Two Women Divorced The Same Man—And Then Wrote A Book About It

Life is stranger than fiction, folks.

If you end up going through a divorce, it can be hard (some might say impossible) to muddle your way through it alone. So it makes sense that two recent divorcées wrote a guide to surviving the end of your marriage.

The catch: They were both married to the same man.

Yes, it’s true. And not in a “Sister Wives” way. Both Holiday Miller and Valerie Shepherd were once married to the same guy. First Shepherd, and then Miller, ended their relationship with the same man. And in a moment of desperation, Miller reached out to her husband’s ex-wife and asked for help.

“You might possibly be the only person on the planet who could understand the hell I’m in right now,” Miller wrote to Shepherd on Facebook. “Would it be OK if I call you?”

It turned out the women had much in common. Aside from their taste in men, they were both teachers, and were members of both the same sorority and the Junior League. They were also both battling the extreme financial and emotional pain that comes with legally ending a marriage. Aside from the financial stress that comes with pricey lawyers is the pain of having nobody around to help.

“When I was going through my divorce, I Googled ‘divorce planners,'” Shepherd told the Chicago Tribune. There were only a few results, but tens of thousands of options for wedding planners—so the women decided to fix that discrepancy.

“We basically wrote the book we wish we would have had,” Shepherd said.

Combining a truly unique story (ex-wives divorced from the same man becoming BFFs?!) and a lot of hard work, they wrote and published “The Ex-Wives’ Guide to Divorce: How to Navigate Everything from Heartache and Finances to Child Custody.”

Aside from being a feminist triumph (divorce doesn’t mean you’re a failure!), “The Ex-Wives’ Guide to Divorce” is immensely practical. With chapters on everything from managing your money to a chapter on parenting that’s co-written by a psychologist, this guide is a must-buy for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by the process of divorce.

“We’re trying to help take away the stigma of divorce,” Shepherd said. “Just because your relationship failed doesn’t mean you failed as a human being.”