Sarah Shahi: Why Her 5 Year Relationship With Adam Demos Was Doomed Right From The Very Beginning- The Harsh Truths About The Art Of Dating And Falling In Love Following A Divorce

One month after Sarah Shahi confirmed her split from Sex/Life costar Adam Demos, she revealed the catalyst behind their split while speaking with Kristin Cavallari on her podcast in a February 10 episode. She told Cavallari, ‘Without airing any kind of laundry ’cause I’m not here for that. I do think when you have kids, it’s hard to build a life when you have children unless the person truly, truly, truly wants that as well. I show up as a parent in a very specific way. I parent the way I was parented. For my mother, we grew up in Texas—single mom of three kids. There were no boundaries. We could walk into our mom’s bedroom at any time and we walked into the bathroom at any time. I think that can be a little challenging for somebody who may not be used to having kids. It’s great for love to be easy, but then the life stuff should also not be so difficult. I want my next relationship to be about me.’

Shahi then opened up about what she was looking for in the future for next relationship. She said, ‘I’m not looking for a stepparent. I just want a boyfriend—someone that can just take me out and I can be on the beach and just be all sweaty and have sex all the time. I just want someone to purely service me. and if that grows into something else, then great.’

The former couple first got together in 2020 following Shahi’s divorce from fellow actor and her children’s father Steve Howey. They were together for about 5 years before breaking up in April of last year. Cavallari said to Shahi, ‘I love a set romance,’ to which Shahi said, ‘I know. We have since broken up. We broke up last year, so talking about this definitely feels bittersweet. But I think he’s an incredible human. Our ending also, there was no, like, table flipping or any anger. It was just two people whose future stopped rhyming. It was as simple as that.’

Generally speaking, dating following a divorce, especially when you have children, can be tricky. More particularly, it can become tricky for women. Divorced women with children often face profound, multifaceted challenges, frequently experiencing higher levels of emotional, financial, and practical stress than their male counterparts. These hardships range from managing single-handedly all household responsibilities and childcare to navigating significant financial declines. To break it down more thoroughly:

Key hardships include:

1. Financial Instability and Economic Hardship 

• Reduced Income: Women, particularly those who were not the primary earner or who worked part-time, often experience a significant drop in household income, leaving them with limited financial resources.

• Child Support Inconsistency: Many single mothers struggle with the irregularity or lack of child support payments from their ex-spouse.

• Cost of Living: Managing costs for housing, childcare, and basic necessities alone can cause financial devastation and long-term stress.

• Legal Costs: The expenses related to legal battles over property and custody can be draining and, in some cases, ruinous. 

2. Emotional and Psychological Toll

• High Stress and “Single Parent Stress Syndrome”: The overwhelming pressure of being solely responsible for children’s wellbeing often leads to “Single Parent Stress Syndrome” (SPSS), characterized by exhaustion, irritability, and burnout.

• Guilt and Self-Blame: Mothers frequently experience intense guilt, worrying that they have “ruined” their children’s lives or that they are not “enough” on their own.

• Social Stigma and Isolation: Society often views single-parent families as deficient, leading to feelings of shame or stigma, especially in cultures that emphasize nuclear family structures. Social circles may also shrink, resulting in loneliness.

• Grief and Loss: Even if the divorce was necessary, women must mourn the loss of the marriage, the family unit, and their imagined future. 

3. Practical and Parental Challenges

• Overwhelming Responsibility: Without a partner to share daily tasks, women may feel they have no “off” switch, leading to constant fatigue and exhaustion.

• Co-Parenting Conflicts: Navigating co-parenting with a contentious ex-spouse can cause ongoing trauma and stress.

• Missing Children: When children are with the other parent, mothers often experience painful loneliness, even while needing a break.

• “Doing It All”: Women frequently have to manage career, household chores, and childcare simultaneously, with little time left for self-care or personal growth. 

4. Impact on Children

• Emotional Reactions: Children often react with anger, sadness, confusion, or fear, sometimes acting out or experiencing anxiety.

• Behavioural and Academic Struggles: Children may experience academic difficulties, reduced focus, and behavioral issues.

• Loyalty Conflicts: Children may feel torn between parents, which adds to their emotional distress and can cause them to act as messengers or mediators. 

Despite these severe challenges, many women find that the divorce allows them to escape toxic environments, ultimately allowing them to rebuild, find new opportunities for growth, and create a more peaceful, independent life for themselves and their children. 

