My guest today, Marie, has had an amazingly tragic, yet beautiful life. We didn’t get too deep into the tragic part of it in the show so I will give some of the background here. When she was fourteen she became a mom and was in a very toxic relationship which she stayed in for 25 years. She had three more children, was victim to domestic abuse, drugs/alcohol, and infidelity (by both her and her husband). She also experienced the tragic deaths of her father, sister, and niece (which was particularly horrible as her sister had a bad reaction to the wrong medication and was hallucinating when she dropped her daughter out of a window). For many people that would have been enough and for Marie it almost was. She had bouts with Depression and suicide where it just seemed like life was never going to be OK.

But that is where the beautiful part comes in. Marie eventually got out of that toxic relationship and married a new man who she loves deeply. She took the lessons she learned from her experiences and realized that she needed to find “honesty” and a relationship with God to get her back to where she wanted to be in life. For Marie, a relationship with God meant having a reason and a method to hold herself accountable. Having the ability to figure out where she could be better, where she needed to make changes, and where she could be more honest with herself and the world. Eventually she took all of this Wisdom she gained and wrote a book called The Pretty Divorce, where she tries to help women realize that they have the ability to come out of toxic Relationships, create brighter futures for themselves, and have healthy relationships with people who truly love them, if they so choose to do so. 

I appreciated so much Marie’s raw authenticity and sharing stories of where she gets it right but also where she gets it wrong. It made the insights she was sharing that much more potent. We also spent a good bit of time talking about her relationship with God and what that looks like, as well as the importance of parents embracing honesty and accountability with and for their children. This was truly a beautiful conversation and I appreciate Marie a ton for being on.

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Terry McMullen Podcast Host

I spent much of my career trying to consult companies on how to better achieve their goals. I was a Finance major, a Harvard Business School graduate, and a business strategist. I've always been curious and I've always loved trying to solve problems. It was a really good fit for a while, but then life happened.

Within the span of a couple of years I had a son, my sister tragically passed away, and my wife became severely ill with Multiple Sclerosis. All of a sudden everything I thought I knew about life didn't seem to make sense anymore. I needed to raise my son and teach him how to be a good person but I realized I didn't even know what it meant to be a good person, let alone know how to teach him to be one. I also realized that I wasn't capable of being the person my wife needed me to be to help care for her. Simply put, I wasn't good enough.