How to rebuild after divorce

Have you been through a divorce? With 1 in 3 marriages in Australia ending in divorce (and apparently 1 in 2 in America), it’s not really a strange one. For many people, going through a divorce can be one of the most traumatic times of your life. The good thing is, we all have the opportunity to change, grow and rebuild our lives how we want it to be.

In this episode, Conflict Coach and co-founder of Wellbeings & Co, Susie Russell, and Educator and Local Councillor, Peta-Winney-Baartz, share their personal journeys of going through divorce and rebuilding to live the lives of their dreams!

Mel Histon:
Hey Soul Sistas, have you ever been through a divorce? That was probably a really personal straight up question, but with one in three marriages in Australia ending in divorce, and apparently one in two in America, it’s no really a strange one. And I went through a divorce myself 16 years ago when I was in my very early 20s. Okay, it was my late 20s, but-

Susie Russell:
Who’s counting?

Mel Histon:
… who’s counting? Absolutely. Um, and so I have two guests with me in the podcast session today who have both been through marriage breakups. But what I love about these two women is that they have both rebuilt their lives to ones of joy and purpose and are doing really good work in the world.

Mel Histon:
And that’s exactly why I’ve asked them to come and be part of this episode. It’s because crap happens in life all the time to people, and I’ve learned the hard way is that there are tough times that bring you to your knees, and that can have you curled up in the fetal position in the corner of the room rocking back and forth and sobbing.

Mel Histon:
It’s happened to me before. And shit happens to all of us, but once we get through the hurt and the grief and the trauma, we have an opportunity to redesign and rebuild our lives to how we really want it to be. So those two wonderful women that I just mentioned are here with me right now, and that is the fabulous Suzie Russell and Peta-Winney-Baartz. Hey ladies.

Susie Russell:
Hi.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Hi.

Susie Russell:
How are you going Mel?

Mel Histon:
I’m good. Is this your first time in a podcast studio?

Susie Russell:
Uh, not for me. No. My husband and I have our own podcast.

Mel Histon:
Of course you do. Do you record at home?

Susie Russell:
Yes, we do, in the walk-in wardrobe.

Mel Histon:
During the COVID I recorded an episode in the wardrobe.

Susie Russell:
It’s great. It’s soundproof-

Mel Histon:
Good for the acoustics.

Susie Russell:
… from all the clothes. It works.

Mel Histon:
Yeah. And what about you Peta-Winney-Baartz?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I have not, but now I know where I need to record my first podcast, in the wardrobe with all the clothes.

Mel Histon:
Absolutely. I’m really grateful to you both for coming in to share some of your journey and life lessons today, because we’re getting personal and I know that’s not always easy, but it’s also how we all learn and grow. Yeah.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Yeah.

Mel Histon:
So Susie happens to have a wonderful business. She supports people to navigate their own way through separation and divorce via a whole range of strategies, and helps individuals clear their path from chaos to confidence. Sounds amazing. And after her own divorce many years ago, decided to train as a conflict coach and she had no one to really provide support to her. That’s sad. We’ll get into that in a minute.

Mel Histon:
But given that a separation affects every aspect of a person’s life, and the three of us know that first hand, Susie never wanted to see anyone else go down a similar path, and so she co-founded Wellbeing & Co with her husband, Garth. The infamous Garth. And together they help and support people thrive in every aspect of life, which is beautiful. Now Peta-Winney-Baartz, so Pete.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Not all one word.

Mel Histon:
Do you ever just get Peta Baartz or Peta Winney anymore, or is it Peta-Winney-Baartz?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Yes. Friends just Winney, just always been Winney.

Mel Histon:
I think I actually call you Peta-Winney-Baartz.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
You are one of many who think it’s one big long word, I’m sure.

Mel Histon:
So, Pete, is a mom of three smart and gorgeous girls, and one handsome gorgeous little boy. And she’s an educator, teacher, who fell into local politics, and so is now a councilor at the City of Newcastle. I love that about you, that you have gone through your whole experience through separation and divorce and now you come out and you’re just thriving and doing really great things in the world. So, that’s awesome.

Mel Histon:
And I love people with good emotions that are bringing people together and doing awesome things for other people in our city, so it’s great. So divorce is one of the most stressful transitions that we go through. Unfortunately there is more awareness now than there used to be, which has made it easier for people to navigate through this really difficult time.

Mel Histon:
So Susie, you currently support people through separation and divorce, like I said earlier, but you went through your own breakup many years ago.

