You're listening to Amma mea podcast.
Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on white dresses and canna pays and flowers, the perfect shade of pearl, Promises and purchases and blueprints for a life. Will do this, and will do that, and oh the places will go. An act of audacious hope, signed off on by everyone you love. Reinforcement against the world, a comrade, a co conspirator, the
person at your back. And then a slow fade or a sudden reveal, a creeping unease, or a bolt of betrayal. For many, divorce at the moment of impact is an upending of everything we're taught to counter. A dream that turned dark from the edges, in plan that didn't pan out in the most public of ways, a financial earthquake and emotional tnunami. A practical puzzle, how do you untangle
two lives or three, four or five? Throw in the family and the friends and the acquaintances, and you're on picking an entire community, pulling on threads until they're free and clear. It takes time. You say, at least three years, you told me at least four and a half, you said, mids. You told me all kinds of things when I asked about the words you wish you'd had in your pocket at the start of your own seismic divorce shift. Some of them are shiny with optimism, some of them sopping
in pain. You have to remember you said that the person you marry is never the person you divorce. It's okay for you to want life to be better, not just for your kids, but also for yourself. You said, it's okay to be emotional. It doesn't mean you're not smart and strong. There is no shame in this. The grass isn't always greener.
You told me.
Pick your battles, have a bigger getaway fun than you think you need. Don't lose your self confidence, Separate money and emotion as much as you can. You're going to survive, you said, and be better than okay. You're going to be free and reborn when devastation is all you see and feel. You told me, it's hard to see the light, but it will come. Your words, not mine, offering a hand to hold as the wedding video rewinds, as the uncoupling clicks open, as a new life begins to reach,
bud and bloom. Divorce is an ending and a beginning, and beginnings should be celebrated. And what if, just like at that party with the dresses and cannopeys and flowers, the perfect shade of pearl, you get to walk towards it, bolstered, supported, flanked by love and told congratulations mate for choosing you. I hope you'll be very happy together.
Hello.
I'm Holly Wainwright and I am mid midlife, midfamily, mid non marriage. I'm getting straight to it today because the story you're about to hear is one that you've been asking for, and you don't need to hang around a minute longer to hear it. Nicki Parkinson thought that her husband of fifteen years was having an affair. No, he said, you're imagining it, he said, No way, he said. And then one day she got an email in the middle of the night, the subject line all caps. I'm sorry.
Nicky's going to tell you that story in a moment. But importantly, she's also going to tell you what became before and what came after it. Because what everyone who's lived through the collapse of a long term relationship knows to be true, even in the face of an I'm sorry midnight email is that a divorce is never a simple linear Everything was absolutely fine and then boom story.
You're going to really like Nikki too, not just because of her honesty, but because six years after that email, she's got a lot of perspectives on the mistakes she believes that she made as her marriage fell apart, both really practical ones and emotional ones, and now she shares those mistakes and what she believes of their solutions with
other women in the same situation. She also has a story about what happened in their family earlier this year that brought her and the man who wrote that email back under the same roof, and it's inspiring in the extreme. So, mids you asked for it, and here it is divorce with Nicki Parkinson. Nikki, I've seen you say that when a friend tells you they're getting divorced, and you're tempted to say, oh, I'm sorry, that maybe you should stop
yourself and instead offer some congratulations. Why is that?
Look? I think that the connotations around divorce and separation is that it is a failure and it is so it's something that we should have a lot of sorrow around and actually do you really do? So let's not
sugarcoat that because it's pretty awful. But I think what it is is somebody is taking that next step into this next chapter or season of their life, and they're doing it with courage, and they're brave and they're strong, and so what they need is I'm so proud of you, or a congratulations on your divorce if it feels like
the right thing to say. But our default is, oh, I'm so sorry, And it's that look that someone gives you when when they say or that pity look, I suppose, And I just think we need to reframe that.
I mean, I suppose obviously, under the umbrella of divorce and why a relationship ends, there are so many different ways that can happen. That's sometimes the congratulations on prioritizing yourself and your sanity and health is exactly the right thing to say. And sometimes i'm sorry that you were betrayed might be the right thing to say.
Right, yes, yes, absolutely, yeah, I mean there are there are spectrums, right, there's the it takes on everything. So yes, you're right in I'm sorry that that happened to you, But how do we make that the best thing for you.
Yeah, and how do we throw out the idea as you say that it's always a failure and a disaster. And yeah, of course, let's start with your own experience of divorce, the thing that led you to the work that you do. First, tell me about your marriage.
We were we were set up on a blind date with our mutual hairdresser and an interfering mother.
Do you mind me asking you how old you were when you got together?
Oh, ish ish ish. I would have been twenty five, so.
Like mid twenties. Yeah, mid training time that people are often coupling up kind of.
Yeah. Yeah. So I had a three year old at the time from a former high school sweetheart relationship, and so it was her and I and we my ex and I had met and it was, you know, this really beautiful, well wind romance. It was great. It was all things that we had hoped that marriage would be. You know, we go in our mid twenties, we're thinking, Okay, what is this partnership a lifelong partnership? And you hope
that it is. I mean, nobody gets married with the thought that, well someday I'm going to get divorced or I'm going to separate. So it was you know, I had up its ups and downs. It was never perfect. It was good and it was bad, and it was fucking horrible at the times, but it was it was. It was us, and it was You go into a relationship or you go into a partnership hoping that it's going to bring you a lifelong trail of happiness. I suppose along the way.
