Latest / Your Extraordinary Life & Dating After Divorce / 203. Reinventing Yourself and Finding Love Again After Divorce with Erica Bennett

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203. Reinventing Yourself and Finding Love Again After Divorce with Erica Bennett · Your Extraordinary Life & Dating After Divorce

• 0:30
  Sade Curry: Hello everyone, welcome back to the Dating and After a Divorce Podcast.
• 0:33
  Sade Curry: I have my colleague and friend, Erica Bennett here on Zoom to record this episode.
• 0:40
  Sade Curry: Erica is a global training guru and powerman coach, and a woman obsessed with helping you rewire the fear that is holding you back.
• 0:49
  Sade Curry: Amen, amen to that.
• 0:51
  Sade Curry: So Erica specializes in helping divorce women navigate the healing journey, and she has over 20 years of training and coaching experience and brings her blend of who and do to help you line up with your desires and take action for your success.
• 1:09
  Erica Bennett: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:10
  Erica Bennett: I'm excited to be here, yeah.
• 1:12
  Sade Curry: Yeah, it's so good to have you.
• 1:14
  Sade Curry: You had me on your podcast and we had so much fun recording that episode.
• 1:18
  Sade Curry: Yes, it was so much fun.
• 1:20
  Sade Curry: We're turning the favor and I'm super excited to hear your story.
• 1:25
  Sade Curry: But before we dive in, just kind of tell the audience a little bit about yourself, like who you are, what you do, who your clients are yeah.
• 1:34
  Erica Bennett: So I host the Crazy X Wives Club podcast.
• 1:37
  Erica Bennett: So it's all about helping women not be crazy.
• 1:40
  Erica Bennett: It's about navigating that healing journey.
• 1:42
  Erica Bennett: So that is definitely it's the thing that just fills my cup.
• 1:46
  Erica Bennett: I absolutely love that.
• 1:49
  Erica Bennett: I launched it just this summer, in June.
• 1:52
  Erica Bennett: So my background is I originally started in sales.
• 1:55
  Erica Bennett: I'm super competitive.
• 1:56
  Erica Bennett: I like to win.
• 1:58
  Erica Bennett: Sales are easy.
• 1:58
  Erica Bennett: There's a number.
• 1:59
  Erica Bennett: Right From sales, I moved into corporate training.
• 2:02
  Erica Bennett: My job was to help people win and that was specific to selling more product, driving more profitability, delivering better service, right.
• 2:11
  Erica Bennett: And I did that and I really loved it for a lot of years and at the same time, I was always exploring self-help, self-development and I was kind of getting into the woo side of the world.
• 2:22
  Erica Bennett: Right, we all got to do the five seconds, the action, the smart goals, the la-dee-da-dee-da that we all want to do in the corporate world to action things.
• 2:30
  Erica Bennett: But I was testing the waters on the other side and when my separation hit, I fell deeply back into that practice of really understanding how to find happiness with myself.
• 2:43
  Erica Bennett: So I left corporate training because I felt that there was so much more than just the behaviors in 2021 and launched my own business to help people navigate that.
• 2:53
  Erica Bennett: How do you line up the mind to free yourself up to the action that leads you forward?
• 2:57
  Erica Bennett: So now I offer the podcast, I offer a group transformation.
• 3:01
  Erica Bennett: It's a 12-week transformation for divorced women where we meet every week and I guide you through that process from being like do I leave?
• 3:09
  Erica Bennett: Who am I now?
• 3:11
  Erica Bennett: How do I thrive in this new normal.
• 3:13
  Erica Bennett: So at the end of it, you have the tools to be able to take yourself through the rest of your own healing journey.
• 3:18
  Erica Bennett: So absolutely love it and that's why I'm excited to be here to talk about this big life-changing event that sent me down a new path.
• 3:27
  Sade Curry: Yes, you know, as you were describing your corporate experience, I I was like she sounds like my typical listener, typical client, the high achieving, high achieving, driven, successful, fix it, do it.
• 3:42
  Sade Curry: Yes, build it.
• 3:44
  Sade Curry: Woman, am I right?
• 3:46
  Erica Bennett: Oh, 100%, so super high, achieving whatever I set my mind to, I got and I had I would definitely consider myself high functioning anxiety, whereas that that fear of failure motivated me to do more, to take on more.
• 4:01
  Erica Bennett: You know, it was like top of the class and high school school of my choosing job that I wanted Like if I was going to move, I did it and that way I could always like control everything.
• 4:15
  Sade Curry: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:16
  Sade Curry: And the reason I pointed that out is because there is this pattern that I've worked with so many women now.
• 4:22
  Sade Curry: I just seen this pattern and I'm curious to see if it's true for you that that had a huge impact on how you showed up in your marriage, where you potentially took on all the things Potentially.
• 4:39
  Erica Bennett: Yes, I think it showed up in a few ways.
• 4:43
  Erica Bennett: One I showed up still with that corporate hat on of driving the project that I decided we were going to do, and I treated him a bit like an assistant I have the plan, I have the right answers, just fall in line and help me do what I need to do.
• 4:58
  Erica Bennett: And then, on the other side of that, when he started not showing up, I took on more because I was like, well, these are the things that have to be done for the we in this relationship, and so I put aside me to be able to take on what needed to happen.
• 5:12
  Erica Bennett: You know, if I do more, he'll eventually step back into it.
• 5:15
  Erica Bennett: He's just depressed, he's just tired, he's whatever.
• 5:18
  Erica Bennett: I made a lot of excuses and put aside a lot of my own needs.
• 5:22
  Sade Curry: Oh my God, so well said.
• 5:24
  Sade Curry: So that's just like that.
• 5:26
  Sade Curry: That experience right there is just so common and I know that resonates a lot with the listeners.
• 5:33
  Sade Curry: So, all right, I think with that that was just a little aside, because I was like, oh my God, she's saying all the things.
• 5:38
  Sade Curry: I wanted to just have you tell your story, like you know, why did you marry your first husband?
• 5:45
  Sade Curry: Like what was that choice?
• 5:47
  Sade Curry: Like Well, who was the Erica that made that choice, you know?
• 5:51
  Sade Curry: And then what happened in that marriage?
• 5:53
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, so we met.
• 5:55
  Erica Bennett: I grew up in Wisconsin but then I moved to California for college.
• 5:59
  Erica Bennett: I had always wanted to live out there.
• 6:01
  Erica Bennett: I used to go visit relatives out there.
• 6:02
  Erica Bennett: So I was like that was going to be the new me, right, and so I did, at 18.
• 6:06
  Erica Bennett: I packed up the car and off I went to figure out who I was.
• 6:11
  Erica Bennett: I wanted to leave a small town and have nobody know who I was, so I could figure out who I wanted to be.
• 6:16
  Erica Bennett: So during that time or we're 24, so long ago, right, we met.
• 6:23
  Erica Bennett: He actually was a friend of the neighbor and so I just was like oh, who's this?
• 6:29
  Erica Bennett: You know like super cute, tan, you know, white boy.
• 6:33
  Erica Bennett: We all laugh because he's actually Hawaiian and German and Japanese.
• 6:38
  Erica Bennett: So he's very much not a white boy.
• 6:41
  Erica Bennett: But all my friends would laugh.
• 6:43
  Erica Bennett: They're like Erica, you had no idea.
• 6:44
  Erica Bennett: I was like no, I just I don't know Like.
• 6:46
  Erica Bennett: I just thought he was really tan, from, you know, california, but he had all of the things that I had created a dream in my head, right, his family was born and raised from that area, he surfed, he volunteered at the YMCA and worked with kids, and so he fit a lot of those stereotypical things.
• 7:09
  Erica Bennett: And then there was the tension that was there.
• 7:11
  Erica Bennett: You know the flirting.
• 7:13
  Erica Bennett: He was actually still with his high school sweetheart at the time.
• 7:16
  Erica Bennett: You know, we lived next to each other and kind of knew each other as friends for a while first, and then it just went very quickly, like I had never had a boyfriend long term before that, and by like three months he had moved in to my studio.
• 7:29
  Erica Bennett: We were living together, we were talking about getting married, we were already making the plans but now, looking back at it, not really having the conversations, so kind of like your point of like hey, I still ran the corporate role in the house.
• 7:41
  Erica Bennett: I remember we were driving to my birthday, a birthday dinner one night, and I brought up, like how many kids do you want to have?
• 7:48
  Erica Bennett: And he said, yeah, well, I want to have kids.
• 7:50
  Erica Bennett: And in my mind I was like, check the box, great, I, I decide how many kids and when we have kids.
