S4, E8: Stories from the Other Side with Alice Shikina

Join Erica Bennett on The Crazy Ex-Wives Club as she welcomes guest Alice Shikina for another great "Stories from the Other Side." In this episode, Erica and Alice delve into the impact of divorce on children at different ages, the challenges of rebuilding a community post-divorce, and the journey of personal growth and self-discovery after separation. 

From facing fears through physical challenges to navigating changing friendships and support systems, listeners will gain insights and inspiration from Alice's transformative divorce story. Tune in to explore the nuances of divorce, resilience, and the power of self-discovery on this emotional and empowering episode

 

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Learn More About this Week’s Guest: Alice Shikina

Alice Shikina is a mediator and negotiation coach. She mediates divorces, workplace conflicts and inheritance conflicts. She lives in Oakland, CA with her two boys.

⁠www.Shikinamediation.com 
⁠⁠INSTAGRAM⁠ 
⁠FACEBOOK⁠

Want more help from Alice?

Alice offers a free masterclass every month as well as an 8-week online negotiation course. The 8-wek program is perfect for people who are wanting more confidence in asking for what they want.

To learn more and register, visit ⁠www.Shikinanegotiationacademy.com/free-negotiation-masterclass⁠

 

Stories from the Other Side with Alice Shikina FULL TRANSCRIPTS

Erica Bennett [00:00:00]:

You know, there is something that happens when you get divorced. And after you get divorced, you find yourself in this place of needing to pick yourself up, of finding your strength to be able to move forward. And today's guest and other beautiful stories from the other side, we're going to dive deep into finding that strength and the fun new twists that it created in her life. Let's get started. Welcome to The Crazy Ex-Wives Club, a podcast dedicated to helping women navigate the emotional journey that is divorce. I'm your host, Erica. And if you're trying to figure out life after the big d, welcome to the club. Whether you're contemplating divorce or dealing with the aftermath or any of the many phases in between, the club has got you covered.

 

Erica Bennett [00:00:49]:

Each week, you'll hear stories from women who have been in your shoes. This isn't about spilling tea and divorce details. This is about giving you the tools to take control of your own healing journey. Listen in weekly for advice, tips, and tools to help you move through each stage of the process. Welcome back to another episode of The Crazy Ex-Wives Club. I'm your host, Erica, and I am excited to share today's stories from the other side because we had a lot of similarities as we started talking. In fact, our guests today, Alice, we keep chatting. Before we even hit record on this, we just chatted for 30 minutes about life in in what was going on.

 

Erica Bennett [00:01:31]:

But one of the things that I loved most about her story was the strength that she found, or the love of strength that she found, which was so similar. I want to welcome this week's guest, Alice Shakina, on the show, here to talk about her own divorce transformation and give you guys some support and some tips to help you as you're moving forward. So welcome, Alice. Thank you for joining me today.

 

Alice Shikina [00:01:55]:

Thank you, Erica. I'm really excited to be here. As usual, I love spending time talking to you. This would be fun, right?

 

Erica Bennett [00:02:01]:

I mean, literally, you guys, I was like, hold on. We have to hit record because I do have another call eventually. We have to keep chatting, but it's kind of the beauty of this new virtual world. I get to meet amazing people all over the place and then bring them to you. So, Alice, since your divorce, you have shifted your careers. But tell us a little bit about kind of the cliff notes of what your divorce story was.

 

Alice Shikina [00:02:27]:

Well, in order to tell my divorce story, I need to give you the cliff notes on the marriage story.

 

Erica Bennett [00:02:33]:

The Cliff notes. To the cliff notes. Go. I know.

 

Alice Shikina [00:02:36]:

Yeah. It was a long time coming. We were together for ten years, got married for seven, and it wasn't really very good the entire time, so I struggled. And to be honest, Erica, when I finally, finally got the real divorce, it was the third try, so it took multiple tries where I said, look, I want a divorce. And then there was, like, negotiations back and forth about what it would take for me to stay in the relationship. The second time there was more negotiations, and this time the negotiations included him saying, okay, fine, I'll go to therapy. Like couples therapy, where before he was saying, no, I don't want to go. And then we went to, like, a year of couples therapy, and I called the therapist and I said, hey, so when I hired you, I told you that I wanted to get a divorce, and that's the reason why we're coming to you.

 

Alice Shikina [00:03:31]:

It's been a year. We've seen you once a month. I still want to get a divorce, so I think that I should fire you. And she said, yeah, that's, like, an appropriate response. And so I was like, yeah, this is not working. It was really hard because I had a two-year-old and I had a five-year-old, and so I had little boys, and I was working part time, so I did not have enough money to live on my own. It was getting very, very toxic. Just to give you another short anecdote on what happened and how it was so bad in the marriage is that I worked from home, and he worked as a waiter in the evening, so he would leave for work around three.

 

Alice Shikina [00:04:13]:

So we were home together the whole day, and we fought for, like, two or 3 hours a day, and I would be screaming my lungs out for two or 3 hours a day to the point that I developed a polyp on my vocal cord, and I was losing my voice, and I sounded like I had a smokers voice for about a year. Then I went to the doctors, and they're like, oh, have you been yelling? And I'm like, yeah, every day. I'm yelling every day. Yeah. They said, okay, so we need to do some physical therapy on your throat. But it didn't work, so they scheduled me for therapy. At this time, I only had one kid who was three, or actually maybe two. And then I went in for the surgery.

 

Alice Shikina [00:04:55]:

They said, you know, they're doing the pre op questions, and one of them was, are you pregnant? And I said, you know what? I don't know, because I've been trying to get pregnant. And people used to tell me I'm crazy. They're like, okay, your marriage is on the rocks and you're still trying to have children. Like, what are you doing? But I'm like, because I'm getting old. I need to hurry up and have one of my kids. They did a pregnancy test, and they said, it is inconclusive. We cannot go forward with the surgery today. They paused that, and then two weeks later, they called me back with another, like, test, and they said, you are pregnant.

