Episode Description
Love and intimacy can be complicated, especially when sexual challenges arise in a marriage. In this podcast episode Janelle Orion, an Ivy League-educated life coach, opens up about her unique path from a deeply committed relationship to a sexless marriage to a "divorce in love."
In this candid conversation, Janelle shares how she married for the first time at age 45 and faced unexpected challenges when her husband no longer wanted to have sex with her. Through therapy, Tantra, and personal growth, Janelle embarked on a quest to better understand, not only what was happening in her marriage, but to understand her own desires and boundaries as well.
Janelle's insights into navigating intimacy and having a sexless marriage with someone you deeply love are both profoundly practical and deeply personal.
With her background in non-traditional relationship dynamics, including polyamory and open relationships, Janelle brings a fresh perspective on navigating love, communication, and self-discovery. Her personal journey from marital struggles to "divorcing in love" offers a unique perspective on relationships, personal growth, and unconventional divorce solutions.
Show Notes
About Janelle
As an Ivy-League educated personal growth junkie, entrepreneur and pleasure activator, Janelle knows how to hold space--and the occasional butt plug--for others’ spiritual awakening. Catalysts for her becoming include plant medicines, polyamory and getting married and divorced “in love.” She has been to Burning Man nine times, all seven continents and now lives in the Goddess Temple. With her open heart and radical acceptance, she coaches people to feel wildly alive and gives you permission to live one step closer to your truth.
Connect with Janelle
You can connect with Janelle on LinkedIn at Janelle Orion, on Facebook at Janelle Orion, follow Janelle on X at Feel Wildly Alive and on Instagram at Feel Wildly Alive. To find out more about Janelle’s work visit her website at Feel Wildly Alive and catch her podcast Permission to be Human.
Books referenced on the show:
The Art of Giving and Receiving by Betty Martin, D.C.
Come as You Are by Emily Nagasaki, Ph. D.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Janelle
- The guest is Janelle Orion, an Ivy League-educated life coach, entrepreneur, and host of the "Permission to be Human" podcast.
- Janelle met her ex-husband on OkCupid at age 40 and married him at 45, after dating for 5 years.
- They had a non-traditional, polyamorous relationship from the beginning.
- Shortly after marriage, Janelle's husband stopped desiring sex with her, leading to relationship issues.
- They tried various methods to resolve the problem, including talk therapy, tantra, and personal growth work.
- Janelle learned important skills around pleasure, intimacy, and consent during this process.
- She emphasizes the importance of feeling safe in one's body and relaxing the nervous system for better intimacy.
- Janelle realized she wanted a primary partner who would have sex with her, which led to the decision to divorce.
- The couple divorced amicably, maintaining a loving relationship throughout the process.
- They had a prenup, which helped simplify the divorce process.
- After divorce, they continued living as neighbors in a duplex they owned together.
- Janelle emphasizes the importance of understanding one's desires and feeling safe in one's body for sexual pleasure.
- She recommends books like "The Art of Receiving and Giving" by Betty Martin and "Come As You Are" by Emily Nagasaki for understanding pleasure.
- Janelle learned valuable lessons about herself during and after the divorce, viewing it as a growth opportunity.
- She used emotional release techniques, like the "hand scream," to process difficult emotions during the transition.
- Janelle now coaches others on embodying pleasure, intimacy, and consent for more fulfilling relationships.
- She can be found on Instagram @feelwildlyalive and hosts the "Permission to be Human" podcast.
- The podcast discusses the importance of communication, personal growth, and understanding one's own needs in relationships.
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Transcript
When Love Isn't Enough: Options for Navigating a Sexless Marriage
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
self-discovery, boundaries, consent, embodiment
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Janelle Orion
Karen Covy Host
00:10
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. And now, without further ado, let's get on with the show.
With me. Today, I have the pleasure of talking with Janelle Orion. Janelle is an Ivy League educated, personal growth junkie, entrepreneur and pleasure activator. She's a life coach and a facilitator who guides and holds space for others' spiritual awakening. Janelle is also a podcaster and the host of the Permission to be Human podcast. Janelle has visited all seven continents and has been to Burning man nine times. I'm not sure which one is a bigger accomplishment. She's polyamorous and has been married and divorced in love. With an open heart and radical acceptance, Janelle coaches people to feel wildly alive and gives them permission to live one step closer to their truth. Janelle, welcome to the show.
Janelle Orion Guest
01:30
Thanks, Karen, it's so good to be here.
