When a parent walks away from the marriage and from the children at the same time, the child gets a wound with no funeral attached. Marnie Grundman calls it grieving the living. There is no casserole, no flowers, and a lot of people who would like you to be finished with it.

Our guest is Marnie Grundman, a Canadian therapist, speaker, and author who specializes in healing from narcissistic family systems. She has been no contact with her mother for most of thirty years, ran away from home repeatedly as a child, and was living on the streets by thirteen. She wrote a book about it, which turned into a career: advocating for kids who end up on the street, and working with adult survivors of childhood abuse.

Her own father was absent until she was grown, and she uses that to show how the standard adult explanations fail. It's his loss means nothing to a small child who can only feel her own. So she and Lisa build the alternative, which is honest without being a character assassination: you can say that some people act to meet their own needs and do not see who they hurt, and that you cannot speak to what is in someone else's head, and that it is not okay. What you cannot do is tell a child that the person who abandoned them loves them, which lands as taking that person's side, and which a returning parent will use against you twenty years from now.

The rest of the conversation ranges wider. The teenager who says a death would at least be legible to other people. Flipping the mirror when someone asks your child a nosy question about their family. Why there is no deadline for being over something, and how journaling by hand reopens what you had forgotten. What emotional abuse looks like when it is a pattern rather than a sentence, and why the golden child is not the one who got away with it. Marnie also describes her ongoing groups, including a newer one for daughters-in-law of narcissistic families.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why "it's his loss" is the wrong thing to say to a child whose parent left
• What to say instead, and how to be honest without attacking half of who your child is
• Why telling a child the parent who left still loves them puts you on that parent's side
• The better answer when your child decides the abandonment was their fault
• Grieving a parent who is still alive, and why other people want you finished with it
• How to handle other people who ask your kids why they don't speak to a parent
• Emotional abuse as a pattern rather than a sentence, and what it teaches a child
• Golden child, scapegoat, invisible child, and why none of them came out unharmed

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Who Marnie Grundman is, and the theme of abandonment
3:00 The discard that includes the children
5:00 Growing up without a father, and the explanations nobody gave
9:00 Grieving a parent who is still alive
13:00 The child who blames themselves, and a better way to answer
15:00 "But they still love you," and why that sentence backfires
17:00 What to say when other people ask about your family
21:00 Minimizing your own trauma, and journaling through it
31:00 Emotional abuse as a pattern, not a sentence
35:00 Golden child, scapegoat, and Marnie's groups

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
🔗 Marnie Grundman at Marnie Speaks: https://marniespeaks.com/

🎧 More with Marnie Grundman on this podcast
Ep 32: When Your Ex Aligns With Your Family
Ep 45: Why Kids Won't Talk to the People Meant to Help

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.

Ask a California family court where custody starts, and the answer is usually 50/50. That works when both parents are ready, willing, and able. Padideh Jafari spends her days on the cases where one of them is not, and where the court still begins from equal time.

Padideh Jafari has practiced family law in California for twenty years, with a background in psychology and earlier work in a District Attorney unit handling child abuse cases. She takes cases across Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, and Riverside counties, and she and Lisa have become friends over a run of conversations; this one is about access schedules and protecting children. She is blunt that treating mothers as the superior parent is a form of sexism, and equally blunt that a 50/50 default is the wrong fit when the other parent is unsafe.

Jafari lays out what you can ask for when equal time would put a child at risk. In one high-conflict case, her firm filed quickly for a temporary restraining order, secured random drug testing, moved exchanges to a police station with a neutral monitor, and held the line against overnights, all without relying on supervised visitation, which courts rarely grant early. She explains how an expert can submit a declaration based on documented videos and records rather than a live evaluation, which can get a judge to treat a case as high-conflict from the start and order safeguards and parenting classes for both sides. She also talks through why judges push parents into mediation and prefer not to decide these questions themselves.

