Bitter or Better: Real Stories of Divorce and Resilience

Ep. 3 - Choosing Better: Challenges, Learnings, Wisdom

• Abby England • Season 1 • Episode 3

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 46:41

Heartbreak can flatten your plans and rewrite your identity in an instant. Abby opens up about the shock of betrayal, the weight of unfairness, and the paradox of missing someone who broke every boundary you trusted, then shows how small, stubborn choices stack into real resilience. We go deep on grief’s unpredictable waves, the “paper cut” triggers that sting out of nowhere, and the mental shift from revenge fantasies to a life that actually feels good.

From there, we get practical. Abby walks through five pillars of health: sleep, food, movement, stress management, and connection, and explains how each one becomes a lifeline when your nervous system is on high alert. Expect candid takes on why sleep leads, how to eat simply when emotions surge, why strength training beats stress-stacking cardio, and what real stress relief looks like beyond a streaming binge. We talk about the hidden pillar too: rebuilding connection, diversifying your support system, and finding the ROI of pain by investing in friendships that show up. You’ll also hear the “nobody cares” mindset that makes solo dinners and solo trips feel empowering instead of exposing.

Values take center stage as Abby names what crystallized: faith as a stabilizer, empathy as a new default, unconditional love as a practice, and advocacy as a non-negotiable. She shares how conflict aversion gave way to self-advocacy in mediation, why asking hard questions mattered, and how humor turned absurdity into creative fuel. For dating again, alignment beats checklists, think honesty, loyalty, empathy, playfulness, and shared faith. The surprise gift at the end of it all? Time and perspective, plus a clearer compass for a life that is happy and healthy on purpose.

If this story moves you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find these conversations. Your next step toward “better” starts now.

Welcome And Show Purpose

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Bitter or Better. The real stories of divorce and resilience. The podcast that gets real about the messy middle of divorce and what it takes to come out stronger on the other side. I'm your host, Abby England, marketer, national board certified health and wellness coach, and author of the upcoming book, Bitter or Better. And I've personally earned my divorce Kevlar. This podcast isn't legal advice. It isn't tips and tricks and don't forget and hacks and how-tos. There's plenty of other podcasts out there interviewing lawyers, therapists, accountants, all sorts of divorce scientists. This podcast is raw, real conversations with everyday people who have jobs, kids, responsibilities, and commitments, and yet they've weathered the heartbreak, rebuilt their lives, and found unexpected strength along the way. Because while divorce can break you, it can also make you better. You are not alone. Let's hear someone else's story and see what resonates. What were the biggest challenges or fears you had to overcome going through this process? I think our challenges or the things that we struggle with give us insight into what our values are. Because if something's like feels really uh challenging, it's a clue that, hey, that thing might be really important. So for me, one of the biggest challenges was just how unfair this whole thing was. It's unfair that we moved to Atlanta for his job. I've got no friends, I can't get a job because I have no network. Right. Like my life has been blown up. Now I'm standing in like the ashes of my life. And where do I start? So not only like that being unfair, but then also the divorce process being unfair and that no, he had an affair, and there's no consequences for that. So the whole unfairness, so that was a big challenge for me, which tells me I've got values of fairness and justice almost. Absolutely. Reframing him in my mind was a big challenge. He was the most loyal person that I knew. Uh, like he is the one that put very clear boundaries in place in our relationship early on, like when we were dating. And that was new for me. You know, kind of rules of like what's okay and what's not okay when it comes to friendships with the opposite sex. And that was new for me, but it helped tremendously and it made me trust him implicitly. I felt so secure in a trusting relationship because of those boundaries. And I think that's why what happened was so devastating. Because it's like the man that I dated and married back in Arkansas is not the same person who showed up in Atlanta. His values, morals, boundaries all disintegrated. These are two different people. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, if the most loyal person I know is capable of having an affair, what chance do I have with like all the other guys out there? And it's like, wait a minute, Abby, that no, no. Loyal people, he's not the most loyal person you know. Loyal people don't have affairs, don't cheat on their spouses, don't lie, don't gaslight, don't manipulate. Loyal people don't do that. He's not loyal. So I had to reframe him in my mind. Another another obstacle is or a challenge. It's called Bitter or Better. And the idea of or the philosophy of revenge kept coming up. And I really struggled with like just kind of daydreaming about different revenge fantasies to kind of, you know, going back to that justice. I wanted justice and fairness in this. The challenge was almost like when I would have these revenge fantasies to almost like redirect my thoughts to something else. Because it would, it's hard not to separate wanting him to be unhappy as your own happiness. And those are two different seesaws, they're not the same seesaw. I eventually learned that putting time, energy, money into the things that make me happy and like give me purpose and fulfill me has nothing to do with seeing him unhappy and regretting this decision. And then I would say another challenge, and it's something that every podcast guest has said, is grief, loss, loneliness, it's kind of all wrapped into one. The grief of losing what you thought your life was gonna be like for the next 10, 20, 30 years, and poof, it's not that anymore, right? Yeah. And the loneliness. You're gonna be alone. Like, and even if you have kids, I mean you still only get them half the amount of time. So there's gonna be a lot of alone time. Just know that it's coming, it's inevitable, but it can be a productive use of time as well for your own growth. But that is a challenge, is the you know, sleeping in a bed by yourself, not having like an outlet to share something cute that the dog did. Yeah, yeah. It's it's lonely. I can see how that could be like a double-edged sword. Like in one one aspect, you're growing and you're learning who you are at 38, right? Like 39.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

