We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Bouley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jennifer , thank you so much for joining us and opening up about the very personal topic of divorce. So many in the community are going through or have gone through divorce and we think hearing about how others dealt with the aftermath and managed to build a vibrant, successful life and career despite the trauma of divorce can be helpful to many who might be feeling a degree of hopelessness. So, maybe you can talk to us about how you overcame divorce?
Getting a divorce was never something I wanted or anticipated. I was not just divorcing my husband, I was divorcing the entire life I had in hopes for a better one for all.
The way out of a 14 year marriage was not guided and with two amazing children navigating this exit was the toughest experience of my life. I can’t say that I have survived it just yet. I have overcome many challenges along the way but the journey isn’t necessarily over. I am happy I am no longer in the marriage but the ramifications and aftermath was not something I was prepared for.
The effects last for so much longer when you have children involved. If it is a bitter divorce like mine the psychological effects on the children (and adults) can last for years. As good as the intentions might be….a person can not always have control over the outcome.
When I decided to leave, it is safe to assume that the circumstances got bad enough that staying was no longer an option. My “bad enough” in a nut shell was watching the joy that was once the fuel to keep us all going vanish before my eyes and replaced with negativity, disharmony and imbalance for all. What makes it worse is feeling completely powerless to change any of it and feeling alone in the fight.
No one paid any attention to my SOS. I tried every approach I could think of. Counseling, individual therapy, family therapy. Reiki, meditation, church, more friend support. My husband was going to lose me if he refused to fight for me or listen to me. I was a ghost. I was ignored. He was checked out. Maybe he didn’t know what to do or how to fix it either. I begged for my husband’s help in adjusting the sails. I saw the disaster ahead but as loud as I was speaking and the thousand ways I tried to speak it ….my words, my tears and my frustration fell on deaf ears. I was terrified. My ex husband did not want a divorce yet he wasn’t willing to do anything to work on the marriage either. I felt that the insanity of doing nothing about anything and letting the dysfunction perpetuate was a change that only I could make.
When deciding to get married, divorce was not even an option. I was in it to win it. I still look back, do the math as to what happened, when and how and why. The effects are still echoing to this day. Here is the beginning of the end from my perspective:
We had just moved to my dream home, the kids were doing well, and my husband had a new job that he loved. My mother in law had just moved in from Colorado after retiring and I was excited to have raised my boys to an age where I could begin to let go a little. My mother in-law was going to be taking care of the boys, who were thriving at the time, and I was excited to return to my career as a Makeup Artist in film and television. My husband was also in the film business. Both of us worked long hours. 12-16 hour days including commute. I took freelance jobs so I did not have to work every day.
My boys were in 3rd and 5th grade. I still found time to volunteer, serve on the board and be the basketball mom attending tournaments and soccer games. The amazing thing about the film industry is, we get paid well and do not have to work that many days per month to make a good living. However, when a job calls 1 week in advance or 4 days in advance you have to drop everything and go. I was set up well for this now that my mother in law was living with us. It was working well for about a year. I enjoyed working and coming home to my healthy, happy boys. It was important for me to show them that I can work outside of the home as well as inside the home. It meant something to me. I also loved my job. I worked with the most amazing directors, actors, musicians and my longest client was Toby Keith, 16 years of loyalty. All seemed to be in balance.
My husband would often joke during the marriage and make reference to me sitting on my rear and would say “what did you do all day sit round and eat bon bons?” Yes, I had a good life but I also worked hard keeping my kids moving and grooving. I was busy! Going to PTA meetings, basketball/soccer meetings and practices, charity events, volunteering and serving on every board in elementary, middle and high school. I did all of the shopping. School clothes, school supplies, shopped often for my husband’s clothes and did all of the decorating, maintenance, scheduling and managing all operations associated with my family and house. I did all the scheduling of meetings with teachers, teacher conferences, and helping with homework. I made breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Hosted endless play dates and birthday parties and school charity events. Then there was laundry to do, pets to care for, vehicles to service, appointments to make for my husband like golf tee times and massages.
I enjoyed all of it. I stayed busy while my husband stayed away from home for 12 hours a day 5 days a week . Sometimes longer. We had no family in town up until my mother in law moved in so I was so looking forward to having support and for the boys to get closer to their grandma. I liked running my household and being the one who made the wheels turn productively. There was so much joy in watching my children grow and also watching all of their friends grow with them. I absolutely love children and I loved the evolution of each year unfolding. There was so much love I gave to my children and my home and my family. I loved my children more than anything. I still do. I also saw raising a family as an opportunity to make it the most fun job ever and that is what I did.
