Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / Disentanglng After Divorce
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, a podcast covering all things relationships, separation, and divorce.
- 0:09SPEAKER_00: How to create healthy, happy, fulfilling relationships without sacrificing any part of yourself.
- 0:14SPEAKER_00: Supporting anyone feeling challenged in their relationship or marriage.
- 0:18SPEAKER_00: These are confidential conversations for you if you're navigating separation, divorce, or reorganising life afterwards.
- 0:26SPEAKER_00: Decide whether to stay or leave a relationship or marriage, divorce with less drama, and consciously choose what's next for you.
- 0:36SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Warrentry people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
- 0:45SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
- 0:53SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: Now, before we dive into this week's episode, I want to let you know that I'm looking at a new way of sharing with you a new offering for 2026, and the focus for that is going to be on after divorce, reclaiming and liberating you after the messy hard parts, or even as you feel like you can see the light at the end of your tunnel, it will be a space for you too.
- 1:24SPEAKER_00: So if you're not already, this is an invitation for you to make sure you are on my mailing list, my email list, very non-spammy and episodic.
- 1:34SPEAKER_00: If you want to hear about this new way of working with me, connecting with me as it takes shape and for first access.
- 1:44SPEAKER_00: There's a link in the show notes.
- 1:46SPEAKER_00: Just follow the work with me button, and you have an opportunity to just add your details.
- 1:52SPEAKER_00: So you'll go onto my mailing list and get the announcements as this rolls out.
- 1:58SPEAKER_00: And so now let's get into today's episode, which is all about disentangling, disentangling after divorce when the relationship is over, but maybe the attachment isn't, and why that can feel harder than you think, even if you were the one to choose the separation, the breakdown of the relationship, the divorce, right?
- 2:19SPEAKER_00: There can be a lot of noise around what healing after divorce is supposed to look like and supposed to in inverted commas, right?
- 2:29SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was thinking about it when I was writing notes for this episode that if I'm really honest, maybe I've actually been part of that narrative at times.
- 2:38SPEAKER_00: Do the work, heal your heart, you know, find closure, create it for yourself.
- 2:42SPEAKER_00: There's lots of noise around that stuff, and then there are other perhaps more forceful voices that almost push and demand that you should get over it, you should move on, you should get back out there, whatever that is, as if there's you know, as if there's a finish line or at least a set timeline or a ticking timeline that you know that you should be adhering to.
- 3:07SPEAKER_00: It's as if that once the decision's made, once those next steps are ticked off, agreements signed, paperwork done, legal, financial pieces all sorted, that the emotional process should just neatly follow.
- 3:19SPEAKER_00: And if you've been around me and in the reflect community for a while, you know that's not what I talk about.
- 3:26SPEAKER_00: But that narrative out there in the world can be really loud.
- 3:31SPEAKER_00: Get on, get over with it, you know, get over it, time to move on.
- 3:34SPEAKER_00: Didn't you choose this?
- 3:36SPEAKER_00: You should be further along by now, and that even can be your own internal narrative, you know, not just other people saying it, but it's your inner voice, your inner narrative, and it's as if your heart and your nervous system should catch up to all the logistics, right?
- 3:55SPEAKER_00: All the external markers, but that kind of framing around the process, I think, really misses something important, and that is that ending a relationship and disentangling yourself from it are not actually the same thing.
- 4:12SPEAKER_00: And so if it still feels complicated for you, I want you to know that that doesn't mean you're doing this wrong.
- 4:18SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean if you chose the separation, you chose the divorce, that you made the wrong decision, it doesn't mean that you secretly want to go back, although that can be one thing that whispers in in your mind, right?
- 4:31SPEAKER_00: There are always so many voices around separation, divorce, and how we should be doing it, so many opinions, so much advice, and a lot of it is loud, but I don't think that the loudest voices are always the wisest, and I think we can really easily misunderstand what actually happens after a relationship ends.
- 4:55SPEAKER_00: So today I want us to slow this right down, and we're gently going to bust a few myths about what moving on really means.