• 7:55
  Erica Bennett: But he said, yes, so that's it.
• 7:57
  Erica Bennett: It's not really a good conversation, but at the time I was just making the marks, taking the list.
• 8:05
  Erica Bennett: So we ended up living together for a few years before we got engaged on a Christmas Eve.
• 8:10
  Erica Bennett: And now, looking back at it, you know we're just young kids.
• 8:15
  Erica Bennett: My grandma had died a few days before.
• 8:18
  Erica Bennett: He refused to go to Christmas Mass with me, which I'm not very religious, but there's something about Christmas Mass, like on Christmas Eve that is part of my holiday tradition the music and the incense and like all of the things.
• 8:30
  Erica Bennett: He refused to go so I had to go by myself.
• 8:33
  Erica Bennett: I drove home crying, you know my grandma had just died and he's not showing up and I walk in and he has set up this whole engagement like proposal.
• 8:41
  Erica Bennett: You know the candles are on and the dogs wearing the ring on the collar and like all the things.
• 8:46
  Erica Bennett: And I think, looking back now, you know now I would see that as a red flag that the daily behaviors weren't there for the support I needed, but the flashy stuff was.
• 8:56
  Erica Bennett: But again, we were young, you know like we reached just trying to create a story that we wanted.
• 9:02
  Erica Bennett: So we got engaged we're engaged for about a year, got married in the Bahamas a destination wedding and then kind of traveled around to the family to do parties and then what happened was we moved from my job.
• 9:14
  Erica Bennett: So one of the things I think that really affected us was, you know, we got married in February, we relocated to a new state in April and knew no one, and so there were no friends, there was no family.
• 9:27
  Erica Bennett: We were trying to figure out how to find a place and buy a house, and I was starting a new job and the job wasn't turning out to be what I thought.
• 9:34
  Erica Bennett: So I'm coming home crying every day and we don't have any social outlets, whereas when we were in the Bay Area, the friends were there, the family was there, we saw people every single week and it was hard.
• 9:46
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, you know, we continued to move forward.
• 9:49
  Erica Bennett: We were married about seven years before it all came crashing down.
• 9:57
  Erica Bennett: So do you want me to jump into the ending story yet, or do you have more questions on our courtship?
• 10:05
  Sade Curry: I don't know.
• 10:05
  Sade Curry: No, everything you said was perfect.
• 10:07
  Sade Curry: I did want to point one thing out, but I didn't want to interrupt you.
• 10:10
  Sade Curry: You were talking about not having the conversations and just checking the box and just really having compassion.
• 10:17
  Sade Curry: Because it's like, well, nobody knew how to have those conversations and nobody, like I know, my parents, didn't know how to have those conversations.
• 10:24
  Sade Curry: So I mean, I couldn't expect them to teach me how to have those conversations.
• 10:28
  Sade Curry: And then our culture, I don't think, really tells people, hey, here are the conversations you need to have, and here's the detail in this detail, this level of detail, so just having compassion over us and everyone else who just didn't know.
• 10:44
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, and I think that that I thought a lot about it because I was like, why didn't I know?
• 10:49
  Erica Bennett: Well, I never saw my parents have conversations because they were doing what they felt was best.
• 10:53
  Erica Bennett: And those conversations happened after we all went to bed because they wanted to make sure that and I, honestly, I should probably ask my mom I don't know if there was ever a conflict, because I never saw it and so I think in their mind they thought that they were creating very safe.
• 11:07
  Erica Bennett: I had a white picket fence, I had a dog, we had two cats, I have two other siblings, like I have the American dream, and I never had to worry about any of that.
• 11:17
  Erica Bennett: So I knew we weren't the richest family, but I knew we weren't the poorest family, we're just the steady middle class.
• 11:22
  Erica Bennett: But I never saw them have to actually have a conversation.
• 11:26
  Erica Bennett: So I just assumed that when you found your person and the person wanted to get married, that meant you wanted the same thing you want to buy a house in the suburbs, you want to have a couple dogs, you want to have a few kids, you want your weekends to be spent at family functions.
• 11:38
  Erica Bennett: Because that's what I saw.
• 11:40
  Erica Bennett: I thought that that's what it meant in that if he's saying yes, he wants to get married, that he must want the same things.
• 11:46
  Erica Bennett: And now I know how to have the conversations.
• 11:50
  Sade Curry: Yeah, 100%.
• 11:51
  Sade Curry: So I have a colleague, a coach colleague, and I've actually worked with her my husband and I have worked with her on our marriage and she talks about over-communicating and she's like that's the key to relationships you have to over, you have to make it safe enough not just to communicate but over-communicate.
• 12:08
  Sade Curry: Get down in the weeds about the theme that you both are talking about.
• 12:15
  Sade Curry: I tell my clients about frames of reference.
• 12:19
  Sade Curry: He says kids.
• 12:21
  Sade Curry: That's one frame of reference.
• 12:22
  Sade Curry: In your mind, the word kids means OK, three kids in two years at this time.
• 12:29
  Sade Curry: In this way, you're using the same words but two different frames of reference.
• 12:34
  Erica Bennett: Yes, exactly yes.
• 12:35
  Erica Bennett: Mine meant three kids two years apart.
• 12:38
  Erica Bennett: What did I want?
• 12:40
  Erica Bennett: A boy and two girls, because girls need a sister, but you need to have an older brother for protection.
• 12:44
  Erica Bennett: It was buttoned up.
• 12:46
  Erica Bennett: I had a plan.
• 12:49
  Sade Curry: So how many kids did?
• 12:50
  Erica Bennett: you end up having.
• 12:51
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, I ended up only having one.
• 12:54
  Erica Bennett: So we had our.
• 12:58
  Erica Bennett: So actually, before we had our son, we had one miscarriage very early, like it, just you know.
• 13:05
  Erica Bennett: So there were two pregnancies, one kid.
• 13:07
  Erica Bennett: I wanted to try for the next one.
• 13:10
  Erica Bennett: We actually were trying for the next kid when everything fell apart, and that was part of why it was such a shock.
• 13:16
  Erica Bennett: And in those first years, you know, because when we first separated my son was four.
• 13:21
  Erica Bennett: So from birth of my one son until four, there was another time where I was done, like I was like I am done, but what am I going to do?
• 13:31
  Erica Bennett: I have a toddler.
• 13:32
  Erica Bennett: And I was like, are you really done?
• 13:33
  Erica Bennett: Do you really want to call it quits right now?
• 13:35
  Erica Bennett: You know you got a kid.
• 13:36
  Erica Bennett: This is hard, work is hard, and I did the work to come back to the marriage.
• 13:40
  Erica Bennett: I did the work to fall back in love, to choose, to appreciate, to value what he was giving, until it finally did turn out that we just wanted different things.
• 13:52
  Sade Curry: Yeah, yeah, and I love that.
• 13:54
  Sade Curry: I love that in between work of walking back to the marriage, falling in love again because the people who do that work just have it, I guess have a.
• 14:06
  Sade Curry: The process when you finally do leave is just so much more I don't know what the word is for that, but like I don't know if it's calm or certain, you just have you're more grounded.
• 14:17
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, exactly, and I think it was also a really good experience to be able to know what are the things that you can change, like we all fall out of love in our in any relationship, there's going to be rough patches, and so being able to understand what it looks like to do the work to come back to a relationship, or to do the work to understand that it's time to let it go- yeah, amazing.
• 14:41
  Sade Curry: So let's talk about the end.
• 14:43
  Sade Curry: We need to get started before this episode is over.
• 14:49
  Erica Bennett: Before the three hour podcast that we create here.
• 14:51
  Erica Bennett: All right, so what was happening?
• 14:53
  Erica Bennett: Like I said, we were trying for another kid we had just connected.
• 14:57
  Erica Bennett: He was getting ready to go out that night, so he was out a lot.
• 15:01
  Erica Bennett: So it was another flag that had shown up, and I really don't like using the word red flag.
• 15:05
  Erica Bennett: I like yellow flag.
• 15:06
  Erica Bennett: Like hey, this is a cautionary flag, is this something I can deal with or not?
• 15:10
  Erica Bennett: He had been going out a lot and I wasn't going with.
• 15:14
  Erica Bennett: I didn't have a desire to.
• 15:15
  Erica Bennett: We had a child at home.
• 15:16
  Erica Bennett: Like I wanted him to stay home.
• 15:18
  Erica Bennett: He didn't want to.
• 15:19
  Erica Bennett: So he's all dressed up to go out.
• 15:21
  Erica Bennett: I'm crying on his shoulder.
• 15:22
  Erica Bennett: I'm like I really thought that I lost you, like I really thought that I had lost you.
