#137: You’re Not Doomed to Get Divorced | Samantha

If you come from a divorced family, research says you’re more likely to get divorced. But does that mean you’re doomed to that fate? My guest today says a resounding no. 

She and her husband, also a child of divorce, have built a 24-year-long happy marriage with 3 children. Her message for you? You can do the same. In this episode, we discuss: 

• How she’s overcome her fear of getting divorced and how marriage has actually been healing for her.

• How she felt her father’s absence as a young person and how she ultimately forgave him.

• How to become more confident and resilient or gritty

If you’re afraid of getting divorced, you want to forgive your parents, or you want to become tougher, this episode is for you.

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

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Samantha: [00:00:00] My dad, um, he was an alcoholic.

Joey: Do you remember any particular situation or instance where you're like, Oh, wow. All my friends maybe have moms and dads who live together. And I don't.

Samantha: Some knowledge is just too heavy for children to just be able to bear.

Joey: What was most helpful for you when it came to healing and to growing into a better, more virtuous woman?

Samantha: I knew that there was a problem because everything that happened, I always thought was because of me, something that I did. You know, some, some fault that I had when you're in pain and you're suffering, it's not like you're saying, well, I'm going to make this poor choice now. Right? Like you're really just trying to survive something that feels really overwhelming to you.

Joey: I think so many of us feel powerless because we can't fix our families

Samantha: and we would get into a fight and I would just. I'm going to get a divorce. We're just going to get a divorce. And one day he said to me, Sam, I know that you get really angry, but it hurts me so much when you say that, because I never want to get divorced from you.

Like I'm never giving up on you.

Joey: Welcome to the restored podcast. I'm Joey Panarelli. If you come from a [00:01:00] divorce or broken family, this show is for you. We help you heal your brokenness, navigate the challenges and build healthy relationships so you can break that cycle and build a better life. My guest today is Samantha.

She's a devoted wife, mother, and joyful advocate for God, family, and community with over 20 years in communications and a commitment to volunteer work in religious education and youth ministry. Her healing journey from the unintended wounds of her parents divorce began when she heard a quote that said, The final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage.

And the family. Recently, she completed coursework in human and spiritual integration and trauma informed care. Currently, she serves in public education where she witnesses firsthand the mental health struggles of students and works to find solutions that address the root cause of those problems, learning how to heal the wounds caused by the breakdown of family systems.

If you come from a divorce family, research says that you're more likely to get divorced, perhaps even two to three times more likely. But does that mean that you're doomed to that fate? My [00:02:00] guest today says no. She and her husband, also a child of divorce, have built a 25 year long happy marriage with three children.

Her message to you? You can do the same. In this episode, we discuss how she's overcome her fear of getting divorced herself, how marriage has actually been healing for her, how she felt her father's absence as a young person, how she ultimately forgave him. Really beautiful story. And then the resolution that all of us from divorced or broken families can experience.

And it doesn't involve fixing your parents marriage or solving all the brokenness in your family. And finally, she offers some tips on becoming more confident and resilient or gritty. And so if you're afraid of maybe repeating your parents mistakes. Painting what you saw in their marriage. You want to forgive your parents and you want to become just tougher, stronger, more confident person.

This episode is for you. And with that, here's the conversation. Samantha, welcome to the show. It's so good to have you here.

Samantha: Thank you so much, Joey. I'm so happy to be here today. Thank you.

Joey: I remember when we initially met, I was just so impressed with you and the wisdom you have and the way that you articulate that.

So I know this is just going to be more of that. So I'm really excited to dive into your story. Starting out. I'm [00:03:00] curious. What was life like at home in the years and months before your parents split?

Samantha: So my parents divorced when I was two. So I don't really, I think all of your memories kind of come alive after that two period.

So what my memory really was of my mom. You know, heading the ship on everything. I did not have siblings. So it really was just kind of me and my mom, my mom was the only child. So my grandmother was very central in our life. And so in so many ways where I feel that the family is really meant to be kind of that, you know, the balance of the mom and the dad, right.

It was kind of in our family, my mom and my grandmother, right. Um, and so I feel blessed that I was able to have those. Influences and that love, but also now, you know, looking at that all these years later, I can see that there was some stability that was missing just from, you know, not having my father around and being able to have that influence in my life.

Joey: Totally makes sense. Since you were so young, it makes sense that you have no memory of [00:04:00] what life was like before it. Have you heard stories or been told of kind of the. I don't know, level of dysfunction and what was going on prior to the separation.

Samantha: So it's really interesting. I don't know how many of your listeners have gone through this type of experience, but my dad, um, he was an alcoholic.

And so my mom, obviously when she married him, did not know that probably like anybody else. You know, he was drinking it, you know, it's a socially acceptable thing to do. But when they had me, um, they were in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and they moved back to Pennsylvania. And so my dad was a professor at Millersville college here in Pennsylvania and just through kind of different things, I guess there were some maybe red flags that came up.

And so my mom, I don't know if she must've gotten suspicious one day, but she went to his car and she opened up the back of his trunk and there were just. All these empty alcohol bottles there. So the reality of the situation, I think hit her pretty hard. And I will say, I mean, this would have been, I was born in [00:05:00] 1969.

So I still think it was a time where really they didn't know what to do with alcoholism. Right. So what do you do with that in the family? You know, how do you maybe get counseling for that? You know? Um, and so my mom's really first response, she went into kind of that flea mode, um, just to just. Get out of the situation.

My grandfather came to get her. So when you ask what were my experiences like, it really was a lot of my mom trying to share the best of the situation and in time, give me a little bit more of the truth, but I will say my mom was always just so gracious and always giving my dad the opportunity to reach out and to, you know, to connect with me.

But what was so strange is because we had such a, you know, he was. Absent a lot in the very early part of my life that when he would tell me these stories, it was just so hard to connect to it because it's almost like he was reading them out of a book. I didn't feel that they were me. So it was like I was hearing them, but I had no connection to them, especially with being, you know, so young, you just don't really remember those, [00:06:00] but you have your photos, you look back at that and you know, you try to weave together that story.

But I think that's really hard when it happens at that age and you just don't have those common memories to draw from.

Joey: Yeah, no, that is really hard. And I totally get that kind of like almost looking at it as if it were another person that that story hearing that. So I understand that entirely. Um, so you were two when that happened, if you're comfortable sharing, how old are you now?

Samantha: So I'm 55 now. And I did want to just sort of say, just kind of hold that question for a second, because I've had a long time over my life to sort of, you know, kind of look back and look at things. And I think that today, you know, just the message that I really want to get across. To anybody that's listening is I had zero idea of anything when I was in my young adult phase, I didn't know what having a family meant.

I didn't know how to get to having a family. I didn't know anything. And through just, I think the restoration of my life through. The journey that I've [00:07:00] taken, you know, I'm sitting at a place where I've been married for 24 years. We have three children, nothing is perfect, but we are tremendously happy. And somehow some way, even though we had, cause my husband comes from divorce as well.

We had no model to really show us. The love that we had for one another just prevailed above all things, and we figured it out together. And that is really the beautiful message that can be of marriage is that it might not be perfect, but as long as you're committed to loving the other person and elevating them, you will figure it out.

And that's really just what I want to really be able to share with people today is just that hope that I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't come from a perfect background. There's all sorts of, you know, things that happened that were traumatic in my growing up, but you can figure it out.

