Finding Strength in the Face of Divorce Challenges

In this episode of The Music of Life, I share the raw and real challenges that come with navigating a high-conflict divorce. From facing relentless verbal attacks to feeling sidelined during my daughter's Bat Mitzvah planning, I open up about the ongoing struggle to maintain my composure and strength for my daughter. This journey is about more than the legal battles—it's about the emotional toll, the resilience it takes to keep showing up, and the impact on a mother-daughter relationship caught in the crossfire. 

I also discuss some of the unexpected moments that helped me stay grounded, like the power of music during tough times and the surprising ways I found to defend my role as a mother. If you’ve ever felt unseen or unheard in a challenging relationship, this episode is for you.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] - Thoughts on coping with co-parenting conflicts during a divorce.
[02:30] - The emotional toll of constant verbal attacks and abuse remorse.
[07:15] - Preparing for my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah amidst the ongoing tension.
[11:45] - How music became my escape and source of strength on her big day.[14:00] - Reflecting on staying present for my daughter, even when it felt impossible.

Be sure to follow, share, and leave a comment if this show resonates with you! Send me a message atpodpage.com/themusicoflife to share your experiences, or to leave a comment. I'd love to feature it in a future episode.

Transcript

Caryn Portnoy: 0:00

Karen, hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life. I'm your host. Karen Portnoy, before I get into this episode, please comment, ask questions, share some of your experiences, and don't forget to subscribe. I found something that I had written down. It was January of 2022 and my daughter and I were talking about her bat mitzvah. We were laughing and having fun together. He came in and he had to insert himself to gain the upper hand. He started joking with her about the things that he would include in her video montage. She started getting upset. She was telling him what he could and couldn't put in his speech. He was taunting her, and she was getting more upset. I said to her, you think he's going to write a speech for your bat mitzvah? He said to me, you think you're paying for a bat mitzvah. And then he said in front of her, why don't you talk to the person who makes the money, the one who has a job? Then he called her upstairs to his room for a private conversation. She didn't go. Then he got into a thing about asking me where I wanted him to put all of my leftover things that he allowed me to leave in the master bedroom closet. When I moved into the guest room, I ignored him. He kept asking. He said he would leave everything in front of my door. Then said he would put it all in a garbage bag. I still ignored him. He put some clothes in a garbage bag, then went to go get a drill from the garage. Once I made sure he wasn't tampering with my bedroom door lock. I went upstairs, since his door was open, to see what he was up to. He was changing the lock on his door. What took him so long to do that good thing, I had already cleared that room out of anything that meant anything to me. I asked him about my shoes in his closet. He said he would empty everything. I said, I want to make sure all of my stuff is out of that room before he changes that lock. He said he would. Now we both were recording each other from the beginning of the divorce. I have him on recording for 40 plus minutes of verbal abuse, baiting me, harassing me, threatening me, even body blocking me as I was trying to take a picture of our daughter from a photo shoot I arranged when she was an infant, he tried bullying me, but I took it anyway. After the 40 minute abusive rampage, my body was still shaking from the trauma of it all, I felt like I was in shock. He tried going into her room to talk. She repeatedly yelled at him to leave her alone. She wanted no part of him, even after he tried enticing her to go get her nails done or go shopping at Lulu Lemon with him, I texted her, I know that you are beyond upset and angry at us. I understand that you want to be alone. I want you to know that I'm here for you and if you were, if and when you were ready, I would like to lay with you and just hold you. I promise you that I will not say a word to you unless you want to talk. I will not force you to talk or listen. I will stay silent. I know you need so much love right now, and I want to give that to you. Please let me know if you want that. I love you so much. No response to me either. But she didn't say no. I believe she needs time to process all that happened. I have him on recording offering to help put my stuff back in his closet. I ignored him. He texted, I was frustrated. Before you can put things in the room, whatever you want to store, I will help. I ignored him. He wrote, sorry for my part, we can't do this in front of her. I wrote, you should have thought of that before you went on your rampage. He has since asked me three more times and texted twice if I wanted to put things back in the master bedroom closet and he would help me. Is he for real abuse remorse? If I ever heard it, I ignored it every time. So that was kind of the temperature of where things were at that time and for a long time. So the trauma that I was feeling in my body, the shock, the shaking and not feeling safe and not know, I mean, he was a loose cannon. So it was, I was very unsure of which way he was going to go at any given point. So if that was the beginning of the year, her bat mitzvah party was in November of 2022, and I'm just going to say that what got me through her bat mitzvah party was music. I. I had friends who recommended I drink heavily that night. I had friends who told me to take Xanax that night, to take the edge off. I never took Xanax in my life, and I'm not a big drinker, as anyone who knows me knows, but music is what got me through that night. I just want to list a couple of the songs that really made a huge difference for me. First titanium by David Guetta featuring Sia. This is me from the greatest showman, Kayla settle and then the fighter, Christina Aguilera, unstoppable by Sia, stronger by Kelly Clarkson, and I didn't know my own strength by Whitney Houston. And I'd never heard that song before, but I fell on it, and it just spoke to me. So I was fortunate that my daughter had saved a candle for me so that I could light a candle myself with her, which I really appreciated. I wrote her a short speech, which I got up and read, which I think she appreciated. But the craziest part was at the beginning, before anybody came, we were there to take family pictures together. So my husband asked if I wanted to take extra pictures with my family, which, of course, I said yes, including my daughter. So we took all these pictures. And that was