Welcome back to another episode, where I'm joined by Becca Maxwell, and our conversation is both relatable and insightful.
Starting off, Becca opens up about her journey to finding love after her divorce. She emphasizes the importance of self-focus during tough times and shares how her corporate background in relationship management has influenced her role as a divorce coach.
We then shift gears to explore the challenges of dating as an expat in Asia. Against the odds, Becca found her husband on Tinder, offering practical insights as a single mother. She highlights the significance of clear intentions, setting boundaries, and trusting one's intuition in the dating process.
We discuss the complexities of blended families, offering tips on introducing children to a new partner and managing relationships with ex-partners. We also touch on maintaining a positive outlook in high-conflict divorces and the importance of preserving children's emotional well-being.
Wrapping up, Becca and I share our own journeys of finding fulfillment post-divorce. This episode is a valuable resource for anyone dealing with the challenges of divorce and navigating the path to love and fulfillment afterward. Tune in for a down-to-earth conversation blending personal stories with practical advice for life after divorce.
Featured on the Show: Becca Maxwell
Becca is a relational intelligence consultant and divorce coach with a beautiful story of finding love post-divorce, despite 3x near-misses across 3 different countries!
Discover Your "Core Values Dating Blueprint" And How You Can Use It On:
Dating with your Core Values helps you Easily Connect With Your True Match Partner (without chasing, settling, or wasting time with non-committal men)
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The Core Values Dating Blueprint Helps you:
DISCOVER YOUR CORE VALUES
❤️ Take the core values test and discover your core values
❤️ Explore the parts of your mission, life story, beliefs and lifestyle that are most important to your relationship
❤️ Create a relationship vision that clearly aligns with your core values so that you know the type of partner that would be right for you
CREATE YOUR CORE VALUES BLUEPRINT
❤️ Get the exact framework for crafting your core values dating blueprint that shows you what to say and how to date to meet the partner who’s right for you
❤️ Learn the 5 steps to translating your core values into a written blueprint that guides your dating decisions
PUT YOUR BEST SELF OUT THERE AT EVERY STAGE OF DATING
❤️ Learn exactly how to apply your core values to every part of dating - Add it to your dating profile so that it is as unique and compelling as you are
❤️ Use core values in text messages to tell great stories and inspire interesting conversations
❤️ Use core values to ask questions that qualify if a man is right for you
❤️ Use core values at social events and in person interactions to effortlessly attract people in the room who match you
Get Your Core Values Dating Blueprint Now
Welcome back to another episode, where I'm joined by Becca Maxwell, and our conversation is both relatable and insightful.
Starting off, Becca opens up about her journey to finding love after her divorce. She emphasizes the importance of self-focus during tough times and shares how her corporate background in relationship management has influenced her role as a divorce coach.
We then shift gears to explore the challenges of dating as an expat in Asia. Against the odds, Becca found her husband on Tinder, offering practical insights as a single mother. She highlights the significance of clear intentions, setting boundaries, and trusting one's intuition in the dating process.
We discuss the complexities of blended families, offering tips on introducing children to a new partner and managing relationships with ex-partners. We also touch on maintaining a positive outlook in high-conflict divorces and the importance of preserving children's emotional well-being.
Wrapping up, Becca and I share our own journeys of finding fulfillment post-divorce. This episode is a valuable resource for anyone dealing with the challenges of divorce and navigating the path to love and fulfillment afterward. Tune in for a down-to-earth conversation blending personal stories with practical advice for life after divorce.
Featured on the Show: Becca Maxwell
Becca is a relational intelligence consultant and divorce coach with a beautiful story of finding love post-divorce, despite 3x near-misses across 3 different countries!
Discover Your "Core Values Dating Blueprint" And How You Can Use It On:
Dating with your Core Values helps you Easily Connect With Your True Match Partner (without chasing, settling, or wasting time with non-committal men)
Click Here to Sign Up
The Core Values Dating Blueprint Helps you:
DISCOVER YOUR CORE VALUES
❤️ Take the core values test and discover your core values
❤️ Explore the parts of your mission, life story, beliefs and lifestyle that are most important to your relationship
❤️ Create a relationship vision that clearly aligns with your core values so that you know the type of partner that would be right for you
CREATE YOUR CORE VALUES BLUEPRINT
❤️ Get the exact framework for crafting your core values dating blueprint that shows you what to say and how to date to meet the partner who’s right for you
❤️ Learn the 5 steps to translating your core values into a written blueprint that guides your dating decisions
PUT YOUR BEST SELF OUT THERE AT EVERY STAGE OF DATING
❤️ Learn exactly how to apply your core values to every part of dating - Add it to your dating profile so that it is as unique and compelling as you are
❤️ Use core values in text messages to tell great stories and inspire interesting conversations
❤️ Use core values to ask questions that qualify if a man is right for you
❤️ Use core values at social events and in person interactions to effortlessly attract people in the room who match you
Get Your Core Values Dating Blueprint Now
Hello everyone, welcome back to the dating after divorce podcast. I'm excited to bring you another guest episode today, and here with me on the show is Becca Maxwell. Hi Becca, hi Sarah, hi. Becca is a relational intelligence consultant and divorce coach. She's here to tell her amazing story of finding love after divorce in spite of three near misses with your husband across three different countries. So we're excited to hear that. But before we dive in, please tell the listeners a little bit about the work that you do. What's a relational intelligence consultant? Who do you help? And kind of like a little bit about the work you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, so the relational intelligence consultant bit goes a little bit back to my corporate career, where I was in advertising for a really long time and I was running client relationships there. So I was managing big pieces of business and became a global account director like a client services director, global account director, a chief operating officer and I was just managing these client relationships as best as possible. And then I was asked to become a consultant to advertising agencies, teaching them how to have the best possible client relationships. Now that's all around understanding your own bias and triggers, building your own resilience, constructive conflict resolution, how to have difficult conversations, how to rebalance just an imbalanced relationship all of those things.
