At 18, Karen McNenny wrote in a pageant essay that her greatest ambition was to write a bestselling book. She had no idea what it would be about. She certainly never guessed divorce.

In this first of three special episodes, Karen tells the origin story of The Good Divorce — from that Miss Montana essay to a publishing offer from Wiley/Jossey-Bass that arrived faster than anyone in the industry said it should. Along the way: a pandemic pivot, a stranger's persistent emails she almost ignored, two ghostwriters who flew to Missoula to squeeze her brain for two days, and a New York Times bestselling author who finally talked her off the ledge when the contract arrived and the reality of what she'd set in motion hit hard.

She also reads from Chapter Four, “The Kids,” on preparing to deliver the hardest lines of her life to an audience of two.

What happens when parents wait until the kids are grown to divorce — and then discover their adult children are not fine with it? In this rich and eye-opening conversation, Karen sits down with Dr. Carol Hughes, clinical psychologist, two-time Fulbright Scholar, and one of the true pioneers of the collaborative divorce movement, to challenge one of the most pervasive myths in divorce: that adult children don't need the same care and intentionality that minor children do.

Dr. Hughes shares the origin story of collaborative divorce — rooted in a single letter written on January 1, 1990 by Minnesota attorney Stu Webb, who declared he was "done going to court and destroying families" — and how that moment sparked a movement that has since trained over 25,000 collaborative professionals worldwide.

Together, Karen and Dr. Hughes explore:

• Loyalty binds — what they are, how they form, and why they damage children of all ages
• The five F's — fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and feign — and how our neurological wiring pulls us toward conflict when we feel unsafe
• Gray divorce — why divorce among adults 50 and older doubled between 1990 and 2012, and what research from Bowling Green State University predicts by 2030
• The biggest myth about adult children — why "they're adults, they can handle it" is not only wrong, but harmful
• Family before finances — why starting with the children, not the money, leads to better outcomes for everyone
• The "six-year-old within" — how adult children still carry the emotional vulnerability of their younger selves, even when they appear to be coping
• Creating a divorce story — how parents can paint a picture of the future that reduces fear and uncertainty for their children
• The statement of highest intentions — a collaborative divorce tool for helping couples get clear on what they actually want the process to look like
• Practical guidance for gray divorcing parents: how to involve adult children collaboratively in planning holidays, family gatherings, and transitions — without burdening them or writing them out of the story

Dr. Hughes also opens up about her own childhood experience of her parents' divorce — including a detail that will shock modern listeners — and how an unexpected phone call from a minor's counsel changed the entire direction of her career.

Resources & Links Mentioned:

• 📖 Dr. Carol Hughes' book: Home Will Never Be the Same Again: A Guide for Adult Children of Gray Divorce— available at Barnes & Noble and all major booksellers
• 🌐 Dr. Hughes' divorce website: divorcepeacemaking.com
• ✍️ Dr. Hughes and Psychology Today: Visit Psychology Today's guest blog
• 📖 Karen's book: The Good Divorce: How to End Your Marriage Without Ending Your Family
• 🎓 The Good Divorce Academy: Karen's online community and classroom for ongoing support and education
• 🌐 Work with Karen directly: thegooddivorcecoach.com
• 🤝 Collaborative Divorce Solutions of Orange County
• 🌍 International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) — trains collaborative divorce professionals worldwide
• 📖 Workbooks referenced: Our Family in Two Homes and A Family in a Few Homes — created by a Canadian collaborative divorce attorney for use with minor and adult children respectively

"Divorce is not a weapon — it's a tool. And when used well, it can be a tool for transformation." — Karen McNaney

What does it look like when a divorce attorney goes through his own divorce — and comes out the other side with a blended family, a co-parenting partnership, and a whole new perspective on his practice? That's exactly what Karen McNenny explores in this conversation with Raiford Dalton Palmer, Illinois divorce attorney, bestselling author, and CEO of STG Divorce Law.

Raiford's own 2015 divorce after a 24-year marriage shaped not just how he lives — but how he leads his firm and serves his clients. In this episode, he pulls back the curtain on what divorce law gets wrong, what families can do differently, and why his commercial litigation background may be the secret weapon more divorcing couples need.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Raiford's personal divorce story — what went right, what was hard, and how his blended family became a model of abundance over scarcity
• Why "simple" and "easy" are not the same thing when it comes to divorce
• How the adversarial, win/lose court system fails families — and the alternatives that are quietly changing the landscape (mediation, collaboration, arbitration, and the "1.5 attorney divorce")
• The 90/10 Rule: what attorneys can actually help you with — and what belongs with a therapist or divorce coach
• Cost-benefit analysis applied to divorce — why staying in a high-conflict process can cost you far more than the dollars you're fighting over
• Why social media silence is one of the smartest moves you can make during a divorce
• A preview of Raiford's upcoming book, I Just Want to Know How — the guide he wishes he'd had when struggling with his own marriage, and the book he believes couples should read before they ever say the D word
• Why going to marriage counseling early is not a sign you want a divorce — and why waiting too long is like treating stage 4 cancer

