Widowed and divorced AF: Rosie Moss on finding love after loss

What happens when you find love again after losing your partner - and that second love story ends too? 

Bereavement and divorce are widely cited as the two most stressful life events a person can go through – and Rosie Moss has lived both. Widowed suddenly in her thirties with three young children, Rosie found love again – and then walked through the breakdown of that second marriage. She joins Kate not to talk about how hard it's been, but about what's grown out of it.

Rosie is host of the award-winning podcast Widowed AF and author of the bestselling book Widowed As F**k. Together, Kate and Rosie explore love, loss, dating again and learning to like yourself through it all.

We talk about:

• Meeting someone through shared grief - and what happens when a relationship is fast-tracked by loss
• Helping children make sense of a step-parent leaving their lives 
• Dating again as both a widow and a divorcee
• Protecting your peace and discovering the strength you didn't know you had 

This episode is for anyone navigating loss and separation, dating again after divorce or bereavement, or simply trying to make sense of what comes next when life takes a turn you didn't plan for. 

Trigger warning: This episode discusses bereavement, mental health and alcohol use. If you're affected by anything discussed, you can call Samaritans free on 116 123, or text SHOUT to 85258.

Meet Rosie Moss

Rosie Moss is the host of the award-winning podcast Widowed AF and author of the bestselling book Widowed As F**k. Widowed suddenly in her thirties with three young children, she found love again - and now speaks openly about what happens when that second relationship doesn't work out, and how hard it is to protect children while everything is shifting around them.

Her work focuses on the overlap between grief, separation and long-term stress, and how these experiences shape decision-making, resilience and recovery - particularly for women balancing it all. Through her podcast and writing, Rosie has built a global community by challenging the clichés around grief and divorce, and focusing on what life actually looks like when you're in the middle of it.

Follow Rosie on Instagram to learn more about her journey. 

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Transcript

Rosie Moss 0:00

What I perhaps didn't understand back then, much like people don't understand the world of widowhood, because I'd never gone through it, was if you have a father who doesn't want to see the children, that's really, really traumatic for the kids. You know, I can say that their dad would never have left them, would never have not wanted to see them. But of course, this feels uh very different. And for me personally, the divorce brought up an enormous amount of feeling.

Kate Daly 0:22

Where do you start the dating conversation when you've been widowed and divorced? What do you lead with at that point? Welcome to the divorce podcast, where we explore all aspects of ending relationships, separation, and parenting apart. If your marriage or partnership has ended, or you have friends and family who are separating, this podcast is for you. I'm Kate Daly, a relationship counsellor, divorce specialist, and co-founder of Amicable, the online legal service for separating couples. In each episode, we look at relationships and separation from different angles, including the emotional, legal, and social. I'm joined by experts and special guests who share their own unique stories, experience, and tips with the goal of helping people end relationships in a kinder and better way. Finding love after loss is one thing. Watching that second love story end and helping your children through it is quite something else entirely. In this episode, I'm joined by Rosie Moss, host of the award-winning podcast Widowed AF, to talk about her own story of widowhood and divorce, helping her children through the loss of a parent for a second time, dating again after both, and what's still ahead, even after the hardest of things. A quick note before we start today's episode touches on sudden bereavement, mental health, and alcohol use. So please do listen with care. If you loved this episode, then please subscribe and rate us on your preferred listening platform. Welcome, Rosie. Thank you so much, Kate. All right, it's lovely to see you and thank you so much for sharing not one essentially, but two very personal stories with us today on the podcast. I'm really looking forward to hearing about your experience. Well, thank you. Now, for listeners who don't know you yet, can you tell us a little bit about Widowed AF? Um, what made you start it?

Rosie Moss 2:24

Yeah, of course. So widowed AF was a kind of a germ of an idea that I had after the sudden death of my husband Ben in 2018. I didn't know what I wanted to do with it, but I kind of just liked the phrase. You know, I felt I wasn't just widowed, I was widowed AF. And so I started I opened an Instagram page, I didn't post anything at all, and I had these kind of plans of maybe writing a book. And fast forward a few years, and I sat with a friend of mine and I said, everybody's doing podcasts. Why don't we have a go? So with a laptop and a no, no, not even any headphones or microphone. It was just, you know, a laptop with a towel to help with the reverberation. Done that. It was bored. Yeah, right. These things we try. And we put out these episodes. We interviewed each other, and then we interviewed my then husband, and people just responded to it. They were applying to come on in their droves. I had, I still do have a waiting list. And there was something about the authenticity of listening to somebody talk about what essentially will be the most awful point in their lives. But so many of these people were able to find humour and hope within all this. And I just think it touched people. And it wasn't just other widows and widowers that were listening. It was people that wanted to better understand what an enormous life event like that was really like. I think there's a bit of a voyeur in all of us. You know, this is something that until you experience it, you've no idea what it looks like. And these incredibly brave men and women have come on and kind of opened the door to this world. And it's been an enormous honour and a privilege to get to do this.