Joey: Yeah, such a hopeful message and that's such a perfect tone for this interview because we need to hear that I think even so often, you know, we try to go deep into kind of the brokenness to help people understand it, put words to it, which we've heard and found is really healing, [00:08:00] but I think there is a danger of maybe getting stuck just in the darkness.

And so you saying that I think is so good and so hopeful. So I'm really excited to go deeper into that. I'm curious. So since you were two when your parents split, when did you kind of become aware that You know, things were not the way that they maybe ought to be within a family. Do you remember any particular situation or instance where you're like, Oh, wow.

All my friends maybe have moms and dads who live together and I don't.

Samantha: Yes, I do. It was probably in second grade. I went to Catholic school at the time. And so. You know, my mom would drive me up and drop me off to school. And, you know, I would get invited to different people's parties. And I would say, I don't know what year that was.

Cause I'm really bad with sort of the math of it, but let's say that was probably the mid seventies or so there still were a lot of intact families that, you know, um, that may have been when divorce started to kind of creep in and creep up starting at that time. But. You know, in my growing up, a lot of families were intact.

And so I started to look around and realize like, okay, well, so this is different than [00:09:00] what my friends are doing. And I think another pivotal time when I really recognized it, cause you see it at school, but you see it in moments, right? You see it at a party or you see it, you know, mom and dad going to, you know, a football game or something like that, but where it really, where family life really made an impression on me.

And I realized what was. Missing is we had a place that my grandmother, she had a friend that lived in this place. And so across the street, they had a family and I would go over and play with them all the time. And so I would stay over the night there cause they had a daughter that was my age. So, you know, you do the sleepover things and every Sunday they would get up and they would go to mass together and they would cook breakfast together.

And I just. Really saw what having a two parent household would look like. And I have no idea what kind of, you know, family they had because you don't often know that, you know, at that moment, but just that was when I had really that immersion of saying, Oh gosh, you know, this looks really different than what family life at my house looks like.

Joey: Fascinating. And did you then ask your mom questions or was it just [00:10:00] kind of this thing that was there that you didn't really think too much about?

Samantha: I would love to be honest and say that I did ask questions, but I think, and I'm just going to share this because I feel that this was a very real experience for me.

I think that when you're a child, you pick up on things. And I think that you don't necessarily always want to burden your parents with things. Right. So asking her why it looked different or why, you know, my dad wasn't around, wasn't something that I wanted to, even at that very young age, I didn't want to burden her with that.

And I will say just sort of as part of my story, and we'll probably get into this later, but my mom did remarry after that. So, you know, I did have sort of that other experience, but yeah, I don't think I asked her because I just think I didn't really want to burden her with. You know, maybe what I knew would be a hurtful topic to her.

Joey: I think so many people feel the same. And I know I felt that in a lot of ways, especially if there's been a lot of like drama and a lot of tension around the divorce. We so often just like stuff away our own brokenness, our own hurt. Because we just don't want to, like you said, rock the [00:11:00] boat or add more onto it.

And I definitely understand that. I think, especially as we grow older, it can certainly be like a barrier to healing. And so was there, we're going to get into this a little bit later, but I'm just kind of, if you tease it ahead, was there any moment where you kind of came to the realization like, no, I actually need to, maybe not with mom, but I need to talk about this.

I need to address this a little bit.

Samantha: Yes. Many decades later when, um, so there was something that a priest had shared with me. And again, I know, you know, our audience, we have different people in different places, but I thought this was really helpful. And he had quoted, um, one of the early verses from Genesis in the garden when Eve ate the apple.

Right. And so when Eve eats the apple, she's confronted with God saying, what did you do? And I always heard that in a condemning tone. What did you do? And it never occurred to me that a father who should be the image of the child's first image of what God is like, that there could be a compassionate tone to that.

So instead of shaming [00:12:00] the person for what did you do, this is your fault. It could be, Oh my goodness, I love you so much. What did you do? How can I help you? And that was really the first moment where I knew that there was a problem in the way that I was processing and thinking about things, because everything that happened, I always thought was because of me, something that I did.

You know, some, some fault that I had. So, uh, yeah, then I went through a period of time of trying to really unpack that and to relearn hearing that voice in the compassionate way that the father means for all of us, which is really from a point of love and mercy and wanting to just, you know, help us get back to our whole self again.

Joey: Wow. That feeling of kind of responsibility or feeling like it's your fault is a really common thing we hear with the young people that we work with. I remember a dad sharing a story with me. He and his wife were separating. It was actually the day that he was going to leave the home and it was just really difficult for him.

He didn't want the separation, didn't want the divorce. His son, um, was really [00:13:00] broken up by it too. And he remembers before he was leaving the house, um, trying to find his son, his son was hiding in the bathroom. And so he goes into the bathroom. And, um, the Boy looks at him and says, Dad, is this my fault?

And thankfully the dad like just wrapped him in his arms and said, no, no, of course it's not, it's not your fault. Like this is between your mother and I, but there's something so fascinating about that. I think like, especially as children, we, we do shoulder a lot like that. I'm curious if you have any thoughts or insight into that.

Like, why do we go down that path? And is there anything that you think young people listening right now need to know so that they can kind of unburden themselves? From that responsibility. Yeah, that's

Samantha: a good question. I would say being on the other side of the experience of having children and just seeing how my children have reacted to me and to my husband, we were actually just talking about this in our family.

We had the opportunity to go back and revisit some of our childhood friends. My, my children did. And one of the things that really was impressed upon my heart is children have this very limited time of innocence. And I mean, pure innocence where [00:14:00] everything in the world is good. And I think that. They intuitively know when something is off with their family and their love is just so pure and they just really seek to love their parents so much that I think that they pick up on that in some way, shape or form.

And I think that what happens is. They begin to just model that not really understanding that that isn't their burden to carry that is really for the parents to be able to carry whatever it is that they're going through. But so often some of those things, you know, you talk about dysfunction in the family or you talk about, I mean, in my situation, it wasn't really dysfunction.

It was just. Absence. It was total absence. And then it was, you know, two women trying to, you know, my mother, my grandmother trying to, you know, sort of fill in the blanks with everything. And, you know, again, I loved them, right. I wanted to help them. So I think that's where it comes. I think, and I think that's why.

You know, when we go on and we talk about children and any type of abuse of them, or just even [00:15:00] being in this situation, I know that it's not intentionally abusive, but they are so pure and they are so just good in that period of time when they're young, that it's something that just really easily can get exploited.

Joey: Yeah, no, it makes so much sense. And one of the ways I've heard some people talk about it is, you know, imagine like, like there's nothing you could do to make your parents marriage like amazing as a child. Like, like you don't have control over that. So in a similar way, there's really nothing you can do to destroy it.

Another analogy that we've often used, um, is imagine that you're in a place in the country, maybe like Kansas, where there's a lot of tornadoes. And you're building a home. And let's say that the builder, like, knows that there's tornadoes, and they need to make the home stronger to withstand those tornadoes, make it tornado proof.

Um, but they don't really take that into account, build the home not tornado proof. And then the storms come, and they rip up the house, it falls apart. The way we think of it is that the children are the storm and the marriage is the home. And so if the home is poorly built and they knew that maybe these things were coming, is it the [00:16:00] storm's fault or is it the builder's fault?

And not to cast blame on parents, but I think that's been helpful for some of the young people that we lead realizing like, okay, yeah, like, yes, children do bring stress into your life. It's not intentional. It's not something they. Cause, but it's just, it's a lot of responsibility to raise children. I know that now I have two, um, but it's never their fault if I, you know, were to get angry and, you know, say something that I shouldn't say or do something I shouldn't do.

