Dave Moravec: Finding Love & Maintaining Relationships with Your Adult Children After Divorce

Episode Description

Dave Moravec had been married for 33 years when he decided to divorce. His children were adults at that time, but they each had very distinct opinions about - and reactions to - his divorce from their mother.

Dave describes how he came to his decision through therapy, separation, and intense introspection. He also explains the challenges he faced in navigating a divorce with adult children - two of whom lived at a distance and one who lived in the family home.

Dave described how he navigated "being the bad guy who broke up the family." He also explained the steps he took to try to repair and maintain relationships with each of his children throughout the divorce process - even when his kids wouldn't talk to him.

In spite of the challenges, Dave's kids ultimately came around. Dave now has a good relationship with all of them in spite of his divorce.  What's more, Dave has been able to maintain those good relationships while finding new love and getting married again himself.

If you or anyone you know is afraid to get a divorce because you're worried about what will happen to your relationships with your adult children, this episode should absolutely be on your "must listen to" list!

(If you'd like to learn more about how to navigate relationships with your adult children after divorce, check out Adult Children of Divorce: 10 Surprising Facts Parents Might Not Know. )

Show Notes

About Dave

Dave Moravec serves as President of the Colerain Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati, Ohio and is a native of the Chicago area. He has been a business owner and in leadership across multiple companies & industries over his 40-year career. Dave graduated with a degree in business administration from Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, IL) where he met his wife; they were married for 33 years until their separation/divorce in 2017. Dave has three married children and two grandchildren. He and his wife Patti just celebrated their second wedding anniversary; Patti has 2 married children with 5 grandkids.

Connect with Dave

The best way to connect with Dave is through Facebook at Dave Moravec or by emailing Dave directly at [email protected].  You can also find Dave on LinkedIn at Dave Moravec.

Key Takeaways From This Episode with Dave

• Dave's parents divorced when he was young and both went on to have multiple marriages. This led to a lot of instability in his childhood with moving frequently.
• Dave met his first wife in college and they were married for 33 years before divorcing. They had 3 adult children at the time of the divorce.
• Dave initiated the divorce after growing apart from his wife over time. Telling the adult children separately was challenging with them getting two different narratives.
• The divorce initially strained Dave's relationships with his kids as they adjusted. He focused on keeping communication open, not bad-mouthing their mom, and giving them space when needed.
• After the divorce Dave started dating. He eventually met his current wife Paty and they decided to get married after living together for a few months.
• Only 1 of their combined 5 adult kids attended their wedding, but Dave didn't let it bother him. He didn't want to force his new relationship on his kids.
• Dave's advice for others facing divorce with adult kids includes: don't stay just for the kids, keep living your life, date when ready, focus on self-care and positivity, keep communicating with kids, don't force new relationships on kids.

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Transcript

Dave Moravec:  Finding Love & Maintaining Relationships with Your Adult Children After Divorce

Dave Moravec

SUMMARY KEYWORDS 

SPEAKERS

Karen Covy, Dave Moravec

Karen Covy Host00:10

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 Covey, 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 is Dave Moravec. Dave serves as the president of the Colerain Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is a former native of the Chicagoland area. He's been a business owner and has also been involved in leadership across multiple companies and industries over his 40 year career. Dave graduated with a degree in business administration from Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, where he met his wife. They were married for 33 years until their separation and divorce in 2017. Dave has three married children and two grandchildren. He and his new wife Patty just celebrated their second wedding anniversary. Dave, welcome to the show.

Dave Moravec Guest01:20

Karen, thanks for having me.

Karen Covy Host01:22

I am so excited to have this conversation because it's one that I know affects, or potentially could affect, so many people, and I'd like to start, if you would, if you wouldn't mind, with your backstory and I mean you're way back backstory, the backstory of your parents and their experience with divorce.