Tools: Five Pillars Of Health

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. You're welcome. Who you are at 39, with you know, who Abby is, not Abby and you know, your your ex-spouse, but it's like who Abby is at 39 because she's changed, she is a different woman than she was 15 years ago when she was 20, you know, yeah, in her 20s. It could be really sweet, um, but it could be really hard. Yeah. Another challenge is that of conflicting feelings. Be gentle with yourself that two things can be true at the same time. Two things that should feel mutually exclusive can both be true at the same time. Like I would be sad about him leaving, uh, feelings of abandonment, I'm not good enough, um, you know, our family unit just being blown up. I would be sad about that. But but then immediately I would think, well, he's a fucking cheater. Why are you sad about losing a cheater? Good riddance, let him go. And so almost like reprimanding myself for having the feelings of being sad. And yeah, sometimes missing him. And so it felt uh almost feelings of like, I don't know, anti-feminism or something. I don't know if I had the exact word for it. Um, but it definitely felt like feelings of being sad and then guilty for being sad, like reprimanding myself when I should be like, fuck you. Like that should be the only feeling that I should be feeling. You you can have a messy cocktail of feelings, and they can all be true, and they don't have to be mutually exclusive. It is grief. Everything you've read and heard about grief is a hundred percent true. It will hit you at random times, and something can unseemingly trigger something in you. You will cry at the gym, you'll cry in the shower, you'll cry at your work-off site. Or was that just me? I don't know, but it is grief, and it is okay to have all the feelings, and then there's lots of like paper cuts along the way. You got your big challenges, but there's lots of paper cuts and like he changed his email picture to him and her.

unknown

Oh, that's right.

Connection, Solitude, And “Nobody Cares”