Speaker 2:And I was doing that for a few years when I started going through my super ugly divorce and I found that the tools and models that we were using in the corporate space was so applicable to the personal space. Obviously, if you're going to build resilience, if you're going to have to handle conflict in a healthy way, if you're going to have to manage your own triggers, etc. Super applicable. So that led me to applying some of that into the divorce coaching space. So that's why I still do both. I still bridge the corporate space as well as the personal coaching.
Speaker 1:Oh, amazing. And do you help women who are going through divorce, after divorce, like, where are those tools the most useful?
Speaker 2:They're. Typically the divorce is definite. So I'm you know. Sometimes people reach out and say I think I'm going to do this and I help them with a guide to separation, but typically they've still got some work to do. So they come back to me once the decision has definitely been made and maybe they're just struggling with their own emotions and it just they didn't realize it was going to be as hard as it is Right. A lot of people think, okay, I'm going to, I've made the decision, this is going to be great. I give it three months. Actually it takes like three years and it's not always great and people are surprised by that. So they reach out and they're like I think I need some help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I tell my clients I'm mostly helping my who are dating after divorce. But everyone said, well, some women will come to me who are thinking about divorce or getting ready for a divorce in the middle of one. And you know, what I tell them now is, hey, you really don't know the person you're going to divorce. You have not seen your own divorce self and you haven't seen your spouse's divorce in self. Like that is like a new person that you're getting ready to meet Exactly.
Speaker 2:I tell them, like think of him as an alien. Now, this is not somebody you know well. You cannot predict his behaviors, you cannot predict or try to understand what motivates him, because he is an alien to you. Now he is behaving in a way that is completely unlike anything you've ever seen before, and I think this is where people start to throw around that my ex is a narcissist or you know. He's behaving in such a way there's narcissism there, like okay, but maybe that's a temporary state, let's not label it, let's just not try and understand it, let's focus on you and what you can do to get through it. So I agree with you you don't know that human anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to tell people this before they get married. Make sure you want to say it, because if you divorce.
Speaker 2:You think you've seen the bad bit Exactly.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that. Now let's dive into your love story, and I'm just going to let you. I guess we can start with when you got divorced, like how long ago was that?
Speaker 2:So I left that marriage around 10 years ago. So I was living in Singapore, my ex and I are both Australian and we'd been living an expat life. We'd lived in Amsterdam together and had our first son there moved to Singapore and our second, our daughter, was born in Singapore, which is kind of complicated because if you're like there's a part of the Hague Convention that maybe you or your listeners don't know about, but it's if your country has signed up to this part of the Hague Convention and you're both outside of your home country, when you decide to separate, you can't leave that country without the other person's permission with the children. So when we broke up a lot of expat families in places like Singapore or Hong Kong or Dubai when they break up, typically the mum will take the children back to their home country, but if the ex-husband says I don't agree, then they can't do that. So I felt quite stuck in Singapore for a while. There it was like I had no option but to stay because my ex was saying you can leave but you can't take the children. Not in my over my dead body am I leaving without my children.
Speaker 2:So that was about 10 years ago. We were in Singapore. I left the marriage because we had tried for years and years and years. But I just felt he was so unhappy and we tried to change so much like change jobs, changed countries. I had another baby, tried all of these different changes and he was still so desperately unhappy and eventually I thought it must be me, I must be the one. So please be free, go off and I'll be a better ex-wife than I'll be a wife, because I don't want you to be unhappy. I thought having a happy father for the children was much better than staying in this marriage. So yeah, 10 years ago we broke up and we thought. I thought we were going to have the best divorce ever. We didn't how long did the divorce take.
Speaker 2:It's still kind of going on now. I mean we've had the paperwork for years already but still legal battles going on. It's really unpleasant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so 10 years later, you know, and I have a colleague who she specializes in high conflict divorces and I think yours sounds like would be one of those.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 1:Hold of this world out of proportion to the situation.
Speaker 2:It is, and that's why I'm so highly motivated to help women do whatever they can to avoid this, avoid a high conflict, divorce and, if they can't, how to focus on having a beautiful life anyway, right, how to be okay with this uncertainty and ugliness and still raise beautiful children and still have a beautiful life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, amazing. It sounds like you've done that, like we can skip over the divorce For sure. For sure?