• 15:26
  Erica Bennett: I feel like it's turning a corner and that we're coming back and like I love you and like I just I don't know.
• 15:35
  Erica Bennett: I just needed to say this.
• 15:36
  Erica Bennett: And he's like OK, and I'm like is something wrong?
• 15:38
  Erica Bennett: Because he just stood there.
• 15:39
  Erica Bennett: You know, no, nothing's wrong.
• 15:41
  Erica Bennett: And I'm like something is wrong and you're not telling me.
• 15:43
  Erica Bennett: And that hadn't been a constant theme for years.
• 15:45
  Erica Bennett: I've been like what is wrong and he wouldn't tell me and I'd bring home a new self-help book and I'd bring home a new conversation we need to have.
• 15:51
  Erica Bennett: I was trying to fix the problem and so he's like we'll talk about it when I get home.
• 15:56
  Erica Bennett: And he left and a new like something was wrong.
• 16:00
  Erica Bennett: And I called one of my girlfriends and we sat on the phone for I don't know four or five hours.
• 16:05
  Erica Bennett: She had two little kids herself, but she just stayed on the phone because I think she knew something was wrong.
• 16:11
  Erica Bennett: And when he came home that night he tried again to just be like I'm just going to bed, good night.
• 16:15
  Erica Bennett: And I'm like no, no, like I'm not.
• 16:16
  Erica Bennett: You need to tell me Something's wrong and I don't know what it is.
• 16:19
  Erica Bennett: And he looked at me and he said I love you but I'm not in love with you anymore.
• 16:24
  Erica Bennett: We just want different things.
• 16:26
  Erica Bennett: And that was it.
• 16:28
  Erica Bennett: I was like what?
• 16:29
  Erica Bennett: What do you mean?
• 16:29
  Erica Bennett: We can fall back in love.
• 16:31
  Erica Bennett: And he's like I'm just done.
• 16:33
  Erica Bennett: And he went to his side of the bed, fell asleep and it was the first like peaceful sleep he'd had in years.
• 16:40
  Erica Bennett: You know, over the years he had moved into having to wear a sleep apnea machine because he wasn't breathing at night.
• 16:46
  Erica Bennett: His sleep had been fitful.
• 16:48
  Erica Bennett: His snoring got worse, right Silent, the whole night after he finally spoke his truth that he had been avoiding for all those years, and so that was a rough night.
• 17:01
  Erica Bennett: I didn't sleep.
• 17:02
  Erica Bennett: I still tried to go and work.
• 17:03
  Erica Bennett: The next day, one of my coworkers beautiful coworker.
• 17:06
  Erica Bennett: I had her on the show, she escorted me right back out the door and she's like you're going home, you know like, and stood with me as long as I needed to, and it started the unraveling.
• 17:17
  Erica Bennett: At that point I didn't know that there was another woman.
• 17:19
  Erica Bennett: I didn't know that this was not the first other woman, that this was him trying to try to fill a hole in his own life.
• 17:27
  Erica Bennett: We actually had an appointment already set up for therapy, because I knew something was wrong and we went and he just kind of was like I don't want to work on it, I'm just going to close the door and move on.
• 17:38
  Erica Bennett: It started a two year process of our separation before I finally filed For the first year.
• 17:44
  Erica Bennett: I fought so hard for it to work.
• 17:47
  Erica Bennett: I really tried to convince him to negotiate, to prove that I could be the right fit for him, that we had been in love once and we could do it again and we had a small child and all these things.
• 18:00
  Erica Bennett: Like I didn't want to fail at it and I really felt like it was so good in the beginning that it could be good again if we just fixed the issues, even with learning about the other woman, even with her still showing up she used to call during dinner, it was all the things and I was still willing to acknowledge that and forgive that because we both made mistakes.
• 18:23
  Erica Bennett: Somebody doesn't set out to cheat.
• 18:27
  Erica Bennett: They just set out to finally feel better because they feel so unhappy and then go ahead.
• 18:34
  Sade Curry: I think it's important for you, for your marriage to fail Because you already did the work to work back to the marriage.
• 18:40
  Sade Curry: When you fell out of love, you already knew something was wrong for a long time, but he wasn't telling you.
• 18:45
  Sade Curry: And then he finally tells you and you still work for a year, even with everything.
• 18:50
  Sade Curry: You find out two years.
• 18:51
  Sade Curry: So I mean, obviously failing was like.
• 18:55
  Erica Bennett: It was a non-negotiable in my life.
• 18:57
  Erica Bennett: I don't want to do that.
• 18:58
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, because it took two years before.
• 19:01
  Erica Bennett: I was like I'm leaving now, like now I'm done.
• 19:04
  Erica Bennett: And the irony was is that it was Christmas.
• 19:06
  Erica Bennett: He showed up and was like I want this to work.
• 19:09
  Erica Bennett: I finally want this to work.
• 19:10
  Erica Bennett: I realized I want this to work and it took me two more months and I was like this is the thing I've waited for For two years for you to say you're willing to work on this with me.
• 19:20
  Erica Bennett: And it feels empty and I'm not getting the feelings that I thought I was going to feel and in fact, I feel really sad about it.
• 19:26
  Erica Bennett: And that's when I knew that it was time to let it go.
• 19:31
  Erica Bennett: But in those two years, for me, I had always wanted my grandparents were married and had 50 year wedding anniversaries and both lived into their 90s, and that was a dream I had.
• 19:43
  Erica Bennett: I didn't want to start over at 35.
• 19:45
  Erica Bennett: And that is where, when you read my intro, I'm obsessed with rewiring fear because my entire life had been taken over.
• 19:54
  Erica Bennett: I didn't know how I was going to get my life back on track if I didn't stay committed to this.
• 19:59
  Erica Bennett: I didn't know how I was ever going to have another kid if I didn't stay committed to this.
• 20:04
  Erica Bennett: I didn't know how I was ever going to be happy again, because what was the point in living life anymore if this is no longer it?
• 20:16
  Erica Bennett: And that started a huge process of like I needed to find me and I needed to figure out who I was and to love me.
• 20:23
  Erica Bennett: And that was a journey too, and it took a while, but at least I had a few years before filing to get a little sturdy in.
• 20:31
  Erica Bennett: What did I want?
• 20:33
  Erica Bennett: What did I deserve in a partner?
• 20:34
  Erica Bennett: I was like I deserve somebody who wants to hang out with me on the holidays.
• 20:37
  Erica Bennett: So you not wanting to hang out with me on 4th of July, that's a problem.
• 20:41
  Erica Bennett: Like don't need to wait for you anymore.
• 20:45
  Sade Curry: So yeah, I mean it sounds like many women because of our socialization.
• 20:52
  Sade Curry: Sounds like your identity was wrapped up in the relationship, like you had to find your life, your destiny, your path, your calling by the relationship 100%.
• 21:05
  Erica Bennett: I mean, even as a kid, I used to dream about like, ok, I'm going to have these five careers, right, like I was going to be like a doctor and a veterinarian, and then I was going to own a ranch, but then I was also going to be a mom.
• 21:16
  Erica Bennett: But one of the things that was always the same is I always wanted to have kids and I always wanted to have pets, and so I was so wrapped up in.
• 21:25
  Erica Bennett: That is what makes a happy life.
• 21:28
  Erica Bennett: And then when I started to have them, I was that Pinterest mom.
• 21:32
  Erica Bennett: Like good Lord, I was crafting every single weekend.
• 21:35
  Erica Bennett: I remember making when the command centers were all the rage and you crafted yourself into like here's the weekly menu and here's the schedule for the week, and it hangs on the wall in the kitchen.
• 21:44
  Erica Bennett: And I was so excited to do all this stuff and to do all this development with my son, and I was moving so fast.
• 21:54
  Erica Bennett: I didn't realize that, while, yes, I loved it, there's another whole part of me that I had buried, that I wasn't letting out because I didn't think I was supposed to still want those things and I didn't have room for those things in my marriage and in my partnership.
• 22:10
  Sade Curry: Yeah, 100%.
• 22:11
  Sade Curry: Oh, my goodness, that's so profound.
• 22:13
  Sade Curry: That's just.
• 22:16
  Sade Curry: I love just to acknowledge your ability to just articulate that experience is amazing.
• 22:21
  Sade Curry: Thank you, You're welcome.
• 22:23
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, it was very painful, you guys.
• 22:27
  Erica Bennett: I can't tell you how many times it was.
• 22:29
  Erica Bennett: I mean, I didn't sleep, I didn't eat.