- 5:04SPEAKER_00: And today I'm really talking about something that I don't think is spoken about a lot.
- 5:10SPEAKER_00: It's not the divorce itself, it's not even that decision to end a relationship, it's what happens, what comes afterwards, because there's often this strange, quiet, weird kind of middle space that you you can't prepare for, and almost no one prepares you for, and it's not really talked about.
- 5:29SPEAKER_00: And that is that space when the relationship is over, or maybe it's still unending and unraveling, but the emotional attachment is still very much present, very much alive, because the relationship can be over in every visible external sort of way, legally, practically, socially, physically, sexually.
- 5:50SPEAKER_00: You know, the paperwork signed, the house and the assets divided, the announcements are made, you've told everybody, friends, family, kids, and yet internally something still feels connected.
- 6:02SPEAKER_00: So it can all be over, but the attachment often isn't.
- 6:06SPEAKER_00: You know, you can choose the divorce and still miss them, you can choose a divorce and still grieve, you can know it wasn't right, healthy, taking you where you want to go in your life, whatever, however you frame it, and still miss it.
- 6:20SPEAKER_00: Still feel sometimes that backward pull.
- 6:22SPEAKER_00: You might still wonder, and again, you know, that doesn't mean you made the wrong choice.
- 6:27SPEAKER_00: Missing someone doesn't mean you made the wrong decision.
- 6:30SPEAKER_00: It just means that attachment, that entanglement, that connection hasn't gone away because it doesn't just dissolve on command, right?
- 6:39SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to talk about what I call disentangling, that quite more that quieter, more subtle emotional process of separating your identity, your nervous system.
- 6:52SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes it's about separating your hope and your future from someone you once built a life around and with.
- 10:09SPEAKER_00: A lot of thinking, a lot of analysing, a lot of second-guessing, a lot of questioning before you ever say it out loud.
- 10:16SPEAKER_00: So disentangling is not uh like a verdict on your choice, it's just another part of the process.
- 10:26SPEAKER_00: Because we underestimate, I think, how deeply entangled we become in long-term relationships, especially one that you're you're leaving for all the reasons, right?
- 10:36SPEAKER_00: You've become disconnected, you're not communicating well, you might be fighting, arguing, or you might just be functioning as housemates rather than partners or lovers.
- 10:46SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't feel like you're connected, but you still are.
- 10:49SPEAKER_00: You don't just share a home.
- 10:52SPEAKER_00: You know, you might share language, stories, routines, inside jokes, you might share finances and financial systems, you might share friendship either together between the two of you or friendships, social circles.
- 11:06SPEAKER_00: You definitely have shared memories, right?
- 11:08SPEAKER_00: You definitely share dreams, future plans, you might share parenting, children.
- 11:13SPEAKER_00: So there's all of these interweaving parts of you that don't just go away simply because you've chosen to end the relationship.
- 11:23SPEAKER_00: And you share like the load in some ways of life.
- 11:28SPEAKER_00: You know, I said to someone just this past week, um, recently separated, recently living as a single parent, and we were discussing the load of that, and I'm like, yep, now it's all on you, which can be great and empowering and freeing, and it's all on you, right?
- 11:47SPEAKER_00: There's no backup, there's no one else there, there's no one to pick up the milk you forgot to pick up on the way home, right?
- 11:53SPEAKER_00: But even more deeply than that, you share when you're in a relationship with someone for a long time, you share identity, you become we, even if that we isn't a happy space, even if that we is companionship rather than deeply connected relationship, loving, nurturing all the things, right?
- 12:13SPEAKER_00: So when the relationship ends, it isn't just a person who disappears, that we disappears too.
- 12:21SPEAKER_00: So that structure disappears.
- 12:23SPEAKER_00: It's the version of the future that you had already mentally lived in, right?
- 12:28SPEAKER_00: It's a version of you that only existed inside that specific dynamic.