Speaker 2:So yeah, Do you want me to go into the dating part?
Speaker 1:Yes. So let me ask first, when that moment, like the moment when you got divorced and you were in the middle of the divorce, what were your thoughts about being in a new partnership ever? Did you think I'm never doing this again? Or were you like I think there's someone out there for me?
Speaker 2:You know I, because I lived in Singapore. So Singapore is in Asia and there's this awful stereotype that middle aged white men go to Asia and they meet these beautiful young Thai women who are, you know, subservient and generous with their love and affection. That I figured I'm going to be a 40 year old white woman in Asia, like I'm going to be sexless for the rest of my life, and how scary is that. And I still thought that's got to be better than the alternative. I genuinely didn't think I could possibly meet somebody and didn't really care if I wouldn't. I love love. So I didn't assume I would never meet anybody. I just figured my circumstances would mean it would be very, very challenging. And I hear that all the time from people in Asia. It's like I'm never going to meet a man here. Oh, it can happen.
Speaker 1:It does happen, yeah, and it's interesting. We always, I think, when our brain has this fear of something that we can't do, we project the reason out on something else. The thinking is exactly the same as I hear from women in the United States I'm never going to find a man because I'm 40 and I'm this, and the reason I've got children and all of that, yeah, but the reason is the men out there want younger women and they get an expat in your location. The reason is oh, there are these beauties. So it's almost like we look outside of ourselves for something to blame. Yes, Right.
Speaker 1:And make up a story about, well, this situation is what's causing.
Speaker 2:What's going on. I was okay with that, like I predicted that that would be my future, and I thought, well, I'm just going to have to make peace with it, because I just don't want to be miserable. I don't want my ex to be miserable. We will be better off if I'm sexless for the rest of my life. Thankfully I wasn't and I'm not. I thought I was going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how? What did you do Like? Did you meet your husband in Singapore?
Speaker 2:We did. Yes, so he's Dutch, so we're both from very different cultures and we're living in this third culture. And before I met Olaf, I did try the dating, like I did try dating. So there was one other person. Well, I went on maybe half a dozen dates, maybe yeah, I don't know half a dozen, and I remember thinking, oh, this is, this is not great.
Speaker 2:And then I met one ex-pat who was living in Thailand actually, and he would come to Singapore once a month or so and I thought, well, this is a nice kind of bridging dating opportunity, but he just wasn't very interesting to me. He had an incredible body and he got me back in the bedroom again, which was a great, you know, just a great kind of bridging thing. It actually being able to date him. It was a few months, it was. It was never anything serious, was never going to go anywhere. I wasn't that interested in him, but it was nice to have somebody treat me in a way that was surprising, right. So I feel like that broke the seal a little bit, and so I was dating him for a little while and I remember thinking, hmm, it'd be nice to want to get to know somebody though, like this is. It's nice to have that spark alive again.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But that's not really enough, and as soon as I decided so now we're like a year out of my marriage I'd been a single mom, loved being a single mom, set up my like single mom sanctuary and was having a beautiful life with the kids and every second weekend they'd be at their dad. So I'd be single and I was getting fit and healthy again and it was just really loving life. I was super successful at work and and I just remember thinking I think I'd like to meet someone, I'd like to get to know better. So I went back on the apps and I matched with Olaf on Tinder.
Speaker 1:Amazing, yeah, yeah. I also love that you met him on Tinder. Because of all the apps that freak everyone out, tinder is like oh, my God on. Tinder. There's no decent on Tinder is what I hear. I'm like. Well, you know, you don't have to date anyone who isn't decent. Like if I'm not saying.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, just got to look around and I'm not saying there's wonderful men all over Tinder, but and I'm sure I matched with plenty. But it was only after I'd made that real decision for myself that I wanted to get to know somebody. And then he and I chatted for a month Like I wouldn't physically see him. I didn't agree to meeting up with him Like I said, I'd been on other dates but I liked him so much, I liked his chat so much, that I didn't want to ruin it by meeting him in person and not liking him.
Speaker 1:He asked me how you said no or you just said so many times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like no, I'm really busy, my daughter's birthday is coming up, I've got all of these things that I've got work and I put it off. And we were even at this point like we'd swapped actual phone numbers and having voice calls up until two o'clock in the morning, like falling asleep at the pillow, until finally he said enough, like no more excuses, I'm picking you up downstairs, you know, at this time, be ready.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm not ready Like even with your anxiety and anxieties. The person who really wanted to get to know you was willing to be patient yeah, and he really was.
Speaker 2:Well to a certain extent he was willing to be patient. A month is a long time of chatting, right, yeah, Without, because of course you need to know if you've got chemistry in person as well. So it was. It was quite a long time. I was really patient with me and I'm delighted to say there was chemistry immediately. I'm so relieved.
Speaker 2:I was so relieved and I think it was like by date three, we knew we really had something special. It was unusual, like we weren't even sleeping together yet, but we knew that there was something really unusual here. And that's when I started on picking the threads, like you said three near misses across three different countries. And we started on picking that as we got to know each other. So I'll start with, I'll go into that. So he's from the Netherlands and I'm from Singapore.