Or, you know, if I allow that, um, stress that comes from, you know, just all the things that come along with being a parent impact our marriage. So I think there's something there that is instructive that our young people have found helpful.

Samantha: Yeah, I want to how I arrived at that thought process. I want to share a quick story with you.

I don't know if you had ever heard of Corey ten balloon, but she was a survivor of the holocaust. And she wrote a book that I can't now remember, but it was basically just about her experience going through the holocaust and you know how horrific that was. And You know, her family, um, they were able to, you know, hide people and help people, but the story that I'm going to give you, isn't that I just wanted to give you context for [00:17:00] it.

So she, she was in the, you know, she was sitting, you know, with all the, the aunts and the, you know, her mom and, you know, just sort of a very female, I wouldn't say this was well during world war two. So she was sitting with all of these women and there was a man that had come in and I can't remember if it was, you know, a relative or something like that, but evidently this man had a lot of facial hair.

And so it was something that she had not. She had not really seen before and I don't really understand the connection of it, but basically she was trying to ask her mom some questions about, you know, him maybe being a man or going through puberty or something like that, basically sort of a topic that was at that time, a little taboo and the mom deflected from it.

And so she immediately knew that there was. Something there, but she didn't really know what the, what was because everybody was kind of evading it. Um, and so she was on a train ride with her father and she, you know, loved her father so much. And she wanted to ask him about this particular thing. And so he said to her, he said, Corey.

I need you to go pick [00:18:00] up my suitcase. You know, they're in the train, they have like the luggage place. So she goes over to pick up the suitcase and she's, and he had all these watchmaking supplies in it. So it was very, very heavy. And she said, but dad, it's too heavy for me to carry. And he said, no, no, Corey, come on.

Just try to bring that suitcase to me. So of course, as any young child would want to do, tries to tug that suitcase over to him. And she said, father, it's just too heavy for me to carry. And he said, Corey. And so too, it is with some knowledge, some knowledge is just too heavy for children to just be able to bear.

And she was content with that answer. He didn't tell her this thing, but he told her that in time. When she was at a time, you know, that she was able to know about that, that he would let her know. And that was enough for her. And I think one of the mistakes we make with children sometimes is we think of them as being little adults and we pour a lot onto them that they just neurologically do not have the ability to be able to understand.

And it's too much for them. So that's where that [00:19:00] knowledge comes from is. And I tell that with my kids, when they were young, they would ask me a question. I would be like, you know, Elizabeth, that's a suitcase. That's too heavy for you right now. We'll talk about that, you know, one day later.

Joey: I love that analogy.

Wow. So good. And I think so appropriate. And I think instructive even for parents listening right now, how I think there is that temptation, especially if someone listening right now is going through a divorce, maybe they just learned about it or they just chose to go down that path. And they might feel like their child deserves to know.

And I think there is something that, yeah, maybe your child deserves to know, but they don't deserve to know maybe right now. And they don't deserve to know All the details, anything you would add to that for a parent listening right now, who's maybe struggling with that balance between like oversharing and not sharing enough.

Samantha: I think it is really okay to let your children know that there, you know, there is information that in time you will let them know, but for now they have to trust you and be satisfied with the I think that one of the mistakes I've made, um, is trying to avoid some of those topics with my, you know, with my kids, when we've had difficult [00:20:00] situations come up and they, they will trust you, they will know that you, you know, when you say the time is right, that they will let you know.

So it's almost as if you're answering the question without giving them that, but they feel that satisfaction that they've been heard because, you know, just in terms of our anthropology as human beings, right, all human beings want to be known. They want to be heard, they want to be seen and they want to be valued.

And so we just have to do that with our children in a way that is appropriate for the information that we're sharing with them.

Joey: I love that. And, um, no, I think that's a really helpful guiding principle that where you can make decisions and you might not get it perfect, but I think it's better to maybe Aaron, the side of caution, because we've heard just so many stories of young people who were burdened with like the details of infidelity and affairs, and just like a list of.

Maybe sexual sins and things like that, that like they were just so young. They didn't need to hear all that. And so I think that can do so much more harm than good. So I love your advice. I, uh, we just looked at the book, uh, the hiding place. Does that sound right? Okay. Yes. Yeah. I'm excited to look into that.

Like what a beautiful lesson I'm [00:21:00] going back to kind of earlier on. I'm curious, um, would you describe your parents divorce as high conflict or low conflict? And I could define those for our audience. If that's helpful. Uh, the high conflict would basically be maybe there's abuse or violence or high degrees of dysfunction and.

The problems were very overt. And from the child's point of view, obviously you wouldn't have been able to make this determination then, but they maybe even expected a divorce or knew that something needed to change. Low conflict, meaning that the problems were more covert, a little more hidden doesn't mean there's not problems there, but they're a little bit more again, hidden.

The children are typically blindsided by a divorce, even if they might have some inkling or idea that mom and dad are struggling. So I'm curious. Yeah. And from what you've been told since you were two. High conflict or low

Samantha: conflict. I think it was low conflict. I think that my mom did, it could have been high if some of the alcoholism and the things that went along with that, you know, were disclosed to me.

And I think even how my mom navigated that, you know, post marriage after divorce of just trying to be the sole provider, you know, for, you know, for her child. [00:22:00] But, um, I never knew that we, you know, it was really only when I got to be a little bit older that I knew that maybe, you know, from a financial standpoint, we didn't have as much as maybe what other kids had, you know, just never even really occurred to me when my dad wasn't around that, you know, this whole idea of how you might have shared custody or visits.

I mean, when I was. Two, they divorced and I did not see him again until I was 12. Um, so it was a really, really long time. So he was very, very absent. So I say that it was no conflict just because he was absent. Um, and again, I have forgiven him. He went through all of his own, you know, alcoholism ran in his family, all sorts of things, but it was just, um, he was very absent.

And I think that my mom did. A really good job of trying to provide the stability of not letting me know things that probably, you know, as a mother now I'm like, Oh my goodness, how did she navigate all of that? You know what I mean? She had to do everything by herself. So I, yeah, so I think it was, I think it was low conflict, but I think it could have been the other, but for whatever reason, you know, he was away and she just was able to kind [00:23:00] of keep the knowledge to me at an age that was, you know, appropriate.

Joey: I'm curious, a little bit of a sidetrack here, were you afraid of maybe becoming alcoholic yourself? Yes. Were you afraid of getting divorced? Like, yeah, talk about that.

Samantha: Yeah. So, um, when I really understood, because when my mom shared that with me, I think I was probably Maybe in my team. So I understood it, but I didn't really understand it.

And then there was sort of, you know, all these confusing messages of, you know, I think I got really scared when I heard about, you know, could it be genetic? And I really, I can't offer any of what the truth is about any of all that. I don't know enough about the study of alcoholism and, you know, kind of what they're seeing with that.

But what I can share is that for my father, I think that there were very real wounds. That he was numbing himself out to. And so for him, it was very much, you know, not based in a genetic disposition for it, but really just, you know, some generational wounds that, that he was dealing with. Um, and so for me, [00:24:00] when I finally felt free of that worry was when I realized that it wasn't just this.

thing that was lurking that could come and get me. Right. Because, you know, I, when I was younger, I drank alcohol. And so it was sort of always like, Oh my gosh, is this, you know, am I going to become an alcoholic? What's going to happen with this? And then, you know, you get to have teenagers, right. And you start to remember what you were doing as a teenager.

