Interview with Ben and Nikki from "Our Happy Divorce"

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. All right, folks, DSO here, dadstartingover.com, and thank you for joining us for another episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast. And with me today are Nikki and Ben, and oh boy, did they have an interesting story. This one, we're going off script a little bit from what we typically hear from guests that I speak to, listeners, other folks selling books and so forth on this particular subject. You guys have come up with something interesting, something different, unique, and that's why I really like it. And that's why I think this is of really good value to our listeners. You guys wrote a book called Our Happy Divorce. Our Happy Divorce.

Guilty.

Boy, you don't hear that very often. So right away you hear that and people go, uh-huh. Yeah, right. Our happy divorce. Yeah, that's like, uh, my awesome cancer, right?

That's true.

It just doesn't compute. Like, the two don't go hand in hand. Happy divorce. But for you guys, it did. But because, for those that don't know, Ben and Nikki here are not a couple. They are a divorced couple. They used to be married and now they no longer are. But you guys both— and we're going to go to the the genesis of all this and what brought this about. During this process of, all right, this marriage ain't working. We both know it. We're both adults. It's divorce time. You both made the conscious decision. I'm not gonna put words in your mouth to say, let's make this as happy, as drama-free, as healthy. There's the good word. As healthy as humanly possible. Healthy for our child, because you guys have a boy together. So walk us through, because obviously the knee-jerk reaction is you hate me, I hate you, let's just be contentious and, you know, take little jabs at each other, and eventually we grow indifferent to each other and whatever. What was the genesis of— what was the beginning of why you guys decided to make a left turn here and do it the complete opposite of everyone else?

Well, we got to be honest, at the beginning, right, it started exactly what you just— how you just said it. Okay, so it didn't start like butterflies and roses and here we go, oh, we really like each No, it started contentious. Is that the word?

Yeah, I don't, I don't think any—

he was more than I was in the beginning.

That's probably a very valid statement, but I think it's also important, uh, to put it in, in a little bit of context about our happy divorce and, uh, how it started. Uh, we never imagined, we never even thought it was in the realm of possibility, uh, that we would be sitting here 14 years later, talking about our happy divorce and how great our life is. Happy was not a word that we would use at the end of our marriage. I think every—

Put up with was more like it.

Right, right. And I think every marriage has the— and divorce has sort of a petri dish because of all the negative emotions to become a high-conflict divorce. And ours was no different.

And so somebody had to raise their hand and say, enough of this, what are we doing? One of you responsible for this? Was this a mutual sit-down?

I think it was. I think internally it was mutual. And it was a lot of the back and forth that a lot of couples that are starting to break up— oh, you're in the house, you're out of the house, you're back in the house, you're out of the house. And it was a— it was like ping pong back and forth. And I was trying to figure out, oh, we can make this work. And I am just naturally a fixer. So I just always want to go to the point of, how do I fix this? How do I make it better? What can I do, like, not to break this marriage up? And how do we stay together for the sake of our child? And I think it just got to the point where I kind of figured out with myself, and he figured out that it was like, you know what, there is no way to stay together. And if we want to make this better for him The only thing we can do is be apart. But Ben really pulled the trigger on that dramatically.

Yeah, right, on the divorce, uh, I'm moving forward because it was a dance. I mean, I don't think, at least I don't know, and you might correct me if I'm wrong, but any, uh, couple, married couple, divorce, decides to get divorced because they had a fight one night at a restaurant, right? It's sort of, you know, it's a culmination of a bunch of different things, and ours was no different. I left the house in a very angry, resentful, pointing the finger. It was all Nikki's fault. You know, the if onlys. She should do this, she should have done that. And a lot of my anger in life is sort of the secondary emotion, right? It's there to protect something else that was going on. And at the end of the day, I was just hurt. You know, I was a hurt and wounded man with, you know, a lot of shame and guilt about ending a marriage and what it was going to do to our child. So, you know, I went out. The turning point though was, and trying to find a different way, was trying to tap— I was able to at one point tap into my experience growing up in a very high-conflict divorce with my parents.