• 22:31
  Erica Bennett: I lost 30 pounds in 30 days because I'd eat half an apple and I'd get nauseous.
• 22:35
  Erica Bennett: I had never been so incredibly stressed and depressed and for years I never slept through the night and all of my adrenals were shot.
• 22:46
  Erica Bennett: My physical health was shot, my hair was falling out and my hand folds.
• 22:49
  Erica Bennett: It was hard and every single source continued to send me back to.
• 22:57
  Erica Bennett: You cannot control his behaviors, but you can find yours.
• 23:01
  Erica Bennett: You can find your happiness.
• 23:04
  Erica Bennett: What do you need?
• 23:05
  Erica Bennett: What do you want?
• 23:06
  Erica Bennett: What do you need to define in your life?
• 23:10
  Sade Curry: Amazing, amazing.
• 23:11
  Sade Curry: After the divorce, when you went through all that and it was all over, at that point where you're like, okay, we've signed on the dotted line, I have my own place, all of that what were your thoughts about that time, about a new partner?
• 23:29
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, so that's a funny story.
• 23:31
  Erica Bennett: So I filed right, we wrote our divorce together, we hired one lawyer, we split the cost.
• 23:37
  Erica Bennett: It was very clear that I didn't want either party to be hurt in this.
• 23:42
  Erica Bennett: We had a beautiful chapter.
• 23:43
  Erica Bennett: The chapter was over.
• 23:44
  Erica Bennett: I had high hopes to be amazing co-parents and best family friends, just a big extended family, and that's not the reality today.
• 23:52
  Erica Bennett: But that's a story for a different day.
• 23:54
  Erica Bennett: But after I filed, the reality hit and I wasn't expecting that and I got really depressed.
• 24:03
  Erica Bennett: I couldn't even get up off the couch to feed my kid, like I was telling my four-year-old to just grab a box of cereal and just eat on that.
• 24:10
  Erica Bennett: I remember calling one of my local friends and I was like I'm not okay, I'm gonna not be okay right now, and I asked her to come over and feed my son because I just needed to cry.
• 24:22
  Erica Bennett: So even though I wanted it, it still hurt and it still just sucked to be like this is the new reality and I knew very clearly again me setting my own path this was gonna be a one-year thing.
• 24:39
  Erica Bennett: So I ended up.
• 24:41
  Erica Bennett: I had been living in the house the marriage house.
• 24:43
  Erica Bennett: I'd been the one paying the mortgage since we bought it.
• 24:45
  Erica Bennett: So I stayed for about another six months until the deadline was when we had to sell it and I ended up buying a townhouse.
• 24:51
  Erica Bennett: And so I downsized because I couldn't do the yard work anymore in the snow removal here in the Midwest, and so I wanted a townhouse just the right size and moved in.
• 25:00
  Erica Bennett: Everything is great hunky dory on that and I told myself this is my house for one year.
• 25:06
  Erica Bennett: In one year I will find a new partner I will cause.
• 25:10
  Erica Bennett: I was deep into manifesting.
• 25:12
  Erica Bennett: The magic was showing up left and right and I was like I'm just gonna get myself back on my path, and that's the wrong belief system, but it's what we all do, right, I was never off my path.
• 25:22
  Erica Bennett: It was always part of the journey.
• 25:24
  Erica Bennett: But I had decided that I was gonna like manifest right back in the perfect partner, have my second baby, get back on the road that I thought was leading to the path of happiness, and so I probably started dating a few months later.
• 25:37
  Erica Bennett: But the intention was, when I turned on the app, was just to have fun.
• 25:40
  Erica Bennett: I was like I've never really explored the city.
• 25:43
  Erica Bennett: I wanna explore the cities.
• 25:45
  Erica Bennett: I wanna check out all the things that I've always said no to.
• 25:47
  Erica Bennett: I just wanna have fun, and that is the partner that I manifested in.
• 25:51
  Erica Bennett: He just wanted to have fun.
• 25:52
  Erica Bennett: He had zero desire to be in a relationship, but he did want a best friend to travel with right.
• 25:58
  Erica Bennett: So we traveled and we hiked mountains and we snowboarded and we did all these things that I had always wondered.
• 26:06
  Erica Bennett: But I didn't have the confidence to lead and I could follow him.
• 26:09
  Erica Bennett: He would lead me there and it was a lot of fun, but I tried to make it a relationship.
• 26:14
  Erica Bennett: That wasn't what he wanted, and I think something that's so common for women after divorce is we like fall head over heels for the first one that shows up after divorce, and I did.
• 26:24
  Erica Bennett: We were together for a year when literally we maybe had sex for the first two months out of that 12.
• 26:34
  Erica Bennett: And the rest of it was just like a besties, hanging out and traveling.
• 26:39
  Erica Bennett: But like I was always hoping oh, he's dealing with some PTSD, he's dealing with some whatever.
• 26:44
  Erica Bennett: Like he's got stuff's not working, all the excuses, like could I live without this for all the other things that I'm getting?
• 26:50
  Erica Bennett: I probably spent another year grieving the loss of that dream, not of that partner because I had created, I had launched all these beautiful dreams and rockets of how cool my life could be when it is not a white picket fence, with three kids and two dogs.
• 27:07
  Erica Bennett: And so it was again hard to let that go and to move on.
• 27:14
  Erica Bennett: You know, turn the dating app off, turn the dating app back on, like a year later want to just a fun buddy manifested in a fun buddy, and I was like how come I don't feel anything for this dude, like if something wrong with me.
• 27:26
  Erica Bennett: And I was like, no, you, literally your intention was just a fun buddy and that's what you got an exclusive fun buddy and then called the quits again, turned it off, went to turn it back on COVID hits.
• 27:37
  Erica Bennett: I was like well played universe.
• 27:39
  Erica Bennett: I guess I'm not ready to turn it back off solo again, but it really like finding my way.
• 27:47
  Erica Bennett: Covid was another beautiful year when everybody else said it sucked.
• 27:50
  Erica Bennett: I'm like this was like the best, one of the best years I had for finding me.
• 27:54
  Erica Bennett: And then finally turned it back on and met somebody in the fall of 21, which is where we're still at.
• 28:00
  Erica Bennett: We've been two years now learning how to be in partnership.
• 28:05
  Sade Curry: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 28:07
  Sade Curry: Did you ever have that period where it's like, oh, I can't, because it sounds to me like you knew that you weren't too broken for a relationship?
• 28:17
  Sade Curry: You didn't have that period where it's like I could never be in a relationship again.
• 28:23
  Erica Bennett: I didn't.
• 28:24
  Erica Bennett: I always wanted to be in relationship again, so that was very, very clear for me, like I wanted partnership.
• 28:32
  Erica Bennett: I think I realized that I wasn't very good at dating, you know.
• 28:37
  Erica Bennett: I wasn't very good at clarifying my needs.
• 28:39
  Erica Bennett: I wasn't very good at all the things that a good relationship actually takes.
• 28:43
  Erica Bennett: And that's what took me cause, you know, like divorce was final in 17.
• 28:47
  Erica Bennett: Again, until I met this partner in 21,.
• 28:50
  Erica Bennett: That was a lot of testing and learning and a lot of disappointment like high hopes, nothing, high hopes, nothing.
• 28:55
  Erica Bennett: But it really came back to.
• 28:58
  Erica Bennett: I wasn't in a place to truly stand in me or give up me again for a relationship.
• 29:05
  Sade Curry: I mean, I just love it because you knew you had growth, but you didn't see it as you're broken.
• 29:13
  Sade Curry: Cause what I encounter with a lot of women and I have helped them walk through it is there's this shame blame thing going on.
• 29:18
  Sade Curry: So if they are dating and it's not working, they're either shaming themselves or they are blaming the world.
• 29:26
  Sade Curry: Yes, I did that, when it's like all the men out there and all the men on the ass and they're terrible and all of that, or I'm broken, there's something wrong with me, versus oh, I just don't know how to do this.
• 29:39
  Sade Curry: I just need to grow.
• 29:41
  Sade Curry: I just need to practice this skill.
• 29:42
  Sade Curry: I just need to try again and do this part a little bit better.
• 29:47
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, I think mine aired on the.
• 29:48
  Erica Bennett: I thought nobody would ever want me again.
• 29:51
  Erica Bennett: I failed, I screwed up a marriage.
• 29:54
  Erica Bennett: Because the other thing too is like.
• 29:56
  Erica Bennett: So the my ex was cheating with somebody 15 years younger than we were.
• 30:02
  Erica Bennett: This was like quite a bit younger somebody who didn't have kids, who didn't have a post-kid body, who had a high metabolism still, who had long blonde hair, like all the stereotypical things.