- 12:33SPEAKER_00: So of course that feels a bit weird and disorienting.
- 12:37SPEAKER_00: And of course, it can take time to process, to process your way out of that connection, that entanglement.
- 12:46SPEAKER_00: And also attachment is neurological, biological, it's not just in your head, your nervous system is involved, and your nervous system responds to feel familiarity, to pattern, to proximity, to shared or shared regulation, co-regulation, right?
- 13:05SPEAKER_00: And when that disappears, your nervous system can actually read it or label it as a threat, even if the relationship itself wasn't healthy.
- 13:17SPEAKER_00: So I you if you find yourself thinking, I chose this, why does it still hurt?
- 13:23SPEAKER_00: It's because leaving and disentangling are two different processes.
- 13:29SPEAKER_00: One is a decision, and the other is this gradual unwinding of attachment, identity, hope, future vision.
- 13:37SPEAKER_00: And that unwinding really takes time.
- 13:40SPEAKER_00: Loving someone and being attached to someone are not the same thing.
- 13:46SPEAKER_00: Love, of course, can be real, deep, and it can have mattered profoundly.
- 13:50SPEAKER_00: Of course, it can also be challenging, complex, layered, unhealthy, all the things, right?
- 13:55SPEAKER_00: Attachment, though, is about bonding, it's about dependency, codependency, it's about regulation, familiarity.
- 14:03SPEAKER_00: It's also about that hope and future orientation, right?
- 14:06SPEAKER_00: So you can stop loving someone and still feel attached.
- 14:11SPEAKER_00: And the flip side of that, of course, is you can still love someone and know the relationship isn't right for you.
- 14:16SPEAKER_00: And that's where lots of us get confused or it feels like we're not doing this right.
- 14:22SPEAKER_00: You can interpret that lingering attachment as evidence that the separation is not the right thing.
- 14:31SPEAKER_00: You made the wrong decision.
- 14:32SPEAKER_00: But often what we're feeling in that space isn't longing for the person, the person as they were or as they are.
- 14:40SPEAKER_00: It's longing for who we hoped they would become.
- 14:44SPEAKER_00: That potential, right?
- 14:45SPEAKER_00: The version of the relationship that we kept trying to hold on to and build and heal.
- 14:50SPEAKER_00: It could be longing for safety of the familiar, right?
- 14:54SPEAKER_00: That goes back to nervous system regulation, right?
- 14:57SPEAKER_00: It feels familiar, it feels therefore it feels safe.
- 15:00SPEAKER_00: It might be longing for the identity of being part of a couple, part of a pair.
- 15:05SPEAKER_00: So disentangling will mean gently separating those threads.
- 15:10SPEAKER_00: Honestly, kindly, compassionately, gently.
- 15:14SPEAKER_00: Another reason that disentangling is hard is because many of us kind of shape shift ourselves inside the relationships, and this happens sometimes subconsciously.
- 15:26SPEAKER_00: We don't fully realize that we're doing it, right?
- 15:29SPEAKER_00: We soften our needs, we minimize our wants, hopes, needs, desires.
- 15:34SPEAKER_00: We might compromise and bend small kinds of boundaries, right?
- 15:40SPEAKER_00: We tolerate things we perhaps once said or promised ourselves we wouldn't.
- 15:45SPEAKER_00: And all this happens in such tiny increments.
- 15:48SPEAKER_00: We often don't realize that we're doing it until it's all so deeply entrenched and normalized, right?
- 15:56SPEAKER_00: We tell ourselves stories about patience, loyalty, endurance, forever.
- 16:01SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, yep, those stories are beautiful, but sometimes they are self-abandonment wrapped up in bows, self-abandonment in disguise, right?
- 16:10SPEAKER_00: So when a marriage or long-term partnership ends, part of the grief and the processing isn't just about losing the person, it's about recognizing, reflecting, and realizing where perhaps we lost ourselves, and that can be confronting, but it's also where your power lies because disentangling isn't only about releasing them, releasing other, it's also about reclaiming you, reconnecting to you, reclaiming you, coming back to yourself, coming home to yourself, right?
