We’ve talked about grey divorce on the Toaster. We’ve talked about high dollar divorce on the Toaster. But what are the issues facing the messy middle, sitting right at the top of the divorce bell curve? That’s the topic of this week’s show, and to lead us through it we’re talking to Daniel Herrold, co-founder of Divorced Over Forty, a community dedicated to providing support for those in their 40s through 60s, searching for community and friendship.
What are the main issues facing the divorced in this group? We talk about divorce and the proverbial mid-life crisis. How important is it to find your tribe after the loss that comes with divorce? And what do you do once you find them? You join Divorced Over Forty for a trip to Jamaca, that’s what.
About Daniel Herrold
Daniel Herrold is a Divorced Dad of three daughters living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is one of the co-founders of Divorced Over Forty, a group that provides community to divorced men and women around the world who for support through content on its social media channels, as well as events with a specific intention of fostering and cultivating friendships. With over 10,000 strong virtually, tribes have been formed in over 50 cities across 7 countries worldwide.
Episode Transcript
Pete Wright:
Welcome to How To Split A Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from True Story FM. Today, your toaster just bought a Porsche and got a spray tan we’re talking midlife divorce.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show everyone. I’m Seth Nelson, as always. I’m here with my good friend, Pete Wright. We’ve talked about great divorce on the Toaster, we’ve talked about high dollar divorce on the Toaster, but what are the issues facing the messy middle, sitting right at top of the divorce bell curve this week on the show, we’re talking to Daniel Herrold, one of the co-founders of Divorce Over 40, a community dedicated to providing support to those facing midlife divorce. Daniel, welcome to the Toaster.
Daniel Herrold:
Well, I’m glad to be here. It’s nice to you, Seth and Pete glad to be on.
Pete Wright:
We’re going to be talking about your community here, Divorce Over 40. We’re going to get into this in a little bit. I’m super curious how this became a cause celeb for you. How it, how you put yourself in the space of saying, you know what, there’s a hole in my post divorce life and I’m going to be the guy to fill it for other people.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, Pete, you’ve been on his Instagram page and saw all those pictures of him standing next to the different Porsches. I mean, come on.
Daniel Herrold:
Well, I mean, it’s an interesting story. I mean, it really was a selfish objective or ambition at first, and COVID had a lot to do with it. You know, I had been divorced about two years prior to when everything started to shut down in early 20 and I was a very active dater. I would probably describe myself as a serial dater. I was having fun and all that shut off. And so, and I traveled a lot. So I dated as I traveled. And so, you know, as with a lot of people during COVID, you have a lot of time to yourself. You have a lot of time to kind of reflect, both good and bad. And I really was kind of looking at, okay, well, what I accomplished since my divorce and I was like, not a whole lot, you know? The one star missing piece was friendships. I really didn’t have meaningful friendships. And as you know, you go through divorce, you lose virtually all of, you know, all of your friendships.
Pete Wright:
Well, that’s what I was going to say. I mean, this is because you like your friends. I mean, was it a stereotypical for you as it seems to me that they just pick sides?
Daniel Herrold:
You know, I don’t know if it’s picking sides. I think it’s more that they don’t really know how to reach out, particularly the men. You know, I think the women know how to nurture and reach out to people. But I think the guys are we’re clueless and we’re just like, well, we’re not, we’re not going to touch that.
Seth Nelson:
When I went through my divorce, literally, it was like, you want to grab a beer? Like everybody thought I wanted to grab a beer, and some times I was the last thing I wanted to do. Like, you know, maybe sit at home with a bottle of tequila by myself, that might have been an option. But going out and grabbing a beer, I mean. But I agree with you a hundred percent. I think the guys are kind of, they don’t know how to do it. They don’t know how to reach out. They don’t really know, especially if you haven’t been through it, like even what they can do, they’re just totally lost. So I hear where you’re coming from.