Affirmations, Choice, And Faith

Lowest Point And Rising Strong

Strengths: Grit, Advocacy, Humor

SPEAKER_00

So, and we still had to email each other about things for the divorce. So I would see a picture of them every time I had to email him. Like, so that was a paper cut, and then anniversary. I mean, I lapped two of them, I think. Anniversaries are a paper cut, and so you just do something else that day and kind of tell yourself it's just a day. Yeah, but that's all it is. Yeah, so there's there's gonna be those paper cuts along the way. Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned revenge fantasies. What kind of revenge fantasies would you share? I'm a little hesitant to share because um have you seen the movie Gone Girl? Yes, yeah, with Ben Affleck and I think Rosamond Pike, where they very similar story to mine. Like he moves her to a town and he has an affair, she finds out about it, tries to plant her death on him. You know, there's some slight differences in our stories. But in the movie, they try to paint her as this like off the rails crazy person for for faking her own death and planning it on him. And I'm watching it and I'm like, and like he deserved it. He's a lying douche. Like, what like, yeah, it's a little far, but like I wasn't like, oh my god, she's crazy. Like, so I'm a little, I'm a little nervous of coming off like gone girlish, but maybe it's a good thing you kept those to your talk to uh my lawyer and I had a few conversations. Someone like you guys didn't have a lot of fun. Yeah. One of the one of them was like, because they worked for the same company, same public company, you know, just maybe the SEC would receive an anonymous letter that's like, I'm a shareholder of this company and I've got some pretty extreme concerns about their fraternization policy. Seems odd that the head of supply chain and the head of pricing, who are both married, are having an affair. And doesn't there kind of need to be a Chinese wall between these two? Especially from a leadership standpoint. Exactly. From these two groups, teams of people. Yeah, yeah. Because one can influence the other. Yep. So yeah. SEC, maybe want to look maybe you want to look into that. I don't know. My lawyer wouldn't let me do that. It's probably good advice. I know part. I know. But like those types of like like daydreaming where I would have to be like, okay, I mean, like focus on something more productive. Yeah. Like yeah, redirect your thoughts. So because that's not like serving you in any way. No. Yeah. Yeah. But um, yeah. Okay. So you mentioned um earlier, you mentioned getting through it. You wrote in your journal to get all your feelings out. You also were able to text your brand group and get all of that out. What other tools did you use during this process? One of the best tools that you have is leaning into the five pillars of health: sleep, food, movement, stress management, and connections. I will hold the mirror up and say I wasn't doing these well, especially when it was just especially when some days are about survival. Looking back, I wish I would have invested, I wish I in a coach and gotten a coach, like a health coach, to help me through that. Being a health coach, like, yes, having another health coach by my side, because some days you're just in survival and doing whatever feels good kind of in the moment, because it just sucks so bad. But that's also why I'm so passionate about wanting to help people who are in that. The book goes into these in more detail, but real quick, sleep. Sleep is the most important pillar of health. When you get shitty sleep, it impacts everything for the rest of the day. Um, it impacts what foods you crave, how your body uses the glucose from those foods, if you have the energy to do any sort of movement. I mean, we all know this, but really sleep is the most important pillar of health. And then food. 80% of the time, try to eat real food, whole, unprocessed, kind of as closest to its form in mother nature as you can find. Limiting sugar. Sugar's gonna feel real good in this time. Sugar like wants to be there and comfort you. Limit sugar. I'd also, I'm gonna lose some people here. I know it, but I would be cautious about alcohol. It can get real easy to use alcohol as an excuse. I've had a shitty day, break out the wine, or let's celebrate. You know, something good happened, let's say in the divorce process, let's celebrate, break out the champagne, or hey, it's just a Tuesday, break out the tequila. Like there, there can be a number of excuses to break out alcohol, and I stayed away from alcohol. You probably count on both hands the number of drinks I had in that time span. It's toxic. I mean, let's call it what it is. You don't want to use it as a crutch during this time, and and you don't want to cement bad habits. And so I would just be a little cautious about alcohol. The third is movement. Our lives are so sedentary. Um we sit, you know, on our commute to work, we sit at work, we sit during lunch, we sit on the way home from work, we sit when we get home and you know, watch shows. We are far too sedentary. So I would say, especially for women, be intentional about prioritizing movement. And I would give extra emphasis to strength training. I think guys kind of know and do strength training. I think it's underrepresented in the female community and under talked about how important strength training is. You're already in a stressful time, your nervous system is already in fight or flight. Don't go do more cardio, don't go do hours of cardio. You're already stressed. The nature of strength training is that it's not the same type of stressor that cardio is. So prioritize strike training during this time. Stress management. This is kind of dealer's choice a little bit. Um, do things that you know relax you and kind of take you into neutral. You know, I'm a big fan of journaling. You never know, all those feelings might become a bestseller. But going for a walk after dinner, I had a friend that takes a bath every night. It might take some trial and experiment to figure out what works for you. Um, but Netflix is not stress management. That's distraction. 