NEED TO KNOW
Cheryl and her husband of nearly 30 years split up when she was 58
She spent years grieving her marriage and trying to pick up the pieces
Now, after experiencing what she calls the “divorce effect,” she’s helping other women through similar situations
For years, Cheryl had a “good life.”
She was married for 27 years, was an entrepreneur and had a son who was following in her business-minded footsteps.
But at 10:30 a.m. on March 12, 2020, everything changed.
“My 1773574416 ex walks in and says, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I looked at him, I said, ‘Do what?’ He said, ‘Be married.’ I didn’t even have any words for it,” Cheryl tells PEOPLE exclusively. She was 58 at the time.
“I was so embarrassed,” she adds. “I was curled up in a ball in the living room for months and months and months, dragging myself out the door to get my son to school. My son had a little play yard in the back with the little house on top. I went in that playhouse and just laid there for hours and cried.”
Cheryl gave herself time to grieve her marriage and admits that she “spiraled” a bit. She says her skin and body were suffering from her lack of attention to them, and she didn’t have a good night of sleep for months.
“I was just sick. You wouldn’t recognize me,” she says.
She tried joining groups for divorced women but didn’t align with the tone of them. She tried seeing a doctor but didn’t like the advice she was given. But one day she identified the root of how she was feeling, and it was only up from there.
“I felt abandoned,” she says. But then she joined a life coaching program that she says gave her “purpose.”
As she started to turn her attitude around, her appearance followed suit. She made herself get up each morning and get ready for the day. She started smiling again. And a few years later, she’s a whole new woman.
Inspired by her own turnaround, Cheryl, who is now 63, started talking about her journey on social media. She’s posted a number of videos about going through a divorce and coming out okay on the other side, calling her change in appearance and attitude the “divorce effect.”
Cheryl years after her divorce
Credit: Becoming Cheryl/TikTok
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“I’m building a movement. I’m doing everything,” Cheryl says. “I embrace this with all my heart, with empowerment, with authenticity. I was put in this place for a reason, and I have helped so many people around me because of it. I’ve taught them about boundaries. I’ve taught them to speak up. I have helped so many women both face-to-face and through TikTok.”
Cheryl says that she’s spoken with women of all ages and is encouraging them to live their authentic lives, doing what they want to do. Whether that means having healthier romantic, friendship or personal relationships or just going after their dreams, Cheryl is encouraging it all.
“[Some people are] only talking about the divorce part or the divorce glow-up,” Cheryl says of the feedback on social media. “That didn’t happen overnight. That’s 30 seconds on the screen. That was six years in the making, but thank you.”
She’s okay leaning into that idea, though, because it helps get her message across. And above all, she insists that nothing about her life now is a “pity party.” It may have been at one point while she was still healing, but she’s in a better place now.
“Did I ever think I’d be here? The way that I clean up messes in life and run businesses, I can answer that, yes. The way that I was at the time — I call it catfish bottom low — I never thought I’d be here in a million years. Ever,” she says. “Now I live in the moment.”
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