Kate Daly 3:54

Yeah, I can imagine. I guess, I mean, we know from various surveys and studies that it's the most stressful life event that you can possibly have, isn't it? The death of a partner. And I suppose maybe our curiosity is almost like that terror of thinking, I need to know something about this in case this happens to me almost. And maybe that's just my take on things. But I think we're all very much exercised by things that we fear for love. So I guess that, like you say, if there are people brave enough to open up and talk about what's happened to them and what it means to them, that enables the rest of us to kind of take a breath almost, doesn't it?

Rosie Moss 4:32

Yeah, and there's a kind of depressing statistic that I band around quite a bit. And, you know, if you are in a romantic relationship, you've got a 50% chance of being widowed. You know, that's that's the reality of it, isn't it? You know, we all think, you know, we'll we'll die of old age holding hands in our hundreds, but of course, that isn't the reality for most people. So although it might not be something that's on your radar or even something you really want to think about at the moment, there is a, you know, there is something to be said for being prepared. And also you'll know other people that are going through it. And until I was widowed, I had no idea how to support people who are grieving. And I don't necessarily just mean the death of a partner, I mean any sort of traumatic death because you know, you send flowers with the best of intentions, but of course, actually, that's another thing to keep alive when you're grieving. So there's a real aspect of people what do want to support better, but they just don't know how.

Kate Daly 5:22

And it's a conversation that people feel very fearful of having, I guess, as well, isn't it? No, I mean, this is the divorce podcast. So I want to bring in the second part of that story, and then I want to caveat that by saying this is not a competition. And I know sometimes when I speak to friends who've been widowed, that they get very cross with me if we compare divorce and being widowed. But that is essentially what we're going to do today, not in a way of one ears worse than the other, but just in a way that draws some parallels between the different emotions, because you have sadly been through both. And so I think you're in a very unique position to be able to talk to both and hold both in your hand at the same time. So tell us the second part of this story. So you were widowed, and you had all of the trauma of that helping your children come to terms with what had happened. Tell us then the next part of the story.

Rosie Moss 6:14

So it starts off as a kind of a real romantic love story, met through Widowed and Young, which is a national charity supporting widows. And we just hit it off. We were friends and we went out for dinner again, just as friends. Neither of us were looking for anything. And we had a you know, a few cocktails, as one does, and we ended up having a bit of a drunken kiss. And from that, this the kind of you know, the beginnings of a relationship started. And we were very, very sensitive at first. We didn't tell the children, we kept it away from the children, and then we were introduced as friends, and then gradually, you know, gradual process. He got terribly ill during COVID, which kind of fast-tracked our relationship. So you can imagine how terrifying that was for his daughter for and for me. And during that time, we moved into his house. And so the relationship, like I say, it was it was kind of fast-tracked, and he proposed to me. And it was all very romantic and sad and scary and all of these big emotions. And in the end, we we we snuck off and we got married on our own, and we were very, very happy, you know, this blended family that we created. We were both incredibly proud of what we'd done and we'd given the children this safe place to land and each other as well, because he's a widower too. So we grieved together and we kind of grew together. But ultimately, what happened during that time was that we began to grow apart and that the two people who had met in the real grips in the midst of this all-consuming grief, they changed. And ultimately, we both really wanted it to work. Neither of us wanted to give up. We didn't want to walk away, and we really did not want to traumatise the children any more than they already had been. And so it was with an enormous amount of soul searching and, you know, late night thinking and, you know, early morning dog walks with my headphones in, trying to figure out whether what I was doing was the right thing, you know, to think about perhaps ending this relationship. But I knew deep down in my soul that it wasn't the right relationship for either of us. And so we decided to separate. It was not an easy choice, as I said. Um, and it's, you know, it's been hugely traumatic. And it's interesting you said about, you know, the comparison between divorce and widowhood. I mean, I was on the school run one day going back years ago, and somebody sort of compared their divorce to what I was going through with Ben dying, and I was furious, absolutely furious.

Kate Daly 8:32

It really provokes fury in people, doesn't it?

Rosie Moss 8:34

Yeah. Because I was, you know, what your children's dad is still here. But of course, what I perhaps didn't understand back then, much like people don't understand the world of widowhood, because I'd never gone through it, was if you have a father who doesn't want to see the children, that's really, really traumatic for the kids. You know, I can say that their dad would never have left them, would never have not wanted to see them. But of course, this feels very different. And for me personally, the divorce brought up an enormous amount of feeling. Now, kind of relevant here, but I was a problematic drinker and I got sober four years ago. So when I grieved Ben, I had that cushion, that, you know, that kind of something to lean on, those bottles of wine. And this time I had to, you know, raw dog it basically. And I it threw me back to feeling very scared, very isolated, very lonely. And of course, you don't get the same kind of empathy and kindness as you do when somebody dies, because from the outside, it's your choice to leave them. So therefore, you're kind of not worthy of that sort of empathy, perhaps. So for me, it brought up a lot. I had to do a lot of therapy, and it's been really, really tough on the kids. So we'll be honest, but ultimately, where I am now, nearly 18 months into since the separation, we are we're we're doing really well. We're doing really well.

