Write Your Own Fairy Tale: Siggy Flicker on Love, Relationships & Parenting

Welcome to an insightful episode featuring Siggy Flicker, a renowned relationship expert, matchmaker, TV personality, and author, best known for her role on Real Housewives of New Jersey. In this candid conversation, Siggy shares behind-the-scenes details of the reality show, discussing her friendship with Dolores Catania, the challenges of filming, and the real reasons behind the drama on Housewives. Beyond the TV drama, Siggy delves into parenting and relationship advice, offering valuable tips on raising teenagers and revitalizing a marriage. If you're a fan of reality TV, interested in relationship dynamics, or seeking parenting insights, this episode is a must-listen.

Top 10 Talking Points:

1. Reality TV Realities: Siggy opens up about the challenges of filming reality TV and how it differs from her professional life as a relationship expert.
2. Authenticity in the Spotlight: Discussing the struggle to maintain authenticity on a reality show and the impact it has on personal relationships.
3. Friendship on Display: Siggy sheds light on her genuine friendship with Dolores Catania and the importance of authentic connections.
4. Navigating Relationships: Insights into Siggy's experiences with other Housewives, including Teresa and Melissa, and the complexities of forming bonds in the reality TV world.
5. Parenting Teenagers: Siggy shares practical tips on parenting teenagers, emphasizing the importance of respect and setting boundaries.
6. Dealing with Drama: Addressing the challenges of being caught in the middle of conflicts, particularly between Jacqueline Laurita and Teresa Giudice.
7. Friendship Breakdown: Reflecting on the end of the longstanding friendship between Jacqueline and Teresa and the emotional toll it took on Siggy.
8. Confrontation in Reality: Discussing the unique dynamics of resolving conflicts on reality TV and the intensity of the reunion episodes.
9. OCD and Organization: Siggy's passion for organization and her impeccably labeled home, along with a humorous exchange on the importance of being organized.
10. Parenting Philosophy: Exploring Siggy's approach to parenting, her dedication to her children, and the balance between being a friend and an authority figure.

Siggy Flicker is a relationship expert, matchmaker, television personality and author of Write Your Own Fairy Tale: The New Rules for Dating, Relationships, and Finding Love on Your Terms. Siggy was on the Real Housewives of New Jersey and she gives us the inside scoop on the show, including her friendship with Dolores Catania, the hardest part of filming the show, and the real reason there is so much drama on any Housewives show. She also touches on parenting and relationships, sharing tips on parenting teenagers as well as what to do in your marriage when things get stale.

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Transcript:

We are back again for an amazing show ahead with the one and only, Siggy Flicker. Siggy Flicker is a relationship expert, matchmaker, television personality and author of Write Your Own Fairy Tale: The New Rules for Dating Relationships and Finding Love on your Terms. Siggy is also the mom of four children. She's married to Michael, lives in New Jersey and is on the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Siggy just happens to be my favorite housewife of all time. Welcome, Siggy. I want you to know that's a pretty big honor because I've been watching all the housewives for a year.

Thank you so much. I didn't know that. I want to ask you the question, but it's your podcast. Why me?

You start out watching the show and you're like, “This woman rocks. She's so herself.” Something during the season takes her authenticity away and all of a sudden you can see the holes. I always ask myself, “What would I do?” I feel as a woman, you get sucked into the drama and then it's like, “Come on, girl. Rise above it.” I feel you did such a fabulous job doing that.

I don't think that anybody understands that this is one of the hardest things to film. Just to be on a show like this is so mind-boggling that sometimes when you're in it, you're saying, “I couldn't write this out if I try to.” No one would believe how real this is and how crazy these times are. At the end of the day, we all do things for certain reasons. Everybody has their own ulterior motives. I don't care what anybody says. For me to have this platform to be able to get that book out there in the hands of everybody, it's my pride and joy. For me to be able to go and lead by example, if anybody else is going through something similar in their lives and I was able to help them, it makes it all worthwhile for me.

You do such a good job at that. The fact that you have so much experience as a relationship expert really as shown on the show in a wonderful way because you're seeing how you as the expert relates to your girlfriend, you relating to your kids and you relating to your husband. You are even relating to your business. I think you've done a fantastic job and I hope we can continue to watch you.

