From Single to "Step-Mum": The Transformation of a Single Girl to a Preparing for a Relationship | Ep 102

What if one day you woke up, and instead of feeling like a lonely singleton, you were absolutely in love with your single life? Today, we take you through my personal journey from navigating the trials and tribulations of the dating scene to stepping into a relationship and eventually becoming a step-mum. 

Join us as we crack open my story of evolving from an independent single gal to a step-mum. We talk about the pressures of societal norms, the quarter-life crisis it spurred, and how I learned to make conscious decisions based on my core values. We venture into how the stepping stones of courage, ambition, and personal growth have played a significant role in creating a life that I'm in love with. 

With this episode, the first after a 4-month break, we aim to equip you with the tools to design a life that you cherish while single and prepare you for a potential relationship when the time comes. So, let's get ready to celebrate singlehood, take on the world, and stop wasting precious time with people who aren't right for us. Brace yourself for a compelling conversation infused with personal experiences, invaluable life lessons, and much more!

Transcript

Chantelle: 0:03

Hello and welcome back to an episode of the Single Girls Guide to Life. I'm Chantel Dyson, a love and life coach for single women, and I help people single women in particular, to embrace their single life, to not worry about getting back to dating until they're absolutely ready to, because they have learnt to love their single life, and they will only bring somebody back into their single world if it's the absolute right thing for them. Now it's been a while it has been since June that we last had a Single Girls Guide to Life episode without any real announcement of that ending, and it kind of came as a surprise to me as well. It wasn't necessarily planned. I even believe that I've got episodes that never went out at the time. I know I was thinking about what to do for the two year anniversary episode. I can't say that I ever got it recorded, but I know that there's some between the June point and the early June live point that never went out because I found them the other day on there. Part of it, I think, was timing scheduling getting very busy at the time with what was going on. But there's another element to that that I wanted to share with you so you can understand and it's some things I've put out on Instagram to check that. It's okay to come back, as it were, and the things that I've been thinking about at the time. But let's get back into that. Let's bring it back to what this was always all about.

Chantelle: 1:31

I started the Single Girls Guide to Life podcast roughly around July 8th in 2021, nearly two full years ago of episodes over two years ago now and that was done to be able to spread the message about single life, that you aren't alone in this process and that there are other people out there just like you that are single. The single isn't something to be ashamed of. It shouldn't be a state that you try and rush yourself out of for the sake of catching up with your friends, of being on track. Being single is an empowering situation to be in, and one that I spent three years in in total. If I think back all of the years yeah, 29, 13 through to 2022 and it was partially the change in my relationship status that also led to the reason that I took a setback, because I wasn't sure how you guys were going to be feeling about that and how you were going to perceive that and what it meant for the content that was being created, what was being said in each of those episodes, and I wanted to make sure that I was in alignment and that it all worked. What I said I was doing, I was doing and whilst I dropped in and made suggestions over time that I now was in a relationship, I never made that clear cut.

Chantelle: 2:44

Because there's this weird phase in early stage dating when when do you tell people and that's not ever so for today, but something to maybe for the future because you want to share the journey with people and you want to be able to embrace the excitement. But we all know that the early stages of dating are the point at which things can go wrong the most and you know, the minute that you tell someone about someone, like four to six weeks in, like it all goes to disaster anyway. So you know, I had to experience when I was telling people I was dating someone, telling family and friends about someone, then inviting that person along, and then it kind of became like how do I bring this up here, all the while not wanting to have to make it very public, because whilst I do share personal stories, like that is my personal, that's going on at the time and it's not necessarily been the most straightforward process because it's X, y and Z involved. But it's that whole how far do I share or not share and also bring somebody else into the spot like they're not going to be brought into the spotlight. But you know there's a potential for that over time, that nosy people are nosy people. So it's all of that combination of things and it just was.