My point is never to say that men don’t go through a divorce when they have children, because they most certainly do, especially the ones who are good fathers. And that’s never to say that both men and women who get divorced without children involved isn’t hard, because it is. My husband and I previously separated two years into our marriage and it was hard. Former The Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco recently opened up how difficult it was to divorce her second husband Karl Cook. She said in a recent interview, ‘It was the premiere of the second season of Flight Attendant, and I woke up that morning, I was so depressed and so sad, I couldn’t even breathe and I was just laying on the floor. I literally thought I was gonna die. I really did. I said, ‘What am I doing?’ I couldn’t get up. I’m like, ‘I can’t go. I can’t go anywhere.’ I just blew up my life. My life’s over. I truly thought that.’ I knew, when I was laying on that floor in my house, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is what they talk about. This is the lowest point I could get.’’

There’s something completely different that happens during a separation with children involved. There’s a different type of sadness, agony, yearning involved. That’s why we’re here specifically talking about divorce and dating in the aftermath when you have children, Like in Shahi’s scenario. She and Steve Howey were married between 2009 and 2021. In her memoir, Life Is Lifey: The A to Z’s on Navigating Life’s Messy Middle, Shahi described the divorce as a “PhD in pain”. She wrote, ‘I can’t go from friend to child to partner to pet making service calls. Yes, we can do the playdate after school. Sure, we can get sushi for dinner. I’d love to clean the kitchen. Oh, it would be my pleasure to give you a blowjob when the kids go down!’ Though it truly was best for everyone involved, seeing his wet signature on the final divorce paper was like having a piano dropped on my heart.’

But despite her and Howey getting divorced after spending almost two decades as a couple, Shahi didn’t view the ending as a failure. She previously told Us Weekly, ‘I was in a relationship for 18 years and have three beautiful kids. It is by every definition a success to me and we have a beautiful relationship — Steve and I — now as coparents. It’s important to show the kids, in my opinion, that when something is out of sync, you have to have the courage to let it go.’

I was so happy for Shahi when news broke of her new relationship with Adam Demos. She deserved to be loved and cherished after going through such turmoil in her life, and it was something so evident between them over the years that they truly were in a special place in their lives. That was at least was I saw as a third party looking in. But alas, they couldn’t make it work. They, too, broke up after a 5 year courtship. And I was going to include the word “even” when writing that they couldn’t make the relationship between them work, But now that we have more or less of a clear picture of the reasoning behind the split, I realize that their breakup, unlike what I initially thought, was actually inevitable, and it was only a matter of time that they actually went through it. Now that we have more or less of a clear reasoning for their split, I’m actually surprised that they lasted as long as they did!

By hearing Shahi open up about her breakup, it became abundantly clear that she and Demos had different visions for their relationship. You see, Demos seems (to me) like someone who doesn’t want to have children; like someone who truly likes freedom. It couldn’t have been easy for him to be with someone who did have children and navigating life together that not only included himself and the person he was with, but the three other people that came with her. When I say that, I keep going back to the very beginning of this blog entry, where Shahi spoke of not putting boundaries into place when it comes to her children; that the could do such things as come inside her bedroom and bathroom whenever they wanted and as they pleased.

In my own household with my child, that shit just doesn’t fly. I’ve always been very clear that my son NEEDS to learn boundaries; that he can’t always do whatever he wants whenever he pleases; that sometimes his parents need rest and time alone; that the word “no” does, in fact, exist. That’s exactly why I don’t agree with Shahi’s parenting style. By no means am I judging her parenting style, because everyone is entitled to have their own preferences of how to raise their children; but I certainly don’t agree with it, and even more so, I made it my mission to not imply it it to my own parenting style. That said, I can’t imagine being in Demos’ shoes, someone who doesn’t have children of his own, and being in a committed relationship with someone who has a parenting style like Shahi where there are no boundaries in place. Like, you’re telling me that if he was naked or having sex with his girlfriend, her children could come in and it’d be okay?

There’s no manual as to parent your child. As a mother (or father) you do the best you can with everything you have, as well as without everything that you don’t have. All you want is for them to be happy, and seeing them smile and laugh and have so much joy in all that you have to offer them is the best feeling in the world. This reminded me of Jeannie Mai. In 2024, Mai finalized her divorce from Jeezy following an explosive legal battle which saw her accuse him of domestic violence. Since that time, Mai has focused on her personal life and career in entertainment, which includes television appearances and other projects like a YouTube vlogging series and social media sponsorships. The ex-spouses share a four-year-old daughter, Monaco.