November of 2022, and now almost two years later, I still don't have the link to those pictures from her party, which is a great example of how he was always one way with me and another way for everybody else's sake. So while everybody heard him say, hey, Kara, do you want to take extra pictures with your parents and your family? Except he knew the whole time he was going to hold those pictures hostage for me, so I never got those pictures, and at this point it's, you know, moot, but that was very indicative of the way that things went. I offered to help bring some of the things from the event space home, since we both had two cars, so he took some of the blown up pictures that were hung around the room, and I put them in my car. I took her dress home. I took the leftover cake home, and during the party, I have to say, I held my head high. I danced all night. I was happy. I made the most of it, but make no mistake, it was the hardest night of my life. My memories of it are not nearly what they could have been if, if only he was on a quest to make me insignificant, invisible, irrelevant to my daughter. I was robbed of mothering her during this time, he basically wanted to erase me from her life, and she was fully under his spell. Bought everything that he sold her like everybody else did. The interesting thing to me is that, you know, at some point he had filed a 55 page motion to prove me to be an unfit mother, which blew me away, because, first of all, no court in the land will even look at something like this unless I'm beating my kids senseless or have crack needles coming out of my arms. I mean, I don't know what he thought was going to be taken seriously, but this motion was thrown out of court immediately and was fully baseless on nothing. But the incredible thing to me is that every single adult that I've interacted with at any point in my daughter's life, whether it was teachers, camp counselors and group leaders and directors, Hebrew school teachers and directors. Sleep away camp counselors, directors, moms of all of her friends and our friends, I mean, you name it, and every single my husband's entire family, every single person that ever knew me knew me as a fantastic mother. And what was so interesting is that, from the way beginning, before we even tried having children, I used to say to him, I'm just an oven to you. And he would say, but I chose your oven so he knew, he knew, he picked me because he knew I would be a fabulous mother. And now he's filing a motion, a 55 page motion, to prove that I'm unfit. Blew my. Mind. I mean, if we ever went to trial and I needed character with witnesses, the line would be out the door of people who know me as a mother and who would fully vouch for me. So it was, it was a constant battle of just defending my existence, and this, this was all my punishment, according to him, for wanting a divorce. You know, they keep saying that who you are as a person comes out at the end, like the truth of who you are comes out when you're divorcing. I did everything I could to keep my head held high to stay true to who I am, in the face of somebody who wanted nothing more than to see my demise in every possible way, who wanted to use our daughter against me and leave me with nothing. He was never going to leave the house, and he wanted full control over everything, and he stopped at nothing to get it. I just remembered there was a time during the winter when he was getting ready to snow blow the driveway, and both of our cars were in the driveway, and he came inside to ask me to go move my car so he could clear the driveway, so I put my shoes on and I went outside to move my car, and now he's taking his sweet time doing what I have no idea, but he's not getting even close to clearing the driveway. So I'm sitting here waiting for him, and finally I said, Forget it. I'm going back inside like I'm not sitting here watching you not clear the driveway. So eventually, when he was ready, he called me back outside and I went back, and I'm sitting in my car waiting, and he has the most devilish look on his face as he starts balling up snowballs and smashing them into my windshield, like he was so proud of himself and he was so malicious in his intent. I'll never forget it. The image on his face will be burned in my brain forever, but just pure evil. Not that that would be the only time I would ever say that. But that'll be in another episode. I will say that in the corners of my mind, I must have known that this was what I was gonna deal with if I ever divorced him earlier, and if anyone ever asks what took me so long, this was it, knowing that this is what I would be up against is what caused me to not do it sooner. Because the truth of the matter was, I wasn't strong enough to do it earlier, and it took gaining all that strength to be able to do it, knowing in the face of what I was going to be up against, some of the advice that I had given other people who are going through this divorce process as well, was to make sure that you're 100% sure that this is what you want before you serve them. And this is what my lesson was, too. I could not do this until I was 100% sure that this is what I wanted. Most people will waiver. You'll second guess yourself. You'll wonder if you're doing the right thing. I will say when you're 100% sure this is what you want, you do it and you go full force ahead. And I had to withstand a whole lot of crap and whole lot of pain and a whole lot of things I never thought would ever happen. I knew my customer. I knew who I was dealing with, but he took it to a whole other level in using my daughter that I didn't expect and how he could cause her that much damage. This will damage her for the rest of her life. How could he do that to her? I always told her I would walk through fire for her, and this was it. This was the proverbial fire. I went home every single day and every single night to be there for her, even when she didn't want me. I was not going to abandon her. And one day, maybe it'll be years from now, when she is far enough away from what's going on for her to look back and see the truth for what really happened here. I never wanted her to look back and say to me, you knew what was going on, and you abandoned me. And that's what kept me coming home every single day and every single night. The only time I was not there was when she slept out. Then I was sleep out too Other than that, I was there for her, even if we said nothing to each other, I wanted her to know I was there. Please join me every Thursday for a new episode. I invite you to comment, like, share, subscribe. You can reach. Me at the music of life. Five, five@gmail.com with any questions or stories or experiences or anything that you want to share with me, I'd be happy to talk about it on another episode. I appreciate your listening, and if you're enjoying this, please go to the music of life.com and check out anything new. You.