Dave Moravec Guest01:44

Sure, I'll start by saying that oftentimes it gets complicated, so I'm going to try and keep it as simple as possible for your audience, because it can get really deep. But my grandfather, my mom's mother, my mom's dad, divorced early and leaving the two siblings together my mom and her brother, I think set the tone for that. My mom was married to my dad at age 17 in the Chicagoland area. They got divorced after having three kids. She remarried right away and he was abusive and they weren't together less than a year she did meet a third man who she was married to after the divorce from her second husband. He was a police officer and passed away of cancer, and then she remarried a fourth time.

Karen Covy Host02:43

Wow. And your dad too right.

Dave Moravec Guest02:46

My dad, after divorcing my mom in 1969, married another woman. They were together for a number of years, struggled with the raising of her daughter, and so they divorced, separated and then, ultimately, after she left the house, they got married again, ultimately to find out that they weren't compatible as adults. First, and he married another woman for the last 25 years, who passed away just a year or so ago. My dad's 86 and still alive down in Florida. My mom passed away at age 54 after four marriages. So that's the backstory, the quick rundown for those who really want to be shocked and awed. My mom's second husband, who was abusive, ended up marrying her dad's second wife.

Karen Covy Host03:48

Okay, now my brain is getting a little twisted here, but how did all of this you went through? Obviously you lived through a lot of marriages and divorces of your parents. How did that affect you?

Dave Moravec Guest04:04

Yeah, that's interesting because we moved a lot. We never owned a house, we struggled financially early on in my life and so I had to adjust to new friends and new communities. I had to have some stability someplace in my life and one of those stability people was my aunt. My aunt was married for, actually until my uncle just passed away. They were married 65 years, I think, close to 70 years, and she had four kids and I spent a great deal of time with my aunt in her environment.

04:43

Additionally, as we moved and we got settled in the Western suburbs, many of my friends had parental supervision of me after school, so I would be there playing in the backyard or we'd be playing on the street or whatever, and they had rock solid marriages, they had a stable household, and so I took advantage of that, if you will, to model some of the good things that happened, and said, hey, this is possible. And they kind of took me in. It was always do you want a sandwich, do you want dinner, do you want to stick around? And I was always open to that.

Karen Covy Host05:21

So it sounds like as you were growing up, you had a lot of examples of both marriages that didn't work and marriages that did so. As you saw all of that and you went into your own adult life. What did you decide for your life or decide for yourself.

Dave Moravec Guest05:42

Yeah, that's interesting. When I was in college, I met my first wife. We dated for a couple of years and I really said when we got married that I thought it would be marriage forever. I said that I was, I said I do until I didn't 33 years later. But at the time I was not a Christian, I didn't grow up in a church home, but I felt this compelling thing inside of me that said hey, you've got to make this work because it didn't work for your childhood and it should and could. And so I went into the marriage knowing full well that we were going to be married forever.

Karen Covy Host06:27

Wow, and 33 years. It's not forever, but it's a very long time. So I mean I don't want to get too personal or into too much detail, but what was it that, after 33 years, made you say I can't do this anymore?

Dave Moravec Guest06:44

Yeah, and that's. It is a deep question, and if we had a lot more time, if your podcast was two hours and I had a couch that I could lay on a couple of things that stand out. First off is that we were married young and we weren't the same people as we are today, and I say that both she and I, we had grown apart over that period of time and had grown different interests, and that incompatibility had taken place over a longer period of time. It wasn't a snap of the fingers that things changed overnight, but over a more lengthy period of time.

07:28

Secondly, I think that there comes a point in your life and at least it did in mine that you get to that point of it's not okay. It could be in a job situation where you put up with a boss who's been verbally abusive or a workplace environment that just wasn't healthy for you, and you say enough's enough, and it's maybe easier to change jobs than it is to change a marriage or to change a spousal relationship, because there are family dynamics, there are kids, there are grandparents, there are lots of other dynamics and if you do change your job, hopefully you're finding a better situation, you're finding a higher paycheck or you're finding a healthier work environment and you're happier in general with that decision that you've made, and in a similar way, I've kind of looked at it that way in my second adulthood, if you will.

