‘I was blindsided when my husband walked out – now I help women with divorce’

Sam Patel, 51, said she did not think she would ever be able to move on, but she now works as a divorce coach, empowering and supporting other women

Sam has launched her own business called Sam Patel Coaching (Sarah Winterflood/PA Real Life)

A single mother who was “blindsided” by divorce and ended up living off Rice Krispies as she was diagnosed with anxiety has since transformed her life, retraining as a mindset coach, and now helps other women rebuild their lives after break-ups.

Sam Patel, 51, who lives in Hertfordshire, met her ex-husband, John, whose name has been changed for privacy reasons, in 2004 and the couple were married in 2010.

However, in 2016, Sam said John came home one day and explained that “he was leaving, that he was unhappy, and he didn’t want to be in a relationship with (her) anymore”.

Sam said this was “a complete shock” and she felt as though she had been “winded”; she said she had “no idea it was coming” and did not think she would ever be able to move on.

She then went through what she describes as a “cycle of grief”.

She lived off Rice Krispies for several weeks, only slept for around four hours per night as her mind was constantly “racing”, and was diagnosed with anxiety.

Years later, after losing all her confidence, being made redundant from her job at a PR firm, and being diagnosed with a blood disorder, Sam started working with a mindset coach.

This is when “everything changed” – and she now works as a trained divorce recovery coach with her own business, Sam Patel Coaching, helping to empower and support other women.

She is now on good terms with her ex, as they co-parent their daughter Alice, 13, whose name has also been changed – and while she has not closed the door to new romantic relationships, she said she is happy, independent, and “comfortable with being single”.

“I had no idea it was coming, and I’d been completely blindsided,” Sam said.

“I did not know how I was going to pick myself up.

(PA Real Life)

“But I am proof that you can come out the other side and build a really awesome life for yourself, and let go of all those negative feelings that you had.

“A big part of what I do with women is about encouraging them to let go of that anger, hurt, betrayal, all those feelings, because the only person that they’re affecting is you.

“The more you hold onto that negativity, the harder it is going to be for you to rebuild your life.”

Sam met her ex-husband through internet dating in 2004.

The couple moved to New York for one year in 2006, and later went on to get married in 2010 after the birth of Alice.

Sam said she and John would “argue and bicker in the way that every married couple did”, but there was no indication that John was particularly unhappy in their relationship – and so when he decided to leave in 2016, she felt “the carpet was pulled from beneath her”.

“It was awful, absolutely awful,” Sam said.

“I didn’t cope very well – I didn’t eat, I got really, really stressed, I was put on antidepressants, and I was diagnosed with a condition called idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), where my blood wasn’t clotting properly.

“I had to go to hospital once a week and have treatment, all of this while working and effectively being a single parent to a seven-year-old.

“It was horrendous.”

Sam, who was working in PR at the time, said her self-esteem hit the floor.

She battled with this “constant cycle of blame and guilt”, and convinced herself that the divorce was her fault – that she “had not been enough, or attractive enough, or smart enough”.

Balancing being a single mother while working and processing the divorce in her mid-40s took its toll.

Sam said she only ate Rice Krispies as that was all she could stomach, she had panic attacks, some of which left her unconscious, and could not sleep.

She said she started “catastrophising” every scenario and she hit an all-time low, mentally and physically.

“When you’ve been through something like divorce, where you were completely blindsided, like I was, you lose all your self-esteem, you start blaming yourself,” Sam said.

“You think that I must have done something wrong, what did I do?

“It is incredibly hard to build up your self-esteem again.”

Sam’s GP prescribed her antidepressants, which helped “massively”, but she was then made redundant.

The same year, in 2018, she was diagnosed with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) – a disorder characterised by a decrease in the number of platelets in the blood and can result in bruising and internal bleeding – one year after the divorce was finalised.

She then started her own social media consultancy business to keep things afloat, and spent weeks traipsing to and from hospital for treatment while looking after her daughter.

However, three years after launching the business, Sam said she did not want to let her divorce define her anymore and she started working with a mindset coach.

This is when Sam discovered her true passion, and she has never looked back.

“I started working with a mindset coach on my own mindset – and that was the moment when I realised that that’s what I wanted to do,” Sam said.

“I could see the impact that it had on me, working with a mindset coach, and how it built my confidence and my self-esteem back up, and I let go of judgement.

“I could see that I could offer that to other women who were in a similar position to me, with low self-esteem, low confidence, and just help them rebuild their lives.”

Sam feels working with a mindset coach “changed her life for the better” and she now has a “much more positive outlook on life”.

She retrained as a mindset coach in 2021 and launched Sam Patel Coaching, where she offers one-to-one coaching sessions and a coaching programme.

She is soon launching a new membership, called Thrive, for women who have experienced divorce or a break-up.

Sam said seeing her clients transform, in terms of their confidence and accepting who they are, is the most rewarding part of her job, and she wants to continue to ensure that women are not defined by their divorce, but rather go on to have “amazing lives”.

While it has been “a hard journey”, Sam said she has “no regrets” – and she now has a good relationship with her ex, who has remarried, and they work together as co-parents.

“I’m very grateful for the life that I’ve had, and I’m very grateful for the life that I’m having,” Sam said.

“There’s a lesson in absolutely everything… and it’s about what you take from those experiences – what can you learn? What can you do better?

“It feels really hard when you’re in it, it feels like there is no way out… but just know that it won’t always be like that.

“Keep going, keep telling yourself that you can do it, and that things will get better”