Susie Russell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mel Histon:
How long ago was that?

Susie Russell:
That is just over 19 years ago.

Mel Histon:
Yeah, wow. So how did you go through your own marriage breakup.

Susie Russell:
I had a double whammy, Mel, and my mother had passed away and I found myself a few months later pregnant, and we had our beautiful baby boy, and he was about 11 months old and my husband and I separated. So I think I was still recovering from the grief from mom and losing mom, and then obviously losing my husband through separation and leading to divorce was just that double edged sword.

Mel Histon:
Was it unexpected?

Susie Russell:
Look, in hindsight looking back over things, because we learn from reflecting on things, no, not now, not today, but at the time, absolutely blindsided, devastated, and the world as I knew it had just shattered into a million tiny pieces. And I somehow had to put my new life into some normalcy, and that was where I really, really struggled. So it was just devastating.

Mel Histon:
Yeah, and you had a little baby.

Susie Russell:
I had a tiny baby. He was 11 months old. He’s now 20, but it’s what’s happened since then and the gratitude that I feel for my situation and what I’ve learned along the way, and hopefully helping others. Because no one is immune to it, unfortunately, and it can happen to any of us. Sometimes we don’t get to decide when that’s going to happen or if it’s going to happen. So, I really feel the passion in me to help other people, because I wouldn’t want to see anyone struggle and not have anyone there to support them.

Mel Histon:
How long do you think it took for you to move through the initial grief and trauma? Because boom, it hits straight up. So for anybody who’s been through a divorce who’s listening, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about. That initial grief and trauma, how long do you think it actually took for you to move through that?

Susie Russell:
So from that day where we opened the conversation and I felt like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck to-

Mel Histon:
So you really didn’t see it coming?

Susie Russell:
No. No, I didn’t. I was a bot sidetracked with a baby, and life gets busy, as we all know. So I wasn’t focusing on… I thought the two of us were okay, so I was focused on the baby a bit more than our relationship as such. Look, how long? I remember six months being a turning point where people just looked at me and said, “Suz, you need some help.” And I remember 12 months being another turning point. And obviously all of those increments in time, so for me it was between six months, and I felt healed by about five years.

Mel Histon:
Yeah. That’s cold. But I mean that you’re actually got to a point where you feel healed, because I suppose at Got Your Back Sista, I mean and that’s different, sorry, women who come to us have gone through separation or divorce, but they’ve also been through domestic violence.

Mel Histon:
So, sometimes they have experienced horrendous trauma. In addition to going through the emotion of a breakdown, they’ve also dealt with abuse. We see women that are 20 years down the track and they still have not been able to heal, which I guess is probably my motivation in actually wanting to talk about this, is because I suppose I hear so many stories of women that are really stuck where they’re at.

Mel Histon:
And you go, “I just want joy for you. I want you to be able to really think about how you want your life to be, and to go for that. It breaks my heart and the Got Your Back Sista team, to see women are stuck in that place of the grief and trauma. And I go, “We learn by sharing stories.”

Susie Russell:
Absolutely.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Absolutely.

Mel Histon:
Yeah. So, that’s good. So you got to about five years and you kind of felt as though…

Susie Russell:
Well, yes. I’m still learning though, Mel. Every conversation I have with another, predominately women and men, but more women than men, I can learn something from them as well. Or I can reflect back on something, and I did it yesterday, and I just reflected back on something yesterday and thought, “Wow, I’m still learning from it.” Something that might have sparked a memory, or something happen and I’ll go, “Ugh, that’s the reason that that occurred, or that happened for that reason,” to whatever it is.

Mel Histon:
Did your ex… was he supportive of you… I suppose you have a little baby, in terms of helping you care for the baby after the separation?

Susie Russell:
Yes. Yes, he was very involved in our son’s life. And of course there’s more emotions involved in that, because as a woman, not that I wanted to put my child in the middle of it, but I didn’t want to have him be part of our lives. But I knew I had to separate emotionally, because he was his dad, and dads have rights too.

Susie Russell:
But I wanted to hurt him, because I was hurting, so I wanted to try and control that relationship. And he was quite aware of that, and basically said to me, “You’ve got to stop trying to control this, because I’m his dad and I want to see him.” So we worked out that relationship as much as it just made me so stuck with my emotions.

Susie Russell:
I knew that I had to give him his rights and responsibilities, because he was his dad. And he’s a good dad. He was a good dad, so I mean I was trying to find fault, I was trying to pick, I was trying to do everything I could to sabotage that relationship. But I just knew deep down I couldn’t, because I was only going to hurt my son. I didn’t want to do that.