And then the fear really hits. Sue, but what I really was able to lift myself to was that for my dad, at least it was definitely very much just a wounding and a way that he had to cope with it. And he did. Um, he was able, I think when he passed away, I want to say he was 30 years sober. So he had, you know, found recovery in all of the ways, and that was a very big part of his story.

And, and he would probably be the first one if he were still with us to say that, you know, that those were definitely. I don't want to say poor choices. They were made because when you're in pain and you're suffering, it's not like you're saying, well, I'm going to make this poor choice now, right? Like you're really [00:25:00] just trying to survive something that feels really overwhelming to you.

Um, and that's really what trauma is, is just, you know, when something. Affects your ability to cope with something normally, that's when that trauma comes in and then the level of trauma and how it can impact you, the severity of it really has to do with how well that trauma is handled. And so I just want to go back to my earlier point about knowledge and what you talk about with your kids and when it's appropriate, you know, just again, being able to share things with them in an age appropriate way, I think is so important because if you are going through that traumatic experience, right, you want to just be able to.

Not ignore the thing that's happening, because if you ignore it, that trauma, even though it exists, it's going to be exacerbated. But if you try to help them walk through it in all the ways that you can, I think that you'll mitigate the, you know, the effects of that trauma.

Joey: I love that. No, that's great advice.

And what you said made me think of an earlier interview we did with Jay Stringer, who's a therapist, and he explained essentially what you explained. He [00:26:00] said that. Whenever we go through trauma, there's this experience of fragmentation where we just, we feel very broken and maybe even at like rock bottom, but emotionally we're in like a very difficult spot.

And that pushes us into numbing. We use some sort of behavior. For some people, it's alcohol. Other people, it's sex. Other people, it's maybe drugs or, you know, shopping or anything. It could be anything under the sun. And then after that, we have this experience of like isolation because we feel so empty. We feel a lot of shame about our behavior that we just kind of, Sit in our loneliness.

We don't bring it to other people. We don't open up about it. And then that puts us in a really difficult spot, which can then lead to more fragmentation, just kind of go around the circle. So that really resonated with me when I heard him say that, teach that. And that seemed to describe my life. And it sounds like in some way that describes, you know, what your dad was going through.

Cause like you said, it's not like you said, you know, wake up one day and be like, today's the day I'm going to do this horrible thing. That's going to impact my life really poorly and hurt everyone I love.

Samantha: I think exactly that's right. I think that shame is overwhelming. And I think that's why he was absent.

I mean, he told me [00:27:00] later in his life that he felt that, you know, and I often wonder, was he saying this is just a rationalization for him being absent, but I do believe that it was true. And that was, you know, I think it was better for me to stay away so that I didn't, because maybe that could have taken us into that high conflict situation, right?

If he had been around and, you know, there was just sort of all this disruption in our relationship, I really didn't have that. So that was, I do think maybe he knew that he was, Staying away from it, but I do think there was a big part of the shame of just not knowing how to, you know, address that or deal with that, um, or anything, but I am so happy to share that we just had such a beautiful forgiveness before he passed away a lot before he passed away.

And he was able to meet my children, um, which was, you know, amazing. So he was their pop pop and they loved him a lot. And it's just, again, it's another one of those things where the story as it. started didn't look so good, but it had a really beautiful, peaceful ending with, you know, with just being able to have that forgiveness and that healing before he passed away.

Joey: So good. And I do [00:28:00] want to shift to that in a second before we get there. A couple more questions. I'm curious. Um, was there a moment, you talked about this a little bit already, but there was there a moment when you maybe realized that the dysfunction, the absence, the divorce, uh, was impacting you negatively?

Like, was there a time where you kind of woke up to the fact that like, Oh, this is like causing me pain or to struggle in this way or that way.

Samantha: So I think definitely going back to that story of Genesis and knowing that I was blaming myself for a lot of things. And then I think a second piece of that actually was within our marriage and not anything that my husband was doing, but I came from a very female centric household.

I didn't know how to let my husband lead. I had never witnessed that before. So there was a lot in our early days of marriage of, you know, me being in the marriage, the way that, you know, what I saw in my family, which was my, my mom and my grandmother. And so really just trying to take the lead on that.

And so just spiritually, and I think just the way that we are made, I mean, men are. [00:29:00] I believe, you know, when they become fathers and when they become husbands, they are really meant to be that protector, you know, of their wives and to cherish them and to adore them. But I, and again, going back to parents being that first image of God, I didn't have that.

So I didn't know what it was like to be cherished, right? I just knew how to survive and how to cope with things. And so it really, I often tell him that I feel that even though I did not have that level of image of God. From my father, when I met my husband and he was able to provide that to me in a more, you know, husband and wife type of relationship, it really was something that began to turn in me just in terms of being able to have that level of trust that somebody was going to be there for me no matter what.

And I will say as a child, when you're growing up in a situation, one of the most important things is that level of protection that parents give to you. And so just having my husband be that protector of me was. was just something that really switched things around. So I [00:30:00] think that was sort of another piece of it.

When I was thought to myself, okay, I have some wrong beliefs on this thing. I don't really know what marriage is. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do in this situation. I only know what I experienced in my family. And he had similar situations with his mom and dad. And so he didn't really know, but I just sort of go back to the most.

Simple definition that was shared with me about love. And that is to will the good of another. And I will say that in our marriage, that was always, even though we got a lot of things wrong, we always willed the good of the other to the point where, you know, if we had an argument about something or we didn't.

Agree on something that we could come to each other because we wanted the best for that other person. So lots of mistakes getting there, but that was kind of the common denominator, which helped us work through it.

Joey: I love that. No, I could relate on that. We definitely have not had a perfect marriage, but it's, it's beautiful to see how you can still love in the midst of the struggle and then even.

You know, begin to kind of level up for lack of a better term and like get to a better spot where there's more peace and you [00:31:00] work together more as a team and it's, it's totally possible. It's beautiful when you get there. And there will always be, I think, difficult seasons within marriage, but the good can far away the bad.

That's, that's been my experience too. Before we get to kind of the healing and the happier part of the story where I really want to go deep with you. Um, I'm curious. Yeah. What maybe emotional problems? Bad habits, relationship struggles, especially in romantic relationships. Did you experience that you would maybe connect with the breakdown of your family?

Samantha: So I think one thing that I really struggled with, and I don't even know that I have an answer for it, but there was a lot of self sabotage for me. Um, and I still don't really know what that was. I don't know. And I still struggle with it. Um, and I think it really comes from Avoidance of things that are difficult.

Um, maybe growing up and things being difficult, maybe one way of coping was avoiding. And so kind of that earlier question that I ever asked my mom, you know, why my dad wasn't there, what happened, you know, that was an avoidance thing. I'm not going to burden her with that. So. Somehow, I think I learned that and the struggle [00:32:00] with the avoidance is, and I've been thinking about this a lot, I don't know where this message comes from, maybe the culture, but kind of alluding to, you know, when you have problems in marriage or problems in anything, it just feels, you know, bad, but.

When you avoid things, it's almost like you're trying to live completely for comfort because you don't want to feel that discomfort. That's why you avoid things, right? And so where in my life did I get a message that life was supposed to be comfortable? Because I mean, I could look at my faith and say, okay, when we look at, you know, what we read about in the Bible, we look at Jesus, certainly not comfortable, but even if I'm not looking at that and we look at the world, right, what is comfortable about the world, I mean, it's an extremely uncomfortable place, right?