 

Alice Shikina [00:05:29]:

And so I never had that vocal cord surgery because I was pregnant and ended up having my second child. And then my marriage continued to go downhill, and then I just finally was like, okay, we have to get out of here because it's super toxic.

 

Erica Bennett [00:05:44]:

Yeah.

 

Alice Shikina [00:05:44]:

At the time, he was trying to find a place to move out. He did not want to move out, but I forced him to move out. And I'm telling you this story because I know that this is similar to a lot of people dealing with this, where they ask me, because I'm a divorce meat eater, and they ask me a lot of these questions, should I move out before the divorce, et cetera, et cetera. And it was so toxic that when I found out that it would take him a while to get the lease on the apartment that he wanted, I actually moved out into an Airbnb for, like, six weeks right over Christmas. For my own mental sanity, I cannot stay under the same roof as you, even if it's only a month and a half, because it's so, so bad. So I moved out. Then I came back in thinking that he was going to move out, like, that week, and then it was extended for one more week, the delay. And it's so weird because, you know, a week feels like nothing, but when you're living in hell, a week feels like an eternity.

 

Alice Shikina [00:06:38]:

I couldn't believe that I had spent a nice, lovely six week vacation outside of my home, where I'm not yelling and fighting to come back to another week of, like, really horribleness. But then eventually, we did get a divorce. And things are much. We're amicable now, but it was rough.

 

Erica Bennett [00:06:57]:

Going well, and I think it's such a common experience. Right. You know, just getting to the point of thinking that you might want a divorce is a really hard place to get to. Right. It's scary because you're like, oh, my gosh, is it going to get better? Is it going to get worse? I don't know. But I know that right now where I'm at, it's not working. And I think that your experience of, like, it took three tries. A lot of us sit in that space, you know, because you think that it's the right answer, but then one partner really wants to work on it, or they kind of work on it for a little bit, and then it gets worse again.

 

Erica Bennett [00:07:31]:

And I see that all the time in comments on Instagram. Right. They're like, well, you know, he gets better just enough to make me think that it's going to be okay. And I relax, and it slips right back down. And we spend a lot of time in that space of just getting ready to make the leap.

 

Alice Shikina [00:07:48]:

Yeah, that was exactly what was happening. But it took me a long time to recognize that pattern, and I think it's the reason why it took three tries, because he was always like, you know, I don't want a divorce. You know, like, I'll fix things. Things got better for just long enough that made you forget that it was, like, really bad. It also makes you not super observant of the pattern because the pattern can be, like, a six-to-eight-month long cycle where it takes six to eight months before he slips into bad behavior. So now you're, like, really believing that things are going well, things have turned a corner, and your marriage is much better, and it slowly slides back down. It doesn't happen, like, overnight again. It's another six to eight months of a decline.

 

Alice Shikina [00:08:31]:

So now you're looking at the whole cycle as really a one year, like, cycle of going up for six months and going down. It takes a long time for your brain to recognize, oh, this is a pattern. This is not me getting better and better in the relationship. It's just going in circles, up and down and up and down.

 

Erica Bennett [00:08:49]:

Yeah. It's always gradually, then suddenly.

 

Alice Shikina [00:08:51]:

Right.

 

Erica Bennett [00:08:52]:

And we all want our marriages to work. You know, we all are hoping that, oh, my gosh, let this be the time that it really comes back together. It can be hard to make that decision and in the time that that's happening. Absolutely. What I will say is, if you're in that space, that absolutely can get better. What it takes is consistent choice from both people to keep owning their shit. When the old patterns come up, they got to be like, oh, wait a second. This is old.

 

Erica Bennett [00:09:18]:

This is not how I want to operate anymore. I need to make a new choice. And that's the hard part. Right. You're retraining behaviors and retraining things that are going on, and so it can work. And if it doesn't, it's okay that it takes some time, because when you are ready. That's when you'll move forward. There was never a mistake.

 

Erica Bennett [00:09:39]:

Like the three attempts that you took, Alice, they're not a mistake. That was what it took to line up, to be certain without a doubt, that this is the answer and the way to move forward. And it is so funny how our bodies physically hold on to that tension, right? The stress of living in that cycle, of living in the unknown, of constantly feeling like you're battling, it always shows up in physical manifestations. Like, you know, your throat chakra is your fifth chakra. That's your chakra of communication. That's how you communicate your intentions and your wants and your desires. And you were using that. You were beating that one up, right? Putting all sorts of energy and intensity through it.

 

Erica Bennett [00:10:21]:

And what happened? It physically manifested into issues with your throat.

 

Alice Shikina [00:10:26]:

Yeah. And, you know, post-divorce, I recognize that it was the right thing to do. And I'll tell you why. Because when I asked my ex-husband shortly after the divorce, why didn't you ever change? Like, meaning his bad behavior, right? And his response was, you're going to be shocked because I never thought you would leave. That was his response. He's basically communicating to me, if you had never left, I never would have changed because I felt like I had locked you in, like, by marrying you, you're now locked in. He did not want the divorce. He never wanted the divorce.

 

Alice Shikina [00:11:04]:

To this day, he will tell you, if I could go back and rewind, I would never have gotten a divorce. And he also has told me, I never should have moved out. When you ask me, I should have just stayed there. Deliberately making it difficult for you to get a divorce.

 

Erica Bennett [00:11:18]:

Yeah, well, that's not helpful. No, that's not the right answer, but it's true. I was talking to a therapist friend recently. We were talking about these types of dynamics, and he was like, you have to stop trying to make it easier on him. He's going to have to squirm. He's going to have to be uncomfortable. He's going to have to sit in the space where he might lose it to feel enough pain to want to change. And I agree.

 

Erica Bennett [00:11:46]:

I was in the same space of like, hey, we're in this forever. No matter how unhappy I get, you're still supposed to love me. You're still supposed to deal with it. You're still supposed to show up. Well, that's unrealistic to ask somebody, but we'd all do it. And so that on both sides, like, they're not going to change. Unless they're really at risk of losing something, they want, you know you got it. To keep what you want, you have to do the work.