Speaker 2:As I said to you, my within my previous marriage, we lived in Amsterdam for a while. So obviously I wanted to talk to him about how much I loved living in Amsterdam and you know I absolutely loved it. What an incredible culture. And he asked me where did I live? And I, you know, obviously we were talking about the different neighborhoods and we found out, we discovered that we had owned homes on the same street in Amsterdam at the same time. The same street. You were neighbors the same street, right, I mean, it's a long street, but it's still weird. This is a big city on the other side of the planet. He's not even from Amsterdam, he's from another part of the Netherlands, but he and his ex-wife had owned a house on the same street that me and my ex-husband had owned a house, so that already was a bit like wow, that's weird. And then we also discovered that he had lived, because he came to pick me up from from where I was living in Singapore. He said I've lived in this condo too. What?
Speaker 2:The same set of buildings or the exact no, not the exact home, but the same set of buildings. So it was a cluster house complex, which is all of these little houses built around multiple communal pools. So it's the kind of compound, if you like, where you can have your door open and kids will just run in and out. Now you know, go to a friend's house and share meals beside the pool. It was single mum heaven. I loved it. And he said, yeah, he isn't here, and his ex-wife and daughters had lived in the same condo, the same cluster house complex that I lived in. Again, I was like, oh my God, that's spooky. Who does that happen? Like that's weird, all right, yeah, weird. And then you know, dating a little bit longer, longer, longer. At one point he sends me his email address and I'm like, oh, that's weird, I've already got your email address in my computer and I typed in Olaf and his whole email address came up. I thought, well, how could I possibly have your email address? We've never met right.
Speaker 2:And we figured out the third country that we had a near miss was in the Philippines. There'd been a super typhoon in the Philippines Must be eight, nine or must be 10 years ago now and in Singapore. We were so affected by that because a lot of your home help and a lot of the early childhood educators in that part of the world come from the Philippines, and it's like this community has given so much to our Quality of life that the devastation of their country was just so impactful. So a friend had decided he was going to organize some, some friends together and go and do some last mile charity effort. Now that means like taking rice and water to the most remote villages, the ones that are not going to get seen first by the big organized charities. So I reached out to this friend and said I'd love to be involved in that.
Speaker 2:What I didn't know was that Olaf was one of the first people to go. So all of them my, my friend, the two of them went off and started this early mile charity effort. I flew in 24 hours after all of it come home to take over that effort, right. So again we was like these two people just just missing each other. Because when I went to volunteer in the Philippines I hadn't yet decided to leave my husband. So when we owned homes in Amsterdam, I was still married. When we're at the cluster house complex, that was at different times. He was married right and in the Philippines. I hadn't quite left my husband yet, and it was only a year later that we matched on Tinder.
Speaker 1:Amazing and it sounds like somehow, like the universe, god, was saying, ok, well, each other ahead of time. It's not going to work.
Speaker 2:I really want to make exactly stop, stop, stop, not yet.
Speaker 1:In that space and in that you know energy to connect. It's one explanation for it which I'm OK with the energetic spiritual explanation for it. I also have another theory around things like that that I tell my clients, I say your person is already in your orbit, already in your orbit, first of all, because we're like give or take a couple of degrees away from away from everyone, like a few degrees away from everyone on the planet. And secondly, if you're living the life you want, like volunteering during a natural disaster, living the expat life, exploring the world, your orbit is full of people doing the same thing, people with the same interests, with the same intellectual ideas, with the same direction. Yes, the same values, same values, yeah, and so I was like there's a spiritual, but I think the spiritual and the natural and the math, yeah, work together to make it possible and so so close to us to have what we want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely I agree with that. I think I think one of the reasons I didn't imagine that would happen would be because in expats society so much of it you can get so distracted by the Opulence of life right as expats, you get to live a different kind of life in places like Singapore and in cross Asia. It's it's an existence you wouldn't have access to at home. So a lot of the people that I would meet there wasn't the least bit interested in that. They were not aligned with my values. They were just wanting bigger cars, bigger, whatever bigger, but they're better, stronger. That's not me at all. And then I go and meet this wonderful man who's volunteering in the Philippines and who's like leading community efforts in different areas. He's pretty different, he's quite wonderful.
Speaker 1:He saw that you were different to. At least he picked up on it, could you? When you started talking on the apps, which I want to dive into is because you did it for a month. I think it would be valuable to the listeners what conversations that are going somewhere look like right. When you connect with someone who's not necessarily like, you never know if the person you're connecting with is the person in quotes, but they could be a person. So like there are some people that are like oh, this is a viable potential partner, I will enjoy their company, versus someone that you're like well, this is a hard no.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I find that a lot of women I talked to already approached the apps with the oh my god, this is going to be terrible, so they don't actually invest enough in the conversation to make a judgment right. I will show up like. Show me the conversation. Open up your phone sharing on my screen.
Speaker 2:And they're like he was. Are you shutting him down? Why is this?