So. That avoidance I think is what leads to self sabotage. And it's really not, again, it's not waking up one day and saying, jeez, I wonder how I can self sabotage my life today. It really comes from, I don't want to deal with that thing. That's hard and things should be comfortable. And so I'm just not going to deal with [00:33:00] it.

And then you kind of don't have that long term understanding that. Eventually it's going to come back, right? It's going to come back and it's going to burble up and then you're going to have to deal with like even a harder thing. So I think that when you talk about, you know, sort of emotions and problems that I've experienced, it really has been, and I did this a lot with my friendships early when things would get really hard.

I would kind of just go very inward because I just. Didn't want to deal with it. I just, yeah, I didn't want to. So it's avoidance, which leads to this feeling of, you know, this understanding of thinking that things should be comfortable and then doing everything to sort of, you know, avoid all those things, which is where I think for me, self sabotage came from.

So I don't know if that's something that's ever come up with your listeners before, but I would say that's been a big thing for me to struggle through.

Joey: If you'd like to share your story with us, we'd love to hear it. You can do that in three easy steps, but first, some of the benefits of sharing your story.

Reflecting on your story and sharing it with someone who can receive it with empathy is actually healing on a neurobiological level. It makes your brain healthier according to neurobiologists. Writing your story is also healing. Studies have shown [00:34:00] that people who write about emotionally significant events In their lives are less depressed or less anxious.

They're healthier and they're happier. And finally, it can be really helpful to someone who's maybe on the same path that you're on, but a bit far behind you, uh, to just hear your advice and to hear your story, since you're going through things that you've been through. And so if you want to share your story, just go to restored ministry.

com. You can fill out the form on that page that will guide you in telling a short version of your story. And then we'll take that and turn it into an anonymous blog article. Again, if you want to share your story now, you can do so at restored ministry. com slash story, or just by clicking the link. In the show notes, I heard the story of one woman who she had been engaged three times and she broke off the engagement three times.

And these are not like bad guys. These were like good men from what she said. And I don't remember the details and each of the engagements. But basically, she was just terrified that they were going to leave her that, you know, It was gonna be a repeat of her parents divorce. And so I think self sabotage, especially in relationships, like you're saying, is something I [00:35:00] think that's so paramount in our audience.

But I wanted to push in maybe a little bit more on a struggle that were that's being articulated by a lot of young people today. And that is like, in order to not avoid, you need a level of grit, you need some grittiness, you need to be able to like, be able, like you said, to push into the discomfort. I'm curious, how did you learn that?

Like, how can someone more importantly listening right now become tougher, like have thicker skin, become more gritty? Because from what I've seen, yeah, like you said, the world is kind of an unforgiving place, and it's really important that we develop that skill or virtue, whatever you want to call it, because otherwise I think we'll feel powerless.

And so I think that's something again that a lot of young people are hungry for today. But how do you develop that? How did you develop that?

Samantha: So I think you have to reframe your thoughts. And that was kind of one thing that I had to do was, you know, so much of it was trying to avoid problems, but really where the growth is, is encountering the problem and working through it, you know, how they have that same only way, the only way through is through or, you know, something to [00:36:00] that end.

And I, I do think that's true, but I think it really comes from an understanding of who we are in our identity. And so this is kind of where I go back to sort of our anthropology for, you know, for what reason do we exist? And so, you know, in the way that I think about it, you know, we exist. To be able to, you know, again, from my faith belief, be that extension of Jesus in the world that we live in.

And so being able to know, love and serve him, but even if you're not particularly religious, just that idea of being able to know other people and be able to hear them and be able to meet them where they are on their journey. There are so many people that I talk with that I just. Just really enjoy hearing their stories and even if their stories are wildly different from mine, but just being able to find that point of connection with each other and being able to kind of work those things through.

So I think, you know, again, knowing why we're created, what purpose it is that we're supposed to serve. Um, and if I would go even deeper than that, you know, knowing why we're created the, the, [00:37:00] the, just the most important aspect of all of that is. You know, the family, because that's where we come from. And so everything stems from the family and we're not, you know, you had given a couple analogies to, you know, just, you know, having a family or, you know, the storms or how you were talking about it with regard to children and parents and knowledge and so forth.

But another really good one that I heard was we do not have any ability of the hand that we're given. If it's a poker analogy, right? We have no control over the cards that we're going to get. But we do have control of how we're going to play those cards. And so that is what I think is kind of, when we go back to what our purpose is, you know, nothing's going to be perfect.

And comparison is the thief of joy. It's so easy to look at this person over here and that person, and they have this and they have that, and everything's easy for them because they had money or whatever, but that's not where we are. We're in our situations and we are all called in a period of time. To serve the way that we can serve and to give what we can give and to live in the way that we can, [00:38:00] because that's the purpose that we're made for.

So we can't look at what others are doing and we can't live in the past, right? We can't live in lament of the things that we didn't have, and we can't live in the future for the things that we're afraid may or may not happen. The only moment that we can live in is this present moment and to be able to just.

Be humans and to flourish in this moment. And again, can't control that hand that we were dealt, but we absolutely. And I think that's where the resilience is, is that knowledge of saying, yeah, I could look at these things. I mean, there are deeper things in my story, other things in my story that are, you know, very harmful that are very sad, but also I can't change that, but I can change who I am today and, you know, how we have a family and how we have a marriage.

And I think that the common denominator to it is. That's seeking, right? You might not get it and you might make a hundred mistakes before you get to the learning, but the learning always comes through the mistakes. And that's how I feel that you are able to develop that resilience is to have that knowledge that even though this is [00:39:00] uncomfortable, the greatest growth is always through the greatest suffering.

Joey: So good. You made me think of, I was kind of asking myself the question, like, how have I become grittier, more resilient, tougher? Not that I'm at any sort of pinnacle by any means, I'm trying to improve on that metric all the time. But, um, I think one of the things has been just like doing hard things intentionally, whether that's like through exercise or any sort of like, Kind of self control, right?

Any sort of mortification I know is a word that was sometimes thrown around of like kind of denying yourself small things. I think that helped a lot. The other thing, um, kind of maybe the opposite side of comparison being like admiration, like looking at people who maybe who have gone through harder things than I've gone through, and then seeing like in spite of that, they still push on.

And they accomplish amazing things and beautiful things in their lives. And so there's something inspiring about that that I think has been motivating for me. But I love what you said too, just about how I think so many of us feel powerless because we can't fix our families. And we almost are tempted to [00:40:00] think that that's the resolution of the problem that we're facing.

And what I hear you saying and what I would also propose is that that's actually not the resolution. That's not our job. It would be really great if we can maybe help and influence that situation, help to grow those relationships and do our part of forgiveness and all the things that we've discussed and we'll discuss.

But I think all we can do is, like you said, play the hand that we've been dealt and figure out how we can then go out and build strong families, healthy families, healthy relationships. And whether we do that directly, You know, in our own marriages and families or indirectly by helping the people around us have like healthy marriages and families to me, that seems to be the resolutions, your thoughts on that,

Samantha: I would completely agree with you.

And I think that, you know, one of the things that I have heard. And I don't know if it's, you know, I mean, I can test it out in my own theory, and that is you can't be simultaneously angry and thankful at the same time. And that's why there's always such a focus on starting with gratitude because those two emotions can exist with each other and where you get [00:41:00] gratitude.