 

Erica Bennett [00:12:09]:

You have to fight for it. Every marriage is going to fall into a gap of not being in love anymore. It falls into a point where it gets harder than easier, right? It gets more annoying than filling you up. You feel a lot more resentment than you feel love and appreciation, and that's the point. That's a little late on the point, but you can still, at that point, make the effort to choose to work your way back into appreciation.

 

Alice Shikina [00:12:34]:

Yeah.

 

Erica Bennett [00:12:38]:

Hey there, it's Erica, your companion on this journey at The Crazy Ex-Wives Club. I want to make sure that you're aware of all the tools at your disposal as you navigate through this chapter of your life. First off, head over to the website www.thecrazyexwivesclub.com. take the finding your way forward quiz. It's designed to give you personalized insights, key behaviors you can start doing right now and it won't cost you a thing. Then, if you're looking for a bit more support, check out services. There are on demand resources, there are coaching programs, and there are other support options to help you in your healing process. I value having you in this community, being a weekly listener and sharing it with those people in need.

 

Erica Bennett [00:13:21]:

So thank you for walking this path with me together.

 

Alice Shikina [00:13:28]:

When I was in the marriage, I was doing everything I could to save it. I was like, you know, seeing the therapist reading all kinds of books, implementing everything in the books. And what was interesting is all of the things I was implementing started backfiring. They had one book that was like, you know, change your dance. If you change your dance, your partner hasn't changed his dance. When I changed my dance, it became more and more toxic because he recognized, like, oh, she's not letting me control her, so let me just start to put her down. Then he started to put me down more and more. The less I was reacting to his put downs, the harsher and harsher his put downs were of me until they became like, you're nothing.

 

Alice Shikina [00:14:11]:

You know you don't like, no one's going to love you. Like, you know what I mean? The less I was affected, the worse those insults became.

 

Erica Bennett [00:14:18]:

And you know why? Because those are his wounds. The more you work on finding you. Because at the end of the day, if you're in a place of you're not certain or you're getting divorced, the only thing you can control is what you invest in yourself, the work you put into yourself, the effort you make to try and change and improve, to understand, to give grace, to move through it gracefully. The more you start to change, they either desire to line up with you or their wounds. Their unhealed emotions come out from a place of angerness and bitterness, and they start doing things that they would have never done when they loved you. It doesn't come from whether or not they love you. It comes from their own fear of what's going to happen to themselves if they lose this thing.

 

Alice Shikina [00:15:06]:

Right? And what's ironic is that particular strategy actually hastens the divorce. Instead of thinking like, oh, I don't want to lose this person, let me do all the good things to keep her. They start to be like, let me do all the manipulative things to make her afraid to leave.

 

Erica Bennett [00:15:25]:

Yeah.

 

Alice Shikina [00:15:25]:

And so I was fighting against a giant, like, monster who's trying to make me afraid to leave. And, you know, I was like, okay, I'm not letting this affect me. I'm going to leave anyway. But he could have changed the trajectory of the marriage if he decided, I don't want to lose you, and I will step up and do the work so that we can stay together.

 

Erica Bennett [00:15:47]:

Yeah. It always reminds me, there's so many songs, the bird in the cage, you know, that it's. That's the choice. The choice is the husband either locks you up in a cage, the bird in the cage. I don't want to lose the bird, so I'm going to make the bird unhappy. The bird doesn't have freedom anymore. The bird can't go do what it wants to do. And what happens? The bird stops singing, or I'm going to open the cage door and I'm going to allow the bird to leave every day and come back.

 

Erica Bennett [00:16:10]:

But the bird comes back because that's its home, and that's the choice that they. It's a hard choice to make, right? Because you have to be willing to understand that you might lose it. You might. You have to trust that it might go away. And if it does go away, I'm still going to be okay. And that's a scary place to be for a lot of people. So instead, they try and keep you down, knock you down, make you believe that you can't ever leave, instead of, let's embrace the woman who you're becoming and what that means. And so you did.

 

Erica Bennett [00:16:40]:

You found a lot of things. You became quite someone else after your divorce.

 

Alice Shikina [00:16:46]:

I did. I mean, I had to do a lot of work to rebuild myself. Because you come from a place where you're. You're empty, right? You have, like, no self-worth, no self-esteem. It's all got thrown into the incinerator, and so I had to rebuild it. When I got out, I started going to work out classes because I felt like, okay, at least something for myself. And then I very quickly went to muay Thai kickboxing boot camp. And it's pretty hardcore.

 

Alice Shikina [00:17:13]:

And not too long after, maybe six months after I started taking that, the instructor asked me, hey, do you want to actually fight? Like, do you want to get into the ring and fight with somebody and compete? And I had no desire to do that. I'm like, no, I really don't. But, you know, he kept on pressuring me. I took about two months to think about it, and I thought, okay, this is something that I'm very afraid of. So let me walk towards my fear and let me see what I can learn through this experience and let me see what I can learn from someone who used to be a professional fighter. For all those reasons, I decided, okay, I'm going to do it. I spent two months just training and training and training. I have Erica, I have never, ever, prior to that, ever done any combat sports.

 

Alice Shikina [00:18:03]:

And here I am, age 39, newly divorced, and I'm training to get into the ring with some unknown opponent. And then he does this thing that's awful where he signed me up for the advanced tournament and advances four or more fights. In your past, I had zero, and beginning was zero to three, right? I should have gone in the beginning. And he's like, nah, I think you can handle, like, advance. I got thrown into a national tournament in the advanced group and end up having to fight. I did that for a few years, and I also started training for triathlons because that is a really good sport where you're competing against yourself, right? And you always just want to beat your own time. And so I did the swim from Alcatraz back to San Francisco. I ran across the Golden Gate bridge and back and did a lot of those.