But you didn't start that way.

No, I didn't start that way at all.

He started in the way of wanting to hurt me as much as possible with like a the lawyer that promised him the world. And, you know, I think you ended up having a turning point, which I think helped our situation tremendously, or we wouldn't be where we are today.

Yeah, I think that's also an important point. And not to sound too dramatic, but I think it is a little bit. It's very poignant that as hard as it was and as much damage as it caused me as a young boy and a man and drugs and alcohol and all kinds of other stuff with my parents' divorce. And knowing the pain and having that human experience and having that lived experience that I left the house and I was still willing to go down the same path that my parents went through.

That's what you knew, whether it was right or wrong. That was— it's learned behavior.

It's learned behavior. It's a learned pattern. And that, I mean, that's the power of these emotions, especially for a man, or especially for me, when my two big fuck you buttons are being pushed, which are romance and finance. Look out, you know. And I don't know of any other, you know, situation, you know, in life than the divorce push those buttons faster or quicker.

Yeah, absolutely. You just hit on something which I hear so often because I do what's called one-on-one coaching myself and 5 other guys at Dad Starting Over. And, you know, guys don't come to us because, hey, I got an awesome marriage, let me just tell you about it. No, it's We have all kinds of drama, terribleness. I've heard it all. And I often say to these guys, timeout, let's rewind the hands of time here. Tell me about mom and dad. 99.9% of the time, when I was 7 years old, my dad cheated on my mom. My mom cheated on my dad. It was an awful, contentious divorce. It was terrible. I had to choose between the two of them. It sent me down a spiral of depression, yada yada. And what's interesting is how much a lot of these guys don't have the introspection to say, hmm, I think that may have had an impact on my relationships, you know, subsequent relationships going down the line, my girlfriends, my wives. Well, never thought of it that way. But you, it sounds like, had the light bulb moment of, what am I doing? I'm just recreating this whole thing all over again.

And I don't know, you know, how it happened or why it happened, but I had gone out and I had hired the lawyer. And like Nikki said, and You know, he promised me the world, the Earth, the Sun, the solar system, and everything underneath it. Uh, and he wrote up a game plan, 35 pages or something, of, of, you know, how we were going to accomplish that.

I'm pretty sure he just changed the names on it, right?

That's his, like— yeah, exactly, exactly. Right, boilerplate. Uh, and I, I didn't read it for some reason for a while. I think, like, you know, 10 days. And I was on a plane a red-eye back from LA to Tampa, 4:00 in the morning. I said, "Okay, let me get into this thing." And I opened it up and I don't know why on that plane in that moment what it was, but I got 2 pages into it and I got that feeling inside of my stomach. And I was able to, for the first time in a long time in my life, is be honest and not buy my own BS. And also realized that I knew where this— if I kept on going, I already know the ending, right? I already know the ending of not only this war and peace attack plan, but also the end of—

War of the Roses?

Yeah, War of the Roses. It's called War of the Roses. And the other thing I realized in that plane is there's no way in the history of relationships that it could be one person's fault.

Right?

So I had to stop blaming Nikki, right? There's no— it takes two to make that. It would've taken two to make that marriage and it would've taken two to ruin it. So then at that point I made the second phone call, which should have been my first phone call, and that was to a therapist. And I'm also a member of a 12-step group, have been for a long time. And I called my sponsor and then we went on this, you know, I guess it's your fault, not hers. No, right, about finding my part in it, because I literally didn't know at that point what my part was. I just had an understanding—

wants to look at themselves that way and think that it's their fault, right? I mean, nobody does. Everyone wants to— that at that minute, everybody wants to blame somebody else, right?

And those two people, my sponsor, my therapist, kept me accountable, uh, to, to— or at least kept me grounded on my side of the street, right? And I really wanted to go tell them about how dirty Nikki's side of the street was. But they kept me, "No, let's stay here." And it didn't take that long, fortunately or unfortunately, but for me to have this another moment of clarity that I wouldn't want to be married to me either. I was miserable, or I guess I was miserable, but I also wasn't the man, the father, the husband, the person that I literally had thought I was. And that's humbling, but it was also a big turning point in my life, but also the life of our post-marriage life and for on.