- 16:45SPEAKER_00: I also want to talk about a really tender part of this process of untling, disentangling, which can be a little bit confronting, and that's the gap between reality and potential.
- 16:58SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes when I'm working with clients who are grieving the relationship, whether they chose the separation, divorce, or not, they're not actually grieving the relationship as it actually was.
- 17:12SPEAKER_00: They're grieving the relationship that they were still trying to create.
- 17:18SPEAKER_00: So they're grieving the potential.
- 17:20SPEAKER_00: They're grieving the relationship they were still trying to create.
- 17:23SPEAKER_00: That one where, you know, communication magically, miraculously finally improved, intimacy flourished, they're having great sex, connection deepened, and that personal growth that they're hoping for from that other person, even from themselves, finally materialized.
- 17:39SPEAKER_00: And the promises that were made by them, by their partner suddenly materialized into real life action, behavioral change, and that emotional availability that they've been seeking finally deepened.
- 17:54SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 17:54SPEAKER_00: Hope is powerful, right?
- 17:57SPEAKER_00: And it can keep us invested for years.
- 18:00SPEAKER_00: And there's sunk cost as well.
- 18:02SPEAKER_00: There's another podcast episode about sunk cost and why we stay, right?
- 18:07SPEAKER_00: But hope can keep us entangled in a version of someone, in a version of relationship that actually never fully existed.
- 18:17SPEAKER_00: There might be glimmers of it, but it's not reality.
- 18:21SPEAKER_00: So disentangling asks us to look really clearly at what was.
- 18:27SPEAKER_00: What was reality, what was consistent, not what was promised, not what was hoped for.
- 18:33SPEAKER_00: And that that clear thinking, that clear looking, that reflection doesn't have to be hard, harsh, critical, shaming, blaming.
- 18:41SPEAKER_00: It just needs to be honest.
- 18:43SPEAKER_00: So if you're sitting in that space, still feeling connected, still feeling pulled back into the old relationship, or you're still in the relationship, this is an invitation.
- 18:54SPEAKER_00: Have a think about or reflect on am I being really honest about the reality of this relationship?
- 19:07SPEAKER_00: Next, I'm going to say something, and I want you to feel how it lands in your body.
- 19:16SPEAKER_00: How does it feel when I say this next line?
- 19:20SPEAKER_00: Holding on is an active choice.
- 19:24SPEAKER_00: And holding on is protecting you from something.
- 19:30SPEAKER_00: When a client says, I just can't let go or I can't move on, I often ask what letting go would require them to feel.
- 19:42SPEAKER_00: What are you protecting yourself from?
- 19:44SPEAKER_00: Because holding on is a choice and it is an active choice.
- 19:53SPEAKER_00: But holding on is also protecting you from something.
- 19:56SPEAKER_00: So what would letting go require you to feel, and what therefore are you protecting yourself from?
- 20:03SPEAKER_00: Because holding on is rarely just about love or regret, it can actually be about avoidance.
- 20:13SPEAKER_00: Avoiding loneliness, avoiding grief, avoiding the fear of being on your own, being single, being solo, and having all of it all on you, right?
- 20:23SPEAKER_00: Like that client I was talking about earlier.
- 20:26SPEAKER_00: It could be avoidance of the financial or the social fallout.
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: It might be avoiding the terrifying question: what if this was my one and only chance at love, connection, relationship?
- 20:41SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, attachment sometimes protects us from having to sit with those bigger questions, deeper fears.
- 20:51SPEAKER_00: And disentangling means allowing those feelings to surface.
- 20:57SPEAKER_00: And that can be slow, that can be safely, but allowing them to surface rather than pushing them down, minimizing them, pushing them away.
- 21:06SPEAKER_00: And again, this is not about forcing yourself to be over it, move on, tick all the boxes, and you know, get back out there.
- 21:14SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying here.
