His Loss Hotline

After “I Do”: Divorce Confessions

• Kelly • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Every divorce has two versions. The one you tell people at dinner parties, cut short to a sentence or two. And the one you live through alone, where the details are too messy, too humiliating, or too strange to say out loud. This episode is about the second version. The one that lingers in the corners of your mind long after the papers are signed.

There is the woman who posted couple photos for months after her marriage had already ended, still holding on to the illusion of stability. The man who crafted fake therapy confirmation emails while secretly vacationing in Cabo with his gym fling, caught by nothing more than a patterned hotel towel on Instagram. The couple who sat across from each other at Thanksgiving dinner, separated but smiling, serving mashed potatoes like strangers in their own home. And the quietest confession of all, slipping on a wedding ring before running errands, not out of love but as a shield against questions and pitying looks.

What ties these stories together is not scandal but survival. Divorce strips away the performance and leaves you face to face with what is unbearable and what is still possible. Shame fades into grief. Grief shifts into something lighter, even funny in the right light. And then slowly, almost invisibly, freedom begins to take up more space.

Confessions like these are not proof of failure. They are proof of humanity. They remind us that choosing to leave does not mean you gave up too easily. It means you refused to disappear inside someone else’s version of love. Divorce is not a scandal. It is simply another way life demands that you become more of yourself.

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Kelly:

the number cannot be reached now. Please hang up and try again later. Hey, welcome back to your favorite podcast ever. Hopefully, maybe I don't know it's His Loss Hotline, where we don't whisper about divorce like it's a dirty little secret. We put it on a podcast and hit record. I'm Kelly, obviously your hotline operator. Freshly divorced 28-year-old Not like super freshly. Well, February of this year it's September now. So when this episode comes out, it will still be September. So, yeah, that's how fresh it is and, um, I guess, president of the actually I'm happier now club. Um, truly. But uh, today's episode is for the people in the thick of it, the ones who said I do and and later said I can't do this anymore.

Kelly:

This is divorce confessions. These are real stories from people who left, got left or found themselves somewhere in between. Some are messy, some are funny, some will sit in your chest for the rest of the day and some are chaotic as fuck, if I do say so myself. But let's get into it. Okay, let's start with, like, the quiet kind of heartbreak, the kind where you go through the worst thing you've ever experienced and barely anyone knows. So this submission reads hey, kelly, I filed for a divorce and I didn't tell anyone except my mom and my group chat. For three months I was still posting couple photos like everything was fine. He moved out and I told people he was, quote unquote, traveling for work.

Kelly:

I felt so ashamed that my marriage failed so quickly. We were only married for 12 months. Girl, it's okay, I promise. Um, I was married for a year and a half ish almost two, I don't fucking know, I don't keep track anymore. Um, it reads eventually I told my friends, but even now I downplay it like it wasn't that serious. But it was. It broke me and I still don't know how to talk about it without feeling like I'm admitting to personal feeler or personal failure.

Kelly:

Fuck this one, god. I like truly feel it in my bones because when I kind of was first going through my divorce, I felt like a failure, I was failing and that shame. It's so heavy and it's also so unnecessary. But I get it. It's a totally valid feeling. But like we think, if we minimize it it will hurt less, and maybe, like we tell ourselves, if I act like it's not a big deal, maybe it won't be. But here's the truth walking away from something that wasn't working doesn't make you a failure. It makes you honest and that is so much harder than staying for the optics or your family or to please somebody else. But like there's no like timeline requirement for how pain is like allowed to exist 11 months or 11 years, like if it hurt. It's real, like and honestly, like surviving something quietly is kind of a strength no one like claps for, but they should. But I'm sorry you went through that and you might have felt alone in it, but you weren't alone. The girlies got you, your friends got you your family, maybe your therapist if you have one. But never feel like you need to hide yourself from those emotions and everything you are dealing with. Okay, this next one I truly think is so fucking unhinged. I think I screamed when I first read this and then I laughed and then I started screaming again. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but like, truly, I was like holy fucking shit. Um.