The marriage was fine. Not great. Not horrible. We were reasonably happy. I don’t think we really gave much thought to where we were on the barometer of happiness. We did have unity and a friendship and each other’s back so I thought. There were many things to overcome. Like any marriage. There were times that we were close to divorcing but didn’t. My biggest issue with my marriage was that my husband’s life didn’t stop. I adopted the role of investing in my children as my full time job and stopped investing into myself. Everything else was an afterthought compared to my family. My husband my children and all of their needs became front and center.
The concept of this yin and yang was lopsided. I didn’t mind yielding to his career to have children. I didn’t mind investing my all of my energy into my family. My issue was, he gets to continue working like nothing ever happened. If you are a man in a traditional set up, you invest in growing your career while the woman, wife, mother pauses her life, her body and her mind to bear children. No thought is given to the sacrifice and the adjustments a woman has to make because that’s what a woman is expected to do. I know there are many variation of this unity these days but I had more of a traditional situation. I strived to succeed in these roles that we chose but in the back of my mind I didn’t believe the yin and yang were necessarily a fair trade the entire time. I gave up a career so to speak to be a caretaker while he gained a quarterback to run his household. I made the most out of it no matter what and even though I didn’t have a play book for how this whole thing worked I ran with it. I had a purpose. Which is what kept my identity crises at bay.
I felt I treated my husband well and appreciated all of his hard work to support the family. I was his support in any way that he needed. Not the best cook in the house but I tried. He would often come home at 9pm from work and I had already made dinner for the kids. By 9 I would be putting the kids to bed and retiring myself. I suppose I fell short in having his dinner ready at 9 when he got home. I did the best that I could and tried to make up in other areas.
My husband got to enjoy working, socializing with colleagues, collaborating with multiple support teams and then he also was free to enjoy coming home to his thriving children while I figured out how to be a mother and keep the children alive, fed, educated, physically fit, cared for and entertained. Cultivating their passions and goals was a challenge but I never stopped trying until they found something that they liked to invest themselves into. I figured it out and thrived at it. We had a blast!
What I didn’t do was invest in a parachute if the marriage failed. How dumb. The divorce rate is 60% and I did not even think about a parachute. Nor did I keep any independence. I became dependent. Which is the hardest thing to survive when getting a divorce. After 14 years of nurturing everybody else. What was left for me? Alimony? Child support? A reluctant 2300 per month? A bitter husband and angry children? Did I ever get a a thank you for my service? No. No thank you. Just blame.
How could I leave? How dare I think about myself. I was a mother. Mothers don’t get to think about themselves. They don’t get to think about what they need or want. They are there to serve everyone else. If they do want to leave, what are they left with? No job. No marketable skills except how to wipe other people’s rear ends and how to be a maid, a cook and an excellent support system for everyone else. I was an excellent CEO of my household.
I knew how to make everybody else’s world wonderful. Yes, it was wonderful for me too because I love to make my family happy and make everyone feel loved and cared for and supported and nurtured. However, I never asked myself or others for what I needed or wanted. So, when the boys became less dependent on me I thought it was safe to ask for some support so I could begin to explore what I may have wanted to do as they aged out of their teen years. I felt excellent about what I gave to my family. Once my mother in law was retired and willing, I thought it was ok to let go a little and for the first time in 12 years, think about myself just a tiny bit.
As time ticked, I gave some of my duties to my mother in law. She helped with laundry and meals. I always fed my kids organic, well balanced meals. Always had vegetables no matter what. Sometimes, I would come home and ask what the kids had eaten. Grandma would say I didn’t feel like making vegetables. Sure I thought, no big deal. My children’s skin glowed like the sun. Their physique was well built. Lean but muscular. They were healthy boys ready to take on the world. They were thriving!
Then it all started to change. Slowly. As if nothing was changing at all…..I noticed …….Less vegetables and more Doritos became regular. Less outside more inside time. Then there was grandma’s dog. Audi. She had a say in everything too. She left her mark at times. She was a naughty dog who liked to bite the mailman and delivery drivers. She became a small issue at times. All of a sudden our lives revolved around a larger crowd of humans and animals. Grandma and her dog. They were a pair. Not a big deal.
The momentum began to slow. The environment started to feel stagnant. Lots of other needs to consider and work around. Again. Not a big deal
But I wasn’t willing to stop the momentum of the thriving life we lived.
Grandma and I began to butt heads.
Head butt number 1, the dog. Head butt number 2, vegetables. Head butt number 3, too much time indoors watching grandma’s favorite show. Head butt number 4, twizzlers for breakfast. The head butts kept coming and soon nothing that I had in place was sticking.
My service to my husband wasn’t good enough either. So grandma would pitch in to make her son feel extra special. She was coming to run things properly because I didn’t know what I was doing apparently. Found this out too late. Now, how could I not know what I am doing if everyone is happy? Kids were happy. Husband was happy. I was happy enough. Who wasn’t happy? The dog? That dog looked happy to me. Well, actually I wasn’t that happy as time passed. I was undermined at every turn and that made me unhappy. I was becoming less significant and that made me unhappy. I was not being respected anymore and that made me unhappy. I started to feel like an old shoe. A second fiddle. Invisable.