What were the first signs for you that maybe things weren't as happy as you maybe thought.
I think we were just not on the same page, Holly. We had I was quite growth driven and he was quite happy just to be And not that that's a bad thing.
It's quite a familiar story though. Actually, yes, we in heterosexual relationships. As you get a bit older, that I see around me a lot is that often women are like, this can't be everything. I want to work on myself. I want what's the next phase? What are we going to like that? And the often manimal.
Things are okay, yeah, I'm not going to question that. That's okay. We're good. We're good. We've got you know, we've got a house, we've got super we've got money in the bank. Kids are okay, let's just keep plotting along. But I think the thing is that asy and I think generally as women, we are we're looking for a broader not meaning, but maybe purpose for what are we kind of doing here? And we have children and then children start to grow up and it's just like, oh shit,
is this it? Like? Is this?
Is this it?
Like? Am I going to live out the rest of my days doing the day in day out? And I guess for me, I probably wanted a little bit more, but I wasn't brave enough to really deep dive into that, going, oh gosh, you know, do I end a marriage? Do I end a relationship just because that's what I want to do? And had I guess an event not had happened, would I have a question I asked myself, is would I have been brave enough to end the marriage or end the relationship or would I have just stuck it out?
And the thing that happened? You were you suspect for a while? Did you that maybe that he was seeing somebody else, that he was having an affair? Is that right?
I did? Yeah?
And what did that look like?
It was? I suspected it for a really long time. There was just a real disconnect and.
You said a really long time. How long do you are we talking? Months? Are we talking to you here?
I'm I'm going to say about eighteen months prior to our marriage actually ending. And you know, I might have it might have just been how I was feeling. But I'm a really big believer in gut instinct, and something told me that something wasn't right. And that's something I wasn't sure what it was. I just couldn't put my finger on it. So for a long period of time, I thought that I was just going a bit crazy, right, Like I was asking myself, Am I just inventing these thoughts?
Am I reading into things? Because I just don't feel really happy at the moment?
Were you asking him?
I was asking him, was saying completely denied it absolutely not, You're crazy? Why would you think that that's not true? All of these connotations that I felt like. And at the end of the day, and I now know, you know what gas lighting is, and at that point in time, it was not this term that is thrown around quite
often these days. So I mean we're talking six years ago, so it was starting to make its way out into the psychological world, I suppose, and in the media, So I didn't really have an understanding of what that was.
So you knew, so you knew you weren't necessarily in your marriage leaping out of bed every day going this is amazing. As you say, you were questioning where you're going, but you were going along. You're suspecting this, You're asking him, He's saying, though, then and then what happened?
Then? What happened is it was he had a small medical procedure done, and we'd got back from the hospital and he sat on the couch and he just said, I don't love you anymore. I'm leaving. Gosh, cold hearted, brutal conversation, nothing more than that.
I this question seems so silly in how did you feel? What did you What happened in that moment?
Felt like my world had just been knocked out from even though I had, you know, I had this thought that something was going on, something wasn't right. So even though I felt like that, I can't I was really quite blindsided, to be honest.
Because he'd he'd been denying it and reassuring you.
Yeah, yeah, and look Holly. To this day he still won't admit that to me. And that's okay. That's that's his story, and that's on him, that's not on me. But how I felt was it was kind of like a bit of like an outer body experience, to be really honest. I'm sitting on the couch and I'm hearing these words come out of his mouth and they're landing, and I'm like, what the fuck has just happened here?
And it wasn't until a little while later to when the kids were going to come back home that we had to put on this happy face of because the next day I was traveling with one of my children for a sporting event. So then I had to pack everyone up and jump in the car the next morning with the happy, smiley face. Let's get you through the you know, the next couple of days, and knowing that in turnal like when I got back, things were going
to change dramatically. How old were your kids at this point, sixteen and sixteen and eleven.
Sixteen and eleven, and he says this, you've got to oh, here's dinner time, here's packing the bags, here's going off to do the parental stuff. When you got back. Was there any part of you at that time like did you go, well, this is over or did you go we should work on it.
I went straight into the I suppose the stage of grief. I skipped the anger to start with, and then it went back into bargaining, right, so how can we make it work? And almost like begging him to stay, really begging him to let's fix this. But in hindsight, I knew that it was too far gone to fix and even if we did fix it, it wasn't going to be as it was ever again.
Mothers oftener, let's fix this because you don't want to. And I know that and we'll get to all this later, that this isn't necessarily what it is. But in the picture in your head, blow up my children's lives, ruin my children's lives. And again I know that's not what happens, but this is what's going going through your head. We can deal with this, we can put up with this. It's not perfect, but we'll do it. So you were kind of, I imagine, in that phase for a while.