Kelly:

So the submission reads my ex-husband told me he was going to therapy alone to work on things while we were separated. He even sent me fake confirmation emails with the name of a therapist. I looked up myself. Turns out he was actually on vacation in Cabo with a girl from his gym. I only found out because she posted a story with his towel in the background and I recognized it. They couldn't stay somewhere that had like no recognizable towels whatever. When I confronted him, he said he was trying to heal in his own way and that I was too obsessed with timelines and structure. Like sorry, I thought therapy meant in office, not all inclusive.

Kelly:

Girl girl, him saying I'm healing in my own way literally equals I'm lying, but make it sound like self-care. It's like almost the what's it called tiktok therapy. Talk a little bit. I love tiktok, but sometimes I'm like, are we talking a real therapist here? Um, also the fake therapist emails. That's crazy. What this? Does this man have a job? Because you're just making fake therapist emails? You really, you're really not that creative. But also like, get a job maybe. But like, let's be clear here, real healing doesn't require hiding behind I, I don't know Canva or Gmail attachments.

Kelly:

And if your ex is using his mental health as a smokescreen, like mine, to fly out with some girl who spotted him doing, I'm going to guess like 40 pound squats, which baby? That's not good, that's bad. Um, he's not healing, he's hiding. And um, if we were back in breakup court, I would say, my verdict is pathetic and I'm thrilled you're free of him. Hopefully also the fucking towel. Can you imagine your like whole house of lies, like collapsing because you brought your own towel on vacation? Like a rookie move? I'd like, truly a rookie move.

Kelly:

Um, this was just a really quick confession that I got. This is the next one. When I changed my netflix password after the divorce, he texted me wow, I guess we're really done. That's insane, sir. Um, um, did the divorce papers not make it clear enough? The streaming service is the line, the line in the sand. You're making like you signed legal documents but now you're saying I can't have access to. I don't fucking know what's a good show on netflix. I can't even think of one right now. One of them, there's so many I don't fucking know, but that's that's unhinged. That's unhinged. Um, okay, this next one, uh, is crazy. It's not about the breakup itself, it's about like the after. I guess it's not crazy, but like it's very relatable. Um. So the submission reads it's been six months since I moved out.

Kelly:

Some days I feel free, other days I feel nothing. I still wear my wedding ring when I go to target, not because I want him back, but because it makes me feel safe, less visible, less like someone, less like someone, people, less like someone that will look at, wow, I'm struggling. Okay. I think she's trying to say like less willing for people to like look at you and immediately clock you as divorced and alone. Okay, um, I take it off when I get home. I don't think I'm ready to let go of that version of me yet. Girl, that's okay.

Kelly:

Okay, like I know that might sound crazy to other people, but like as a divorced girly, like you do things to cope in the way you heal, like we act like divorce is this like instant freedom, which now I feel so much better about that freedom, holy shit. But like the day you sign, like we act like you're reborn. It's so big like, but it's not that simple. Like when I signed my divorce papers, I went to my lawyer's office and obviously Voldemort wasn't there, but I had this like he was treating me horribly and like sending these horrible texts to me and like, truly like, devastating me over and over and over until I blocked him after we signed the divorce papers. But even after everything and I've only told this to like my family I literally looked at the divorce papers and I saw his sign, like his signed, and for some reason I was so dramatic about it. But I like touched where he had signed almost because that was like I was never gonna see him again, I was never going to. It was like kind of like a part of him. But and then I cried, um, even though like he had treated me like literal dog shit, but like that's kind of how you know divorce can be, breakups can be, and sometimes the ring isn't about, like love or longing, it can be armor, about familiarity, about walking through a world that still sees, I don't know, divorce as a headline.

Kelly:

I'm so tired of divorce being such a failure or people think it's a failure or it's so scandalous and yes, it happens all the time but no one really talks about kind of the aftermath of it all and how you're trying to heal and be in, like not be a new person but like grow into who you, who you are and who you become after that. But um, it shouldn't be a dirty word, it's actually very cunty um, especially young divorce. At first I never, ever, ever, ever thought that, but now, going through it and being betrayed the way I have been, it's really reframed the way I think of divorce. It's not a dirty word, it's not this like messed up thing that happened to you, like it's so much more, but like it's okay that you do that you can take it off when you're ready, not when the world like thinks you should be. I sold mine, thank god I sold mine. I didn't want that fucking bad juju in my life. And also target girl that's a minefield, that fluorescent lighting, those couples fighting in the candle aisle. Sometimes you need a like a prop to feel a little less like raw in public. And I swear, every time I go to target I end up with like some like weird emotional vortex or like something that I don't fucking need at all, but that's okay. And then at the end I'm like, oh, I just came here for toothpaste and now I bought half the store, so I get it. I truly do.