And I think for me it was more so I kind of just sat back. I called people that were family friend lawyers, not like a lawyer like he did, you know. I talked to my parents, I talked to my sisters, and I just sort of sat back and said, you know what, let's wait, let's wait this thing out. And I in turn started going to therapy for myself and trying to figure out, you know, What the hell went wrong? And I, you know, I thought I was this great wife and this great mother. So I was like, okay, wait a minute. So I'm really not any of the above, but I got to figure out how I can be. So really, I've decided, you know, this is all— this has all helped. Nikki 2.0 is much better than Nikki number one. No question.

You know, going to therapists, going to your sponsor, can be argued, this entire equation, those are the easy parts. The most difficult part, at least in my mind, and probably to a lot of guys listening to this, is picking up the phone and calling Nikki and saying, and saying, you know what, I got to get some stuff off my chest, and here's what I'm going through in my mind. And Nikki to Ben, because kind of sounds like, I don't know if these were concurrent, you going to therapy and him as well. Do you both go in on your little journeys at pretty much the same time. Then you come together and say, I've been really thinking this through, and yeah, me too. Well, that had to be a tough conversation.

You nailed it.

It was, and it scared the daylights out of me when he called me and said, hey, will you have coffee with me? And I was like, oof. I think I called everybody in my family. I'm like, is he gonna kill me?

But it's—

we're gonna be in a public place. Should I go? What? Like, why is he— why is he asking me? Because we hadn't been talking. The only way we would discuss things was either via text message or— that's really probably it— about Asher. It was like, I'll drop Asher off at this time. And at that point, when we would go back and forth and drop Asher off, we wouldn't talk. So it would be literally like that couple that drops him off almost on the, like, porch.

It's like, yeah, okay, yeah, like, like slows down to like a 5-mile, like a safe, like a safe speed where the kid won't get hurt and you keep it moving. Yeah.

No, no, no. In your defense, though, I speak to a lot of men that are in very toxic relationships. And the men are still very, what I like to call addicted to the spouse, and to that relationship. And they're finding a very hard time to— very difficult time detaching. The wife has detached with the men I talked to, but the men are like, I just can't get over this. We talked on the phone last night for a few hours. We did. And I said, you have to stop doing that.

Yeah, that doesn't help.

It's not anything. That's not healthy for you. It's not healthy for anyone. So that in turn becomes that moment of, here's the kid. How you doing? Good. Say bye. Later. So there's a healthy component to that for sure. But it can dip too much into the negative of I'm pretending you don't exist. You pretend I don't exist. And the kid sees that.

That's it. Yeah. And that's it. And I think the one thing that before even That Nikki was gracious with me and—

I was what?

You were gracious. Okay. But she gave me that time and space, right? After I'd read that thing on the plane, fired the lawyer, I called her and I said, look, I just need some time. I need some— and that was another great, looking back on it, we didn't know it would be a great turning point, but there's no rush or there's no award for getting divorced the quickest. Except for possibly a lifetime of pain for you and your kids, right? And so I was, you know, I was the one who wanted to rush the lawyer and get the paperwork and get everything rolling. But that time and space and, and those awkward drop-offs were much better than the alternative of conflict in front of the son. But, but that wasn't sustainable, like you said. I mean, the kid— our son would have picked up on that, and that I did, you know, as a child. But When I did come to that thing, I had called Nikki and asked her to coffee and it was time to eat some humble pie and make it right and not make it right for any intentional purpose other than just saying, look, my side of the street was completely dirty. I am sorry. And I didn't think it would end up the way it was, but if she had thrown my coffee on me, it would've been okay too. So it was just, it was really just, I needed to get it off my, off my chest.

But even too, I don't think that when you invited me to coffee, it wasn't like you thought at that minute, oh, even when I apologized in return to him for things that I had done wrong, it wasn't like we looked at each other and we're like, okay, great, here we go, yeah, let's go write a book. This is going to be great, we're going to be friends, and that's, this is the way it's going to go. I mean, it took work after that.

