Nicole Hamel with her children Dylan, 11, and Olivia, 9.
Photo: Anthony Rao
The late country singer Tammy Wynette said the D-word “tears the heart right out of me” when she crooned her hit song, “D.I.V.O.R.C.E.” The two-syllable word for dissolution of marriage evokes a wide array of emotions: anxiety, anger, sadness for some; hope, happiness, even total relief to others.
“Mommy, you and Daddy fight too much. Maybe you should be with someone you don’t,” Nicole Hamel, 34, remembers hearing her then 6-year-old daughter say. “That was the moment my eyes were opened.”
Nicole, a military wife, endured more than 10 years of physical abuse and having her possessions destroyed. She stayed in the marriage because she felt “the children needed their dad,” and she hung on to memories of the good times—when the father of her two children wasn’t drinking.
Nicole admits she didn’t heed the red-flag moments. The first red flag, violent physical rage, happened several weeks before their wedding.
“I thought it was just an isolated incident because he had been drinking,” she recalls.
Her ex-husband, she eventually learned, had come from a family with a history of domestic violence.
“As a baby, he watched his biological father severely abuse his mother. As a nurturing woman with a strong motherly instinct, I naturally wanted
to make things better,” Nicole says. “I wanted to make things work, to help him heal. None of this helped; it really only created more problems because he refused to accept that he had a problem with his actions. I gave excuses to myself as to why he treated me this way. It took me so long to see him for who he truly was and to gain enough courage to leave him safely.”
Working, helping others, and being involved with her kids has helped Nicole cope. Divorced for nearly a year now, Nicole has full custody of her 11-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. She is rebuilding her life in Summerfield.
Registered nurse Christa Tibbals, 38, of Fruitland Park, was married for seven years before she and her ex-husband agreed to call it quits. The divorce was amicable.
“We tried counseling, we tried everything. We were just two different people. We had different interests, different lives, and we just weren’t on the same page,” Christa says.
They have two daughters, now 15 and 12.
“I think the most important thing is to get along, especially for the kids’ sake. If you do have animosity, don’t show it in front of the kids,” Christa says. “I think it helped my girls get through it, and it was a smooth transition. I’ve seen other people and friends go through [divorce] when it’s ugly. If you have any negativity, I
wouldn’t do it in front of kids. Don’t put them in the middle. When we divorced, it was very cordial. We got along. We made sure for the girls that it was very positive. We have two happy homes.”
Christa and her former spouse support their daughters together.
“We’ve always sat together at their sports and school functions. I feel blessed to be able to have a relationship like that,” she says. “I think what’s helped me now is that I’ve taught my girls to be independent.”
Christa hasn’t ruled out love. “I am OK being single, and I am very independent, but in the future I hope to find my one,” she says.
Barbara Phillips, of The Villages, “found the one” in her third marriage to her husband, Don, who also is in his third marriage. The pair met in Kansas while he was in the Army as a specialist and she was teaching at a military school.
“My first wife was young and pregnant. We were teenagers,” Don recalls. “When you get someone pregnant, you should marry them. So, we got married, had two more children over the next nine years. Then, she wanted to leave. After our divorce, she moved to Seattle with the children. I felt robbed losing my family.”
Barbara was married for 27 years to her first husband, “the love of her life,” she says. “Then, one day he said to me, ‘I don’t want to be married to
“It took me so long to see him for who he truly was and to gain enough courage to leave him safely.”
— Nicole Hamel
Christa Tibbals with her daughters Taylor, 12, and Kaitlyn, 15.