The back half is about the long game of protecting a child. Because emotional abuse is hard to document, Jafari steers parents toward getting the child their own therapist, separate from the parent's, whose testimony carries weight a parent's own words never will. She covers the deadlock when one parent vetoes needed therapy, and the option of school-based counselors. She explains material change of circumstance, and when a custody evaluator or minor's counsel is worth the cost, including the reality that in California children do not testify. And she is practical about move-away cases and about drafting: measure distance in miles, not minutes, and put every holiday, birthday, and school break in writing.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why California courts start from 50/50 for two fit parents, and what changes that
• Safeguards to ask for when the other parent isn't safe: supervised visitation, drug testing, police-station exchanges, no overnights
• Why supervised visitation is hard to get out of the gate, and how an expert declaration can help
• Proving emotional abuse: why the child's own therapist, not you, has to say it
• What to do when your co-parent vetoes therapy the child needs
• When the other parent farms out their time: material change of circumstance, custody evaluators, and minor's counsel
• Move-away cases: why 50/50 makes relocation hard, and why the parent may have to travel, not the child
• Parenting-plan drafting: use miles not minutes, and put every holiday in writing

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why 50/50 is where California courts start
5:00 When the other parent isn't safe: a case, and a restraining order
7:00 Supervised visitation, drug testing, and police-station exchanges
13:00 Using an expert declaration as leverage early in a case
17:00 Are court orders public? Privacy and the court of public opinion
22:00 Why the mask falls off, and letting an ex dig their own grave
25:00 Proving emotional abuse: why the child's therapist has to say it
29:00 When your co-parent vetoes therapy the child needs
35:00 When the other parent farms out their time: evaluators and minor's counsel
45:00 Move-away cases and relocation
53:00 Parenting plans: miles not minutes, and every holiday in writing

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
🔗 Padideh Jafari at Jafari Law Group: https://jafarilegal.com/team/padideh-jafari-orange-county-family-attorney/

🎧 More with Padideh Jafari on this podcast
Ep 52: How a Difficult Ex Weaponizes the Legal System
Ep 53: Frivolous Motions and Weaponized Alienation

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.

There is a concept Ian Steinberg calls the guilt window. Early in a divorce, a spouse who feels responsible for how the marriage ended will often give up more to settle, whether that means letting you stay in the house or agreeing to more support. Wait long enough and the guilt curdles into anger, and the window closes.

Ian Steinberg is a partner at the matrimonial firm Berkman Bottger Newman & Schein, practicing in New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and New Jersey, with a focus on high-net-worth cases and contested custody. He came to family law from real estate, wanting work with more personal contact, and he points to a decade of refereeing hockey, starting at fourteen, as where he first learned to hold steady while adults yelled at him.

Ian and Lisa work through the parts of a case people misread. New York is a no-fault state, so the reason for the divorce rarely moves the financial math, though it can still matter where custody is at issue. Title does not decide who owns what: money earned during the marriage is generally marital, whatever name the account is in, with narrow exceptions for gifts, inheritance, and personal-injury awards. And a workable settlement usually leaves both sides a little unsatisfied, because both had to give.

They also talk about the psychology of the other side, including the spouse who needs to feel they got the last word, and how a lawyer builds a proposal around that. Ian is candid about his own guardrails: the emails he has written and deleted, the 24-hour rule his father taught him, and the sanity checks he runs past other attorneys before he reacts. His rule for clients is simple. Anything you would not want a judge to read should not be sent.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why "no-fault" means the reason for your divorce rarely changes the financial outcome
• The guilt window: how a spouse's remorse becomes settlement leverage, and why it closes
• Why title doesn't control in New York, and what counts as marital property regardless of whose name is on it
• Treating a settlement as a package, not an a la carte list you give away piece by piece
• Buying your freedom: how to weigh what settling fast actually costs you
• Why you should write every text, email, and post as if the judge will read it
• The 24-hour rule, and the "permission slip" for anything you want to send your ex
• What a useful relationship narrative for your lawyer includes, and what to leave out

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 From real estate to matrimonial law, and what makes a good divorce lawyer
5:00 Refereeing hockey at fourteen, and staying calm under fire
7:00 "I want the judge to care": what no-fault actually means
9:00 The guilt window: turning remorse into settlement leverage
13:00 Compartmentalizing emotion, and building a team
15:00 The relationship narrative your lawyer asks for
23:00 Why title doesn't control marital property in New York
25:00 Leverage, and treating a settlement as a package
29:00 Buying your freedom, and the math of settling fast
31:00 Writing every text and post as if the judge will read it
35:00 The 24-hour rule, the "permission slip," and civility in court

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
🔗 Ian Steinberg at Berkman Bottger Newman & Schein: https://www.berkbot.com/attorneys/ian-steinberg/

🎧 More with Ian Steinberg on this podcast
Ep 364: Making Mediation Work With a High-Conflict Ex

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.

If your ex seems to be using the court itself as a weapon, endless filings, motions that go nowhere, a case that never ends, you're not imagining it, and it has a name. Family lawyer Brittany Blainey joins Lisa to talk about legal abuse: what it is, how to recognize it, and what can actually be done about it.

