\u201cBoth my separations I instigated, and I felt great guilt about that,\u201d she says, adding the guilt meant she was \u201cprobably over-generous\u201d in things she agreed to during the separation process. <\/p>\n
The new normal of shared custody also took a toll on Riley. Driving past the family home when the kids were with her ex-husband, knowing they were inside, \u201cI just remember being gutted by that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Counselling helped. Even when the split was certain, she and her first husband sat with a therapist to plan how to uncouple well for their children. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou will always have a relationship, because you have children together,\u201d she recalls being told. They now share birthdays and Christmas. \u201cHe is one of my best friends still.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she found herself back in the dating pool a little wiser and with more life experience under her belt, Riley looked at relationships with new perspective. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs you get older you realise that, actually, no relationship is perfect. That it needs working on. You understand that when a relationship fails, two people have failed at that relationship, not one person.<\/p>\n
\u201cI consider my marriages were both successful until they weren\u2019t.\u201d The point, she says, is to remember why you chose to leave and to keep going. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an emotional toll, but it\u2019s survivable and it\u2019s drivable.\u201d Her mantra during the grind of sorting homes, money and routines was \u201cit will get better\u201d.<\/p>\n
And dating again? Riley met her fianc\u00e9 on Hinge after three years being single. She swears by a simple screen for red flags. \u201cHow do you find a needle in a haystack? You burn the haystack down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rest of the conversation covers practical first-date tactics, the Sunday coffee rule, why Hinge worked for her, the two-year recovery arc, and how to support friends without pushing them into a new relationship.<\/p>\n
Listen to the full episode of The Little Things<\/a> for more.<\/p>\n The Little Things is available on iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. The series is hosted by broadcaster Francesca Rudkin and health researcher Louise Ayrey. New episodes are available every Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBoth my separations I instigated, and I felt great guilt about that,\u201d she says, adding the guilt meant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,6030,95,1558,3269,5842,3470,1862,6094,6097,6095,6101,6098,6099,185,424,6093,6090,6096,6092,111,139,69,90,193,6091,6089,6102,213,4892,6100,223,684,6035,210,2044,2248],"class_list":["post-4520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-again","tag-and","tag-been","tag-build","tag-calling","tag-clear","tag-dating","tag-divorces","tag-down","tag-engaged","tag-good","tag-hard","tag-heartbreaking","tag-is","tag-life","tag-little","tag-lorna","tag-message","tag-midlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-other","tag-riley","tag-separation","tag-side","tag-sports","tag-staring","tag-still","tag-the","tag-there","tag-things","tag-through","tag-time","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}