Mel Histon:
I love how honest you are about that. You’re so honest about that. I love it.

Susie Russell:
Well, yeah. Thank you.

Mel Histon:
No, but because some people are not honest about that.

Susie Russell:
I was terrible. I did some terrible things to try and sabotage that relationship. And look, fast forwarding all those years later, they have a wonderful relationship. And we grew. We grew with what we were going through. So when he was 12 months old, we didn’t do that week about thing, because when they’re babies, they need their moms.

Susie Russell:
And that just would have broken my heart. So, he never tried to fight me to… and in those days, this is almost 20 years ago, it’s different today, and so he didn’t fight me on that. But when Gabe, when our son got to a certain age, he said, “I want some more time with him.” And so we grew as our son grew, and it’s only just recently that… I mean our 20 year old son has moved out of home, because he just wanted to be under one roof because he was packing a bag and going to separate houses for nearly 20 years.

Susie Russell:
He just said, “Guys, I’ve got to move out,” because he was, at that point, still doing a couple of weeks about at mom and dad’s.

Mel Histon:
We went through that with… we’ve got four kids, and my second husband and I, Craig, have four kids between us. I’ve got one biological and three gorgeous step kids. And that’s heartbreaking. I remember when my biological son, Max, when he was 15, he was like, “I want to go live with my dad.”

Mel Histon:
And I was just heartbroken and I’m reading Steve Biddulph’s book Raising Boys, they were like that’s kind of a natural thing, because he’s learning how to be a man. And he came back. So he actually, when he was 18 or 19, he actually moved back in again with us, which I love having him around.

Mel Histon:
But yeah, that’s tough. He was like, “I don’t want to do week on, week off anymore. I just want a parent, and I’m picking my dad.” Each of our kids have been through that, except for one of them. He’s gorgeous and he just wants everybody to be happy. So he kept doing week on, week off until he moved in with his fiance.

Mel Histon:
But they made a choice. They got to a certain age and they were like, “I’m picking a parent, because I’m sick of week on, week off and moving houses,” which I get.

Susie Russell:
And that’s tough on them. It’s tough on children to make those big decisions at those ages. So, if you can grow with your kids and try and remind yourself that it’s not their divorce, it’s yours. That you own it. Every now and then I just had to remind myself and go, “Hang on,” I mean it’s hers, “This is your separation. This is not your child’s separation.” So you have to put others before your own needs every now and then, and that’s hard sometimes as a mom and a dad.

Mel Histon:
Yeah. And so Pete.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Okay, here we go. Now I know where to come when my currently eight year old turns and says to me, “I’m going to live with dad.”

Susie Russell:
Hopefully not at eight though, darling.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I hope not.

Mel Histon:
And I think that book, that Raising Boys book, I think you’ve got them until they’re teens. They say up until they’re teens, they’re very much attached to mom, but then they want to go and learn how to be a man. And so they’re looking for that male role.

Susie Russell:
Male role.

Mel Histon:
It still ripped my heart open, even though I knew that. It still ripped my heart open when he was like, “I’m sick of week on, week off, I’m going to live with that.”

Susie Russell:
Wow.

Mel Histon:
Yep. Anyway, he did come back, so I was happy about that. So Pete, four kids.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Yes. Four.

Mel Histon:
Four kids.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Four, yeah. I often describe them as, I had the next one when the oldest one was self sufficient. Wasn’t by choice, it was purely the way God intended, I guess. Each of them was four, at least, before I had the next one. So I have this span of… I have a 20 year old daughter, and a nearly 17 year old daughter, and a 13 year old daughter, and my little boy is eight. So a whole little band all of our own.

Mel Histon:
So how long ago did your marriage end?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
So my son was 15 months. So he was little.

Mel Histon:
So probably a bit similar to Susie, that you had a littley, you had a little baba.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Susie Russell:
Yeah.

Mel Histon:
And were you blindsided like Susie?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I’ve probably got like the flip side of Susie’s story, and that’s really interesting, I think, too to explore, is that if you had to lay the cards on table and call sides, I left. So I left, but I think people assume that that means you walk away. You’ve made the choice to walk away and that you’ve drawn a line in the sand and you have none of that emotion, that grief and that somehow-

Mel Histon:
I left too. I left too, so I get that.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Yeah, it’s really interesting that people seem to think there must be no emotion at all. You made the decision, you must be fine. I had four children to look after.