• 30:13
  Erica Bennett: So as a woman who was in her mid 30s, who was at her heaviest weight, who had a kid and didn't feel confident in her body anymore, it really hit my worthiness.
• 30:23
  Erica Bennett: And then when they moved instantly into a relationship after he told me he just wanted to be alone, that hit my like.
• 30:31
  Erica Bennett: I must have just been really bad at it.
• 30:33
  Erica Bennett: I must have just been really really bad to be in relationship with.
• 30:37
  Erica Bennett: And so then when you're dating and everybody else is the one who's calling it quits and I'm sitting there doing the like, ooh, can I settle for this?
• 30:46
  Erica Bennett: Can I write myself into a story of what their passions are and what their life is right?
• 30:51
  Erica Bennett: And then it would fall away and fall away.
• 30:54
  Erica Bennett: And that's where it became that, like you know, I just want to have fun for me and I'm loving how life is unfolding for me, and thank God we shut down for COVID, or I probably would have had a couple more mistakes in there too.
• 31:07
  Erica Bennett: But knowing that, like once, I figured out that it wasn't just me that failed in the marriage, that there were opportunities on both sides, did I do everything perfect?
• 31:21
  Erica Bennett: Hell, no, I was not happy to be around.
• 31:24
  Erica Bennett: Let me tell you my fear, my controlling my corporate mindset like I was driving the team right and I own that.
• 31:34
  Erica Bennett: And then I swung a little bit in the other direction of being too nice, being too understanding, right, until you swing back and you find the balance that's right for you.
• 31:43
  Sade Curry: Yeah, amazing.
• 31:44
  Sade Curry: So what app did you meet your partner on?
• 31:49
  Erica Bennett: Her partner.
• 31:50
  Erica Bennett: This one was Hinge, yeah.
• 31:52
  Erica Bennett: So and I played around like the other thing.
• 31:54
  Erica Bennett: I'll say I was very, very intentional with how I use dating apps because I was tired of like the people in the office being like there's no good men yet and I really believe in the power of manifesting.
• 32:07
  Erica Bennett: You're just a magnet.
• 32:08
  Erica Bennett: You're just gonna draw in what you're focused on, and if that's what you're focused on, that's what you're gonna get.
• 32:12
  Erica Bennett: And so I made sure I set parameters around using an app that I only allowed myself so many swipes a day.
• 32:20
  Erica Bennett: And the moment that it wasn't fun, the moment it started to feel like I will never find anybody oh my God, there's nobody in this app I had to put it down and I had to walk away and I had to go back to finding happiness in myself.
• 32:32
  Erica Bennett: I also made sure that I always set a very clear intention of why I was turning the app back on.
• 32:37
  Erica Bennett: What was I looking to find in this round of being back in the app?
• 32:43
  Erica Bennett: So, because I you know Tinder was not real great in the Twin Cities, I did use it a bit when I traveled, but they'd never like manifested into anything.
• 32:53
  Erica Bennett: But it was funny to see the different types of profiles across different apps, used Bumble on and off, but I also have found that I don't like to go back to something.
• 33:02
  Erica Bennett: You know you're constantly evolving.
• 33:04
  Erica Bennett: I even think about like right now I'm switching up my gym regimen again because I went back to a program and it felt really good at first, but then I found the same reasons that I left in the first place.
• 33:13
  Erica Bennett: So the same thing is true with dating apps.
• 33:16
  Erica Bennett: You know I'd go back in a Bumble and I'd see a lot of the same faces and I was like you know what?
• 33:20
  Erica Bennett: There's this new one, let's try Hinge.
• 33:22
  Erica Bennett: So met the current partner on Hinge, had lots of voice conversations back and forth before finally meeting and it was funny because he was way outside of my parameters.
• 33:34
  Erica Bennett: So I don't know why the universe threw him in my little thing either.
• 33:37
  Sade Curry: I guess I was so picky, there was nobody left, or somewhere, what you say, parameters like distance, like how far he went.
• 33:44
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, yeah, because I tried to stay within like 30 minutes of my house, because more than that, it's just like it's just not fun driving in the cities and so like I didn't want to mess with any of that.
• 33:54
  Erica Bennett: And he is 45 minutes, almost 60 minutes.
• 33:57
  Erica Bennett: He's actually across the border, so I drive all the way through the cities, over the bridge, right Through the woods to grandmother's house.
• 34:05
  Erica Bennett: No, so that's why we laugh, because I'm like literally the week before I had turned somebody down because I learned that they lived over that way, like I literally was like wait, where do you work?
• 34:17
  Erica Bennett: Oh, that's really far, let's skip it.
• 34:21
  Erica Bennett: And like I just was like goodbye and then started talking to him, had no idea he loves this story I had no idea where he lived.
• 34:30
  Erica Bennett: When I finally figured out where he lived, I tried to get out of that date too.
• 34:34
  Erica Bennett: I he's like you tried so hard and he's like I was not gonna let you get out of this date.
• 34:39
  Erica Bennett: He's like we were at least gonna meet.
• 34:41
  Erica Bennett: And we met for coffee, right, the typical like meet for mid-morning coffee.
• 34:46
  Erica Bennett: If it works, you roll into lunch, if it doesn't work, you excuse yourself when you go home.
• 34:50
  Erica Bennett: So we met for coffee in between.
• 34:53
  Erica Bennett: But yeah, I was like oh, it's really far.
• 34:55
  Erica Bennett: I totally understand if that's.
• 34:56
  Erica Bennett: You know you don't wanna drive that far.
• 34:58
  Erica Bennett: Oh, I totally understand.
• 34:59
  Erica Bennett: Like is this just too hard to find a place?
• 35:02
  Erica Bennett: Like I totally understand.
• 35:03
  Erica Bennett: He was like no, this is gonna happen.
• 35:07
  Sade Curry: So Love it, love it.
• 35:08
  Sade Curry: This yours is the second story.
• 35:10
  Sade Curry: I don't know if you know Alex and Layla Hormozzi, the.
• 35:13
  Sade Curry: They're entrepreneurs, they own a billion dollar company or something like that.
• 35:16
  Sade Curry: Anyway, this story is kind of the same.
• 35:18
  Sade Curry: She tried to get out of the, she tried to get out of the date and he was like no, yeah, I tried.
• 35:23
  Erica Bennett: I tried so hard and he laughs and like we just hit.
• 35:26
  Erica Bennett: It was actually just last week was a two year anniversary of the first date and so it was just super funny cause it's all the little, all the little things, the conversations, the open communication how different it is.
• 35:37
  Erica Bennett: But it is so much.
• 35:38
  Erica Bennett: It's like so much more rewarding and so much harder doing it on round two because now there's kids involved on both sides, there's exes involved on both sides, there's multiple cities between where everybody lives.
• 35:50
  Erica Bennett: Like you can't just relocate right Now you're relocating four jobs, now you're relocating between us there are four kids.
• 35:56
  Erica Bennett: So it's just a slower path on bringing things together and what that takes is a lot more communication because obviously my my past of being misled, my past of being lied to, all of those things subconsciously drive me to need a sense of security faster.
• 36:15
  Erica Bennett: How am I gonna know you're never gonna leave?
• 36:19
  Sade Curry: But, you.
• 36:20
  Erica Bennett: that's not his job.
• 36:21
  Erica Bennett: That's a sense of security I need to give myself.
• 36:24
  Erica Bennett: If you leave, I will still be okay.
• 36:25
  Erica Bennett: Will I be sad?
• 36:27
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, I will be sad, but I will be okay, Like it will never be something that I am afraid of.
• 36:33
  Erica Bennett: I will never lose myself again for fear that somebody's gonna leave me.
• 36:38
  Sade Curry: Yeah, and you know, all relationships end, either it's a breakup or a death or something it's like it's guaranteed.
• 36:46
  Sade Curry: No relationship lasts forever, except the relationship you have with yourself.
• 36:50
  Sade Curry: Yeah, that's the one we neglect the most, which is why we have this hole that we're trying to fill.
• 36:56
  Sade Curry: It's cause we're neglecting to nurture ourselves and to appreciate ourselves and to love on ourselves and to heal ourselves from whatever may have happened in the past, and then we're hoping that someone who's trying to do the same thing for themselves or neglecting themselves, is somehow going to do it for us.
• 37:13
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, I think that's why so often in like almost any physical practice, like working out, meditating, yoga, whatever I'm doing, I actually really like to close my eyes, because we're so often seeking external approval.
• 37:30
  Erica Bennett: What do I look like in the mirror?