90 minutes zoning out every night, that's not stress management. So know that there's a difference. And we talked about alcohol. Wine is also not stress management. And then the last pillar that I think doesn't get a lot of attention, but it is just as important at the as the other four, is connections and relationships. I personally felt this or the lack of this when I moved to Atlanta. I I'm a health coach. I was doing those four things: food, sleep, movement, stress management. I was doing those four things. But I didn't have a social outlet. I didn't have, I mean, I had relationships back home, but I didn't have, you know, people in Atlanta, like someone to give me a hug. And only looking back and doing work with my therapist, have we identified and labeled that I really did go through a season of depression. Social connections and relationships is so important. It's just as important as the other four because you lose your primary relationship. And so I call it the ROI of pain, the return on investment of pain. You lose your primary relationship and you then invest time and energy into all these other relationships. And that's this is also a tool in helping you get through what's going to be one of the most traumatic chapters of your life. And investing in those relationships, I promise, will pay dividends. People will show up for you. You need people to share when you're having a bad day, when you're having a good day, when something funny happens. Like you need an outlet for all of those things. Now, on the flip side of the quality and quantity of relationships is being alone. A tool that I would say is adopting a mindset of nobody cares. Um, I did a lot of things alone. And I think you'll hear that in most episodes, is that that that kind of the being alone is a common thread brought up in in most people's interviews. And there's no like non-depressing way to say that. It's just it's math. You were two, now you're one, you're alone, a lot. So get comfortable and use it as like a confidence building exercise to do things alone. I went to dinner alone, I traveled alone, movies alone, comedy shows alone, sporting events alone. And of course, I felt uncomfortable and anxious about it and like nervous, like, what are people thinking? But I read something on Instagram that was so freeing. It was like, nobody cares. Nobody is thinking, oh, look at that poor loser of a woman sitting at the bar at the restaurant by herself. Nobody's watching you. We are all so self-absorbed in our own lives. Nobody cares. And it so adopt that nobody cares mindset. It is quite freeing. Affirmations and post-it notes are a really powerful yet simple tool. Uh, the phrase bitter or better unearthed itself during this time. And I took a sheet of paper and drew a line down the middle and wrote bitter or better with synonymous adjectives underneath. I told myself every day, Abby, there's one of two ways you can come out of this: bitter or better, fit or fat, strong or weak, haphazard or intentional. You know, and and just the the list kind of continued. And you get to choose. And I taped that onto my, like to the right of my bathroom mirror, so that would look at me every single day and remind me I have a choice. Um, but probably my favorite affirmation is the phrase the best revenge is a happy, healthy life. And so that's what I put my energy towards. Lastly was faith. Um, for me, faith is a major tool. I don't know how people go through this without some sort of sense of a higher purpose, a higher power, that this pain isn't for nothing, that there's a plan beyond this. I prayed every single day, multiple times a day, for God to change me, for God to change his heart. You know, that was before I knew about the affair. After I found out about the affair, the prayers changed to like me finding peace, acceptance, and forgiveness. And that one I mentioned last because it's been the toughest. I definitely haven't like fully forgiven him. I've I've moved a notch in forgiving her. Because she only knows what he's told her. Got it. In my mind, she knew all the facts that I know. Right. Like that we moved to Atlanta and we were happy. Right. We didn't have problems in Arkansas. We were building a house together. He's married. I mean, pretty honest one. You know, like she knew all these things, but she only knows what he was telling her. And if he was telling her some other narrative, then she wouldn't know that my life is destroyed and the pain that I went through. Yeah. I think it's like kind of a spectrum also. In the book, I outline that on one, like on the left-hand side is acceptance and on the right hand side is forgiveness. And it's like a like it's a stair step from acceptance to forgiveness. She's kind of moved a notch in that in that spectrum. Um, he's still way over here though. Like, do I accept that he is a lying asshole douchebag? Yeah, I can accept that. Yeah, easy to accept that. Got it. Can I accept that he has trouble communicating his needs and values? Clearly. I if you don't say things for years and years and years and there's a blow-up, I can accept that you can't communicate. Can I accept that he's a flawed human being? It's a little harder, but yeah, I can accept that he's flawed. And so it kind of like moves its way towards forgiveness. I haven't quite like crossed the chasm into forgiveness yet, though. So And that's why I asked the question of people on the podcast because I'm it's like self-serving. Like I want to know, no, how did you forgive? And everybody says the same thing that forgiveness is more for you than it is for the other person. It's like that other person put you in chains and you're deciding to still live in those chains or to break them. Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, okay, so there's this like viral trend going around where you, as this like more mature, experienced person, take your younger self out to coffee. Oh. And you talk to them about, you know, just like what their life is going to be like, and you kind of just like give them encouragement. Yeah. So throughout this process, there were probably many low points. I want you to pick the lowest point. Yeah. And I want you to go back right now, what you know at the end of this process, go back to that lowest point in the process. What would you tell yourself? Okay, I have a I have like a revenge fantasy again.