 

Alice Shikina [00:19:01]:

And one of those years when I did that race, that wasn't a triathlon, it was a duathalon. I actually came in first place in my age group. I really changed my entire life so that I could build myself worth back up. I had a very definitive goal in mind, something that's tangible, like you go and you work out and you go every single day and you have a training regimen and you work towards your goal, which is like, I'm going to compete and finish. And for triathlons, I was like, okay, let's hope I can finish. Like, if you finish a triathlon, that is a really big deal. Yeah, because I did the Olympic. So it's like 3 hours of competing.

 

Alice Shikina [00:19:39]:

I don't think I'd ever want to do one of those ironmans. But the triathlon was good enough for me. I was like, okay, this is rebuilding who I am. And I went and fought several times, so that also helped build my self esteem. So I really felt like I transformed who I was post divorce, right.

 

Erica Bennett [00:19:57]:

And I didn't find the fighting, but I got into kind of like, crossfit, like, heavy lifting that I had never done before, you know, and similar story. The world's falling apart. And my ex had gotten me to sign up for the gym down the road because it had free daycare. And so I could take my son and get 2 hours of a break, just 2 hours where somebody else could help me out, you know? And they first recruited me to boot camp, and I was like, this is not my thing. The, like, harder, harder, you know, go, go, go. I'm like, this is not my thing. But that got me into the heavy lifting, where similar thing. They're like, you need to compete or you need to do this.

 

Erica Bennett [00:20:30]:

But I'm curious if you had for me what was happening is one, I had to prove that I could do it to myself. There was these pieces that I had been so broken that was anybody ever going to love me again? Was I worthy enough? Could I do this and start my life over? And I didn't realize when I signed up for the gym class that that was the same proof I was getting. Can I do this lift? Can I increase this? Can I keep going? You know, can I keep doing this metabolic conditioning for the ten minutes we need to. Can I push just a little bit more? And I would do it. And then I get to the car and I would cry because it was releasing all of the trauma and the worries and the feelings that get stuck in our muscles that was finally starting to push through. And it would be this big cry about like, oh, I didn't know that I could do this. And then I did it and like, oh, divorce, right? And the weirdest stuff, but it happened all the time for me. Did you experience that as well?

 

Alice Shikina [00:21:31]:

So the crying part I did experience, but for different reasons. And stuff that was going on in my head were different things. Right. So for me, it was like a terror that I was going to go and fight somebody that I did not know. Plus, I didn't know what it even felt like to even spar with anyone. It was like all a new thing, but it was very, very scary. And so here I am, training. I'm exhausted because I train 3 hours a day, six days a week.

 

Alice Shikina [00:21:58]:

So, like, hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening, and I would come back home and I would just cry and cry because I was like, I have no idea who is going to beat me up in this. Like, it was terrifying, but I feel like it was channeling, like, all of the divorce stuff that I had gone through is channeling it into a more positive direction. Yep. Even if it was fear against an unknown opponent, it was about, do I have the mental ability to get in the ring and not be afraid? Right. So can I do this thing that I'm terrified of doing? And so it's interesting because that experience of being terrified going through the workouts, you also have to, like, change your whole diet. I had to lose 20 pounds in two months, and so doing all of that really made me realize, okay, whatever I want to do, I can do it, because now, as an entrepreneur, I don't have as much fear. I don't have any kind of fear that I can't do it because of the fact that I got in the ring and I fought someone. It's weird because you'd be like, oh, what does that have to do with entrepreneurship? It was scary as heck, and I did it and I survived and I was stronger for it.

 

Alice Shikina [00:23:15]:

And when you realize, like, oh, I can walk through the fire and I'm fine, then that same mentality translates to everything after that, to everything.

 

Erica Bennett [00:23:23]:

And you don't know it in the middle of it, you don't realize it. But when you can show up and commit to something and then prove that you can work through it and do it and you don't bail and you don't give up and you don't cross it off the list, that all of a sudden you're like, wow, I can. You know, there's that saying, I can do hard things. It's that it proves to you in that moment that you can. And for me, I eventually have moved into a, like, I don't know that I need to fight that hard to prove something, but I needed to in the beginning because I have in my mind, like, three different versions of myself. We all do. But anyways, there's a warrior version, and there's a white light, intuitive channeled version, and there's a mother version. And this warrior version of me was the one who had to run the show because somebody had to pick me up every day.

 

Erica Bennett [00:24:12]:

Somebody had to be like, you can do this. This thing crushed your heart, but you can do this, and you can do it one day at a time. And I found my community. You know, I found my movement. I was on the opposite side. I was so stressed from the divorce, I couldn't eat. So I had lost 30 pounds in a month because I couldn't eat. And I was like, you know what? This is a gift.

 

Erica Bennett [00:24:36]:

Like, this is a. This is an unhealthy gift, but this is a gift. So let's build it back appropriately. Let's build it back with muscle. Let's build it back with healthy eating. So I could, like, restart it and built it back up. But it was a gift.

 

Alice Shikina [00:24:49]:

Yeah. I think both of us had to work really hard in the beginning, and it's because you're sort of rebuilding your baseline. Like, who are you at your core? And you kind of had to rediscover everything that either got lost or that you never discovered to begin with, but that's been inside, right. So you're, like, trying to find who am I at my very, very, very core. And so I feel like that was the work that both you and I did very early on after the divorce.

 

Erica Bennett [00:25:18]:

Yeah. And it was a very conscious choice. I knew that prior to my divorce, fear was running my life. So I didn't want to go to a new restaurant because I was having the stress of life, was creating all these digestive issues, and if we went somewhere new, I didn't know if I was going to get sick to my stomach while we were out, which there's nothing worse than being out somewhere, and all of a sudden you're like, I'm going to be sick. And so I didn't want to go anywhere new, and then I didn't, you know, post baby body, I didn't feel comfortable in the clothing I was wearing, and I didn't, and I didn't, and I didn't. And literally, I became afraid of doing anything else. And it didn't show up as fear, you guys. It showed up as anger, frustration, irritation.