Kate Daly 9:50

It's an incredible story and an incredible journey. It's, I guess, as you were saying, that when you find somebody after the loss of a partner, it must feel a sense of coming home, of you know, reconnecting, somebody who ultimately, out of all of your friendship, family, group, whatever, somebody who really gets what it feels like to lose somebody. And it must cement that relationship. And I imagine it does put it on fast forward. I don't I know you you referenced the pandemic, and I'm I understand that was absolutely part of it. But I wonder if also that shared loss also fasts forward a relationship, doesn't it? What happens as you're going through that sort of grief to a relationship, then? What made you start to think, I'm not sure about this?

Rosie Moss 10:41

I think this idea of the fast tracking. So when somebody dies, the love, unless there's complications around the death or around your relationship prior, I always say that the love is kind of pure, you know, there's no anger and animosity there. And so you almost enter into a relationship at that point. So it's and it's very different. You're dating without, you know, with children involved, which, you know, I met Ben wait, you know, at university. So I think there were, there was, there were several factors to it. One was sobriety kind of forced me to confront some things I'd been running from my entire life, really, and to go back and and and unpick things that that perhaps had affected my decision making. And I also do think there's an element of when you're very traumatized and you see somebody who will go through with you, will walk through the fires with you, will hold you in your darkest moments. And also that kind of sense of being somebody's person, that's the thing I miss the most about being without my husband, is you're nobody's number one priority. And at the time, offered a really stable, secure father figure for my children, which sounds a bit like I was, you know, shopping for a stepdad, which is absolutely not the case. But when you are, you know, entering into a relationship with kids, that is a factor is will this person be good to my children? Will they bring something to their lives? And, you know, at the time it was really, really what we needed. We were both foundering, and this gave us that stability. So I it's hard to say what kind of caused you know the relationship to really begin to break down, apart from that kind of real generic we drifted apart, which sounds so simple. But actually, once that drift happens, it's very difficult to swim back towards each other.

Kate Daly 12:22

It is, and I think a lot of people in the general divorce context find that one of the hardest kind of places to be because if you're in an abusive relationship or if something drastic has gone wrong, someone's had an affair, or there is a very clear reason, and that helps with the certainty of the decision-making process for some people, for lots of people. I think when it's a drifting apart, I think sometimes people find it much harder, and some therefore it's sometimes a you know a very brave step to say this just doesn't feel right. Because you get the moral majority of people then sort of turning around and doing that, oh, you should try harder, and if you just do this and if you just communicate better, and if you just go for counseling, it will be all right. And you should do that because you owe it to your children, slash family, slash whoever you insert, you know, dependent of choice kind of thing. And I I think that's really tricky. It's a really tricky place for people to be. So to make a decision like that on top of, as you say, the upheaval. That feels like such a rubbish word to use, forgive me, that your kids had already had with the death of their dad. That must have been one hell of a moment. How on earth did you find the strength?

Rosie Moss 13:37

Do you know what? Um, firstly, I want to kind of thank you for saying that it was a brave thing to do because it felt utterly terrifying. I felt like I was stepping off a cliff into the unknown. But I felt that I couldn't continue to live a lie. It was giving me anxiety. I was having panic attacks, I wasn't sleeping well. And actually, what happens when you're living essentially a lie because you're not happy and you're pretending that you are to the outside world, the toll it took on my mental health was quite telling. And it was something that I probably ruminated on for about a year. And saying that out loud, it's quite difficult because when you go through a divorce and your ex-partner says, Well, how long have you felt like this? And you say, Well, actually, it's been percolating for about a year. That's quite hurtful for them to hear because they think, oh gosh, you've been living a lie with me for all this time. And I did really struggle with this because by nature I'm quite an honest person. But I think I always felt that perhaps it was me that I was broken. And, you know, I tried therapy, the HRT, the meditation, you name it, I gave it a go because I really thought that if I could fix something in me, then I could make this relationship work. But ultimately, I did all that work, tried all those things, and the I still wasn't happy. And and I I genuinely don't think he was either. I think we were what we were creating in the end was a kind of an environment where we were living quite separately within the same house. And the children, you know, we talk about not wanting to upset or damage the children. But at what point do you lay yourself on, you know, the maternal altar and sacrifice yourself for the children? You know, obviously they're always my priority, but I knew that long this would be a difficult period for us, but ultimately they would get a better version of me.

