"Divorce can be a gorgeous opportunity for growth if you have the right mindset"
The Divorce Diaries, 4
What happens when you’ve been married for twenty-eight years and then find yourself facing a divorce and the need to support yourself financially despite your career taking the backburner in service to the needs of the family? As this mother describes in the interview below, “since the needs of running a household were not shared, developing my career felt like it wouldn’t serve our family in the bigger picture.” That said, “alongside running the household, I taught at universities as an adjunct, launched a dance company, taught yoga, got involved politically as an elected official, and earned my PhD in education.” Reader, this woman is a warrior.
But when she went through a divorce at age 58, she did not earn an income that would support her. Luckily, her ex-husband did not fight spousal support and given the length of their marriage, she was provided a runway to launch into the next phase of her life. Which ended up surprising her.
When this woman shared her responses to The Divorce Diaries questions, she talked about issues of sexual disempowerment and how today, she was a sexological bodyworker. I was intrigued and asked her if she could go into more detail about her journey. Below, she shares not just the story of her divorce but also her story of sexual awakening filled with resources, workshops and books.
Like many women, she was not taught to own her right to pleasure, and given that, post childbirth, she felt like penetrative sex led to painful UTIs, she understandably started to avoid it. Because she was committed to her own growth post-divorce, she talked with friends, read books, took baths, signed up for Tango lessons. Eventually, she did the deeper work to really understand and eradicate her discomfort with sex. Read on to hear about how a late in life divorce became the catalyst for a woman in her sixties to step into her sexuality.
How did divorce impact me? It helped me reclaim who I am and amplify what I’m here to do.