Most married couples hold their largest asset in the same place, which is the house. Deciding what happens to it turns out to be a school question, a community question, a budget question and a lending question at the same time, and Kim Pauley says that is exactly why nobody should be answering it alone.

Kim Pauley is a certified divorce lending professional with a mortgage lender serving New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. She is also a lawyer by training, a former civil litigator, though she is careful that this is not the hat she wears with clients. What the legal background gives her is a sense of what a client should be asking their own attorney. The divorce lending certification came after she noticed how many of her clients were separating and how much she did not yet know about what they were walking through.

In this episode, Kim explains a team model that will sound familiar to anyone who has heard Chris and Lisa describe the legs of a table: an attorney or mediator, a divorce financial planner, and a lender, each checking the others. She starts every engagement with one question, which is what your goal is, and she expects that a person coming out of a controlling relationship may need months to answer it. From the goal come the scenarios, and from the scenarios come the specific terms that have to be negotiated into a separation agreement while there is still time.

The conversation gets specific about the terms themselves. How much spousal support you need in order to qualify for the mortgage you want, and the conditions attached to it before a lender will count it: consistent amounts, deposited on schedule, ordered rather than voluntary, and continuing for a defined period. What can be used as income when somebody has been raising children rather than drawing a paycheck, from bank statements and business accounts to a retirement account received in the division of assets. The automatic orders that stop either spouse selling or spending during a case. And why the consultation is free, since a mortgage professional is only paid at closing.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why a lender belongs in the conversation at the start of a divorce, not the end
• What a certified divorce lending professional does, and why the consultation costs nothing
• How spousal support has to be structured before a lender can count it as income
• Qualifying without a traditional paycheck: bank statements, a small business, retirement assets
• The automatic orders that freeze big financial moves once a case is filed
• Starting from your goal, then working backward to what the agreement has to say
• The financial moves to avoid making before you talk to a professional
• How to find a divorce lending professional if you are outside her states

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 What a certified divorce lending professional actually does
4:00 The team approach, and the house sitting in the middle of it
6:00 Starting from the goal instead of the numbers
8:00 Automatic orders, and why most brokers wait until it is over
10:00 Getting involved early, and why it costs nothing
12:00 Structuring spousal support so a lender will count it
16:00 A legal background, and knowing what to ask your attorney
18:00 Qualifying without a paycheck, and what counts as income
20:00 Moves to avoid, and the bar-stool council problem
23:00 Finding someone like her outside New York

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

In this episode, your ex is saying things about you to your kids — subtle digs, cold remarks, sometimes open lies — and every instinct is telling you to defend yourself. Here's the hard truth from a co-parenting coach who has seen it hundreds of times: the more you go on the defense, the guiltier you look.

Our guest is Anthony Johnson — “AJ, the Co-Parenting Coach.” Before he coached parents, AJ spent 15+ years in the military, including a role as a sexual-assault response coordinator who walked survivors — almost all of them mothers — through some of the hardest moments of their lives. That trauma-informed lens shapes how he coaches parents toward healthier, lower-conflict co-parenting today, and he's candid that the real work usually lives beneath the surface: “the problem is never the problem.”

You'll hear what to actually do when a co-parent disparages you — the difference between the procedural fight and the personal one, why “competitive parenting” comes from a place of being unhealed, and the quiet, often unintentional ways parents undermine each other to their kids (the “make sure the school sends that to me, not your dad” move). AJ shares the exact language he uses with his own son to explain that two parents can simply “love differently” without one becoming the villain — and where the line is when the other parent is genuinely unsafe.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

✅ What you'll learn

• Why going on the defense makes you look guilty — and the “sacred ground” alternative
• The procedural fight vs. the personal/emotional one — and why you need both
• “Competitive parenting”: the insecurity under one-upping your co-parent
• The covert, often-unintentional ways parents disparage each other to the kids
• BTGO's “3 U's” — casting the other parent as unsafe, unloving, or unavailable
• How disparagement backfires: the loyalty bind, resentment, kids who learn to manipulate
• AJ's script for teaching kids that two parents can “love differently”
• When your co-parent is genuinely unsafe — protecting/documenting vs. disparaging

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 When your ex bad-mouths you to the kids (and why defending yourself backfires)
6:29 Who AJ is: the “healing” side of co-parenting + his trauma-informed background
11:36 Competitive parenting: the ego and insecurity underneath it
19:07 The covert ways parents disparage each other — and the “3 U's”
24:58 How it lands on kids: the loyalty bind, resentment, parentification
26:37 “Mom and I just love you differently”: AJ's script for kids
33:39 Mama Bear vs. Papa Bear (and why Mama Bear gets bitten in court)
38:38 When the other parent is genuinely unsafe
43:18 Where to find Anthony

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your priorities: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183

The return gets rejected because someone has already claimed your children. Nancy Rossner says the reaction she meets at that point is usually a belief that nothing can be done, and that this belief is wrong: there is a process, it works, and there is free legal help for it in almost every state.