Kate Daly 15:19

Well, I think that's really important because, you know, we have a this conversation quite a bit on the podcast of staying in a dysfunctional relationship and a relationship that's not making either person happy, what it actually does and what it role models to kids, because your kids are looking at you to model relationships, healthy relationships, and they're taking it all in. And that's not just about, you know, if you're screaming and shouting at each other, because lots of times people aren't screaming and shouting at each other, it's watching how people communicate, it's watching that silence, it's watching separateness, and that's being processed by them, and they're learning that that's how relationships work. And you know yourself. I always say to people, to parents, if your kid said, Is your relationship one I should aim for, mom slash dad? And you can't say yes, then realistically that's a relationship that needs some urgent attention, either some help to get it back on track if that's possible, or it needs somebody to be brave enough to say, I'm calling it, this is no longer working. And I don't want to model this to myself for my mental health reasons or my kids. And that's the difference, isn't it? When you're actually looking at a relationship and we all have different tolerances of what we'll put up with and how long we're prepared to stay, but ultimately someone's got to call it and someone's got to be brave enough to say, okay, I'm I'm done. That must have been a very difficult conversation to have with the kids. I mean, let alone, I mean, obviously with your husband, but ultimately thinking about having to tell the children for a second time that this isn't going to be the setup. Tell me a little bit about that. How did you approach that?

Rosie Moss 17:02

So it's a little bit sensitive, but in the I really wanted to do it one way, and he wanted to do it another way. So in my head, I had this quite romanticised idea, I guess, of divorce. I thought we'd sell a family home, we'd perhaps buy two houses, small houses near each other. The kids would continue to be very much in our lives. And so the only thing that really would change for them would be kind of where we lived and the fact that I were no longer romantically involved. However, he was reluctant to kind of do this. So he quite suddenly left their lives in terms of being a father figure. And if I'm honest, that was probably the hardest thing to navigate. My two younger children are both neurodivergent, so they have very black and white thinking. And the the night that um that he left was quite out of the blue in the end. And I think much like for me, the kind of re-igniting of the trauma, I saw a lot of that in my two younger children. My eldest, he was more aware, I think, that the relationship perhaps wasn't as as healthy as we were trying to portray. He's quite an insightful young man, but the younger two, kind of blissful ignorance, if you like. So I yeah, that that was really, really, really tricky. And trying to explain to them why somebody who had been such an important and a paternal presence in their life suddenly to in their minds didn't want to see them anymore. I understand that he was protecting himself and his daughter. I I kind of playing devil's advocate, I can, you know, I can sort of see his reasoning, but ultimately I was then having to deal with the exacerbation, if you like, of autistic traits as well. But what we have done is we've kind of pulled together. You know, I drove them down to Cornwall in the summer, we've been to Poland at Christmas, we've I've tried to really demonstrate to them that our family unit is still a really valuable, viable, strong family unit. It just doesn't necessarily look like everybody else's. Yeah.

Kate Daly 18:54

And I oh that must have been incredibly difficult because what uh we often talk about the fact that you can only control the things that you can control. And if you've got two parents who want to do things in different ways, that makes it really tough. So I can only imagine how hard that must have been. What and I guess then I'm going to ask you this kind of really blunt question because it's on my mind. So I'm forgive me, but so what what's the difference in the way you talk to your kids about the death of their father versus the lack of a father figure because the other parables do it a different way? How what what do you say to them that's different?

Rosie Moss 19:32

So I think with the nature of how Ben died, he died very suddenly. He was killed in a scuba diving accident. So I was able to say to them, you know, this was a terrible accident. Your dad would never have left you. He loves you. And even, you know, perhaps quite naively, saying to them, you know, there'll be children in your class who don't see their parents because their dads don't want to, you know, try. I mean, you're desperately trying to soften the blow at this point. And I guess you can talk very positively about their dad, you know, how what an amazing man he was. And I really have tried extraordinarily hard to not ever bad mouth around them, to not portray him in a negative light, because actually that isn't good for them. It that's their decision to come to, you know, whatever it may be in the future. You know, they will they will make the decisions and they they all have his telephone number. They can all message him if they want to. I haven't put any restrictions in place on that. And I just say to them, you know, some grown-up relationships are very, very complicated and sometimes they just don't work out. And like you said, you know, sometimes the bravest thing to do is to say, right, okay, enough is enough. If we stay together, we're going to create a very toxic environment. It's not modelling, you know, a healthy, happy, loving relationship, which is what I want my kids to aim for. And there is a courage in saying this isn't the right path for me. I've I've started to walk down it, it isn't right, and I'm going to go back and try the other way. And yeah, that is terrifying. But I want them to know that they've got the power and the autonomy to make decisions about their future, much like I have.