For months, months and months, and then just trying to wrap my head around how we were actually going to then tell the kids and what did that look like? And even though you know I came from a legal background, and I've seen many many people go through what I was going through. I honestly didn't think that I would that that would be me. One day I would be sitting on the other side and being the client, Like, I really didn't think that that would be me.
Can I ask you who you turned to in that very tumultuous time when this was all very fresh? Was it girlfriends? Was it family? Did you keep it to yourself? Like? How did you go about go honoring some support and perspective in those early days.
The first phone call I made was to my girlfriend, and we'd shared a lot about, you know, how I felt things were and what was kind of going on and my suspicions and how I felt about that, and then it was just like the phone call and I'm crying, sobbing mess on the phone, and all I could get
out to her was it's finally happened. And she, of course knew exactly what I was talking about, so, you know, she's there in a heartbeat, and we had to coordinate times where he wasn't going to be home so that she could turn up, so that I could fall apart without you know, collectively trying to keep it together with family and those sorts of things and girlfriends and my
mum and my sister were initially really great support. So I kept the circle really tight because you know, living in where I live, it's a very small town and small community. So that was probably one of the things that I really wanted to do, was not involve you have it spread across the community, I suppose.
And it's interesting what you said about how you had to schedule falling apart time, because that's the reality for a lot of especially if you've got kids. That's the reality of you, Like, I can't fall apart entirely. I've got to give myself between one o'clock and three o'clock.
Yeah, or you know seven pm in the shower where you're rocking in the shower and you're a sobbing this. I mean, how many mothers have cried in the shower over It's the only safe place that you can do it without your kids looking at you, going shit, what's going on with mum.
I'm going to be back with my conversation with Nikki Parkinson after this break, talking about the moment she knew her marriage was over. Was it an email that you got from him that finally made you go, oh, we are getting divorced. What happened?
Yeah, the email, the email arrived at the early hours one morning with the headline I'm sorry.
And the email from your partner with the head like, I'm sorry all caps, all caps.
You're like shouting at me.
It's not going to be good.
What did the email? Then? The email? It was never going to be good with that title, right, So, and I never check emails when I first wake up in the morning, it's just not It was four am. I'm like, oh, I just check what's going on in the world. Open the and I see the email from him, and I knew instinctively that something was obviously not right. But the email was basically saying that he had actually been caught with He's the person he was having an affair with, and that's what he was sorry for.
Caught by him her husband. Oh, so she was also in a relationship. And so he would not Up until this point, he hadn't admitted to you that he was having an affair. You'd been asking him for more than a year, and even when he said I don't love you anymore, he wouldn't tell you no. But when she got busted. That's when he had to tell you because
he knew it would come out. It would come out, and obviously protecting everybody here within your community, people that you sort of like, did you have mutual like was it going to blow up, you know, in your lives?
Yeah, it was to It was going to blow up, Yeah, friendships, workplaces, all of the all of the things, and you know it did. It did exactly that. It blew everything apart, and then when the pieces start to land again, you then have to figure out how you're going to put that back together and is it it's obviously not going to go back in the same way that it came out. So then that's where the gift is, right, So that's
where the gift that you get to choose. And mind you, for anyone listening, I did it terribly?
What did you do? So tell yes, because I'm sure you know, the hard fought wisdom of what you went through then has got you to a very different place where you help women who are in that situation. But the mistakes that you made there, what did you do? Oh gosh, I imagine when you got that email. I imagine you threw your phone at the wall and had whiskey for breakfast, Like that's what I could have done. Sorry, maybe not.
Maybe not whiskey, I mean not whiskey, No, no, no, the Irish coffee.
Right.
Oh. When I read the email, I I picked up the phone and out in the backyard at four am in the morning, screaming obscenity down the phone to him. Funnily enough, he picks the fine up at four o'clock in the morning, so you know he's probably waiting for the phone call, right he.
Knew that, I'm sorry, email had landed.
Yeah, yeah, it had landed. So what did I do? What are the mistakes that I made? I communication was terrible?
How could it not be the NICKI really in the heat of.
That, Yeah, yeah, in hindsight. And I what I tell people now is give yourself the gift of time and pressing pause on angry communication because we all want to say it, right. But I did, and I you know, I shot off emails, I shot off text messages. I wouldn't speak with him. I you know, I never involved the kids in that, despite being accused of being the kids,
of being involved in that. They were my rock and I had to My own thought was, how do I protect them through this, and how do I protect them knowing what could come out in the community, Because at the end of the day, he's still their dad and they get to still have a beautiful relationship with him and vice versa, and none of those actions should stop that.
But your anger was very valid at that time.
Sure, and I you know, there were moments there I was just like, I just want to punish you for what you did, so I would write it all out. But you know, there would be moments WHEREUNT just writing the emails and they're so vile and vicious and angry and saying all the things that I wanted to say, and I'm like, I really shouldn't send this. I really shouldn't send it. Not fuck it, I'm going to send that, and then it's just like you can't take it back.
It's so those things I think I didn't do very well. And the other thing I did was I lay it up and I shouldn't have. I should have got the advice I should have. You know, I think in any vocation that we have, if you are, you know for a lawyer that is their own client has a fool for a client, right, So if.
Yes, because yeah, let's two steps back. You were a lawyer.