Is not when you go inward, right? That's where the enemy wants us is to be isolated by ourselves, but it's when you go outward and you choose to help that other person, whatever that way is. I mean, for me, I was sharing with somebody yesterday that I'm an assertively friendly person. I genuinely love to meet with people.

I'm encouraging, you know, I will find, you know, something good to say about everybody, just because I genuinely want to be able to connect with that other person. And so whether it's just a kind word, whether it's a. Smile, whether it's, you know, being, you know, more formal and volunteering for something, getting yourself out of your own world and helping somebody and somebody else's world is pivotal because it does build that heart of gratitude and you can't be angry and you can't be a victim.

You can't be any of those things when you are in that state of gratitude. So I totally agree with you with that. And I do want to go back to one thing that you said, which I think is just. Beautiful. Because one thing that I have been learning about that probably is a little bit more of a secular kind of a solution is the ability to reframe our thoughts.

There's a [00:42:00] really good book by the guy that is the author of the Doonesbury Scott Adams, I think it is. Okay. Yeah. Um, and so it's called reframe my brain or something like that. And I've actually shared some of this with my kids, because I think it's a tangible thing for them to be able to understand. And you did a beautiful thing.

You took the concept of comparison and you reframed that to admiration, right? So instead of looking at somebody and saying what I don't have, look at somebody else and seeing what they do have and admiring them. For what it is that they have persevered through, right. And being able to get that from him, it's beautiful.

Just being able to reframe those thoughts. And another one really has to do with comfort, right? You know, why are we thinking that this world is comfortable? Let's get into the thought of, you know, suffering builds through it. Right. And I'm not saying that that's what it is, but just make it okay. That that's.

Suffering, which we don't want to do that. There is goodness that comes from that. And so reframing is a really good technique for being able to do that. And I do highly recommend this book. I think it's a really just a good, a simple thing to be able to do to, you know, look at things that maybe you might be [00:43:00] struggling with and be able to reframe those thoughts.

Joey: Okay. I love that. We'll link to that in the show notes. Thank you for mentioning that. That's super powerful. I've heard good things about his content. And so thank you for mentioning that. Um, you mentioned assertiveness. Um, you seem to be like a very confident woman, a confident person. And so I'm curious, were you always that way?

And if not, how did you develop that confidence?

Samantha: Um, no, I was not. And I still don't think that I am. I think that what I'm more comfortable with is kind of that thing that you said, where I'm going to take steps every day to do that thing that's uncomfortable because it just builds who you are as a person.

But I think that where I came out of that and I got a little bit more of that assertive friendliness is when I was. really young. I was very shy and just really hard to walk into situations. And I don't have like this great theological or philosophical solution to it. I will just tell you that when I was 15 and a half, I lived in Orlando and I went to go work at SeaWorld.

And I only went to go work there versus other theme parks because they hired at the youngest, right? They hired at 15 and a half, whereas most other jobs were 16. And I really wanted to get a job. [00:44:00] But I was exposed to so many different cultures, you know, people coming in, I worked in a little ice cream shop.

And so there were people that were coming in, you know, you had a lot of people that were coming in from Brazil or just different countries. And so it really put me in an environment. And this kind of goes back to what you said about doing the hard things. I don't think if I had not done that, I don't think that I would have learned that skill of being friendly and, you know, putting myself out there with other people, but you have to expose yourself to those things to be able to grow those.

skills. And so I really did it because I wanted a paycheck, there wasn't any virtuous reason for it, but it was a wonderful thing that came through. And, you know, it still is a struggle. I'm not always the most comfortable when I'm in a big group, but I just find that there's always somebody, I think that a common denominator for most everybody is you can just talk about your family and.

You know, not everybody has a great family situation, but somebody is usually proud of something, whether it's a brother, a sister, or even a pet, right? There's always something that even if you have differences, people are generally proud of some aspect of, you know, their [00:45:00] family or their family life or something of that nature.

So that's really how I walked through that is doing exactly what you said, just exposing myself to hard things. I

Joey: love that. It's funny. I've noticed with people who come across as like very confident, which in my opinion, you do, which it's such a beautiful virtue and quality, they often think like, well, I'm not that confident or not.

So there's something like there's humility in it, which I think is really good. And then the other thing you said, I thought, well, that was really good was just how, like, in order to become confident, you kind of need like evidence to back up your confidence. And that's what I hear you saying. When you went through hard things, you kind of put your neck out there.

And I think that's maybe where a lot of people get stuck. I remember. I was, you know, especially in my early teen years, more shy. I remember just being terrified by the idea of getting up in front of a room and, you know, speaking and any of that. And, you know, now it's kind of like laughable. It's such a joke to do that in front of like hundreds of people now and soon like thousands of people.

So, uh, so it's definitely a blessing, but, but I think like you just got to start, you got to kind of do the things that feel a little bit outside of your comfort zone, a little bit out. maybe stretching you a bit. And once you do enough [00:46:00] of those, you have this whole, like, kind of stack of evidence that you can say, Oh, actually I just did this thing and I did that thing.

And now I'm, I'm still standing. I'm here. And I, maybe I could do this next thing. That's a little bit more of a challenge and I can kind of keep, you can keep like leveling up. So I think that's what probably I would say to my younger self if I were to go back and be like, you know, feeling insecure and unconfident, being like, this is how you do it.

This is somewhat of the path. It's not a maybe straight. path up the mountain, but, um, by taking those little steps and having that evidence to fall back on, I think is, is really good. That helped me in sports too, thinking through like even sports psychologists talk about having like a few just memories where maybe you were nervous or there was a big moment, but there was a lot at stake and you came through, you know, it doesn't even need to be like earth shattering, but something that you can kind of like anchor on to so that when you're in a difficult moment or a challenging moment, you can then say, well.

I got through that. I probably get through this too.

Samantha: I would agree with that. And I would say on the other side of it, because again, when you have teenagers for children, you walk through the awkwardness that is high school, right? [00:47:00] It's just that place where you just are like, so first of it is you're trying to figure out what your identity is, right?

So part of it is just who am I? And then the other part of it is just this, you know, extreme self consciousness that everybody is Sort of looking at you and judging you. And you know, the thing that I always tell my kids, which I know probably doesn't resonate with them, but just as much as you're thinking, everybody's looking at you, they're thinking that you're looking at them and to go back to the, you know, the concept of doing things is that I always go, how much is this going to matter to me in a week?

You know. Two months, six months, and generally anything that would prevent me from doing something, if I really look at it, it's probably not going to be anything more than a momentary, you know, discomfort, not something that I will remember really in the longterm. And so that's another thing that helps me push past, you know, that barrier that you might have of, I don't want to do it, but one other, just.

Suggestion I would give to your listeners. Um, one thing that I heard and I practice and I think it's true, but you were talking about doing the hard things like the self discipline, right? The thing that they [00:48:00] say is one of the greatest determinants of being able to push forward in your day and to develop that self discipline.

Is that first heroic moment of your day to get up in the morning, to build that schedule, right? Not to lay there and, Oh gosh, like I'll just get up. I'll scroll on my phone. Like when you say that you want to get up, you get up at that time every day, because at that moment you are conquering from that sleep state, getting into your conscious state, that first.

Right. Feeling of like, ah, I don't want to, you're conquering it the first thing in the day. And it just this kind of builds your momentum throughout the day because you did it and it's hard.