Nancy Rossner is an attorney and the executive director of the Community Tax Law Project, a low-income taxpayer clinic in Richmond, Virginia that has been running for a little over thirty years and serves the whole state. It is part of a national network of clinics funded to provide free legal services to people with IRS or state tax agency problems, and her clinic gives advice as well as full representation, so a question does not have to become a case. The national list lives in IRS Publication 4134. This is her return visit to the show.

Nancy lays out how taxes get used as a weapon after a separation: filing first to claim children the other parent is entitled to claim, filing as married jointly without consent, and using a former partner's Social Security number to open a business or take out loans. She explains the paper-filing route when an electronic return bounces, what the IRS letter that follows will ask for, and why keeping copies matters even when your living situation is unsettled. She also details the identity protection PIN program, which is open to every taxpayer with no proof of abuse required, along with its real-world friction: a fresh number each year sent to your address on file, identity verification through a third-party service, and no way out of the program once enrolled.

The second half is about liability. Signing a joint return makes you responsible for the tax owed, including tax assessed later if the return is audited, whether or not you earned anything. Nancy explains innocent spouse relief, the three separate subsections it lives under, and why the IRS weighs domestic violence and signing under duress heavily while treating deliberate incuriosity as no defense. She and Lisa then talk about getting a family lawyer and a tax attorney to coordinate before the agreement is signed: who claims which child in which year, what happens if support goes unpaid, who carries any tax debt, and the fact that the earned income tax credit cannot be traded away even when the dependent credit can. She closes with free filing options and a change in the law that opens that credit to some separated spouses filing on their own.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Where to find a free low-income taxpayer clinic in your state, and what they will answer without taking your case
• What to do when your return is rejected because someone already claimed your children
• The IP PIN program: how it blocks a fraudulent filing, and the catches to know first
• Why to pull your credit report on a schedule when an ex has your Social Security number
• What signing a joint return commits you to, even with no income of your own
• Innocent spouse relief: how duress is weighed, and why not looking is not a defense
• Agreement language on who claims the kids, who owes any tax debt, and unpaid support
• The child-related credit that cannot be handed to the other parent, whatever the decree says

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Free tax clinics, and the IRS publication that lists them
3:00 Filing first to claim your kids, and filing jointly without your consent
5:00 When your return is rejected: the paper route and what to keep
8:00 The identity protection PIN program, and its catches
12:00 Credit reports, and businesses and loans opened in your name
15:00 What signing a joint return actually commits you to
22:00 Innocent spouse relief, duress, and the head-in-the-sand problem
26:00 Getting your family lawyer and a tax attorney to coordinate
28:00 Claiming the children: what can be negotiated and what cannot
34:00 Free filing programs, and a change to the earned income tax credit

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 The Community Tax Law Project: https://ctlp.org/

🎧 More with Nancy Rossner on this podcast
Ep 249: Protecting Your Taxes in a High-Conflict Divorce

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Boys will be boys is a phrase Tosha Schore refuses, and her reason is practical rather than political: it hands a frightened parent nothing to do. If a child's behavior has you scared, she would rather you treat it as information about what he is carrying than as a stage to be waited out.

Our guest this episode is Tosha Schore, founder of Parenting Boys Peacefully, who works with parents of young boys around four things she names as the whole method: caring for yourself, connecting with your child deeply, setting limits lovingly, and playing wildly. Her clients' children are hitting, kicking, spitting, swearing and hurting siblings, and she is unbothered by any of it. She says the two things that make her useful are that she is very good at loving limits, and that she is impossible to shock, which matters when shame is the reason most parents never mention this to anyone.