Karen Covy Host08:33

Okay, well, when you were making that decision in your second adulthood or before, when you were making the decision about leaving 33 years is a long time and you had kids. How old were your kids when you decided to divorce?

Dave Moravec Guest08:50

All of them were adults, all graduated from college and two of them had moved out. My daughter had moved back into the house and coming back from college, but they were all older.

Karen Covy Host09:03

And so how did your divorce affect your adult kids? Because I know this is an issue that so many people worry about. There's a, as you probably know, there's a lot of people who are deciding to divorce after age 50,. A lot of them have adult children and they worry about how their adult children are going to take it if they decide to divorce. So how did you deal with that?

Dave Moravec Guest09:34

Yeah, again, a couple of things come to mind. First off, there was a distance involved. Two of my kids were away from Illinois, so could I physically get to where they were to tell them in person? How do we tell them together if that was the decision to let them know? And also, too, at the time we separated we didn't divorce right away. There wasn't a decision to divorce right away and for your listeners and for to get to know me a little bit, I needed some space to figure that out. I went through counseling and I really did some introspective work about going back into the marriage and it just that wasn't gonna happen. Found that out relatively quickly. But in the meantime, communicating with the kids long distance, or for them to understand dad's decision because it was my decision to leave the marriage to share that with them was a personal one-on-one thing and all three of them reacted a little bit differently and over this last five, six years they've each reacted differently at different times, so I don't know how far deep you wanna get into that, karen.

Karen Covy Host10:59

But that's really interesting. And so because that's something that if your children were younger, any divorce expert would say you and your wife should sit down, tell them all together, blah, blah, blah. It sounds like because they weren't young and they were adults, they were all over the place. That wasn't possible. So how did this go down? I mean, a lot of people are worried that they tell child number one, whichever child they choose to tell first, and then that kid's texting the other ones while they're on the phone. So the cat's out of the bag. I mean, is that what happened to you?

Dave Moravec Guest11:36

It was a challenge to time that correctly. Again, the narrative comes differently from dad than it does from mom, and wanting to be able to tell them together ultimately didn't become possible because it just emotionally was not that way. So they heard it two versions. They heard it one for me and one from her, and individually each of them took the news a little bit differently. They did communicate with one another, I'm sure behind the scenes, but the importance for me was keeping those individual relationships because they were adults, they weren't all under one roof. If they were, hey, I'd grab them and, like you said, sit them down at the coffee table and say, here, this is what's going on, and all of you together. I'd actually even considered a Zoom call or a conference call to talk to all three of them together, and that wasn't quite I don't wanna say practical, but it just it didn't work.

Karen Covy Host12:45

Okay, so it sounds like, since you said they got mom's narrative and dad's narrative, that you and your wife did not break the news to them together. Is that something that the two of you considered doing, or was it just not even part of the discussion?

Dave Moravec Guest13:02

No, I don't think it was. I think probably in our minds we wanted to, but the emotions were too high.

Karen Covy Host13:10

Okay, so you each told the kids in your own way, on your own time. Once you did that, I mean, you kind of had to tell them Two things though, because you separated for a while and then you divorced, so you actually had it must have been two conversations, one with dad, dad's leaving and one with, yeah, we're divorcing. Right, was there a difference in In breaking the news and on those different things?

Dave Moravec Guest13:40

In some ways there was, but at that point each of them had taken a different communication line with me, and so they heard how I was doing, dad, I care about you, how you're feeling and they understood more about that.

14:00

Separation, divorce, a timeline. Ultimately, yes, there was a you know, a Drop of the, the ball, so to speak, the, you know the, the divorce papers are in place, etc. One of the things that was a little bit odd was that my daughter was living at home, and so she continued to live with my ex-wife in the in the house, while I was now living, you know, outside in an apartment, and so she had that narrative on a regular basis, and one of the things that I really respect about her is that she did I listened to the other side, that she didn't just Take one side versus the other, and I think all of my kids did that. They tried to understand both parent’s perspective. That said, I also believe that they believe themselves that I was the one who broke up the family dynamic. You know that that quintessential House that had to be sold and the, the family unit, was now shattered.