Karen Covy Host
01:32
There are so many things I want to talk with you about, not the least of which is how you can get married and divorced in love, right. That's quite an accomplishment and something that a lot of people would, you know, are just dying to do. They would love to be able to end their marriage as lovingly as they started it, but it's easier said than done. So but before we get into all of that, let's start with the backstory. Let's start with the marriage, because you know, I know, you got married later in life. How did that happen? How did you meet the guy? Tell me all the things.
Janelle Orion Guest
02:10
Okay, I was 40 and OkCupid was. That was 10 years ago, so online dating works and I really believed in their algorithm. So that was how it was Simple meeting online. It was a first. We got married when I was 45. So we dated for five years, but it was a first marriage for both of us when we got married.
Karen Covy Host
02:35
Wow, that's a little bit unusual. I mean, most people have had their starter marriage by then, as it's called. But what so? You met on OkCupid. How long did you date what drew you to say, okay, this is the guy?
Janelle Orion Guest
02:56
I actually had that hit like, oh, this was the guy, I think on our third date and I knew right away, but we still took our time. I think one of the things that we say in our podcast is that we often think, oh, we're so focused on not getting divorced that like that's how. Sometimes how we choose, like the um in marriage, it's like kind of like a fear, like I don't want this, so this is okay. And so I had never. I was like I'm going to wait as long as it takes which might be never to get married until I know for sure that I'm not going to get divorced. That was like the mindset that I had had for my whole time. So then I was like, okay, great, I've met my one, I'm a fully formed adult, so is he.
03:43
And so our age, our maturity, we also, at that time we were even though I still believed in fairy tales and finding the one at least a little bit I was also non-traditional. We were in a non-traditional relationship. We were polyam, we were open, relating at that time we. That was new for both of us as well. So when we decided to get married. You know, we were in an open relationship so we felt like, okay, we can expand and be with and be the fullest expression of ourselves.
04:15
We are wizened middle aged people who've lived life and you know, we the decision for getting married was a beautiful one in that, for me, getting married represented family. Right, like how would I differentiate oh, this is my boyfriend for the rest of my life, when my parents would be like, oh, that's the boyfriend Versus oh? There is something in my heart, in my lineage, in my conditioning, that marriage meant something more. It elevated him to the status of family Not everyone, but that was true for me. On his side, he didn't actually have that opinion about marriage, but he did have that opinion about the name, that me changing my name represented family. Okay, that was our compromise, that I never thought I was going to change my name. He never thought he was going to get married, and so we did both.
Karen Covy Host
05:17
Okay so, but you know you, you get there you're talking about. You know what marriage meant to you, what marriage meant to him. Most people don't think about those things. Most people don't figure that out, especially before they get married. They just get, you know, you get married because it's kind of what you're supposed to do, it's what you're brought up to do, it's all the things Right. So how was it that you came to be so thoughtful about marriage and what it meant to you?
Janelle Orion Guest
05:52
I would credit my husband with that. You know he was a very thoughtful person, very spiritual person, a big thinker, and so for him it was just like you ask why to everything. And so when he asked me like, why do you want to get married? And I was like, oh okay, let me really think about it.
Karen Covy Host
06:17
Yeah, that's. That's interesting, because most people, if you ask them, why do you want to get married, they'd be? They'd say well, isn't that what you're supposed to do? You know, you get to, especially as a woman. You get to a certain age when you see all your friends getting married and you just figure well, okay, it's my time, right. So how did you go through that time? Because for most women, that hits in your twenties or thirties and I asked this as someone who also got married in my forties, right. So I got married later in life as well. But I'm just curious for you how did you get through that time? And then, finally, in your forties or at 40, when you met him, he said okay, now I'll think about doing this.
Janelle Orion Guest
07:05
It's a great question. I think I didn't expect to get married young, and so that was just part of it. My parents actually got married older, so they weren't encouraging me, not that like, oh, grandkids would be nice kind of thing every now and again, but I didn't have a lot of pressure from my family in that front and I had the example of an older marriage and, like my parents, having lived a full life before having met each other and then choosing each other. And then I say you know, I'm an adventuresome spirit and always have been, and so while everyone else was getting married, there was a, there was a part of me at one point that I was like, oh, I'm looking for the right person, but I had never felt like I found that right person and so I wasn't going to settle without that.
Karen Covy Host
07:53
That's really smart. So you wait, you find the guy, you're on the apps and you know you get married. What happened?
