A woman who had already gone through two divorces by the time she was 30 has now become a life coach for others trapped in unhappy marriages.
Marissa Baker, 31 — who currently lives in Naples, Florida, with a “platonic life partner” — wrote down her wisdom by “doing a lot about personal growth and trying to learn what my inner voice sounded like,” she shared. Insider.
Along with that self-knowledge came a wider recognition of how difficult saying goodbye can be in a serious relationship.
“Divorce is like a death, but you’re just grieving for someone who’s still alive,” Marissa said.
Marissa Baker, who currently lives in Naples, Florida, went through two divorces before she turned 30
The two-time divorcee married for the first time at age 22 – and went through her second divorce at age 29
The Florida native married for the first time at the age of 22, but went through a divorce two years later.
“I thought I was broken and flawed because I couldn’t make my marriage work,” she said of the first breakup.
During divorce proceedings, she became involved with her future second husband. They dated for three years before their marriage and then shared a house and three dogs.
But that marriage also soon ended.
“I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know how I was going to get the courage to do it. One day I just woke up and thought, today is the day.
“I did the scariest thing I could imagine and I told my second husband I wanted a divorce. It felt scary… terrifying actually,” Marissa wrote on her blog of her initiation of her second divorce at the age of 29.
Strangely, it also felt like a weight had been lifted. I was relieved. While it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, it was also the right thing (for me),” she added.
One of the other important mentalities of post-divorce life she’s honed on is resisting the urge to cast one or the other ex-partner as the “bad guy” or the “victim.”
After initially getting married at the age of 22, Marissa divorced two years later. Three years later, she married someone else, only to file for divorce again just before she turned 30
One of the most important pieces of advice she dispenses is fighting the urge to call one or the other ex-partner the “villain” and “victim” after a breakup
“When you decided I was the villain of the divorce, you also decided to be the victim of the story,” reads the text overlay in one of her recent TikToks. What if instead we were just two people doing our best? What then?’
In the caption, she added “that mindset feels a little powerless. It also gives you permission not to own the failure of the marriage (we all know it takes two)…
What if no one has to be the villain or the victim? Some people choose to believe that story and it is harmful (usually to themselves).”
Of her clients, Baker told Insider that she hears most often “from those women who want a divorce but are afraid or think they can’t do it on their own.”
To guide them through their decision, she advises them to think about the question, “What if you could stay in your marriage and be happy or divorce and be happy?” Which would you choose?’
Last year, Marissa was briefly targeted by a mob of haters who piled into the comments section of a TikTok in which she stated that she had been divorced twice by the age of 30 — viciously targeting the concept that she is a life coach with a less-than- picture-perfect past.
To the doubters, Marissa replied in a subsequent TikTok: “Your mistakes do not disqualify you.”
As she told the publication, “I get to choose who I am, what I say about myself and the impact I can have in this world… I realized how many people are so thankful for my content because divorce is so hard. and so isolating.’