When you're on these shows being experts for the last few years, going from Dr. Phil to Wendy Williams to Fox News to CNN, wherever, when you go for a job interview and you're sitting there, you have to be all professional. You have to sit there and you have to be an expert. What I love about Housewives of New Jersey is I don't have to be the expert. I could show them through my actions because no one on the show came to me and said, “Siggy, I want your relationship advice.” Just stick us in the water and say start swimming and we need to feel out the waters from the left to the right. Sometimes it's going to get wavy, sometimes we're going to be drowning. Everybody's out on their own. You form certain bonds with certain people. I'm sure you know that my strongest bond is with Dolores and how we came together and that friendship is so easy. Me getting to know Teresa and Melissa a little bit better, navigating through that, helping Jacqueline with everything that she was going through and trying to be a good friend to her when I know how hard it was because her choice with a fifteen-year friendship was falling apart at that point.

Did you know Dolores before you started the show?

I knew Dolores, Kathy and Jacqueline before I started the show. Teresa was still away so I did not know her. I met her on the show. The first time I met Teresa was when I met her at rails when we were planning Dolores’ birthday party. We had met for the first time on the show. Melissa, I knew before the show. I was friendly with Jacqueline, Dolores and Kathy before the show.

You and Dolores are adorable together. That's a cool friendship to watch too because there's no backstabbing going on.

Not at all. I support her. She supports me. In life, you walk a straight line, you're going to have people that you don't get along with. You're going to have people that you don't get along with. Not everybody's chemistry belongs together. The best thing is I see everybody. If you walk a straight line, I will be your biggest cheerleader. If you come at me sideways, I'm going to take you down sideways. You have to protect yourself. To raise your kids and say, “Everybody in this world is great. Everybody in this world is going to love you and everybody in this world is going to be good to you,” that's setting them up for failure. I teach them by example. If somebody comes at me sideways, I'm taking them down sideways.

What's the biggest surprise? Was the show harder or easier than you thought it would be?

The hardest part about the show is for me the production of the show, the producers who are involved with the show. They are not filming Little House on the Prairie. They want to see the drama and so did the viewers, the viewers want it. They're not tuning in to see everybody picking daisies in the field. You have to go with that saying, “I understand what they want.” It's very important. I had to keep it authentic. Meaning, I knew that they wanted problems. I am sorry, with certain people I didn't have problems. When I did have problems, I owned it. For example, everybody thought that I would have a problem with Teresa. You've got the big Jewish ego with the big Italian ego.

Siggy Flicker: What do you do when you are with somebody but then the person who you're friends with can't get it together?

Teresa Giudice, hands down, in my opinion is the best housewife in history. I'm telling you, that's Siggy Flicker’s opinion. I get a kick out of her because she is so authentic. She is so real. She does not think about anything before she speaks. To me, it's endearing. I happen to love people like that. Teresa never claimed that she went to Harvard. She never claimed that she got her Bachelor's degree in engineering. What I love about her is what you see is what you get. To me, I have fun with her. I laugh with her and we laugh together. I'm talking about production and I thought, “There might be something with Siggy and Teresa.” As we went into our relationship, we were bonded and we fell in love. That friendship was awesome. As I saw the friendship between Jacqueline and Teresa deteriorating, I was stuck in the middle.

What do you do when you really find out that you are with somebody but then the person who you're friends with can't get it together? A lot of the times you're thinking to yourself, “I don't know if I agree wholeheartedly with what both of them are doing.” Throughout the whole season, I was stuck in the middle and it hit home. For some people they're saying, “Siggy, why do you care so much?” It's easy to say, “Why do you care so much?” when you're sitting in your home and you're watching TV and you're not in it, but when you're in it and you develop friendships and you care, I can't help it. I'm very emotional. I want to see everybody succeed. I like to have chips, salsa and Guacamole. I like it for everybody to be happy. When somebody is going through something hard and they're suffering, I don't know why I take it and I can't fix it. As I say to everybody, “You could lead a horse to water but you can't make the horse drink the water if the horse is not thirsty.”