Kate Daly 21:00

Exactly. And also some of I guess some of this as well is you're having these conversations now, and your children are a certain age. These, I imagine, are conversations that you will have to repeat as they hit new ages and stages. And I'm thinking as they get older and they start to contemplate having their own personal relationships. I wonder how many times you're going to have to go through the different stories and help them to form relationships that are healthy and strong. And how much they'll take from what you've done to say that, you know, you could look at this and say, we had a rough start. It was unusual for our dad to die when we were so young. But that didn't mean mum settled for anything. It meant mum pushed through. She was brave enough to love again. When that didn't work, she didn't just give up and say, Oh, well, this is this is just how it is. She actually went for being true to herself and authentic. I think that's quite an amazing. Legacy for your kids. And I hope it's something that you recognize and know that they will be taking, watching that. And what a what a powerful story.

Rosie Moss 22:09

It's interesting because as they get older, they see you less as this kind of mish feeding machine that's just kind of lurking in the background. And they see you as a human being. And they, the particularly the boys, they are, they do say to me that, you know, they're proud of me and they're grateful for this life that we've got together. But yeah, it and I I sometimes wonder, you know, will they be frightened of relationships? Because, you know, they look at me and think, well, one husband died, one got divorced. You know, is there any point in entering into a romantic relationship? But I really don't want them to be scared of it. I'm not scared of it. You know, I I hold some optimism that at some point in my life I might meet my forever person. I'm not in any great hurry right now, but I don't want them to be afraid of putting your feelings out there. And I think first, you know, we were saying about how people tend to only think that divorce only happens when there's a massive, significant event like an affair or abuse. And actually to see that it doesn't have to look like that to not be a happy, healthy marriage. It can look like just, you know, muttering under your breath and you know, sleeping in separate bedrooms. But actually, there is, you are still able to take control of your situation. I want them to be brave. You know, they've I'd never wanted them to be defined by their dad's death. I never wanted it to be this life-defining event. I know that it's something terrible that has happened to them, and of course it will impact them, but I need them to see that they are still able to grow a big, beautiful life around the tragedy.

Kate Daly 23:31

Yeah, exactly. And I think, like you say, it's it's preserving that optimism. So, how have you preserved that optimism? Because I'm an optimist too. I think, well, I've been divorced twice, not the same as you, but just a different story. But I'm still optimistic. I don't feel like I'm shut off in any way. I just feel like I'm a bit pickier, maybe, and might do it in a different way. It might not look like two people moving in together permanently. It might look a bit different to that now. But do you know what I mean? I kind of think, well, fair enough. I and I do feel a sense of optimism. So how have you preserved your optimism?

Rosie Moss 24:07

So funny you say that because I've always said, since if I meet somebody, unless it is, you know, this kind of knock me off my feet romance, I can't imagine ever living with anybody again. I can't. I think I've just I like my own peace too much now. And we're in the process of moving a house. I'm gonna be in, you know, my house, my own own this house, it's it's mine. And I also think there's an element of really not wanting somebody to come in and be a father figure to my kids again. I feel like that that bridge has kind of been burnt. I don't think they'd mind. I think they'd be quite open to me dating. But like you, I think I would be, I am so much picky now, pickier now, and and I know what I want from a partner they're gonna have to bring is bring something to my life and and enhance it. And actually, I as I lay in bed last night and I had my daughter in bed with me, the dog at the end of the bed and the cat, you know, talk about the hottest night of the year and having a bed full. But I just thought, actually, like literally, metaphorically, practically, I don't have space in my life for somebody to come and be a real kind of full-time person. But, you know, I I don't, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I've really never been on my own for very long. This is probably, apart from immediately after Ben die, this is probably the longest I've been single for. And it's really a kind of process of getting to know myself again, getting to know who I am. And I'm quite guilty. Um I am neurodivergent myself. And one of our traits is that we kind of morph or chameleon into what we think somebody wants us to be. And actually, I've made a real decision that I will not do that anymore. I'm kind of going to be authentically me, and the right person will like that. And the the rest of them, well, they weren't meant to be.

Kate Daly 25:40

It's funny as well, isn't it? Because how we I'm thinking, you know, you get back out on the dating scene and where do you start the dating conversation when you've been widowed and divorced? What do you lead with at that point? I don't know. Where do you go? How do you how do you say who you are? And how do you because a bit of me thinks I can't be bothered to waste time with people. You know, I for example, I don't want to date anyone with kids younger than me. I've done that phase, I'm not going back there. So ideally that I like to lead with, yeah, how old are your kids?

