okay no YouTube didn't cause this yes I do believe that we have tried everything and we involved other people and professionals yes I am very sad about it and if you are shocked or surprised about this I would expect you to be because I worked very hard to make sure that no one knew this was going on behind the scenes but what we did share together wasn't fake I actually really loved the side of Tom that would come out when we would video together that wasn't fake at all it just wasn't the full story okay
so I want to get that out there quick in case you don't watch the full video but now I can well tell you where I am tell you how we got here and what's next well hi I'm Don from the minimal mom if we haven't met before I used to always say I'm married to Tom and we have four kids it started out when I started YouTube 5 years ago we had four kids ages 4 through eight now we have four kids ages 10 through almost 15 and they were a huge consideration in this so
I will definitely I'll kind of just go through and answer some of the questions that are probably on your mind including uh what about the kids and if you just got served this video by YouTube because they like to serve up spicy videos um normally I talk about simple living and family minimalism uh we've been so fortunate to share our lives on on YouTube over the last 5 years and I never in a million gazillion years thought that I would be making a video like this but I'm not going to cry in it and and
speaking of minimalism um I've been getting to come to this Retreat Center where they have little prayer cabins that you can go to just to check out from the world and it has been awesome and kind of a a safe haven and so I'm so grateful for that and I've gotten to be here for a few days and especially on days when I don't have the kids um it's kind of nice to get away so let's just kind of start at the beginning was this something that has been building was there one thing that happened
um i' I've sometimes mentioned it a little bit but uh Tom and I were married for 16 years and it was it was pretty tough from the beginning and um we've been in counseling on and off you know in the beginning I really tried to hide it because I just thought that was the respectful thing to do I'll talk a little bit more about like the faith side of things more towards the end of the video but I thought that was being respectful him and his process that he was in and so uh over the
last 15 16 years um we I I can honestly say that we have tried everything uh really out there um we've been in counseling on and off we've done individual counseling we've done coup's counseling we've involved pastors Elders friends so for a while I kept it pretty hidden I didn't let people know what was going on um until it got to a point where I'm like eh like this isn't working so I guess we should try something else but even here I obviously I kept it pretty hidden there's a a quote by brne around and
she says something to the effect of you know to share your story from scars not from open wounds and so I truly honestly believed that uh if we would just keep trying and finding the right therapist or the right whatever it was going to take that the video I would actually be making would be me saying like what a cool story we have of how our relationship was restored and redeemed and so I until honestly until February of this year I was like like we've got this we are just one you know like EMDR or
something else away from a breakthrough and it is going to be so good and we are going to encourage so many people and how exciting that will be and that's obviously not how it ended and that's hard and it makes me very sad so um it's it sucks a lot um let's see there have been questions like did YouTube put stress on the relationship you know being in the spotlight my channel has grown so quickly and I am so grateful for that and there have been times where it was really stressful and I put in
a ton of hours that maybe threw life out of balance but mostly YouTube has made our life so much better it was 5 years ago that Tom got to leave his job because what we were doing on YouTube was working so well and that was awesome I actually thought that was going to be the time for real breakthrough because he was working in a very stressful job he was driving an hour over an hour and a half on the way home and it it was so stressful and so I really thought like hey if he
can come home and uh we had always had dreams of doing rental properties and um you know he wasn't I I didn't think him coming home to be like a stay at home D would be the best idea cuz he's just like he's so skilled and and good at things and so we were able to start you know acquiring these rental properties and him working on them and fixing up and so YouTube like allowed us to achieve so many of our dreams earlier than we had ever thought with rental properties and traveling and getting to
Camp with the kids and and all of that and it also gave us the means to explore different you know kinds of um therapies and whatnot to try and have more success in a relationship and so um I you know I can only speak for myself but um I know I don't think in any way YouTube causes if anything I feel like it made our life better and easier in a lot of ways and less stressful okay next question what about the kids um you know what's hard was that uh the kids were actually kind
of part of the wakeup call for me and just seeing the impact it was starting to have on them I really just got to the point of we can't keep going like this anymore and so the kids have been my number one priority through this like you know if you have kids it's like whatever I can I can do anything I can endure through anything right um but when it starts to impact them that's when it gets real real and so it has been a huge consideration I'm so grateful they're well supported I'm well supported
we're all well supported and so I think they're doing as good as they can be given everything it's been an adjustment for sure you know this isn't easy this is this is the worst ever this is the worst but also continuing to go how we were didn't fix things either and so it sucks but I am just trying to spend time with them focus on them and I am really grateful for around us who have been helping navigate this season too did you try separation yes yes I'm telling you I really I'm curious if you
can throw something at me that we haven't tried yeah we did we actually very prolonged so yes um more than one year uh of it so many many months different variations on it and I mean it was very important to me that we exhaust everything that we could and then there's the house and uh I told Tom right away I'm like you can have the house I couldn't imagine keeping up our property on my own and I know what you're thinking but Don that's your dream house right uh dream dreams change dreams evolve dreams can
