A woman who had already been through two divorces by the age of 30 has now become a life coach for others stuck in unhappy marriages.
Marissa Baker, 31 – who currently resides in Naples, Florida, with a ‘platonic life partner’ – put her wisdom into ‘doing a lot of personal growth work and trying to learn what my inner voice sounded like ‘, she said. Initiated.
Along with this self-knowledge came a broader recognition of the difficulty of separating in a serious relationship.
“Divorce is like a death, but you’re just mourning someone who’s still alive,” Marissa said.
Marissa Baker, who currently resides in Naples, Florida, went through two divorces before she turned 30
The double divorcee first married at 22 – and went through her second divorce at 29
The Florida native first married at 22, only to divorce two years later.
“I thought I was broken and flawed because I couldn’t make my marriage work,” she said of the first split.
In the midst of divorce proceedings, she became involved with her future second husband. They dated for three years before their nuptials and then shared a house and three dogs.
But this marriage, too, quickly fell apart.
“I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know how I was going to find the courage to do it. One day I woke up and thought today was the day.
“I did the scariest thing I could imagine and told my second husband I wanted a divorce. It was scary…terrifying, actually,’ Marissa wrote. on his blog of his initiation of his second divorce at age 29.
“Curiously, I also felt like a weight had been lifted. I was relieved. Although it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, it was also the right thing (for me),’ she added.
Other key post-divorce life mindsets she honed in on include resisting the urge to cast either ex-partner as the “bad guy” or the “victim.” .
After initially tying the knot at 22, Marissa divorced two years later. She married someone else three years later, only to file for divorce again just before she turned 30.
Among the key advice she gives is fighting the urge to label either ex-partner ‘bad guy’ and ‘victim’ following 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 humans doing our best?” So what ?
In the caption, she added “this mentality seems a little disempowering.” It also gives you permission not to take possession of the marriage failing (we all know it takes two)…
“What if no one was to be the villain or the victim? Some people choose to believe this narrative and its harmful effects (especially to themselves).
Of her clientele, Baker told Insider she most often hears from “those women who want a divorce, but they’re scared or they don’t think they can do it on their own.”
Guiding them to 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 crammed into the comments section of a TikTok in which she said she had been divorced twice at the age of 30 – cruelly aimed at the idea of her being a life coach with a less-than-perfect past.
To doubters, Marissa responded in a subsequent TikTok, “Your mistakes don’t 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’ve realized how many people are so grateful for my content, because getting divorced is so difficult and so isolating.