Mel Histon:
To call it and go, “I’m going at it alone with four kids,” that’s full-on.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Yeah, and I think also really interestingly the grieving that I now know about and occurs, I probably did that before I left. I had left in my head a long time before I actually walked out of the house. So, I had four children to look after and there’s this… it’s really interesting that one in three figure. I jokingly… I have two girlfriends and the three of us, there’s one married that lasted out of the three of us, and we always say, “You’re the one in three. You’re the one in three.”

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
But nobody in my family, ever, had been divorced. Ever. Mom’s, dad’s, aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins, never. And i think it really did bother me that I was going to be this black sheep, shamed. And I, for a little while, absolutely that stopped me from making the decision I had to make. It wasn’t pleasant.

Mel Histon:
I was the first in my family too, and it caused a ruckus. Since then my sisters are now divorced as well.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I did actually start a little bit of a waterfall, but at the time, the two hardest conversations I had were with my children, and that was one of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve ever had in my life. My ex husband and I agreed to be in the room together, and he was just not capable of participating in that conversation, and it was just… that made me really angry that I was the one telling the children that this was happening.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
But the other conversation that broke my heart was telling my parents. That was really hard. I felt really like I’d let them down. But they were insanely supportive, and everyone is, and everyone was. And even my in-laws, that I still refer to as my in-laws, I have a really good relationship with my ex-husband and his entire family. But that took a really long time and a lot of work. And like Susie said, putting aside the feelings that I had, and making sure that every single decision I made was purely about the children and their best interest.

Mel Histon:
Could your ex see or understand why you were making that choice?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Not at all. At that exact point in time, absolutely not. In no way. And so he’s worked through a lot of his own mental health issues, and he’s the first to put his hand up currently and say, “No, I can’t do that.” And I think that’s huge.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I think I realized that we both weren’t happy and I was the only one… we worked for a very long time at trying to make it better, and it wasn’t going to change. And he was certainly not in a position to fix it, or leave. So, I couldn’t… and I was thinking about this yesterday, ultimately I knew I wasn’t my best me, and he wasn’t his best self either, but I had to just worry about me and the kids. Yeah, four of them.

Mel Histon:
Yeah.

Susie Russell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mel Histon:
And so did you find, like Susie can see it like almost a bit of a line in the sand after five years where she had felt as though she had healed from that. Did you experience that as well?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Yeah, I think for me, like I said, I think I did a lot of grieving before I left, because I knew where this was going. And so I think by the time I actually left, and at the time had to go stay with mom and dad, I was determined that if I was doing that, it had to be, well, A, we all had to be happy, and that I had to be able to be better than I was, and I had to be able to be the best mom I could be. So I needed-

Mel Histon:
So how did you juggle four kids as a single mom?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
My family is ridiculously amazing. My mom and dad and my sister are insanely supportive. My sister has no children of her own and spoils the hell out of them, which drives me insane. But is absolutely there for them in a heartbeat. I moved in with mom and dad. At the time, mom and dad were actually living with my grandfather looking after him, and so it was a real live commune in that house.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
But also then my children had the amazing experience of they’d get up every morning and have breakfast with Nanna and pop, auntie Michelle comes before work, and great-grandfather as well.

Mel Histon:
It takes a village.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
It’s something that they don’t really understand how great that is. I also have got a ridiculously loyal and real group of girlfriends that I can probably count on one hand, who certainly wouldn’t let me indulge in self-pity, and they knew… three of them particularly knew exactly what was going on the whole time.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
So, they knew I’d made the decision, and they were just right there. They listened a lot. they, like I said, kept me very real. There was no letting me sit wallowing. And I couldn’t sit wallowing, because I had four children to look after.

Mel Histon:
Did you ever have that point where you were like curled up, the fetal position in the corner of the room?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I still do.

Mel Histon:
Keeping it real. Let’s keep it real.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I get to the end of a week and I think, “Everyone’s alive, fed, been to school, gotten to work, we’re all good.” Absolutely. Absolutely. Particularly with the kids, I still have this mom guilt, it’s a real thing. The working and the doing things that fulfill me, versus the being at home and being right there with them.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
There is a balance and it shifts, depending on them as well, like how they were dealing with it at the time. And each of them have completely… it’s really interesting. My son will come out with occasionally the statement, “When are you and dad getting back together?” And my ex-husband and I will both just look at each other and go, “What is he…” he was not two, he wasn’t 18 months when we separated.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
He doesn’t remember when we were together, so I don’t know. I think it’s that school and families and seeing how they interact. The girls are very resilient as a result. Very much so, particularly my eldest two.