Brittany practices with a trauma-informed approach, starting with realistic expectations and clear communication. She and Lisa get into how a high-conflict ex weaponizes the system, what vexatious litigation means and how courts respond, and why translating "legalese" into plain language is one of the most protective things a lawyer can do. Naming the tactic is the first step to not being run over by it. General education; Brittany practices in Ontario, so specifics vary by jurisdiction.

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ What legal abuse is, and how to recognize it in your own case
 ✅ How a high-conflict ex weaponizes the court system
 ✅ What "vexatious litigation" means, and what courts can do about it
 ✅ Why a trauma-informed lawyer changes the whole experience
 ✅ How to set realistic expectations with your attorney
 ✅ How to translate "legalese" so you can make real decisions
 ✅ How to keep endless filings from breaking you financially and emotionally
 ✅ What to look for in a lawyer who actually understands high conflict

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 What legal abuse actually is
 10:03 Trauma-informed lawyering and setting expectations
 16:40 Navigating the divorce itself
 24:50 Vexatious litigation and translating "legalese"
 35:26 Where to find Brittany and Elm Law

CTA (spoken): Worn down by a case that never ends? Book a free discovery call at beentheregotout.com.
 Books: Been There Got Out — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/ · When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183
 Tags: legal abuse, vexatious litigation, brittany blainey, weaponizing the court, family court, trauma informed lawyer, high conflict divorce, elm law

Picture the clerk's office in your local courthouse. Somewhere in it is a person whose job is to arrange accommodations for people with disabilities, under the same federal law that put ramps on public buildings. Donna Drumm says almost no one going through a divorce knows to ask for them, which is why she calls it the secret shield.

Donna Drumm is a New York attorney and an ADAAA-certified disability advocate. She is also the program director for the legal studies program at Mercy University, where she teaches non-lawyers how to read the law, write legal documents, and advocate for themselves. Her focus on courtroom accommodations began after she watched a highly capable woman with PTSD get worn down by a lawsuit, and saw how the right supports could have changed that whole experience.

Across this conversation, Donna explains what the Americans with Disabilities Act entitles you to once you are in a case. That can mean an extension when anxiety makes a filing deadline impossible, a judge instructed to keep proceedings civil so an aggressive opposing counsel cannot rattle you, scheduled breaks, help reading a document, or a virtual appearance. She lays out how broad the definition of disability actually is, why the request is private and never sent to the other side to argue against, and what a medical provider needs to write to support it.

She and Lisa also take on the worry clients raise most, whether disclosing a disability can be turned against them in a custody fight, and how to think it through case by case. Donna talks about recognizing PTSD you did not know you were carrying, the difference between your intellect and your executive function, and what to do when your own attorney has never encountered any of this.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• The accommodation most people never think to ask for, and who to ask (the ADA liaison in the clerk's office)
• What the ADA can get you inside a courtroom: filing extensions, mandated civility, breaks, help on the stand
• How wide the legal definition of disability is, from PTSD and anxiety to remission and pregnancy
• Why an accommodation request stays private and doesn't go to the opposing party
• How to weigh whether to disclose a diagnosis when custody is at issue
• How to talk to a lawyer who has never heard of ADA accommodations in court
• The early signs of PTSD people miss in themselves, and why to listen to the people around you

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 The "secret shield": accommodations in every courtroom
5:00 The ADA liaison, and how to request accommodations
7:00 Who can ask, even if you're self-represented
9:00 Real examples, from filing extensions to a civil courtroom
15:00 What the court won't do for you
16:00 How wide the definition of disability really is
19:00 Can a disability be used against you in custody?
23:00 False "mentally ill" allegations, and "regarded as" discrimination
27:00 Recognizing PTSD you didn't know you had
31:00 Executive function vs. intellect, and where to find Donna

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
🔗 Donna Drumm at Drumm Advocacy: https://drummadvocacy.com/
🔗 Donna Drumm on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drummadvocacy/

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.

There is a question underneath the question of whether to sell the house, and it is whether you can still make a decision this size. Lisa describes hiring a contractor years ago who asked what she wanted her kitchen to look like, and finding that she had no answer, because her preferences had stopped mattering long enough that she had put them away.

Jen Purzycki is part of the Purzycki White Real Estate team in San Clemente, California, which specializes in real estate sales during divorce and estate settlement. The team carries certification in divorce real estate along with mediation training, and Jen arrived at the specialty through probate, after her father's estate produced the same kind of conflict she now works in every week. She is direct about what makes these sales different: an ordinary sale involves a family who wants the same result, and this one involves two people who want opposite ones and have to agree anyway.