Daniel Herrold:
I remember going out shortly after getting divorced with an old friend that I kind of rekindled, and we went to happy hour, and it was so nice catching up with him. We didn’t really even talk about the divorce. And I texted him afterwards and said, Hey, this was fun. We really ought to do this again. And he replied back to me said, that’s great, but can it be coffee and not a happy hour? And I knew that was coming from his wife and she didn’t want, you know, her husband hanging out with the single, you know, newly divorced man in a happy hour setting.
Daniel Herrold:
And so kind of back to story, I realized, okay, well, I really need to start investing in some people. And again, it’s hard to invest in guy friends that are married. So there was a coworker at my office that had gotten divorced about the same time that I did. And I said, Hey, let’s go have a couple drinks. And we started to hang out and he was a lot more social than me. So his friend circle was, you know, mine was him, and his was a lot bigger. And-
Seth Nelson:
That’s, that’s, that’s Daniel. That’s not a circle. Okay. That’s like a direct line.
Pete Wright:
That’s a line.
Seth Nelson:
It was just, one guy yeah. Point to point.
Daniel Herrold:
Yeah. And so we concocted this idea to have cookouts at his place every Thursday night. We really didn’t say every Thursday night, but he’s like, well why don’t we have these cookouts? And let’s just start inviting people over. And of course, I don’t have anybody on the invitation list, but he has a whole, you know, group of people that he invited. And it was kind of like a potluck thing. It was like, you know, y’all bring a dish, bring your alcohol, let’s just hang out. And we did it one Thursday. We had about 10, 15 people there. I knew nobody. It wasn’t like a dating mixer. It was really just kind of people hanging out. And it turned out as I got to know everybody there, everyone was divorced, every single person. And I was like, well, that’s interesting.
Daniel Herrold:
And so my circle started to widen a little bit and I was like, well let’s do this again. His name is Toby. We did it again. And we invited those friends and told them to invite their friends. And so a completely mix of different people the next week, 15, 20 people this time, all divorced. And we just kept doing that all throughout the summer. And watching this thing grow, from that spawned this unique friendship amongst about six of us, my colleague and myself, and four women, purely platonic. We were all divorced in our forties and early fifties. And we were like a pack of thieves. I mean, we did everything together. We had dinner, we went to breakfast, we hung out and watched movies. It was such a unique kind of time in your life where you rarely get the opportunity to build a platonic friendship with a female.
Daniel Herrold:
You know, particularly when you’re married, you just don’t do that. Or you shouldn’t for that matter. It’s like this light bulb went on in our head because all of a sudden these ladies were now kind of cohost of the events. And we were like, we’re onto something here. I mean, people just have this insatiable appetite for connection when they get divorced, because they don’t have any. They have family, which a lot of times you don’t want family in your business or, you know, they like to put themselves in your business, but you know, I kept a healthy boundary there, but just being able to connect with people that there wasn’t an agenda, we weren’t trying to sleep with each other. We weren’t trying to get phone numbers. It was just, let’s just hang out and eat and have a couple beers. And that’s what started that.
Pete Wright:
I’m thinking about that. Of course, I’m talking to a Floridian and an Oklahoman here, but we were in a place that was much more sort of conservative in terms of when we came out of, you know, out of COVID and, and things were not open for a very long time. And this is a thing that I, even though I’m not divorced, but this is a thing I can relate to. It is water to, you know, a man coming out of the desert, being able to sit down with a friend after 18 months that you haven’t seen, you haven’t been able to, you know, give a hug. You haven’t been able to have a real in-person connection to make you realize just the incredible value of platonic relationships in your life beyond family.
Daniel Herrold:
Yeah, I think as I reflect back, if I had to do anything differently during the time that I was married, it was that I would’ve invested in more people from a friendship standpoint, and that means guys. I would’ve really invested in guys. And you know, you just get so busy with life and you know, I just wasn’t the guy that went and played golf, you know, for four hours on a Friday that. For me it was career and then raising my kids. And that was it.
