Conversations About Divorce

One of the most common reasons for not ending a marriage is not wanting to break up the family. Yet, ask people who are post-divorce and they'll tell you with no uncertainty that they are still a family, just a bit different now.This tells us that the sense of family is important to many people and that what family means is fluid.So how do people accept their family is changing? What does family after divorce mean? What can you do to shape the family you have after divorce?Joining Mandy for this Conversation is relationship counselor and coach, Wendy Smith Baruc who has worked with couples and families for over thirty yeas. Wendy is the author of Accepting Your blended Family: A Handbook For Life After Divorce.Wendy is offering listeners a complimentary 30-minute consult. Contact Wendy through her website at https://wendysmithbaruc.com/.Get a synopsis of the show at Mandy's blog at https://sincemydivorce.com/wrong-thin-family-divorce .

Divorce is always an opportunistic event except that most people don't see it that way.It's opportunistic because at least for the person making the decision to end the marriage, they have concluded that life will be better outside the relationship. It doesn't mean that the divorce was what they wanted or that it isn't hurtful, painful and difficult. Nor does it mean that every aspect of their life will be better. Finances might be worse but emotionally it would be better. Lifestyle may change but parenting may become easier. Weighing all the considerations, the decision-maker sees that their life on balance would be better.And usually that's not just by a little. People often say that it's the 'I can't stand it any longer' type of better or the 'there is no hope of change' type of better, even the 'I'm going to make myself sick if I don't do this.'So what does it take to see divorce as an opportunity? What does it take if you aren't the one making the decision? Is there a way to make sure you aren't making a

The standard advice for a non-working spouse used to be to sit tight and not make any changes. They likely could continue to stay-at-home and may even get lifetime alimony. That's not the case any longer. Alimony is likely going to be limited in duration and more and more professionals are saying get back to work and don't wait.So what should you consider? What sort of work are you expected to be doing? How could this impact your spousal support?Joining Mandy for this Conversation is Ann Grant, an attorney who experienced her own high-conflict divorce and author of the recently published The Divorce Hacker's Guide To Untying The Knot: What Every Woman Needs To Know About Finances, Child Custody, Lawyers and Planning Ahead. Read more about Amy at www.TheDivorcehacker.com.You'll find a synopsis of this show at Mandy's blog: https://sincemydivorce.com/divorcing-still-working-might-regret

Typically, what happens in divorce is that one spouse keeps the marital home, buying out the equity of the other spouse, or the house is sold and the net proceeds shared.But more and more couples are finding that this won't work for them. Rising mortgage interest rates and increasing house prices are driving divorcing couples to see how they can continue to co-own the marital home after divorce.These arrangements can absolutely work however there are many details and situations that need to be considered and discussed up front so they can be written into your divorce agreement. It is not as simple as you might think.Mandy's guest for this Conversation is Joe Dillon, founder of Equitable Mediation. Joe has over 20 years of experience in mediation and specializes in helping couples negotiate a fair settlement and divorce peacefully and cost-effectively -without lawyers. Joe has a free download - 10 Compelling Reasons To Mediate Your Divorce which is available at his website https://www.EquitableMediation.comYou

Healing from divorce is something we all need to do. It applies just as much to the person who initiates the divorce as the person whose spouse makes the decision.Working through the recovery process stirs up so much - some from your childhood and family of origin, some from our cultural and societal norms and expectations and, of course, a whole lot from what happened during your marriage and previous committed relationships.While we all need to work on our healing, many people don't and the consequences of that plays out in our relationships with our family members, with our friends and with new intimate partners.So what does healing from divorce look like? How long does it take? What does it involve and how do you do it?Joining Mandy for this Conversation is transformational divorce coach and wellness strategist, Dawn Burnett. Dawn is the author of Connect: How To Love And Accept Yourself After Divorce. (available on Amazon)You can find a synopsis of this show at Mandy's blog: https://sincemydivorce.com/ea

When you hear a tale of abuse, whether it's in the news, a friend or a family member, and whether it's physical, emotional or financial abuse, do you find yourself wondering why the person doesn't just leave? Why do they stay?They know why. They know exactly what it takes to leave an abusive relationship. In fact, survivors have often left many times and the obstacles to being alone force them back to their abuser.Joining Mandy for this Conversation about leaving an abusive relationship are Jackie List and BreAnne Meyer with Safe Shelter of St. Vrain in Longmont, Colorado. Safe Shelter offers services to victims of abuse, working with them to develop their safety plan for remaining in the relationship or leaving.The national domestic abuse hotline is 1-800-799-7233 and the website is http://thehotline.org.Find a synopsis of this show at Mandy's blog: http://sincemydivorce.com/know-takes-leave-abuser

