I brought my friend Deb Cooperman on to talk about what she calls her blended, extended upended family. When Deb met her ex husband, he had a one-year-old son, and in this episode she talks about the experience of co-parenting as a step-mom, and how her relationship with her ex, her step-son and his mom evolved over the course of their marriage, through their divorce, and beyond... Deb's story is one of what's possible when three or more people really do some hard work on themselves in order to get through the harder feelings and into acceptance, and even love.  About Deb: Deb Cooperman is something of a “writing evangelist” – as a workshop leader, and founder of The Writer Babes, she's been inspiring and encouraging women to use the powerful but simple practice of writing for personal growth for over 15 years. That's because writing is the best tool she’s found to help women stop the all-too-common knee-jerk habit of apologizing for nearly everything in their lives; to bust through perceived imperfections and ‘not good enough’s; recognize the messages and expectations they’ve internalized; shine a light on blind-spots, and help them claim their wisdom, strength, power, and intuition, and live more mindfully, intentionally, and awesomely. So if you've watched a boatload of TED talks and Super Soul Sunday episodes, read a ton of self-help books, followed a bunch of inspirational coaches on Instagram, and listened to podcast after podcast after podcast ... but you're still feeling like something's missing – that the dots just aren’t connecting – Deb wants you to know that writing is an amazing tool  to help you dig in to your experience, discover more of yourself on the page, and take a stand for a life you want to live.  For inspiration, tools, stories, pop culture references, poetry interludes, and all sorts of fabulosity to inspire and help you start your own writing practice or deepen your existing practice find Deb in these places: Website Instagram Facebook

In this episode, I interview Lyena Strelkoff. Lyena is a transformation coach, storyteller, and speaker passionately dedicated to advancing the way humans respond to change, challenge, and adversity. A lifelong dancer paralyzed in a hiking accident, Lyena’s entire life was elevated, not in spite of paralysis but because of it. Lyena is the creator of The Shero’s Way™, a modern, feminized approach to adversity that turns challenges into catalysts that catapult us upward. Lyena isn’t divorced, although she does tell us the story of how her parents’ divorce affected her. But I want you to listen to her story from the perspective of transformation. Listen for how Lyena transforms what could have been — should have been — the worst experience almost anyone can imagine into something full of grace and opportunity. And listen till the end where we discuss how this does NOT mean not acknowledging pain and suffering, but rather embracing all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This episode is about holding strong boundaries when telling your spouse that you want a divorce. I lay out how I work with clients to prepare for this really difficult conversation, how not to allow your spouse to hijack and control the narrative, and how to not take responsibility for things you know aren’t yours, even when your ex insists they are. In the intro, I talk about Mother's Day. How they've been in the past, and how it was this year.  Hint: I spent it with my ex and his wife... and it was truly LOVELY.

This episode is all about permission. It’s about how women seem to evolve in middle-age and how we seem to be outgrowing our marriages at alarming rates, and how to know if that’s ok or not. In the last few weeks as I’ve been speaking with clients there’s a recurring theme that keeps coming up. I keep hearing women say that their husband is a really nice guy, he’s a great dad, a great provider, they list their husband’s great qualities and then berate themselves for their own misery and usually end up in a wail of “why can’t i just be happy?” And often it's because they've changed over the course of time. You are allowed to change. You are allowed to grow. And you are allowed to choose to leave your marriage. If you’ve done all the work you can, if you’ve been to therapy, if you’ve asked your husband to go to therapy with you, if you’ve been bending yourself into a pretzel for the last ten years trying to take all the responsibility for all the things because you’ve been taught in 12-step rooms, in personal development programs, in therapy that you are responsible for your happiness, and you can create any relationship you want, but it’s still not fucking working, your marriage, at this point in time, may be unworkable. And that’s ok. And the thing that can be hard for us to wrap our minds around is that no one has to be at fault. No one has to be wrong. When something isn’t workable, it’s often no one’s fault.