Pete Wright:
It’s amplified by the fact that you’re also, I mean, whether you’re in a marriage and family or not men get worse at developing new friendships as they age. And it is just I imagine exacerbated by the fact that you’re in a friend divorce, right.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, let’s be honest. Is there anything we get better at?
Pete Wright:
No, there’s nothing we get at. The only thing we get better at is aging. Like, that’s really it.
Daniel Herrold:
Right. Well and if you think about it in many cases, the role of the wife, and I don’t want to generalize or stereotype. And in my marriage, my wife was our social chairman. So she’s driving the boat, she’s driving the agenda, and all the couples that we’re going out with and what we’re doing. I’d come home Friday and she’s like, well, we’re going out with this couple and that couple. And I’m like, okay great. And so, you know, a lot of times we’re not really driving the boat, and then you kind of just start to take a backseat and get lazy about it. And you regret it later down in life. At least I did
Seth Nelson:
Well Daniel, I’ll tell you. I think one of the interesting things you say is that you know, your close circle of friends or you didn’t, haven’t many friends that were close at all. I think back of like the different stages of my life. And to this day, I have two, three solid friends from college, still talk to them on a fairly regular basis, but they’re also type of friends that six months might go by, a year might go by. And then you pick up the phone and it’s, nothing’s changed, right. You pick up, right. And I kind of have that from segments of my life. But in that phase that you’re talking about when I had kids and they were little and we were focused on them. And for a long time after I was divorced, I felt very similar to you. I certainly had acquaintances and colleague that I consider friends, but I’d rarely get together with them, or it’d always be a hassle to schedule. And I wouldn’t make like, you know, Hey, we should get together. We should get together. And I got this new mantra is let’s get out our calendar right now. Right? When you say, let’s get together, get out your calendar. Cause otherwise that’s not happening.
Pete Wright:
It’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen.
Daniel Herrold:
I had dinner with two of my friends that I’ve been investing a lot of time with, one’s married and the other one is in a long battle divorce. And we hadn’t seen each other in maybe a couple months, and we left and I texted both of them. I said, man, this stuff, this is good for the soul. Be able to hang with guys like you. And the one that’s going through a really painful divorce replied back and said, you have no idea. And you know, it just makes you realize there’s a lot of people that are out there that are hurting and they just need, you know, some companionship, just someone to hang out with. Maybe not even to talk about the crap that they’re going through, but just someone to enjoy life with.
Pete Wright:
There is a post on your blog at divorceoverforty.com that the title is, “are we hardwired to be in a relationship?” And I feel like what we’re talking about here comes at this from the other side, which is saying, look, you know, there is a lot of self-empowerment language and guidance there in the world that says, you know, you’re going to get a divorce. It’s okay. It’s okay to be by yourself, learn to be okay by yourself. And that it feels like a group like this is a salve for people who have decided they’re not okay by themselves, that they need human connection. They need relationships. Is that, can you react to that sort of trope, the be okay by yourself kind of angle and how that applies to the people who are a part of your tribes?
Daniel Herrold:
I think there’s something to be said about when you go through a trauma, like a divorce, that before you get into the next relationship that you need to heal, you need to go through the self discovery process. And so being single for a season, I think is healthy. But I think that we all at the end of the day, yearn for connection, and that can be a romantic connection, or that can be a platonic connection. And what we’ve told people, our message is we want to be the healthier alternative for you because most people, when they start to feel the pains of loneliness and they start to feel sad about their situation and their Friday nights, they’re sitting there watching Netflix by themselves and they haven’t healed well, what do they do? They get on Bumble and they get on Tinder and they’re yearning for some sort of validation or connection from random people.
Daniel Herrold:
And it’s incredibly toxic, it’s a crash and burn scenario when you’re, when you’re healthy and you’re dating. And so what we’re telling people is maybe take a little bit of time out before you do that, because our culture says, you got to get back in the game as quickly as possible and just go make friends. And you know, what the best friends for you to make are friends just like you. Just like how veterans can look at another veteran and kind of nod. I’ve been through that. I know the trauma that you’ve been through. I think someone that’s been through a divorce can hang out with other divorced men and women and be able to empathize and say, I’m like you, I’m one of your kind, I’ve been through that scenario before. And so it’s, you still need the connection. We think you need connection. We’re just want to provide a healthier alternative.
