During her marriage, Kristi and her husband had their own business. When she left their marriage, she also left the business and she is now doing something completely different – working as a divorce coach. (See The Divorce Encouragist for what is a divorce coach ). Kristi (@DivorceToHappy) has her own website and blog – Divorce to Happiness and says setting up the website is her most significant accomplishment since ending her marriage. Here’s Kristi..
I live in a small town. There’s less than 5,000 people here and it’s very much everybody knows everybody and everybody knows everything. They’re nosey and it’s a religious community also. We’ve been here a long, long time and what made it even more dramatic was that we had an electrical business together.
When you live in a small town and the electrical company you own is the second largest employer in the town and you walk out the front door, you can imagine the mayhem it caused.
There are people who look down on me for what I did. Still, even in today’s society, even with the divorce rate where it’s at. There’s still a stigma attached to it.
After I left our company, I went to work for another company, where according to God’s plan, I met the man who is now my fiancé. They didn’t like that we had gotten engaged and we worked for the same company, so I came home and started an accounting business. I had worked in the accounting field for years.
Well, I sat here and I thought to myself,
“After divorce, everybody says if you can do what really want to do in life, you really need to do that.”
I sat here for probably two days straight and contemplated,
“How am I going to do something that’s going to help somebody else?”
My sister called and said,
“You’re really good at explaining things that don’t make sense to a lot of people. Why don’t do you do something with that?”
So Divorce To Happiness was born. I didn’t even tell my family for two weeks what I had done and then they were like, “You’re crazy.” My fiancé, however, he’s not that way. The minute I told him, he said,
“That’s you. That is completely you.”
The goal of the site is to help other people going through the end of their marriage and struggling to regain a life. Divorce happens. There’s nothing more terrible than that, but, you have to go on and have a life afterward. You have to go on for your children because they need to see you happy.
You hear about so many women and men who are so bitter and resentful and angry. I want them to understand that if you give yourself the ability to get rid of that feeling, even for a day, how different you would feel. If I could give them that little, bitty piece of peace, that peace inside them will grow and they will understand that yes, you don’t like your ex, yes, you don’t like the things he does, and yes, you don’t like how he acts but it is his choice. You have to become at peace with yourself so can you let that all go and go on with your life.
I just want people to understand that it doesn’t have to be the end. There is happiness but it’s not going to come until you are willing and able to work on yourself to get to that point.
Kristi’s favorite part of her website is her blog and just recently her daughter wrote a post about divorce through the eyes of a teenager. Through her blog, her coaching, her Facebook site and sharing her story here, I know that Kristi has already help both men and women facing the start of a new life. Ultimately, Kristi’s goal is to reduce the divorce rate and in the final post in Kristi’s story, she shares her vision. I’ll give you a clue – it’s not about making it easier to end a marriage.
I love that I get to chat with so many women who are willing to share the story of their life after divorce. I know that it has helped me grow and find myself again. Hope it’s helping you, too.