Janelle Orion Guest
08:07
What happened was, you know, we have this idea of like okay, well, I had this idea we're going to get married and we're adults and we can communicate and we can problem solve and we're smart and we're creative, and so whatever problems we have, we're going to be able to solve. But then, shortly after we got married, my husband just stopped desiring to have sex with me.
Karen Covy Host
Why?
Janelle Orion Guest
That's the question, Karen, that ultimately, I don't know that we'll ever have a full answer to, um, but ultimately it was.
08:40
This is what's here, and how do we figure this out? How do we try to fix, if you will, this part of our relationship? Right, because we still were in love and had fun and traveled and do all these things. But it was hard, it was confusing, there was shame, there was hurt. Neither one of us understood what was going on. So we tried everything we could to figure out how to resolve that, and so, starting with talk therapy, and then we both got introduced to Tantra and did a deep dive into personal growth and learning skills around pleasure and intimacy and like asking ourselves questions like what is it that I want versus what society has told me that I want.
Karen Covy Host
09:26
You know that's so important because, all right, first of all I want to thank you for coming on the podcast and talking about this, because so many people have issues around sex. For so many couples sex, you know, maybe it starts out great and maybe not right in the beginning of the marriage, you know, but ultimately it tapers off at some point, usually after they have kids, usually after they're tired, and sex becomes this big elephant in the room or in the relationship, rather. There's guilt because there's shame, no one wants to talk about it, no one knows how to talk about it and no one certainly knows what to do about it. So, you know, you said you started with talk therapy. How did you find a therapist? Is it just? Did you go to a regular talk therapist or did you have to find a sex therapist? Or like, if someone's got this problem, what do they do?
Janelle Orion Guest
10:23
Well, I'll say one of the things that we did was because, I mentioned, we converted from monogamy when we first met, as we were dating, into a non-monogamous relationship. Um, we had a sex therapist, right, someone who was open to non-traditional relationship types, and we had had that when things were fine, but at the tool in our toolbox, because we knew for both of us that we were swimming in waters that were new for us, that we were expanding ourselves, but we were also playing with our edges, and so this is one of the ways that my husband was very smart. He's like we should just like. What are the resources we have available to us to help us navigate this well?
Karen Covy Host
11:05
Wow, that is a really great idea. But all right, now I have to ask you and I apologize if this is an inappropriate question, but I would think, as somebody who is not polyamorous, I mean very, very traditional marriage for myself and my husband. That's our choice. But you know, a lot of people are probably wondering okay, you could have sex with anybody you wanted. You are polyamorous. What difference did it make that you and your husband weren't having sex?
Janelle Orion Guest
11:35
That's a great question. Actually, I'm so glad that you're asking it because that was part of my journey. I didn't understand why that was the case, and part of it was that I wasn't having actually a ton of sex. I didn't really. I was having some, but I was so engrossed in trying to understand what was happening to our relationship that I wasn't like, oh, let me go and figure out another relationship, someone else could have no problem. We did, and I did try to say OK for a long time, I'm not going to have sex with my primary partner, my husband. I can have other relationships. But ultimately what ended up happening is I found my truth, which was that I wanted to be having sex with my primary partner.
Karen Covy Host
12:28
how did you find that truth? How did that realization come to you?
Janelle Orion Guest
12:33
It was. It was a long journey, it was over the many years and it the journey was a painful one. And when I say, like, coming home to myself, it's not an easy journey for people, for anyone to like look in the mirror and say, okay, what is it that I want, what I've been taught, what am I where? And what I came to realize was that I was honoring my husband's boundaries, but I was actually crossing my own, because but I didn't even know what my boundary was Like. I didn't know that wanting to have sex with a primary partner was my boundary, until I finally, after retreats and reading and therapy and dark nights of the soul, that I was like, oh, this is what I want and it's not here, and so the repercussion of standing in my truth meant we need to talk about divorce.
Karen Covy Host
13:29
Well, I assume that before you got to that point, you tried a lot of things. I mean, and I also assume, because it seems like you're a very sexual being, as we all are, but a lot of people don't express it that well Um, you must've been having sex with them before you were married.
Janelle Orion Guest
13:50
Yes, what I know.
Karen Covy Host
13:53
I'm confused.