I wasn't working in family law at that time, but you had I had, yes.
So you probably had. For some women who are in this situation, they have no clue about what the next step should be. You probably did have some clue because you've been working in that world and talking to women, I assume who were in relatively similar situations. But was the initial lawyering up part of the sort of punishment almost like that I'm gonna I don't know what kind is that?
Yeah? Probably? I mean, yeah, I did. I had all of the legal knowledge. I knew what I had to do, when I had to do it, what I needed, and how the process was going to unfold if I took it from point A to point But what I did do was I shot off a legal letter from my lawyer in how do we fix the finances? How do we sort the kids out? And it all became very formal, very quickly. So that was one of the mistakes that
I made. What I should have done was get some advice and somebody independently giving me advice irrespective of what knowledge I had, and then just taken some time to think that through. Because when you like when you had this fogginess and a shock, We're not meant to be able to make those really big decisions. We're expected to, but we're not supposed to. I don't think. And I had a conversation recently with one of the judges of the Federal Circuit Court and he says the same thing.
You know, I'm seeing people come through this system that their early day of separation and having to make these really big life decisions when they kind of inn sea for it to the future. Yeah, absolutely so, I you know, I wouldn't do that again.
And is that partly because involving the lawyers at that point it escalates everything? Is that what it is? It kind of it escalates everything and accelerates it. Is that partly why? And sort of before you've really had time to let things settle and see what you want, what's best for you, the kids, what he wants, I guess, although I don't care what he wants at this point, which is because I'm in your stage of shock. I'm sure I'll get there. But is that why? Is it?
Because it just escalates everything.
It does, and what it does it actually takes it a little bit out of your control, because the lawyers are there to give you advice on what the law says. Basically that's their only job. They're not there to be your emotional support person. And doesn't mean they don't care,
but that's not their role. So their role is okay, So we're there now, we're out there and where it's a business decision and we're trying to carve up assets and liabilities and we're trying to put the kids in this little box and how much time are they going to spend with mum and how much time are they going to spend with dad? And all of a sudden, it's just like really quick. So as much as I wanted it over with, I probably should have given myself a lot more time than what I actually did.
Can I ask you about the kids? So the four am screaming phone call and the new processing that, how did you talk to the kids about what had happened when you after this point? And did you get that right? Do you think? And are their lessons to be there? How did you handle it? And did you do it together?
We did?
That's impressive considering the amount of betrayal you must have been feeling.
Yeah, I probably burn a wedding photo before having a chat with the kids. But actually, yeah I did.
Did Did you have a bomb fire in the back garden?
You know, I just did this quite quite wou Bay and based ceremonial thing where you just burn the photo and you know, get sage, stick a hut in the crystals and all the things. That was That was fun.
Because you do live up there on the North coast.
On the North Coast, we did tell the kids. One of the things that I wanted to make sure we did was give them an opportunity to have a conversation. And it was one of the worst conversations that I've had to prepare for, to be really honest. So what do we say, Who's going to talk? Who's going to do the talking? And at that point in time when we're having a discussion about that, so well, you can do the talking you want. This this is your fault, this is this is all your fault.
You tell them how you've screwed me over.
Go on, Yeah, you do that, But of course that wasn't ever going to happen. And we get to, you know, bringing them together and they're kind of a bit weird. Well, what do we need to come and sit down and have a conversation with you. And you know, my middle child is like, I've got skating to do. How long
is this going to take? You know? So it's sitting down at the table and then it's I'm waiting for him to start the conversation and it just never starts, and the kids are kind of looking like gosh, who's died, looking across the table at each other. And so then it's like, okay, well I've got to step up here, so parking everything else, dad, and I've got something to talk to you about. Like Dad's going to go and stay with you know, Nanny and Poppy for a while. And the kids are like, is that it is?
That?
It like she's like my middle child is It's like, okay, well that's cool. What do we need a family meeting about that? For?
When?
Do you haven't when you come back dad? And then it was like okay, so no, we need to actually say it. We need to say it. Yeah.
So, which is so hard because as a parent, you everything is about protecting your kid's feelings and you're like, maybe that's an easy way in, but actually they need to hear the true.
Hear the words.
Yeah, So what did you say?
Dad and I are separating? Yeah? And from then they got it. So I was trying to sugarcoat it in a way, I guess make it, you know not So, I mean I didn't want to have the conversation full stop, but we have to say the words to kids because otherwise they just don't understand it. Don't mince your words, right, So, yes, Dad and I are separating. Dad's going to stay, you know, over there for a while, and then we're going to figure out what it is it looks like, and it's
we're still a family. We're still going to try and come together. Dad's still Dad, I'm still me. You've got the best of both of us. Do you have questions?
And did they have questions? Or is it too soon?
Way too soon?
Yeah?
They both just scattered in very different directions, and I was kind of expecting that to be honest. So then it's a you know, then it's just a continued conversation, checking in, are you okay? Do you need to ask me anything? And some of the things that they they want to know is do we have to move? We are we going to live somewhere else? Yeah?
How much it's going to affect that day to day.