 

Erica Bennett [00:26:01]:

This is so stupid. I don't want to do this. I have better things to do with my time. So I committed to retrying all the things that I had turned down because I was like, who are you? Really? Like, who are you? Go try it without any pressure of whether or not you have to like it because the relationship likes it and decide for yourself.

 

Alice Shikina [00:26:21]:

Yep.

 

Erica Bennett [00:26:22]:

Was quite, quite, quite the journey, and then it moved you into helping other people and mediating, because conflict. Conflict happens, but it's how you approach it. And I think, for me, I had made a commitment very early on, even while I was still fighting for the marriage that I wanted to extend. Grace. Grace, I learned through this process, is one of my core values, that we are all struggling, we are all going through shit, and I can extend a little bit of grace and a little bit of compassion to you and hold some space and see if you make the choice to move through. It doesnt mean im betraying my own boundaries, but it was super important. And that helped a lot with how I chose to mediate the conflict that came up and what happened.

 

Alice Shikina [00:27:07]:

Yeah. So, a few years down the road, I discovered I was good at mediating. And so then I started getting my certification. Then I became an expert in negotiation and communication. And ironically, I think I probably could have navigated my marriage better had I had these tools. But probably there's a reason why I didn't have them earlier, because now I'm very happily divorced.

 

Erica Bennett [00:27:36]:

Well, I think it's always like our little soul has a plan. And was it trying to get you to master mediation in conflict and communication? It sure was. Gave you your first lesson of your marriage, and you were like, nah, not ready. Don't want to do it yet.

 

Alice Shikina [00:27:50]:

Right, right.

 

Erica Bennett [00:27:51]:

So you got there, but you got there on a different path. And I think that's the beauty of our lives, is that you're never on the wrong path. But a lot of times that the previous experiences, I can watch them right now. The previous experiences that were so frustrating and so annoying to me are 100% all the things that I'm now, like, so glad I got to do that then. And I learned how to do it then so that now I can master it and do it here.

 

Alice Shikina [00:28:15]:

Exactly. And, you know, the timeline might not have been the right timeline, but I feel like it's a right timeline for me because I shifted my entire life and the way I live because of that. Had I had those tools previously, I might still be married, but I would not have the life that I have today.

 

Erica Bennett [00:28:34]:

Nope. Yeah, and you can have. I mean, there is beauty on either. Either path, you know, like, I look at that a lot, that it's like, hey, could I stay in this thing? Could I stay in this career? Could I stay in this relationship? Could I stay in this friendship, whatever it is, could I stay and could I still be happy? The answer is yes, because happiness is your choice. Or you can leave and you can start over and you can do something else. It comes with a different set of conditions. It comes with a different set of work that has to be worked through. But either way, you can find your happiness.

 

Alice Shikina [00:29:07]:

Yeah. So I usually tell my clients who are all in divorce, there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's usually better on the other side, especially if you're struggling a lot in your marriage and wondering, is this the right thing to do? Should I get married? Should I stay together? There's always like, it's going to be better. I like to say that you have to go through the storm to get to the rainbow. Right. And then the other thing that's slightly. That is slightly off topic, but it's still about divorce. And I just want to mention it because I know the people listening might be divorcing.

 

Alice Shikina [00:29:37]:

Is that a lot of times people say, oh, we're staying together for the sake of the kids, and let's say the kids are two years old or what have you, and then they don't last the whole. All the way. They last maybe till the kids are 1012, and they finally realize, okay, we made a really good run for it. It's been really bad for eight years, but we really tried to stay together, and now we're going to get a divorce. I can tell you, the younger the kids are, the more resilient they are. So mine were two and five. My two year old has zero recollection of ever having a household that were together. So for him, this is his normal life.

 

Alice Shikina [00:30:08]:

He has zero trauma about the fact that he's from a quote unquote, broken home, because he's like, this is what I know. This is what I've always known. And my older son, who was five, only five, like, he was traumatized. So you can imagine if I got a divorce when there are one and three, both of them would probably be completely intact. No trauma whatsoever, because they don't really have any recollection of anything happened. My two year old at the time didn't know what was going on at all. Yeah, but then if you wait and you can't make it the whole 18 years, or you wait and you do make it, but it's been toxic. Now the question is, like, what have you taught your children in terms of how to communicate with each other in a healthy manner? So I always want people to, like, rethink the whole, like, hey, let's stay together for the kids sake.

 

Alice Shikina [00:30:55]:

Because it might not always be the best choice if it's either really, really toxic or you don't make it all the way till they're both, you know, all your kids are grown up because then when you're getting a divorce, when they're 1213 14, 1516, it is not good for them.

 

Erica Bennett [00:31:11]:

No. My son was four and it was hard. I think that's the cusp of finally being aware now. Now he's twelve. He does not remember those years. But it was hard in the moment for a few of those years, like just big feelings and didn't understand it. And why do we have two? I don't want two houses. It was very clear at that age that he didn't want two houses.

 

Erica Bennett [00:31:32]:

And, you know, I've talked to people who have waited and gotten divorced, even when their kids are like in college thinking that my kids are grown up, they're living on their own. They would understand. Hey, this just didn't work. Those kids were more pissed off than the younger kids were. Yeah, because they talk back, right. They have big feelings and big ideas and they think it's so stupid and they're going to tell you because now they're adults.

 

Alice Shikina [00:31:54]:

Yeah. So younger is better. From everything I've seen, even from my own experience, I got divorced when they were really young and they're very well adjusted. Cause they didn't have to go through the pain of that during their teenage years.

 

Erica Bennett [00:32:08]:

Yeah. The key piece of that, though, is having the support and being able to move forward and just be like, hey, this is the new normal. There is nothing wrong with the choice of getting divorced. And just because you're divorced doesn't mean your kids are going to have issues. It's about the support, the access, you know, the. Is it okay to feel my feels, mom? Yes, it is. And I will stick with you you while you feel them and helping them move through it and having a cordial, you know, a business relationship with your ex. When it comes to the kids, you don't have to be best friends.