Chantelle: 3:51

I wasn't sure I never named the single-girls guide to life after me. It was always for the single girls. I'm not the single girl. It was like who it's for is what it was all about. So I did some polls last week with a few people that saw it and I said like how do you feel about this? Do you want more episodes? Because there are now over a hundred and I advise that you go back and you listen to some of them, because at that point, for the majority of those episodes because I still was in the early date phase for a lot of it they're from a single girls perspective. What I do now is I try to remember that single-girl perspective and I will use the community to inform me otherwise and of other perspective, as I always have, because my single perspective is not the same as everybody's single perspective. But the longer that you're in a relationship, the harder it is to remember exactly what it was like. Now I'm thankful that I have and I sorted them all the other day journals, and those journals are going to be very interesting to bring back to the podcast, whether I share excerpts from them or just use them to base episodes on. They're gonna give me the insight of what it was really like to be going through the divorce, from going to being single and moving home again to navigating the early stage dating section again and go from there.

Chantelle: 5:08

But today's episode comes as a request from somebody that wrote in because as part of those polls I asked what would you like me to make episodes on? Obviously, I've got a good idea of that now. I do that day in, day out. I used to all the time was thinking about what to do next. What are people asking about? What do people want to know about? What's gonna help people the most? And I thought I'd ask anyway and see what all of my followers were thinking, because that way you get what you want. It is me and the DMs. When you message I see them. I know what's going on and I will think about responding to those.

Chantelle: 5:40

And I didn't respond to many requests for episodes when I wasn't recording them because I thought, oh, you're not up to date, they're not being recorded, but I will go back and address them. But one that came in fresh that made me think oh, who, like you, really want to know? That Was a suggestion that says what about how you went from single to not? I'm just being nosy, but I'd love to hear how you went from single-pringle to not More, because you're smashing it and loving the life you have Now. To me the story is in the past 100 episodes and I'm sure I've spoken about the journey as it comes on, but I forget that some people are new to this in terms of new to the Single World Club, and if you haven't been around for a while then you might not know my story.

Chantelle: 6:24

So this episode is entitled from single to step-mom, in inverted commas because I'm not married to anybody, so by law I'm not a step-mom. But I think the minute that you get involved with someone that has children, you are possibly depending on your relationship set up and how that works. You're possibly then committing to the idea of being involved with those children as well, and in that instance I use the term step-mom, because my dad has only just got married to my step-mom officially now and they've been together circa 20 years. That didn't mean that she wasn't my step-mom for that entire time. That's what she was. So that role is the same principle, although we did live with mom, so I always think that is slightly different. But aside from that fact, that is where we're at. That is the title for this episode, and it won't be so much about the latter, though.

Chantelle: 7:18

I know that the episode about deciding if you would like a relationship with someone that has kids or not was one that got quite a lot of commentary and you wanted to follow up. So that will come. But I know that dating relationships is not the primary area. For many of you, though, it will always be a feature, because there's a chunk of single girls that wanna be in relationships, if they can be. It's just a case of finding the right people. But today it's gonna be a bit self-indulgent really, but it's intended to answer the question and the request of how I went from where I am three to four years ago four years ago in total to now, and not just in terms of my relationship status, though the journey will be described in the milestones there. So I'm actually gonna go back a little bit further, to 2018, which is when I got married.

Chantelle: 8:01

I had been with my ex for six years. By that point, I was 19 when I got married. When I was 25, we'd been engaged into 2015,. So we had been together three years, then got engaged and then took three years to actually get married because of the way we wanted to time it with the dates and give ourselves plenty of time to save up for it as well. So we had this fantastic festival wedding that people still talked to me about today, and I'm not ashamed of the wedding.

Chantelle: 8:28

My wedding ring is this ring here. I don't wear it because it's my wedding ring. I wear it because I love the ring. I remember choosing it. It was 100 pounds and I was like I love it. It's rose gold and it's not your typical wedding band, so I wear that. I don't know what way round this is gonna come out on the video, but it's not on my wedding hand. My bouquet got freeze dried and that lives on the wall. There's a picture of me and my wedding dress over there with my stepdad, who has sadly passed away since, but yeah, he lives there and there's references around the house to the wedding.

Chantelle: 8:59

And it's not something that I shy away from talking about, because if you've ever been to one of my live events, getaways, any of the single girls kind of things it's all about the experience, particularly the getaways, because they're so involved. And the wedding was exactly that. Like, anybody that attended had a very different experience to the next person that attended. It was like an immersive theater experience, but not quite, but it was of that ilk. It was making it interesting. There was lots going on and that's how I do extra, that's how I do things. So we had a fantastic wedding and the buildup of that kept me very busy.