She and Lisa talk about taking the heat out of it and treating the house as a business decision, which Jen says protects the number at the end. They get into deferred maintenance, the appliances and repairs that stopped happening while the marriage was coming apart, and what her team does to fix that before a house goes on the market.

The rest is the checklist. What you owe and what your equity actually is, which your lender can confirm. Safety issues that will hold up a buyer's loan: mold, water intrusion, termite damage, electrical. An inspection you should get even if you are buying your spouse out, because you inherit whatever it finds and you want to know before you sign a settlement. The full monthly cost of keeping the house, including taxes, insurance, and association dues. The capital gains exclusion, which is worth considerably more while you are still married, and how the payout to your spouse should be structured with your attorney. Jen also describes the referral network her team keeps on hand, from forensic accountants to hoarding specialists, and closes on the part of this that lands on children: the house is their safe place, they should not be asked whether to sell it, and they should never hear that the other parent is forcing it.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• What a divorce real estate specialist does that an ordinary agent does not
• Why treating the sale as a business decision protects the final number
• Deferred maintenance: why it shows up in almost every divorce listing, and what to do
• The pre-sale checklist: payoff, equity, safety issues, and a real monthly cost
• Why you want an inspection even when you are the one buying your spouse out
• How the capital gains exclusion changes depending on when you sell
• The buyout question, and the only reliable way to establish market value
• What to say and what never to say to your kids about the house

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 What a divorce real estate specialist does differently
5:00 Her own family's estate fight, and why it changed her practice
7:00 Decision paralysis after years of having no say
11:00 Deferred maintenance, staging, and readying the house
15:00 The pre-sale checklist: equity, safety, insurance, inspection
18:00 Capital gains timing, and structuring a buyout in the settlement
20:00 The referral network, from forensic CPAs to hoarding specialists
21:00 Kids, the house as their safe place, and what not to put on them
24:00 The spousal buyout, and how fair market value gets set

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
🔗 Purzycki White Real Estate Team, San Clemente CA: https://www.purzyckiwhite.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.

Family court is not a referee, and Asia Scarlett-Jones would rather you stopped asking it to be one. Parents arrive wanting a judge to look at the person their ex really is. Her answer, from years working inside a courthouse before she went into practice, is that judges are trained to spot the noise, that they will not read most of it, and that your actual argument gets lost underneath it.

Our guest this episode is Asia Scarlett-Jones, a matrimonial and family law attorney in New York City making a return appearance. She worked as a court attorney alongside a judge earlier in her career, which is the source of a lot of what she says here about what does and does not land. In her own practice she leans hard toward mediation, and she has restructured how she sells legal help, offering subscription access rather than a large retainer, because most of what her clients need is a quick answer rather than a case.

Asia and Lisa start with the ex who will not stop, and why responding to every message keeps it alive. From there: domestic violence and custody as separate legal questions, and the difference between abuse a court will restrict parenting time over and abuse it will treat as a matter between the adults. Why child support and parenting time do not offset each other. The obligation that comes with residential custody, including facilitating a relationship with a parent who is habitually late or absent. What the court does when a parent who has been gone for years wants back in, which is usually a stepped plan rather than a door closed. And relocation, where Asia's counterintuitive advice is to offer the other parent more time than they have now.

The last stretch is about the ways parents damage their own cases. Social media, including a clause in her retainer and the fact that she reads your relatives' pages too. Reporting a scraped knee to child protective services, and what repeat reports do to your credibility. A false allegation of sexual abuse that ended with custody changing hands. Children turned into informants, and how that habit turns on the parent who taught it. Underneath all of it, Asia says, is control, and she is blunt that no court order will hand it to you.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why answering every lie in writing buries the argument you actually want read
• Where domestic violence stops being a custody question and starts being an adult one
• Why unpaid child support does not cancel the other parent's time with the kids
• The obligation that comes with residential custody, even when the other parent no-shows
• How courts step a long-absent parent back into a child's life
• Relocation: why offering the other parent more time can strengthen your request
• Social media, your relatives' posts, and what opposing counsel is already reading
• Calls to child protective services, false allegations, and what they cost you

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why arguing back with a high-conflict ex keeps it going
4:00 Answering every lie, and what a judge will actually read
5:30 Domestic violence and custody are two separate questions
8:00 Child support and parenting time do not cancel each other out
9:30 The residential parent's job: facilitating a relationship you resent
12:30 Bringing back a parent who disappeared, one step at a time
15:30 Relocation, and why offering more time strengthens your request
20:00 Social media, your family's posts, and what opposing counsel checks
23:00 Control, and the reports to child protective services that backfire
29:30 Building co-parenting skills, and knowing what you actually want

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
🔗 Asia Scarlett-Jones at ASJ Law Office: https://asjlawoffice.com/

🎧 More with Asia Scarlett-Jones on this podcast
Ep 71: What Your Family Lawyer Can and Can't Do

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.