unknown

Okay.

Values Crystallized: Faith, Empathy, Love

Dating Non‑Negotiables And Alignment

What Divorce Brought Back: Time And Perspective

Closing Reflections And Call To Share

SPEAKER_00

So we're still over here in the hours. And it's when we're when we're at the apartment, the night of the outburst. Uh-huh. See you next Tuesday. Yep. Outburst. I I'm kind of watching it happen, and Abby's on the couch freezing. Yeah. And it's almost like this new Abby comes in, like, tag teams in, and she and she like, and she like touches Abby. She's like, hey, you know what? Why don't you go to the gym? Yeah. Why don't you get grab a Tobo Chico? Why don't you go for a walk or go to the gym? I got it from here. And timid, frozen Abby gets up and leaves. And new Abby comes in. And all puffed up. And she's like, guess what? I'm not going after half. Because I'm getting more than half. But she just kind of takes over from there. I would tell the lowest Abby, you're gonna come out. You do not believe me. Like, but trust me, you're gonna come out of this stronger, more resilient, with deeper friendships, more connections, more confidence, and more like fivefold more confidence than you can imagine. It sucks right now, but look at me, girl. Yeah. Like you're gonna be okay, and you're gonna be better than what you were. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Okay, just rattled off like confidence. You know, you have more confidence now. Um what are some of the strengths that you leaned into during those two years? You need different strengths at different times. For me, I had almost like three tracks going on. Track one was getting through the divorce itself. Yep. That's the first track. Track two is uh establishing and cultivating a life in Atlanta because I want to live there. I didn't want to like retreat back to Bentonville or St. Louis. Atlanta's my town. You fucking move. Yeah. And the third track of of that got lesser energy, but it is still there, is like dating again. So the first track of just getting through the divorce, I mean, I do think I have a strength of just getting shit done. Yes. Professionally, personally, I can just get shit done. And that takes grit, resilience, determination, discipline, sacrifice, kind of those obvious warrior-like strengths. I I will say what's new though is the strength of like fighting back. I'm I'm I'm super conflict averse. Yeah. Super conflict averse. But I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna settle for less than what I was worth. And so I was fighting back, not only for me, but I also felt like a purpose of fighting back for other people who had been put in a box or walked on eggshells in their relationship because their spouse had anger temper issues. So, like, it wasn't just for me, it was for other people also. And like, oh, you want to underestimate me, you want to undervalue me, come at me. If you want corporate Barbie, I'll be corporate Barbie. And she likes to negotiate, she's not conflict averse. Let's go. So, like puffing up and fighting back was a new strength that I leaned into. I do think it takes confidence and courage to that kind of spans across all three. Yeah, it takes confidence and courage when you're getting through it to truly trust yourself. A lot of people were coming at me with like, just get it done as fast as you can, settle, get out of this thing. And it all came from a place of love and wanting, you know, me to be in this next chapter. But I also didn't want to sacrifice my financial position just to get it done. Right. So listening to yourself and even the depositions, people were like, do you really want to sit through that and hear all those details? You know what? It's gonna be tough, but yeah, I want to because I want to know what the fuck happened because my life blew up and I don't really know why or what the timeline was or what the hell happened. I want to know. Yeah, yeah. So it's almost like letting feedback kind of bounce off you a little bit and truly trusting yourself and having the courage to kind of go against what other people are saying a little bit, yeah, and and being decisive in what you want. Allowing others to help you is a big one. Yep. That is a brand new one for me. It's why I left Sam's Club to go to NEVCO because I didn't know how to ask for help. So this being able to let people help you, like in the meeting I'm in the mediation, the first mediation, I had a therapy appointment like the day prior, and my therapist was like, tell your lawyer how you're feeling. And it's her job to help you. And so I remember looking at the balance sheet and it's sloppy, and they're missing things, and just feeling like confused and inadequate. And I look at my lawyer and I'm like, I just feel rushed. She goes, Then we don't settle today. You can go get a 50-50 deal any day of the week. We don't settle. And so being vulnerable enough to kind of say what you're feeling out loud and letting people help you and trusting their help. And then I'd say the last one is humor, being able to laugh at things. Maybe I wasn't always laughing like in the moment, but stepping away and being able to see maybe the the absurdity or the ridiculousness of things has really helped tremendously. And I got the