Karen Covy Host15:11

So how did that affect your relationship with your kids?

Dave Moravec Guest15:18

it changed each of them differently and I do this wave Because there were ebbs and flows in each of those relationships. There was never really a dynamic with all because of the geography Dynamic where all three of them were, you know, at Christmas with me, or that we all went on vacation, the you know, the four of us, without my, my wife, so that hasn't taken place over the last six years. It's pretty much been Just the you know us, me individually with each of the three of them. My daughter got married in the process and so we did have all of us under one roof. We took some pictures. That was after the finalization of the divorce and we got through that event. My son recently got married. My middle son got married. My older son was already married at the time.

Karen Covy Host16:20

Okay, and how did I mean Ultimately and it's? I asked this. I don't want to get too personal. I happen to know your story a little bit more, but this is an issue that so many People struggle with these days, because more and more people are getting divorced when their kids are older. And one of the biggest fears of Everyone whether you're male or female, no matter where in life you are your relationship with your kids. People don't want to lose their kids, and so the rule how did you know your relationship with each of your various children change and evolve? After you said Mom and I are getting a divorce.

Dave Moravec Guest17:03

Yeah, but I guess there's a couple things that that, for me, made sense. A couple friends of mine both gave me the same advice. Both of them said first, don't throw your wife under the boss, don't speak ill of your relationship or dismiss the 33 years that you had together. That in and of itself carries a great deal of weight. All those vacations, all of those experiences are things that are going to be inside of you forever, and and my current wife has embraced that as well. The second piece of advice was to continue to tell your kids that you love them and in so doing, at the end of each conversation was I care about you, I want to know more about your life, I want to be involved and continually hearing that, as opposed to the bitching and the moaning and the groaning and the complaining, they've seen the respect level that I've brought to that one-on-one relationship with each of my kids At various times during that period of time. Things change in their lives, but what's been consistent has been, for the most part, the communication with all of my kids. At some point, I think, my son, my oldest son, checked out, so to speak, from the communication with me and or his mother and had to take care of his own family dynamic. And in the return conversation, what I have gathered from my son, who now I've been really close relationship with, is that you stay the course.

18:47

If your listeners are out there and you and you're going through a hard time Know that it's going to get better if you consistently communicate and talk or Sometimes let it breathe or try something different. If you just say, ask, rut, that's my kid, they're, you know they're gonna be what they're gonna be and I'm just gonna check out, that's not enough in a relationship. I've got a good friend who is a unidirectional communicator. I have to reach out to him and say, hey, how's it going? He's not the guy that's gonna call me and say, hey, dave, what's going on in your world? But we're still very close friends. In a family dynamic, you have to be the bigger person as the adult. When you have adult-age kids, because they may not know what they need to do or what how they need to react and Unless they're exposed to literature and reading, do the you know, do the Research, if you will, on how to make that relationship better or get counseling for themselves they're gonna just Naturally react.

Karen Covy Host20:05

Yeah, it sounds like you really that you put a lot of thought into this and that you Worked on your relationship with each one of your kids. You probably were doing that during the marriage as well, but that, especially after you know you started the divorce, went through the process and, moving on that, you really took the time to reach out with them, connect with them and that ultimately it got you to a good place. But there were times that were hard. There were times when your kids weren't talking to you. Is that true?

Dave Moravec Guest20:44

Oh, absolutely, and that was the hardest part, because even my middle son, currently, he and I haven't talked for six months, and I have to be patient.

20:58

Patience is a virtue, they say, and one of the things that that again has given me peace is not worrying about what my spouses narrative is, and I think so many people worry about what that other Spouses saying or the negative aspect of that or maybe even the positive aspect of it. But I have, I'm just a positive person, if you get to know me at all. I'm optimistic about the weather, I'm optimistic about You know it can't be too hot, it can't be too cold, it's just a Part of life you can't deal with, you can't change. But in this situation it's really hard and I've talked to other friends who have been through similar challenges and it is very difficult. But the good news is that hopefully, on the other side of that lack of communication there's something that's going to be better, that there's going to be a renewed Relationship and whether that's a six month or a year period or longer, you have to get on with your life.