take different shapes and forms it it would be so much for me to keep up on my own and um you know my parents are close by and so I've been staying with my parents they have been the greatest ever even before I left to come up here my mom's like is everything okay like are we doing everything okay like do you just have to get away from us and I'm like no M like like they have been the absolute coolest and I don't know I was telling my therapist the other day I'm like it
should be just a basic human right that everyone has awesome parents like at least someone in their Corner that no matter what whatever you are going through they're like yes come home we got it covered you know you don't have to cook you don't have to clean you don't have to think about anything like I've taken over with like decluttering for my mentorship grouw to still make videos and they have been so good about it and just so helpful my dad tells me on a regular basis like hey you don't have to rush out like
we love having you and the kids here and so I am just so incredibly grateful for that another question that comes up is like well isn't marriage supposed to be hard and that's what I thought right I so distinctly remember sitting down with a couple that was mentoring us before we got married and then looking at us and saying marriage is a sanctification process and I'm like all right let's go so I did expect for it to be difficult and hard and you know but there is sometimes a point where you minimize a little too
much of your own needs right I'm all about minimalism and simplifying and decluttering but there gets to a point where where you just start to feel crazy and you also kind of start to feel stupid because you feel like hey I I am trying to be so cool and patient and forgiving but I feel like that kindness is being taken advantage of and that sucks and so no I didn't think like oh this should be so easy or there shouldn't be bumps in the road no I was I'm like bring it on let's go we
got this um and that's probably where I can kind of you know transition to the faith side of it so Tom and I have shared about our Christian faith from time to time you've seen my sister's Channel she's a pastor right and what many well meing people have uh you know brought up the the Bible verse that is probably going through your mind and uh there's so much to that I'm not going to I'm not going to debate scripture or get into that here that would be a Fool's errand right but I will assure you
that it is something that I have very much looked into and considered and is very important to me and I still love marriage and the institution of marriage and and everything about it um there are things we can persevere through in marriage and there are things that we can't and that's a different line for each of us and and we have to discern that for ourselves and so if you have been in a confusing marriage at all if you've ever wondered I just remember so often thinking like where's the line right where is the line
um when when is it okay to say this is too much and I can't do this anymore and I did turn the comments off because I don't want theological debates in the comments and I also don't want those of you who are just my closest friends on here feeling like you need to go to battle for me in the comments either because I know that you will continue to watch and support and um and you have my back and I'm so grateful for that I have been so well supported here so encouraged and um I
there are days where I just I literally tell Diana my twin sister I'm like I don't no how I got here or how I had to be so incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by so many kind people and encouraging and so please know I am so grateful for you um I guess that leads to another question what's next and um I absolutely plan to continue you know over the summer I really stepped back a lot and uh really did just like the bare minimum that I needed to to keep things moving forward and it was
really good and it helped kind of decide like hey what's most important moving forward what's not YouTube is like so important to me so I will continue to post videos every Tuesday our mentorship group we're doing some some really cool changes in there and adding another tier for household management and um that has still continued even through all of this to been a priority for me as well because I love getting to help you more personally and get to be more involved in your decluttering and Coach you more and help you and encourage you so
really much shouldn't change except the background might be a little might a little bit so you'll see me doing more at my parents house and my mom has been so good about that and I am just so grateful she's done like so much awesome decluttering on her own I'm like stop hold on I want to video that right but otherwise uh I'm I'm really glad and excited about continuing this work because man it makes such a difference I really thought in the beginning that I was the only one that couldn't keep it together right and
now that I realize like oh no like so many of us are drowning in clutter it's uh we just have to stick together right and it's just my joy to continue um to get to share about that and then the last question if you've hung around this long is how am I um I am really sad I'm really sad about this and um you know if you if you know me I'm like so optimistic always almost to a fault and I just it just never occurred to me I really thought like if you have God
and a Praying Wife like what can you conquer you know like watch out clear the way right like your toast like that like you don't stand a chance like you can't get away from that right and uh so so it has been a little disillusioning to get here so I'm going to lay low for a little bit uh keep hanging out with the kids spending time with them and come up here uh as I'm able to and um yeah just take a little time and take it easy and so I think that's probably the best
thing and that's about all I can do right now so thank you again I I truly am so grateful I I was reading making this video not because I do believe that you will be gracious to me but because I hate the idea of catching you off guard and I know how well loved Tom is and he is and there is just so many good things about him there's so many good things so I am sorry just to Spring this on you um but also I do believe that you'll be understanding too and I'm so
grateful for that all right well uh if there's any update or follow-up videos I'll put a link to those in the description as well but I love you I'm so grateful for you I hope you have a good day and I'll see you again soon oh and if you actually want help with decluttering your house we have like over 800 videos about that too so um that's normally what I'm talking about and I would love to spend more time with you helping you declare your home too