Mel Histon:
So I, like you, was the one that left. And again, it was probably a really hard choice and something that I had thought long and hard about. My dad had said something to me, one day he’d drawn something to my attention that he’d witnessed in my relationship, and that probably sparked me in actually looking at it. And I didn’t realize I had fallen down this slippery slope into not a great place in our marriage.

Mel Histon:
Anyway, so I agree, I had thought long and hard about it, and was absolutely wracked with guilt at leaving. My son’s 20, and it’s probably only now that I don’t have mother guilt anymore, because he’s grown into such a wonderful human being, but I remember watching Dr. Phil, and Dr. Phil talking about divorce all those years ago.

Mel Histon:
And he was saying, “You need to do the best you can to try every avenue you can to make it work, but if you can’t make it work, you need to rip the bandaid off with your kids, and you need to hold up no hope for them that you’ll ever get back together.” And that really stuck with me.

Mel Histon:
I was like, “Well…” and he goes, “It’s really hard, but if there’s no way that you are ever getting back with your partner, you need to let your kids know.” And I remember my ex and I had been divorced for two years, and my little boy was six. And we were walking around the lake one day together and he looked at me and he goes, “Mom, can you please get back with my dad?”

Mel Histon:
And he’d never said that before. I had been like, “We’ve got two houses, aren’t you lucky?” And he had bought into that. He’d bought that whole line for two years, and then one day he screwed up his little face, he was like, “Mom, please can you get back with my dad. I don’t want two houses anymore.”

Mel Histon:
And I remember Dr. Phil, and I looked at him and I went, “Max, I’m never getting back with your dad. We will never live together again.” And his little face screwed up and little tears came out, and it ripped my heart out and stamp on it. That was the worst experience ever. But I remember going, “Dr. Phil said I have to do this.” Because it is crueler for him to live in hope all the time and be thinking that there’s a chance you will get back together.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And I think I… it’s not a benefit, but I’ve seen through my work with children, relationship breakdowns in families long before I had my own to live through, and I’ve seen children be affected by living in an unhappy house, and I’ve seen very happy children from separated families. I’ve seen the whole gamut of what can go wrong and go right, and I think that helped me a lot, because I knew that I could do this.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
It was going to be really hard and really painful for a long time, but I knew it was the right thing for me and them.

Mel Histon:
I remember Max’s daycare, he went to family daycare when he was a little fellow, and I remember his daycare lady, Christine, I went to pick him up one day and she pulled me aside. She said, “Today Max came up to me and said, ‘Christine, I feel really sick in my tummy when my mom and daddy argue. I feel sick in my stomach.'”

Mel Histon:
And I remember just feeling, “Oh, my little baby.” I think he was three or four at the time. “My poor little boy, he’s living through that.” And it’s that moment, because I think we can get very much caught up in what’s going on for us, and we don’t actually realize that our children are witness to that.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And that’s what I said before about being the best me, I was not even remotely the best me when I was there. And neither was their father, and he just wasn’t in a place to do anything about it, and we tried, like you said, everything we could, and I just knew that for them and me and my ex-husband, that this was the best thing to do. But it was very difficult to walk out the door.

Mel Histon:
Yeah.

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Mel Histon:
So Susie, you currently support people going through separation and divorce. You went through that yourself. So, what are some of the, I suppose, common themes or issues that arise for people when they’re going through separation/divorce?

Susie Russell:
Well, one of the biggest things that I’ve witnessed over the years is that everybody has a story, and everybody’s situation is completely different to the next person. So, I think one of the biggest things that we all need to recognize in another person is that, yes, look, there might be some parallels and some similarities, but at the end of the day it’s a very personal situation and people just want to share their story.

Susie Russell:
And from my point of view in terms of coaching people, they just want to tell someone who’s going to listen to understand. Listen to understand them. It doesn’t mean that I have to go around fixing people. It means that when someone is offloading and sharing their story, they’re actually making sense of it themselves. Because we’re human beings, we’re hardwired to share stories.

Susie Russell:
And as you can see today, just in all of our sharing with each other and sharing this podcast, that women and men listening to this podcast will actually resonate with something that we’re sharing. And so that learning will go on, and that’s how we learn and grow. So, it’s allowing people to share their story. One of the biggest things that happened to me as an individual, was that I got stuck in the grief cycle.

