Culture & Entertainment
It’s almost hard to believe that Meagan Good and her ex-husband, DeVon Franklin, publicly announced their divorce -- coming up on -- two years ago. As someone who’s an advocate of taking your time to heal, no matter how long, it took me a while to wrap my head around this one. It seems as if it all took place just yesterday.
The two announced their divorce in December 2021 after nine years of marriage and finalized the split in June 2022, just a week after what would have been their 10-year anniversary.
In a joint statement, the duo explained that “after much prayer and consideration, we have decided to go into our futures separately but forever connected. “We celebrate almost a decade of marriage together and a love that is eternal. There’s no one at fault, we believe this is the next best chapter in the evolution of our love.”
Over time, Meagan has stepped up to the plate for herself and on behalf of Black women everywhere. In her healing, Good learned the power in sharing her story: the advice, the eternal lessons, and overall takeaways from picking ourselves up and figuring out how to dig ourselves out of a dark place, when divorce is on the table.
And in each instance, how she has maneuvered gracefully, embracing her next chapter and picking women up along the way, just by sharing her story.
Like the woman who may not have initiated the divorce...
Recently, in her first solo cover with ESSENCEfor their recurring online cover story series, "Of The Essence," we learned that the decision to divorce was actually Franklin's, as, according to court documents and Good, Franklin was the one to file. Their split was finalized on Thursday, June 2, with the couple settling privately.
"It's nothing that I would have ever chosen, and when I realized that it was happening, I was devastated. I was like, 'This is me, Lord. I did everything that I could do to the best of my ability. I don't understand why I did all these things, and then this is my end result.'"
Or the woman who doesn’t know where to start to move on...
"I struggled with that," she told ESSENCE. "I was like, 'I don't know if I should be celibate now. I don't know what I should do.' I even was at a point early on when I felt, obviously, I still believe in Jesus, but I'm not sure what to believe about anything else anymore."
And the woman who desperately wanted to avoid divorce to escape generational curses...
Good revealed the divorce was especially difficult because she didn't want to follow in the footsteps of her parents, who had also split up after 10 years of marriage.
"That was rough because my biggest fear was what happened between my mom and my dad would happen to me, which is you've been with your husband for 10 years and you break up," she told ESSENCE. "I would say, 'I'm never getting divorced. I'm in it forever, good, bad, whatever it is, I'm never going to give up. You're my person, I'm your person, that's it.'"
Or the woman who ultimately feels rejected...
“You just have to trust God. I think throughout my life and my personal experience being a woman, being a Black woman, being an actress, being in ministry, all of those things I’ve experienced tremendous amounts of rejection," Good shared on xoNecole's Made for Me stage in 2022.
"Feeling misunderstood, feeling judged, feeling attacked all those things and the thing that sustained me is just trusting God. Even if someone else doesn't get me or doesn’t love me or doesn’t like me. I know that God gets me.”
Or the woman whose relationship expectations have evolved...
“Throughout life, I’ve always approached relationships as understanding that at some point, they’ll get to the place that they’re going to, and then they would be over,” she revealed during an exclusive Twitter Spaces conversation hosted by xoNecole.
“I’ve always had an attitude of like, 'Alright, next chapter. We’ll see what’s next,' and being okay with that and appreciating what you give to someone and what they give to you and sharing a moment in time and in life that you never get back regardless of how it ends. In my situation right now, it’s a little bit different because I thought that that would be the last time that I would be doing that and that I would be doing this with that person forever.”
And finally, the woman who is keeping her faith through it all and is excited for her next chapter (no matter how uncertain)...
“I am still optimistic. I still am hopeful for the future. I still—maybe this isn’t a chapter, but I just feel that it’s my next act in life and I trust God," she told xoNecole. "Not everything makes sense to me right now, but I do trust God overall and I’m excited to see what this next act of life is going to be and what God has in store and that’s all I can really do but even in doing that, I do have gratitude and so much joy in my heart for these past 11 years that DeVon and I have been together. What he’s given into my life and what I was able to give to him, just everything.”
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Featured image by Jemal Countess/Getty Images
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