• 37:32
  Erica Bennett: That's external approval, right, closing your eyes and going inside and being like how do I feel right now?
• 37:38
  Erica Bennett: Wow, okay, so filling that hole.
• 37:42
  Erica Bennett: You first have to get in touch with it, and I so wasn't in touch with it.
• 37:45
  Erica Bennett: I was so very busy and looking outside and can somebody else help me feel better and feel like home?
• 37:51
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, and home is an inward job.
• 37:53
  Erica Bennett: It's an inside job that you've got to find on your own to then be able to share it with somebody else.
• 38:00
  Sade Curry: Yeah, yeah, so true.
• 38:02
  Sade Curry: So when did you know he was the one?
• 38:06
  Sade Curry: Were you more interested?
• 38:08
  Sade Curry: I know, we just want to hear all the details.
• 38:14
  Sade Curry: When you swiped on him and you guys started talking back and forth, was there an inkling to you that he was different?
• 38:21
  Erica Bennett: No, so here was the thing, and it really messed with me, and I will tell you, part of me is like it's probably still messes with me One of the things that I found so different.
• 38:32
  Erica Bennett: Now let me back up to right before we met, because we met in November.
• 38:36
  Erica Bennett: In July, I manifested the severance package that I had been working on for two years.
• 38:41
  Erica Bennett: I had been lining up to leave this company.
• 38:43
  Erica Bennett: In fact, as of August, I was going to give my notice.
• 38:46
  Erica Bennett: July 15th I got the call and it was like hallelujah.
• 38:49
  Erica Bennett: I did it because it was the money I needed to be able to leave and start my business and still take care of my son, and so it was a beautiful parting.
• 38:56
  Erica Bennett: It's my second divorce, right, me and my company, that it was 20 years of my life that I had to.
• 39:02
  Erica Bennett: It's who I learned who I was, all those things Great that happens in July.
• 39:07
  Erica Bennett: In September, august, september I had already signed up for a week-long retreat in Hawaii and my whole point was to just get super present and find me.
• 39:16
  Erica Bennett: So now I'm like, oh, manifesting just totally showed up for real.
• 39:21
  Erica Bennett: I'm lined up, I manifested, then I went on retreat and even more like people are stopping me down the street, like what can we do for you?
• 39:29
  Erica Bennett: Like I was lit up.
• 39:31
  Erica Bennett: Then I went on to shoot my first brand photo shoot in Colorado, which is my like magic state.
• 39:39
  Erica Bennett: That's where I go to go deep and to heal.
• 39:42
  Erica Bennett: And then I met him.
• 39:43
  Erica Bennett: And so when I met him, I was so fully lined up.
• 39:47
  Erica Bennett: I sat there and I was like IDGAF about whatever I love me, I'm happy with me.
• 39:54
  Erica Bennett: I actually had already turned the app off before we had met.
• 39:57
  Erica Bennett: Like I was literally closing out this last conversation because I didn't want to deal with it anymore.
• 40:02
  Erica Bennett: Like I just was so freaking happy I didn't have time to contemplate whether or not somebody was the right fit or to waste my time.
• 40:09
  Erica Bennett: And so we meet and I'm so lined up and so happy that I'm sitting across from him.
• 40:14
  Erica Bennett: I'm like he's a great guy.
• 40:15
  Erica Bennett: I really enjoy talking to him, but he can stay or he can go, I don't care, I'm good on my own.
• 40:22
  Erica Bennett: And it messed with me for so long because I was like shouldn't I know?
• 40:25
  Erica Bennett: Shouldn't I have the big zing?
• 40:27
  Erica Bennett: Shouldn't I see fireworks?
• 40:29
  Erica Bennett: Shouldn't I know, without a doubt, that this is a thing that I never, ever want to leave, and I didn't experience that.
• 40:37
  Erica Bennett: What I experienced was a super grounded, safe space.
• 40:40
  Erica Bennett: To say I want to talk to him again tomorrow and all of the you know I'm still.
• 40:49
  Erica Bennett: I still have issues with that.
• 40:50
  Erica Bennett: I don't ever really want to make an outright statement that something is forever again, because I fought so hard for the marriage that didn't and knowing now that I don't wish any of that changed.
• 41:04
  Erica Bennett: But it made me hesitant.
• 41:07
  Erica Bennett: The trauma of it made me hesitant to ever say I found the one that is forever going to be there because people change.
• 41:14
  Erica Bennett: And so it started with.
• 41:15
  Erica Bennett: You know, I really like talking to him today.
• 41:17
  Erica Bennett: I want to talk to him again tomorrow.
• 41:19
  Erica Bennett: Okay, erica, do you want to talk to him next week?
• 41:21
  Erica Bennett: And when we first started dating, that felt too far in the future and I was like I can't.
• 41:26
  Erica Bennett: I can't, okay, but tomorrow I do.
• 41:29
  Erica Bennett: And when you build a relationship, right, it's one day, one conversation at a time.
• 41:33
  Erica Bennett: It's not saying, yes, we are going to be here in five years, because we don't know who we're going to be in five years.
• 41:38
  Erica Bennett: And so, day by day, week by week, all of a sudden we're at six months, all of a sudden we're at one year and I'm like what is going on and that conversation is about the merging of the path right that it created something far deeper and more solid than any sort of magical zing, which is really just anxiety.
• 42:00
  Erica Bennett: I remember when my ex-husband proposed I thought I was going to throw up and I honestly felt like I was.
• 42:06
  Erica Bennett: I said yes, because you're supposed to say yes when the person you're with proposes.
• 42:11
  Erica Bennett: It was the thing I had wanted for for two years, and I remember saying yes and being scared to death that I just made the wrong choice.
• 42:17
  Erica Bennett: And so this new relationship shows up and it's so steady and grounded and fun and pushes me and delivers on things that I never thought I was going to be looking at.
• 42:33
  Erica Bennett: Right, and the basis of it is and we both talk about this that it can stay or it can go, and if it goes, I will be sad, but it will not be the end of my story, that it taught me something while it was here and that really, that really the UPS came and the dog was going to bark.
• 43:01
  Erica Bennett: Sorry, edit that little piece out.
• 43:03
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, so I think, without all the sparks and without all the whatever else.
• 43:09
  Erica Bennett: Why do I know?
• 43:11
  Erica Bennett: Not, why do I know, because I will not say that.
• 43:14
  Erica Bennett: Why do I hope that this is the one that lasts?
• 43:16
  Erica Bennett: Because the openness of the communication and how truly seen I feel is like nothing I've ever experienced before.
• 43:28
  Erica Bennett: And it's created because I'm choosing to fully show up as me and he's willing to stand in it with me.
• 43:35
  Erica Bennett: So when I'm having a rough day and I'm angry or irritable or feisty or sad, or I'm having anxiety or I'm ugly crying on the floor, he doesn't run, but he doesn't do the work to fix me.
• 43:48
  Erica Bennett: I do the work to fix me, but he creates that safe space, which is what I had always asked for.
• 43:53
  Erica Bennett: Like I'll pick myself up, but sometimes I just need somebody to hold the walls up to give me the space to get there.
• 44:00
  Sade Curry: Yeah, yeah, amazing.
• 44:01
  Sade Curry: I mean, the spark wasn't necessarily there.
• 44:07
  Sade Curry: I mean this is a question that I answer for my clients all the time and they're like well, I didn't feel any spark and I was like okay, so what?
• 44:14
  Sade Curry: Right, because we established what a safe relationship looks like, we established what a healthy relationship looks like, we established something that's stimulating and interesting all of the things that we do at the beginning and so that you meet this person that meets everything and you feel nourished and you feel satisfied and you want to see them the next day.
• 44:34
  Sade Curry: But then it's like but I didn't feel a spark.
• 44:35
  Sade Curry: I'm like, okay, let's define spark for you.
• 44:39
  Erica Bennett: Right, because we're taught that being in love is the spark.
• 44:41
  Erica Bennett: And so I had to do the work too that I went through a phase and I was like, do I love him?
• 44:47
  Erica Bennett: I don't feel a spark, do I love him?
• 44:50
  Erica Bennett: And then I would watch him work with his kids, I'd watch him make dinner, I'd watch like something as silly, as like his shoulders or his forearms, and I would feel that feeling not the spark, not the fireworks, but this like deep warmth that I was like you really do love this man for who he is, you love watching him show up in his life to the best of his ability.
• 45:18
  Erica Bennett: And that was a rewiring process, because we're taught to believe a spark is the tingles and the butterflies in the stomach and like the big all over explosion.
• 45:30
  Erica Bennett: And now, having seen both right, the obsessed stalk in my then neighbor turned into husband to being able to consciously choose.