Susie Russell:
And the reason why it’s called a cycle is that it keeps going, and so it’s like being on a merry-go-round that you can’t get off, and I really found myself stuck. And there are various steps in the grief cycle, and I was only having highs and lows. I was not having any of that middle normal life.

Susie Russell:
So, I was really swinging on this merry-go-round, and I was stuck. And someone actually said to me, “You need some help, Suz. You’ve got to get off that merry-go-round and you’ve got to deal with all of this grief.” So I think that’s one of the biggest things we’ve all got to deal with, is that grief that comes with leaving that relationship and letting that relationship go.

Mel Histon:
Because we want to be happy. That’s what I… and I suppose that’s what I mentioned earlier, I sadly see many women at Got Your Back Sista, who are caught in that grief cycle.

Susie Russell:
It’s dreadful.

Mel Histon:
And we want them to get off.

Susie Russell:
Yes.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Absolutely.

Mel Histon:
We want them to get off. When I look at the two of you, I go you have gotten off that grief cycle now, and you’ve both gone on to recreate and rebuild lives where you are joyful and you’re doing really great work in the world to help and support other people. And I go, “I want that for people. That’s why I’m doing this episode.” Because we can actually make that choice to go through that healing and go, “How do I want my life to be?” Okay, so tell me, how did you two both get there?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I don’t know the… I think I do know the answer to this question. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I don’t know if it’s genetic, I don’t think it is, I have this annoying positive outlook on things. It drives a few people insane. I had made that decision and I was determined to… if I wasn’t going to make the best of it, I wouldn’t have done it.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And I knew deep down that I would be okay. I had family, I had friends, and I wanted to be a better me. I knew there was more for me, and that would make me not only happy with myself, but be a better mother. And I think being really honest about that, and like I had those very honest conversations with my ex-husband, and they were not received well.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
He was probably experiencing the feelings that Susie was feeling, that blindsided, in the beginning. But I just knew I wasn’t fulfilled. There was something else for me. I had no idea how it was going to end, or if you had told me at that point that somehow I’d end up in local government, I would have shaken my head at you.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
But I knew there was more, and I really thrive on challenges, new challenges, and I realized I had just been in this rut and I had just been existing, and I didn’t want to just exist. I wanted to live.
Mel Histon:
Did you actually have any goals set for yourself, or were you just like, “I’m just trying to get through, but I’m going to do it in a positive way?”

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
We had some fairly serious financial issues to deal with. That was really trying. You have the vision, obviously nobody gets married thinking they’re going to get divorced. Nobody has children thinking they’re going to have a split family. But you certainly think that you’re going to have a house to live in and you’re going to be secure, and I was none of those things.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I had no house, I’m a childcare worker, one of the lowest paying jobs in Australia, and I don’t have a millionaire family. We’re hardworking, normal people, and so it was an impost on my mom and dad, which I really felt very guilty about as well. But I just knew that something would happen. I just had faith that something good would happen.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And that’s the thing I’ve tried to instill in my children, is that nothing comes without a bit of heartache sometimes, and hard work. And like I said, they see me… at the moment I told them I was doing this today and they went, “What are you doing?” But I think I’m setting a good example for them.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
They see me doing good things in the community. I love that they see that. I love that they see me… I value my friendships. I value my relationships. But they also see that I value things about me, not just about them, or other people. That I actually do things for myself, and I think that’s a really important thing to instill in them.

Mel Histon:
So how did you decide to go for council.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I didn’t decide. The story is I like to refer to myself as the Steven Bradbury of local government. I have a very dear best friend who happens to have been on your podcast, and she suggested to me that I should possibly get involved in her local government fundraising, and I did.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And I liked the conversations, I liked that that particular organization held and what they were trying to do, and I really believed in what she was trying to do for the city. A few years down the track, a very young guy who was our Deputy Lord Mayor in Newcastle, Declan, and he actually happened to be one of the children that I had cared for at the childcare facility that I worked at, asked me to run second on his ticket for the local government election.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And don’t worry, nobody ever gets elected second on the ticket. And at that stage I had probably already decided that I really liked this, and that maybe when the kids were older this is something I could really pursue, because it’s quite taxing after hours. There’s lots of after hours work.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And so I said, “Yes, absolutely.” And next thing, “Oh, Peta, you might want to ring your boss, because it looks like you’re going to get elected.” So, that in itself was a bit of a rollercoaster, having to have a conversation with my boss at the time, who had been my boss for nearly 20 years, and say to him, “You know how I work all the time? Well, I can’t really do it anymore, because I just accidentally fell into this second job.”