Janelle Orion Guest
13:55
So I think the example or I'm just an example of the complexity of being human and of being in relationships, right, we all have things that we bring into a relationship and there's stuff that some of us we don't ever figure out, and there's we can do hard things, as a podcast with Glennon Doyle and her sister mentioned on this podcast that you know, there's an assumption that it's men who want the sex and women who don't, and that's like the thing, the meme in our culture. And so there's an added shame when it's the woman who wants sex and the man doesn't, because then it feels like, oh, there's now there's doubly something wrong with me because I want it, so that possibly makes me bad, shameful, something woman doing something she shouldn't, and yet why? And then he doesn't want me, so something must be wrong with me, right? So these are all things that I was having to navigate and figure out on my own, like or not on my own, but that's my own journey.
15:05
To be like, oh, nothing's actually wrong with me. But I'll also say, yes, a sexual being. But I have become much more sexual and radiant and embodied in my sexuality as a result of this journey. I mentioned that I was taking courses on pleasure and tantra and intimacy, so I actually learned where was I actually not expressing my desires, where was I being out of consent and out of alignment with my desires, and then speaking, and then my actions. I feel that there are so many just basic skills in the areas of pleasure, intimacy and consent that we are not taught. But we could be taught, starting in high school for like basic relating, and that's what I learned.
Karen Covy Host
16:02
I was wondering that, as you were talking, it was occurring to me like do the skills that you learned in the area of pleasure and intimacy? Will those skills transfer into just talking to your spouse or being in a relationship and having boundaries? Is there a transference of these skills?
Janelle Orion Guest
16:26
Yes, 100%. In fact, I would say, like sex is actually just the byproduct, like it's almost not the thing, right? The thing is, how do we talk about something that's vulnerable, that's intimate, that may be tinged with guilt or shame or confusion, something that can activate us into anger, frustration, tears and hurt? Just how do you have a conversation about those things? Because oftentimes, having the conversation is what can cause a greater disconnection, because someone's not feeling heard or not feeling seen.
Karen Covy Host
17:06
So how do you do that? Because you have just like honed right in on the problem that so many people have. And you're right, it's not the sex is almost a symptom of the problem. The problem comes down to communication, but communication about an issue that's so close to home and so sensitive that that makes it even more challenging. So if somebody found themselves in the same position as you regardless of what kind of a relationship it was, but it was one where they had someone they identified as a partner and they wanted intimacy with them and there were problems with that intimacy portion of their relationship, what tips do you have for how can you have this conversation?
Janelle Orion Guest
17:58
Well, I'm actually really glad you asked, because I'm actually writing a book on this very topic. Oh hey, and what I call what you're asking is leading an epic life, epic being embodying pleasure, intimacy and consent as a path towards freedom and more fulfilling relationships. And so, for me, there are skills around pleasure, and pleasure is a relationship with ourselves. What is it that we desire? And the question often that people don't ask but I believe is really important, is what makes me feel safe in my body. Because when I feel safe in my body, then my pleasure gets more activated and I can be more curious.
Karen Covy Host
18:48
So do you think that the lack of sexual intimacy can be a safety issue? Or is that just one thing? Because I know, for example, a lot of women are just blooming tired. You know, you're working all day, you've got kids, you've got, you know, a house and a family and all the. You know everything to do, and by the time you get into bed you're exhausted. At least this is a lot of the stereotype. And then the man wants sex and the woman's like not now, honey, right. So you know, how does? How does this play in?
Janelle Orion Guest
19:23
So I think that's a great question. So I would say safety in this term doesn't mean right Like I wasn't in any danger. Safety to me is what helps my nervous system relax.
Karen Covy Host
19:38
Okay, I like that.
Janelle Orion Guest
19:41
And so, if you know, a sink full of dishes if I'm not relaxed, okay, so that could be one of the things. If it's, oh, I need to. I actually just want to have time alone, like an hour prior, by myself, in alone time, not with my partner, not with my kids. That will actually help contain me, and then I'll be more open to the approaches of my partner. Would be another example. Right, there's an infinite number of examples. We all get to choose and figure out what it is that relaxes our nervous system.
Karen Covy Host
20:18
Interesting. How did you all right? So just thinking of the listeners here, what kinds of things can they try? You mentioned alone time is one of them, but are there certain things that just tend to relax a human? More like things that they can try to say okay, you know, try being alone, try, you know, getting your partner to do the dishes or the kids or something. What other kinds of things could they try if they just feel like they're on edge, they're anxious and they can't, they can't relax.