Someone submitted this anonymous question to my website: My son often asks for his daddy. I don't know what to say to him. It breaks my heart because I've done everything I can to bridge the gap and encourage his father to be a part of his life. But he's totally absent. Only visits maybe 20hrs a month sometimes less. Can you give me any advice on what to say to my son about where his father is? Why he isn't here etc? These kinds of questions break my heart. According to Psychology today, "...24 million children live in biological father-absent homes— in the United States alone. And 1 in 3 children grow up without a father." What this means first and foremost is that you are not alone.  This episode gives top-tips for handling these questions, some of which depend on age and development, but most of which can apply across the board. At the end of the episode I break down the difference between divorced and single moms, and why I no longer EVER call myself a single mom. Wanna work with me? You have options! Is It Him or Is It You is a 60-minute laser coaching experience for women who want honest feedback about their current situation. ROOTED is a 5-week coaching experience for women who think they may want to leave their marriages, but who can’t seem to find the courage to make a decision, once and for all. The Divorce Worksheet Bundle is a $27 digital product in which you'll find everything you need to know in order to protect your children from any potential fallout from the divorce process. Included in this bundle is: How to tell your children you're getting divorced (four full pages of detailed information for all ages) Co-parenting agreement (7 pages of things you and your ex should be talking about before seeing a mediator) Children's Bill of Rights in Divorce (2 pages of rights for your children you and your ex should agree on and sign) Mutual Vision Statement (one page document guiding you through how to shift your relationship with your ex into this new phase) If you have a topic you’d like me to discuss on The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast, or a guest you’d like me to interview, please submit it here.

In this episode I look at dating after divorce, and how hard it can sometimes be to be the new person coming in when the exes are "besties."  I look at this from three angles, and give a prescriptive for how best to make this often difficult shift work. After our divorce, while we each dated other people, my ex and I still did holidays together, went to the theatre together, and had family dinners together. After all we’d been through we were now close, and as he began to date I took on the awkward yet esteemed role of First Wife. I’d befriend his girlfriends. Partly because it seemed easier; we could all just be a family, and it would be less complicated for our son. Or at least that's what I told myself. But the truth was that I couldn’t let go. I didn’t want to lose my spot as the primary woman in my ex’s life. We’d spent 10 years together, and I barely had an identity outside of him. ULTIMATELY IT WAS A POWER-PLAY BASED ON MY OWN INSECURITIES. I WAS PISSING ON MY TERRITORY, AND MY EX WAS MY TERRITORY. But when my ex started dating the woman he’s now married to, that all changed. We'd all been friends for a while, so knew what I was up to. She immediately set very clear boundaries and firmly (and rightly) pushed me off my perch. Ultimately I knew that this rearrangement of status was perfectly appropriate, but I also had a LOT of feelings about it. Being moved out of my position as First Wife gave rise to new layers of grief I’d never anticipated... ************************************* Wanna work with me? You have options! Is It Him or Is It You is a 60-minute laser coaching experience for women who want honest feedback about their current situation. ROOTED is a 5-week coaching experience for women who think they may want to leave their marriages, but who can’t seem to find the courage to make a decision, once and for all. The Divorce Worksheet Bundle is a $27 digital product in which you'll find everything you need to know in order to protect your children from any potential fallout from the divorce process. Included in this bundle is: How to tell your children you're getting divorced (four full pages of detailed information for all ages) Co-parenting agreement (7 pages of things you and your ex should be talking about before seeing a mediator) Children's Bill of Rights in Divorce (2 pages of rights for your children you and your ex should agree on and sign) Mutual Vision Statement (one page document guiding you through how to shift your relationship with your ex into this new phase) If you have a topic you’d like me to discuss on The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast, or a guest you’d like me to interview, please submit it here.