- 21:16SPEAKER_00: It's just about being willing to look at and bring to the surface and to feel what's underneath you not being able to let go and move on.
- 21:28SPEAKER_00: You still feeling pulled back into that space.
- 21:31SPEAKER_00: What are you really attached to?
- 21:34SPEAKER_00: What feeling or emotion or value or need is being served by this attachment?
- 21:41SPEAKER_00: They're the questions to ask.
- 21:44SPEAKER_00: And as you do this and as the attachment loosens, as you unravel and disentangle, something else becomes possible.
- 21:54SPEAKER_00: It becomes possible for you.
- 21:57SPEAKER_00: You begin to re Orient toward yourself.
- 22:03SPEAKER_00: You begin to reattach but to yourself, right?
- 22:07SPEAKER_00: You start asking different questions.
- 22:10SPEAKER_00: Well, who am I now?
- 22:11SPEAKER_00: Who am I without this dynamic?
- 22:13SPEAKER_00: Who am I without this relationship?
- 22:16SPEAKER_00: And who do I want to be?
- 22:18SPEAKER_00: You have heard me say that hundreds hundreds of times.
- 22:21SPEAKER_00: Who do I want to be?
- 22:22SPEAKER_00: What am I, and who am I expanding into?
- 22:24SPEAKER_00: What do I value now?
- 22:26SPEAKER_00: What's really important to me?
- 22:27SPEAKER_00: And what does safety look like for me?
- 22:30SPEAKER_00: What does safety look like without shrinking or minimizing or going quiet?
- 22:34SPEAKER_00: Or if you were the loud one, you know, what does safety look like without being loud and bombastic?
- 22:39SPEAKER_00: What kind of partnership would actually feel aligned?
- 22:44SPEAKER_00: You know, what do I want my life to look at now?
- 22:47SPEAKER_00: Who can I become when I disentangle from this state?
- 22:52SPEAKER_00: And note, I intentionally say, disentangle from this state, not person, not relationship.
- 23:00SPEAKER_00: Who can I become when I disentangle from this state?
- 23:03SPEAKER_00: Disentangling is a real gift because it creates space, spaciousness, and yes, that can feel huge and disorienting and a little bit terrifying at first, but it's also creative, it's an opportunity, it's expansive, and it offers you validation, choice, agency, freedom.
- 23:27SPEAKER_00: There's all this space where there was once attachment, right?
- 23:31SPEAKER_00: Disentangling frees you up.
- 23:35SPEAKER_00: Because also now you're building something different.
- 23:38SPEAKER_00: You're not building from hope or habit, you're not building from enmeshment, codependency, you're not orienting your life around someone else's moods, needs, expectations.
- 23:52SPEAKER_00: You're not, you know, perhaps scanning the room for emotional temperature, you're not adjusting yourself or your tone to remain in relationship to keep the peace.
- 24:03SPEAKER_00: You're not perhaps shrinking yourself or parts of yourself to make this dynamic work, right?
- 24:09SPEAKER_00: You're not tending to or hoping, waiting for someone else's growth while quietly abandoning your own.
- 24:18SPEAKER_00: You're not trying to fit yourself into someone else's ideas of who you should be and how life should be.
- 24:25SPEAKER_00: You're not bending, compromising your values to preserve a connection.
- 24:29SPEAKER_00: You're not building a life around being chosen.
- 24:33SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a massive part of why we stay stuck and why we can't move on.
- 24:41SPEAKER_00: We want a life where we're chosen.
- 24:45SPEAKER_00: But this is actually an invitation to disentangle from that and to choose yourself, to build from self-trust, from clarity, and from what actually feels aligned, not just what feels familiar and safe.
- 24:59SPEAKER_00: Because entanglement, a shared life that's not aligned with you, your values, who you are, who you're evolving into really blurs the edges of you, blurs the edges of who you are, and disentangling, as I said earlier, reorients you reorients you towards yourself and brings the focus back on yourself.
- 25:22SPEAKER_00: Now you're not asking, how do I heal this relationship?