Chantelle: 9:29

But during that experience, people pile the pressure on about when you're gonna have kids, and it was at that moment that I was like I don't know if this is for me, I don't know if that's a good idea. Like, do I really want them? This is whoo. This is a big shift in identity. I've never really thought about this because as far as I'm concerned, yes, I've always wanted kids, because who doesn't you just get told to follow that and that kind of continues my story. You would need to go back to the beginning episodes.

Chantelle: 9:56

It's in the first five where I talk about going through the stages of life and the fact that I was a high achieving, go to university, get a job and if you can settle down along the way, kind of go and follow that trajectory of what success and happiness is. And yes, at that point in particular, I started to address the fact that I had felt like I hadn't made any of the decisions in my life. Now that sounds like I'm putting responsibility off of myself. That's not what I mean. What I mean is that I hadn't made conscious, deep decisions because I didn't know any better to what you should be doing if you can use the word should or what you could be doing, if I want to take a slightly more open approach to that. So At that point I started to think well, hang on, what does having children mean? And it was then the whole system started to crumble because I was like, hang on, what does all of this mean? And it was a classic sign of the quarter life crisis. If you want to go into more detail, there are episodes on that, but also check out Dr Oliver Robinson's webinar on going through crises stages. As far as I'm concerned, the expert on it like it's a real thing. Midlife crisis we always talk about, and we just talk about having an early midlife crisis. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Chantelle: 11:17

This is a quarter life crisis, defined in two particular ways of locked in or locked out, and I was locked in in some particular way because I made so many commitments to my house having pets, marriage, etc. And I just didn't know what to do to get myself out or to change that situation. I was just leaving and changing and going. I'm going to need to do this for me and I also. I can't stay here on the basis that I'm not sure and pretend along the way as it would feel like, whilst then also wasting time for somebody else Like that felt wrong.

Chantelle: 11:54

In fact, that felt worse than like the bit for myself. Both parts drove me to make that decision and so I was thrust into this world of I'm moving back home, we've got to sell the house and, oh my God, we've got to like. I've got to tell people at certain point like I didn't change my name. Thank God, as a teacher, your surname is everywhere, so imagine if I changed to one name one year and then the year after came back as the other. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Telling people was one of the hardest parts of that.

Chantelle: 12:24

I've been in a relationship since I was 19 and prior to that I was in another relationship. Like as an adult, I hadn't been single and it does feel like a failure. When you experience it, it feels like it's a bad thing and whilst my motivations have been I wanted to find out who I was on my own, I also didn't want to have to tell people that I was now doing that Because there's judgment, is a judgment involved. It's just awkward and you're upset about it at the time and really city, you don't want anyone to have to ask about it or like say anything and then you have to explain it to someone that doesn't really know what's gone on and you don't want to have to tell the story. The amount of times you have to tell the story, you end up cutting parts of the story out because you don't want to have to talk about it. I don't want to not say like vaguely what's happened, but I also don't want to have to go through like the version of it 150 times. No, thank you. So you end up just doing a very abridged version of everything just to save yourself time and not having to go back and do it again.

Chantelle: 13:27

But that was the start of doing all these things for myself and working everything out. So actually going from single to stepmom, as it were, was essentially just a very long personal development journey, and I'm not going to talk about the dating techniques, I'm not going to talk about how to find someone, but what I'm going to do is remind you and share with you the lessons that I learned when I was working out who I really was and the value in that, because I became an entirely different person that was driven by very different things my career, my work, what I spend my days doing, is the most important thing to me. Some people would say you could argue it's like work, work, holy. But what I do, such as this, doesn't feel like work and it's. I don't think you can understand that unless you've done something like that, where work doesn't feel like work. I'm not going to lie, doing any kind of exam marking. That feels like work Whenever I get to be, and this is where it then comes in whenever I get to be creative, whenever I get to share a message and bring a community together, whenever I get to develop, do something different, try a bit harder, get to the next like not get to the next level per se, but like up skill maybe is a better phrase for it Whenever I get to actually speak to people which is not this version of it, but I know this is speaking to some of you, and some of you will interact with me by dropping me a DM.

Chantelle: 14:58

That don't feel like work, because those things are my core values. They're the things that I know matter the most to me 暗, information, creativity, carriage to slash, ambition, growth. And then the last one's really interesting. I'm still it's the wording that I'm using. I kind of know what I mean, but it's like a mixture of autonomy, uniqueness, independence. It's rolled into one. I haven't quite defined it just yet, but when I get to do those things, nothing feels like work.