And what did that work look like going forward? I mean, did you guys have an agreement at that point of, we're both in agreement here that we're going to make this as positive as humanly possible for Asher? Is that true?

Something he looked at me and said, do you have a problem with joint custody? After we apologized to each other, and I said 100%, absolutely not. And I said, you're a good dad, there's no reason for me to ever keep your child from you also, like, and vice versa. And I said, so absolutely not. And he said, okay, that's the hard part. From there on, and we can figure this out.

Yeah, I said all the other— I mean, we talked about swearing before, uh, and I said, yeah, all the other shit we can work out. Like, that was— and it's— I know I said that I didn't go in there with any, you know, intention or, or outcome. And me asking that question might seem like that was an inauthentic moment, but it came. I mean, it was like one of those things where I didn't expect apology back, but I looked in her eyes and, and she apologized to me, and she said— I apologized to her, and she sensed, I guess, that authenticity that she really hadn't seen before. And I sensed the same thing, so I felt safe, you know. It was a safe, uh, place for me to ask her that question. And once that question came off, uh, and, and she answered it, it, it was there was some space, you know, there was some room to a possibility that, you know, again, we didn't all of a sudden turn into our happy divorce and have the life we had today. But then we decided to meet a couple more times.

And I think at that point, I, like, for me, I realized that, like, we had moved to Tampa together. Well, he'll tell you that he was forced. No, he wasn't forced to move to Tampa, but And I mean, we moved to Tampa in a place where we didn't know anybody but my family. So it was like, we— I mean, this was my best friend. So for me, it was like, okay, at that moment it was almost like, oh, so there's my best friend. He doesn't have to— like, it's almost like, you're not going to be my husband, but that— you're still my best friend. So it was a matter of like something flipped on in my head that was like, oh, he's still there.

Yeah, yeah, it was, you know, it's amazing when an amends or a repair or whatever goes a certain way, and it's hard to, I guess, articulate it. But the past wasn't, you know, it wasn't all of a sudden wiped clean, right? It wasn't just all of a sudden, you know, forgotten about. But we weren't sitting in the car accident holding the smoldering, you know, tires and looking at the dead bodies and, you know, whatever, you know, however dramatic you want to make it. But it was— we just had been able to move forward. And with that, we just decided, okay, we had our lawyers, but we then met at the same coffee shop, the same table outside, and just started on some of the big-ticket items and just started going through it. And then, she'd go back to her representatives and I'd go back to mine and we'd come back. But at that point, we weren't the emotional people going through a divorce. We were the business people.

Right.

And I don't mean to sound— I actually do mean to sound apathetic, right? Because that's at the end of the day what a divorce is without the emotion. It's a business deal. And we were, we were the two primary people doing it. And so, I mean, and it didn't—

sorry for interrupting— it didn't mean that the emotions weren't there. Oh, I mean, I was scared to death. I was 20. How old was I? Almost 30.

Yes.

Oh, but I was— I mean, to me that felt really young. And I was by, you know, I was like, oh my God, I'm going to be a single mom. And I'm like, how does— I mean, what are people gonna, you know, what are people gonna think about me? I couldn't make my first marriage work. I must be like some terrible person. So I mean, the emotional stuff didn't go away.

Yeah.

And that, I think a lot of that has to do with the future emotional stuff or the fear and all. But I think as far as our past, that's why we were able to sit 5, 6 meetings in a coffee shop and work out the— work out our divorce and then hand it to the lawyer and say, you know, get paid whatever you, you know, however much you get paid an hour to drop your run-on sentences and your whereas and all that stuff. And, and so yeah, the, the, the future stuff is obviously still there, but, but that's, I think, one of the reasons. Because I wasn't making decisions in that, you know, in, in our divorce agreement to screw her, and she wasn't doing it to hurt me or hurt, you know, her. And so it was a lot easier at that point.

And because you, when you do do that The only thing you end up hurting is your children.