Kelly:

This one is kind of like the logistical nightmare portion of divorce, because the paperwork is one thing and the shared calendar that's like a whole other beast truly. But the submission reads my ex and I separated in September but we had already agreed to host Thanksgiving at our house for both sides of the family. I didn't want to deal with it. So we just didn't tell anyone. Yet we cooked, we hosted, we passed mashed potatoes like nothing had happened. I sat across from him and smiled through the whole thing. I even helped his mom clean up and it was the most surreal day of my life. He told people two weeks later and everyone said you seem so happy.

Kelly:

I've never felt more like an actor in my own life. Girl, I want to hug you and also like hand you a. What is an oscar? I don't know? A tony, what's the one? Is that that's for musicals, tony's for musicals? Right, I don't know.

Kelly:

But like girl, you were in performance mode and, like many of us stay in that performance law Whoa, so sorry. So like so many of us stay in that performance mode and like, long after the relationship is dead, it's like smiling and serving and pretending like just to get through the day. But that like version of you, the one who got through it without suffering, or not without suffering, but without like stuffing being thrown at his head she's a star, but she deserves that piece and also like passing mashed potatoes to your almost ex, kind of, in a way, to me feels like performance art, because like that's not dinner, that's like avant-garde theater, if I'm being honest. But uh, honestly, I think families should have to like, hire actors to fill in at holidays during divorces. Um, just like, hire a stand-in next time SAG-AFTRA maybe, I don't know, is that what it's called? I think so we love a union, um, but like, here's the thing about all of these confessions is divorce isn't just the paperwork, it's the target runs with rings you don't believe in anymore.

Kelly:

Or it's a fake therapy email that your psycho ex sent you. Well, you were separated at the time, but yeah, it's hosting holidays with someone you've already said goodbye to in your head. But it's also survival and eventually it will feel like freedom. Because it is freedom, it doesn't come all at once, it's kind of like slow and it's awkward and it's quiet. And then one day you catch yourself laughing for real and you realize, oh shit, like I made it. I went through this really, really hard thing and I fucking made it.

Kelly:

And for me, that moment was the first time I made a joke about my divorce. I didn't feel like I was going to throw up after or cry about it. Also, another moment was when I could recount everything that happened to me, or trying to, because you know, sometimes I forget all the horrible things that have happened and I didn't feel like crying in the middle of it. It was literally so therapeutic and so nice to have that type of freedom and that's okay. That is so okay.

Kelly:

Like you can joke if someone says, do you have a husband? And you can say, I don't know, not anymore, thank God, because that's how I feel. I eventually will have another one in the future. But like I was protected from this horrible future with this person that I would have been miserable in truly, and divorce honestly is healing. You eventually get there and breakups and divorce is terrible, but you eventually get there. But if you're in it right now, I really want you to know you are not weak for leaving and you're not dramatic for grieving the way you have or you are, and like you are absolutely not alone. There's so many women out there who are going through the same thing and just I want to like create a community for all of us, because there's so many of us and you need to feel that you're not alone. Because you are not alone, um, but on that note, that was like this week's divorce confessions. Um, next week we're kind of putting on our detective hats, maybe with uh, was it really a red flag? Or was I just 25?

Kelly:

Girl spoiler alert it's probably a red flag, a little sneak peek. He had a rat in his room. I never saw it, but he told me A rat, he had cockroaches. That's kind of what we're dealing with here. But yeah, but, if you love this episode, drop a rating or send it to your divorced bestie or your family, I don't know. Tell them, hey, I don't have it so bad. Or look, this is so normal. And don't forget to follow us at Girl. Hang Up on TikTok and Instagram for memes and sneak peeks and the occasional sign from the universe that, yes, trust me, you did the right thing. Girl, I could tell you all day long you did the right thing, but please, please, please, always remember. It's his loss. I'm sorry, but the person you called has a voicemail box that has not been set up yet. Goodbye.