Karen Covy Host22:13

Yeah, that is. That's really, really important advice. What other advice would you, as somebody who's been through it all and been on the other side and is now on the other side, what advice would you give someone who is in the position you were in years ago, where they're in a marriage, they're not happy there, they know that they're never gonna be. They've tried everything. It's not working. They have adult children, they're facing divorce. What advice would you give them?

Dave Moravec Guest22:44

Yeah, I think there you get to a point in that, in that marriage, where I don't want to say you've checked out, but that you have tried everything, where you have felt like you've tried everything. And there's people that go even to the Further length, the try, even beyond all those things. You know they go through the counseling or they go through. And I've heard people say that they've left emotionally the marriage three times before they actually Physically do it. And I don't want to say you need to act on those things because your instinct says maybe there is something that's going to change In that relationship and having a counselor or having a good friend or a pastor who can talk you through those things there's many marriages that are saved because of that.

23:40

But when you get to that point where you need that decision to be made, being the person, the bold person, to make that decision Much like leaving a job and leaving the co-workers that you have, and I don't want to put that. I used that example earlier but it's a hard decision to leave the comfort of a paycheck and the friends that you've made in that job and the and the comfort with the, the daily routine of that job. But the hope is that on the other side and that was my hope was that I've got 20, 30 40 years left in my life. That's a long time and to look forward, as opposed to looking back at those negative times or what drove you to it.

24:29

If I thought about those things at length, I'd be a miserable person. I would dwell on those negative things, but instead I looked forward. I Began dating relatively quickly after the decision was made. I Went on dating sites, I continued to play softball and be involved in other activities that were positive, and I even went and did stand-up comedy as a therapeutic Anything from stage Under those circumstances and that for me, was really beneficial.

Karen Covy Host25:09

Well, that's interesting therapy, but evidently something worked. So I'm not gonna not get it all, but you know, so it sounds like you tried all these things. You kept living your life, and that's a message that I think is important for people to hear that you didn't just Sit there and wait for your kids to come to you, wait for everything to be perfect, wait that you were the one you were in charge of your own life. You kept making things happen, and in your dating life, things did happen, didn't they?

Dave Moravec Guest25:46

Sure, yeah, I began dating. I met several women. It was a new period of time for me because we'd been married 33 years. There weren't other women in my life and during that period of time I would I don't want to say experimental, but it was different.

Karen Covy Host26:13

Yeah, it had to be a little weird. I mean, if you hadn't been, you've been married 33 years and you were dating your wife for some time with. Wasn't that weird it was.

Dave Moravec Guest26:22

Yeah, it was, but it was also natural because male-female relationship for me and it was just a natural thing. However, I wasn't sure whether or not I would live a single life for the rest of my life and just continued dating. I have friends that have been through divorce and have not have dated but not gone into marriage. I have friends that have long-standing relationships and single but stayed single for a variety of different reasons, and, and when I met my current wife of two years, we just hit it off from the very beginning and Kindness was in her heart and I could see that kindness In her heart and and, being a kind person myself, we just it was just a magical bond from the very beginning.

Karen Covy Host27:15

Okay, so you have this great bond, and that's wonderful. However, you had friends who weren't like. They're bonded with their you know their in relationships, but they're not remarrying. How, what made you say I'm going to do it again?

Dave Moravec Guest27:30

Yeah Well, we moved to Cincinnati from Illinois. I had lost my job and she actually said, hey, you want to move in? She was retiring. She said, while you're looking for a job, why don't we take this for a test drive? And we did. We lived together for three months before moving to Cincinnati and she just said, hey, all of our kids are in five different states. Let's have an adventure, let's go start someplace fresh and in so doing, that first year that we were here was during COVID 2020. And it was actually very good for our relationship because I worked from home and we got to spend a whole lot more time together. We traveled by car because you didn't have to quarantine. We saw lots of Kentucky and Indiana and Ohio and West Virginia by car and we got to know each other to the point where we just said, yeah, it makes sense for us to get married and get hitched.