Seth Nelson:
And Pete, to your point about learning to be alone, that’s something I certainly learned how to do. And dating afterwards was very easy for me. Once I realized I was kind of comfortable in my own skin. And I was okay being alone because someone would not want to go out with me another time. I think I’ve mentioned this before. And I would just kind of laugh like, okay, for whatever reason, you don’t like short Jewish, bald guy anymore. That’s fine. Like, you know, it happens, but I’m not changing that about myself. That’s never going to change. But the last time I went through a serious breakup, I was worried about seeing my kid and, you know, making sure they could stay in the house so they could go to a good school district. We went out a few times and we had some laughs, not seeing you ever again in my life is really not that big of a deal.
Seth Nelson:
Right. But, but that’s where I’m like more in tune with me. That doesn’t mean that I think being alone in my mind is when you put your head at the pillow at night, are you okay? And it doesn’t mean that you don’t have friends or you know, and you can still find that quiet time. And some people are, are alone when they exercise. That’s their alone time. Right. Because Hey, I want to be alone. I’m good being alone. It doesn’t mean that you’re like forever by yourself. And you have no interaction, right? You’re not a hermit, but I think what Daniel, if I’m hearing you, right, Daniel is like, they’re people that have been through what you’ve gone through, or you’re currently going through, and we’re just here to support each other.
Seth Nelson:
And if you’re feeling down and you don’t want to sit home and, and watch Netflix and think about your divorce or get on Bumble and swipe, whichever way you’re going to swipe until you run out of inventory, then we’re here for you. And it isn’t about your divorce. It’s about making new friendships, realizing there’s life after divorce, and you can keep going on.
Pete Wright:
Well the thing I’m interested in that I really relate to here is that I think there are people who are in marriages that might be, you know, struggling who are realizing that they’re lonely because they’re just alone. And the value of you know, of these platonic relationships, can be an answer to that. Like I maybe I just, maybe I just need to be able to have a conversation over a cup of coffee with somebody else who will sit and listen to me.
Seth Nelson:
Well Pete, here’s the thing. I talked to a buddy of mine and I said, how’s it going? Like he’s younger than I am. But he, he played college hockey and has kids now. And he goes, my life’s great, except for one thing. And I was like, thinking he was going to tell me he was sick or someone was ill. He goes, I miss the guys. He’s like, I love my wife. We have a great relationship. She is my best friend. Like everything you would hope your relationships would be, the kids are amazing. I’m running around with them. He’s like, I don’t have that like not in a crude sense where like, but I don’t have the time in the locker. I don’t have the time on the ice that I used to have. Right. Hanging out with these guys, you know, just doing whatever he liked to do. And he’s like, I just miss it. Like it you know, I drive home and I see these guys that doing a pickup basketball game and I’m like, God, that looks nice. You know? So is that kind of what you’re talking about too, Daniel?
Daniel Herrold:
You know? Yes. And the thing is, and you know, we’ve just discussed, this is that it requires intention, you have to, you know, you have to be the one, you have to be the guy that’s going to go play offense and say, well, I’m going to, I’m going to be the guy that puts it all together. Like you said, let’s get the calendars out and let’s put it on the calendar. Because you just can’t assume. And unfortunately, people get disenfranchised with a lot of their friends because they’re like, well, they never invite me out. I never get the invitation. You can’t think like that unfortunately. It’s not always reciprocal because most men don’t think that way. Oh, let’s go out. You have to be the one that’s going to orchestrate all of it, but it could still be very rewarding with you kind of putting all the plan into place and not expecting anybody else to do so.