Rosie Moss 26:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's it. I don't want to be a stepmom again. I I don't want to. I I've got my hands full and I feel like I spread myself too thin at a time when I didn't really have enough of me to go around anyway. So now the kids they're they're the priority. But yeah, I mean, I've dabbled on the dating apps and you know, they're either really crude or they still live with their mum in their 40s, or you know, they want this kind of trad wife, or they, you know, they can't understand why you can't get rid of your kids at a drop of a hat. So I do tend to, if I do talk to somebody, I do tend to drop the widow card quite quickly because often it'll come about with, you know, do you have your kids full-time? That kind of thing, well, yeah, I do because their dad died, you know, and and it can be a bit of a conversation stopper, but I found actually most people I have told have been really kind of empathetic and and kind about it. And then you kind of go in, well, and they say, Oh, so you've been on your own since you're like, oh, well, no, there was another marriage in between. And it's a funny one because I kind of, in a way, you don't want to whitewash that period of your life completely. But I suppose in the grand scheme of things, the the four or five years we spent together, I it kind of will get smaller and smaller and smaller over time. It's really funny, isn't it? How you can be something, everything to somebody and then nothing. Yeah.

Kate Daly 27:27

It's an interesting narrative, isn't it? Because you're right, how you weave those two stories together. And do you do you sense that people are comfortable talking about this kind of stuff? Because I I mean, I personally don't. I think people struggle with talking about divorce and not judging or you know, or us self-judging ourselves and feeling the guilt and the shame. So what are the emotions and what are the cues you get from other people when you talk about this stuff? What are the mistakes people make?

Rosie Moss 27:55

Oh, that's an interesting question. Um, I think the to be honest, the one that kind of uh irritated me the most was always the, but but why did he have an affair? You know, as we touched on earlier, the assumption that in order for the for it to have broken down, there must have been something big must have happened. Yeah, yeah. Otherwise, why would you leave? What was a you know a comfortable, easy life, really?

Kate Daly 28:17

That's kind of underestimating you though, as well, isn't it? Don't you get the sense that that's that's effectively somebody saying, Well, you should be grateful you found somebody after that tragedy. It's that kind of narrative that's being pushed on you, not that you have every right to be as picky and choosy as the day you were born, kind of thing. You should damn well pick it up. Exactly, yeah. And it it's it's kind of it feels like a bit of a patronizing narrative almost.

Rosie Moss 28:40

Yeah. And I do think, particularly, you know, I was, you know, I was in my 30s, but I have three fairly young children and two with additional needs. And I think perhaps there was an element of, you know, oh phew, somebody wants me still. I'm not completely invisible and and you know, people aren't kind of recoiling from this woman whose husband died and she's got all this baggage with her. Whereas now I think I I'm so much more comfortable in my own skin that I'm not looking for somebody to swoop in and rescue me, to take control, to fix me, because actually I'm doing a pretty good job of that on my own. You know, it'd be lovely to have somebody to put the dinner on for the kids a couple of times a week, but I don't think it's worth jumping into a new relationship for.

Kate Daly 29:20

Yeah, exactly. That's what I was thinking. Yeah, I would love it if I didn't have to make every single meal, every cup of tea, and I haven't put the bins out, although I've forced my son to do that now. I'm not doing the bins anymore. I've definitely given up on that. But you know, but like you say, that's not worth trading all of the other freedoms in for. So yeah.

Rosie Moss 29:37

No, it's not. It's not protect your peace, Kate. That's it, isn't it?

Kate Daly 29:41

Protect your peace. Exactly. And I think knowing what you want is is super important. I guess after a divorce or or being widowed, you've kind of you lose some self-confidence, don't you? That's kind of the key. And I always think the trick with this is to protect those kind of few years afterwards so that you don't fall straight back into either a big pendulum swing of going out with the exact opposite of your ex and then regretting that, which I definitely did between one and two, uh, or just kind of going on this endless dating thing and feeling dissatisfied and in the end giving up. So there's that kind of that bit where you have to, as you were saying, it's that rebuilding of the self. And that I think that's quite a lot of hard work and it's quite time consuming. So I think that period of having some time to be, to work out who you are, to work out where you're going, what makes you happy, what you look for in the future, I think that's quite precious time. And I think it sometimes feels quite squeezed because often, like with a divorce, and in your case, with having been widowed too, once you've already got kids, you've got all the other motherhood stuff going on at the same time. So finding any time to actually carve out for yourself is quite a massive ask, isn't it? And like you say, it's how do you squeeze somebody in to what is a very full and busy life? It's quite a theme.

Rosie Moss 31:01

There's no room in my bed.

Kate Daly 31:03

Yeah.

Rosie Moss 31:04

I actually said to my counsellor um a few, I mean, it's probably about six months ago. And I said to her, Oh, you know, well, when I get really lonely, that's when I'll proactively look to date. And she just sort of shook her head at me and said, No, no, no. That's not when you start to date when you're lonely. You start to date when you are comfortable in your own skin, being on your own. And then that's the time when you can invite somebody into your life. And I thought that's so interesting because I I think it is the loneliness that propels you onto the dating apps. You know, the I download, I won't pay for them because I'm I I sort of think I'm I'm only, you know, dabbling at the moment. And you, you know, you scroll and yeah, and you just think, oh my God, I don't want to see another fish or another gym selfie. And then you think, oh, there's nobody out there. I'm gonna be on my own forever, fine, I don't care. And actually, what you want to happen is for that lovely organic meet meetup, you know, Hugh Jackman just to stroll into the gym one day when I'm there, that'd be lovely. But I don't know whether that happens now. And I think especially if you've got children who are still dependent, you're not able to just pop out on a whim, like, oh, so I don't really want to go to a nightclub or a, you know, a singles nightclub. So I think logistically and you know, just in terms of how dating has changed since I was last on the market, it's it's a different world out there.