While appearing on the Question Everything podcast in January , Mai opened about divorce to host Danielle Robay and even compared it to a death. She said, ‘It’s one of the greatest pains that any human has to endure, honestly. Divorce is just-it’s experiencing death alive.’ That being said, when asked if she’d ever get married again, she didn’t rule out that possibility. Instead, she explained, ‘I actually would because I really don’t wanna ever put a block on myself. You can never put a container around love. You can never say, like, ‘Oh, I’m only going to find love,’ if I’m saying I’m never gonna get married again.’ And yet, at this point in her life, with her past marriage behind her, Mai reflected that she didn’t want a man in her life. She said, ‘Can we just bring back spending time by yourself? Journaling, being at home in your grandma panties and just not caring?’

I immediately thought of Shahi when I heard Jeannie Mai say this. In hindsight, maybe this was exactly the reason why Shahi’s relationship with Demos didn’t work out. Perhaps it was actually doomed right from the start. Perhaps their relationship always had an expiration date and was always meant not to last forever. This had to do with the time in between Shahi’s divorce from from Howey and the time she started dating Demos. There was practically NO break in between; no time alone for her to sit and reflect about what would be next for her and what she wanted for herself and her next relationship.

Getting into a new relationship too soon after a divorce is risky because it often acts as a band-aid for pain rather than a foundation for a healthy partnership, preventing necessary healing and self-reflection. Rushing in can lead to bringing unresolved baggage, repeating negative patterns, and choosing partners based on loneliness rather than compatibility. To break it down more thoroughly:

Here is why waiting is generally recommended:

• Need for Emotional Processing: Divorce involves grief. Ignoring this, or “numbing the hurt” with a new romance, often results in the emotions resurfacing later, causing the new relationship to “crash and burn”.

• Understanding What Went Wrong: Taking time allows you to reflect on your role in the marriage’s failure and learn from it, preventing you from bringing the same mistakes into a new relationship.

• Rebuilding Self-Esteem: A divorce can damage your sense of self. Time alone is crucial to regain confidence and understand who you are now, rather than relying on a new partner to validate you.

• Avoiding “Rebound” Pitfalls: Rebound relationships are usually short-term, based on needing companionship rather than genuine connection, and can leave you with more emotional damage.

• Setting Higher Standards: You may be tempted to settle quickly to fill a void. Waiting helps you establish higher standards for a partner, ensuring you don’t enter a new, bad relationship just to avoid being alone. 

A common recommendation is to wait for at least six months to a year before engaging in a serious relationship, allowing you to get back on your feet emotionally. It’s so crucial to be fully healed before getting into another serious relationship, and I wholeheartedly don’t believe Shahi did that in her in-between. She spent 18 years with this person she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with and had 3 children with him, and then she practically jumped into a new relationship not even a year later. She didn’t have time to get to know herself and who she was without her ex-husband. She didn’t have time to fully fall in love with herself before falling in love with someone else and giving her all to the other person.

Another podcast episode I loved was the one with reality star Rachel Lindsay when she appeared on Lovers By Shan. Lindsay, who’s actually a lawyer, talked about her life following her divorce from Bryan Abasolo. She didn’t have anything nice to say about her ex-husband, but was still trying her best to at least be cordial in the matter. I’m not thinking about getting divorced, but her conversation was immensely interesting. Her perspective on life before and after the divorce; as well as the in-between her divorce and the relationship she’s in now.

I absolutely LOVED listening to Lindsay’s take on divorce. I didn’t even want the episode to end; that’s how much I loved it. In her conversation, she emphasized how she found the true meaning of intimacy following her divorce. When she was still with her ex, she thought that intimacy was just about sex. Then she got divorced and developed new connections, friendships, relationships. She realized that intimacy was much more than that. It was about how you feel with the person in their presence. It doesn’t even have to be sexual. It can be completely platonic.

That was exactly what Lindsay needed to get to experience for herself before she ever considered getting into a serious relationship again following her divorce. That was what Shahi SHOLD’VE done following her divorce rather than get into such a serious, contentious relationship with someone new so soon after. It sucks that she had to go through yet another heartbreak. It sucks that her kids had to go through it with her again. And it suck’s for Adam Demos too. I’m glad she’s in a good place now. I’m glad she didn’t jump into yet another new serious relationship following the breakup with Demos. I’m glad she’s taking the time to do what’s best for herself and her kids. And I hope that in her next relationship, she takes the necessary precautions… to communicate, to make sure that she and her next partner are in tune with one another for the future ahead of them.