• 45:41
  Erica Bennett: I love this man for who he is, not what he does for me, and I want us both to bring that best aspect of ourselves into the relationship.
• 45:52
  Sade Curry: Yeah, yeah, amazing, and also just speaking to because I've had this conversation so often.
• 45:59
  Sade Curry: People will then say well then I'm with this guy and I'm not attracted to him at all, and so I feel like I have to, something's wrong with me because I'm not attracted to him, but I don't want to chase the spark, so I'm staying with this person that I don't like.
• 46:15
  Sade Curry: I'm like, but that's not the point either.
• 46:18
  Erica Bennett: That was like the guy number two, the one that lasted six months, where I was like I just want someone fun.
• 46:24
  Erica Bennett: You know, I just wanted sex.
• 46:26
  Erica Bennett: Let's be honest.
• 46:26
  Erica Bennett: I just was like sorry if I offend you, listeners, but I just I needed a physical aspect to a relationship and my heart wasn't ready to love and so I was like, wow, he's a great guy, he's coming over and making dinner with me, he's hanging out at my house, he's taking me out.
• 46:40
  Erica Bennett: Why don't I feel anything?
• 46:41
  Erica Bennett: And it has nothing to do with them not being a great guy.
• 46:45
  Erica Bennett: It just wasn't the right fit for me.
• 46:49
  Erica Bennett: And could I have stayed and played it safe?
• 46:50
  Erica Bennett: Yes, because I could have written it off as he is doing all the things.
• 46:54
  Erica Bennett: But when there isn't enough of the polarity, of the pull right and that comes from a respect of the other person being in their power and a little bit of a frustration of that person, like how we rub against each other, right, how you fight absolutely correlates to the bedroom aspects of your relationship, because it's the communication, it's the energy passing, it's the how you're repairing things.
• 47:21
  Erica Bennett: So, staying in something just because somebody does all the right things, there's a space in between.
• 47:28
  Erica Bennett: So we got the Disney fireworks and then we got the safe secure, almost like an arranged loveless marriage.
• 47:35
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, find the space in the middle, find the space where you're like this feels safe, which, by the way, feels very boring for a lot of us, especially if we've been raised to love the intensity of a challenge.
• 47:47
  Erica Bennett: I love a challenge, I love fixing a problem.
• 47:49
  Erica Bennett: So it felt very boring a lot of days, but then when I could look at like, but how do you really feel about him?
• 47:57
  Erica Bennett: Take away all the other conditions, and when you just look at this person in the most simplest moments of everyday life, how do you feel?
• 48:07
  Sade Curry: Yeah, that's so good so, so good.
• 48:10
  Sade Curry: So, as we wrap up, because unfortunately I could keep asking you questions like all day- I'll just come back.
• 48:18
  Erica Bennett: We'll do it again.
• 48:19
  Erica Bennett: I love this stuff.
• 48:20
  Erica Bennett: It's so fun.
• 48:21
  Erica Bennett: Come back.
• 48:22
  Sade Curry: Thank you so much for watching.
• 48:23
  Sade Curry: Did you have a moment where you switched from?
• 48:31
  Sade Curry: We'll see how it goes.
• 48:31
  Sade Curry: We'll see how it goes to.
• 48:33
  Sade Curry: I'm ready to go just a bit deeper and stay a little bit longer when you weren't checking, you weren't evaluating every day.
• 48:40
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, right, yes, one of the things I realized is that when you project into the future, you create anxiety, you create worry.
• 48:50
  Erica Bennett: Being present in the moment is the one way to avoid that, because nobody can predict the future.
• 48:57
  Erica Bennett: But what started to happen is little things like.
• 49:02
  Erica Bennett: I really wish that we were in one home In the beginning.
• 49:07
  Erica Bennett: Even up to it was something that shifted only this summer we're talking a year and a half in Prior to that, sundays I'd roll back into my house and I'd have my space and my couch and my TV, which is very different than his house, which he built for him and me, mine, which, by the way, his house is now full of crystals and plants and he complains about it every single day.
• 49:27
  Erica Bennett: But he's like, little by little, erica, you just keep expanding in my house.
• 49:33
  Erica Bennett: But I always loved coming home to my own space and then I loved sharing his space with him, but I needed my own.
• 49:39
  Erica Bennett: In this summer, something shifted into.
• 49:43
  Erica Bennett: I just was a little sad.
• 49:45
  Erica Bennett: On the day that I came home, I knew something was moving and we had talked about future living together, what that would look like with four boys and our jobs, and where do we want to locate.
• 49:58
  Erica Bennett: This has been a long conversation for a year, but every time we brought it up it would feel stressful, then enjoyable.
• 50:07
  Erica Bennett: Again.
• 50:09
  Erica Bennett: You're walking through a conversation like, hey, are we in alignment that we hope that one day we both live in the same house?
• 50:16
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, okay, we can feel like that feels good.
• 50:19
  Erica Bennett: But looking at a house doesn't feel good yet.
• 50:21
  Erica Bennett: Okay, we know we're pointed in the same direction, but those two paths are not overlapping yet.
• 50:27
  Erica Bennett: In little by little those things would start to change.
• 50:30
  Erica Bennett: We'd look at different houses and talk about do we want to start dreaming up what we want in a house, because that seems like the natural next step.
• 50:37
  Erica Bennett: But then, when Push comes to shove pulling my son out of his school district, selling the house that I'm in that felt really tight, really anxious in my chest and I was like I'm not ready to do that.
• 50:48
  Erica Bennett: But every time the conversation would come up I would just look at it again and be like, okay, where am I at in being lined up to being ready to make that move?
• 50:57
  Erica Bennett: Yes, I want one place.
• 50:58
  Erica Bennett: Yes, I want to stop managing two houses, but ooh, I'm not ready to move the school district or I don't know what city we need to live in yet and now, as those pieces are coming close like in fact just the other week this like weird random opportunity has showed up and we're waiting to hear back on it, because we had let go of the need that it needed to happen now and knew that we could continue to maintain the two houses we have and be very happy, and if the opportunity were to present itself, we would be ready to make a move.
• 51:28
  Erica Bennett: So I think it's those steps, especially when your heart has been broken as big as a divorce is that you might never be in a place where you can say this is a thing I want forever.
• 51:40
  Erica Bennett: So then break it down and be like what would happen next.
• 51:44
  Erica Bennett: I feel like it'd be good to live in the same house.
• 51:47
  Erica Bennett: Okay, am I ready to move my child from the school district?
• 51:50
  Erica Bennett: If it was me, I'd already be there, right.
• 51:52
  Erica Bennett: But am I ready to move my child and ask him to make new friends?
• 51:56
  Erica Bennett: We talked about from the very beginning that we have zero desire to ever legally get married again.
• 52:01
  Erica Bennett: But we both want a long-term partnership.
• 52:03
  Erica Bennett: Like, the legal aspects of marriage just cost us both money, didn't give us anything, so, but we want a partnership.
• 52:11
  Erica Bennett: Okay.
• 52:11
  Erica Bennett: So what does that look like?
• 52:12
  Erica Bennett: Little by little, having those conversations and feeling like what feels good and what doesn't, with again the big general hazy future is like yeah, we want this to work and we're gonna take steps along the way to make sure we do it in a manner that we're both ready for and it's not too fast.
• 52:32
  Sade Curry: Oh, that's so good, so good.
• 52:35
  Sade Curry: I mean, like I love that, just that pacing, like you don't have to have it all now, we can just enjoy what we have now and only think about just the very next step.
• 52:46
  Sade Curry: So that's so good.
• 52:48
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, and it was hard, you guys like, because my subconscious wanted to be like oh, if you're not living together, maybe he's not serious.
• 52:55
  Erica Bennett: Oh, if you're not getting married, how do you know?
• 52:58
  Erica Bennett: He's not just gonna leave, right, it plays all those tricks to try and protect you.
• 53:03
  Erica Bennett: Your mind will create a ton of stories.
• 53:05
  Erica Bennett: Again.
• 53:06
  Erica Bennett: It had to come back to the communication, so I had to be like hey, I'm feeling like we didn't get our normal ways to connect this weekend.
• 53:13
  Erica Bennett: We weren't able to hang out.
• 53:14
  Erica Bennett: You were traveling with your brother, we weren't talking on the phone like we normally do.
• 53:17
  Erica Bennett: I'm feeling a disconnect and it's making me have some anxiety and I'm gonna take care of it.
• 53:22
  Erica Bennett: But I want you to know so that we can have some open communication.