Janelle Orion Guest
20:50
That's a big question, and I would say there's lots of different ways to answer it, and so the I got probably just a simple thing, is knowing that, like pleasure and your turn on is, although it's a biological experience, is also a skill.
21:14
Right, we can learn more about ourselves, and there are books that I recommend, um, on these topics, um that can help, like the art of receiving and giving, for example, by Betty Martin, and so this. So what my point being is just knowing that, however you're doing it like you're okay, right, you're normal, there's nothing wrong with you, and we're not often told, hey, why don't you spend some time figuring out something for yourself? Because we're so busy? People pleasing someone else. And the recognition that there's a huge range of how pleasure can happen Come as you are is another book by Emily Nagasaki that speaks about all these different ways that women's energy like breaks, like breaks and pedals and get turned on. So pleasure is a whole vast area, that there are skills that you can learn that I would just say just start there, that's like my best quick tip.
Karen Covy Host
22:20
That's great and, just for those listening, we will link to all of that in the show notes so that people can access the books right away, if that's what they, you know, if that's what they're called to do, if that's the direction that they want to go. But getting back into your story, so you and your husband get married, everything is great, and then all of a sudden, he doesn't want sex with you anymore. You start going crazy. How did you resolve that? Or come to the point where you realized this is not a solvable problem. We need to get divorced.
Janelle Orion Guest
22:56
As I said, it ultimately came down to me recognizing oh, what is it that I wanted? And once I was able to recognize what it is that I wanted and then give voice to that, which was, oh, I want to be in a partnership where I'm having sex with that partner, Then it's like, okay, I'm now looking at my reality versus focus on my imagined reality.
Karen Covy Host
23:23
That is huge. I mean, so many people live in the land of what I call wishful thinking and because we want to believe, we want to believe that it'll change. And people, especially women, men, do this to a certain extent as well, but I think women tend to do it a little bit more, where they keep hoping the other person's going to change, he'll come around So was there that pressure on him to say, look, get your act together, buddy? I mean, see what you can do for him to try to do something to change?
Janelle Orion Guest
24:01
Yes, that was definitely part of the experience of the tension between us. Like we both knew, we can't make each other change. And yet it's not easy to be in the face of my tears either and say this is just what's happening, and it's not that he wasn't trying on his own. The results didn't change, and what I would say is this is what I think is incredible. Well, maybe that's I'm dumping ahead into the divorce and love.
Karen Covy Host
24:33
So okay Cause, but the reason that I'm digging into this is so many people get stuck on the fence hence the name of the podcast, right, um? And they don't know how to get off because they keep expecting something to change or something will be different. And you got to a place where you knew right. You came to a knowing that this wasn't what you wanted, and so that's why I'm interested in you know expressing to other people how did you like when you knew, how did you just know? What did you feel in your body? What got brought you to the realization that, no, another five years isn't going to help. Another sex therapist isn't going to help. Like this is just the way it is and I need to accept it and move on.
Janelle Orion Guest
25:25
I would say, really, what it was was that it was about me. I figured out what I wanted, which meant he, in a way I mean I can say this now, this isn't how like it was in the moment, but it was like he actually served my becoming right. The fact this is what I have said had we been having sex, the sex would have been fine and I would have been okay with fine. But I'm not supposed to be okay with fine in this lifetime. I'm supposed to have a much bigger, more self-expressed life, and that required me learning all of these skills on pleasure and intimacy so that I could be the biggest expression of me.
26:15
And so I look at my relationship with him as this gift, extraordinarily painful gift that my soul needed to come home to myself. So the feeling that I can say for someone else is, oh, I found me. And once I found me, I was like, oh, I'm not giving her up again. It doesn't matter that it requires a divorce, which I didn't want at all, which it was still like, oh, still a painful realization. And yet it was like but I'm not, I just found myself, I'm not going to give up on what she wants.
Karen Covy Host
26:50
That makes so much sense. But you say you divorced in love. What does that mean? Tell me about your divorce journey.
Janelle Orion Guest
27:14
And there was a lot of other parts of the relationship that were beautiful and expensive and incredible and connected, and so when we decided to get divorced, I wasn't. I also recognized that the sex part is as I just named helped me get home to myself. So that's a gift he gave me, and I do believe relationships can do that we can discover more about ourselves So, as it turned out, we had. We lived in a duplex that we had bought and we lived on one side and we were going to sell the other side, but the timing of the divorce was such that we hadn't sold the other side yet, and so I moved in to the other side of the duplex when we decided to get divorced. So we are actually neighbors. In fact, this wall right here there is. He lives on the other side of it.