Karen Covy Host28:40

To get hitched, and then when that? Because that's a major life event. So she has kids, you have kids. You decide to get married together. How did that affect your adult children, all of your various adult children?

Dave Moravec Guest28:57

Yeah, I think it goes back to the openness. Well, there's a couple of things. First, my daughter I mentioned got married in 2019, just as the divorce became final and I was dating Patty at the time and I let my daughter know that I wasn't going to be bringing Patty to the wedding. Well, you could see her body posture, take a relaxed approach. So many people, I think, tried to try to push relationships or their situation on somebody else, and it was not my place to do that. Yeah, I wanted Patty to be there. I wanted to share, have her share the day with my daughter. However, I knew that it would put her in an awkward position, so it was unselfish of me to let her have her day and in so doing, she made the day special for me and, and what that did was it solidified the relationship with my daughter to the point that she said I'm open to because you're, you know you're respectful of my situation, for me to be respectful of yours, and so she and her husband have really been very welcoming to Patty and I. We've been to their house, we've been out many times together and something, too, that, with that dynamic, my son-in-law did not know my wife and I together, my daughter and her husband met after the separation. So he only knew my ex-wife and I separated, and so he was better at bringing my daughter into the relationship and saying, hey, you got to accept your dad, you got to accept your mom, and that's been really good.

30:47

The other thing was that when we got married, we invited all five of our kids Patty has two and only one of them one of the five, chose to come and instead of griping and saying, well, you know, I was at your wedding, you need to come to mine I just said you know, if it's not something that you want to participate in, I get it, remember. Let's go back to my family dynamic situation my mom, my dad's fourth marriage. I was the best man at his wedding. Only because the best man got stuck in traffic on the, the Borman Expressway in Indiana, couldn't get there. So he walks me out of the audience and says, hey, would you stand up? I said, sure, I was comfortable in that situation, but I wasn't going to put my kids in an awkward situation. That said, hey, you got to come to Cincinnati, we were getting married and, by God, you need to accept that. I've really just said let it breathe and accept it as you see fit.

Karen Covy Host31:56

You know that that is gold right there, because you what you're referring to is your mindset and you're I mean I've seen so many people get I mean devastated and so hurt that their kids don't want to be a part of their new life and they keep trying to force it down their throat and that doesn't tend to work really well. But the scary thing is, when you said that and you know only one of five kids showed up for the wedding, I mean that had to hurt on some level too.

Dave Moravec Guest32:31

It actually didn't. And again for your listeners, it's your piece of mind that matters and if you, if you, have that disappointment in anything, you're going to carry that with you and I didn't want that burden. It was one day and I mean it really was just one day we were able to celebrate her daughter walk, or her son walked her down the aisle. We only had about 25 people at the at the ceremony. We got married on a riverboat in the middle of the Ohio River with fireworks after the Reds game. It was really an event.

33:10

But for me to lob that at my kids and say, well, you weren't there and put that guilt on them. So many parents put guilt on their kids and sometimes kids, you know, throw it back at the. You know at the parent as well. You didn't do this, that or the other. I just didn't want that to affect the next 20 or 30 years of my life with her, and also, too, we didn't want to do that with her kids. Her kids are now closer. Within a couple of hours we have five grandkids on her side and I didn't want that to ruin the relationship with me as a potential grandfather to those five kids. And if you stick your feet in mud. Oftentimes you get run over, you know, and you can't go anywhere. Yeah, yeah, and I didn't want to be. I didn't want us to be put in that situation.

Karen Covy Host34:07

That is beautiful advice. It's beautiful advice for everyone. So you know, in wrapping this up and bringing your story full circle, what would you say to people now who are going through a divorce, who are thinking about it or, you know, maybe even on the other side? But can't let go of that angst for whatever reason.