Pete Wright:
I think it gets to sort of these these two separate parallel issues, right. One is you’re going to be a healthier person, mind and spirit if you cultivate relationships outside of your marriage. You also might make your divorce easier. If you have some of these relationships.
Daniel Herrold:
Are you saying this is an insurance policy? Is that what you’re saying?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I’m saying don’t sell the rental house. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Daniel, Pete’s the only kid that used to say, what do you want to be when you grow up? He goes an insurance salesman. Like the only one
Pete Wright:
Stop, look I made a gag at the beginning about the sort of midlife crisis gag. But that was only partially intentional. I’m really interested in your impression of how people, maybe even yourself, and and I’ll say to both of you, use the post divorce experience as a time of redefinition, right. To Seth’s point. You know, I learned to be who I am. I learned to find myself in that period. How do you find divorce over 40 helps people through that process of reinvention? And do they ever come in intentionally looking to reinvent?
Daniel Herrold:
I think most people that come in are incredibly hurt and in pain, from my experience and not everybody, but the ones that really embrace it and invest in our community really blossom. It’s really something exciting to see. I remember there’s one gentleman that told me that at the first happy hour, he sat in his car for 30 minutes. He was scared to death to come in, did no soul. And he finally had the guts to come in and fast forward 90, 120 days. And he’s like the guy, he’s the one that’s going out to the women that are scared in the car and saying, look for me, I’ll help you come in. It’s like, you see this blossoming of this person. And we’re seeing that all the time. So I think what we’re trying to convey, and a lot of the content that we provide is not only can we provide you with the connection, but there is life after divorce and it actually can be pretty good, excuse my French.
Daniel Herrold:
And it can be, and guess what, you’re the sole author of that next chapter. You have all the autonomy. I mean, you have obligations. You might have an obligation to enact. You might have, you obviously, if you have kids, but after you write your script and that’s pretty empowering. And I kind of feel sad for the people that like dive so quickly into the next relationship, because they don’t realize what they have for like this moment of time where I don’t want to go out tonight. I’m just going to watch TV or I’m going to go hiking. Or, I mean, all of this free autonomy free will to do anything and not have a partner. That’s going to have an equal say or a vote.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, Daniel, you’re saying what I say to people when they’re saying, I don’t want to give up my kids every other weekend. I can’t go a weekend without seeing them. And I’m like, it’s not about you. It’s about the kids seeing the other parent as well. and, and I say, tell me a bunch of stuff that you always like to do before you got married that you no longer do. And they give me this list. And I’m like, how about doing that next Saturday when the kids are with the glorified babysitter called dad. Right.
Daniel Herrold:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Well, that brings up a question I have for both of you. Like if you Daniel, you’re a divorced dad and you, when was your divorce? How long have you been divorced?
Daniel Herrold:
It was three years ago coming January. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Okay. So let’s say you opened the photo album and you’re looking at pictures of you five years ago. How do you describe who that guy is as different from the guy we’re talking to right now?
Daniel Herrold:
Oh gosh, I’m a completely different person. I was a guy that was focused entirely on my career. And a guy that wouldn’t admit that I was in an unhappy marriage, and was just kind of going through the motions at home. And there wasn’t any pursuit of my interests or hobbies. Very little friends other than the couple friends. That was my day, you know, as I look back and reflected upon that time, it was like, you know, for me it was like this was the bed that I made. I’m sleeping in it. I’m just going to have to deal with it the rest of my life. And having the ability to, you know, you go through your healing hopefully after your divorce. And then there’s this incredible part of life there this time where you can really, I call it the self discovery phase.