Chantelle: 15:30

If I get to speak to people in a deep way and I don't mean small talk, small talk's really really difficult for me Small talk is, as far as I'm concerned, the first step to getting to a deeper conversation, and that's the way I have to see it to be able to do it Wonderful. Tell me something interesting about yourself, tell me about your story, and that, to me, is what motivates me to do podcasts and to go into that world, which is now what I'm doing. Alongside this is helping other people create their own podcasts, anything where you can be a little bit courageous and ambitious, you know, not just accepting what you're told to do, but to do something different and to break out of it. Growth, personal development, getting better, because none of us are perfect. We all have natural flaws or flaws that have developed as a result, over time, of the way that we are and the environments that we've been in. And if you've ever seen the Rainbow Bookcase, which is not looking super rainbow right now because the washing machine has made it drop some books, you know there's tons of books over there that are ways to develop myself, develop my business, learn something new, et cetera.

Chantelle: 16:29

One, do you know your values? Your life changes, and it's about having something to fall back on whenever you're faced with a decision, with what you're gonna do, and you shouldn't have to explain yourself to anyone, but you sometimes need to to give a wider reasoning to why you've said yes or no to something and just give understanding, not to justify yourself, just to offer understanding and share that. But you just go back to your values every single time and let's strengthen knowledge, and leaning back into your values allows you to then do the things that you wanna do and create a life that you love living. That's what I did. So when I first started out, when I thought about going into being a life coach, I never signed up to be a life coach. I signed up for the growth part. It was Jay Shetty. Well, lad, he's one of my favorites. Go listen to his podcast. It was his course and it was to become a certified life coach, but to me it was no.

Chantelle: 17:40

This just looked like a really good set of modules and learning about yourself, and the kind of side note to that was that I wanted to learn how to coach people, not just teach. As a teacher, you're great teaching, partying information, but how do I get people to think for themselves a bit more? How do I encourage teenagers to do that so that they were the two reasons, my own personal development and how can I be more impactful as a head of year? So I did that, but as part of the process. They make you think about business. And as I was thinking, okay, what could I do with these skills? And if I had to build a business, like who would I do it for? Who would it be with?

Chantelle: 18:17

I started to think about the circumstances I had been in a year or two ago and that was feeling lonely, lacking confidence, not knowing what I wanted to do. So I turned to going hmm, we might give this a shot. We'll give this a try. We'll do some posts on Instagram, we'll start seeing what's around. We'll start working on that, because this is a little challenge. It could be fun. It's creative, especially with Instagram reels and the like.

Chantelle: 18:38

So I was starting to experiment in that way and you can hear all my values coming out to the point that I kept doing that, developed the podcast, started doing the Single Girls Come event and was having a ball, but work was getting in my way eventually, work who had offered me such a great place for community and connection, or autonomy. Really, in some senses, I was trusted to do what I wanted to do with the curriculum, which was fabulous. However, you're always driven by a timetable, which was one of my sticking points. I also felt that some of the company culture was not. I've reflected on this recently so I couldn't have said it at the time, but in hindsight they weren't a bad team of leaders at all. There were some really great gems in there, but there was something about not being maybe as courageous or ambitious as I would like them to have been, or maybe the whole cohort wasn't quite.

Chantelle: 19:33

There was something really missing and it was when I was listening to Jeff Mask at the Sales and Closing Super Conference the other week when he was talking about leadership and he was talking about the effect of the rule of thirds, not to do with art. He said in workplaces you have positives minus and this middle group which are generally in thirds the higher performers, weak performers and the middle. And he said if you put attention on the weaker performers, this middle lot who are undefined at this point, will look at where you're putting attention and follow that, and what happens as a result is that all the attention goes down that end and then the high performers Just leave. Whereas if you put your energy into the high performers and focus on that, then the middle group will follow that energy and go upwards and what happens is the lower or weaker performers leave, and I think and I don't know that for certain, exactly where all the stuff was being looked at like I was being mentored very well by a colleague but I didn't feel like we were focusing on the top end and maybe that clicked in my mind as to why I left, despite there being some really good things, that there just wasn't enough there for me and I didn't feel like going to another school was the right thing.