Jacqueline and Teresa, there's a fifteen-year friendship there on a bond. Imagine all the moms that are in the audience. These kids had babies together. From the time that they gave birth to their babies in the hospital. These girls have memories. They've been together. They've had memories over the last fifteen years. A few years ago, the friendship started to deteriorate a little bit, little problems here and there and that's okay. Sometimes people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. With these two girls, I do not think that they'll ever be friends again. I think that the relationship is broken. To me, it was sad that I was there to witness the end of the Teresa and Jacqueline relationship.

That's always so hard to watch. With a lot of times with women on the show, you have the opportunity to sit down and face each other face to face and have an open conversation. It seems a lot of times in life, women in general, don't like that confrontation. They don't want to sit down and look at their friend and say, “This is how you hurt me or this is why I'm upset.” Unfortunately, they're not forced to do it. Sometimes relationships fall apart because they're afraid.

Imagine you and me, we get a little bit of a tidbit and I call you up and I say, “Can we meet at the diner and let's talk about it? I'm so sorry I said something and I'm ashamed of it. We can hash it out.” What happens on the Housewives is so mind-boggling. I want everybody to imagine that we filmed for three to four months. When I'm filming my testimonials at my house, Jen, you don't see what I'm filming now. Filming is over and you go on break and then just the show starts to air. You're watching what I'm saying about you and what you're saying about me behind your back on national TV. It intensifies everything.

By the time they get us to the reunion, there is so much vengeance there. There is so much hurt there that it's not anymore a conversation of, “Last Tuesday, you didn't invite me and I feel bad.” It doesn't even go like that. It's so deep. With production, everybody gets paranoid and insecure. This whole thing is a tough process but we all do it for different reasons. For most of the people that I know, and most of the housewives from other states and other franchises, we do it for the platform. There's no better platform than being on Bravo and having a platform of the housewife. You've got five million people watching you every week. If you have a message, it's being heard. If you have a charity, it's getting attention. If you have a book, it's being sold. It's that simple.

[bctt tweet="When a man truly loves a woman, the relationship works." username=""]

I want to go to the show and be the organizer so we can talk about organizing all the time.

Did you see the video of my house?

No.

You have no idea. I have to invite you over because I'm so OCD that everything in my house is organized and has labels. If you go on Bravo or you google Siggy’s House Tour, I have a label machine that says, “Mommy jeans, long shirts, tank tops, socks, underwear.” Everything in the house is labeled. It is immaculate. You've got to come. I'm not kidding. Anytime that you want to come, call me and knock on my front door. You have to see, you’ve got to go to the house tour because everybody bought this label machine for $22 at Staples. I open up the drawer and if in the battery drawer there's a pencil, somebody’s getting in trouble. That's how OCD I am.

I had my debut on Jersey Housewives when I was watching the show. All of a sudden when they were doing Teresa's book signing, Rosie and Chris were having this long conversation in front of my books on the shelf, Organize Now!. I'm taking pictures of the television screen and sending it to my friends going, “I finally got on the Jersey Housewives.”

Do you know how important it is to be organized? When you're not organized, everything is a mess. When you start to organize, it's really saying, “I am serious about getting my life on track.” We were meant to be together because I'm a freak about that.

Siggy Flicker: You want to be a parent where you want your children to come to you, but at the end of the day, you want them to respect you.

Let me talk about this with you, Siggy. One of the things I admire about you is the way you are with your kids. It's funny that you're saying if the pencil is out of place, somebody's going to get in trouble. A lot of the moms that I work with, they have a hard time making their kids do chores and be responsible for their belongings. I don't know what it is if they feel guilty but I'm always telling them, “You're raising somebody's future spouse, you're raising somebody's future employee. These are things we have to teach our kids.”