 

Alice Shikina [00:32:44]:

Right.

 

Erica Bennett [00:32:45]:

But it's now a business agreement. You got littles in the middle. So how you going to do that exactly?

 

Alice Shikina [00:32:52]:

The other part about why you have to be kind of strong as a divorced woman. I would love to hear your experience, Erica, but for me, what is also difficult, being divorced. I love being divorced. I feel like I have my best life ever. And also it does come with a few cons. Like a lot of your married friends sort of drift away, because now it's not that comfortable to be hanging out with a divorced woman. So you kind of have to, like, you're like, okay, where are my people? And then for a while, it was very difficult to find friends because everybody vanished. And then sometimes, like, you find all these other divorced women at a certain age, I was like, oh, I've got a bunch of divorced women friends.

 

Alice Shikina [00:33:35]:

But then during their free time, they're all out trying to date. So then there's, like, no time to actually hang out, because when you're free, they're like, I'm going on a date, Alice. See you later. And so there is that struggle in trying to rebuild what is appropriate for you, a community. Because the community that you have where it's all couples may not be the community you end up with if you get divorced.

 

Erica Bennett [00:33:58]:

Yeah, I was actually just having a conversation about this, and I was like, look, I had to build a whole new community. And it also partially was as my son moved through different phases, you know, at four, you're having playdates. I've got to take him across the street. And so I'd take him across the street to go play with his friend, and we'd sit down and have coffee and chat and enjoy our own time. Right? But a lot of mommy conversations, a lot of, like, what we're doing with our kids or what we're struggling with. When the divorce moved in, when it was final. So let's say, like, after the separation, when it was final, and as I moved forward into, like, the last few years, now that I am dating somebody, now that we're having big conversations around, what does that look like to merge families? This is an area that my married friends, they can't even comprehend. They cannot comprehend the choices that I'm now being made to ask because I have to decide what is best.

 

Erica Bennett [00:34:49]:

You know, am I going to continue to stay somewhere for the one or two days a week that he sees his dad, or am I going to create a new system because I don't want to remove access to his dad? But I also, like, why am I staying? Why are we staying? Like, if this is not in our best interest anymore? So I did have to build new friends, and I think it's important to have friends of all different types. I will also, the funny part was, is when you become the divorced woman in the group, and I'm the most pro marriage divorce person you'll probably ever meet. Like, I think it is easier to fix it than to leave because the whole communication and everything else. And I'm very happy I got divorced. But it's. It's a different life to walk with. A lot more conditions to figure out. Like, right now, I can't just relocate.

 

Erica Bennett [00:35:33]:

I got a kid in the school district. I got a dad in a certain area. I got shit that has to be figured out. Okay? But you walk in, I remember being like, you're the risky friend. Now when you get invited to the couple parties and now there's a single woman in the room, it changes the dynamic.

 

Alice Shikina [00:35:51]:

Yes.

 

Erica Bennett [00:35:51]:

Whether or not they know income in, because what else happens? You got single, you have time. So you're probably at the gym, which means you've kind of done a little divorce glow up, and you've got clothes to go out because you have to be social again. Whereas your mommy friends haven't bought, you know, they bought office clothes, and they bought home clothes, and they don't have going out clothes.

 

Alice Shikina [00:36:11]:

Right.

 

Erica Bennett [00:36:12]:

And because you're alone so much of the time, you are so damn excited to go to a party that you show up and you're like, oh, let's talk. And you're, like, sparkly and happy, and you just watch. I watch the other women that I don't know, get defensive. You watch them shift in the room. You know, you're not making mommy friends on this trip. So I know if I want to make mommy friends, I know that I frump down, right? I dress different. I don't do my makeup. I kind of, you know, like, because women get insecure about it because they've had bad experiences too.

 

Erica Bennett [00:36:45]:

And so a lot of times it's about helping them understand that, yes, I'm single, but no, your partners are all very safe. This is not a thing.

 

Alice Shikina [00:36:54]:

Not only that, sometimes you end up maybe having friends who distance themselves from you because not so much that you're a threat, but you represent what they want, but they're too afraid to go do it. Right. They might wish that they were divorced, but the path to get divorced is so difficult. They might say, you know what? I'm just gonna live with it. But then they see you, and they're like, she's living her best life. I wish I could have that. I don't have the guts to go get that. And so now I'm resentful when Erica shows up to the party.

 

Erica Bennett [00:37:28]:

Right. I used to hear that a lot. Like, in the middle of me being at the worst part of it, I had no idea whether or not I was going to be able to save my marriage, I was exhausted from trying. I was really sad and was really lonely, you know, like, I had my fitness time, but I was home alone a lot of the nights, and I'd go hang out with some other moms, and I don't. And, you know, I'd be traveling because I didn't have anything else to do. And so I found the things that brought me joy, I went and did. So I'd go away for the weekend, and we'd show up and hang out, and they'd be like, God, I wish I had your life.

 

Alice Shikina [00:38:01]:

Right?

 

Erica Bennett [00:38:01]:

And I'm like, wait a second. I wish I had a partner on the couch to watch a movie with my kid with. I wish I had somebody who wanted to vacation together. And it was so mind boggling to me. And I would look at them and I'd be like, but you can be happy and have these things. Well, no, I can't. My partner doesn't like to travel, so I'll just never be able to have that, or I'll just never be able to do these things that you do. And I'm like, you can, and you can do it without, like, all the other drama that I had to work through.

 

Erica Bennett [00:38:33]:

Yeah. So I definitely. I see that happening a lot. I mean, all the friends I had when I was separated, we'll say that first phase of being single, I don't talk to any of them anymore. They have all drifted away for different reasons. Then the second phase was the mommy friends, because now I needed a crew to help out. I was single parenting. I need help getting my kid to and from school, or I need help with something, you know, staying in the loop about school or summer camp.