Chantelle: 20:47

I was ready for a new challenge, something different, something to get my teeth into and something that literally tested my courage and ambition, because I mean, as far as I was concerned, I kind of played it safe, like I got promotions fine, that's cool, I, like a good interview, quite enjoy them literally. So I wanted something that was gonna really test me and I felt like business, having sat after having had a very assist operation and learning about business whilst I was stuck on this sofa learning about that and alongside that, I was trying to then just find out what I liked doing and pushing myself out my comfort zone. That's where all of the solo adventure stuff came from Going on trips, going away on my own. Generally, I think back when I used to do conferences on my own, even when I was in a relationship mass conferences my partner wouldn't come with me to that at the time, so being on my own in that sense wasn't a problem. So then it was just a case of well, I don't think I've got friends in particular that this is gonna be very easy to plan things with, but I'm not gonna let that stop me taking trips to Manchester, going to festivals.

Chantelle: 21:58

It's knowing what experience that you wanna have from this life and not letting being single get in the way Because it's so easy to do. You can come home every day, sit here, watch Netflix, scroll on your phone and do nothing. But that doesn't make me an interesting person. That doesn't make me grow. That isn't fun. It's not very courageous. There's not a lot to it. For some people it's absolutely fine that they love that. They need that to get their energy back. But for me, based on my values, I knew that I wanted to do more, that I wanted to grow and have experiences. And whilst it wasn't forward dating, you think what happens when you meet anybody new friends or potential dates when you tell them about the adventures that you've been on, big or small. Well, I went and stayed here on my own. Oh, I did that thing where you go to the airport and don't know where you're going until you get there. Oh, I was on a panel the other day for this, this and this. You've got passions. You've got something interesting about you. You aren't just someone that goes to work, comes back and does nothing with that and it doesn't even have to be work related, it can be absolutely hobby related but just something that you're passionate about, something that you could talk for hours about.

Chantelle: 23:05

Teaching used to be my thing. I used to bore people with teaching. I used to say don't get me talking about teaching, because you won't stop. And I still love teaching as well. Like, I'll talk about the principles and what I believe in in teaching very strong opinions there, but that's what made me interesting. It made me light up. So the idea of going from single to step mom or from single to success whatever you define that as is not about anything in particular, but just finding what you really wanna do and sticking with that and doing one little thing every day, that will start to contribute to you living in alignment with those principles more and more every single day, with doing the things that light you up, that you can be passionate about and brings positive energy.

Chantelle: 23:50

Because then, when things go wrong, when you have a crappy day, like it doesn't matter because you're like but I get to do this and I'm living my life this way, and one of the things that motivates me is always the whole death bed situation. It sounds terrible, it sounds ominous, it sounds like we're really talking about this, but it is the idea of like, what would I think if I was literally on my last days and I looked back and I stayed in the job that I stayed in. For me, that wasn't the right option. For me, that was like oh God, is that? Is that all I'm gonna have to show for that? I wanted more from it. I wanted more fun, I wanted more excitement, I wanted more ambition. I wanted to have more to be proud of in that sense Not that you can't be proud of those things, but for me, that wasn't the case. And so then, when it came around to relationships as well, having these very secure values meant that whoever I found had to at least compliment those.

Chantelle: 24:51

Now, my partner and I have discussed our own personal values, but we've also discussed what we think our partnership values are. And when we did this independently of one other, I wrote them down and then prompted him and said what do you think our values are? He sent them and I said, oh, here's what I wrote down. We had three that were in common. I can't remember them exactly With the top of my head. I would have to go back to the messages to be absolutely sure. I have referred to them previously. But the point is that we have intersection, but then we also have things that are personal to us, whether that's different interpretations or just different priorities or just different ways that we see things. So even from our own lists there was crossover, but very, very different things in that sense of what matters most to us. It doesn't mean that we don't like the other thing, it's just a case of that's actually what matters most to us.