opportunity to do stand-up comedy. Which was so cool. You got so much material going through a divorce. I have so much material. So and dating again. So much material. So I would say, yeah, those those are the strengths that that I leaned into. Each person has to lean into the strengths that that they know has served them in the past in getting through something like this. Yeah. Okay, so you talked about strengths and then the challenges that you had to overcome. Within this process, what core values crystallize for you at the end in this? Yeah. Like I mentioned, your what you find challenging and your core values, I think, are kind of like opposite sides of the same coin. They can the your what you find challenging will give you insight into what's really important to you. Sorry, your values are what drive your feelings, your actions, your decisions. Um, so first, like faith, like that became crystal clear. I prayed multiple times a day. And at first the prayer was, you know, when I thought it was my fault, when I cared about all that guilt, the prayer was change me. And then like change him, change his heart. And then after I found out about the affair, it the prayer changed to like forgiveness, being able to forgive them, which I'm still working on. I'm not saying I pray for forgiveness every day, but you know, that's kind of the theme of prayer after that point. But yeah, the faith. Like life will punch you in the face. May not be this, it might be something else. A parent going through depression, a sibling lost to suicide or something. God forbid. But life will punch you, and your faith is what's gonna get you through it. But then also that kind of becomes like a non-negotiable for the next partner that you're looking for as well, someone who mirrors, who understands it's us against this thing, not us against each other. Another value that I think was cultivated and goes back to the strength of fighting back was advocating for myself. Obviously. The stories that I shared about the trapdoors in the past, I wasn't advocating for myself. I was shrinking and just freezing, not don't want things to escalate beyond where they are, you know, and then and then never coming back to them and being like, we need to figure this out. Right. Because I'm not doing that again. That is a promise that I made for myself is I will never be scared in my own home again. No one's gonna advocate for you in this process. You have to do it for yourself. Absolutely. You have to drive your divorce, and only you know what you're willing to kind of like bend and give on. Right. Another core value is I think I became way more empathetic and non-judgmental of people. I was probably judgmental before. And I don't know if you would have known it, but I would have had judgments on who gets divorced, who gets cheated on, who's unemployed, all those things that happen to me. Yep. So maybe I had to go through this, but I've I've I have a whole new level of empathy for people, and that I've never walked a day in your shoes. And I I think that's a common thread with most of my podcast guests is empathy for other people really moves to empathy for yourself and for others really kind of recalibrates going through this process. That's what this whole process does, actually. It recalibrates what might have been a value, but brings it to the surface or brings it to the top five. Um, because before uh it probably would have been like drive, ambitiousness, right, achievement. Um, it would have been those things. Now it's more about like connections and relationships and being a good human. Yeah. And that kind of leads me to the last value of like unconditional love. I love you as long as you kind of check these boxes, kind of stay within these. If you fall outside of these, God forbid you have a midlife change in passion. Right. Uh, or that you grow from the person you were 15 years ago when we want to change your habits that aren't serving you, right? Or you don't wear a song to bed, right? Or you don't wear makeup around the house. Yeah. I love you as long as you kind of keep to this checklist unconditional love is accepting and loving someone for who they are, who they're not, and allowing them to grow. So you talked about a future partner. So what are your non-negotiables whenever you look at dating in the future? I have found it hard when I'm doing like values work in therapy, which I highly recommend people do. It's kind of hard for the values to not become the checklist for the next person. But just remember that they're your values. Like what's important to you. Other people can have other values, but I do think you want them to be somewhat aligned. They don't have to be exactly one for one and two for two and three for three. But I think the top seven, eight values probably need to be pretty similar to each other. Yeah. Yeah. For there to be alignment, I would say, in the relationship. Yeah. So opposites attract, but not really. But it yeah. Uh yeah. So those non-negotiables are a lot of the values that I have that I'm looking for in a partner. Empathy, honesty, loyalty. Actually, playfulness and humor have come up to the list that I probably wouldn't have put on the list. Um, anybody knows my ex? No, those are not values or characteristics. No, but humor and playfulness have definitely moved up. Yeah, you need that. Okay, so I remember you coming back one night from dinner, um, having dinner with a friend here in Arkansas. She said, um, he was black and white and you were confetti. And if anyone knows you two, that is the perfect visual for the two of you. So I love that in your future partner, playfulness and humor is like up there because that is who you are. Like you are outgoing, confident, fun, you know, just so different than than your ex. That this is, I think you're on like the best journey forward. Thank you. Yeah. All right. So everything said and done. You've gone through this process. You finalized your divorce in 2023. 