People are afraid to be tough. I always talk to my kids at a young age. When the attitude starts with Sophie and Joshua, I say, “I’ve got a great idea. You want to get your own places?” “Mommy, we were only kidding.” I say to them, “Remember, you came out of my body. I didn't come out of yours. Respect your elders. I will not tolerate being disrespected. If you respect me, I'm going to love you for the rest of your life.” That's how I started with them from the age of five and up. “You don't talk back to mommy.” Sophie came home and I said, “I want to go to work out at JCC right up the street. Sophie, the roads are bad.” She goes, “Me and my friends are going to Uber it.” I said, “You are not ubering in a car at the age of fourteen.” “I don't understand everybody else's mom lets them Uber.” I said, “Sophie, you're not getting in a stranger's car at the age of fourteen. The answer is no.” She says, “Why do you have to be like that?” I said, “Sophie, remember one thing. You came out of my body. I didn't come out of yours. They're my rules. Would you like me to get on the phone with all your friends?”

You can't back down. You'll have to stick it out. I call up one of the mothers. I said, “Hi, did you tell blah, blah, blah that they can get an Uber and go to the JCC?” “I never said that.” You have to be on top of it. When they call you out you have to come right back. It's like playing tennis. You have to let them know, “I can't have a relationship without respect.” My life is dedicated to Sophie, Joshua, Tyler, and Olivia. Even my stepchildren who didn't come out of my body, you will see me argue with them and you will see me because I am responsible for them financially, emotionally and physically. If something happens to them, my life is over. I take being a mother as the most important job in the world. For me, I see that Sophie at the age of fourteen is a mini Siggy. She’ll go to school. Somebody got his boyfriend broke up with her. I'm talking about the ninth grade. She said, “Don't worry, a man's rejection is God's protection. It’s God protecting you.” She doesn't even realize it.

There was a party where some of the girls are experiencing alcohol and it happens to all of us moms. Let's not pretend that it only happens to some of us. You're in high school, you have parties. Sophie comes home and tells me everything, “I was the mother here. I told her, ‘You're just doing this for attention,” whatever it is. I'm not saying Sophie is perfect. Trust me, I have my challenges with Sophie. I'm saying that you want to be a parent where you want your children to come to you. At the end of the day, you want them to respect you. When I say, “Your rooms have to be clean,” I'll walk into Joshua's room. I'll call Joshua at school, “Joshua, I went into your room. You left your towel on your bed and your papers were on the floor.” “I'm sorry, mom. It won't happen again.” That's it. Do you think that my day was ruined? No, but I want to let them know, “I provided you with a beautiful room. I work my butt off for you. I would do anything. I would give you my kidneys, my left leg, and my arm. I live and breathe for my children.”

At the end of the day, your mother likes to keep a clean, organized home. For everybody, it's different. For me, that matters to me because I'm an extremely organized person. Everybody has themes that are important to them. Write them down on a piece of paper and have a meeting with your family and say, “This is what's important. Every Wednesday night I'd like for all of us to sit together and have dinner or whatever it is. When we have dinner with my parents twice a month, my kids are like, “When can I get out of here?” I said, “It's important to me. It's important for your grandparents. I do for you. You must do for me.” They get it. I put them in their place. When they get out of line, I check them right back into place and it works. I have a wonderful relationship with them.

The thing is when you're a teenager, you might not think you want to sit with grandma and grandpa at the dinner table for two hours, but when you're an adult, you cherish those memories. They don't get that. It's something that you have to almost make it that it's non-negotiable now and they will be thanking you later. I remember those dinners with my grandparents. What did you give anything to go back to those dinners? They have to be grown up.

"Know your worth. Get yourself off the clearance rack and start putting yourself where they carry the fine jewelry."

I would go back to those dinners and also after we have dinner, Sophie and Josh will come over to me and say, “Mom, that was a nice evening.” When kids want structure, they want direction. They don't want a mom who is, “I'm your friend so you don't have to do anything and you could disrespect me and you could walk all over me. I love you and I'm going to be there for you.” That's not good parenting in my opinion. Good parenting is, “Where are you? Why didn't you check-in? Why does your room look like that? We're having dinner on Friday night. I don't care if the party starts at 10:00, you'll be there at 10:30, 10:45. I'm sorry.” They respect that. I know a lot of people have challenges to each their own. I count my blessings. I have it very easy with my kids.

You've set it up that way too. You have not backed down just like you said.