Speaker 1:It wasn't interesting. And I'm like it's possible he wasn't interesting, but it's hard to tell because you didn't give it a decent effort, right, yeah? So what did your conversations look like the first time he texted you? Or you texted him like how did you know? Oh my god, this guy is different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hard question, and it was such a long time ago too I think I was willing to enter into the conversation as like with multiple people. Obviously, he didn't go straight to the next stuff. That was a hard no for me. I'm like too soon. He also didn't suggest meeting up immediately, or at least you know he continued to have those conversations even when I said no, so that gave me really good green flags, right.
Speaker 2:The fact that he was willing to wait a month I think it was asking how he spends his time and the fact that he had so much going on was interesting to me, not things that I had going on necessarily. I loved that he was a dad, so he understood my challenges with raising children with an ex partner as well. So I love that we had that in common and I know that's that's not ideal for a lot of people. They don't necessarily want to go into a blended situation, but I just felt that gave him a unique insight into, into the pools of my time. I loved that he was very, very well traveled and I'm well traveled too, so that opens up so much to talk about. Tell me about you know, the most interesting places you've been to. All of that. Um, yeah, I think it was just asking about how he spent time and he was. He was interesting to me. I was genuinely interested in how much he was doing, which is probably again why it took a month, because I was busy, he was busy.
Speaker 1:I know I've talked to some women who are like oh, I have kids so I don't have a lot of time to date. I'm like well, the bright person for you will understand that you have kids and they may have the same life. Like sounds like you just put it out there like I'm busy, I got kids, you know, which absolutely makes sense Big job and you know all of the things.
Speaker 2:I think I was also pretty clear to say I don't know what I want from this, but I really do know that I want to get to know you before I invest too much of my energy and time right, I want to get to know you. That's my intention here, and I think being clear with that helped, because he it kind of lowered that barrier of who does he need to be. Actually, you just need to be yourself, because that's what I'm, that's what I'm here for, and I think I made a safe space for him to be himself too. I hope I mean I was certainly very open and clear with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you have other conversations with other people that were interesting, or was he like the one person that was really interesting?
Speaker 2:Like I said, I did make it to date to other people, but it was nothing, nothing like this. I think I went too quickly to meeting them and that was yeah. That ended pretty quickly. It was like okay, this is I'm, I'm dating a stranger. Right, I'm across the table from somebody I don't know anything about and it's I'm trying to do those discovery questions in the moment.
Speaker 2:I'm finding it hard and I don't think I'm a socially awkward person, but I felt that pressure was too much and not knowing what their intention was, not even knowing what my intention was at the time, you know, I found all of that juggle really, really challenging. So by the time Olaf and I made it to an actual date, it was more just like we want to check that the chemistry we have already is real in person. So I know a lot about you. I'm not starting from zero. I want to hear more. I want to hear you tell the stories and see your face and see your body language as you talk about them, because you light up over the phone. Is that also going to be true in person? So it didn't feel like I was starting from zero. I was already invested in this person. So amazing.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, one of the things I teach my clients is, again, not to jump to that first date. I'm like we need some. We need to have a, because my goal is always. I'm like I know you, I don't know how many dates each person is going to go on before they find their person, but I want them to be good dates. I'm like my biggest goal is to just make sure they're not having any bad dates and for the most part, we're generally successful in creating that, and one of the keys to creating that is actually what we I guess I, I'm an engineer by background, so I use like really dry terms. I don't use the sexy terms, I just call them qualifying questions Like just need to have a baseline of understanding about this person. You find them reasonably interesting. They don't have to be like, oh my God, the most interesting person you've ever talked to, but you would be okay if they were a coworker and you had to interact with them in your office.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and you're interested to know a bit more.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you're interested, in your interest, to know a bit more, just to see. And I was like, but what? Usually when it's like, oh my God, he gave me his number and women often feel a lot of pressure to respond to, you know, being asked out sooner than they're ready for, yeah, and you phone numbers sooner than they're ready for, like, what advice do you have for pacing, you know the texting and the first dating, a way that makes you comfortable?
Speaker 2:I don't know if my advice is is is any good, but I I really felt I needed to trust my own intuition.
Speaker 2:I was in no hurry and anybody that was in a hurry was not on the same time zone as me, so like the same pace as me, and that would be okay too. I would have been devastated to have spent a month with somebody and it not work out or for us to not have chemistry, but that was a beautiful month, so I would have preferred to have had that and lost it than to have rushed it too quickly and realized like I couldn't cope. So he needed to be on my. I was clear about my pace, I think, and I pushed him back and I trusted my intuition right, which was to say I'm not ready or I never wanted to not respond. So I didn't have, I guess, the IK or whatever it was. My intuition was when's he gonna? When's he gonna message me next, or should I start again, or I don't know, maybe, maybe it's unfair because I don't know that I can offer advice in this area, but I think trust and intuition.
