When Bethany Pace and Hillary Livingston were each going through a divorce, like many who have experienced this dissolution of a marriage, they felt failure, shame, and sadness.

But in one way, they were lucky: They had each other. The two friends shared handwritten notes and exchanged books. Pace still wears a bracelet bearing the words “you can do hard things” that Livingston gave her back then.

“Without each other, it would have taken us a lot longer to reach the point where we are now: liking this version of ourselves,” says Pace, pictured left, above.

One night in Bel Air, where they both live, Pace was sitting in her car in a Safeway parking lot, talking on the phone to Livingston, pictured right, who was doing the same outside a Walgreens. An idea to start a support group was hatched, and it’s since become their business: Sincerely, Divorced.

“We’re very passionate about the mission to disrupt the narrative of failure and isolation that exists around divorce, and a key to that has been positive reframing,” says Pace. “Once that construct is eliminated, I think divorce is this process of becoming who we really were meant to be. We got to do that together, which is rare.”

When they held their first online seminar in November 2023, Pace and Livingston were hoping that at least one person would attend—and that’s exactly how many people did. But soon meetups at coffee shops, happy hours, and yoga classes attracted a loyal following, including more than 56,000 people on Instagram.

They’re not licensed counselors—the two met as staff at Towson University—but having survived what Pace calls “the second most stressful life transition after the death of a loved one,” they feel they have plenty to offer the people they work with.

“Demographically, we’re different,” says Pace. She’s 51, has two daughters, aged 20 and 14, and was married for 22 years. Livingston is 35 and her kids are 7 and 2; she was pregnant with her youngest when her six-year marriage unraveled.

“What’s unique is that our group is inclusive of all ages, races, genders, relationship types,” says Pace. “It’s our hearts that connect through this human experience.”

While most participants are women, men are welcome as well. In fact, roughly 35 percent of their social media followers identify as men. Part of their offerings—most of which are free—includes sending these followers hand-written notes of encouragement, and they’ve mailed them as far as Australia, India, and the United Kingdom.

“We’re trying to help people arrive at the juncture where [divorce] is an opportunity, it’s not a failure, it’s not the end of everything,” Livingston says. “You have this unique opportunity to start fresh. Your best days are still ahead of you.”

Is divorce the end of love?
You’d think that divorce is the anti-love story, but it’s not. As a divorce lawyer, you meet people who may not have been the initiator of the divorce, and therefore their love of the other person is still there—and sometimes it’s never going to end.

What is a common reason for divorce?
Infidelity is a common reason, but it doesn’t always mean that people don’t love each other. People’s sexual predilections have nothing to do with love. Infidelity is so scorned by society that it often makes it difficult for people when there’s been a transgression in the marriage to not feel so humiliated. Once they share their story, people press them to not stay in the relationship. Very few people say, “Let’s see what you might do to figure out whether or not you still want to stay in this relationship”—but I do that.

So you’re a divorce lawyer, but you encourage people to not follow through on their desire to split up?
It’s actually part of a divorce lawyer’s obligation to not encourage people to get a divorce, but to see if they might repair or resolve the marriage. As their lawyer, you want to inquire to see if they’ve seen a good mental-health professional and explored whether they really want to stay and work on the relationship or whether they would be better off apart.

What are your thoughts on living together before marriage?
I’ve often thought young people who live together don’t necessarily have to have the dialogue about things that are most of the irritants in marriage. For example, they often keep their finances separate, they keep their families separate; sometimes they have common friendships, but they keep their separate friendships. Not that someone can’t do that in a long marriage, but those are things that people argue about—money, family, sometimes their sexual relationship—and people often avoid this friction in a living-together situation. You need to give it time to make sure you love this person before you marry—or maybe you never marry.

Why do people fall out of love?
I don’t think people fall out of love. I think maybe they never fell into love. Sometimes it’s because the person who said they fell out of love hasn’t really evaluated whether they do or don’t have the capacity to have that kind of relationship. Some people get married and stay married and have children, but they never develop a relationship of concern and caring and sharing with the other person.

How have you come to define the word “love”?
Love is caring about somebody just as much as you care about yourself, and they are the first person in your thoughts.