The loyalty from my mother in law became more fake by the month. I could tell she had disdain for me. Her pursed lips said it all. I tried to get along but secretly I didn’t like her input. She stopped liking me. I wondered if she ever did. Did she have a plan to take over my family from the beginning? Apparently so.
I felt like she was faking it just like I was. We started to argue often and my husband would be in the middle. Not easy.
Sabotage was in play. I could feel my family slipping away. The kids loved grandma! She fed them twizzlers and chex mix and served them meals in their rooms! She let them play Xbox for hours! They were spoiled and treated like princes. Well, at least the eldest was. Grandma didn’t treat my youngest as well as the oldest ever. He was more like me.
I became the voice of unpleasantries. Don’t eat that, times up, get off your rear and go outside kids! My entire operation was compromised. Husband thought she was the bee’s knees. How could she not be? She worshipped the ground he walked on. I became the annoying one. I began to get questions like “ what’s your problem?” I started commenting on her drinking because we did have kids in the house and I didn’t want them around it. Harmless, maybe. I would ask my husband what he thought and he would say “she’s retired!”, it’s fine. Somehow all of my concerns were answered with “It’s fine.” Or “what’s your problem ?”
My problem was no one was operating in character. No one valued anything I had to say anymore. So who was I to my family? My silliness that was once celebrated became annoying. My input was labeled “controlling”. My emotions and feelings were labeled “crazy”. I just wanted to be heard. I wanted someone to notice the SOS signal. I wanted to my husband to care.
I was loving. I was the hostess with the most-ess. I was kind. Ambitious about staying active and involved. I was flexible with most things except vegetables. I was understanding. I was compassionate. I was a do-er. I was a see-er. I was also no BS. No faker. No BS taker. If you disrespect me in my own home and devalue me to my kids and my husband in order to make yourself look like a hero….. well I’ve never in my life been in this position. I didn’t feel good. Was it my ego? What was I doing to make it this recipe a disaster? Noticing problems? New, foreign problems that I’d never solved before. That is what I was doing. Instead of anyone addressing the “problems” they looked at me as if I was the jerk for noticing. All it took was handing over a little control to blow up all of our lives.
My world that was in perfect balance slowly started crumbling to the ground bit by bit.
The more I spoke up, the more I was ignored. My voice had become insignificant to all. My husband looked through me like I wasn’t even there. My kids made fun of my requests to better themselves. I was literally starting to feel like a stranger in my own home watching the health bleed out of my family. No one cared if I was there or not. They all just wanted me to shut up.
The more my mother in-law would insert herself the more I fought to set boundaries. She spoke poorly of me to my kids. Like I was ridiculous for having expectations. Then my husband would often make me the butt of his jokes. Soon enough I became the butt of everyone’s jokes. But why? I was mom. I was the queen of the household. I still took care of my kids. I still took care of my husband. I still drove kids to games, play dates, sleepovers at the house, poker night with other families. I did my best to make life fun! Yet I noticed everyone treating me like I was an idiot. I was invisible. So I tried harder. Spoke louder. Yet nothing made a difference. My youngest. He still loved me. He saw it. He begged me to get grandma out of the house. He warned me many times. He said it was better when we just visited her. He was right. The entire dynamic of our household shifted. What was once my domain started feeling like a strange place to be. My husband was completely checked out. My children started becoming addicted to Xbox. My mother in law drank more wine earlier in the day. Somehow my mother-in-law became the new matriarch. The new tone setter. I’m sorry but the tone in my home can not be a retirement home filled with convalescent invalids who can only get out of bed long enough to turn on the xbox and grab another bag of Doritos. COVID hadn’t hit yet! Feeding my kids candy and sugar became her way of earning my children’s favor. Laying on their rear all day became a luxury they couldn’t resist. She was grandma! Superhero grandma coming to save the day! She would have been a perfectly fit grandma if not living in our home.
I felt like I walked into a trap. Yes, I was warned by many friends that I would be undermined at every turn. I was, but I knew how strong I was and how capable I was to make a positive difference no matter what circumstance threw at me. We all had the best intentions how could it go so wrong? This was a war I couldn’t and didn’t win.
The snide comments became regular and I was losing ground as a parent. My husband became a referee between his mom and I but he really was just going through the motions ditched from the outcome. I had lost complete control over my children, my household and my husband. While my husband was getting rose petals thrown at his feet with his favorite dinners, laundry done and a new drinking buddy.
What did I do?