Faith is supposed to be a refuge. For some people, it becomes the very thing an abuser uses to keep them in line. In this episode, licensed psychotherapist and certified partner trauma therapist Chelsey Brooke Cole joins Lisa to explain how narcissistic people exploit religious settings, and how to see it clearly.

Chelsey is clear this isn't an argument against faith. It's about how religious spaces reward trust, deference, and forgiveness, and how a narcissist can turn those values into tools for control while looking upstanding. She and Lisa cover leaders who use spiritual authority to avoid accountability, how "just forgive and move on" gets weaponized, why your gut is often right even when someone looks devout, and how isolating it is to speak up and not be believed. The goal isn't to leave your community, but to protect yourself inside it.

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

✅ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
 ✅ What spiritual (religious) abuse actually is, and what it isn't
 ✅ Why religious communities can attract and shelter narcissistic behavior
 ✅ How spiritual authority gets used to dodge accountability
 ✅ The way forgiveness and "second chances" get weaponized to bury harm
 ✅ Why your gut is often right even when someone looks devout
 ✅ Why survivors in tight communities are so often disbelieved
 ✅ How to protect yourself without abandoning your faith
 ✅ The first steps toward healing after spiritual manipulation

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS (+1:00 for the bumper)
 0:00 Intro
 1:00 What spiritual abuse actually is
 5:43 Why narcissists gravitate to religious communities
 21:41 How faith and forgiveness get weaponized
 32:00 Trusting your gut, and where to find Chelsey

CTA (spoken): Recovering from narcissistic or spiritual abuse? Book a free discovery call at beentheregotout.com.
 Books: Been There Got Out — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Relationships-Circumstances/dp/194627495X/ · When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You — https://www.amazon.com/Been-There-Got-Out-Against/dp/1967674183
 More from Chelsey: chelseybrookecole.com
 Tags: spiritual abuse, religious abuse, narcissistic abuse, religious trauma, spiritual manipulation, weaponizing forgiveness, narcissism, healing after abuse, high conflict divorce

The false sense of amicability: that is what Rhonda Noordyk calls the pull that keeps people agreeable while their case falls apart. She has recorded an episode on the false sense of financial security too, and the one still sitting unrecorded in her queue, because she is still working out how to approach it, is the false sense of justice.

Rhonda Noordyk is the founder and CEO of the Women's Financial Wellness Center, which she started in 2014 after years in the financial industry and a stretch teaching in higher education. She wanted a model that helped people through the financial side of divorce without any financial product being sold at the end of it, and when she went looking for one to copy, there was not one. She works with clients across the country and hosts the podcast Divorce Conversations for Women. She is also open about why she is good at this: her own trauma history, a childhood that taught her to be passive, and the years it took to learn to be assertive instead.

Rhonda and Lisa talk about the layers of harm in a family law case. There is the harm from the relationship, the harm from the system, and then the harm from professionals who are not trauma-informed and make it worse. They cover what happens when an attorney shuts down a client's questions often enough that she starts to believe she is the problem, when the things she is asking for are communication, transparency, and respect. They cover why emotions cannot be left at the door in a financial conversation, and why Rhonda refused to work the way her colleagues told her to.

The rest is method. A vetting question to use on any professional, which is to ask for a specific example of a case like yours and what came of it rather than accepting a reassurance. Identifying the gaps in a case, whether those are gaps in information, confidence, income, or transparency. Two cases from her own files, one where an account was frozen in time and one where the same request went unanswered until the account had lost a significant amount of value. And Lisa's own account of representing herself, prevailing, and ending up published as case law in Connecticut.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why a professional who is not trauma-informed can set a client back
• The false sense of amicability, of financial security, and of justice
• What it means when an attorney shuts down a client's questions
• The vetting question to ask: give me a specific example and the outcome
• Why we handle every kind of case is a red flag, not reassurance
• Identifying the gaps in a case: information, confidence, income, transparency
• Why asking early about freezing or splitting an account can be worth real money
• Knowledge plus experience: how confidence gets rebuilt after a controlling relationship

