DeAnna Pappas is shining a light on the grieving process that many couples go through after divorce.
During a guest spot on Courtney Robertson’s After Reality podcast by Game of Roses, the former Bachelorette star discussed the intense level of emotion she felt after she and Stephen Stagliano decided to end their 12-year marriage.
“I have rode every wave of grief that could possibly be ridden,” Pappas, 41, told the fellow Bachelor Nation alum, 40.
When she and Stagliano first announced their split in January, Pappas said that she didn’t do it “until I was ready to do it. We had been separated for probably six months before then. I wanted to be sure that that was what was going to happen.”
Unfortunately, Pappas said they had experienced a tough couple of years and just couldn’t make it through.
“I went to a trauma center back in December and I went three days a week for three hours — intensive therapy,” the mental health advocate and mom of two shared. “The best thing I could have done for myself. I found it astounding and life-changing.”
“Relationships ending, in general, are just hard,” she added. “They’re just hard. You’ve spent so much time with someone, right? I mean, I was married for almost 12 years — we were together almost 15. That’s a lifetime…”
“Now that I’ve done so much therapy, I realize there’s so much more to relationships, you know what I mean? I’m an Anxious Attachment [personality type] I know that about myself now and I didn’t know that before. I know that now because of the trauma that I experienced at a young age. I’m a product of divorce, my parents divorced when I was really young so for me, I have spent the last year doing a lot of work on myself,” she continued.