Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, No Filter listeners. It's Kate Langbrook here. We're bringing back this conversation with bestselling author Sally Hepworth, who many of you will now also know as one of the hosts of Unleashed, the podcast for Gen X women. Sally is famous for writing deeply addictive novels about marriage, motherhood, betrayal and family secrets.
But in this episode, she turns that insight onto her own life. In a conversation that is funny, wise, vulnerable and incredibly candid, Sally opened up about the breakdown of her 20-year marriage, co-parenting, dating again and why she believes this chapter of her life might actually be her happiest yet. It's one of those conversations that stays with you long after it ends.
So if you missed it the first time round or even if you didn't, it's worth another listen. Here is my conversation with Sally Hepworth.
I have the scars and I do feel like I lost a layer of skin, you know. Everything was raw. Everything I felt things as more beautiful and sadder. You know, is marriage good for women? I've thought about that a lot.
You know, when someone seems like they've got it all together. For instance, bestselling author, gorgeous family, thriving career, beautiful to boot. And then you find out they've been quietly rebuilding their life from scratch. Well, that is Sally Hepworth. She's sold millions of books around the world. She's written a bestseller every year since 2015.
But what you might not know is that over the last couple of years, Sally Hepworth's life completely imploded. Today we talk about that. Divorce, grief, the shitbox. Yes, you'll find out what that is. We talk about female friendship and falling in love again when you swore you wouldn't.
This is a conversation about what it means to let go of the life you thought you wanted and build a new life that actually fits. Sally Hepworth, you of the lemon water, the cleansing lemon water, welcome to No Filter.
Thank you.
And here we are both early in the morning.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Sally Hepworth share about her marriage and divorce?
Yeah. Which have resonated with millions, literally millions of people. And you have had, this is so remarkable, a bestseller every year since 2015. So that's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah.
Yeah. It sounds like a lot when it's going to be the 10th this year. In a couple of months, the 19th book will be coming out. Yeah, right. And yeah, it does. It feels amazing to think back to when I started writing in 2009 when I was pregnant with my first child. Yeah. All I wanted was to get a novel published.
Yes. Oh, that's a dream.
Yeah. And then the goalposts kept moving. Then I wanted to make a career out of being an author and then I wanted to become a bestseller. You know, some people say they didn't dream of that, but I did. I had big dreams. And when, like, how long had you had those dreams? Well, I suppose as soon as I got my foot in the door and I started to get published, you know, why not dream big?
I mean, I didn't know that I was going to make it, but you have to kind of aim for something.
I do always, I do like to say to friends, miracles happen There's no reason that it can't be the miracle for you, but the miracle is often hard work.
Yeah.
That's the miracle.
Yeah. And I guess to write a novel, you're doing the hard work, right? Like everyone who's written one, to get in the game, you have to do the hard work. And then there's the magic of, you know, are your books going to resonate? Are people going to buy them? Are they going to, in some cases, hit at the right time that... that's going to become popular.
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Chapter 3: How does Sally navigate co-parenting after her divorce?
And I was thinking about it, knowing that we were going to talk about it today. And I was thinking, am I how am I about that? Like, am I over it? Am I... And I'm not. I mean, it's... I wonder if it'll be one of those things like the grief of death that it changes, but... But it's always with you? Yeah. I wonder.
Chapter 4: What does Sally mean by 'the shitbox' in relation to her experiences?
I mean... I don't know. And as you say, I'm so curious about people. I'm curious about, you know, the last two years, marriage. You know, I've been looking around at marriages and thinking, what makes a marriage work? What makes them fail? What makes people so angry after they get divorced? What makes people nasty? Yeah. What makes a good...
How was your divorce, by the way? Look... A little bit of everything, I guess, along the way, but overall... Yeah.
Look, do you know the thing that I have learnt... from this is that whenever someone would get divorced in my life prior to it being me, I used to want to know what happened. And when I asked that question, I expected the answer to be a sentence or two sentences and something that attributed blame to one person. There was a victim and a perpetrator. You know, I wanted to hear...
he had an affair or she was crazy. Something clear cut. Yes. And so you immediately know that's what happened. Yeah. And what I've discovered since then, and in my own case, this is true. I mean, you might be able to, for the sake of conversation, boil it down to one or two things, but ultimately you could write a book. It's not one or two sentences.
No, you could write a book.
I could.
And maybe I will. Well, it is fascinating and because it's such a common experience and for it to be so traumatic. Yes. And so common and yet not really ā I don't think it's really ā given the full weight that it deserves, the significance in a person's life.