Whether your split is amicable or not, if you're separating from a mentally stable, otherwise reasonable person, there are steps you can take to keep it from going completely off the rails. Conversely, there are ways that the system is set up to be sure that it does... and all those ways benefit the system itself. When I first split from my husband I consulted a divorce attorney—a litigator. I wanted to educate myself on my rights before going into the process. California is a no-fault state, so no matter who did what to whom, the laws are pretty clear: 50% of all assets or debts incurred during the marriage would be mine. The state even has a calculating program called the DissoMaster for figuring out support based on percentage of custody and the incomes of both parties. Makes sense, right? My ex made more money than I did (I was a stay-at-home-mom, so he actually made all the money), so he would have to pay me child support and spousal support for a time. Except then the litigator began to show me that if we slid the custody bar of the DissoMaster over, my support would increase. More custody for me meant more money from my ex. When I told the attorney that I wanted my son to see his father 50% of the time, that he was a great dad, and that I didn't want to take my child away from him, he scoffed. He began throwing out scenarios in which I could disparage my ex in court so that I could get more custody, thus more money. In the process, the attorney was going to make gobs of money off of me and the fight he was about to stage between me and my ex. I didn't go down that road, and instead sought out a mediator who asked us an important question that set the tone for our entire divorce and mediation proceedings:  Do you want to put your son at the center, or in the middle, of your divorce? This episode tells the story of how that all came about and how I gave up my house in service of my son. ******************************************* Wanna work with me? You have options! Is It Him or Is It You is a 60-minute laser coaching experience for women who want honest feedback about their current situation. ROOTED is a 5-week coaching experience for women who think they may want to leave their marriages, but who can’t seem to find the courage to make a decision, once and for all. The Divorce Worksheet Bundle is a $27 digital product in which you'll find everything you need to know in order to protect your children from any potential fallout from the divorce process. Included in this bundle is: How to tell your children you're getting divorced (four full pages of detailed information for all ages) Co-parenting agreement (7 pages of things you and your ex should be talking about before seeing a mediator) Children's Bill of Rights in Divorce (2 pages of rights for your children you and your ex should agree on and sign) Mutual Vision Statement (one page document guiding you through how to shift your relationship with your ex into this new phase) If you have a topic you’d like me to discuss on The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast, or a guest you’d like me to interview, please submit it here.

Mickie Zada is a change-agent, a content creator and an advocate for women who have escaped domestic abuse.  Her passion is to inspire and empower survivors in their transition to safe, healthy lives.   Mickie speaks openly and honestly about living in domestic abuse for 34 years (she says she stayed waaay tooo long at the dance!), the reality of her mind-set during that time (most of the time she was married, she didn't recognize that she was an abused spouse) and her belief that we create our reality.  She says that there are as many excuses for remaining in abuse as there are women who stay.  She chose to believe it was her Calling to help her ex-husband stay between the lines.  Now she recognizes that she was not responsible for his life, the only person she could change was herself.  She always had the option to leave; she chose to stay. Finances, false security, personal insecurities, potential loneliness, responsibility for children, fear for safety... these are all reasons to stay.  Once we leave, we see that none of those excuses were valid.  As victims we bond with our excuses, we accept them as real.  They are not. Mickie is a strong believer in Dr. Wayne Dyer's statement, "When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change."  She teaches that the only way to change the cycle of abuse is through personal growth.   Abuse victims become survivors when we accept the reality of our past experiences and use those lessons to continue growing and sharing with others. Changing the way we look at our past creates the opportunity to change our lives.  And, to inspire others. Where to find Mickie: Website Facebook LinkedIn iTunes Additional Resources Mentioned in the episode: Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder by Paul Mason MS and Randi Kreger Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft

I often talk about my co-parenting relationship with my ex, and how hard we've worked to make it good. But that's not the whole story, and it's not always possible for everyone. Reading an article in Time Magazine by Jessica Henriquez called Raising My Son With My Ex-Husband is the Hardest Thing I've Done made me want to come clean about a few things...

My friend and colleague Sandi Herrera joined me to talk about how she married and divorced the same man twice, everything she learned in the process, and how understanding and honoring her core values has helped her evolve as a woman, mother, and business-owner. Sandi is the creator of Got Core Values, a nonprofit that is successfully creating positive cultures in schools leading to higher graduation rates and happier teachers. She is also the founder of Educator Dynamics which focuses on developing strong leaders in education around the world and creating youth empowerment camps. She is a single mom to her sixteen year old son, Hunter. Sandi has worked hard to achieve the life and the love that she has always dreamed of, living her life each day on purpose!