Tosha and Lisa spend the first half on the parent. Why worry gets in the way of helping, illustrated with a flight attendant during turbulence and what a passenger reads off them. Why self-regulation has to come before co-regulation. What a child's numbing behaviors look like, from nail biting to chewing through a shirt collar, and why aggression is the surface of feelings that have nowhere to go. They also talk about how the limits you set, or fail to set, model for a son what he will accept and what he will do in his own relationships later.

The rest is what to change. Tosha names the mistakes she sees most: waiting it out, using isolation as the consequence, and carrying it alone. She explains why sending a scared child away compounds exactly the feeling driving the behavior, and walks through her five steps, which are setting yourself up for success, connection, scanning for the pattern behind what looks random, loving limits, and play. Lisa's own story runs alongside it: a teenage son who started raging at home, and a therapist who told her that was the sign the work had finally reached something.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why "boys will be boys" leaves a worried parent with nothing to act on
• How to tell a normal pushy stretch from behavior that needs addressing
• Why your own regulation has to come before you can steady your child
• The numbing behaviors that signal a child is carrying more than they can process
• Why shutting down the crying tends to make the hitting worse
• What loving limits are, and what a son learns from the limits you do not set
• Why time-outs and being sent to the office backfire on a frightened child
• The five steps: setting up, connecting, scanning, limits, and play

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why "boys will be boys" leaves you with nothing to do
5:00 Loving limits, resentment, and what your son learns from both
7:00 Worry gets in the way, and the flight attendant in turbulence
10:00 Warning signs, numbing behaviors, and what sits under the aggression
12:00 Why shutting down the crying makes the hitting worse
13:00 Lisa's son, and the therapist who called the anger progress
21:00 Time-outs, isolation, and the mistakes that compound it
25:00 The five steps, and where to start this week

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Tosha Schore at Parenting Boys Peacefully: https://parentingboyspeacefully.com/

🎧 More with Tosha Schore on this podcast
Ep 209: Aggressive Kids, Loving Limits, and Connection
Ep 352: When Your Child Comes Home From Your Ex's Enraged

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Few things are more terrifying in a custody fight than a knock from Child Protective Services, and few people can explain what's really happening better than someone who used to be the one knocking. In this episode, attorney and former CPS caseworker Evynne Fair joins Lisa to pull back the curtain.

Evynne is honest about both sides: CPS exists for real, urgent reasons, and it also gets used by a vindictive ex to harass, delay, and gain leverage. She and Lisa cover how a caseworker separates a genuine concern from a strategic allegation, why the same report plays out differently county to county, what a proper forensic interview looks like and the signs a child was coached, and the rise of false abuse allegations as a "silver bullet" in custody battles, and how those claims end up hurting real survivors.

This is strategic education, not legal advice for your specific situation.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ What actually happens when CPS gets involved in a custody case
 ✅ How a caseworker tries to tell a real concern from a strategic allegation
 ✅ Why the same report plays out differently county to county
 ✅ What a proper forensic interview looks like, and the signs a child was coached
 ✅ How false abuse allegations get used as a "silver bullet" in custody fights
 ✅ Why those false claims end up hurting real survivors
 ✅ How to raise a genuine concern with CPS the right way
 ✅ How to keep your footing if a report is filed against you

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 CPS and domestic violence: the intended role vs. the reality
 8:24 When a report is a weapon, not a concern
 12:20 Inside the caseworker's world
 18:01 Empathy, burnout, and staying civil
 29:30 Coached kids and the forensic interview
 39:40 False allegations in high-conflict custody

CTA (spoken): Facing a CPS report or false allegations? Book a free discovery call at beentheregotout.com.
 Books: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183 · Been There Got Out — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/
 Tags: cps, child protective services, false allegations, custody battle, forensic interview, coached child, vindictive ex, high conflict divorce, protecting your kids

Aileen Creagh had a student tell her she would love to bring her friends to the studio, and then say she was not going to. This is the one place she goes where she is not who she is everywhere else, and she wants to keep it that way. Aileen told her that was allowed.

Aileen Creagh is the owner of Empowered Aerial Fitness in Stamford, Connecticut, a studio built around pole, aerial hoop, aerial hammock, flexibility, and dance. She is a mother of five, eight years divorced, and she came to this the way many of her students do, through a friend talking her into a class. She had danced and done gymnastics for years and still describes that first hour as humbling. What kept her coming back was not the skill. It was a group of women who showed up for their own reasons, worked hard some nights, were silly on others, and occasionally cried, and who she says carried her through the end of her marriage. She opened her own studio with that as the goal.

