Hi guys it's rachel- and this is my fifth attempt to record just the intro of this podcast, because I dont totally know how tat This conversation, but it's important to me to keep showing up So I'm gonna ask for your grace in that this will be the most eloquent conversation I have ever delivered to you, but I have always done this work right. Or teaching, or this pod cas from a place of authenticity and honesty, and so, even if the season is really hard, and even if I don't feel

I have the most eloquent way of explaining it. I do wonder, keep showing up for you if you haven't heard,

My marriage has come to an end and I guess I have to start with a kind of how we got here. We David, I have worked endlessly endlessly on our relationship. I mean if you have listened to the rise together. Podcast, you have heard hundreds of conversations about everything from sex to boundaries, two goals to therapy. We have worked for years and years to fix.

The parts of us that don't work, and I think what is so confusing for our friends and our family, and maybe you if you follow us, is that Everything seems so great or has seemed so great and.

The only thing that I can say, though, it's really difficult to understand from outside, is we are best friends still. We have been best friends since we met eighteen years ago and the part of us that our best friends, the part that laugh and have so much fun and have inside jokes and love hanging out with each other, has covered for the parts that don't and when things are really hard. Both of us tend to reach for the fun stuff, the Friendster

rather than face the pieces that have become unhealthy and while I know it's hard to understand, if you're not in it, we are making a choice that is healthier for our family, but it still brutal it really hard. It was a really hard decision to make. It has been a really hard season to walk through. It has been awful to navigate making this choice with four kids. I know that

some of you who are listening have gone through divorce or have experienced major breakups, and so I think some of you can understand that its The worst there is not a quick fix or await a sugar coat B in something like this being in some. Like this, where, even though we both what's. The right choice were both hurting we're both angry were both doing everything we can to. Be good parents and stay strong as a family in stay strong as leaders of our company, but it sucks

I don't know another way to say it and it's not something that I ever thought I would experience it's just like. I don't know if you all have ever had a situation where one day you just realized, like my god, I keep doing the same thing and expecting different results and weed.

That we have tried everything and then one day it's like. Is it even fair to keep asking the other to change like? Could we just not find a way to love each other as we are, even if that means that parts of our relationship can continue on as they were? So that's where we're at I made the decision to get off social media. I knew that many people would be kind and supportive and

so many of you have hundreds of letters have come into customer service like your love, is incredible and then also knew that there would be people who said hateful, ugly things and there have, but I made the decision to get off social media And I dont know when I'm going to get back on. I will continue to go out for you guys here on the pond cast site. I took a couple weeks off and I appreciate your grace as I did that and I'll start back up

Next week, interviewing and I'll tell you honestly, I'm not really in a place to unpack everything that has happened in my marriage. I can start doing podcast about all that not in a place to yet, but I do want to make sure that were still doing this work, so the Pike ass well, interviewing great people again next week and in time when it fills right. If it feels right, then all impact this more because I also understand that probably many of you are going through. Similar situations and there could be power for all of us in unpacking it together, but not not just yet so I made the decision to get off social. I have to say

that the way I will communicate with my eyes, for now is through my weekly email, which will start again on Sunday, and it's kind of want write About where I am and what's happening in my life, because this is all wildly new and different, I met day when I was nineteen. We have been together for eighteen years. Hers. I have thus.

Can I live by myself as in a one room apartment as a nineteen year old I've never broken up with someone before I've. Never I've never had something like this happened, because he was the first man I ever dated or kissed or there's a lot happening. So I want to write about it and I'm going to do that in my weekly email, so if you're subscribed for that, then open it up and we'll see what's inside I found this really crazy experience in that. Maybe you guys knew that inside of quarantine, I decided to write a new book, so I

wanted to write something that you could read when we were through covered and in our now it feels like good grief. I dont know. When will c b through it, but I just knew that so many people would be struggling with having lost jobs or coming out. The other side of crisis or fear and so I wanted to write a book about what happens when you go through crisis or what happens when you go through grief, and so I wrote this entire book and turned it in. And the idea was that, because I had gone through grief so many times in my life, because I had processed and lived through crisis many times that I might have.

Wisdom or ideas to share that could be helpful because. I was on the outside of grief, and so I thought that I could be helpful to anyone who was on the inside and then, after a turn, the first draft in Eric ended, and so I find myself editing a book about grief while I am deeply inside of it And I'm going be honest, you guys at first I wanted to scrap the book or push it out further, because I have never written about pain while I'm in pain. There's an old expression that says never teach From your wounds you teach from your scars mean,

that you never talk about right about or teach about something that is currently hurting you. You only talk about things that you have done the work to get past But I also knew that there was no way that I could release a book about grief authentically. If I didn't talk about what happened in my life So while I'm navigating my kids and

their process of this and my best friend and his process of this and me, and what this new life looks like. I'm also try to do my best to re write a book so that its truthful to IRAN that life is crazy. Life is crazy. The irony is that the title of the book is didn't see that coming didn't see that coming, because I thought so often when we go through crisis. When hardship happens. The worst part is that it's a surprise. The worst part is that you didn't see it coming.

And the rugged pulled out from under you and. It takes everything to stand back up and then this happened and I feel so stupid because I didn't see this coming. I feel like a shot of years. Years of of work till felt more normal for things to be hard. Who, just like one more, you know. For something new. Let's

oh to another conference. Let's do more therapy or through a new book I just kept thinking. We tried hard enough. We worked hard enough. If we pray hard enough, it would fix it. I didn't see it coming. So man, I hope this doesn't bomb you out ever ever everyone be a source of putting something sad into the

world when so many things already hard. I guess I guess I guess it's. Ok, I guess it's ok. If at the risk of bombing you out, I get to be honest, I'm not ok, but I will be life is in great but it will be, I believe- and I have faith- and I know in my. Being like in my soul, that this is the right decision.

I know it's right decision for a family. I know it's right decision for me. I know it's decision for Dave. I know. And it's gonna have to suck for awhile. Have a tattoo on my rest. That says, brace. Thus suck. Man, I'm tryin, I'm gonna keep up And I'm gonna do every bit of work to feel whole again and I'm gonna keep doing this work for you guys and I'm like you, do his work for me- and I was writing the new book, an

and explain the idea that. I never in my life, never saw a world where I opened up the heart. This parts of my entire life too many and strangers and. The only reason I can think of for. Why is on it to mean something it to mean something? I dont want to believe that I was cursed or I got the short end of the stick or all these. Things that happened to me were for nothing I have to find meaning in it

one of the ways that I find meaning in it is that I talk about it because I hope then that maybe it help someone else. So I'm so here I'll be here again next week, every Tuesday and if you want to subscribe for my weekly email, it comes out on Sundays and put the link to subscribe in the show notes- and I love you guys, and I hope that your well and I'm still here.