Kate Daly 32:17

It is a different world, and it's very much more a conscious decision because, like you say, I think in the old days, you meet people at work and that kind of stuff, but we don't all go to work anymore. And you sort of then hit a point where it's that sort of doesn't seem to happen. That sort of happens in your maybe 20s and 30s. And I think that you're then making a conscious decision. And like you say, when you've got kids, that means paying a babysitter very often, and you've obviously then made a choice to go out, which creates an expectation and a sort of psychological vibe that then just doesn't seem to quite work. So it's a really weird kind of mix, isn't it? You're almost relying on friends of friends and friends and some random, like you say, some meeting or some do you're all going to. And yeah. Tell me about how you've been treated as a single woman then by friends and family. How has that felt?

Rosie Moss 33:08

So, I mean, I'm I'm fortunate, if if that's the right word to use, that my my group of close friends where I live, they're all separated. So they're all single mums. A couple of are in new relationships now, but it meant that I had this kind of single mum network as well. The difference is, and I think this is something that gets kind of misunderstood quite a lot, and that is the real difference between being a solo parent and a single parent. And I'm speaking here to, you know, separated parents where the ex-partner has some involvement rather than ones that have nothing to do with them. And I do think there is an element of, you know, I would love to be able to send my kids off to their dads for the weekend every other weekend, or to be able to, you know, book a yoga retreat and just and go without having to spend six weeks doing logistics ahead of time. And I think that's sometimes where that kind of that sense of isolation and it's really, really easy to fall into a resentment, you know, particularly around things like bank holidays, you know, everyone else, oh, everyone else has got so much mr. And so one of the things that I've started doing lately, and you know, forgive me for this because I would have uh laughed at myself six months ago. I get up in the morning and I write down five things I'm grateful for. I know this is old hats. I know people have been doing this forever. That's great. Gratitude journaling, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right. And I just had this one notepad and it's on the dining table. And I also put in what I've got on that day that helps kind of calm the anxiety. And it might just be things like I slept well last night or my kitten is really cute. It doesn't have to be great life-affirming things. And I've really noticed a massive difference in my kind of mindset. And turns out it works. Who knew, right?

Kate Daly 34:39

Yeah, that's brilliant. I love that. I would yeah, because you do hear people talk about positivity and journaling and all of that kind of things and gratitude, and but if it works, that's fantastic. I think I might start doing that though.

Rosie Moss 34:52

Honestly, I was such a skeptic, and I actually interviewed somebody on my podcast, and her husband had had this terrible terminal illness, and they'd been doing gratitude prior to that because they were just, you know, kind of wholesome people. And she said how, you know, practicing gratitude, it's like working a muscle, and you can't start doing it in the grips of a crisis. You have to be doing it prior to that. And I just think, well, you know what? Actually, I need all the armory I can take at the moment because if something else happens, if there's another crisis, my fear was always, what would I do? Would I survive? Would I turn back to drinking? And actually, no, I didn't. Neither of those things happen in the divorce. I stayed sober, I stayed, my mental health stayed well. I took lots of precautions around it. You know, I I did I the things I'd learnt through being widowed, I was able to employ. But yeah, I think there's a, I don't know, there's something in it, there's some magic in it. And I was probably the last person to be convinced by that.

Kate Daly 35:42

But I also think what you just said then about that resilience and that knowing that you can cope with anything, I think that is one of the things that does come from kind of like a traumatic experience. I'm a solo parent, I get those things about the loneliness of a long bank holiday weekend, particularly when your kids are little and everyone else is off doing their family stuff. And that feeling that you are so vulnerable as a solo parent, what if something happens to you kind of thing, then how what's going to happen to the kids and all that kind of stuff. But that idea that I actually feel, having been through quite a difficult time, that you do have a sense of I can I've got this. Like you can throw anything at me. And I used to think I try and imagine the worst possible thing, which is probably the death of a child, and think even if that happens, I think I've got this, I think I can still stand up because I've got this perspective now of having done so many horrible things and having been through that awful, awful mill of being able to know my own strength and know that actually I can do this. And it might not look pretty, it might be really ugly and messy, but you know what? When your back's against the wall, that's okay. Because as long as you keep getting up every day and you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you've got it. And that really came through over the last few years. And I think that's what I feel probably most about all of this. It gives you a strength, it gives you a strength that you can't see at the beginning of it, and that I enjoy helping people when they're right at the beginning and they feel like they're never going to be able to get out of bed again and never gonna just make through it through the rest of the day, let alone anything else. And that's what really gives me joy is is being there for people to say, I've been there, I felt like that, but actually you can do it. And all your worst fears and your worst demons, you can turn those into strengths ultimately. And that's not to be toxically positive about any of this. None of it is nice, none of it is happy, it doesn't always have a happy ending. There are some really shitty times. But I think that that resilience and that strength it gives you is something else.