She and Lisa talk about why she refuses to market any of it as becoming sexy again, and what happens to the people who count themselves out before they walk in because they assume they are not young enough or fit enough. Aileen's position is that confidence is the thing that reads, not a look, and that the equipment is neutral.

The core of the conversation is what this offers someone in the middle of something unbearable. Aileen describes dancing out whatever she arrives with, including nights where all she does is roll side to side on the floor and breathe. She talks about the difference between a gym where nobody looks up from the desk and a room where somebody knows your name, and why an hour of that helps without anyone having to discuss their trauma. She tells two student stories, one about a friend who bought herself a pair of six-inch shoes and could not stop looking at her own legs, and one about a student who would not take her shirt off for months and now competes. She closes on what her mentor told her she was actually selling, which was permission, and on the smallest unit of progress she will accept from a beginner.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why a community you do not have to explain yourself to can help as much as one you do
• What is wrong with framing any of this as getting your confidence back through looks
• Using movement to discharge anger, grief, or exhaustion on a specific bad day
• What separates a studio from a gym, and why being known by name changes the hour
• How a room of every shape and size dismantles the reason people stay home
• The smallest version of progress worth counting, and why it compounds
• What her mentor meant by saying the product is permission

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Five kids, a divorce, and the class that carried her through it
5:00 Why she refuses to sell becoming sexy again
9:00 Confidence over a look, and bruises as badges
11:00 Dancing out anger, sadness, and exhaustion
14:00 Community as medicine, without talking about your trauma
19:00 A room of every shape and size, and two students who changed
25:00 What her mentor meant by selling permission
28:00 Progress that counts, and where to find the studio

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Empowered Aerial Fitness, Stamford CT: https://www.empoweredaerialfitness.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

One sentence in your custody order does a lot of work in this episode: who holds educational decision-making rights for your child. When that sentence is vague, a disabled child's whole education can turn into one more thing to fight over, and the school is not going to settle it for you.

Lisa Lightner has been a special education advocate since 2011 and runs A Day In Our Shoes, a site with hundreds of articles on IEPs, along with a podcast called Don't IEP Alone. She started where many of her clients start, as the mother of a disabled child navigating her first IEP, and built a business out of what she learned. She and Lisa Johnson work through the parts of special-needs parenting that get harder, not easier, once the parents are no longer together.

They begin with the situation Been There Got Out hears constantly: a child gets a diagnosis, and the other parent simply refuses to accept it. Lisa's answer is to stop expecting the school to fix a parenting dispute and instead get educational decision-making spelled out in the order itself. From there she covers the notice loophole (a school only has to invite the parent at the address on file), why most schools act on one signature, and what an IEP actually is: an Individualized Education Program backed by the 1975 IDEA law and the right to a free and appropriate public education.

The back half moves past childhood. Support for a disabled child does not end at 18: IEP eligibility can run to 21, insurance to 26, and disabled adults can apply for SSI. Lisa lays out guardianship versus supported decision-making, why guardianship removes a person's autonomy and should not be entered lightly, and the detail that stops many parents cold, that you cannot will guardianship to another child. She closes on how to vet a child psychologist honestly in a system short on providers.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why "who has educational decision-making rights" belongs in your custody order or parenting plan, not left to the school
• What an IEP actually is, and the 1975 federal law (IDEA) and free-appropriate-education right behind it
• What to do when your co-parent refuses to accept your child's diagnosis
• The notice loophole: a school only has to invite the parent at the address on file, unless you tell them otherwise
• Why most schools accept one parent's signature, and how joint decision-making changes that
• Planning past 18: staying in school to 21, insurance to 26, and applying for SSI as a disabled adult
• Guardianship versus supported decision-making, and why you cannot simply pass guardianship to a sibling
• How to vet a child psychologist the way you'd vet an attorney: ask how they'd build rapport with a child like yours

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 From IEP mom to special education advocate
3:00 What an IEP is, and the IDEA law behind it
5:00 Would your child qualify? Requesting an evaluation, and FAPE
7:00 When your co-parent won't accept the diagnosis
10:00 New partners at the IEP meeting, and who you can't uninvite
13:00 Getting educational decision-making into the parenting plan
15:00 One signature, and the meeting-invitation loophole
17:00 Travel and autism: social stories, rehearsing, and role-play
21:00 Support past 18: school to 21, insurance to 26, and SSI
23:00 Guardianship versus supported decision-making
31:00 Favoritism, finding a child psychologist, and the provider shortage