Yeah, and that's really valid. Yeah, of course, because that's their safety net. You know, that community is their safety net. Their home is their their kids, you know, their their friendship groups are there, their school is there, so of course that they want to know what is the impact going to be for them. So it's just recognizing And I didn't really have a plan forward of what that looked like at that time, so we kind of figured that out together. But after I told the kids, I
then kind of just fell apart. To be honest, it was I can't. I didn't feel like I could hold it all together. And I stopped eating, not because I because I didn't that I wanted to. I just I had no hunger anymore. And that's a really I hear that a lot like people to stop eating, and I didn't realize I was doing it until my youngest said to me, I'm not eating anymore until I see you
put food in your mouth. Oh I'm like, oh wow, And that was that was heart wrenching for me to hear her say that to me, And at the moment, I'll never forget. And I felt like I'd let her down because what sort of a role model was I being. I'm asking them to be brave, I'm asking them to you know, fall into this new way of life. Yet here I am just you know, losing my shit over in the corner, right.
I know. But NICKI and I know, I'm sure you know this now, but that just makes me want to give you a hug because you were going through something enormous And this is what's so hard is you've got to keep it together and inverted commas for your kids. But that's actually impossible. And I know that some people say, well, it's very important for your kids to see you fall apart and put yourself back together again and struggling and things, but we all know that that's also very hard for
them to see you struggling. So it's just you're in a very difficult situation.
Yeah, And how much of that do they need to see?
Holly? Like, what did you land with all that? Were you even though they were picking up because they're like, Mum, isn't even eating? Were you pretending everything was fine on the outside, like hi, darlings, it's dinner time? Or were you we were kind.
Of I you know, I would I'd get them off to school, and you know, we everything kind of just stayed the same. Really. It was I'd cook the meals and sit down and I'd push the food around on my plate. And there was times there where I was like, no, we're going to come together as a family. And he'd come back sometimes every fortnight for Sunday night dinner, and I was really conscious that that's what I wanted to
do for them. And that didn't last very long because it was so awkward, Like it was, the idea was a great idea. It seems like it seems like a good idea at the time, but it wasn't. So yeah, everything just kind of ticked along really until it wasn't. And I didn't realize that I was just I was just putting one foot in front of the other and
that's all I was doing. And moments of where you want to break down, you know, there'd be times you cooking dinner and the kitchen and the tears are streaming and you can't stop those because once those you know, those big tears start to flow and they're really hard to stop. So it's just like, oh, I'm really sweaty, I'm just going to go on have a shower, So you jump in the shower and you'd have a little bit more of a cry and then you pop back
out and just don't let the past to burn. And you know, and it's some days I look at it and go, gosh, I don't even know how I got got through that, but I did.
And was there a moment, a turning point or that you can see that you began to come out of that a little bit and look around.
Probably the moment where my youngest said to me, yeah, because that was really confronting. And I had lost a lot of weight.
So you were lost, looking really frail, really frail.
I was looking really sick. I then got w hooping cough and it's you know, your body, your body is just it's going to if you don't stop and try and you know, heal yourself. Something's got to give and it does.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, So what did you do to try? And when you when you were realized, you were at that point where you're like, okay, this isn't going well. I'm literally breaking down, like my what is Something's got to change? What changed?
Mindset? Mindset changed, and it's like, okay, this has happened and I need to move forward. So it's like, all right, so what do we need as a family. I moved the kids to the beach and moved house. Yep. It's like I can't stay in the house that I'm in anymore. There's too many memories here. Moved house, moved to the beach. I got in the ocean every day, rain, hail, or shine for three hundred and sixty five days, every morning
and every afternoon, and that became my therapy. I would walk down barefoot, cup of tea in hand, immerse myself in the you know, really dig my feet into the sand. So it was just really grounding and throwing myself in and no wetsuit. Winter was just a swim suits like it's freezing, but you've commuted to that. So that therapy really looking after myself instead of trying to sabotage myself because I was thinking, gosh, you know, I felt betrayed.
I felt like I'd failed, I felt shame, I felt embarrassed. I felt this, you know that I never wanted to go back out into that community again. And I felt like every time I walked out there, somebody was looking at me. They weren't, of course, but I felt like I couldn't live in the space that I'd created, So it was just reframing all of that.
Was the place you moved to, still within the same community, just closer to the ocean, to the water. Yeah, and just in terms of that for a moment, because it's a very common experience that you know, families, We do live in communities, of course, and everybody knows each other to a point, and it is gossip at the schoolgate.
It definitely, there's no getting around that. It is gossip at the school gate for a while, and particularly if it's an affair and did you know it was this, it's like it's for other people, it's the TV show for a little while. Yeah, how do you get through that part of it? You know, the part of it because they will all move on and you know, they've all got their own shit going on in their own houses.
But do you have advice for how to get through that part, like that part where you do feel like everybody's talking about you and they might be for a little while.
Yeah, and you know what they will be, Yeah, yeah, they will be because, as you say, it is gossip and it's people love to talk about other people because often things aren't going very well in their right. So what I would say to people is, and we like our stories to be simple, like we like it to be very like black and white about what happened and whose.
Fault it was, and that's that. And you know, it's sort of a yeah, it's unsatisfying, really, isn't it?
