, our brain is literally firing more in the limbic system. That firing is affecting our thoughts and our prefrontal cortex, that higher order thinking, problem solving, let me figure out what to do. That part of our brain sort of gone offline. It's not even as capable. It's the same idea that if somebody, you know, we all know

Right.

words or these cards or something. We can't think under that kind of pressure and under that kind of trauma. The same thing happens to us just in this sort of circumstance. So that ability to deal with and calm and I find that what I'm teaching a lot of my clients pretty regularly now is some techniques to help them calm themselves. Some deep breathing to help put pressure on and activate the vagus nerve which calms down some of that the

Right.

firing that's going on in the limbic system. One of my favorite things now has become the tapping. I used to think it was just weird and I didn't want anything to do with it. Oh my word.

I love it.

Oh my word, in a matter of 10 minutes while you're tapping and you're saying some of the things that go with tapping, then you've seen it, you go from feeling activated to a 10 and you wanna scream and cry down to, okay, I can manage this and maybe even thinking completely differently about the situation. So I would ask all of my people, if they get upset about something, to go away, calm themselves first, do some tapping, some deep breathing, some writing, and then when, and this may take a little while,

And then when they're able to be logic, use their logic and be calm enough, then you're going to have a calm, a conversation and then you may make some progress. Uh huh. Yeah.

Yeah, I love tapping. I think it's awesome. So, so many helpful pieces of information and I know some of our audience is gonna want more. How can they find you?

Oh, thank you Beverly. So my website is www.livingbeyondbetrayal.com. And that's the easiest way there's a contact me form there they can email me at any point in time and I will I will respond.

Oh, that's wonderful. And all of that information will be in the show notes too. Martha, is there anything else you'd like to share that I've forgotten to ask?

Not really, other than Beverly, other than the fact that really, really difficult things can happen to us in life, I don't know of anybody who gets out without something going on that's really difficult.

right.

And those things that happen that are painful, they don't have to be the end of our world. In fact, they can be the very things that propel us to a better life than we ever had imagined. And I would hope that people leave with a sense of hope after listening. I would hope that they would have some hope about the fact that good things can come out of this and actually good things. I would never say yes, go deal with an affair,

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm

in your life, but as long as it's going to happen, we want there to be wonderful things to come out of it and it can.

Yeah, I found in my life, I never really learn new things unless there's a pain point. That when everything's hunky-dory, I'm not really motivated to work on myself. But when there's pain, I'll do it for sure. Martha, thank you so much for being my guest today. This has been just so informative, and the conversation's been so enjoyable.

Mm-hmm. It's true.

Sure, sure, absolutely.

Oh, thank you, Beverly. I've enjoyed it immensely. I love working with women. I love seeing them find faith in themselves again and finding their empowerment. And I know you do too. And it's even in your it's even in your name, or her empowered divorce, you know, being able to be empowered within themselves and create their life again. I love seeing that happen in the spark that shows up in their eyes. That's pretty special.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, all of Martha's information and mine are available in the show notes and you can find them at herempowereddivorce.com on the podcast page or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also watch the video version on our YouTube channel, Her Empowered Divorce.

Thank you for being with Martha and me on this episode of Her Empowered Divorce. And join me for our next episode where we'll be diving deeper into what other expert professionals can share to help you on your separation and divorce journey. Thank you so much for joining me today and take care.