 

Erica Bennett [00:38:56]:

And now we're in this new phase. We're in this middle school era, and now I have a partner, so I'm not available to hang out. So the invites don't come in the same way they used to. You just keep growing.

 

Alice Shikina [00:39:07]:

Yep. It definitely changes, for sure. Like, all the mommy friends change. And mine was really interesting because we had, my oldest son had the same group of friends for four years. The moms never really got together, and it's weird, but we all helped one another with rides. Can you pick my kid up? Can you drop them off? And we did all of that stuff with, like, almost no facetime, meaning we never saw each other. I only saw their children, and they saw my child. We never hung out.

 

Alice Shikina [00:39:35]:

And we finally hung out right after they all graduated high school. And I feel like it was, like, safe, because now if something bad happens. Like, we don't have to have that awkward, like, oh, I was friends with Erica, but I don't really like what her son did to my son. So now we're not gonna be friends. So I feel like it was suddenly safer for us to, like, just all get together because now the kids are grown up.

 

Erica Bennett [00:39:58]:

Yeah, well, and I think, you know, we're so busy, too. We are all. You know, even when I was married, I was so lonely. I was always trying to set up time to hang out with other people, but they were always working and lonely and had their own stuff going on, too. And we stay so busy so that we don't have to acknowledge that there's really something missing in what we want. And so I just got to keep running to sports activities and to this and to that and to whatever. And you get through, you know, 18 years until the kid leaves, and then you're trying to figure it out. So, yeah, I think we just all need a little more.

 

Erica Bennett [00:40:31]:

A little more front time. We need to prioritize ourselves, and we don't.

 

Alice Shikina [00:40:36]:

Yeah. Oddly enough, now that my kids are almost grown, most of my friends are childless. Isn't that weird? Like, that was not a conscious decision. It's just, magnetically, the people that have the time and the energy to hang out and go do fun things and travel, they don't have kids. And so now I'm, like, friends with a bunch of people who don't have any children.

 

Erica Bennett [00:40:57]:

Yeah, it's so true, too, because we're in a place where my son has not done a lot of activities. It's just never been his thing. And then a lot of the other friends are in all the activities. Right. This season, we're doing this sport, and so we're not seeing people as often anymore, and they're building new friends through their sports, and he's, you know, hanging out his way, and so it's really interesting to watch the shift, you know? Doesn't mean we don't like each other. It's just we're in a. We're all in a different phase of trying to figure out life.

 

Alice Shikina [00:41:25]:

I know. It's funny how, as a single mom, your friend group is highly dependent on who your kids are hanging out with.

 

Erica Bennett [00:41:33]:

They totally are. Right. It's like, who your kids are hanging out with and where you live.

 

Alice Shikina [00:41:39]:

Yes.

 

Erica Bennett [00:41:39]:

You know, like, who were the neighbors that could help out? And then if, you know, you find one that's in the same grade, and you're literally, like, fingers crossed, please let me, like, these parents, please let this one that's two houses down be a winner, because if not, we might have to move. No, I'm just kidding.

 

Alice Shikina [00:41:57]:

No, I struggled with, like, support because I didn't live in that kind of a community, and I still don't. And so I live in a very sort of, like, hostile territory where everyone's like, they're not neighborly. And so because I lived in those places, and I've always lived in that, I struggled when my kids were younger because I was like, I need some help, and there's nobody to help me.

 

Erica Bennett [00:42:20]:

Yeah. I mean, I am so grateful there's one family specifically that I think about. Cause when I moved. Sold a house, moved into the townhouse, moved into a completely new district, new neighborhood. I'm now 20 minutes from any old friends. Wind up randomly sitting next to this woman in the, like, parent welcome night for first grade. Turns out she lives across the street. Turns out our kids are in the same grade.

 

Erica Bennett [00:42:41]:

Turns out our kids like each other, and she had a very handy husband. And so, like, I'd be like, hey, does your husband have this tool? Can he help me with this? They were so helpful and so sweet, and I was like, you guys literally held me up a lot. And I really appreciate the fact that I could call. I'd be like, it's rent a husband time. Can he come? I can't. Like, I couldn't get something. It was so stupid. I couldn't get something unscrewed, right? Because whoever had tightened and, like, it was glued on, and I was so pissed, and I'm, like, busting it up.

 

Erica Bennett [00:43:14]:

Oh, the best one was I had snakes during. COVID this is a story we're going to go a little over. Okay. So we shut down in March, right? March 2020. And we think it's going to be this brief thing. Well, if you remember, it also started warming up, and so we could actually be outside. Well, I live in a townhouse building that's built on a cement block, and it backs up to, like, a nature preserve. Great little park trees.

 

Erica Bennett [00:43:36]:

Wonderful. Not wonderful. The snakes have been coming in from the park. They go under the building, and teeny, tiny, just garden snakes, right? Garter snakes, whatever the little ones are. But did you know that for the length of their entire lives, snakes returned to the place they were born to mate and have more babies?

 

Alice Shikina [00:43:53]:

Oh, my gosh.

 

Erica Bennett [00:43:54]:

It doesn't matter if you catch them and. Cause, like, we caught one, and we put it out on a tree down the road, and the pest guy's like, it doesn't work that way. They can smell their way back. And so it was, like, ripe picking, right? It had warmed up early. There was a whole, like, reading crowned under building, and I was the lucky one manifesting snakes. Now, if you know that snakes are actually about, like, transition and leveling up and shutting your skin and moving on quickly. I found 13 snakes.

 

Alice Shikina [00:44:26]:

Oh, my goodness.

 

Erica Bennett [00:44:27]:

So I'd run. So one morning, I came down. I will post the pictures, you guys, and when this episode airs, I'll post the pictures in my stories. But I came down, and I went to grab a coffee cup out of the dish rack, and there was a freaking snake in it. I yelled at my son because he has fake snakes. And I was like, owen, did you put a snake over here? And then it moved. I lost my shit. And I'm screaming, and I'm calling a neighbor, and I'm like, oh, my God.