Rosie Moss 37:49

Yeah, and that actually prior to Ben dying, if you had said to me, you know, you're gonna be thrust into a life where you're the solo parent to three children, you're gonna find out that, you know, two of them are autistic, you're gonna find out that you're neurodivergent as well, you're gonna have one out of education, you're gonna have to fight for school places for your other. I wouldn't have believed I could do it. And, you know, if I'm honest, I kind of wish I hadn't been put to the test. But the person that I am, I like her a lot more, you know? I like her. Yeah. Yeah.

Kate Daly 38:17

Yeah. I grieve for the happy family life I thought I was going to have. And I feel sometimes I do feel real resentment bubble up because I think that's just not fair, because this is not what I signed up for. But ultimately, the the person I am now is much nicer than the person I was prior. And that's what you've got to live with.

Rosie Moss 38:39

I would never have had the balls to start a podcast, to, you know, to write a book. You know, that sort of stuff wasn't on my radar. I was, I was, you know, quite a traditional stay-at-home mum. I, but I was the kind of annoying mum that, you know, made little individual cupcakes on kids' birthdays and sent them in. They're lucky if they get hairbone now. And those are the things I think, oh, I miss her. I miss the mum that had the time for all of that. But actually, uh, do those things really matter? I don't think they do. I think what matters is that my kids have been consistently loved and cherished. They've I've been present. I've been very fortunate I've been able to juggle work around the kids, so I'm here, you know, all the time, it feels like. But that's what they need and that's what they remember. Not, you know, the home baking and the, you know, the trips to Legoland and things like that. Because actually, that in the grand scheme of a life, they're not the big things. Well, they're not, I don't think they're the things that the kids actually reflect on when they're older.

Kate Daly 39:30

I don't think it's what makes them sensible adults either. I think it's the stuff you've talked about that really does.

Rosie Moss 39:36

And they are, they're very, uh, very kind of emotionally intelligent kids as well, which I think, again, you'd never wish it on them in a million years, but the people they are turning into, I'm incredibly proud of. Absolutely.

Kate Daly 39:47

Now, Rosie, in just a minute, I'm going to ask you to share some top tips for how to stay afloat during the divorce process. But before that, if you're listening in this episode, has given you a tiny bit of clarity or comfort or just a tip that's made things feel a little bit more manageable. Make sure to follow the divorce podcast on your favorite podcast app. Each week, remember we're here with expert advice and real support to help you through your separation one step at a time. So, Rosie, if someone listening today is at the very start of their divorce and feels completely lost in it all, what's the one thing you'd want them to know?

Rosie Moss 40:23

I think it's a case of find your tribe. And I don't necessarily mean you've got to go out and find other divorced women, although that probably is really helpful. And actually, Kate, I wish I'd found you in the early days because I think that you would have been immensely helpful to me. But it's knowing that there is help and there is support out there. I'd much like when you have a baby, right? You join all the baby groups and you do all of that and you find your tribe. You find the people who are going through this stuff at the same time as you. So for me, and it same applies to widowhood, actually, it's it's find your tribe and lean into them, you know, let them support you and become a become your own unit. My friends are, you know, the extended family that I didn't know I needed. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Kate Daly 41:01

So, where can people find out more about you? You've mentioned your podcast, so give us the name of that. You've written an amazing book, so tell us about that. And where can people just generally reach out and find you?

Rosie Moss 41:11

So, yeah, the podcast is called Widowed AF, and the website is widowedaf.com. You can find information about retreats, about the book, about some upcoming merchandise and the podcast episodes. I'm on Instagram as widowed underscore AF, and I'm about to launch a TikTok channel, which I'm terrified about, but apparently I gotta do it.

Kate Daly 41:29

Yeah, you'll be brilliant. You'll be absolutely brilliant. Um, you can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram. You can hear about new podcast episodes by subscribing for updates and visiting the divorcepodcast.com or of course on your favourite listening platform. We'd love to know how we can help further. So please share questions on divorce, separation, and co-parenting with us. You can do that at hello at amicable.co.uk. And you can join our subscription platform, Amicable Space, where you'll find our community forum. So it's a safe place to ask anything you like if you're going through separation or co-parenting. Members also get free access to our monthly QA webinars with Amicables divorce specialists as well, so you can ask all your questions in real time. So the link to sign up for that is in the episode description. Rosie, it's been an absolute joy speaking to you this afternoon. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been really lovely to talk to you, and thank you, everybody, for listening.