Chantelle: 25:37

And you might also think that it's quite interesting that I've ended up in a scenario where I would now refer to myself or group myself into the identity of a stepmom in some way, when I said at the beginning that one of the things that made me realize everything was do I want children of my own? And all you know that question, that pressure on children. Now, when it came to the children in my relationship that are not mine they it was a careful consideration and one that we spoke a lot about. We spoke about what it would mean in terms of meeting them and what that would allow us to do with our relationship. We spoke about what that might mean for the future. We spoke about what would happen if it turned out that I didn't feel comfortable with that role and identity, because that was a big concern for me. Like I changed my mind on a marriage because of the idea of children. Like I don't want to come into a step child's life and then disappear soon after because I wasn't sure. So we had to be real careful with that. We came up with like what we'd do if could the relationship work in a slightly different model. It would have its limitations if we did that, but would that be something we would both up for? We'd try it, etc. And just taking it at the right pace, not rushing. There's no plans to live together like this is my home, this is my space, it's this is me, and maybe one day there will be children.

Chantelle: 27:14

I have no idea I was. I was more pro-no, as you'll know from previous episodes when I was single. When you're, then, with someone, I'm not a yes or not by any means, I'm just back-center, which is probably arguably more confusing. So, and I have to be really careful there, because why has that changed? Well, hang on, I've got a whole experience where I do have to experience children. So you can't I think I'm even more center because of that If I was just with someone, I don't know if I would contemplate it more or if I would be more like.

Chantelle: 27:46

So let's go for scales. Which way? Really? I don't know which way. I'm not going to see this, but let's just say this is no and this is yes. So this is where I was before and this is where I think I am now.

Chantelle: 27:55

But had it just been a partner that was childless, I think I would be here, I would be in the middle of middle and no, so leaning towards no, but like being a little bit more like. I mean, we could, but I'm not sure when, whereas this experience has brought me to the middle more because they are now there, there are children involved. I now literally know what it's like to experience children, and it's exactly as I predicted, because of that's what I was starting to realize when people were like you're going to have a baby, like baby. I mean, I'm thankful that the children that I experience are four and seven, because they can talk, and I know that that's the minimal stage that I like Babies, I really am not up for like that's such a rubbish stage. They're cute, they're cuddly, but they're boring. I like their personalities coming out, you know, really getting to interact with children.

Chantelle: 28:51

I'm a teacher, like I love teaching kids stuff, helping them find their passions, helping them to know more about the world and know that there's plenty of other options out there, you know. So I do love that. I do also love the advantage that I don't have responsibility for them. Ultimately, I don't have to worry. I do care for the children but I want to make sure they're safe and well, but I don't. They're not mine, it's the classic auntie role. It's the classic auntie role where you can give them back, I can take some time off. It's kind of contagious in that way, but that only comes through me being confident about myself, following my intuition and also not just changing my mind, because, like everything I do now, I mean I'm quite decisive, but many of the things I do. The serious things, the things that would have a really significant impact like that, are very well thought through. I'm back to my values and I make sure that I live by those as much as I can each and every day.

Chantelle: 29:58

So we are back. We are back on a fortnightly basis to begin with. That might change as things go on, but for now it's not going to be as weekly as it was, but you are going to get more episodes. The DMs are open for you to message and to say hey, I'd really like to have an episode on this. I'm not going to guarantee that I will do it, but I will think about it, see where it fits in the whole plan because these get planned and recorded in advance so it might be a little while before you get it there.

Chantelle: 30:25

Much of what I say is in the Single Life Confidence Programme.

Chantelle: 30:29

That is my signature programme to take you from feeling lost and alone to loving your single life, to going out there and doing things on your own, and that takes two formats that will be available in the links below, whether that's as a programme slash course or as a workbook, so you can get involved with that, depending on which format you prefer, depending on what kind of accountability you need and how much talking out loud you want to do, or if you just want to do this on your own, and it will take you from that disconnected feeling of feeling like you're the only one that's single and that you can't do anything with your life, to feeling like you can take on the world.

Chantelle: 31:06

You can design this life that you love, even whilst being single, and prepare yourself over time to be confident enough if you want to introduce someone to your life, or if someone, a potential opportunity comes up and you're like maybe, and take it from there and the values is right in there under module number one. It's there, you work on it, you find out more about yourself, etc. And go through it there. Check out the links to find out more about that or stay in touch on Instagram. It is great to be back. I can't wait to keep talking more about loving your life, encouraging you to embrace being single and, for anyone that does want to dabble, dating in the way that doesn't waste time for you with the people that are just wrong. Until next time, everybody keep celebrating single life together.