I've also set it up that with my ex-husband. When Mark and I got divorced I said, “Mark, I am not going to spend days arguing with you. I'm not going to spend days fighting with you. You have the kids every other weekend. I'm letting you know on the weekends that you cannot have the kids because you're traveling for work or whatever it is. They're my flesh and blood. We're not fighting about it. Just call me and tell me that you're not going to dig at me and I'm not going to dig with you. I wish you nothing but health and happiness and for you to find love, which he did, but I'm not going to go back and forth and argue with you. Here's what you owe me. I spent this amount of money on Sophie's volleyball. It was $2,000 for the year. You owe me half of that. I love you to death.” I don't have any time to go through the back door, the side door. I go through the front door. I look at him in the eyes. I say what I have to say and we have an unbelievable relationship because of that.

Isn't that the key to any relationship? The fact that you're a straight shooter, you're not playing the game. That's what a lot of people are doing and that's what ruins the relationship.

A lot of people are doing it not because they're not straight shooters. 99.9% of the people who are reading don't do it because they're afraid. Everybody lives in fear. It's always good not to take the bandage off. Let me keep the Band-Aid on and I don't want to pop the pimple or look at the scar or see the pus coming out of the wound. Everybody's afraid of that. I'm saying once you pop that pimple and once you see the pus, you can heal and then it's drying up. A lot of people would say, “I'll do it next week.” They prolong it because people live in fear. I say you have one time to do this dance. Live your life to the fullest. In order for you to live your life to the fullest, you've got to free yourself of your fears.

You've got to face your fears in the eyes and say, “I might fall flat on my face but it's better than sitting behind the steering wheel shaking. I'm not going to shake. I'm going to look at you right in the face. I'm going to tell you what I have to tell you. It's on you, it's not on me.” I know so many people say, “I'm going to try to keep the peace. I'm not going to say anything.” At times you have to bite your tongue. Everybody has certain situations. I can't analyze every situation but for me, no. I only have problems with people. If I have a problem with somebody, then you know that they're coming at me sideways and I'm not putting up with it. I won't put up with it. I'm too good and happy of a person to let somebody come at me sideways regardless of who it is. I will look at you straight in the face, but I will always come to you first and say, “This is what's bothering me and this is what's frustrating me. I want something done about it.” When they try to give you, “Wait,” “No, I want something about it now or I'm going to freak out.”

Siggy Flicker: If your man truly loves you, he's going to step up to the plate and he's going to bat for you. That's the bottom line.

I want to talk about one of these comments that you made. You need to start Siggyisms because some of the stuff you say cracks me up so much. One of the things you said in an interview I heard, and my sisters and I used to say this to each other all the time, and it probably at first sounds mean because we love our husbands very much. Before we got married, we would all say this to each other. It's so funny that you say it, “A man should love a woman a little more.”

It's not saying that he should love you and you should not love him. The only way that a relationship truly works is when the man loves a woman a little bit more. It's harsh but it's true. When your man thinks you are the first word and the last word in the dictionary, it makes everything easier. By nature, men are hunters. When you see women who are frustrated in their relationships, a lot of people try to make their relationships work. They'll fib and they'll make up scenarios and they'll make up stories. At the end of the day, if your man truly loves you, he's going to step up to the plate and he's going to bat for you. That's the bottom line. When a man truly loves a woman, the relationship works. You have to love him back. You can't look at him and say, “He loves me more than I love him, and I don't love him at all.” There has got to be love there. I'm just talking about he's got to love you an inkling more than you love him.

Mark Flicker, my first husband, did not love me. He loves me until this day. People will say, “Siggy, you're wrong. You and Mark were the mayor and mayoress of Boca Raton, Florida. You are funny. You are adorable together.” We were always meant to be friends. When I walked into a restaurant and I would be talking to the busboy, the waiter, the cook, the chef and making everybody laugh, he would roll his eyes. He wasn't in love with that energy. He wanted me to be like a Stepford wife. He wanted me to shut up and be calm, be quiet and just talk about my Birkin bag, which was so boring. I'd rather talk about my days waiting tables at TGI Fridays. Who cares? I didn't even care.