Resources mentioned:

• 📘 I Just Want to Know How — Raiford's upcoming book, expected Fall 2026
• 🎙️ I Just Want This Done Divorce Podcast — live Thursdays, drops every Friday on all major platforms and YouTube
• 💬 Illinois Divorce Support — free, anonymous private Facebook group (open to all, not just Illinois residents)
• 📲 Follow Raiford: @RaifordPalmer on TikTok, Instagram, and X
• ⚖️ STG Divorce Law, P.C. — https://www.stglawfirm.com/attorneys/raiford-d-palmer/ | Serving the greater Chicagoland area

Karen McNenny is the author of The Good Divorce: How to End Your Marriage Without Ending Your Family. To work with Kathleen directly or join her online community, visit TheGoodDivorceCoach.com and the Good Divorce Academy.

And remember: "Everything will be okay in the end — and if it's not okay, it's not the end."

Divorce is a death — of a marriage, an identity, a family, a home — and yet our culture offers almost none of the support it would for any other kind of loss. In this solo episode, Karen gets honest about the grief of divorce: why we wildly underestimate it, why we're often left to navigate it in isolation, and what it actually looks like to move through it with intention.

Karen introduces the concept of ambiguous grief — the particular pain of losing someone who is still very much present in your life as a co-parent — and why that "gone but not gone" experience makes healing so disorienting. She also calls out the trap of pain shopping: the social media stalking, the gossip, the drive-bys that keep picking at a wound that's trying to heal.

You'll also hear Karen's case for including divorce in the Family Medical Leave Act, practical advice for surviving those first brutal transition days when the kids leave for the other home, and why the goal isn't to stop caring — it's to reach a place of emotional indifference, where your ex's choices simply don't rattle you anymore.

This is an episode worth sharing with anyone in your support circle who wants to show up for you but isn't sure how.

Topics covered:

• Why divorce grief is invisible — and why that isolation makes it harder
• The many losses layered inside one divorce
• Ambiguous grief and the "gone but not gone" experience of co-parenting
• Pain shopping: what it is and why it sets you back
• How scars are different from wounds (and why that's good news)
• What emotional indifference actually means — and why it's the goal
• The grief-relief cocktail: feeling two things at once
• Practical tips for transition days when the kids leave
• Karen's advocacy for divorce-inclusive workplace policies

Resources:

• The Good Divorce by Karen McNenny
• The Good Divorce Academy — online community & classroom
• thegooddivorcecoach.com

"Everything will be okay in the end. And if it's not okay, it's not the end."

In this episode, Karen is joined by the "Freedom Team" — Keri Gwynne, CDC Certified Divorce Coach and CEO of Starting Point by Freedom, and Ryan Finley, CPA, CDFA, CVA, and founder of Freedom Financial Services Group. Together, they bring a uniquely holistic perspective to divorce: coaching, financial forensics, and mediation — all under one roof.

Both Keri and Ryan are survivors of high conflict divorce, and they share candidly how those lived experiences shaped their mission to help families navigate the process with clarity, compassion, and a child-centered lens.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• How Keri escaped an abusive marriage in the Nashville Bible Belt — and why shame kept her silent for so long
• What a CPA, CDFA, and CVA actually do — and why your attorney alone isn't enough to protect your financial future
• Forensic accounting explained: what it is, when you need it, and the red flags that signal hidden assets
• Real stories of hidden assets — from money funneled into a mother's account to overpaying the IRS by a million dollars!
• Why everything earned during a marriage is marital property — regardless of whose name is on the account
• The tension between faith and divorce: how Keri coaches clients through shame, scripture, and spiritual abuse
• How to talk to your church community about divorce — and why you're asking for support, not permission
• Keeping children at the center of financial decisions and co-parenting agreements
• The Marriage Mastermind — a new workshop by the Freedom Team designed to go upstream, helping couples build stronger marriages using what divorce professionals see break them apart
• The patterns that lead to divorce: financial secrecy, infidelity, pornography addiction, losing yourself in the relationship
• What it took for both Keri and Ryan to trust love again — and what they looked for the second time around

Connect with the Freedom Team:

• Keri Gwynne | Starting Point by Freedom Divorce coaching, mediation & family-focused guidance | Nashville, TN & Sarasota, FL 🌐 startingpointadvocacy.com
• Ryan Finley | Freedom Financial Services Group Divorce financial advisory, forensic accounting & mediation | Nashville, TN & Sarasota, FL 🌐 freedomfsg.com

Watch for the Freedom Team's upcoming Marriage Mastermind workshop in New York City — projected for early summer 2026.