Juggling parenting and working is hard enough - doing it when your children are in two homes is even more challenging. When you're trying to make sure your child's other parent is on the same page with schedules, transportation, homework, activities, play-dates, doctor's appointments, it's easy for something to fall through the cracks.In fact, it's inevitable. You know it's going to happen and you just hope that it won't be something too important.Who doesn't want an assistant? Well, chances are you already do have an assistant - your smartphone and if you haven't discovered this yet, there are lots of digital tools available to help your life easier.Joining Mandy for this conversation is Priya Rajendran - a technology veteran and creator of S'moresUp, a free iOS app that helps families manage parenting and particularly co-parenting after divorce. Priya developed her app based on what she learned during her own single parenting experience.You can read a synopsis of the show at Mandy's blog: https://sincemydiv

Apologies are powerful - done well, they open the door to healing, make amends for wrong-doings and may lead to forgiveness and rebuilt relationships.The absence of a sincere apology on the other hand, can make relationships worse, destroy trust and create obstacles to healing.In the context of divorce, the lack of a heartfelt apology can lead to bitterness and resentment over the end of the marriage, and may seriously hamper the ability of parents to work together for their children.But apologies are often in short supply. What difference does an apology make? What makes it so difficult to say 'I'm sorry'? Should you ask for an apology?Joining Mandy for this Conversation is divorce coach Martha Bodyfelt from SurvivingYourSplit.com.You can find a synopsis of this Conversation at Mandy's blog here: https://sincemydivorce.com/apology-make-right-divorce

The gold standard in parenting after divorce that we're all supposed to aim for is co-parenting - you work collaboratively on all aspects of your child's life with your ex. You work to adopt common parenting strategies, have consistent rules between homes, attend events together, and some even vacation together.The reality is that very few parents can accomplish this all the time and for some parents this is an impossible standard most of the time. Trying to follow co-parenting strategies may actually cause more conflict and leads to stress and anxiety for everyone, including your child.The alternative model is parallel parenting, something that isn't talked about enough. Joining Mandy for this Conversation is Jai Kissoon from Our Family Wizard, the third party communication platform which helps parents managing their parenting and reduces the conflict.There's a synopsis of this show posted at Mandy's blog: https://sincemydivorce.com/parallel-parenting-doesnt-make-bad-parent

If you're looking for guidance on divorcing with adult children, you might not find much.They tend to be the forgotten demograhic: the legal system is all about minor children and there simply hasn't been much research on the impact of divorce in adult children. That's probably because until recently divorce among people with long term marriages was less common. That's changing and in fact, the divorce rate among people aged 50 and older is increasing. That means more and more adults are experiencing their parents' divorce.What we're finding is that the age of the children doesn't matter - they will still care that you're divorcing and their age doesn't make it any easier or harder to handle. Their age brings its own set of problems and complications.Joining Mandy for this Conversation is divorce-attorney-turned divorce adviser and coach Karen Covy. Karen's mission is to help people understand their divorce options so they can make choices that will help them not only survive their divorce but put them in a p

Household bills, credit card bills, bank charges, late-payment fees, kid expenses, mortgage refinancing, IRA transfers ... divorce often means having to deal with all of these all at once. It's a deluge that can be overwhelming even if you are used to handling all the finances. If you haven't been handling the finances, then you might feel like you're drowning.Layer on top of that the emotions and beliefs we all attach to money and it's no wonder people procrastinate and delay dealing with this and end up feeling incompetent and inadequate.But living on a fixed income, with no one else sharing the financial responsibilities means we do have to deal with it, and the sooner the better. But where do you start, and how do you do it?Joining Mandy for this Conversation is Shannon McLay, CEO of The Financial Gym. Shannon believes the key to financial success for most people is human contact, not a website or an app and given the right guidance, anyone can be financially fit.Find out more about working with a financi

As a divorce coach and blogger,  I hear lots of stories about people's marriages - they write and share the awful things that have been going on, often times for years, Then they say they really feel like throwing in the towel and calling it quits but should they?They feel guitly, scared, embarassed, ashamed, afraid for the kids, can't afford to leave and sometimes even wonder if their reason for wanting out is good enough.If things are so bad and have been so bad for so long why do they stay? What keeps them from leaving?Joining me for ths Conversation is Alex Delon, author of Leaving You ... For Me. Alex left her marriage of 47 years, with a medicare card in her pocket and bravely entered singledom. In this frank, honest and vulnerable Conversation Alex shares how she was pressured to accept her marriage for so long, normalized the mistreatment and rationalized staying until the final straw.You'll find a synopsis of the show at Mandy's blog. 

Most people don't make snap decisions to end a marriage and that's as it should be. Getting a legal and financial assessment about the impact of divorce is helpful but how do you assess the emotional relationship? And if it's your spouse who's deciding to end the marriage, how do you know whether to keep fighting for the marriage or to accept their decision?Joining Mandy for this Conversation are Elaine and Joe Foster, co-authors of I Wish I Knew This Before My Divorce: Ending The Battle Between Holding On And Letting Go. Their book is available on Amazon and features the marital autopsy, developed by Elaine Foster based on the 24 factors that are most often found in divorcing couples.