Daniel Herrold:
It’s like, okay, well what the hell do I want to do now? Do I want to get remarried? Do I want to wait a while? Do I want to, you know, maybe I’ll go. What’s a hobby that I, you know, it’s like Seth said, it’s like dusting off some of those old interest and hobbies for me, it was pouring into this divorce community. And what I learned is how much I loved to write. But when I looked back in college, my dad used to write me a letter once, once a week, handwritten. And I remember as a kid in college, I kind of glanced it over and put it up aside. But I was dating my ex-wife at the time. She was at a different school. And I used to write her handwritten letters. I loved writing. I loved just expressing myself. And now it created this platform where it’s like serving up, okay, Daniel, you have an opportunity to be vulnerable and raw and real. And here’s this audience that wants that. And I’ve just dove into that. And you know what-
Seth Nelson:
And so let me tell you, I’m sorry to interrupt Daniel, but you just said something that just Pete already knows probably what I’m going to say is when people are open and vulnerable and real, that is just mana from heaven for other people to like, be like, oh my God, this guy’s the real deal. I want to hang out with this guy. It’s not the facade, it’s not the bullshit, it’s not the mask. Right. And you’re like here, warts and all, this is who I am. I know I can always improve on stuff. And I’ve never had an open, vulnerable, honest conversation that I’ve regretted.
Daniel Herrold:
Yeah me too.
Seth Nelson:
Never once.
Daniel Herrold:
You’re right. It’s incredibly feeling, and I wish more men would. I think men are drawn to seen vulnerability in men, but they’re scared to be vulnerable. They feel like that takes away their manhood or their masculinity. They don’t want to be embarrassed or exposed or in the spotlight. And so you have this large pool of men that are just going to be trapped up and not express their feelings. And I think it’s just a very unhealthy way to live your life, particularly after divorce.
Seth Nelson:
Now, let me tell you this too. Just last week, I went out with two colleagues. One was a law student, and one was an attorney, the law student’s like 27, the attorney she’s 30, these two very brilliant women at the relatively early stages of their, what I’m sure will be an amazing career. But I was like getting to be almost a fly on the wall and some of their conversations about men and dating. And I was chiming in on my relationships as well. And we were talking about what I thought women thought was the most attractive thing in men. And I said, it’s confidence, but not cockiness. And that’s a thin line. And they said, yeah, that’s true. But another one is when they’re vulnerable. And I had never heard that before where like, if you’re vulnerable women actually find that sexy in my very, you know, unscientific poll that I did with these two women that I was having a drink with, but yeah.
Pete Wright:
Rigorous empirical research
Seth Nelson:
But it’s, I’ve never regretted those conversations when I’ve had them. And it’s an interesting concept.
Pete Wright:
It’s just too bad that so many men have to go through trauma in order to get there. There’s this whole generation of men. And I would hasten to say probably men who look a lot like the three of us. I look at my son and I think, I hope he is learning the lessons culturally, that I didn’t because of my relationship say with my dad, my parents, and that there is change on the horizon. I think he is naturally better at being vulnerable and authentic than I was at his age. And I can only hope that that’s because of some lessons learned. And I know your son said, besides him trying to take my money in street card games, he’s a pretty sensitive kid.
Seth Nelson:
Oh yeah. In fact, this comes from my grandfather, I’m the guy that cries at a super bowl commercial with a puppy. And my son has that. And when he was little, I’d be like, why are you crying? He’s like, because I get emotional and I get it from you. You know, you know, and I’m like, sorry, bud. You know, I got it from grandpa. So great grandpa to you, you know, what do you want from me? You’re welcome. But I think it is just how you handle to do that and how you can put yourself out there.
Seth Nelson:
Now I think kids today generally are much more accepting. They are much more vulnerable because there is more acceptance. It makes it a whole lot easier, but there is a whole LGBTQ community out there that would never have done what they were doing. You know, when we were younger or in the fifties or in the forties, it is a different world. And I think a lot of that is because there’s acceptance. And when there is acceptance, it makes it easier for people to be who they are, even if that is “vulnerable”. In anything you’re feeling, not just any one race, religion, or creed or sexual orientation, it’s just a different dynamic out there.