Resources mentioned:

• The Good Divorce by Karen McNenny
• The Good Divorce Academy — online community & classroom
• thegooddivorcecoach.com

In this powerful episode of The Good Divorce Show, host Karen McNenny sits down with Dr. Debi Silber — founder of the Post Betrayal Transformation Institute, creator of National Forgiveness Day, and one of the world's leading experts on betrayal recovery — to explore why betrayal is a distinct form of trauma, and what it actually takes to fully heal from it.

Drawing on her groundbreaking PhD research and her own deeply personal experience, Dr. Debi shares the discoveries that transformed her understanding of betrayal — and the five proven, predictable stages that lead to genuine healing and transformation.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why betrayal is a different type of trauma that requires a different approach to healing
• What Post Betrayal Syndrome is — and the staggering statistics behind how many people are living with its symptoms
• Why "time heals all wounds" is a myth when it comes to betrayal
• The five stages of Post Betrayal Transformation — and the most common place people get stuck
• The difference between easily trusting and wisely trusting again
• How self-betrayal shows up in our lives and relationships
• Dr. Debi's own remarkable story — including rebuilding herself, her work, and ultimately her marriage

Whether you're walking through divorce, navigating co-parenting, or supporting clients in transition, this episode offers a framework for understanding one of the most underrecognized forms of trauma — and a roadmap to genuine transformation.

Resources mentioned:

• 📘 Unstuck by Dr. Debi Silber (her newest book, for practitioners)
• 📘 Trust Again by Dr. Debi Silber
• 🎙️ Podcast: From Betrayal to Breakthrough
• 🌐 Post Betrayal Transformation Institute: pbtinstitute.com
• 📅 National Forgiveness Day: September 1st
• 🏫 Betrayal Recovery Certification Program (for coaches and practitioners)

Connect with Karen:

• 📘 The Good Divorce — Karen's book on ending your marriage without ending your family
• 💼 Work with Karen: thegooddivorcecoach.com

One of the most overlooked — and potentially explosive — topics in divorce is also one of the most personal: when is it okay to start dating again? In this episode, Karen McNenny, divorce consultant and co-parent specialist, makes the case that the timing of that question matters less than whether both partners have actually agreed on the answer.

Karen walks through real-life examples from her work with divorcing couples, illustrating how the element of surprise — a discovered laptop conversation, an unexpected guest at a lunch that "meant nothing," a high school reunion that quietly rewrote the rules — can undo months of cooperative progress and poison settlement negotiations. When one partner feels blindsided or embarrassed, even a fair-minded co-parent can suddenly dig in on the fishing boat.

The takeaway isn't a rulebook; it's a framework. Think of it as red light, green light — identifying together what milestone triggers the green light on dating, and what boundaries (around discretion, the kids, the extended community) apply in the meantime. Karen also offers a gentle but honest reminder that the newly-single version of you, however hopeful and energized, may not yet be ready for a serious new relationship — and that giving one chapter a proper ending is the best gift you can give the next one.

📚 If you're enjoying the podcast, be sure to grab Karen's new book: The Good Divorce: How to End Your Marriage Without Ending Your Family

Have you been wondering if love is still possible after divorce — and how to avoid repeating the same patterns? In this episode, Karen sits down with Bela Gandhi, renowned dating and relationship expert and founder of the Smart Dating Academy, to talk about how to approach dating after divorce with intention, self-awareness, and real strategy.

Bela shares why most people's "people pickers" are broken — and why that's not your fault. She breaks down the three root causes (evolution, family of origin, and cultural messaging), explains why butterflies and grand gestures are actually red flags in disguise, and walks us through the proven system that has produced zero divorces among Smart Dating Academy clients in 15 years.

In this episode you'll hear about:

• Why readiness to date is about the work you've done, not the time that's passed
• The dating funnel, red flags, and why 15 dates before exclusivity is the rule
• When and how to introduce a new partner to your children
• The brain chemistry of falling in love — and why pacing protects you
• What to expect working with the Smart Dating Academy

Connect with Bella Gandhi:

• Podcast: Smart Dating Academy Podcast
• Website: smartdatingacademy.com
• Instagram: @SmartDatingAcademy

📚 If you're enjoying the podcast, be sure to grab Karen's new book: The Good Divorce: How to End Your Marriage Without Ending Your Family