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 A Day In Our Shoes — Lisa Lightner's IEP resource site: https://adayinourshoes.com
🔗 Don't IEP Alone podcast + IEP toolkit: https://adayinourshoes.org

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Someone is told that if they leave, the photos go public. So they stay. Attorney Lindsay Lieberman calls that sextortion, and she points out it runs on the same mechanism as any other coercive control: the threat does the work, so the person making it never has to follow through.

Lindsay Lieberman is a New York attorney who has spent over a decade representing people harmed by sexual violence and cyber sexual abuse, including image-based abuse, sextortion, and AI-generated content. She works across state lines, trains other law firms and their staff in trauma-informed practice, and teaches cyber safety in schools, colleges, and Greek organizations. She does law enforcement trainings as well, because the criminal side of this consistently runs behind the technology.

She does not handle divorces. What she does is join a divorce or custody case as a consultant and co-counsel so the family law attorney has somebody who can put the offense in context for a judge who may never have seen one. In this episode she and Lisa get into how content and identifying information get published together so the harm keeps renewing itself, how families and whole communities absorb the shame alongside the person who was targeted, and why the outdated question about why someone created the content in the first place still surfaces in these cases. They also cover a pattern Lindsay says gets missed entirely: men are frequently the ones caught in online sextortion scams, and they are the least likely to ask anyone for help.

The conversation turns to how lawyers treat the people who hire them. Lindsay's standard is that nobody should walk out of a law firm feeling worse than when they walked in, and she is candid that this is not something law school teaches. Lisa describes clients who arrive on their third or fourth attorney, much of that down to how they were spoken to during years of litigation. Lindsay explains free consultations, contingency lawsuits, and what she can do for someone who mainly wants to understand their options rather than file anything at all. It closes on prevention, and why she spends her time in classrooms.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• What cyber sexual abuse covers, and how sextortion functions as coercive control
• Why identifying information posted alongside an image is what makes the harm ongoing
• How AI-generated content puts people at risk who never created anything themselves
• How an attorney who handles these crimes works alongside your divorce lawyer
• Why police and family courts struggle with this evidence, and what that means for you
• How men get caught in online sextortion scams, and why so few of them report it
• What trauma-informed lawyering is, and why it changes how a case goes
• Free consultations and contingency cases: how this representation actually gets paid for

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 What "revenge porn" actually means, and how the laws lag behind
5:00 Sextortion, and the harm that reaches families and communities
9:00 When restraining orders don't stop it, and bringing in outside counsel
13:00 Why divorce attorneys need help with these cases
15:00 AI-generated content, and why police struggle to investigate
19:00 Coercive control, and why the legislation is contested
23:00 The fear of hiring a lawyer, free consults, and contingency cases
27:00 Trauma-informed lawyering, and clients on their third attorney
35:00 Men, sextortion scams, and the shame that stops reporting
39:00 Prevention, and teaching cyber safety to the next generation

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Some people decide to leave in a single afternoon, usually after finding out about an affair. For others it takes years of small things stacking up until staying hurts more than going. Karen Covy says the slow version is harder to act on, because there is no single event to point at and nothing that feels like permission.

Karen Covy is a divorce lawyer, mediator, arbitrator and collaborative divorce professional who also works as a coach, and she has spent decades on the part of this that happens before anyone files. She wrote When Happily Ever After Ends, now in its second edition, hosts a podcast about decision-making called Off the Fence, and built an online program called the Divorce Roadmap. She is careful about the distinction at the center of her work: she helps people make the decision for themselves, and does not make it for them.

Karen and Lisa start by normalizing the timeline. Two to seven years is common, and sitting in it is not a character defect. From there they get practical about planning, because Karen's position is that nobody in a high-conflict or abusive marriage should wake up one morning and file. She talks about building access to money discreetly, through cash, gift cards, prepaid cards or a trusted relative, and about avoiding a paper or digital trail. About employment, and starting that before you leave. About local domestic violence centers and how much is available there for free, which Lisa can speak to firsthand. And about shoring up children in advance: therapy started while the household is intact, school counselors and doctors briefed in advance, friendships supported.

