Happily Ever After (Without Children!‪)‬ Shannon Vandermark

Hi! This is Shannon Vandermark and this is the Happily Ever After Without Children podcast.
This is not a new full length episode, but instead an invitation to join me for a live webinar THIS TUESDAY 9 July, 2019 at 7:00pm London time / 2:00pm New York Time / 11:00am LA time.
My topic follows the same theme of this podcast and the title is Happily Ever After: Challenging the Fairy Tale Narrative. The webinar will be live and you can anonymously ask questions at the end. This session is not directed solely towards those who are struggling to find happiness without children but for anyone seeking peace with a life that has not turned quite as expected or as planned. So…everyone!  
 Please join in as the session is already well-subscribed. Go to:
fertilitynetworkuk.org/life-without-children/more-to-life-webinars/ 
Once on the website, you will see my name Shannon Vandermark, my picture, a brief description of the webinar and a link to click for registration.
As ever, please pass along details of this podcast and of this webinar to anyone you can. You never know who us struggling and could use a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.  

Today is Mother’s Day in the UK. The chat you’re about to hear with my friend Sheila was actually recorded exactly one year ago on the sofa, in the lounge of my flat. It was the first interview I recorded for this podcast series, which was intentionally done on Mother’s Day. Sheila and I discuss where we are, in our journeys and how we have reclaimed Mother’s Day as a day we no longer feel we have to hide from.  
Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast.

 

Zarina is so articulate in her pain, so delicate with her words and so achingly honest, I was thinking to myself as I was listening to it just now, ‘why haven’t I put this episode out earlier’?  I owe Zarina a lot for saying things I couldn’t say and grabbing me and holding me close to her story, even though we had only just met.  I want to give you a head’s up that there are parts of this interview that might be difficult to hear.   Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast.
   

Most of my guests have tried to have their own children but have now made peace and found happiness in a life that does not involve their own children. My guest this week is Greg Betzweizer, half of the Greg and Kamra couple who are dear friends of my husband and mine. The four of us are usually laughing the entire time we are together and we definitely share quirky sensibilities, which I think comes through in our chat. Greg and Kamra’s decision to not have children was not always a straightforward one but Greg speaks candidly about how he can be a better son and husband if he is not also a father.
Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me at www.happilyeveraftercoach.com or on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast.

Here we are, at episode 13. Can you believe it? I am speaking with my friend Jo and if you haven’t listened to episode 12, in which I speak with Jo’s husband Al, I highly recommend you check that one out too. Jo and Al have an incredibly romantic story of how they got together, both living their lives and basically perfecting themselves for the moment when they would get together. Just by chance and circumstance and the fact that neither of them was willing to settle down with a partner who was less than perfect, they didn’t find one another until the chances of having their own children had become very slim. Jo met up with me for a glass of wine and a chat and we chewed the cud about life in general; the unavoidable path of destiny and the uncomfortable reality of our own mortalities.   
Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com or at www.happilyeveraftercoach.com. You can also find me on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast.  
 

I recorded this interview with Al, a very close friend of both my husband and myself. I met Al when I moved over to London from Los Angeles, about 12 years ago and he immediately felt like family. Because Al was single at the time, he, Robin and I used to get together on a Sunday, watch a movie or an episode of Planet Earth, eat a massive roast dinner and drink our body weights in wine. Since then, Robin and I have gotten married and had our struggles with miscarriages, Al has lived in Hong Kong, then moved back, then got himself sober, got together with the love of his life and got married. I am really grateful that Al was up for chatting to me because I asked him some pretty obtrusive questions about all of it.  Tune in for episode 13 in which I speak with Al's wife Jo.  They are a spectacular couple.  Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me at www.happilyeveraftercoach.com, on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast.