Debbie Weiss BW 176
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Emily: [00:00:00] welcome to episode number
176. Of the Brave Widow Show today, I have a special guest speaker with me and I think you're really gonna enjoy our conversation today. Also, I wanna make sure that you are aware that we are doing another round of Grief Recovery Method. And Grief Recovery Method is the evidence-based eight week program that I use to help.
Widows and widowers be able to heal their heart. To be equipped with tools to navigate grief and life beyond, and really to build a solid foundation for your emotional healing and your grief journey. This eight week program is typically the number one thing that people say has jumpstarted their ability to be able to step forward.
Even if they've tried counseling, even if they've gone through grief share or [00:01:00] other grief groups, even if they've done a lot of other things, grief recovery method is just very different. I've not ever had anyone go through it who said they didn't learn something new. They weren't able to have a big emotional experience during this process and find some freedom.
From things that have weighed them down, find some completeness to things that still feel. Really incomplete. So if you'd like to join us, we're gonna meet on Tuesdays, starting on December the ninth from one to three Central Time. And if you go to brave widow.com, up at the top, you can see a link that says Join Grief Recovery Method.
You can also schedule a one-on-one consult call with me if you're not sure this is the right fit for you or if you wanna explore some other options. The cost to go through the eight week program is $400, and for people who join in [00:02:00] 2025, I am crediting that towards the Brave Widow Academy or towards one-on-one coaching.
If you decide later on that either one of those are a good fit for you, you get credit towards that. For anything you've invested to join Grief Recovery Method.
I have five spots left as of today, so go to brave widow.com and sign up, and I would love to see you there. Alright, let me introduce you to Debbie Weiss Debbie Weiss is the author of the award-winning memoir available as is a midlife widow search for love about creating a new life and finding hope after widowhood.
Her essays have been published in the New York Times Modern Love Column, Huffington Post and Woman's Day, among other publications. As a former lawyer, she's proudest of earning her Masters of Fine Arts and Creative Writing in 2020 at the age of 56. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her second life partner.
[00:03:00] Randall, you can find Debbie online, Facebook, and Instagram, and all of the links to where you can find her will be right here in the show notes. Alright, let's dive in.
Debbie, I just wanna thank you for coming on the show today and being willing to share about your story and some of the insights you've gained along the way.
Debbie: And thank you, Emily, so much for having me.
I really appreciate it. Of course. So our audience, viewers and listeners always love to know about our guests. So if you wouldn't mind to just introduce yourself share a little bit about what you do and then we can jump into your story wherever you'd like to start.
Sure. I'm Debbie Weiss.
I am in the San Francisco Bay area where I grew up. I'm a firmer lawyer. And I married my high school sweetheart. We'd known each other, let's see, we met when I was seven and he was 11 at a family pool party. Oh, [00:04:00] wow. Our parents were friends and he was a sophomore guy California. And we were together 32 years.
Again, he was my high school's prom date. And anyway he passed away from cancer in April of 2013.
Emily: Wow. 32 years. That, especially at your age, is like a lifetime with someone.
Debbie: It was, yeah, it was. It was a lifetime. Pretty much. Yeah.
Emily: Yeah. So what as you experienced the loss of your spouse did you experience a lot of help from family and friends or do you feel like people disappeared and fizzled out for, from you for a while?
Or what was that like for you?
Debbie: That's such a good question. What was really hard for me was that I was isolated when my husband passed, and it wasn't anybody's fault. We were just really, we were antisocial people. He was a, he was, a tech guy. He was pretty happy with his [00:05:00] computer. I'm an introvert and I read a lot.
I'd retired from practicing law some years before, and. I just had neglected kind of social contacts which was on me, but he was gone, so I was very much alone. I have a very small family. My mom died when I was young. I have an only child, so all I had was my dad and my stepmom and then my in-laws.
So I had to create a whole new life. That was really all how I had.
Emily: I love how you said create a whole new life, because sometimes so many people believe oh, I just have to give it time and I'll feel better, and somehow I'm gonna go back to normal or this old version of me. And really, I think what happens is we come to that crossroads where we get to decide, am I going to build a new life?
Or is this it? This is the rest of my life. What did you find helpful once you started thinking about how you were gonna create a new life, if it [00:06:00] was gonna be possible? What was the most helpful to you?
Debbie: It's funny 'cause I did go through that of who am I, what his name was George, who am I without George and what am I gonna do?
And it
sounds so huge. So at first it sounded insurmountable. But what helped me I've actually written about this in places, was to break things down to very simple, manageable steps. So what I tried to do was start really basic. Okay, you're sitting on your couch. I could get up and I could go for a walk.
I lived in a nice, really walkable area and I'd see the same people every day and they'd smile and they'd wave and I'd pet their dogs or whatever. And it was pleasant, and I joined a yoga class and I remember going really early before classes 'cause there was a nice group of like women my age who would talk.
And I remember thinking. Stay after class. Don't scurry away even though you're pouring sweat here and you're not very good at yoga. Just, be there be chatty. And from there I started to join more groups. I joined meet, we have [00:07:00] Meetup here. And we joined, so I joined hiking groups, I joined some career groups and so I don't, didn't wanna practice law anymore.
But I'd always loved writing, so I joined some writing classes and from there I made some friends and joined a writing group. And, from going to, having nothing to do, I had a class Thursday and a group Friday, and I had dead. I, I took these very serious deadlines. So I started to try to build connections.
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's really helpful because so many people feel like their family and friends have disappeared and no one cares about them. And we almost get in this mindset of I shouldn't have to make new friends. I shouldn't have to put myself out there, I shouldn't have to be inviting people to lunch or yogurt after yoga or anything like that.
But the reality is if we want to rebuild our social circle, then. We do need to do those things.
Debbie: I agree. 'Cause I know it's frustrating 'cause you're [00:08:00] widowed and that's horrible and you've lost your person and that's awful. And it feels why isn't more, things happening to me that are good.
It's like why? But the thing is I didn't know people, so I had. I had to take the steps or else I, I was, had a little house in the suburbs and thinking this is all you're gonna get if you don't, get off the couch and do some things. This is kind of it. So yeah it's hard 'cause you're not feeling, you're already feeling vulnerable but at the same time, you have to change and move forward.
Emily: Yeah. That's really great. And I know people will be super curious that now it's been about 12 years. Yeah. Since you lost your spouse. So you have a different perspective than a lot of widows I talked to who maybe have been widowed a few months or a year or two years, what would you say, like 12 [00:09:00] years now?
Looking back, how
has your perspective on grief and on widowhood changed or what's different for you now that time has passed?
Debbie: Things are I'm
very different because I was very shy and withdrawn and I didn't I would never have done this, or reached out or anything beforehand.
So my perspective is fairly. It's hopeful. I would say my perspective for people is hope because there were so many times when I didn't feel hope and I started dating 18 months after my loss and that what wasn't great. And I felt very hopeless at certain times, but. Things felt better. I didn't feel, really didn't realize it.
I didn't feel comfortable in the house I'd lived in with my late husband. I lived in that for 27 years and I, I didn't feel like I could make changes and all. [00:10:00] So I would say hopeful. And this is way too soon for the newly widowed, but I, again, I've been widowed 12 years and after five years I did find a second partner.
It's different than when I was married, but also beautiful because it's later in life and we appreciate that kind of the finiteness of time. He's a health freak, which isn't as great, but that's another issue. So I would really say I would say hopeful but it took a very long time to feel that way, to feel like I could make changes or to feel like I had a good future.
Emily: Yeah, that, that's really good. And I also dated pretty soon after my husband died, and there was a lot of emotional volatility, like a rollercoaster of things with dating because to your point, you don't even know who you want to be or who you are or what you want, and you're trying to figure it out.
And that creates a lot of volatility in the dating experience. [00:11:00] Is there anything that you would share about. Maybe some mistakes that you made or something that you wish you would've done a little bit differently as part of that journey?
Debbie: Yes. That's actually why I wrote my book. It was going through all of that.
But it was funny also 'cause I wanted to inject some humor into what could be more tragic. What I learned here, a bunch of things I learned way too many. One was to wait. I should have. I waited, it was over a year, so that's good. That was a reasonable, but I wasn't really strong enough to date.
And when I was looking at how to rebuild my life, I was looking at dating is a big piece of it. I'll get another person and from there maybe I'll make some changes. But trying to rely on finding somebody wasn't a good strategy for trying to organize, help to change my life. I needed to do that by myself.
And to look at dating as something that may or might not work. The other issue is I didn't trust my instincts. [00:12:00] Again, I would, I'd been with my late husband since I was a senior in high school, so I'd never really dated. I'd gone from being 17 and an innocent 17. To being 49 and on my own with. And so I didn't really understand that.
A lot of the guys out there, they're not that great or they're flawed or they're they're you, they're not very nice people. And I didn't really trust my instincts or have the experience to walk away sooner, as soon as I should have. And to see, oh, this is the kind of jerk who's never was his exes.
'cause I'd never had that experience. So I was like, oh, okay. That's sad, so I would say definitely it would be been to wait longer not to rely on this, to offer anything long positive necessarily. And also to have trusted my instincts and probably, and to have been a little more definite in terms of just saying, no, I don't want that.
I'm walking away.
Emily: Yeah that's really good. And I think to your point, being clear [00:13:00] on who you are and what you want for your future can help you to know. What are my boundaries? What am I willing to accept or not accept? How do I wanna be treated? What kind of life would we have together? And when it's unclear or maybe what I've heard or I even felt was like, I deserve less now because I'm older, have kids.
I have all this baggage as a sad widow. Yeah. I have to know that people aren't gonna be perfect. Did you have any of those thoughts or doubts as you were trying to navigate that?
Debbie: Yes, I did. And I had, because, I joke, I wrote my, I wrote my book to help other widows and to share kind of the experience in case others could relate or find it funny or feel less alone.
But I also joke that I wrote my book to warn other midlife widows about the exceptionally sad state of many midlife men, especially here in California. Maybe it's better elsewhere. Although I've heard from people as far away as England that it's not better. [00:14:00] Yeah. It wasn't a good situation and I did feel like a lot of people were trying to get me to take less because we're older now, so maybe we'll just meet up every few weeks when it's convenient for them.
But I wanted a real partner. Or, you can't really expect someone who's gonna be there for you, because that's not what adult relationships are like, but they, but that is what a good adult relationship is like. So I did feel like I was being asked to accept a lot of stuff that I didn't want, and I didn't find acceptable.
But I did find a lot of the guys to be patronizing oh, this is, this is what this is it's no, this isn't what this is. This is what you are like. This is what this is like for somebody who's been divorced for 20 years and never had a significant relationship since then.
Emily: Yeah, I have a couple of widower clients who are looking at dating and we've been navigating the dating apps and all of that, and has been so eye-opening to see, even from the male perspective, the feedback [00:15:00] they get from women who just wanna be friends with benefits or wanna be very casual or don't want to be committed in a long term relationship.
And. It's a little heartbreaking at times how many people are out there or how people who have been in a good or even moderately good marital relationship, like that's what you want and that's what you're looking for and you're having to navigate through. All these scenarios and conversations around people who want things that are very different, and I'd heard that a lot about men and I experienced some of that on dating apps, but it's been super interesting now that I get a back row seat to what it's like on the other side from the male perspective.
And I would say they have their own unique challenges, but at the end of the day. It can be difficult to find people who want to engage in that long-term relationship. If you [00:16:00] don't mind, if you would share what is your book called? What is it about? Where can people find it?
Debbie: Oh, I'm more than happy to share that.
And in fact here it is backwards. My book is called Available As is.
Emily: It's amazing title by the way.
Debbie: Thank you. My publisher came up with it, A midlife widow, search for love. Available as is because us older singles tend to be available as is, right? We have our quote unquote baggage or our own life experiences, like real estate.
When you buy it as is. There's good points. Beautiful, crown molding and bad points. The foundation shaky. My book is about trying to create a new life after being widowed, after losing my husband of 32 years. And it includes dating a lot on dating, but also finding your voice and finding a new identity because it's really amazing to lose your relationship and who you are and who you've been.
And I found that shocking. And my husband was a little he was four years older. So he was a senior in college when I was a senior [00:17:00] in high school, and he dominated our relationship. Although he was a wonderful husband and a super great guy, but I had to really start finding myself. 'cause I'd never done that when I was younger.
I went to law school right outta college and all. So it's about, creating a new self, essentially after widow Hode with a lot of funny stories about dating and the book's available everywhere. It's on Amazon, it's on Apple Books. Can get it at your local book, independent bookstore.
Probably the best, but it's pretty much, it's pretty much everywhere. Yeah, and you have some, you have might have to ask for it because it came out three years ago, so it's not so much on the shelves, but it's there.
Emily: Awesome. And I noticed that has really good reviews and ratings. Although I haven't read it yet, I've gotta add it to my TBR list.
Which for those of you who don't know to b read list for readers, which is sometimes lengthy, but I definitely am interested in reading that. And I can't remember where I heard this analogy, but it was like. When you are younger and you get married, you're [00:18:00] growing like a garden together with another person.
And then as you're older, you've both individually grown your own gardens and now you're trying to figure out how to somehow merge this all together. So it is a very different experience, and so I love. As somebody who I've talked a lot about real estate investing on my podcast, love the available as is concept, like that really resonates with me, so amazing.
So what motivated you to like writing a book is not an easy task, and I know a lot of people. Think, oh, I'm just gonna scribble some things down in a Google Doc and write it out. And that's just one step of many steps of editing and publishing and marketing and all of those things.
So what inspired you to want to write this book and to get it out into the world, even though there's a ton of work that goes [00:19:00] into it that a lot of people don't even recognize.
Debbie: Actually one thing is I was reti, I'm retired. I quit practicing law pretty young, so I don't, I'm an unemployed slacker, so I could make this my primary project.
So there's, there's that option. That's. For, I'm lucky. I was lucky that way. Although it would've been nice to have a professional identity once I'd lost my husband. So before he was diagnosed with cancer, I was doing a weekly writing class with mostly older people, real retirees, in their seventies at, in late sixties through an adult education center.
And as part of my effort to connect with people I went back to those classes and a former lawyer, I'm real big on if, if you give me a deadline, I will take it seriously. I was writing little blurbs and then I was meeting these men and they were so awful and I had to share it. It was just, I.
It was just awful things people said. So I started blogging. People were blogging back then. That was around 2014. So I did a [00:20:00] blog and I called it The Hungover Widow. I don't do that anymore, but I rolled it into my website and I started to write, I. And I got into a writing group with the people from the writing class, and they were serious.
And some of them are writing books, especially a guy who's also a, he's a retired defense lawyer. He was very intense. But I started to think I could do this and it's a challenge, so I started to write it and I wasn't doing that great. It was hard. So I had to hire, I hired an outside editor and then finally I went back to college.
54 and I got a Master's of fine arts and writing at a local college where I lived. And that was awesome because it was immersive. And and I took some different classes and I had a few more things published. So for a bit I was teaching writing at a different, at a through a sort of a private writing school.
So I just started to do all these different things and then finally hired the big deal editor. And just took writing the book really seriously. I think what people don't realize is when you start, it's fun. I teach writing it's, [00:21:00] or if not fun, it's cathartic, it's personal. You write things. Once you really want a full length book and you want it to be coherent, it becomes a matter of craft.
And that's really different pacing and all. I remember having all the pieces of my book cut out. In print all over my entire living room floor, and it took me probably over a year to figure out how to structure it.
Emily: Wow. And that's hard. Yeah. I haven't written a full book, but it's one of those, when I'm retired I want to do that full-time type of things and I understand enough to know that it's huge undertaking.
And. I love that you help teach people how to write, and I know several of my clients and several widows who are writers or authors or want to be writers, and so I often think there is a niche opportunity there, right? To help widows with writing their, the story [00:22:00] that's inside of themselves. So I don't know, are you open to that?
If people in the audience are like, oh, I've been wanting to write a book and I'd love to con do a consult with you, or I'd love to maybe attend one of your next classes. Is that something you do openly or just occasionally. As you have time.
Debbie: Thank you for asking that. I usually, I tend to do it as a volunteer project.
I live in a small town, it's called Venetia, California, and I've taught six week writing memoir classes through a couple of our local like charity things, like a village for older folks, and then our local literary kind of group here in town. I also teach a little bit of writing with yoga. I don't teach the yoga part but I do that.
And it's funny you should say this, 'cause another widowed writer friend and I were trying to do an online writing class, but we didn't get enough people who are interested. We reached out through our own social medias and we're not huge social media folks. Her name's Rachel, she's awesome. And we tried to do it, but we didn't get enough people.
We were gonna do it on Zoom. So [00:23:00] it is something we would, we, the two of us, would be open to do. And it was specifically centered for widows. Not just general grief, writing widows and widowers widowed people, but it didn't work. So I would be totally amenable to trying again in the new year, maybe with Rachel if we had some more people who were interested.
Folks are so busy these days.
Emily: I know. I know. So I'm just gonna plant that little seed and, would be happy for you to host a class or something that, that my, members and my clients could attend and may be interested in taking that a step further with you because just so many of them, not all of them, but so many of them have that desire to give back in some way or to share their insights or to even write a chapter and to be a part of something that's.