• 53:27
  Erica Bennett: Right, and when those moments hit, I would do a lot of self-reflection.
• 53:31
  Erica Bennett: Well, why are you worried?
• 53:32
  Erica Bennett: Two days ago, you were over the moon in love, super happy with how things were going, and now, today, you're desperate for reassurance that he still loves you.
• 53:40
  Erica Bennett: It's been 48 hours.
• 53:41
  Erica Bennett: The man did not fall out of love with you in 48 hours.
• 53:44
  Erica Bennett: Right, doing the work for myself.
• 53:46
  Erica Bennett: Oh well, because normally the next step would be to propose.
• 53:49
  Erica Bennett: That would show that you're wanting commitment right.
• 53:52
  Erica Bennett: Or now we're getting married, or now we're having a kid, or now we're buying a house together.
• 53:56
  Erica Bennett: These are cultural steps we've created to say that's how you know somebody wants to be with you.
• 54:01
  Erica Bennett: But guarantee you guys all did those in your marriage and the marriage didn't stay committed.
• 54:07
  Sade Curry: So Somebody made those up.
• 54:09
  Sade Curry: Somebody made those up.
• 54:11
  Erica Bennett: Somebody made them up, so figure out a new one that works for you.
• 54:14
  Erica Bennett: If I know we're never getting married, what do I need to know that he's committed?
• 54:18
  Erica Bennett: I wanna hear how we're planning for us, not how he's planning for his family and I'm planning for my family.
• 54:23
  Erica Bennett: I wanna hear about what he sees for the future, on how things work for us, not just what he's gonna do.
• 54:32
  Erica Bennett: Right, it's the dreaming up of the plans together, not necessarily the moving things forward, and it'll be very interesting to see how it rolls out, because so often we try to move a condition into a reality as a security blanket, but that condition comes with a lot more right.
• 54:50
  Erica Bennett: Buying a house together means now we gotta manage space together and we gotta manage bills together, and there's a whole new level of things that have to be communicated.
• 54:57
  Erica Bennett: And for kids, there's a lot of bedrooms For kids in a home office like what are we doing?
• 55:08
  Sade Curry: So yeah, just ask yourself what would make me feel secure, because it probably is not the checklist that you had for your first partnership or marriage Right, and if other people weren't quote unquote doing those things, is that what I would choose for myself as my next step as well?
• 55:25
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, it's very interesting that the tricks are mind plays, but it really just takes us asking ourselves like why do you want that thing?
• 55:32
  Erica Bennett: You know what?
• 55:34
  Erica Bennett: Do you wanna have another baby?
• 55:35
  Erica Bennett: Why do you wanna move in together?
• 55:37
  Erica Bennett: Oh well, then it means he won't leave.
• 55:40
  Sade Curry: Did it.
• 55:41
  Sade Curry: Is that a great reason?
• 55:43
  Sade Curry: Do you like that I?
• 55:44
  Erica Bennett: was like it's a big commitment, yeah, Doesn't guarantee he doesn't leave, Like kinda all those things, but one step at a time and then each time it feels a little bit better.
• 55:56
  Erica Bennett: You know, Now we're planning holidays together.
• 55:58
  Erica Bennett: That's a new first.
• 56:00
  Erica Bennett: We've always gone somewhere else, Somebody else hosts the holiday.
• 56:02
  Erica Bennett: Well, this year we're hosting.
• 56:04
  Erica Bennett: It's gonna be so stressful and so fun and I'm super excited because I haven't hosted since I was married and my family came in, and so it's like building those pieces back in without rushing.
• 56:17
  Erica Bennett: And it's hard to not rush, but every time I wanted to rush I had to ask myself what am I trying to get by rushing this?
• 56:26
  Erica Bennett: And how can I meet that need in a different way to give it some space?
• 56:30
  Sade Curry: Yeah, that's so good, Erica.
• 56:32
  Sade Curry: Your story is amazing.
• 56:33
  Sade Curry: Your wisdom, oh my God, so such great wisdom about walking through this process.
• 56:38
  Sade Curry: Do you have any last words of advice for just?
• 56:42
  Sade Curry: I mean, we have a whole spectrum of women dating after a divorce, just anything that you feel like.
• 56:47
  Sade Curry: I just wanted to say this to the listeners today.
• 56:51
  Erica Bennett: Mm, such a good question.
• 56:52
  Erica Bennett: I think it's that you truly do create your reality.
• 56:58
  Erica Bennett: You always have a choice in things.
• 57:00
  Erica Bennett: So if you're out there dating and you're finding that you're just running out of options or every single date is disappointing, stop for a while and take yourself out.
• 57:10
  Erica Bennett: Figure out what your own needs are first, before you expect somebody else to meet them, because the reality is that they can't and they never will meet your needs as well as you can meet them yourself, because you're the one who knows it in the moment.
• 57:26
  Erica Bennett: And, to be honest, as a woman, my needs change all the time.
• 57:30
  Erica Bennett: I mean, on Monday there was something that I really, really wanted my partner to do, and on Tuesday it was something completely different.
• 57:35
  Erica Bennett: You know, like that's the nature of being a woman and it's a beautiful thing, but it means that your first job is to figure out how to make yourself happy.
• 57:45
  Erica Bennett: And when you figure out how to make yourself happy, take yourself out on dates and treat yourself well and buy yourself the Christmas present that you want.
• 57:51
  Erica Bennett: Then be ready to share it with somebody.
• 57:55
  Erica Bennett: But that's the piece we all like to skip.
• 57:58
  Erica Bennett: We like to think somebody else will show up and make me happy and it just.
• 58:02
  Erica Bennett: They can't and they shouldn't.
• 58:04
  Erica Bennett: Do you want to be responsible to make somebody else happy every single day?
• 58:08
  Erica Bennett: No, it's exhausting.
• 58:09
  Erica Bennett: So don't put it on your partner either.
• 58:12
  Sade Curry: Yeah, thank you so much.
• 58:14
  Sade Curry: Thank you so much, Erica.
• 58:15
  Sade Curry: All right, I know the listeners are gonna want to connect with you.
• 58:19
  Sade Curry: They're gonna want to listen to your podcast and hang out on the internet, so could you please just remind everyone where they can find the podcast and where they can find you online?
• 58:28
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, so the website is thecrazyxwivesclubcom.
• 58:32
  Erica Bennett: On the website you will find links to the podcast.
• 58:36
  Erica Bennett: It's on all of the major podcast streaming.
• 58:39
  Erica Bennett: So if you're Apple, if you're Spotify and then all the other ones, you know the was it Amazon, google, iheart Radio there's a whole.
• 58:47
  Erica Bennett: I mean you guys, there are so many podcast platforms, but it's on all the major ones.
• 58:51
  Erica Bennett: For you, make sure that you subscribe so that you get sent all of the new episodes.
• 58:56
  Erica Bennett: We run 12 week seasons and then we take a break to let you catch up.
• 58:59
  Erica Bennett: So you're gonna want to make sure you're subscribed to know when the new season start.
• 59:03
  Erica Bennett: On the website you can also learn about the group coaching or the group support that's launching just around the corner.
• 59:11
  Erica Bennett: We run that ongoing throughout the year.
• 59:13
  Erica Bennett: And then there's merchandise, because what better thing than to broadcast your love for just how crazy you are through, you know, hoodies and tumblers?
• 59:23
  Erica Bennett: They're definitely.
• 59:24
  Erica Bennett: I swear.
• 59:24
  Erica Bennett: Every time I wear it to the airport, people will stop me and they'll be like that's funny, cause it's like my favorite.
• 59:29
  Erica Bennett: One says I'm not crazy, I'm in the club.
• 59:31
  Erica Bennett: And then it says the crazy X wives Club, oh, I'm gonna get me one of those.
• 59:35
  Erica Bennett: Yeah, it is so, it's so fun.
• 59:38
  Erica Bennett: People just look at it and laugh.
• 59:40
  Erica Bennett: So merchandise is on there, group programs are on there, the podcast again.
• 59:45
  Erica Bennett: It's thecrazyxyvesclubcom, same social handle as well.
• 59:49
  Erica Bennett: So TikTok Instagram, facebook, give it a listen.
• 59:52
  Erica Bennett: I'd love to have you follow along, and thank you so much for having me on today.
• 59:57
  Erica Bennett: This was a lot of fun.
• 59:58
  Sade Curry: You have so much fun.
• 59:59
  Sade Curry: I've absolute pleasure to have you, hey listeners.
• 1:00:03
  Sade Curry: So good to have you guys with us here today.
• 1:00:06
  Sade Curry: We wanna appreciate your time and attention and we will see you on the next episode.