Yeah.

I mean, you may very well, you may, you may think you're punching the other person in the nose, but in the end, you're hurting the kid.

Right.

You know, some guys listening to this who have been through the wringer with divorce, they're listening to your step-by-step. And there's moments where they go, ooh, it could have gone bad right there. And it could have gone bad right there. Nikki could have very well said, no, I'll be taking the kids 90% of the time. Thank you very much. And if you're gonna fight me, fight me in court. See you later. Bye.

And don't get me wrong, I wanted to say that.

Well, in the emotion of the moment, I mean, divorce is so traumatic. It's so emotion-filled. That's the worst. It brings out the worst of the worst in people. It does. You had every avenue to say, you know what, all of a sudden I just got a flood of memories of all the shit that you put me through for so many years. This could come from both of you. Um, so F you, forget it. Were you prepared for that, either of you? Were you— did you have, um, I don't know, one hand tied behind your back saying, I'm wanting to go into this positively, but if it doesn't, I'm ready for you, mister? Or was it you had to take that off the table, otherwise this wouldn't have worked?

I think for me, I think he knew that I wasn't in that mindset, that I had prepared myself to not be in that mindset. But I also think he knew in the beginning, okay, if I'm gonna fight this, she's not backing down. Like, I was gonna go, you know, balls to the wall and come at him too. But I was like, let's just hope we can get past that. That's why I didn't come out— I think I didn't come out fight— like, I didn't come out fighting because I thought two of us coming out that direction isn't going to make this situation any better. And my parents, to give my background, are still married, and they're 52 years later. So I didn't— I didn't have the— I didn't have that growing. I, I had a, like, a nice home life, and that's what I had always envisioned Asher having. So I never thought, oh my God, in a million years. I'm not really sure. I think I'm the only person in my family that has ever gotten divorced, which is like really strange.

That's unusual.

Yeah. And so for me, it was like, wow, I can't— like, well, I can't get a divorce. Like, that's not— that's not even— it's not even in the cards. I can't— like, my scariest phone call was calling my parents and telling them that I was getting divorced.

So then, Ben, is it safe to say that with Nikki's emotional makeup and the positive baggage that she brought to the relationship, that her saying, "The kids are mine and I'm taking you for all your money, screw you, I'm gonna ruin you," was that really not even in the equation in your mind?

It's an interesting question. And as Nikki was talking, I was paying attention, but I was also sort of, you know, uh, you know, trying to recycle, uh, that moment. Um, and I think, um, At least I'd like to think the way that I showed up at that coffee shop meeting, I don't wanna say caught her off guard 'cause it wasn't done manipulative, but I think it was 'cause that's who I wanted to show up. I didn't wanna show up with somebody who had this mask, who had this anger that if she said one thing was gonna set me back off. So the idea of the playing the what-ifs and if she does this, I think would only have been a setup for that to happen. Right. And so one of the reasons I think it worked so well as I play it back is because I showed up, I was willing to be vulnerable. I was willing, you know, I didn't have any expectations of what she was going to do, good or bad. And I was just able to show up as my, you know, true, authentic self and not with any, you know, agenda or anything that I had that she had seen me before. She, you know, maybe the person that she actually knew And so I think that just being disarming and vulnerable set the stage. And if she had done it, I guess I would've reacted, I don't know. It's an interesting question, but I just think that it didn't happen. And I think we were both prepared. I think you almost have to be, right?

Yeah.

Not to say that I could have walked away from there saying, "Oh, well, I did my job." But this amends was not for Nikki, right? At the end of the day, me repairing my actions wasn't for Nikki. It ended up being for Nikki. She deserved it. But how she took it was not my— I just needed to get it off my chest so I could move on. And so whichever path I guess that took is at least I could have walked away from that coffee shop going, "Okay, I did what I could do." You know, now we got to figure out, you know, how to move forward, good, bad, or ugly.