Have you ever met anyone who said their divorce was easy? The legal process may be easy for some but the emotional process of ending a marriage is challenging for virtually everyone. People often describe it as the hardest life experience they've faced.Getting divorced has a way of bringing out the worst in the best of us. It shakes your confidence, your self-esteem and fills you with self-doubts and fears of not being enough - not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough, not capable enough ...These are self-limiting beliefs and they hold us back from rebuilding our lives after divorce and from living life to our potential. The solution starts with self-love and compassion. Attorney turned life-coach Sunny McMillan says that while the mainstream may see this as fluffy and self-indulgent, she believes they are the cornerstone to divorce recovery and coming out on the other side whole.Listen in to Mandy's and Sunny's Conversation as they chat about why most people struggle with self-love and how yo

It doesn't matter who it is, best-friend, niece, cousin ... who wants to go to an event celebrating a marriage when your own marriage is falling apart or if you're in the middle of all the legal wrangling or even when you're just starting out on your own again?Can you say no to wedding invites?Can you go solo, even before you and your spouse have gone public?Who else can you take as a plus one?How do you handle those awkward questions from extended family members?Joining Mandy for this Conversation is Elise Pettus, founder of Untied.net, an online magazine and real-life community based in New York, for women going through divorce. Pettus says weddings are the perfect opportunity to push yourself out of your comfort zone and to start exploring the next phase of your life and she has plenty of suggestions for keeping them fun.Check out Mandy's Since My Divorce blog for a synopsis of the show. 

Regardless of how civil or amicable you want your divorce to be, disagreements are inevitable. Knowing how to calm anger in divorce could be your key to resolving these disagreements and staying out of the courtroom.When you're negotiating over the division of assets and how to parent together, and the hurt and pain are fresh and raw, it's hard to approach this simply as a business negotiation. It's easy to let all the past history bubble up into angry outbursts.Those angry exchanges can continue long after the divorce is final when you're parenting together.Are there things you can do to calm your SBTX's anger?If you're uncomfortable around anger, is it possible to stop yourself from walking away, withdrawing?What if it's you who's angry? Is it healthy to get angry? How can you stop yourself from directing your anger at other people?Joining Mandy to explore this Conversation is attorney, mediator and peacemaker Douglas Noll. Doug coaches people as diverse as Fortune 500 company executives and inmates in maxi

Many couples don't discuss their child's college expenses at the time of their divorce for two reasons. One, typically, courts have no jurisdiction over this and there is no requirement for parents to pay for their child's college education so many lawyers recommend leaving it out of the divorce agreement. Two, when getting everything else resolved has taken so much time and effort, who has the energy to discuss something that isn't required?That could be a big mistake and at the very least, financial aid expert Paula Bishop says couples need to agree to meet and discuss financial aid before their child starts the application process. Not doing so, could make the cost of attending college significantly more for your child.Listen in to this Conversation to learn the key points about financial aid including how to determine who is the custodial parent and the difference this makes.Paula offers some key resources for how to pay for college without going broke at her website.You'll find a synopsis of the show at

Nobody likes to think their spouse is lying to them but if you're getting divorced, the chances that they are not being entirely truthful increases and you need to be alert to that possibility. Accepting everything they say as fact could hurt you.If you've always believed your spouse, how to do start to detect the lies?On the otherhand, if you're convinced now that everything out of your spouse's mouth is a lie, how do you know what's true?What are the telltale signs the experts watch for? Joining Mandy for this Conversation is body language expert, Traci Brown. Traci is often seen on TV analyzing the likes of Lance Armstrong, Hillary Clinton, Tom Brady and Tonya Harding. She is the author of How To Detect Lies, Fraud and Identity Theft.You can find a synopsis of this show at Mandy's blog, SinceMyDivorce.com. 

Most people don't want a litigated divorce. They want a civil divorce. They hope their spouse will agree that the marriage is over and then they can discuss the parenting and finances as reasonable people who once loved each other. No one wants the nastiness and expense of a courtroom battle and no one wants long, drawn out negotiations that keep you locked in a state of limbo for months.The good news is that you can have a civil divorce and the key to that is being emotionally prepared to choose that path. It's not easy. It requires patience and maturity and a commitment to that path.Joining Mandy for this Conversation to chat about how you can choose a civil divorce is Sally Boyle, a certified finanical planner and certified divorce financial analyst. Boyle is also the author of Deconstructing Divorce: Taking The Mystery Out Of Divorce And Its Impact On Your Family, Finances, and Future.You can find a synopsis of the show at Mandy's blog Since My Divorce.

Whether you like the term or not, gray divorce is real and the rate for midlife divorces in the U.S. is increasing. Most of the time, the kids are adults or in college so the absence of parenting issues can make the divorce easier. Conversely, there may be more assets that need to be divided and this makes these divorces more complex. What is clear, is that midlife splits are not easy or straight-forward and men and women experience these divorces very differently.Listen in to discover what drives these divorces, the social penatly that men often pay and the financial challenges women have to overcome.Joining Mandy for this episode Jocelyn Elise Crowley, Ph. D, professor of public policy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Crowley's most recent book is, Gray Divorce: What we Lose and Gain From Mid-Life Splits.You can find a synopsis of the show at Mandy's blog, Since My Divorce