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Welcome to Make More Money without Selling Your Soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale.  On this podcast you can expect to hear regular talk about wealth, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward.

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Hello, and welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer.

And today I’m talking to you about getting married for the second time. So no, I am not dishing business advice on this episode. If you’d like more of that, I encourage you to go back to some of my old episodes and get stuck in to those. This one is more of a personal one. I’m a big believer in sharing a bit about the human being behind the business. I think sometimes I’m so in delivery and supporting you mode that I don’t really often touch on who I am. And I guess my own life’s challenges, and joys and obviously one of the premises that I share as to what this podcast is about as well being. And one of the things that’s keeping me very well and occasionally stressed this year is getting married. And it’s one of the questions I’ve been getting quite a lot on social media, particularly from those who are in my mastermind, or who you know, have been private clients, they’ve been reaching out to me to kind of say, share more on getting married. We want to hear all about it. And I’ve generally speaking no, there’s a certain narrative I’ve been happy to share publicly about my situation, like the fact that I was a single mom, that I was on benefits that we were living in a tiny flats, that I moved countries with my children when they were very small back from Gibraltar, I’d been living there for eight years. I did grow up in Brighton, but I’ve been living in Gibraltar for eight years, when I moved back with my children. And oh, gosh, it’s a whole big thing. So there’s certain things I’ve shared. And obviously about my partner, Mike, who’s a forest school teacher, he, he and I met because he was working still is working at the nursery where my son used to go. And so I kind of fell in love with how he was with my children. And before I even considered dating him, I don’t think I could have probably even imagined falling in love with anyone with my children that age, who couldn’t have been good with my children. But to be honest with you, when I met him, I wasn’t even planning on meeting anyone. You know, romance hadn’t really crossed my mind, I was still in the thick of post separation. So some people are aware that I was first school partner, they’re aware that one of the things we did after COVID, after he cared for me and after the nursery shot and he had to take time off. One of the things that happened was we decided he would no longer be full time that he’d go down to working one half day a week, and that I would be the full time business owner, because in the time that he was off, and in the time that I stopped being part time, because I was so busy caring for my children and instead gave full time attention to my business. We very quickly recognised the money I could generate in one month was already more than what he could generate any year. So that made it a pretty easy decision. It also enabled us to move out of that little flat for me to get myself off benefits and move us into a house. So those are the that’s the narrative that most people know so far. Beyond that. I’ve been relatively guarded, I think partly because when I married my ex husband, he and I met when we were both very young, I was 23. And he was 21 just turned 22. And we were in that day and age of everything. I mean, everything being shared on social media. So when I moved to Gibraltar, I see old statuses where I’m like, I’m bored tonight who wants to talk? Like nobody does. I mean, I say nobody does anymore. I certainly do. Don’t do things like that anymore. I don’t live my life on social media like I did back then. But it essentially means that entire relationship has been documented.

From the moment I met him to the flirty exchanges on each other’s walls. To me moving to Gibraltar and sharing album upon album of all our adventures to different cities. Everyone felt very firmly entrenched in that relationship. You know, everyone felt like they really knew our life and a lot of people looked at me living in this sunny country with this handsome man and thought I was living my very best life. We had a very romantic, very traditional wedding. Back in Kent. I’m in 2013, we did it close to my grandmother’s house so that she could be there because she was in her mid 90s. There were so many elements about all of that, which felt really perfect at the time. So, yeah, and then it all just went wrong. I mean, essentially, like so many people we met in our early 20s, we have absolutely no challenges whatsoever, really side from, you know, life, life life thing occasionally. But when we had children, it really revealed the cracks, it really revealed, essentially, that because life had been easy, so far, we’ve never really had to pull together in the way that parenthood forces you to. And in where we needed to pull together, it really highlighted how far we were actually apart. Which is why it only took till my son was 18 months for me to ask for a separation. He’s a really good man, we’re very, we’re on really good terms, which is also again, why I guess I’m relatively guarded, because I would never want to share anything that he would find too much. Gosh, I’m sharing a lot today. But I, you know, like I say, I’m very guarded and mindful of anything I shared to do with my separation with him to be one where I’m being discreet and respectful towards what, you know, what was a sensitive time for each of us. It wasn’t an easy time on either side, as you can probably imagine, as our mediator said, at the time, nobody wins in divorce. But anyway, we’ve got a very good ongoing relationship. But it did feel strange to be proposed to last year, even though it was something I very much wanted, even though my divorce went through. I mean, I mean, my divorce, ironically, any went through last year, but I’d been separated for five years, I think 2017 is when I asked for the separation, and we got engaged in 2023. See, I’ve been separated for five years.