I love it. Well said. Now, there's another avenue to take this, another thought process in all this. And that is, there's a pretty big contingent of people out there that think that marriage is kind of the Shangri-La of, well, our existence as a people, that we must savor that at all costs, no matter what. I mean, you'll even hear people saying you can get past physical abuse and infidelities and so forth. Keep the family together. A lot of people in the church say that, right or wrong, that's the message. They may take a book like yours, and again, Our Happy Divorce, available at all major retailers. They may see that as, uh-oh, here's somebody coming after marriage. Here's somebody saying divorce actually can be a pretty cool thing, can be pretty nice. You can you can live, you can be friends, and everything's great. And as far as the kids are concerned, not a big deal. Uh, I could see that being a criticism. What do you say to that?

Well, what I, I would say that our son, as easy as we have decided to make this for him, he will tell you that he wishes his parents were together. But on the other hand, we can tell you that— I mean, he loves the relationship that Ben and I have, and he laughs sometimes because he sees us almost like brother and sister, because we bicker still like brother and sister. But since we are both remarried and in new relationships, Asher sees something that he wouldn't have gotten to see if Ben and I stayed together. He sees two people that fell in love and are absolutely in love and have a great relationship. And then he sees another two people who have the same situation at his dad's house. And then he sees the relationship that Ben and I have rebuilt together for him. So I would say that it's not something— obviously, anybody who gets married doesn't expect to get divorced. I didn't expect to get divorced, and if I could have made it work, I would have. But right now Asher sees something, 3 different relationships that he is learning. He's learning what love is. He's learning how to love. He sees, you know, family units together. He sees a larger family unit together. And it's something he wouldn't have gotten to see had we stayed together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let me just add really quick that the person that I was able to do that introspective of and how Ben had showed up in our marriage. I wouldn't want that person being a father to my son. And if we had probably stayed together, that person probably would've still existed. And I remember even though my parents got divorced, when they were married, there was, I only remember one time where I could tell you where they had some PDA, so they held hands and it was just for a minute. And that's the only— and I might have done it before them, but that's the image I had. And so, I don't judge people. I actually can empathize with people, whether it's religious or whether it's thinking you're doing something selfless by staying together for the kids. I think for me, when I look back on it, I wouldn't say the divorce was the best thing, but because we're sitting here where it is, It happened for a reason. Nikki's, you know, made earlier about Nikki 2.0. She's a much better version of herself. You know, she wasn't— she's not the person that was married to me. And I'd like to think that I'm not the person that was married to Nikki. I'm a better father, better husband.

And so my mom's very religious. So she was the scariest person I had to call and tell. I was like, oof, that phone call to her was like, probably the worst thing I've ever had to do.

Yeah, I think our, like, 3 crossroads, right? Uh, our divorce or our marriage could have gone, uh, we could have stayed together for the kid, for our son. I, for the kid, uh, you know, I think that that could, that, that, for the reasons I just stated, could be just as detrimental to ourselves as humans and to our son. Uh, we could have had a high-conflict divorce. And ended up like my parents, which obviously could have been even more detrimental to our son, or we could have taken the path we took, and that's, you know, continue to be parents, uh, you know, compare— put our big boy pants on and not stick our son with the emotional bill for our choices. And I'll tell you, the middle one, uh, the one we took, it was, was and is and always will be the easier, softer way.

There you go. And it could be argued for Asher this was a crash course in You know, look, son, life's gonna throw some big holy shit moments at you. You're gonna get sick, you're gonna lose a job, you're gonna lose loved ones, etc., etc. But here is a front row seat for how to handle that effectively. We could have made this worse. We could have just introduced all kinds of drama and awfulness to the situation, but we got together like two adults and decided, nah, watch this, son. And, um, That's perfect.

Yeah, and he gets it. I mean, he, he, um, there's a chapter in the book, uh, that he wrote, and it was his, uh, high school, college, the high school entrance exam, or I'm sorry, essay. Uh, he had to write an essay, and it was on somebody you admire. Um, and we didn't make him do this. We didn't hold him down and say, this is what you're writing about. But he said his mom and dad. For what they have accomplished, you know, in the divorce and how they stayed friends and how they, you know, held— and it's just a beautiful thing. And so yes, if it were up to him, uh, you know, his parents would still be together, right? I mean, that's— but, but on the other side of the coin, he gets the, uh, you know, what we've, what we've, uh, managed to accomplish.