Oh? It really is? But I mean, to be honest, I mean, I've got to take responsibility for some of the things in in our marriage that weren't perfect either, Like I certainly don't tell this story and hold no fault in that. Yeah, of course. But what I would say to people is the gossip says more about them than it does about you. It will go away and you might be top of mind for a couple of weeks, but they're going to forget about that, and they're going
to start to talk about someone else. Be brave. Be brave, and by saying that, feel good about yourself, whatever that looks and feels like for you, there's moments of joy that you're going to capture in times throughout the day. Really go with that instead of sinking into the story and being caught in that loop of that story continuously, because that loop will go on for as long as you will allow it to.
So you mean, for example, if the story is and as you said, this is not what you're saying at all. But if the story is I was a good wife, I was building a good life and he screwed me over and he's ruined everything and he's a monster and nothing's ever going to be good in my life again, and I can't trust anybody, And that is the loop that goes round and round. Is there a place for letting yourself sink into that story for a little while before you start unpicking it or do you know what I mean?
Like definitely, yes, yeah, because I think you have to acknowledge that, and if you don't sit in it, then you can't. Were's the acknowledgment And by sitting in it, we are really and it's hard to really hard to do. It's so easy for me to sit here today on the other side of a microphone and say this is what you should do, but let's acknowledge how really hard
that is. And there are moments where you may not feel like you want to get out of bed anymore, and you may not have the energy to deal with life as you knew it, or finances or paying the bills or doing the grocery shopping, or cleaning the house or taking the dog for a whet to work or going to work, any of those things. Allow yourself some time to do that, and it is the only way
to get through is to move through it. But yeah, absolutely, sitting the story because it's yours, and then over a period of time it becomes part of then who you are doesn't have to define you, It just becomes part of what that life then looks like for you.
Because divorce can blow up lives in lots of ways, right, and one of those ways is financially because if suddenly your circumstances of life have to shift because you can't afford to live where you were living when you were together, if you know you've got to take on more work or go back to work to a job you didn't like, or a million different things, or suddenly you can't pay for things, and maybe you're not getting this that there are a lot of very practical things as well as
the emotional things, right that can also keep you in a loop of fury in a way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, financial fear and scarcity is really really hard for women in particular. Often there is one person in a marriage or a relationship that deals with the finances, and by default it's often men generally, not always, but you know in it usually is from what I see, and that's really hard because you not only do you have my life is falling apart, It's like how am I actually going to survive? How am I going to keep the lights on?
Absolutely? And those are questions you've got to figure out, yeah, answers to they are.
And I think there's two things that often happen in high conflict family law situations is that kids and money gets weaponized and one will withhold the other until the other. You know, kids are withheld until the money comes and vice versa. And it's ugly, and that's the ugliest of ugly, right So, but it happens, and it still happens. And I know that we've got this movement that we are trying to get away from that, but still to this
day it happens. And things that I often say to women is know your finances, Know what it costs to keep the lights on. You have to understand that, whether you want to or not, you've got to do it. So even if you're not going through a hard time in your marriage or relationship, know.
That, yeah, absolutely arm yourself for that. After this shortbreak, Nikki tells me how she transformed her experience into the really meaningful work she does now, which is help other women navigate divorce and separation. And she's going to share her very best advice. So I want to talk to you about the point where you move from you know, dealing with literally your life being entirely upended, and you're putting yourself back together, you're swimming in the ocean and
you're getting grounded. How do we move to a place where you're like, what I want to do is fill this gap that I felt in helping women through this, and I'm going to make this my life's work. Like what happened? How did that come about?
I always had a My nature is to support and guide and help people. That's that's who I am and when I.
Was a very you have a lovely energy about that. This is obviously the first time I've met you, but I can see exactly how that would how you would be a very reassuring presence to somebody in that situation.
Thank you. But even when I was working in family law. It was I was always in I was the one that was always in trouble because it was never meeting the billable hours because I couldn't charge people for you know, the things that they needed.
And so it was great lawyer.
Then no, no, I didn't make anyone any money, that's for sure. So it was just just and then when this happened, it's just like, oh, this is what I need to do, you know. It was just it's almost like this light bulb moment. And I started coaching with Kim McGinnis and she had said and it wasn't about divorce coaching at that stage, and she's like, well, what is it that you want to do with career? And you've got this golden opportunity now that you can choose
to do. You can go back and work in the system if that's what you want, which was never going to happen. But I'm like, I can help people get through this. She just did, and there's your answer. So we just started to map out this pathway that people could then start to take and understanding where the acute times were, what did you or how do you get
through that? And then what is it that you need next, and putting all of those stringing all of those things together, so like your self care and your children, your finances and your legals, and your nutrition and your health and your fitness, and just stringing all of that together and going, Okay, how do we look at this as a whole person rather than just ship my marriages over. I need to get a lawyer, and I need to get a divorce, and I need to sort out my property and my
kids the end, goodbye. So it started to, you know, think about that, and then I did a bit more training, and I did some high conflict training, and I just threw it out there and I thought, well, you know what, either worker, it won't and it's been the best thing that could have happened for me. How'd I have stayed in the marriage? There is no I can safely say that I wouldn't be doing the work that I'm doing now.