The point was that he wasn't in love with that. He loved me because I was a good wife, a good mother. I cleaned the house, everything was great. He would say to this day if you'd met him, “I love Siggy. I loved her. I love her as a wife and I love her as a person now. She's a great mother.” He was never in love with me. Now you get Michael, ten years now of me living a fairytale. Michael thinks I'm probably the quietest girl in the room. The first word in the dictionary, the last word in the encyclopedia. Whatever it is about me, he just laughs. He cannot get enough of me. Now it's going on ten years. It works. The chemistry is there.

We've been married several years and so many of our friends have gotten divorced along the way. It's usually the ones we thought were going to stay together didn't and vice versa. I have a lot of friends in the 40s that are looking for the right relationships. Talk to those women, how are they going to do it right the second time. What should they look for?

The second time was even better than the first time. First of all, if you're going through and you've been divorced and you're out there, say to yourself, “Congratulations, you went through it once.” Imagine you are getting into a new sport. Once you are used to it, you get good at it. You tried it and there are no guarantees that any relationship is going to work out. There's no handbook that says, “If you do A, B and C, it's going to work out.” It didn't work out. The second time around, you will have one thing to do is to be selfish, know your worth and put yourself first. Don't put everybody else. Everybody says, “I do this for this and I do this for that and I don't understand why it's not working.” Know your worth and start putting yourself where they carry the fine jewelry. Get yourself off the clearance rack. You're not available. You are now in a new spot where you love yourself first. May the best person win. Knowing your worth and living your life to the fullest. The goal is not to find love. A relationship doesn't define you. The goal is to be happy.

[bctt tweet="Everybody defines you by your relationships, but sometimes being single is the best thing for you at the moment." username=""]

I've talked to so many friends of mine over the years. What they do is they put their own wishes. They have a good list, but then when the relationship starts, they start saying, “I can settle for this and I can settle for that.” Next thing you know, they are being a chameleon. They're being more like the guy than themselves and then they get into the relationship. They get married. A few years down the road, they're tired of being a chameleon. They want to shed their skin and be themselves and then the husband is like, “Who is this woman?” Whose fault is that? It's not his fault, it's yours.

A lot of women feel the pressure and they played games in the beginning. I'm telling you that because I played the game. When I met Mark Flicker, I did not think that he was a lid on my pot. I did it. I'm admitting it that we have some issues. I knew in my heart because I'm very smart. My IQ is very high. I knew he wasn't really in love with the essence of who I was. My biological clock was ticking. I wanted to be married. I was getting pressure from my mom and dad and I'm admitting to you and everybody else out there. I walked down the aisle. I had my doubts. I would do it all over again because my sole purpose at the time was to be a mother. I gave birth to Sophie and Joshua. I had eight fabulous years being a mother with this man living in Boca Raton. I would do it all over again.

The second time around it's like, “I had my children, my biological clock is gone. I had a hysterectomy, there is no uterus. It's all about me and getting it right in the love department and I will never ever settle for less than the best again.” I wasn't like that the first time around. I don't blame anybody else who's in the same situation. What happens is that sometimes we need to get married because society says, “Are you single? Why are you single?” They don't understand that sometimes being single is the best thing for you at that moment. Everybody defines you by your relationships. A lot of people hurry to get married, to be in miserable relationships or to be in so-so relationships. You have your children and you live and then all a sudden, eight years later, the children are grown, the children could self-support themselves or do what they have to do. All of a sudden you go, “What about me?” because you lost yourself in that marriage. That's what happens. That's why I say the second time around is the best.

What are your best tips for those women that are married and they're starting to lose that spark, lose themselves in their marriage and they want to ignite the spark?

The first thing that I would recommend is don't go running out the door. The right thing you should do is go to a therapist, a marriage, a relationship coach in your town. The reason why I say this is because when you say something to your husband, it's going to sound harsh. Whenever you have a third party there, it sounds easier. I don't like hurting people's feelings. I could talk to you and be tough right now on this podcast because it's easy. If somebody were in front of my face, you'd see me back down a little bit. Not because I'm scared of them. I don't want to hurt somebody's feelings.

