DeAnna Pappas is learning to move on amid her divorce from estranged husband Stephen Stagliano — and therapy has been extremely “life-giving” in doing so.
“I’m going through a divorce and going through that alone is very traumatic to take a relationship with someone that you loved so deeply and to literally break into two families, it’s really awful,” the former Bachelorette, 41, said during the Wednesday, July 19, episode of fellow Bachelor alum Courtney Robertson‘s “After Reality” podcast. “Stephen is a wonderful dad [and] I’m trying really hard to be amicable, great coparents but even with that, that’s still hard.”
She added: “Then you add the piece of dividing up your children when I’ve always had the luxury of being with my kids every single day and have a family of four. So, to split them up now and only have them part of the week and then they are with Stephen that’s all really hard stuff, that’s trauma. So I did a lot of therapy in the last couple of years, in particular trauma therapy.”
Pappas — who announced her divorce from Stagliano, 39, earlier this year — further revealed that a visit to a “trauma center” helped her navigate her complicated emotions.
“I went to a trauma center back in December and I went three days a week for three hours — intensive therapy,” Pappas told Robertson, 40. “[It was] the best thing I could have done for myself. I found it astounding and life-changing. If I could have afforded to go for another month, I would have because I found it astounding and the things that I learned about myself and my marriage.”
One month after visiting the California-based facility, Pappas and Stagliano released a joint Instagram statement to confirm their divorce plans after nearly 12 years of marriage.
“I have rode every wave of grief that could possibly be ridden and Stephen and I, when we posted back in January [the] statement that we were going to be separated and [were] getting a divorce, we talked about that and we made that statement together,” she said on Wednesday. “I also didn’t do it until I was ready to do it, like, we had been separated for six months before then. … We’d had a tough couple of years, we’ve had a really difficult time. Marriage is work and are successful when you can learn to grow together and have great communication.”
Pappas — who shares kids Addison, 9, and Austin, 7, with Stagliano — explained that the twosome struggled to communicate when they were together. Her trauma center visit also helped her learn new communication skills moving forward.
While the estranged couple navigates their post-divorce new normal, Pappas has not started dating again — and told Robertson that she cannot see herself “ever getting married again.”