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Leaving the financial industry to build something that did not exist
3:00 What makes someone good at this work, and why trauma-informed matters
5:00 Being retraumatized by your own professionals
7:00 The false sense of amicability, of financial security, and of justice
10:00 When your attorney shuts you down, and who is left holding the case
14:00 Emotions and money, and why nobody leaves them at the door
17:00 Vetting a professional: ask for a specific example, not reassurance
21:00 Strategy, budgeting, and identifying the gaps
23:00 Freezing one account and splitting another: two cases, two outcomes
30:00 Agency in your own case, and the confidence formula

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
🔗 Women's Financial Wellness Center: https://wfwcdivorce.com
🔗 Rhonda Noordyk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhondanoordyk/

🎧 More with Rhonda Noordyk on this podcast
Ep 152: Asserting Your Financial Rights in 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.

The child is screaming at the parent who left the abusive relationship, throwing things, and this time making contact. That parent is bigger and stronger, or lately maybe not, and either way cannot stop this by force. The other parent has already told the child, and anyone else who will listen, that this is what happens in that house.

Dr. Wayne Benenson has taught for fifty years. He started in inner-city junior high classrooms, spent time in early childhood education, and carried a caseload of kids labeled oppositional defiant, along with autistic students who could go from calm to airborne with no warning in between. He now teaches mindfulness to children and adults, in person and over video, and he co-authored Claim Your Light with Dr. Barb Hughson. When he sits down with a child he introduces himself as a teacher rather than a therapist, because most kids already know what a lesson is and have no idea what therapy is supposed to do to them.

This conversation came out of BTGO clients raising the same problem: their kids are getting physical with them, and the shame is keeping them from asking about it. Benenson starts by separating two very different children. One is overwhelmed and has no shock absorber for a feeling that size, sometimes with attention issues underneath it. The other has chosen the fight and is enjoying the control. He responds to those differently, and he is specific about how: sidestepping rather than absorbing, refusing to answer an insult, naming the intensity out loud, and stating the boundary once. A child has every right to be furious. They do not have the right to do violence to a person or to property.

He also works through the parent's side of it. Where you go to get grounded before you respond, and the pause between an inhale and an exhale where that becomes possible. Why trying to absorb a child's rage teaches them that rage is acceptable, and what happens when they try it on someone less safe. Why saying "I am not able to give you what you need right now" is good parenting rather than failure. How to bring a child who insists nothing is wrong to a first session. The two banks of the river, fight-or-flight on one side and numb on the other, and how he gets kids to tell him honestly which one they live on. And the answer he gives when a child repeats something the other parent said about you, which contains no defense at all.

Lisa tells her own version of this. Her son, raging, bigger than she was, and her calling his therapist to ask if she could send him somewhere else for the night. What the therapist told her instead, and how long it took before the storm passed.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• How to tell an overwhelmed child from a defiant one, and why the response is different
• Why you never answer the insult, and what to say instead of defending yourself
• Naming the intensity out loud, and letting your child watch you bring your own number down
• The pause between an inhale and an exhale, and why you cannot untie a knot while pulling on it
• Why appeasing a raging child makes the next outburst bigger
• How to admit you are at your limit without turning it into a verdict on your parenting
• How to get a child who says nothing is wrong to show up for a first session
• What to say when your child repeats something the other parent said about you

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Kids who get physical with the safe parent
5:00 Overwhelm or defiance, and why it changes your response
9:00 Never answering the insult, and why appeasing makes it bigger
15:00 Rating the anger one to ten, and controlling the narrative
19:00 Modeling stability, and admitting you are at your limit
23:00 The pause between breaths, and the knot you cannot untie
29:00 Getting a reluctant kid to the starting line
33:00 Two banks of the river: overwhelm and numb
37:00 Lisa's son, and the therapist who told her to stay
45:00 The child who will not talk, and catching them doing good
48:00 "That's Dad's opinion," and answering without defending

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
🔗 Dr. Wayne Benenson at Great Masters: https://www.greatmastersinc.com/
🔗 Claim Your Light by Dr. Wayne Benenson and Dr. Barb Hughson: https://www.amazon.com/Claim-Your-Light-Gaining-Fulfilling/dp/099856561X

🎧 More with Dr. Wayne Benenson on this podcast
Ep 106: Will My Kids Be Okay?
Ep 113: Kids, Boundaries, and Trauma
Ep 143: Steadying Kids in 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.