Dynamic Therapies Coaching
Who Am I Now?
The house got quiet — maybe because you lost your husband, maybe because the marriage ended, and either way, the kids left too. This is for the women standing in the middle of that quiet, wondering who's left.
You didn't just lose one role. You lost two.
Maybe you're newly widowed. Maybe you're divorced. Either way, one day you stopped being somebody's wife. And not long after — sometimes at nearly the same time — you stopped being an everyday mom, too.
Almost nobody talks about facing both at once. There's no card for it. No village that shows up for "I lost my marriage and my job as a mom in the same year."
You can turn a spare bedroom into a Zen room, decide that's the answer, and then realize a few months later that you don't even use it — because the truth is bigger than one room. The whole house is yours now. That's not a small thing to make peace with.
What we explore
- Who I am now that I'm not a wife and not an everyday mom
- What I actually like — without a husband's or kids' needs pulling at me
- Whether I even want to date again, and how to do that after decades of being partnered
- Who I get to become in this next chapter
What you'll leave with
- Relief that you're not the only one who feels like a stranger in her own house
- A real next step, not just a pep talk
- Room to rediscover what you actually like, want, and need
- Proof there's a whole chapter left — and it can be good
Why me
I didn't plan on becoming an expert in starting over. I turned 50, my husband had a major stroke, and within a week I was a widow. Six months later my youngest moved out. I found myself alone for the first time in 27 years, asking the same question you might be asking right now: who the hell am I?
My Story
Hi, I'm Jackie.
I just turned 50 and my husband had a major stroke. Within a week, I was a widow. That was enough trauma on its own — but it got harder. At the time, my youngest, eighteen, was still living with us, and within six months he moved out to live with his brother about 45 minutes away. Even though I was grieving, I was happy for him — he had the safety net of his older brother, two years ahead of him.
That being said, I found myself completely alone for the first time in 27 years. How was I supposed to navigate this? I'm no longer a wife. I'm no longer an "active" mother.
I remember turning off all the lights, locking up the house, and walking up the stairs to bed feeling awkward — like I'd forgotten something, or like I was staying in a hotel. It was mine, but it didn't feel like mine yet.
A couple more months passed, and I remember walking by one of my kids' rooms and having an aha moment: I'm going to turn a bedroom into my very own Zen room. A place I could go to relax, contemplate, write, meditate — in other words, do whatever the hell I wanted — and not be disturbed. I loved it. I spent time in it… at first.
Then I noticed I'd started doing all of those things on my couch instead, and rarely went into my Zen room. And then it hit me: I have a WHOLE house that's mine, without the distraction of a husband or kids. That was such a strange, unfamiliar feeling, and it took me a while to come to terms with it.
NOW the question hits me… WHO AM I?
It's been nine years now, and I'm still discovering — or better yet, re-discovering — myself. And let me tell you, it's been hard, fun, scary, uncomfortable, and not quite what I expected. There's the "what do I actually like now?" question. And then there's the dating scene — how do you even do that by yourself, after decades of being partnered? To top it off, my kids all moved to a different state. Talk about a whole new kind of empty nesting.
And that's exactly what I'm offering: help.
Many blessings,
Jackie