I agree strongly. And in fact, look, I don't know if my experience is true of everyone. I mean, of course it's not. Everyone has different experiences, but I was so knocked to my ass from it. And And even myself, if I heard someone was divorced before it happened to me, I would have said, oh, that's a shame.
It certainly wasn't on par with, you know, other terrible things that happen to people like a disease, like a death.
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Chapter 5: How did Sally's views on marriage change after her divorce?
And we told him alone just because of the way that that happened. We told the girls separately and we went through it and he said, have you got any questions? And he said, where will the dog be living? Ah, yes. Actually a very good question.
Yes, and so... Where does the dog live? We have a divorced dog who we share custody, so the dog goes with the kids, which was something that they wanted. Yeah, that's nice.
And it has worked really well. The other thing that worked well in the early days is that we did bird's nest parenting. Ah, the Swedish. Is that the Swedish model or the Danish? Something Scandinavian. Everything good comes from Scandinavia. It's all... Meatballs. Yeah. Ikea. So because we had the family home, as a lot of people do, it was going to take time to sell.
So we got a little apartment not far away and we would do week on and week off.
Chapter 6: What role do friendships play in Sally's life post-divorce?
Right. One of us would leave and go to the apartment and the other one would stay in the house with the kids.
So the idea is that the children are not uprooted. They stay put. Yeah, right. Right.
And that, you know, looking back, that was horrible for us or horrible for me. It was amazing for the kids and I would do it again for the kids.
And why was it horrible for you?
Like just the packing up of your life every Friday.
Which is normally what the kids have to do. Yes.
And that's what I was going to say. It really gave me such... And that's one of the best things from it, such an understanding of what they have to go through. And we delayed that by a year by us doing it. It's made me so much more sympathetic, so much more likely to, you know, if they've forgotten their something, I will be in the car, you know, driving it off to school, which I know.
Because you know how it feels. Yeah. Hey, who was it harder for, do you think, in that nesting, bird nesting time? Who was more adaptable with that? Obviously it was hard for you. How was Christian, your ex-husband, with it?
I also think not great. It's a strange thing as well because the apartment that we had was very much like an Airbnb. It didn't feel like home.
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Chapter 7: How does Sally's new relationship differ from her previous marriage?
Which, you know, I mean, that sounds wonderful. It's still, you know, you look at the numbers and I've got three kids and you go, wow. But I definitely was happy to, you know, to keep things nice. I was like, yep, you know, I wasn't fighting.
Yes.
But I also think that... you can do everything right and it can still be hard.
Of course. And maybe it has to be. Maybe it does. Maybe to, you know, cleave apart what God put together. Do you know what I mean? Or whatever the saying is, maybe it has to have that component to it.
Look, I mean, I'm sure there are people who've got some whimsical, wonderful divorce, but then, you know, why are they getting divorced?
Are there any in your extended group of girlfriends?
No. There's a few, you know, sort of five years plus down the track that now are working well together. Right. I had to... And look, I actually... This was the best thing I ever did. I had to accept that I was in charge of what happened in my house and Christian was in charge of what happened in his house. And it's the most unnatural thing when you are a parent...
even to, you know, not have your kids with you half the time, but to let go of things that are really important in your life, like this is what time they go to bed, things you're used to having control over. This is what they eat. This is they shower. There are so many things that you have to, that kind of stuff, bedtime, showering, whatever. I felt so much better when I stopped going
And, you know, you keep it to the important things and there weren't any of those. You know, like they were alive and looked after well by their dad. And suddenly I unclenched, you know, and that too is a really important thing to sort of letting go of the marriage that you do kind of have to understand that when you're married, you work together as a team. Of course you should.
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Chapter 8: What lessons does Sally learn about self-worth and independence after her divorce?
Oh, thank you. This has been lovely. Today, we're talking to Rosie O'Donnell.
I just want to tell you this is one of the best interviews I've ever had.
If you love conversations that go deep and stories that stay with you, listen to No Filter. New episodes of No Filter drop every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. What do you think the role was that you played?
I think that the... Let me step back. I always wanted to be married. You know, I remember that from a youngish age.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, I liked the idea of having a partner. My brothers are twins. I wonder if that had something to do with it.
Younger or older brothers?
Older brothers. And mum said when we were little, I used to say, where's my other one? You know, like there was something missing. And I don't know, like maybe I'm
reading too deeply into it but I loved the idea of having a partner for life I mean come back to it but I have so many partners for life in my girlfriends and that's the sort of full circle that I've come to but I was looking for that and I had an idea of what my life was going to look like and it was going to be a partner it was going to be kids you know maybe some travel career for me career for you know I had those kind of fairly maybe normalish you know traditional ideas and
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