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
But I believe things happen for a reason. I really do, and it’s something that I’m really passionate about.

Mel Histon:
And now you have a life of service, a life of community service, as well as serving your kids, you’re serving the community.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And I think obviously the stuff I said, I believe in everything, the vision for Newcastle, and I love Newcastle passionately. But also it’s the organizations that I’ve gotten to work with. I obviously have done work with you at Got Your Back Sista, you know Michelle Faithfull that’s been on here before with Compass Housing and Hunter Homeless Connect Day, and in my work with Guraki, the Aboriginal Advisory Committee, they’re actually really valuable things to the community, and they’re inspiring people, and I love it. It’s beautiful. I really love it.

Mel Histon:
So Miss Susie, what about you? Because now your life is very different now to how it was back then-

Susie Russell:
Yeah, all those years ago.

Mel Histon:
… and you’re out doing wonderful work supporting people with your husband, with your business. When you were going through that, coming up to your five years, were you redesigning your life, or setting goals and going, “That’s how I want it to be?” Or is it something that’s just evolved?

Susie Russell:
I think it was intentional. I don’t know that it just evolved. I think I was very intentional about what I… I knew what I didn’t want, Mel, but I didn’t know what I did want. And I was coming from a very dark place back in those days, and I knew I had to go to work on myself.

Susie Russell:
And I think one of the biggest killers out there is that we have these expectations of other people, and I knew that I couldn’t have any more expectations of my son’s father. I just had to work on myself, and had to change myself. And we’re not trained to deal with conflict, and we’re not trained to deal with all these emotions, which is why I had to go… I wanted to go and train in conflict management and various other things so that I could manage my separation and my divorce and make it work actually.

Susie Russell:
And I remember my sister-in-law saying to me many years ago, she said to me, “Suz, don’t end up bitter. Don’t let this divorce make you bitter. What don’t you make this divorce make you better?” And that comment stuck with me for so many years, because I was bitter. I was angry and I was deep in my own emotions and my own grief, and I thought, “Oh gosh, that means I have to be better. I have to do something to help the situation and help myself.”

Susie Russell:
I was drowning, like many people out there. I didn’t know how to navigate my way through a separation and then go through the legal proceedings of a divorce and all those things that come with it. I had no idea. So, from that, it was a lot of personal development, a lot of reading.

Susie Russell:
One of the biggest things for me though, was letting go. Letting go and realizing I couldn’t control what was happening. All I could control was myself. And by doing that, all of my relationships on my life have changed over the years. I am not the same person when it comes to relationships, and relationships affect every single aspect of our lives, our social connection, our whole wellbeing.

Mel Histon:
And they can be the joy of life.

Susie Russell:
Well, that’s where I found my joy. I found my joy in actually getting well mentally, physically, emotionally, and hence our company, Wellbeings & Co. So now I help people in lots of different aspects of their lives, not just separation and divorce, although that happens to be a part of what I love. But it’s relationships generally.

Susie Russell:
Relationship are interesting things, and it’s just having those wonderful communication skills where we can communicate with people. It’s a life skill we all need.

Mel Histon:
Yeah. And you both have gone on to meet new, wonderful partners and wonderful, healthy relationships.

Susie Russell:
We have.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
We have. We both have.

Mel Histon:
Wonderful, healthy relationships, which we… that’s what we want. Happy, joyous, healthy relationships.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Yeah. I think particularly that bitterness, I refused to buy into the bitterness. I just couldn’t do it, and I watch from the sideline other relationships that I see on the periphery of my life, and I see some people that are actually engulfed by that bitterness. And I just don’t know how you would get up every day-

Susie Russell:
It’s soul destroying.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
… and be driven to make someone else’s life a misery. I couldn’t do it, and I don’t understand people that do, because there is so much joy and good.

Mel Histon:
There’s life after divorce.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
There is. There very much is.

Mel Histon:
There’s a really good life after divorce if you choose to rebuild it that way.

Susie Russell:
There sure is.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
There sure is.

Mel Histon:
Okay ladies, so wrap up. Each of you, I want you to think of one… some like a really great life lesson, or something you’ve learned from that whole experience of marriage breakdown, the grief, the bitterness or the trauma of a marriage breakdown, and what you’ve learned on that journey out of that?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
I think, as I said, I walked away absolutely broken and I always lived my life imagining I’d have a happy family and I’d live a fairytale. And when it didn’t happen the way I thought, I honestly didn’t know what was in store for me. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I just had this deep seated believe that I deserve to be happy, that my children deserve to be happy, and that my ex-husband deserve to be happy.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And I think having that mindset and knowing that there is great things in the universe, it sounds like a cliché, but in the end I did find absolute joy and happiness and absolutely love again. Like it did happen, and there were absolutely days where I just thought this was my lot on life, to just exist, and I didn’t want to exist. I made that conscious decision, “I’m not going to exist, I’m going to live a joyful life.” And make sure that my children see a joyful life.