That you obviously find very fulfilling.
I love it, I absolutely love it, and it's so it's such a beautiful feeling for me to then have somebody that can come to me trust that. One. I have the practical side of things, I have the professional side of but I've also have the personal side where I can go. I know exactly where you're at, and I know that it feels like it is not going to get any better. But I'm going here to tell
you that. Come back to me in a little while, and I will guarantee you that you're going to feel a whole different person in time.
To come tell me. I mean, obviously you've got a whole program and course around this, and you've got your own podcast, and we'll link to all those in the show notes. But you said before, like a couple of really helpful tips to people who might be listening to this who are finding themselves where you were. You mentioned before about communication. Do you have anything else that you just think of? The golden rules that we get wrong in this moment of crisis. Definitely communication, So sit on
the communication on the cause. Your advice to write that email that you wrote that you were senting but not send is that the advice.
Absolutely write the email, but don't write it in your actual email, because you know chances are that you might just accidentally hits end on that. Write it out in your notes, your journal, whatever that looks like for you, however you want to do that, write it out, but write it out exactly as you want to say it, and then you can go back and look at that twenty four hours. At the very least, nothing needs to
happen before then. Nothing is the emergency that needs to happen before then, and give yourself the gift of time to do it. Then reframe it and what I there's some really great tips from a man called Bill Eddie and he calls it the Biff method, and it's called brief informative, friendly infirm. So when you write your email, you keep it brief. So two topics at.
Minimum, we need to we're doing for the school.
Holidays, yes, the end informative this.
I'm going to be taking the kids to nanas at blah on this date yep, yep.
And this is when I propose that the kids come to you. And then friendly. So the friendly is just the high and the buy and firm is that you give a deadline to come back to you with or you know, I'd appreciate your response by five pm on the fourteenth of October, just to really set that boundary that this is what I need, this is what I'm suggesting, this is when I need it by and then let's
have another conversation about that. And I think that you can take that forward with you in any anything that you do, whether it's acute or whether it is like later on in your separation or your divorce. And then I think, look after yourself. It's really easy to sit there and say look after yourself, and that's really hard because you're as a mom, your default is I need
to look after the kids. But you know, in my experience, because I wasn't looking after myself, that was then having an impact on my kids that I didn't really know that it was. So find something anything, whether it is walking out of the room. If you're feeling overwhelmed, you can walk out of the room into an other room, stay there for five minutes, and come back in again. Outside, put your feet on the ground, barefoot, wherever you are.
Those types of things will immediately give you some grounding. And breath is going to be your best friend, breathing through those moments of where you feel your nervous system starting to just wor and circulate. Breathing through that. And we can all do that no matter where we are, and no one else needs to know that you're doing it.
I want to bring you. You know, this is six years ago that you were having this you know this email. I'm sorry, and I know your life is in a very different place in lots of ways. But for you and your ex, I know that this year you had to survive something very difficult together when your youngest child became ill. Can you tell me a bit about that and dealing with that in this separated family.
Yeah, So at the beginning of the year, my youngest was diagnosed with osteopsychoma, which is a type of bone cancer. How old was she eighteen? Yeah, it was the worst phone call that I have ever can't received. I was in Alice Springs at the time with my eldest daughter, and I just knew that something. You know, that phone call was he had rung and they've mentioned cancer because she basically fell or burnt down and broke her femur.
And that's how we knew that she had cancer. And we then had to find a way to come back together and park any and I will say that prior to that, we you know, spend birth days together, We spend the big occasions together, formals, those things, and we we do it reasonably well.
So you're you're its friendly, it's friendly, and you're.
No no. So so this year found us back in that situation where we were theoretically having to co parent an adult child. You know, she whilst she was an adult, she had just turned eighteen and having to make those really big, scary decisions about what her life then looked like. So she needed, you know, she needed her support crow there and that is mum and dad and siblings. And we became a really tight unit when that happened, and
we did it well for the most part. It was I'm sure, you know if you ask him the same question, Neither one of us really thought that we would spend that much time together, nor did we want to, to be honest, but there were some ground rules and we found ourselves having to live in an apartment away from home together.
And she was having treatment.
While she was having treatment, I stayed in the hospital with her every time she was admitted, and he would come and go. And then when she was having chemo, which is external to so when she was an outpatient, we would have to stay close by. So we would live in an apartment, the three of us, or you know,
if the other siblings were around. So we did spend a lot of time together, and that was very It was really tricky to start with, but then it was like, okay, well, we need to be there for her first and foremost. And there were moments there where things were looking a little bit. We didn't know which way it was going to go, because you don't you just don't.
You know, you I'm so sorry. I can't imagine.