Gosh, like my head was like, that’s a long time. I’m like, I know, six years separated six years, that sounds better. And been in the UK for five years. I mean, as I even share this out loud, it does feel kind of soon, but at the same time, anyone who’s fallen in love in their 30s will know that. It’s like timelines collapse. You know, when you fall in love, when you’re in your 30s, you’re much more confident about who you are, you’re much more confident about what you need. And as a single mum falling in love. When someone takes that on, they’re taking on a package deal. You’re not wondering what your future will look like you’re literally stepping in to your future. There’s no question of, Oh, I wonder, I wonder what it look like to have children? No, you’re coming in to the full kit and caboodle. So you know, there was never like, it was very odd dating as a single parent kind of recognising that. That kind of romance. And that kind of easygoing, this just isn’t there. There’s a real intensity to dating as a single parent, which is really hard to ignore, particularly when I have such small children. And so I didn’t want anyone coming into our world, particularly after everything they’d been through unless they were for keeps. And so it’s been a real journey. Being engaged again. There were certain things I did like, I didn’t want a diamond ring. I did some research around what stone I did want. I originally thought I wanted emerald. But then I realised sapphire, you can get green sapphires. And that was a game changer for me, because I like to have modern, yet kind of timeless, they were all at the same time. So they’ve been a few days. I mean, everything has I’ve attempted to do a little bit differently, because I don’t want the day to feel similar. And actually, I feel like we’ve achieved that. I feel like we’ve achieved that so far. But I guess what I would share, because I know there are a few single mums in my listeners. And I know there are a few people who are inspired and motivated by my journey and have questions about all of these pieces and how it drops in and how it feels. And I guess so much of me would love to pretend that it’s easy. And that it’s all just you know, this fresh, new, exciting kind of energy. But the truth is brought up a lot that still needed to be healed. It brought up ties that needed to be cut still, it was one of those odd situations that pretty much around the same time I told not even pretty much at the same time I told my family about being engaged. I equally told my ex husband because I didn’t want him to hear it about it from anyone that wasn’t me. Things like that felt weird, you know, that sense of even though he’s my ex husband. I often like talking about my ex husband almost like cousins or, you know, like essentially, even though we’re not married, he’s still my family because he’s the father of my children. And so there’s never going to be a moment where we’re not kind of somehow intertwined. And so that that did feel strange. It felt strange standing in front of my ex husband wearing an engagement ring that wasn’t from him. It felt weird him asking me how the wedding plans were coming.

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This stuff, but just you know, I guess I just Yeah, I guess some people talk about things like, everything is always done and dusted and then everything is always good. And I think it’s okay to refer to life as some things feeling like the messy middle. And what I would say is that I’ve had to be very gentle on myself, I’ve had to be very aware of feelings that were coming up the majority of which were steeped in guilt, almost like survivor’s guilt. You know, that sense of, you know, I’m so happy. And I have all of this and almost feeling guilty, that I found this level of happiness, which I didn’t to be honest with you. Obviously, when I walked away from a relationship, I never did it with a view to being happy with someone else. Again, I did it with a view to trying to protect my own happiness. But yeah, this is like a woeful episode. So I think that’s all I’m going to share. I guess the most important takeaway from all of this is, I’m very happy. And no, it’s not been simple. Yes, there’s definitely been the need to slow down to listen to myself, where I’ve done things like we better not do things too big. We better not be too showy. Or we better do things nicely, but not too nicely. I’ve had to slow down and listen to is this me doing second wedding, I’m willing to be chill, or is this me doing this a second wedding and I’m feeling a bit guilty. And I don’t want to do too much again, like there were things like I was almost not going to have a wedding gift list because I felt guilty to have the same guests coming and buying me a wedding gift for a second time. Like nobody ever plans on that. And at the same time recognising for my husband to be. It’s his first ever wedding. So of course, there are guests coming who want to give us gifts. And even those who’ve been to my first wedding who equally also want to, you know, wish us well because they see how amazing he is to me and my family and are excited for us. So there’s been a lot of essentially fear of judgement that I’ve had to drop fear of judgement, guilt towards my acts like various things, which by the way, when I say guilt towards my ex that is entirely self induced. He’s been really good. The whole entire time. He’s not done anything to make me feel bad. He’s actually been very encouraging and supportive. It’s all been me. It’s all been that stuff. But I guess, yeah, that’s the reality of it. Anyway, the good news is, I started off feeling very guilty. I started off really toning things down, we have gradually amp things up. And we are now in March, and our wedding is in July, and I couldn’t be more excited. And if you are, similarly a single parent in a position thinking about getting married again. I’m a big fan. And I guess I’ll tell you more on the other side. But what I would say is, Do what makes you happy you only have one life. And that’s certainly been the prevailing thought behind what’s happened for me. I’ve lost so many loved ones since my original marriage. And it’s a real reminder that being in a room with people you care about most and celebrating love. What better excuse for celebration is that so there we have it. That’s a personal one for me. I shall be back in your ears next week, talking about the perfect lead magnet to make more sales with See you then