Speaker 1:That philosophy matches with exactly what I teach my clients, in the sense that I every woman I'm like I never offer formulas in the sense that like nothing's gonna work the same way, but principles always translate, like the principle of having your own pacing and knowing what makes you feel comfortable. I have clients all over the board. I have clients who have some clients who are like, who will exchange that number is pretty early because they have that self trust, they know they can take care of themselves they're not worried about, they have no fear of blocking someone if it doesn't work. Yeah. I have other clients who won't give out their phone numbers until after the first date. I was that way I wouldn't give out my phone number until I would chat on the app until the first date and then, if I felt comfortable after the first date, I would give them my phone number. But like everyone is different my take on it is okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that's okay. You are the leader in your own journey. Like you've just been a model being your own leader. You're like no, no, I'm just going to do what makes sense for me. Like, and I'm okay with the outcome. I see that sometimes what some people miss is that they're like well, I'm leading in my journey, but it better work out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I don't agree with that. I think I'm a pretty good man at the Fester right. If I'm intentionally trying to bring something into my life, and one of the keys to that is not being attached to the outcome, it's how do I, how do I want to feel, what would that feel like, what would that be like? I want to live in that. You know, the thing that I'm trying to create for myself, which might be my home, with the ocean view, like what would that feel like and how wonderful would that be. But if I don't get this house, there'll be another one that makes me feel that way.
Speaker 2:So that's how I felt about Olaf. It was like I want to get to know someone. I want to be really beautifully connected in and wanting to get to know him as he evolves. I want to go on this journey with somebody that's going to feel inspiring and adventurous to me, and it's okay if this isn't the one, because there will, there will, I will get that Right. And so I felt pretty confident that I would achieve what I was looking for. I was just really impressed that it happened so quickly, like, like I said, the minute I decided I really want to get to know someone at depth. It was like Olaf came along. It was great, easy.
Speaker 1:That's so powerful. The. I really want this. Like. I think sometimes, when we talk about not being attached to the outcome, sometimes people think what that means I should give up my goal, I should be okay without it. No, no, but it's. You really want the goal, you believe you're going to have the goal, but you're not trying to force any situation to be the answer.
Speaker 2:That's right and you take steps towards being able to get the goal right. So I went on the apps, so I I did have the conversations or you know my house with the ocean view I did look for the homes, I did make the applications. I wasn't waiting for the universe to just plonk me in a house. So I took the steps towards my goal, but released the idea of when it would happen or who he was going to be. I was certainly putting the effort into into finding out whether he was the one. And it turns out he is and we've got this beautiful blended family. So, yeah, it's been pretty great.
Speaker 1:How long have you been together?
Speaker 2:Nine years now.
Speaker 1:Nine years.
Speaker 2:Coming up to nine years.
Speaker 1:yeah, how did blending your family go?
Speaker 2:Well, it was really unusual because we were both in Singapore and our ex partners were both in Singapore. His girls were a little bit older than my son and daughter. We took months before we made any decisions to introduce anybody. We each had a conversation with our ex partners before making the introduction. It didn't go great for either party. Even though my ex had already introduced a girlfriend to the children and I was perfectly OK with it, he was a bit less OK, but we weren't asking permission, we were just making an information, providing information, just to let you know I've met somebody I'm serious about, I'm ready to introduce the children, so keeping you informed. And of course, my daughter was two at the time. So can you imagine saying I'm going to introduce to a friend called Olaf? She was all like frozen snowman. Oh my God, I'm going to meet the snowman from frozen.
Speaker 2:Sorry to disappoint darling, he's like a six foot seven skinny Dutch man, but they were gorgeous about it. He was just someone at the barbecue, right, he was just one of mum's friends to begin with, and he was one of mum's friends that they saw a bit more often. And then I asked them could he maybe have dinner with us one night. They were like, yeah, my son was five, my daughter was two, and they just started climbing up him.
Speaker 2:They just took to him immediately and with his daughters they were a little bit older, I want to say they were like nine and 11 at the time and they were so excited because their dad had been single for a few years already and they were just delighted that he was happy to meet someone. So they were super curious to meet me and the kids. And they didn't. They saw a video of me and the kids before they actually met me and it was. It was a video for his birthday. The kids and I did like a little dress up and we did a dubbed video of happy birthday and we had wigs on and we're being really silly. And the girls saw that and said, oh my God, we can't wait to meet this fun family. So it was gorgeous.
Speaker 1:I'm going to steal that it was for my question, because we we always brainstorm like for every person, we brainstorm the best way to introduce their kids, because you know they're all age ranges, the stages in the relationship. That is one that we haven't done yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really cute. I can send you the video. I mean it's so cute and it's just like, yeah, singing a happy birthday to him or just dressed up. And it did give the girls access to us without us feeling at all vulnerable, right, because we weren't saying, hi, I'm, I'm Rebecca and I can be a stepmom, like that was. There was none of that. And then what?
Speaker 2:The other thing that we did was Olaf spoke to his girls about when we would meet for the first time and would they like to plan a day of activities, and so it was the girls that came up with what we were going to do together Already. They were in a good space about it Already. They were excited. And then they said, well, we want to do this like fishing activity, where we go and and you know this little local place where we go and catch some fish, and then we'll come back to the house of my house and do some sushi making, and so the girls even practice that their dad's house. How are we going to make sushi and what kind of seaweed do we need and what stuff do we need, so that when they came to my house, they could teach my little kids how to make sushi, and I think that was it.