Dave Moravec Guest34:30

Yeah, I think the best advice I can give is to by no heart be true. Once you've made that decision, if you're really convicted that the marriage is no longer, let it go. Just, it's a hard thing to do and again, I went through some counseling and your book was terrific. When Happily Ever After Ends, just it touched me and that's part of how our relationship started. But for those that are going through that, know that there's something else out there.

35:07

When you lose your job and again I've come back to this and I've lost my job I've been in that position. You can wallow in it for a period of time, but if you're not out there presenting yourself positively to an interview, you're not going to get that job. And if you are not presenting yourself in a positive way online dating, in that dating environment with your kids, you're going to be seen as that negative person and you're not going to find that other relationship. However, if you can find peace in that, whatever that was you had, whether it was two years or five years or 40 years there's a lot of great divorce. That's out there. But know full well that life expectancy.

35:58

My dad's 86 and he's currently dating a 95-year-old woman and, and he's been married four times Now. They're not likely to get married. You know, under the circumstances, but when he married his wife I think they were in their fifties. They lived 25 years. She had dementia and passed away a year or so ago. That's a long time, and if you're going to wake up on the other side of the bed, angry, depressed for the rest of your life, you're going to continue to do that. But if you wake up positive and know that the smile on your face is going to show to that future dating partner or future love interest or potential spouse, that's what they're going to see. And if you and if so, that's the positive aspect that I try to bring forward to people that I talk to you don't have to take that advice. You can. You know, you know, but I'm a cub fan, you know there's always next year.

Karen Covy Host37:12

Definitely explains your optimism.

Dave Moravec Guest37:15

It absolutely does till 2016. And my daughter and I got to celebrate at Grant Park with a W flag. We took the training to the city with all the, with all the fans and the millions of people that were down at Grant Park for that. I can never take that back. You can't choose your kids once they're your kids, young or old, but you can make a spousal decision and, as I said to my kids, if I was the first dad that ever made that decision, or if you were the first woman to leave your husband for whatever reason, it doesn't matter if it's myriad of reasons, but if you were the first one, maybe you could.

37:57

You know there'd be some pointing fingers and saying but divorce has been a part of our lives for a long, long, long, long time. It just happens to be a part of mine, and I will say this because I've talked to my kids about it. In fact, I talked to my ex-wife about it and my current wife about it. I don't think that your family history has to carry with you, and that's important because if I said, oh gosh, my dad's been married four times, I want to be married four times, I could choose to, you know, live a 10-year life with my current wife and say, ah, you know what, it's part of my DNA. I'm going to get divorced from you two and I'm going to go on to the next one.

38:40

I don't think people make those conscious decisions and I don't think that their family history has to carry with them. I had a successful, long first marriage. I anticipate and my wife and I have talked about it we'd love to be married 30 years for me to be able to say I was married 30 years twice. Health and other circumstances may come into play, but I think your listeners have the opportunity to choose what's best for them. Work hard at that self and when they do, that's going to come out and be viewed by others whether that's the workforce. You know, when my friends from work rallied around me in my divorce situation, it was because they saw a positive Dave. They didn't come into my office and know that I'm going to grovel and go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. They didn't know that I was on the good side of my approach.

Karen Covy Host39:42

Yeah, Dave, this has just been wonderful insight and advice. I'm sure everyone listening has appreciated it. I know I have Tell people where can they find you if they wanted to follow up and hear from you.

Dave Moravec Guest39:52

Sure, if somebody wants to connect personally, probably best to send me an email with your contact information. Glad to talk anytime. It's 2Ds for Dusty Dave. [email protected]

Karen Covy Host40:11

Dave, thank you so much.

Thank you for having the courage to share your story and for all of the insight and advice that you have. I really appreciate it. And for those of you out there listening, if you enjoyed today's podcast, if you like what you hear, please give this episode a thumbs up, like, subscribe and by all means share, and I'll talk to you again next week.