2024. 2024. Excuse me. Yeah. Yes, two years. It was literally only last year, which feels crazy. Um, what did your divorce bring you? I struggle with this one a little bit because a friend who also was divorced said to me once, it gives you a second chance at life. And I don't disagree with him, but I also struggle with that answer because I wasn't looking for this. I wasn't looking for a second chance. I didn't know. I I didn't know we were unhappy. Again, like blindsided. Run pulled out from under me. No idea. But I do think he's right in that I do get a second chance with a whole new gift of perspective and a whole new respect for a relationship. Like, he has watched my stories, my Instagram stories while we were going through it, and even after, like after the divorce, he's watched them. And a light bulb came on, and I was like, he doesn't respect any relationship that he's in. Right. Like, I would not be if I'm his you know new fiance, I would not be okay with you watching your ex-wife's stories. Like, what? I I struggle with that second chance perspective, but it's not not true. The other big thing he gave me back was time. Like meaning when so when I was telling people about what like what happened, I'd go into this spiel of like his six-point plan of like leaving Sam's Club and go to Navco and then health coach, and then all like there's no like succinct way to explain what happened. And now, like when people ask, oh, what what happened? Oh, he had an affair. Done. Three words. Yep, done. Okay, he gave me all this time back. Yes. Um it did this process pushes you into a process of deep self-examination. Like you are going to turn over rocks and go into deep dark corners of yourself that you're not proud of, right? That you yourself judge yourself for. But it also gives you so much insight into how to be gentle with yourself. Yeah. Because if you if you can be gentle with yourself, I think you can be more gentle with others. It goes back to that empathy. Um, it also gave me much deeper friendships and relationships with with friends and family. Sorry. Like more friendships, more quantity of friendships, more quality of friendships. I call it the ROI of pain. Yeah. Um there's this one relationship that you put all your time and money and energy into that now there's now I've got so many more fruitful relationships because of this. Because of the investments, kind of the deposits I've made in all these other relationships in my life. It's kind of learning that one person can't be your everything. Yeah. They can't be your source of happiness. Like one person isn't your spouse and your accountability partner and your fitness coach and your uh career mentor and your therapist. Like they can't, and your source of happiness. That's a lot we put on one relationship. I think it gave me the opportunity to have a platform and a message and a purpose. I mean, I told myself every day, I literally have in my bathroom like a bigger post-it with a line down the middle that says bitter on one side, better on the other, and with like synonyms on each one. And I look at it every day, and it's a choice. Some days you're gonna choose bitter, like those revenge fantasies, and are really gonna like sound pretty good, pretty compelling. And you're gonna call your lawyer and you're gonna say, Can I do this? And she's gonna be like, No. And you're gonna be like, fine, okay. Okay, fine. You're boring. I don't just kill me. Abby, thank you for sharing your story. Thank you. We are incredible. And I'm so happy to be able to do this with you and to have walked through the hardest times with you by your side. Yeah. We walked through it together. We did. We've been through hell and back together. Both of us, yeah. Yeah. At the same time almost. So yeah. Yes. But we chose better. We chose better. That's right. I five. Because we don't hug. No, we don't hug huggers. We're not hugs. We don't do hugs. Okay. Well, thank you for interviewing me and um investing all this time as well. Yeah. Okay. Bye. Thanks for listening to Bitter or Better, where we turn heartbreak into healing and survival into strength. As Brene Brown says, vulnerability is the last thing we want to show, but the first thing we look for in others. That's what this is all about. Real people showing up, sharing their stories, and reminding the rest of us that we're not alone. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it too. And remember, you have a choice better or better. See you next time for more real stories, real people, and real resilience.