Speaker 2:We had these kind of two activities together and then they went home Super successful what gorgeous girls to think of that, right? And and from there we went from. We very quickly became a beautiful blended family. We'd have one weekend with all four kids and one weekend with no kids, which is the best way to date someone. It's so good.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I love that because it can very quickly become about the kids and not about the relationship.
Speaker 2:True, yeah, so this was great. We had family weekends and we would immerse ourselves in the family stuff and then we would have our own time and we would stay a bit all weekend. And that was wonderful too.
Speaker 1:I mean that's so amazing. Your story sounds so beautiful and you just gave so many without, I guess, maybe without planning it so many tips on how to do this Well, so I love all of the ways that you and Olaf just created this, and thank you just so much for sharing all of all you know, all of this Giving us that behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no worries. I mean there's been some struggles, don't get me wrong. It's Olaf's ex-wife has never been very happy to have me and then it will to have me in his life. I suppose I'm not quite sure what her journey of grief was from the marriage. And so a little over a year after we blended our family, she said look, I want to move back to the Netherlands, I'm not going to meet somebody here, I want to set up my own life and I need to take the girls with me.
Speaker 2:And he was absolutely devastated. We were absolutely devastated and we had to let the girls go back to the Netherlands. So they repatriated back to the Netherlands and now we had a long distance blended family, and that was just a little bit before COVID and so through, like we would then go on big holidays together, so we'd spend Christmas together, we'd have summers together, but we no longer had the weekend off, weekend on, but we still had the blended six of us family. And now they're off in college and we're on video calls with them all the time. We don't see them as much as we'd like to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's that's hard, you know that's. I can imagine that. That's a challenge and that's the the twists and turns of this. You know marriage, divorce, remarriage, blended family journey.
Speaker 2:For sure, but our children still consider each other brother and sister right because they had that such quality time together when they were young enough for it to feel very, very bonded. So while it's now been a few years, we haven't seen the girls since pre COVID. So it's been about three and a half years since we've seen them. But we're still on video calls and their dad has been back a few times to the Netherlands to see them. It's just such a long way but yeah, we're still very much family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to ask if you know how, do you, like I know, every family has conflict, healthy conflict, and you have this, you know, skill with relational intelligence, like, how have you brought those into your, like this journey of just like dealing with the divorce conflict in your relationship, blending the family? What are the key items that have been useful to you?
Speaker 2:I think one of one of the biggest tools has been because my high conflict divorce has gone on for so many years now. One of the biggest tools I've had is in protecting our family unit and there was a period there where I was being dragged into court and that it was. There was a lot, and we're in Singapore and it was so overwhelming I was even. I was seeing a therapist. I said, look, I'm meditating, I'm seeing girlfriends, I'm exercising, I'm looking after myself, I'm eating well, and yet I cannot cope Like I. Just, you know, it's so much. And the therapist had said, look, sometimes the only way out is through. Just keep going, you'll be okay. Just keep keep going, focusing on doing all of those things that you're doing. But the tool that I used most in that highest of conflict, most challenging times, was to make an appointment during the day with Olaf and I'd say we have an appointment at eight o'clock every night where we're going to talk about this, right, because so much what happened throughout the day and it would distract me and I think, oh my God, what if I lose the children? Or what if I lose my job and I have to leave the country without the children? Or what if this or what if that, or what if he wins all of the money, or? And it can be so distracting that it becomes all consuming.
Speaker 2:But in making that kind of appointment and it was like 10 minutes at eight o'clock tonight is when I'm going to think about that, so I could tell my brain it's okay. It's okay, I understand your worry and I will address that at eight o'clock tonight. And every time a little trigger would come up, I'd be like I'll address that at eight o'clock tonight, okay, I'll deal with that later at eight o'clock tonight. And so Olaf and I would sit on the terrace with a gin and tonic and we'd be like I just need to get this out. Like this. This occurred to me and I worried and mellilala, and sometimes that conversation would go for 30, 40 minutes, but we would aim for 10. You're like, okay, that's it for today, let's wrap that up, we're not talking about it again until tomorrow. And I found that really useful because it protected our family from the spillage of all of that energy and it told my brain it's okay, you don't need to keep interrupting me with this, I will think about it. You know I've got an appointment to deal with you.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's powerful. That is so powerful. Like I know, I know my brain has a lot of chatter and I keep a little like um, I'll keep a text uh, actually have one open on my computer where I'll be like, okay, the brain's chattering while I'm working or while I'm getting ready to see a client and I'll write all those things down and then at the end of the day, I have a list or transfer it to my to-do list, but I haven't ever set an appointment to deal with it. That sounds amazing.
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, I'm going to try that tomorrow. It's good. It's good and it was good, too that I was able to have that appointment with Olaf, because it impacted all of us. It impacted our whole family and it also allowed me to see my family. It allowed me to say things out loud and for him to be part of that journey and also help protect me and the family as well, from. The last thing I ever wanted was using language about my ex-husband that would affect my children's relationship with him. I didn't want to be the person who was saying ugly things. It was important to me to behave with integrity, but if I was being sidetracked by that ugliness all the time, I'm not sure I would have been able to. It was really important.