Mel Histon:
Yeah. What about you Miss Susie?

Susie Russell:
What was the question again?

Mel Histon:
What’s one key thing that you’ve learned through this whole journey?

Susie Russell:
I thought so. I was just listening intently there. One thing I’ve learned is that if I can get through that separation and divorce, I can get through anything. And it’s taught me courage, and it’s taught me to be brave, and it’s taught me so much that once I go on the other side, there’s not a day that goes by where I’m not grateful.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And thankful.

Mel Histon:
Yeah.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And happy.

Susie Russell:
Absolutely. Gratitude.

Mel Histon:
Yeah.

Susie Russell:
That that actually happened, because we all grew and learned so much from each other.

Mel Histon:
Yeah. I love that. And I’m going to say one thing that I’ve learned from that whole experience is that… I’m just trying to think how to put this succinctly. Is that it can be very hard to rise above a bully, if you’re being bullied. And I have absolutely been bullied, and it’s very hard not to succumb to the power of a bully.

Mel Histon:
It’s really hard. But when you find a way, and you have to find a way, you actually have to find a way to not get sucked into the vortex, the power and control of a bully. When you do find that way and you make that choice to go, “I’m not going to get sucked into that,” because it is a choice, you know what I mean?

Susie Russell:
Absolutely.

Mel Histon:
It’s really fricking hard. It’s the hardest thing ever, but when you flick the switch, the world opens up.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
It’s also not your job to… what I’ve come to understand, it’s not my job to fix everyone else. It’s not my job to make sure they have a happy life. All I can do is control my life and what comes from that, will come from that. And that took a lot as well, because I do like everyone around me to be happy and content.

Susie Russell:
But they will be when you are.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
They will be. They will be.

Susie Russell:
They will be, because if you’re okay, they’re okay.

Mel Histon:
They’re okay.

Susie Russell:
And one of the biggest things, one of the other things that I learned, sorry, Mel, just to cut in there, is that it’s the old thing, it’s the old when you get on the airplane and the flight attendants come out and do the safety presentation. And they say, “You have to put your oxygen mask on yourself first.” They don’t say, “Put it on everyone else around you.” You have to put the oxygen mask on yourself.

Susie Russell:
And if you put the oxygen mask on yourself, then you can help everyone around you. And so I learned to put myself at the top of the list, or put the oxygen mask on, whatever you want to call it, and everyone else in my life benefits. If I’m okay, they’re okay.

Mel Histon:
Yeah, I love that.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
And if they’re not okay, it’s okay for them not to be in your life as well.

Susie Russell:
Yep.

Mel Histon:
Yeah. I’m just going to wrap up and go now after going through all the trauma of divorce, I can honestly say I’m living really the life of my dreams. There you go, sometimes you’ve got to be brave.

Susie Russell:
Isn’t that wonderful?

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Absolutely.

Susie Russell:
Absolutely.

Mel Histon:
Anyways, so okay, Miss Susie, if people want to know more about you, and if anybody’s listening and they’re going through that tough time of separation or divorce and they want to reach out to you, how can they do that?

Susie Russell:
Our website is wellbeingsandco.com.au, and all our contact details are there.

Mel Histon:
And Miss Peta-Winney-Baartz, councilor City of Newcastle, serving the community.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Yes, yes, that.

Mel Histon:
If people did want to reach out to you about a civic matter, rates and-

Susie Russell:
Rubbish.

Mel Histon:
… roads and rubbish?

Susie Russell:
You’re the girl.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Summerhill is my favorite place in the universe. If I could live there, I would.

Mel Histon:
There you go. They can contact the City of Newcastle.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
City of Newcastle. Yeah. That giant long pwinneybaartz-

Mel Histon:
Yep. Peta-Winney-Baartz.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
… @ncc.

Mel Histon:
Well, thank you so much for coming and sharing your stories and your wisdoms. That’s how we learn and grow in life. So thank you.

Peta-Winney-Baartz:
Thank you.

Susie Russell:
Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Hey Soul Sista with Mel Histon. What would help you on your crazy life journey? Email melissa@thesistacode.com.

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