The second half is about the children and about you. Why Karen advises telling kids nothing until the plan is in place, and what to say when they can obviously tell something is happening. Why the calmer, more capable parent is often the one the children come down hardest on, illustrated by a story about a father who did not learn the reason until his kids were grown. Whether there is a good age to do this, and what actually determines how hard children take it. And then the part that applies whether you leave or stay: how to rebuild the capacity to make a decision after years of having it taken from you, starting with the smallest ones you can find.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why the stay-or-go decision takes people years, and why not deciding is also a decision
• Why marriage counseling isn't the answer once you already know, and what to do instead
• What a leaving plan includes: money you can reach, a job path, and no digital trail
• Shoring up your kids first: therapy, school contacts, and why the status quo matters later
• What to tell your children before you go, and why telling them early backfires
• Why kids so often side with the parent they think is less able to take it
• Why a pros and cons list won't get you to a decision
• Rebuilding decision-making after coercive control, starting with what you order for dinner

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why the stay-or-go decision takes years, and why that's normal
4:00 The obvious trigger, and the slow accumulation
7:00 Couples counseling, and when the professionals work harder than you do
10:00 Kids: conflict is the variable, not divorce
12:00 Making a plan instead of waking up one day and filing
14:00 Money you can reach: cash, gift cards, and the digital trail
17:00 Shoring up the kids, and the free resources people don't know exist
20:00 Therapy before the separation, and what to say when kids sense it
25:30 Why kids side with the parent they think can't handle it
28:00 Timing, and what children actually react to
32:00 Pros and cons lists, decision fatigue, and getting your agency back

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Karen Covy: https://karencovy.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.

Most divorces never reach a courtroom. Tracy Moore-Grant says that one fact should change how you start: not by gearing up for a fight, but by choosing people whose whole aim is to resolve it.

Tracy Moore-Grant has practiced family law for 22 years near Atlanta, where she is also a mediator, a parent coordinator, and a guardian ad litem for children. Around 2019, worn down by watching cases turn hostile because of the professionals involved, she founded the Amicable Divorce Network, an international organization that vets attorneys, financial professionals, and others on experience, a resolution focus, and fair billing. She likes to say the network is full of golden retrievers, not pit bulls.

In this episode, Tracy and Lisa talk about keeping a divorce as low-conflict as the situation allows, even when one person is not. Tracy explains how the amicable approach differs from collaborative divorce, including why it does not make you surrender attorney-client privilege or start over with new professionals if the case ends up in court. They walk through the red flags of a high-conflict lawyer, from guaranteed outcomes to hostile emails, and why hiring for anger means paying for anger.

They also get into the bigger picture: why attorneys are the true gatekeepers of court conflict, how the network trains professionals to work through hard roadblocks like addiction and personality disorders instead of running to a judge, and why a second opinion is always your right. Tracy closes with what to ask before you hire, including how often a lawyer actually ends up in court, and why the beginning of a case, before any expensive mistakes, is where your options are widest.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why hiring the "pit-bull" attorney usually costs more and gets you less
• How the Amicable Divorce Network vets professionals on experience, resolution, and fair billing
• How an amicable approach differs from collaborative divorce, and keeps your confidentiality
• The red flags that tell you a lawyer will escalate a case rather than resolve it
• Why getting a second opinion on your case is completely your right
• Why attorneys, not just the parties, are the real gatekeepers of court conflict
• Why the large majority of cases settle, and what it means to start by resolving
• The questions to ask before you hire, including how often a lawyer actually goes to court

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 The pit-bull myth, and setting your money on fire
3:00 What the Amicable Divorce Network is, and why it vets professionals
5:00 How it differs from collaborative divorce, and keeps your privilege
7:00 When a cooperating case turns: Lisa's $80,000 lesson
9:00 The red flags of a high-conflict attorney
13:00 Your right to a second opinion, and who your lawyer works for
17:00 Being a teammate, and taking strategic oversight of your case
19:00 Training professionals to resolve hard cases instead of running to court
21:00 Why over 90% of cases never see a courtroom
31:00 Starting right, and the questions to ask any attorney

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Tracy Moore-Grant at the Amicable Divorce Network: https://www.amicabledivorcenetwork.com/

🎧 More with Tracy Moore-Grant on this podcast
Ep 237: What a Child-Centered Divorce Really Means

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.