Speaker 1:What's their relationship with their dad like now? Just high level. We don't have to do these things.
Speaker 2:My daughter doesn't speak to him. My son tries to call or he's happy to call every now and again. So we've said on Sundays he'll be expecting a phone call from you and my son will call if he wants to.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like you've left that up to them to decide the kind of relationship they want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have, and I hope that will change. And I always use the language of maybe one day to my daughter Maybe one day you'll be open to having a relationship with him. But I respect you, but for now you don't want to. She gets upset if I try to remind her too much. I told you I don't want to Honey. That's perfectly okay. I'm not going to force you to, but maybe one day you'll be ready. So I just don't want there to be a closed door and for my son it's very much. You know he's a long distance away, so the children couldn't see him physically if they wanted to. And I've said to him well, maybe you know, maybe there will be an opportunity for that someday, but it seems unlikely for now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now, where do you live now? In Western Australia, so it's the same time zone as Singapore, so I can still do my corporate Asia job and so can Olaf, but I've got like this ocean view and it's beautiful life here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So I was like oh, did she move? And I realized that, yes, you did move.
Speaker 2:I did Well also, he did too. So he left Singapore before COVID, which freed up then our opportunity to leave. I was no longer stuck in the country, so we were able to make a choice for ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which was nice. I'm so happy for you. Thanks, it's. It can be hard when you have this human who has say, in a sense, especially at least while your children are young, in the decisions you can make, and it can feel disempowering and it almost it can feel disempowering. It's not 100% disempowering, I guess, is what I want to say. No, exactly I think the key is learning how to grow beyond what would keep you stuck.
Speaker 2:Exactly, we all have constraints. We all have constraints, whether that's you know our exit, that we need to live nearby, whether it's our family, whether it was the background that we grew up in or whatever it is. But we can still live a very full, beautiful, gorgeous life within those constraints. Right, whether they're our choice or not. So other options and choices yes. So I never let that hold me back from living a pretty big life.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. You demonstrate that beautifully. You really, you really. I remember the moment I realized that I had no idea. I think I thought my, my ex, filed for the divorce because I had separated, he wasn't safe. And he filed for the divorce Not because he wanted to I found out later but as a way to get me to come back. He was like, well, if I fell for a divorce, he offered, well, you should come back. And I was like, oh no, I'm taking this. Get out of jail free card here.
Speaker 2:Yeah thanks, I'll take that yeah.
Speaker 1:And so then, when he realized the divorce was going to go forward, then he prolonged it. So, instead of signing off on it, he then prolonged it for years and it took me a minute to realize this could go on for a really long time. It ended up taking three years, but I thought he would sign off on it because it was what he wanted. And so as he dragged on I think right around nine months to a year in, I was like, oh, I have no idea when this is going to end, cause I had been in limbo. I was waiting for the sign off with my life.
Speaker 1:And I was like, oh, I need to just like live, Be okay with it Done. And I was like, so if the divorce was done, what would I do? Yeah, and I was like I'm going to start my business, I was going to become certified as a coach, All of I'm going to start traveling with the kids. And so I really I made a list of things I wanted to do on the life I wanted and I couldn't do. All of them Couldn't get married. Yeah, I know a lot of things you couldn't do. I couldn't move because you know of the kids. But I was like, what is this whole gigantic list of things I can do?
Speaker 1:Exactly I started to do those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I'm sure you know the model the circle of concern and the circle of influence, right, or the circle of control and the circle of influence. It's like, okay, I can't change all of these things out there, but I can change my attitude. I can control how these things impact me, I can control the energy that I bring to my days, I can control how I hold on to peace despite chaos around me. So I, yeah, I very much agree with taking being empowered by those things we do have choice over, rather than being distracted by those things that we're concerned about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, becca, this has been such a great conversation I can talk to you, thank you. Thank you Anything you would love to share that. I didn't ask tidbits.
Speaker 2:No, I love being able to talk about this part of my story right, because in my podcast and in my work it's all very much around the divorce. I almost never talk about Olaf, even though he is a big part of my post divorce or even through divorce journey, a joyful part, I almost never talk about him. So it's been really nice to share that, thank you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's been a delight to listen and you know I feel I have a feeling you're going to be back on the podcast, like I think that's great to talk about. But thank you so much for being here. I know many of the listeners are going to want to connect with you, follow you online. Could you please just kind of discuss who you work with, the work you do, and then we'll find you on the internet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So I'm Becca Maxwell. You can find me at do divorce right, so on Instagram I'll respond to DMs on Instagram. That's probably the best place. My website is do divorce right, and I've worked with women predominantly who want to make sure that they have an intentionally positive divorce. Amazing, amazing, we're going to have a high conflict or not.
Speaker 1:Yes, we'll have all of your links in the show notes. So, listeners, we just want to thank you for joining us for this one. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Please follow Becca, connect with her and also, if you are thinking about dating after divorce or you're already dating after divorce and you want some help, feel free to schedule a consultation call with me or download my 50 green flags of a healthy relationship so you can kind of think about the relationship you're in and make sure it's the right one for you. We want to thank you for your time and attention and we will see you next time.