Bigger than themselves. And yeah I think that would be great. And I just think it's amazing that you went back to school. You, as [00:24:00] you're reforging this identity, you're viewing yourself as a writer and I know. As having gone back to college as an adult, like it can be intimidating or nerve wracking to go in there and feel like, wow, everyone else is 19 and I'm the old lady.
But you did it and. I love it. That's why I call it Brave Widow because we do it when we're scared and when we're afraid of what people think and we feel all the ble and we just do it anyway. Yeah. And yeah I wanna give you kudos for that,
Debbie: thank you so much. Yeah. So it was a good experience to go.
It was a good experience to go back to school. It's funny, I'm, I was older, so I also felt by then, and I had some stuff published. If people weren't crazy about me, I could. I could take it, but I did feel awkward and it's very weird to be like, what do you mean I have to do this?
What?
Emily: What do you mean? Yeah, and I just had someone comment on a video of mine yesterday that said I'm [00:25:00] 56 years old, my life is over. I'm too old. It's pointless, and my heart just breaks every time I read a comment like that. So for all of you doubters out there, or for people who think.
I'm in my seventies or sixties or fifties it's just pointless. I want you to really hear Debbie's story and her journey and the big steps that she took forward, not knowing how it was gonna work out. When she thought about writing her book, she didn't envision herself being on podcasts, probably talking about it like she's I don't know.
Can this work? I'm not sure, but I'm gonna try. And so just thank you for being an example for people that you have a choice. To rebuild your life, you have a choice to give up or not. And that even though your life looks very different now, it doesn't mean that you can't have a life that's beautiful and abundant and just a crazy new [00:26:00] adventure you never expected.
Debbie: I agree. I agree. It, it takes a long time, but for me, it took a long time, longer than I expected. But yeah, you could make a big difference. I was. 56 when I graduated with my MFA and you know it, and it was a great experience. So things, yeah, things were fine. It was, yeah, I definitely had to think of myself though as still young or willing or at least young, in spirit.
Yeah life isn't over. I meet. People who've met later in life and forged good relationships. And like the groups that I work with a lot of older folks who've had interesting lives and are doing interesting, wonderful things. It's, yeah, I that's just so sad. Yeah. That somebody would think it's because it really isn't.
It's different, but it doesn't have to be bad.
Emily: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that, that's exactly what I want people to know. So Debbie, how can people find you? What is the best way for people to [00:27:00] connect with you if they really resonate with you, or your story or your book? What's the best way for them to reach out?
Debbie: The best, let's see. I have a website, it's called Debbie Weiss, author. Please don't get confused. There's actually another widow named Debbie Wes. She's outta New Jersey with Brunette Hare, who's also a widow. And so if it's the brunette, Debbie Weiss out of New Jersey, it's not me, she wears big glasses.
So I'm Debbie Weiss author. I believe the website's working when you can send an email. Tech is not my strong point. I'm on Facebook as Debbie Weiss and Debbie Weiss author. You can find me there. I don't use my author page much. You can definitely find me on Facebook and I answer people's messages. I just blurbed a book for another widow, and I've made a lot of kind of friends and connections on Facebook.
I'm also on Instagram. I forget is what I can check real quick. It's all can call me there and I've met, I've definitely met people on Instagram that way too. Yeah. On Instagram I'm also Debbie Weiss author with some underscores, so you [00:28:00] can find me on Instagram and I. Met and collaborated with people from there.
That's actually how I met that other widow who was teaching a class with, and talked to her group, about my book. I'm on LinkedIn for what that's worth. Most people don't use that, but that's I'm pretty easy to reach and I talk to people, I answer people. If someone, I try to offer helpful messages.
Emily: I will be putting all of the links that Debbie mentioned in the show notes. So if you're at a point where you can't look her up right now or you're driving you'll be able to go back and reference those as well as we'll be linking her book and where you can find that.
So Debbie, thank you again so much for coming and sharing your story and helping to inspire other widows and widowers who are out there.
Debbie: Thank you so much for having me, Emily. This was lovely.
Emily: If you're tired of feeling lost, lonely, and second guessing every decision, my coaching program is meant for you. I help clients find clarity, create real [00:29:00] connection, and build confidence up for good. Inside
the Brave Widow Academy
Emily: you'll learn real tools that you'll be able to use for a lifetime.
If you're ready for the next step, go to brave widow.com to book a consult. It's free. It's no pressure, and it can be your brave next step to healing your heart and building a life you love again. Go to brave widow.com today to book your consult.