Excellent. You know what I hope from this is people listen to this on the podcast or watch the video on YouTube or whatever it may be. I'm hoping that some guy, at least a couple guys, will listen, watch this and go forward to soon-to-be ex-wife and just say, this is kind of what I'm looking for. Can we just stop all the bullshit and just come to the table like a couple of adults and hash this out, please? You know, I want nothing more than this.

Wants to write to us on Instagram, we would be happy to send them a book and one for their spouse.

Yeah, excellent.

And where can we find you on Instagram? Is it Our Happy Divorce?

Everything Our Happy Divorce.

Happy to send them a book.

And at some point, you know, it takes— and I'm sure Nikki's done this with me and I've done it with her— at some point it takes somebody to put down the swords, or, you know, when you're playing emotional catch, for somebody just to put the ball down and say, I'm not playing. This is what I want. And look, Nikki and my journey, yeah, is 14 years of being divorced. It was tough moments. There were arguments, there were fights. There were— Yeah, we still argue. There are landmines all over the place after divorce, bringing somebody else into the relationship.

And so parenting, we don't parent the same way.

Yeah. And so, and so, you know, to the, the guy out there listening, uh, you know, and if you're saying, yeah, but, or if, you know, women are listening, whoever, if you hear that voice in your head that says, yeah, but my ex, or yeah, but my wife, or yeah, but my husband, I think at that point, that's when it's— I would at least recommend, and this is not advice on any schooling or whatever, but if you hear that voice, then that might be some of the problem, right? Is pointing fingers and not taking the accountability for yourself. And so, another reason we wrote this book and we're sitting here on your podcast, and thank you for having us, but is we are two Class A personalities. We are, you know, she's Italian, um, you know, I, I don't know what I am. I guess I'm recovering. I'm a mutt, uh, but, but we, you know, we have tempers. We're hot, you know, we're hot on the skin. And, uh, but we managed to, you know, figure this thing out. So yeah, but my—

to figure it out bringing two other people into this equation, which could have blown this thing up again.

Because you have both remarried, right? Oh yeah, that just complicates things even more so. But you guys went into it with the foundation of the healthy relationship between the two of you. So were there stumbling blocks along the way? Hey, here is my new potential marriage partner.

Well, yes, him with me.

Yeah, I mean, for me, and this is, you know, the male ego is such a—

that's why I thought you should touch on this, because Right.

The fragile, delicate thing that we have wrapped around our ego. So Nikki starts dating somebody and he just happens to be somebody that we knew in our marriage. And they started dating after, and she called me and she said— and this is after we made the amends and we had sort of like sat next to each other at Asher's events, even though we didn't want to, and just sort of just sucked it up and put on our big boy pants and decided to fake it until we made it, right? And then she tells me that she's dating this guy. Talk about a test to my new spiritual found, my glow, right? Basking in the light of what a spiritual giant I was. And so she says she's taken him to a baseball game, or I'm sorry, Asher's baseball game. And I'm coaching Asher's baseball and I see Chad and Nikki walk up and got my eye and I'm watching and I go, this is going to go down, right? I'm going to have to do this. The whole game, right? And, uh, how am I going to show up for this moment? And, uh, uh, so the kids leave the dugout first, of course, leave the dads to clean up the dugout. And Nasher runs over to Nikki and Chad, and I'm, you know, slowly, as slow as possible, trying to clean up the dugout so I don't have to face this. But eventually I start making my way over there, and the stomach's turning, and the, you know, the skin is under, you know, getting hot, and the heart starts, you know, palpitating a little quicker. And I said, this is your moment, Ben. Like, this is either going to blow shit up, right? This is going to either blow shit up or you're going to have a safe, soft landing. And so the first thing I did, and I hadn't even thought about this as I was walking, but the first thing I did was I gave Chad a hug, you know, and sort of to disarm that and also to let Asher know that this is okay. There you go.

Right.

And I look, the last person I wanted to hug in the world was Chad, right? At that moment, the last It was probably the most awkward man hug in the history of man hugs, but it was, you know, something. So it's just one of those moments where if I let my ego get in the way or I let my fragile, uh, self-esteem— just went to the car, I would have gone to the car, or I would have, you know, been in that, you know, maybe gone over.

But, you know, maybe give the tough guy nod, the—

yeah, what's up?

And keep going.

Yeah, a pound, or, you know, whatever. But, or, or— even worse than go to my car, stand there and be, "Poor me, poor me," and Asher picks up on that. So yeah, there's a lot of moments like that through the way that were very awkward, were very uncomfortable. I just wanted to run and hide somewhere. And Nikki probably, I know that she had those moments too, but we just showed up. And eventually, and I can't tell you when it happened, But eventually, we crossed the line from faking it, that invisible line into making it and it becoming an authentic, true friendship. The title of our book is Our Happy Divorce, but the tagline or the line is how ending our marriage brought us closer together. And that's sort of the theme of what happened. That's why we call it happy divorce.

Excellent. Well, guys, I think that's a perfect bookend to this.

Thank you.

Ourhappydivorce.com. The book's called Our Happy Divorce. They can find you on Instagram. Do you guys have Facebook, Twitter, all that good stuff?

Everything at Our Happy Divorce.

It's, it's Our Happy Divorce. Excellent. Guys, don't turn your nose up at this. I'm talking to the listeners. Don't put your— turn your nose up at this immediately and say, yeah, but you don't know my ex-wife. This ain't gonna work. It doesn't have to be Nikki and Ben's story from A to Z. If you can take one of the 99 nuggets of wisdom that were just shared in the last 45 minutes and apply that, and it makes things a little better, hallelujah, right? And that may very well mean sucking up your pride as a man and saying, all right, both effed up here, let's just be adults here. Let's, let's do what's right. She may or may not agree, but at least you tried, and your kids will see the effort. Because guys, kids, as you guys know, kids see everything. When you went up and gave Chad a hug, your son was watching every second of that. And he went, when it happened, like, at least Dad didn't go up and punch him in the nose. That would have been interesting. And as you know, Ben, one of the biggest fears for men that I talked to that are contemplating divorce, so they see themselves going down the road, whether or not it's their intention, their biggest fear is, I can't imagine another man raising my son. I can't imagine another guy just hanging out with them, taking them to the baseball game, taking them out to eat, going bowling, tucking them in at night. Some men get rageful at that. It taps into something animalistic.

And let me just tell you, and this would be inauthentic if I didn't say this, 14 years later, I love Chad. He's one of my closest friends.

Still sucks.

It still sucks.

Yeah.

You know, when I, you know, Nikki will say, oh, Asher, or Chad's taking Asher to so-and-so, you know, whatever. I love this man. I know my son loves this man, but still, it is still a punch in the gut and it's still a bruise to the ego. But I, you know, because I've been doing it, at least, you know, at least checking that ego and realizing that's exactly what it is. I can talk my way through it a little easier and change those neurotransmitters just a little bit to say, you know what, that's great for Asher. What's the alternative? To have a dick in his life who doesn't treat him very well or who doesn't love him very well? And, and, you know, that, that could be a very— that could be a, an alternative. So I got it good. I mean, Nikki was going to eventually end up with somebody, you know, she wasn't going to join the monastery. So, you know, that's, that, that's the kind of, you know, self, you know, talk and changing those neurotransmitters. But it still sucks, so I understand that. I can, you know, and I wish I could say that, you know, it won't—

for a mom too.

Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. It can't all be all wine and roses, 100% happy all the time. There's going to be portions of this gonna suck. It's inevitable. Such is life, right? Yeah, every— everything. Such is life. Well, guys, thanks again.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Really, really, really, really grateful.

Ourhappydivorce.com, and of course, dadstartingover.com. And that's a wrap. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Have a good one.

Thank you.