Karen Covy Host
27:57
Okay, okay, okay. Well, let's go back a little bit, so you both still own the duplex together.
Janelle Orion Guest
28:05
Uh, it's two. It's two different halves, so we did sort out the finances of it in that he actually owns both sides and Choose Up With Things, and I'm going to lease to own, to buy the one side, which I plan to do in the next 24 months.
Karen Covy Host
28:22
Okay, your divorce lawyers had to really love you.
Janelle Orion Guest
28:26
Well, they loved us, but they were also like this is kind of a complex situation, I'm like, but it's complex and there's love, so it's both.
Karen Covy Host
28:34
Well, that's what I mean. I mean, just having been on the lawyer side of it for so many years, I know that a lawyer's job is to put into writing and words what you're trying to do, and this would not have been an easy thing to do in your situation.
Janelle Orion Guest
28:49
Right, it was very unconventional.
Karen Covy Host
28:52
Yes, but how did you do it? How did you? Because, look, divorce it's emotional and there's a lot of anger. There's all the negative emotions, right? Even in the most loving relationship, or the relationships that used to be the most loving are the ones people want. They want with their whole heart to be amicable. But it's hard to be amicable, right? So how did you do that? Because there had to be times when you were pulled into I just want to, you know, strangle him, and he had to feel the same way about you. How did you pull it off?
Janelle Orion Guest
29:26
I would say this is where our age, our maturity and our personal growth work did really help us, because we have been struggling throughout our whole relationship. Right, there was a lot of tension around the sex in the relationship and we knew we still loved each other. So the divorce was really just saying, okay, now we know it's not working, but the tension is still there and the love is still there. We're just formalizing something that we didn't know that we were going to have to formalize, but the confusion and the hurt like we never figured any of it out. So in some ways and so it was just like okay, we still feel that we have are serving each other's becoming and I will say one of the ways I describe it.
30:22
You know I learned a lot from when I was dating him, from 40 to 45. I learned exponentially more in our marriage about myself and then I learned and that was in a three and a half year period of time and then in the year after our divorce, by being in relationship with him and still doing the finances, figuring it out, being neighbors, by staying connected. I learned so much more about myself than I did in those other nine years combined that I am so, so grateful for that. I think a lot of times we think it hurts too much. I want to. I'm just going to like pretend that that relationship didn't exist in my life, or whatever people think. And I was like I realized that there is a gold mine for myself of oh, here's how I'm still reacting to him, and it's not him. We don't even live together, we're not even married. I'm still reacting. What's that about?
Karen Covy Host
31:22
Interesting. So because you have to run into each other all the time. You live next door, right? So by doing that, if you found that you had a reaction to him, like you saw him and you were, like you know, you get that little catch in your throat and your stomach, what would you do? What would you actually do to say, huh, what's that about?
Janelle Orion Guest
31:45
Great Emotional release tools. It's one of the skills that I also feel are they're part of intimacy is emotions come up and how do you have handle them? Because emotions you can control your own emotion. You cannot control somebody else's and you can't control what they did to impact you. So when I would see you know my office desk what used to look out in the front yard, I would see his girlfriend at the time walking in and out and I would be like my gosh, I chose this, I chose this, I chose this. And then I would do a hand scream which looks like this and I would let the and I would move the energy and that was like. This is one of the foundational skills about relating to others partners or otherwise, children. You can do this for two, where you're learning to move the energy of emotions that are really uncomfortable.
Karen Covy Host
32:44
That's a really cool technique and, for those who are just listening and maybe not watching the video, what you just did was you put your hands over your mouth and you screamed into your hands so that it muffled the scream, but you still got it out.
Janelle Orion Guest
33:00
And it's and I also lose my body, because actually the vibration of moving my belly it's a lot of energy gets stuck in our in our belly, and so the goal is to move that energy through, and so I would see his girlfriend, I would do that, and then I'd go back to my desk and I'd be like, okay, I've got another email to write, whatever I was doing,
Karen Covy Host
33:24
Wow. Well, how did you I mean, that's the emotional part of it, but just practical, tactical how did you actually get through the divorce? Did you two figure everything out yourself and go to lawyers? Did you go to a mediator? How did you do it?