Then Covid hit. Mother in law moved out to try to help us save the marriage but it was crashing and burning before everyone’s eyes. It was too late. No matter how hard we tried, how many truces we called it just got worse. It became unbearable so I filed for divorce. We sold the house and moved apart.
Long story short…..My attempt at “having it all” made me lose everything I cared about. Including my role as a mother. The aftermath still echoes in my children’s well being and also mine. I did the very best that I could under the circumstances. It has taken 2 years for my life to mend.
A Lot of therapy!
Now, I am still very happy to be divorced. My purpose is still being rewritten as I learn to let go of who I was and what I meant to my children. They were and will always be my everything as I learn that I am no longer theirs. They are turning into men and do not need me to do a whole lot. I will always be mom. My fear is, will they remember me. Will they ever know how hard I tried and how hard I fought for my family? Will they ever know the truth? Or will I always be the mom who”left”. Will they forget all that I was and all that I can still be in their lives? Time will tell.
I remain available in love and support as I begin my new journey as a divorcee, a mother, and a woman. I am most thankful to not have to battle another matriarch trying to run my household. I run it as I see fit and it is wonderful to have control over my own life again. I am in control of me. While letting go of control of everything else. My life does not look remotely the same as it once did yet still have so much to be grateful for.
I have the most wonderful man in my life who was there from the beginning of my child hood. My high school sweetheart. We reconnected after 25 years apart. It is like I reconnected with my true self and found the true meaning loyalty. He feels the same. Through serendipity somehow our experiences with our ex spouses made us the perfect fit for each other. We are like kids together. We can be silly and goofy. We laugh. There is so much laughter and joy. I feel valued and I don’t even have to jump through all the hoops or prove anything. He has never made me feel any of the things I felt in my marriage. I feel seen, heard, understood, truly loved, truly, madly and deeply valued. He listens to me and he is not afraid of my emotions or my needs. He genuinly cares about how I feel and this is so foreign to me but so freeing. I found true love and reciprocity for the first time in my life. He lifts me up and never makes me feel bad for being myself. We get each other on every level and it is also the ride or die only movies can demonstrate. It is a fairytale love that can not be compared to anything I have ever experienced thus far. I am thankful. I am stronger. I am better than I’ve ever been in many ways. I had no idea this was waiting for me on the other side of divorce. What a gift. I am ready for the past to be left in the past and for better days of my life to unfold. It’s been a journey and I survived. The ache of not having my teens with me every day quiets over time.
They are growing up and an empty nest was inevitable no matter what. I know I did the right thing. In the end I divorced toxicity and as I learn what health is in a relationship I am confident I can be the demonstrator of all good things to my boys.
I am not sure I overcame divorce. I rolled with the punches the best that I could. I am thank full that serendipity presented itself and one obstacle after the next was met with tremendous growth and bravery. No matter how terrified I’ve been along the way, I have surprised myself with how brave I’ve been as I look at each bullet dodged in the rear view mirror. To be near my children I took risks that paid off. Things that looked impossible became possible. My newest venture of running my own air bnb killed two birds with one stone. When it is not my time with my kids, I am away near my love and my family that I’ve missed for 22 years. After 22 years of being away from my mom, dad, my 93 year old grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, sister and niece….. I return half time to Northern California to get the best of both worlds and it is very successful. I love my space and I love to share it. My very own air bnb was an unexpected blessing for sure! What comes next is up to me to make it the best it can be. With my true love by my side, my soon to be grown boys, my huge amazing family and all the lessons learned…I can’t wait to tell the story of the second half of my life. Chapter two to be continued……
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I spent 22 years as a celebrity and commercial make up artist. I also run my own Airbnb business. I will always freelance for the film industry but am completely open to see how these years have served me and what spin offs may be in my future! I want to expand. I am excited to explore this new me but will utilize my 22 years of experience to help me navigate to what’s next in my career life. I still have 3 years of high school to support my son through and there is another career in me to explore and make a reality. It is manifesting as I speak. Currently, I am researching my own product line and more is in the making.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Qualities and knowledge that was most impactful to my journey is strength and perseverance. I work hard to be a good person and to operate in full integrity. My advice would be for others to know thy self. Never stop paying attention to what matters to them. Protect yourself and never become dependent on a false sense of security. Staying self sufficient is our best parachute! If no parachute, well we always figure it out. The ride to safety and security may just get a little bumpy. So hold on. Believe that things will work out and trust yourself through the process.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
I read Dan Millman’s book “The way of the peaceful warrior”. When I was in my late teens. It changed my life. It brought acute awareness to my soul that life is one serendipitous experience and connection after the next, stringing adventures and fulfilling pivotal moments together like magic. No matter how challenging an experience can be if you always keep your side of the street clean and honor yourself along the way, , your challenges turn to strength and power. You can become limitless in this life by pushing through the hardest times with a bold and honest heart. You have to live for something greater than yourself.
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