When you're sitting in front of a therapist and you say, “I've been married to Bill for twelve years now and I feel like I've lost myself in the marriage. I don't really know if we've got that love and feel anymore. I'm starting to feel a lot of things. Bill, I'm sorry, I don't want to shut the door on our marriage or things like that, but something's got to give. Something's got to change for us to move forward because I can't live my life when I feel dead on the inside.” That's how I would approach it, not walking out the door. First, you open up because a lot of people who have done what I'm telling you and your audience to do right now, it has saved their marriage. It has saved their marriage because then once you're going through the process and then Bill says, “I never even knew that about you, so what is it that you want to do?”

You want a habit, so you start an activity together. The two that I have in my mind are golfing together. By golfing together, doing activities together that she enjoys as much as him or maybe she enjoys just a little bit more. It's making her feel significant in the relationship. It's helped them in their relationship. Other times you'll go to the table and you'll have a third person there, a professional, and the partner will say, “I don't care. I'm not interested in that. I've lost that loving feeling too.” If you've lost that loving feeling and I've lost that loving feeling and you don't want to work at it, and I surely don't want to work on it, then it's time to go our separate ways. I always say fight in the beginning. When I came to Mark, I said, “Mark, you and I live separate lives. I want a divorce.” We tried. He said, “Siggy, I love you. You're a great mom. What is it that I could do for you?” I said, “I cannot ask you to move the essence of who I am. I am not comfortable in a country club having chopped salads all day long.”

I worked full-time. I was a decorator and a relationship coach. I did over 5,000 homes in South Florida. It wasn't like I was sitting down doing nothing, but I wasn't getting that love from my husband that I needed. I wasn't getting something behind his eyes, the rolling of the eyes. When I was trying to be quiet and classy, it wasn't working because I don't want to be quiet and classy. That's not my goal in life. As we talked about it in front of a professional, we both realized, “Mark, I love you and you love me. We were meant to be friends. We can high five each other all night. We have two of the most gorgeous kids in the world. I will always be your friend. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be your matchmaker and match you on a couple of dates. I want you to be happy. I don't want to be with you in this marriage anymore.” That's when we went our separate ways and we stayed friends.

I'm sure your kids appreciate that.

My kids appreciate it because when Mark is here for Thanksgiving, Passover and holidays, everybody's used to it. For other people looking in and seeing, it might be weird but for us, it's very normal.

I want to tell everybody again, the name of your book is Write Your own Fairy Tale. Tell us when the Housewives start again.

We start filming March 1st and it's probably going to air in August. We have four hard months in front of us.

Will you come back on and give us the scope after?

Absolutely, anytime.

You're such an inspiration to me and so many other moms. Keep being you. Keep it real. I love authenticity. I love all your insight. You own yourself and that's refreshing. Thank you so much for being on the show, Siggy.

Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Thanks for reading. This is another episode of The 29 Minute Mom podcast.

Important Links:

• Write Your Own Fairy Tale: The New Rules for Dating Relationships and Finding Love on your Terms Organize Now!

About Siggy Flicker

Siggy Flicker is a TV Personality, and Author & A Motivational Speaker where audiences around the world find her energy infectious & inspiring; walking away feeling freshly inspired to improve both their personal and professional well-being. Siggy’s unique #KnowYourWorth message extends beyond the personal to the national.

Siggy credits her strength to her Israeli born roots. She is a staunch supporter of Israel and the Jewish people.  As the daughter to the famous scholar and Holocaust Survivor, Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, who ran the division of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem in Israel for over 24 years, she understands the importance of education for peace, love and tolerance and the vitality of standing up to evil, tyranny and anti-Semitism 

Known for her straightforward & outspoken style, Siggy has always been the friend who others turn to for non-nonsense yet nurturing relationship advice. Her guidance—a potent brew of common sense, compassion, and just plain bull in china shop bluntness—is well known for cutting to the quick of anyone’s love troubles.

Siggy released her first book, Write Your Own Fairytale in 2015 (Penguin Random House) and starred in her own reality show on VH1 called “Why Am I Still Single?”. In 2016, Siggy joined The Real Housewives of New Jersey for 2 seasons. Siggy’s professional opinion continues to be sought out by a variety of TV programs including Good Morning America, The Today Show, Dr. Phil, The Wendy Williams Show, The Steve Harvey Show, Fox & Friends, and many many more.