Joey: Oh, it is. But no, I love that. And I, one thing that's been helpful for me in the last, like probably six months is like, yeah, having that first part of the day, like very structured and, you know, obviously like a routine people talk about having more routines, but for me, it's going to the gym and having people that are kind of holding me accountable.

Like if I don't show up, they're going to be like, text me like, where are you? So, so that's been great. It's kind of like that, you know, when people talk about like linchpin habits or like kind of cornerstone habits, habits that are just kind of like [00:49:00] bedrock and upon what you can build other habits.

That's been helpful for me for whatever that's worth for our listeners. But so good. I could talk with you forever. I know we're getting toward the end of our time. So I wanted to. Kind of get into, um, maybe some healing tactics and tools and just like what was most helpful for you when it came to healing and to growing into a better, more virtuous woman?

Um, were there any books, podcasts, any other tactics that you use that really have helped you?

Samantha: So I would say that one of the first things that I did was I didn't. So there are a lot of different ways that you can sort of approach healing through therapy or, you know, what, whatever those paths might look like.

For me, I had heard priests talk about going to spiritual direction. And so it was something that I thought was just only available for religious people. I was like, Oh, spiritual direction. I guess they sort of tell you how to be spiritual or grow in your journey. I didn't know. And so I went up and I was Said, well, you know, what is this?

And he said, he explained to me that it, you know, is basically somebody that has been formed and educated, you know, in spiritual direction, and it [00:50:00] really was different from therapy and that they were trying to help you be able to see where God was God's discernment in your life. So again, this is a little bit more of kind of a faith solution for it.

But I think that regardless of whether it's. Spiritual direction or it's therapy for me. I wanted it to be that cause I am definitely grounded in my faith and wanted to know where God was leading me, but I think it is that developing of that self awareness, right? And so I think both avenues can do that because you can't really address anything until you're aware of it.

And the thing with. You know, living in this world is, there are millions of messages out there and a lot of them are really wrong. Um, and you know, I know even in my marriage, you know, some of that was, you know, just watching, you know, it's so silly. I feel like, you know, this is something that would have been said a long time ago, but you know, it is the messages that you see in movies or that you, you know, you might read in a book and it begins to form what your beliefs are of how things are supposed to be.

So I think that one thing that's really important [00:51:00] is to know that anything that is out in the culture, it is a message, you know, you might not be picking up on it, but it is a message. And so you need to really be evaluating where does this belief that I have come from? And is it true? You know, is it a principle that I want to build my life on?

Um, because I think that, you know, principles are an important. Architecture for building our lives. What are our core principles? And I'm going to give you one that's been an important one for me. Um, and this came from ST thomas. And so, um, I'm going to paraphrase it, but basically, um, the way here, let's see if I have it and maybe I can read it.

The principle is whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. So to put that in a very layman's terms, it's basically me saying, um, I'm responsible for what I say, but Joey, you're responsible for what you hear, right? Because how you hear me, how I come across a lot of that is based on what your belief systems are, right?

And so, so for me in any relationship, [00:52:00] Just trying to get to that place of, you know, I know that I am good intentioned, um, and hopefully in a relationship that person understands that I'm, you know, good intentioned, but at the end of the day, being able to be cognizant that people can hear you through a different way than maybe what you intended because of their beliefs, the way that they are brought up.

So it's kind of like, to me, a secret decoder of how do we get things so wrong? Sometimes it's because. You know, we're all formed differently. And so the way that we're formed can impact the way that we receive information from other people.

Joey: I love that. That's really helpful. And I think like within that, the lesson I'm learning from you is with the people who have kind of proven themselves to you, who love you, like we should assume the best intentions.

Um, it doesn't mean they're always act. From those best intentions, but we should kind of give them the benefit of the doubt in those moments, which I think is so helpful, especially within marriage, because there's so many chances for missing each other and assuming maybe that they're not on your team and they're, they're, [00:53:00] you know, trying to hurt you or something, which is, you know, usually not true.

So I love that. Was there anything else that was really helpful that you would want to impart to everyone listening when it came to like your growth and healing? It sounds like, I did want to ask you, feel free to answer that, but I wanted to also ask you like how marriage has been healing for you, because you've talked about that a little bit.

I would love to hear a little bit more about how has marriage been healing?

Samantha: Yeah. Marriage has been such a gift to my husband and I, because we really have been able to work through things together. And again, with that belief that we are willing the good of the other, when we do have those miscommunications of things, you know, I mean, he's been such a steadfast rock for me when we first got married.

Um, we got married in 2000 and we always joke, cause I can never exactly remember it. 2000. And I should be able to remember that cause it's an even number. Um, but we got married in 2000 and by April of 2001, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer and she died three months after that. And that, I mean, just hearing a little bit about my story and knowing how much of a matriarch she was to me, I felt like [00:54:00] I had been sucker punched.

And so we had a lot to deal with. I mean, we had not been married a year yet and, you know, this whole person that was the center of my world was, you know, was removed from me. So I don't want to say that he had to prove himself to me because I loved him and he didn't have to, but he really was my anchor of stability during a time that was completely, I just felt like my, my true North had been removed from me.

I just really didn't know where to look. I mean, my mom was everything to me and I got so much from her just in terms of her love and, you know, just advice. She was a living memory of me, right? Like she's a part of me. And so my mom has passed and my dad has passed. And so some of that living memory, because I'm an only child, you know, it gets really diminished, but being in a marriage with my husband has given me the identity of what we're really called to do, which is man and woman are meant to join together as one flesh.

You know, we, we have our families of origin, but really, you know, those are behind us. And this is really where the message of hope is, I think for the [00:55:00] listeners is again, Can't do anything about those families of origin, but we can play that card really well when we're, you know, with our person, with our, in our marriage, our, our spouse.

And so really just being able to come together and another definition of marriage is that we are constantly being like iron sharpening iron. And the purpose of marriage isn't to get a house. It's not to get a dog. It's not to, you know, be able to. You know, put all of your pictures out there it's to sanctify one another.

And if I want to use a less preachy word, it's just to make each other the best versions of ourselves. And there is really no other way to do that other than with somebody that, you know, that you are loved and that you're committed to. And even if by chance you get into a marriage, you know, and it doesn't work out that way, you know, God will make straight every path that you have.

I don't feel that I can make any mistakes because not, not that I don't want to ever try. Like I try to live a virtuous life, but I don't let myself get too hung up on the shame that I heard as the earlier version of myself, because I know that I'm [00:56:00] seeking to become the better version of myself. I'm seeking to that virtue.

And so I know at the end of the day, whatever mistakes I've made, if I am genuinely. You know, humble about them and I'm sorry about them that it will be worked to a greater good. And I have that confidence and that belief that, you know, that that is the plan for me. That is the plan for my husband and for our family.

Joey: Love it. Two other questions. How did you come to forgive your dad? You, you mentioned that before and I wanted to go back into it. That's one part. And the second part is how did you overcome that fear that you had of Divorce and maybe repeating what you saw in your parents marriage.

Samantha: The question about my dad, about how I came to forgive him, it's really ironic in the sense that I came to forgive him in the time where we were probably in the period of one of our greatest fights.

Um, my dad, you know, again, the mode of the receiver, right? And so sometimes the way that he would hear things that I said to him came from his brokenness. And so he would hear something in me that was. Not at all what I intended it to be. And so there'd be this [00:57:00] misunderstanding. And then of course my brokenness would be like, well, how dare you say that?