- 25:26SPEAKER_00: How do I keep this relationship intact?
- 25:28SPEAKER_00: How do I fix this?
- 25:29SPEAKER_00: You're asking, does this life feel intact for me?
- 25:35SPEAKER_00: Is this life aligned with my values?
- 25:39SPEAKER_00: What is my version of a good life?
- 25:42SPEAKER_00: When you disentangle, you actually get to choose you, choose you freely, and the life you build is one built from a deep and almost sacred self-knowing and self-trust.
- 25:58SPEAKER_00: To finish, I just want to say that disentangling isn't about making anyone, you, your ex, anyone the villain in your story.
- 26:07SPEAKER_00: It's not making, it's not about making you wrong or slow or anything other than exactly where you are.
- 26:14SPEAKER_00: It's not about pushing or rushing or forcing that sense of closure or finding a false sense of peace.
- 26:25SPEAKER_00: It's about real deep peace.
- 26:28SPEAKER_00: And as I said earlier, it isn't about pretending the good parts, the love, the beautiful, the good, the bad, and the hard and the ugly.
- 26:35SPEAKER_00: It's not about pretending any of that wasn't real.
- 26:39SPEAKER_00: It's simply about ending your emotional entanglement, your emotional attachment, closing off the loops.
- 26:48SPEAKER_00: It's about choosing the reality, choosing truth over fantasy or hope, accepting the reality while still you can still honor the past, accepting the reality while honouring the past version of you who chose differently, who did the best they could at the time with the knowledge that they had, right?
- 27:09SPEAKER_00: It's also about staying kind, compassionate, gentle, soft with yourself while also choosing yourself.
- 27:20SPEAKER_00: So missing another person, wishing things were different, missing being in relationship, you know, looking back, reminiscing, and wondering about things doesn't mean that this was the wrong decision.
- 27:32SPEAKER_00: And if you didn't choose it, it may be a part of your grieving, and it doesn't necessarily mean you with that version or that you want them back.
- 27:44SPEAKER_00: It means that you're just unwinding something, unraveling, disentangling from something that once mattered really deeply.
- 27:54SPEAKER_00: In next week's episode, I'm going to share some really specific questions, more than I've shared in this episode, that you can use to gently guide yourself through this disentangling process if that's where you are.
- 28:07SPEAKER_00: But for now, just know this if it feels complicated, slow, layered, if you feel like you're behind, like you should be further along, you're not doing it wrong.
- 28:20SPEAKER_00: You're just disentangling gently, honestly, and at your own pace.
- 28:28SPEAKER_00: I often reflect that disentangling is kind of like its own love language, and sometimes, in fact, probably always, it's the one language or the process that ultimately brings you home to yourself, back home to yourself.
- 28:44SPEAKER_00: So choose you.
- 28:47SPEAKER_00: There is actually in the show notes, I think, a link to the Choose You guidebook if you don't already have your copy of it.
- 28:57SPEAKER_00: And again, a reminder jump on, join the mailing list for next ways, new ways, expanded ways of working with me.
- 29:07SPEAKER_00: If you are in this end sort of tail end of divorce phase, rebuilding, reclaiming life afterwards phase coming soon.
- 29:17SPEAKER_00: I hope, fingers crossed.
- 29:19SPEAKER_00: Anyway, that's all for this week.
- 29:21SPEAKER_00: As always, if you know someone who would benefit from having a listen to this, please share it with them.
- 29:28SPEAKER_00: Follow the podcast, rate it, review it, all the things.
- 29:33SPEAKER_00: It helps me get it into the ears of more people just like you who need to hear it.
- 29:39SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.
- 29:42SPEAKER_00: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
- 29:48SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love or benefit from listening to this episode, please share it with them.
- 29:56SPEAKER_00: I'd also be so grateful if you would follow and review the podcast so we can get it in the ears of a whole lot more people just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
- 30:07SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join me next week for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
- 30:12SPEAKER_00: Until then,