Daniel Herrold:
Yeah. I think they, I think people need to see it, right. They need to, in order to feel like it’s acceptable to be open and be vulnerable. And we’re seeing more of it in the younger generations. So hopefully that will pass through. I think about my dad and I don’t think I ever knew, I knew when he was mad, but I never knew really how he felt. And I knew what his passions were, but he was an attorney. And, you know, he was just a strong man that I feared, you know, and he didn’t really open up. And I, unfortunately, I learned how to open up after trauma. And I wish that I felt that willingness to open up a lot sooner in my life. Cause it does, vulnerability opens doors. I mean, I always say that it opens so many doors, so many connections.
Seth Nelson:
Are you, are you dating anyone now Daniel?
Daniel Herrold:
I am. As a matter of fact, I met someone at one of our events, which-
Pete Wright:
I was, I was told these are not dating events Daniel.
Seth Nelson:
I know, I know that’s what I heard too.
Daniel Herrold:
Here’s what we say, which we mean this. We want you to come in with the intention to build friendships. We’re very intentional. We actually are explicit even in the invitations. And when you sign up to RSVP, you have to check, I’m not coming for dating purposes or to pursue a man or a woman. So it’s actually one of the terms and conditions of that we had an attorney draft for us, by the way, just to-
Seth Nelson:
loophole, there was a loophole.
Daniel Herrold:
It says with the exception of the founders of the community,…
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. Including, but not limited too.
Pete Wright:
There you go.
Daniel Herrold:
We want people to come with a mindset that I’m here to cultivate, or to build new friendships. But we recognize that romantic connections could happen in an organic way over time. And we’ve seen that. We’ve seen people that have spawned off and started to date. And we love that. I think those are good stories, but we don’t want people to come, we don’t want the predators to come and they come, we find them. What’s so cool about our community is everybody self polices. Even the guys, once they see behavior that’s unacceptable. We hear about it, and then we all ask them kindly to leave or not to come back. And so it’s a really healthy place. And everybody in the community tries to keep it healthy. But everybody wants, particularly women, every person, our age wants to get off the apps and meet people organically. They always say that. And I always say back to them, well, what are you doing to accomplish that? Well, I don’t know. I’m just going to get off and wait for him to come to me. Well, that’s, that’s a failed model.
Pete Wright:
I don’t know about that failed model because that’s what I heard women were wanting to do. And so I would literally go to condos and just knock on doors because I heard that’s what they wanted and then yeah. And then like the cops show up and I’m like, I just don’t understand what’s going on here.
Daniel Herrold:
Yeah. They’ll say I’m just going to wait for him to come talk to me at the grocery store. I was like, I’ve never talked to anybody in my entire life at the grocery store. Don’t count on it. What’s your plan. And so I always tell people, it’s like, go be super social. You know, you don’t have to come to our events, but go invest in your friends. Your friend circle will expand. You’ll ultimately meet people of the opposite sex or the same sex depending on your preference. And there will be a spark. And it’s a very organic way of meeting people. And it so happened that the girl I’ve been dating, Jamie, my girlfriend for going on 15 months. And she was invited from another, I didn’t know her. She was invited by a friend of mine. And she had just gotten divorced and she wanted a safe place to, unfortunately it wasn’t safe, but she wanted a place where it wasn’t like a pickup type of event. It was, I wanted to just go hang out with friends because all my friends are married and that’s where we’re at.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. But Pete, you know what should do to scuttle this relationship is not play this podcast. Not launch it for like three more months. And then when she listens to it, she’s like, what do you mean 15 months? Really?
Daniel Herrold:
I may be off already Seth. I don’t the actual months.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. Geez, man. Don’t throw out how long you’ve been dating. You’re going to get that wrong every time. Like, I don’t even say how old my kid is, you know,
Daniel Herrold:
I just say greater than six months. And then I don’t say, yeah. Right.
Seth Nelson:
That’s great.