Like you left, you know, like, sorry. Um, so I don't remember specifically what the fight was, but he had really gotten very angry at me about something. And. I had committed that I was going to go visit him before this fight had happened. Um, and he remarried. And so I had told his wife, you know, I'm going to be here on XYZ day, you know, cause they lived in Colorado.

I should share that. I live in Pennsylvania. They lived in Colorado. So I had to actually go take a flight to go see him. Um, and I committed to being there this day and I said I would do it. And we had this fight and it was terrifying, but gosh, I just knew. That if I did not do this hard thing, remember that thing that we talked about doing this hard thing that by.

Any other reason I would have been right not to go see him right in the world standard, you know, he had hurt me and it would have been forgivable for me to not do that really hard thing to get on a plane by myself, [00:58:00] go get the car, go drive to them, right? Go see them knowing that my father was. Seriously angry with me, but he was dealing with, um, some Alzheimer's and I, I didn't really know, you know, I didn't know, you don't really know what that disease, how long somebody is going to, going to have with you, whether they die physically or whether they just lose their memories of things.

And so I really said, you know, I have to do this. And sort of what I told myself is. At the end of the day, I know I'm doing the right thing and how he receives me is not in my control, but what is in my control is being able to forgive him. And so I went out and I did it. And I actually ended up having a family friend, um, an aunt type person.

She had family that she was going to see in Colorado. So she went with me. And so that was an answered prayer because it would have been terrifying to think about going out there by myself, but I was committed to it. And so I just did it. I did the hard thing and it was beautiful. And I think that. You know, I think my dad was completely surprised to see me come through that door.

I think they both had thought she's not coming and I didn't even let them know I was, I just, I had told them [00:59:00] like weeks before that, like I'll be there on X, Y, Z date, never called to confirm, just showed up. It's like, hi. Um, so the element of surprise maybe worked a little bit because nobody could really think about it because I didn't really tell them that I was for sure going to come, but, um, it's just doing that hard thing.

It really is. You just, and you can't be dissuaded from it because all I can control is what I do. I can't control how other people receive me, but I would have felt bad with myself if I hadn't done it.

Joey: Love that. And there's something about when you do hard things to not think about it too much. You just have to like do it.

Um, which I found is like, is, is helpful. You kind of turn off that part of your brain to some extent. I know that you need to think through certain things, but, um, but wow, super good. And I know we're close to the end of the time here, but I just wanted to ask you this question about, um. Well, two more questions.

One about like, how did you overcome that fear of divorce? Cause I think that's something so many of us just feel so strongly. And we might even like avoid love relationships, marriage altogether because it controls us so strongly. How'd you work through that?

Samantha: I wish I had a better answer for you, but I will just say, um, the way that I was able to overcome it was [01:00:00] really through the strength of my husband, because.

My husband just, he showed up for me in every way before we were married. You know, when we were together, he called when he said he was going to call, you know, we did the things that we said that we were going to do when he said it, all of the inconstancy that I felt with my dad's absence was completely replaced by the steadfastness of my husband.

And so I was able to get past that because. Yeah. He spent a long time building up my trust. You know, he didn't ask me to come to him. He walked, you know, over the bridge to come get me and build that trust. And in building that trust, he was able to, you know, to lead me to him, to lead me to trusting that it was going to be okay.

And early on in our marriage, one thing that I would always do, because again, it was my brokenness and we would get into a fight and I would just. I'm going to get a divorce. We're just going to get a divorce. And one day he said to me, he said, Sam, he said, I know that you get really angry, but it hurts me so much when you say that, because I never want to get divorced from you.

Like I'm never giving [01:01:00] up on you. And it just hit me so much that, you know, that this was a person that had truly earned my trust. And even though we make mistakes, and even though there are times when I misunderstand him and he misunderstands me, like at the end of the day, we were really committed to each other.

So I would just say, you know. It's not easy to find who your person is going to be. I don't believe that that person is the only one person for you. I can't imagine being with anybody other than my husband, but we made a choice to be together and we made a choice to put the other before ourselves and in that choice and in that commitment, I think is how we were able to walk day by day, moment by moment.

To not being afraid of divorce because it was certainly present in the beginning, but again, you just take that one little step and it comes back to, you have to live in the present. You can't live in the future or in the past because the only thing that's there are assumptions and theories and things that are fearful.

And the best acronym I heard for fear is false evidence appearing as real. And that's what [01:02:00] happens when you live in the past and the future, right? It's that false evidence. It seems so real, but it's just your trust.

Joey: I love that. And what I'm learning from your story, I've heard this elsewhere, is like, action is the antidote to fear.

Like you said earlier in the conversation, you just have to push through it, move through it. You can't go around it, under it, over it. You have to like push through that fear, especially if it's something that's worth fighting for. And what I've found in my life, and I know others have found this as well, is like, when you overcome fear, you feel free.

And that opens up so many possibilities to, to love, to grow, to accomplish things, to go after your dreams.

Samantha: It opens up the door for you to keep going and experience the next thing. When you begin to shut the door to those things, you get very limited and your world gets really small. And so we never want our world to get small because when it gets really small, it's hard for us to have an understanding about other people because we're not experiencing other things.

Um, so I would definitely agree with that action. You know, action is the antidote to that. And again, it doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be that [01:03:00] first thing that you do in the morning where you get up at 5 30 because You said you were going to, or you're going to go take that walk. I mean, I think the greatest barrier that I had to my freedom was thinking that they had to be these huge heroic steps, right?

But oftentimes it's really the series of the small steps that you do every day on repeat that help you break through. And that liberation. It just feels like you're light that you just have all of those pressures and those burdens removed from you. And again, you might not get it perfect, but you're just taking that next step and you're taking those next actions and it is the greatest feeling.

Joey: Samantha, I have a hundred more questions for you, but we'll cut it there. You're so wise and so articulate and I just, I've really learned a lot from you. I appreciate you coming on the show. So thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and sharing your story. So openly, so vulnerably, I know we all learned a lot from you.

So thank you. I want to give you the last word. What final encouragement advice would you offer to maybe the younger you who's listening right now?

Samantha: I think the advice that I would give myself would be [01:04:00] really to remember that this life that we have, you know, is this one life and that all the things that we get hung up in our minds about really are inconsequential because when you start to move through them, you realize that that thing that you were worried about, like, you don't remember any of it.

I tell that to my kids all the time. I'm like, I don't remember. I mean, I remember my mom's death. I remember my father's death, but all the other stuff, it's really just. So momentary, and it is a way that can hold you back from things. And so I just say, take that next small step, you know, acknowledge, you know, where you are in life and be okay with that and just keep taking the next.

Small step and just living in that present moment. And if you can do that, I assure you all of the things will work out because our life is meant to be a journey. It's not meant to be perfect from the beginning. It's all a work in progress. We are all learning to become the best version of ourselves. But the only way that we can really do that is through those series of actions that we take each and every day.

So keep taking those steps.

Joey: If you [01:05:00] want to contact Samantha, you could actually do so through the email and the show notes or just click on the show notes in your phone, turn email there. And with that, that wraps up this episode. If this podcast has helped you feel free to subscribe or follow us on your podcast app, whether that's Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen, not only is that the best way to avoid missing future episodes, but the more.

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Always remember you are not doomed to repeat your family's dysfunction. You can break that cycle and build a better life. And we are here to help and keep in mind the words of CS Lewis, who said you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.