You're at the mercy of the medical teams and you trust in them. So there was moments there where there were you know, there were a lot of tears and there were you know, hugs because I haven't repartnered and he's there and it's like, you know, we've come together and it's going to be okay, and whichever way, we'll get through this. And when we were home, it was just like my door is open, because she was living
at home with me. I said, you come and go as you please, because you know, you need to have that time with her when you want to have that time with her, and vice versa, so you know, come and go. And that was a really big moment for me because it was in my space and in my home and in something that I had created like a safe haven for myself, so inviting him back in on a day to day basis felt it was challenging. But I'm so pleased that we did that, and I'm so
pleased that we did it well. And we you know, we've come to the end of the year, and you know, we've got a cancer free diagnosis a month ago, and I'm so happy to which is, you know, just the best news. And to be able to then come home from the hospital and crack a bottle of champagne and sit there and clink the glasses together and go, you know what, we did it.
It's a great story, Niki Baka. I mean, it's not a great story that your daughter went through that and that you all went through that, But I can imagine a circumstance in which the tension between parents who've been through so much in that way would make that almost impossible situation entirely impossible for you both and for your daughter, and add this extra layer of tension and stress. So what an amazing and important thing you did.
Yeah, I'm really I am really proud of us for doing that. There are moments in the hospital where you kind of just because you people ware right, So there were moments there where I could see that the parent, there's a couple and they are just really struggling, and the tension in them and then the tension in their child was it was really you could cut the air with a knife, and I'm like, I don't want that. I can't. We are focused on holy and soul of
getting her well, and that is our only focus. Put your ego at the door, leave it at the door, and let's get down to business and we make sure that she's going to be okay.
If this was a TV movie during those times in that apartment, you would have discussed all the ins and outs of what have happened. You would have forgiven or not each other. You may have I don't know, did you do all that stuff or was it just like so did what was going on with your daughter? Just put everything into perspective and it wasn't important.
It wasn't important. It really just put it all into perspective and it's just like, Okay, we are being forced into spending this time together. We get a choice here. We either come back together and we do this for her and our family, or one of us is going to be not being able to be with her at that time, and that's not fair on her, and it's
not fair on us as parents. And you know, there were moments there where where we're in the apartment and I'd put something into the washing machine to wash, and I walk it back into the laundry. In the next minute, it's on the floor and I'm like, why did you take my clothes out of the washing machine? Said, well, I'm not going to wash your clothes with my clothes, and I'm like, oh gosh, here we are again. It kind of takes you back. I'm like, I'm like, I'm so glad I'm not married to you anymore.
I love that. Okay, before we go, I want to ask you this. I've seen you say in your ted talks that all of this experience and the experience of work that you do with other people have made you question the whole notion of marriage and long term monogamy and partnering. What are you where are you sitting on that now?
Well, if I think you look back at you know when when we Western marriage became a thing, and I think it was I'll get the date wrong, but I think it was twenty thirty five BC or something. Back in those days, we had a life expectancy of thirty five,
so marriages weren't meant to last that long. And now we are coming together and our life expectancy is almost double that, so expecting to spend that great chunk of time with one person, and I just don't think that, in what I know, what I've learned, what I've experienced, that we're just not meant to marry and mate for life. I will say though, that some people are meant to be together forever, and they are the extreme of the death do us part, and that is beautiful, and there
are many marriages that do do that. For me. I don't think that that was going to be for me, and I think that that's okay to really recognize that. And it's one of these things that I do feel it is a bit of a rite of passage too, right, because we celebrate the weddings and we celebrate births, and we celebrate all of the big things, but we don't celebrate divorce as we have or we can cele break it, because it's still this a bit of a dark cloud
that sits over that. So it's just changing that mindset to be able to go. Yeah, marriage can come and go, but the next phase of that can also be a really beautiful chapter two.
I love that, Nikki. Thank you so much. We'll direct, as I say, everybody, to your work in links in our show notes, and I just really appreciate you sharing your story with us.
Oh you're very welcome. Thanks so much for having me.
I had my heart in my mouth in the last parts of that conversation. What happened to Nicky's daughter, which is every parent's absolute nightmare, and the way that the family pulled in around her is so beautiful and so
important and so affirming. And I know there are going to be people listening to this who are thinking they could never share an experience like that with their ex even under such extreme circumstances, because their relationships were just so toxic or maybe abusive, or their split was so bitter, so acrimonious. And of course that's okay too. You've got to look after yourself. But if you want to hear
more about mid relationships, we've got you. You can scroll back in the feed and listen to Gina Chick talking about letting her husband Lee go so that he could have more children after the death of their three year old daughter, Blaze. Or Christine Arnu talking about the kind of split that leaves you crying in bed for weeks and allowing her teenage kids to care for her. Or Leslie Morgan about walking away from a sexless marriage and
rediscovering pleasure and lots of orgasms at fifty. I've got enormous thanks and appreciation for Nicki for being so vulnerable and sharing that remarkable story. I know it'll be familiar to lots of you. You can find out more about her and her work in the link in our show notes. And look, I know that divorces are much more than breakups, but sometimes a breakup song is exactly what you need. And we've got some suggestions from the talented mid team.
Our executive producer Nama Brown says Exile by Taylor Swis is her go to for ugly crying. Our producer Charlie Blackman says, lover you should have come over by Jeff Buckley is hers, which is extraordinarily gen x of her considering she's a zee. And Tom Lyon, who is responsible for us seamless audio production, says the scientist by coldplay me you can't go past against all odds facts. Thank you mids and goodbye