Ep. 325 - How to be powerful in divorce without becoming angry or bitter
How to Get Over Your Ex
Dorothy AB Johnson
4.7 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you're in the middle of a divorce and quietly afraid that standing up for yourself will turn you into someone angry, bitter, or unrecognizable, this episode is for you. We're unpacking the very real fear of shrinking to keep the peace or swinging to the other extreme just to feel protected and why neither is actually power. I walk you through a real client scenario and the exact four-step framework we used to help her stay grounded, clear, and self-advocating throughout the divorce process without relying on anger as fuel. This episode is a practical guide to turning your power on, calmly, intentionally, and sustainably so you can move through divorce without losing yourself in the process.
Check out our breakup toolkit (a breakup first aid kit that not only helps you get over your ex but also takes you beyond your breakup): https://dorothyabjohnson.com/breakuptoolkit/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to How to Get Over Your Ex, episode number 325. |
| 0:05.9 | How to Be Powerful in Divorce without becoming angry or bitter. |
| 0:27.0 | Welcome to How to Get Over Your Ex, a podcast on getting over your ex without it just taking time. |
| 0:29.3 | I'm your host, breakup coach Dorothy. |
| 0:32.7 | Let's turn your pain into power and your heartbreak into happy. Hello, hello, beautiful brave hearts. How are you doing? I miss you. Today we're talking |
| 0:44.0 | about something that actually came up in one of my clients' sessions today. And I thought maybe if she's |
| 0:53.6 | struggling with it, maybe you are as well. So the real question |
| 0:57.6 | that we were kind of looking at is, can I be powerful without being angry? Or maybe the way |
| 1:03.9 | that you're asking it might be, do I have to become an angry person to stand up for myself? |
| 1:10.5 | So the background here is I have a client who's going |
| 1:14.2 | through divorce. Her ex-husband left her for someone else. And from the outside is seemingly |
| 1:19.6 | like completely over the relationship while she's still kind of, you know, processing some |
| 1:24.8 | things. And she met with an attorney to start the divorce proceedings. |
| 1:29.9 | And afterwards, she felt rather heavy. She used the word like dirty and gross. And right now |
| 1:39.3 | she has zero desire for her ex and zero attachment. That work is done. We've truly gotten over the ex. But now she's |
| 1:45.6 | facing this whole legal process part and she's going to have to interact with him. You know, like get |
| 1:51.0 | passwords, access accounts, negotiate finances. And she's terrified, right, of the process. And she's |
| 1:58.2 | worried that she's going to like turn her into this angry person. |
| 2:02.2 | And what she told me was, Dorothy, I'm, I'm just not an angry person. |
| 2:06.7 | I don't want to become someone who's bitter in fighting all the time. |
| 2:11.6 | But then she also mentioned that, you know, she notices that when she's around him, |
| 2:17.2 | she shrinks. She shrinks. She appeases him. |
... |
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