 

Erica Bennett [00:44:52]:

Somebody has to come. I can't touch the snake. Okay, so that was one that was on this side of my kitchen. Later that day, I moved wood that I had brought in for the fire. Another one came out. That one I let my kid catch. A couple days later, I opened the closet. There's one on the floor in there.

 

Erica Bennett [00:45:09]:

Then I, like, put a little, like, protection spell. So the rest of the 13 came outside. But every single time I ran something warm in the kitchen, the dishwasher one came out the oven. So the oven, I turned it on. This is where we started. I turned it on. The oven kicks on. Out comes the snake.

 

Erica Bennett [00:45:26]:

I'm trying to catch it. It goes back in the teeniest of little holes, right? And I'm like, hell, no. I got a crowbar, and I started pulling off all the kick plates of all of the cupboards in my kitchen because I was hell bent to find the stupid snake. So I'm dialing the husband next door. I'm like, husband for hire. I need your help. I need you to get over here. We got to get this.

 

Erica Bennett [00:45:50]:

So he, like, comes over with his power tools, because at this point, I have ripped apart all of the front of the cabinets trying to get to the, like, kick plate underneath. So he shows up with spray foam, and he's like, we're just going to foam off all the holes that you find and they're not going to come up into your kitchen anymore. Yeah. And, you know, march of 2020, so you can sell your house. Like, I'm literally like, the Lord has released the plague on my house.

 

Alice Shikina [00:46:23]:

Oh, my gosh. That is horrifying.

 

Erica Bennett [00:46:25]:

Horrifying I mean, the snake stories, the other one, I put sticky traps out in the garage to catch them, and my son kindly let the dog out, but she stepped on the sticky trap that also had a snake half attached to it. So now imagine an old english sheepdog with a sticky trap stuck to her back foot. She's back kicking to get it off. To get it off. To get it off, and there's a freaking snake half attached to it. And I can't get either of them to stop. And I think I'm gonna lose my mind because it was a year. Let me tell you the growth I experienced in 2020.

 

Alice Shikina [00:47:06]:

That is a fabulous story. That's so farcical.

 

Erica Bennett [00:47:10]:

Oh, my God. And all my metaphysical friends are like, well, you're just being asked to level up. Just tell them that you just want. You don't want them live anymore. Now you just want pictures. And I was like, great. So then I started seeing them, like, dead everywhere. And I was like, you know what? That's at least better like this.

 

Erica Bennett [00:47:27]:

I just saw the skins everywhere, but. Whoo.

 

Alice Shikina [00:47:30]:

Oh, my goodness. That poor snake that was attached to that one was attached to your dog.

 

Erica Bennett [00:47:35]:

Oh, my God. I just was like, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna lose my. Oh, my God. Yeah, so that's how we roll. So, just last week, somebody's like, I'm trying to find those pictures of the snake in your house. Can you send them? I was like, yes. Here you go.

 

Erica Bennett [00:47:51]:

Nobody believes this.

 

Alice Shikina [00:47:53]:

Oh, my goodness. That's great. Fantastic, right?

 

Erica Bennett [00:47:56]:

The things that you learn to do when you're single after divorce.

 

Alice Shikina [00:48:00]:

Yes. You actually have to become a stronger human being. You have to be a warrior like you're talking about. If you want to be a divorcee, you have to be a warrior to get through life.

 

Erica Bennett [00:48:09]:

Yeah. Right. And we're here to tell you you can. We are, too. Look at us laughing. We love our lives. Doesn't mean that there weren't moments that were painful. It doesn't mean there weren't moments that there were hard.

 

Erica Bennett [00:48:19]:

But it absolutely was worth the journey to get where we are now. So, before we wrap up this episode, Alice does have a couple opportunities for you if you are looking for help in that area of mediation. So, Alice, what do you have for our listeners?

 

Alice Shikina [00:48:33]:

So, one of the freebies is, I also have a podcast called negotiation with Alice. And so every single week, I give out free negotiation advice so your listeners can listen in and get some free advice. And I also have an eight week course that they can take with me. They can find [email protected]. it'll be in the show notes. They are online. And I level up your communication skills and your negotiation skills so that you can get what you want out of life.

 

Erica Bennett [00:49:03]:

I love it. I probably need to go do that. I need to move to the next phase. Instead of just being like, woo woo, I'm going to wait you out until you. I don't quite do that anymore. I fall somewhere in between. But I am a strong believer learning never ends. You can always learn how to improve your communication, how to learn better, to identify what you want, how to share it with other people, how to ask for things nicely.

 

Erica Bennett [00:49:26]:

Right? We get so polarized. You either get walked over or you demand things. And finding that space in the middle is a really nice place to be.

 

Alice Shikina [00:49:35]:

Yes. And I help people who are trying to go through divorce negotiate their divorces. So if they're like, I don't know what to do, how do I negotiate this? I help those people as well.

 

Erica Bennett [00:49:44]:

Yeah, and it's so important, you guys just like finding a therapist, just like finding a divorce lawyer. Find somebody who's got the personality that's going to help you get where you want to be. There are lots of people out there. It's about finding the right fit. So Alice can definitely help you out. If you loved our chat today, check out her podcast. Check out her ways that she can support you. And as always, full transcripts will be available on thecrazyexwivesclub.com along with information about the group coaching program.

 

Erica Bennett [00:50:11]:

If you're looking for a little support to help you line up to you, check out our next twelve week transformation. I'd love to have you there. And until our episode next week, give yourself some grace. Avoid the snakes. Avoid the snakes for the next week. And we'll see you next week for another great episode of the Crazy Ex Wives Club. And that's it. Another great episode of the Crazy Ex Wives Club, a podcast for women learning how to heal from their divorce.

 

Erica Bennett [00:50:41]:

Tune in next week for more advice and tips to help you figure out life after divorce. And until then, give yourself grace. Do the best you can and know that this is all part of the process.