Daniel Herrold:
So you are doing-
Seth Nelson:
I was going to say the same thing, Pete, you’re doing great work, especially you’re doing great. And it’s interesting to me, it kind of started with this group of guys, but it expanded to women who are there also just to have friendships. And if something happens in blossoms, it happens in blossoms, but that’s not the goal. And, and we’ve talked about this on other shows, Pete, is being intentional, really thinking about what you do before you do. It makes such a huge impact. This is just great work, Daniel. It’s impressive.
Pete Wright:
By way of telling us a little bit more about the details of the group, you’ve got a big trip that you’re starting to put together for 2022 right?
Daniel Herrold:
You know? Yes. And what’s funny is we keep throwing stuff on the wall to see if it sticks and everything seems to stick. And so this past year, someone made a comment in one of our Facebook groups. So Facebook, what we found, we have these private groups and they’re based on city where we have communities and you have, there’s a prerequisite list of questions in order to get in, have to be divorced or widowed or separated. You know, can’t be single and never married to come in there, very safe place. And someone made a post. Hey, I really would love to go on a trip. Is anybody interested in going with me? And it’s created this huge thread. And I’m like, well, maybe our community would love it if we put together a vacation.
Daniel Herrold:
So we looked for something that was kind of a midpoint price point and decided to go to Cancun and we advertised it and we had 65 people sign up to go. Now, when we went, the three founders, Julie and Amy and myself went, I think I knew five people at the event. Nobody knew each other. We all converged from Philadelphia, New York, Florida. We had someone from Miami, LA all across the country, all converged and had like three days and everybody loved it. So we were like, well, gosh, that’s stuck on the wall. Let’s keep it going. So we do, we have a Jamaica trip. I expect we’ll have easily over a hundred, maybe 150 people that’ll come to that trip.
Pete Wright:
And they’re coming from all over from their tribes all over the world. They’re not obviously not coming from Oklahoma.
Daniel Herrold:
We have a divorce over 40 chapter in Jamaica. I would hope that those women come well. So
Seth Nelson:
They’re like, couldn’t you pick somewhere else?
Daniel Herrold:
Yeah. Right, exactly. Costa Rica at least? Something different.
Seth Nelson:
Come on Daniel. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
That’s the first post they make is we were kind of hoping you’d have a trip to Tulsa.
Daniel Herrold:
Exactly. You know, what’s funny is what gave us the, what was the impetus to say, let’s blow this thing out across the country is we started to have these messages of people from Chicago say, “I’d like to fly down for your next happy hour.” And I’m like, you want to fly down to come to a three hour happy hour? And she’s like, I love what you’re doing. And you guys seem so cool and so fun. I’m like, well, we’re really not that cool.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I was about to say, I don’t know what you’re posting out there, but you know-
Daniel Herrold:
We’re not that cool. We just need, and you know, the light bulb went off and it’s like, well, we need to copy and paste this. And that’s what we’re doing.
Pete Wright:
That’s awesome. You can learn more @divorcedoverforty.com. Yes? That’s where you send people and Facebook. they start on the website and go to Facebook or can they just go to Facebook and find their groups?
Daniel Herrold:
I’d go to the website, because there’s a link at the top that says, find your tribe and you fill out that form and you tell us where you live. We send it immediately to, we call them ambassadors. They’re our leaders in our city. And then they’ll get you all connected in.
Pete Wright:
Oh, okay. Okay. Because they’re all private groups. You can’t just go find them.
Daniel Herrold:
You can see them visibly, but we’ve got some pretty, pretty strong locks. We’ve got a strong gate, so to speak, to let people end.
Pete Wright:
Perfect. Perfect. Divorced over 40 everybody. You got to check this out. This is, it is a fantastic thing you guys are doing for the divorce community, divorcedoverforty.com. Thank you so much, Daniel Herrold.
Daniel Herrold:
It was my pleasure. Thank you guys. All right.
Pete Wright:
On behalf of Daniel Herrold, and America’s favorite divorce attorney, Seth Nelson. I’m Pete Wright. We’ll catch you next week right here on How To Split A Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Speaker 4:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with Nelson Coster family law and mediation with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, how to split a toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of Nelson Coster. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