Janelle Orion Guest
33:40
So we again did it unconventionally. So we decided to get divorced and then we applied at the city we live in, Colorado, three days later, where you don't need a lawyer if you don't have kids. And so we applied. You have to wait 90 days for them to approve it. You have a bunch of documents to fill out and we knew we didn't have that. We had actually pretty complex finances besides the one they just named, but we just we actually just felt like we needed to get divorced and we would figure out the finances and we trusted each other in that. So we got divorced. 90 days later the divorce came through and then we started talking about the finances. We did actually I should name this we had a prenup. So that is very important because that just kind of in a broad stroke, made things. We understood what things were doing and then the details of that. We sorted that after and then we hired a lawyer to write the contract to amend the divorce decree.
Karen Covy Host
34:40
Okay, right now, as a lawyer, like I'm starting to shake here, this would make me so crazy. What you, what you guys did and it worked for you and that's beautiful. But you had to have said something in your divorce papers about the finances, or I should have mentioned the judge would divorce you. So what did you say?
Janelle Orion Guest
35:00
So we followed the prenup right, which was there's that, so it was legitimate. What ended up changing was that, oh, I'm moving in next door, and so we ended up moving the assets of the of the other properties around so that I could be part of this one. And so it was. It was just doing a jigsaw puzzle, but, like I would say, the structure of the puzzle shape was still the same.
Karen Covy Host
35:31
Okay, and just for anyone listening, still the same. Okay, and just for anyone listening please don't do this. Really, it worked for you. The challenge is, if it doesn't work now, you've got a legal nightmare on your hands. Now you did create a legal and financial problem that could come back and bite you, but what's beautiful about your situation is that the two of you had enough love and had enough trust and there was enough left that was good in the relationship that it all worked out. So you know, on the one hand, I'd say to everybody don't do this, but on the other hand, the fact that you did and could think out of the box and could do it your own way is actually a really amazing and wonderful thing.
Janelle Orion Guest
36:18
And so I agree as I'm deferred to the lawyer here, for sure but I want to point out and this is one of the examples of how, um, like, what we learned about each other, right, was that for both of us like, yes, we were in trust, there was a trust here and we were able to say that both of us showed up and continued to show up, the with grace, with love, with trust throughout the whole thing, even when it was hard, and that actually is a very, it was a very healing to our inner child and our inner children to say, oh, I again, like we chose the right person to get married to. They didn't screw me, they didn't hate me, they didn't leave me, they didn't abandon me. It just looks different than we thought.
Karen Covy Host
37:15
Yeah, and that just goes to show people, I mean, look, divorce is rough and it wasn't easy for you either, but staying in the muck and working your way through it is the way that you actually heal and get to the other side, whereas doing exactly what you said, what a lot of people are tempted to do, and with good reason. Right, they're tempted to push it away. No, I don't want to do this. The problem is then it's only going to come up again in your next relationship, exactly.
Janelle Orion Guest
37:47
Exactly, and that's what I think is the lesson for me. It was like oh, I've already invested all of this work and effort. I don't want to do this again, and so I was conscious enough of that. That's how the cycle works of relationship patterns. Like not everyone knows that, obviously, I didn't know that in all my other relationships. So, like this is the one that I was like oh, I have an opportunity here to break a pattern, and one of my patterns was codependency. I haven't mentioned, but that was part of my dynamic that I was bringing into the relationship, and so how do I move through that? I was aware that that's what I was working towards.
Karen Covy Host
38:25
Yeah Well, this has been such a great conversation. I could go on talking to you forever, but to respect your time and what you've shared, which I really do, and I thank you for this If people want to learn more, if they want to learn more about you and your journey and follow up, where can they find you?
Janelle Orion Guest
38:44
Yes, you can find me on Instagram at feel wildly alive, which is also the name of my website, feelwilyalive.com, and you can also listen to me and Andrea, who's my podcast co-host, on permission to be human, and we talk about taboo topics regarding marriage, intimacy, divorce, all of this stuff we talk on our podcast, and so you can find that at permission to be human, that life.
Karen Covy Host
39:11
And I really I encourage anyone especially if they've got sexual issues in their marriage for sure check out this podcast, because there's not a lot of places that I think people can go to feel safe like you had said before and yet, at the same time, get the information that could be really life-changing for them, for their relationship, for their marriage. So, Janelle, thank you so much for being here, thank you for sharing and, for those of you who are listening or watching, if you enjoyed today's conversation, if you'd like to hear more conversations just like this one, do me a big favor. Give it a thumbs up, like, subscribe, share, and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
