What happens when the life you thought you were living suddenly breaks open?

In this deeply personal episode of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare sits down with The Real Housewives of New Jersey star, New York Times bestselling author and mother of four, Teresa Giudice, for an honest conversation about the woman behind the headlines.

Teresa opens up about divorce, motherhood, grief, public judgment, rebuilding her life and learning to trust and love again. She shares how she protected her daughters through enormous change, why providing for her family kept her moving forward, what her parents taught her about loyalty and strength, and how her relationship with Luis Ruelas showed her a different kind of love.

They also explore forgiveness, blended families, friendship breakdowns, communication in marriage, protecting your peace and why the hardest chapter of your life does not have to become your whole story.

Teresa also shares what is ahead, including the new season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, her upcoming memoir, her skincare line, Sampere, and her daughter’s new family restaurant.

This is not a conversation about the headline. It is a conversation about everything that came before it, and the strength it takes to rebuild afterward.

In this episode:

• Teresa’s life away from reality television
• Divorce, deportation and rebuilding as a single mother
• Protecting children during separation and public scrutiny
• Motherhood, independence and raising four daughters
• Finding love again after divorce
• Becoming a stepmother and creating a blended family
• Forgiveness, loyalty and protecting your peace
• Communication as the foundation of lasting relationships
• What Teresa wishes people understood about her
• Her next memoir, businesses and RHONJ Season 15

Listen to Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Gabriella Pomare:
Instagram: @thegabriellapomare
Website: gabriellapomare.com

Follow Teresa Giudice and listen to Turning the Tables for more.

What if your relationship does not actually have a communication problem? What if the real problem is that both of you are exhausted, overloaded, defensive, disconnected and living in survival mode?

In the first episode of Season 2 of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare sits down with New York City clinical psychologist, speaker, consultant and author of When Life Happens, Dr Rachel Goldman, for a powerful conversation about what happens when stress becomes the third person in the relationship.

This episode explores the quiet space before a relationship breaks. The space where people are still functioning, still parenting, still working, still organising, still showing up on the outside, but inside they are depleted. Their nervous system is overloaded. Their patience is gone. Their confidence is low. Their body is tense. Their thoughts are harsh. Their self-trust is shaky. And eventually, the relationship starts absorbing all of it.

Gabriella and Dr Rachel talk about why many couples say they “cannot communicate” when the deeper issue may be that they are too emotionally charged, too stressed or too burnt out to access the communication skills they actually have.

They discuss why timing matters when it comes to difficult conversations, and why the best time to talk is rarely when one or both people are already angry, flooded or overwhelmed. Dr Rachel shares practical communication tools, including the importance of pausing, listening, reflecting and responding rather than reacting.

They also explore the role of the nervous system in relationships, and why people in fight-or-flight mode are often not able to have calm, constructive or compassionate conversations. When the brain is wired for survival, it can jump to worst-case scenarios, misread a partner’s intentions and turn ordinary moments into emotional threats.

This conversation looks at the question so many couples miss:

Would we be communicating this way if we were not so stressed?

Would this feel like such a big problem if we were not exhausted?

Would I be interpreting my partner this way if I felt calmer, safer or more supported?

Gabriella and Dr Rachel also talk about burnout inside long-term relationships and marriages. Not just individual burnout, but couple burnout. The kind of emotional depletion where one or both people begin to feel like there is nothing left in the tank. The kind of burnout that can sound like “I’m done,” when what someone may really mean is “I am overwhelmed, unsupported and I do not know how to keep going like this.”

They explore the signs of emotional disconnection, silent divorce and quiet quitting inside a relationship, including withdrawal, silence, lack of communication, emotional distance, reduced affection, changes in behaviour and the feeling that someone is physically present but no longer truly connected.

This episode also looks at self-doubt and how it shows up in relationships. Dr Rachel explains how low confidence and self-doubt can change the lens through which someone sees themselves, their partner and the relationship. When a person is already questioning themselves, they may be more likely to stay silent, avoid hard conversations, assume they are the problem or wait until the issue finally explodes.

Guest: Dr Rachel Goldman
Dr Rachel Goldman is a New York City-based clinical psychologist, speaker, consultant and author of When Life Happens. Her work focuses on psychology, health, behaviour change, mindset, stress, confidence and the mind-body connection.

Find Dr Rachel Goldman: @drrachelnyc
Book: When Life Happens

Listen now and subscribe for more conversations about relationships, marriage, communication, family, co-parenting, emotional disconnection, repair and what happens before it breaks.

In Episode 10 of Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare, Gabriella shifts the conversation away from the red flags we are constantly told to look for, and asks a different question: what about the green flags we miss before a relationship breaks?

In a culture obsessed with relationship red flags, warning signs, toxic patterns and reasons to leave, it can become easy to focus only on what is wrong. We become relationship detectives, scanning for evidence, replaying arguments, analysing messages, comparing our partner to online advice, and wondering whether every difficult moment is a sign the relationship is already over.

But sometimes, before a relationship breaks, there are also signs that something is still alive.

Not the dramatic signs. Not the grand gestures. Not the perfect Instagram relationship, the public anniversary caption, the flowers, the holiday reel or the curated couple content that makes love look effortless. The real green flags are often much quieter.

They look like someone trying again after getting it wrong. They look like a partner who can apologise without turning the whole conversation around. They look like emotional safety after conflict, a willingness to listen, small acts of care, effort that is consistent rather than performative, and the ability to repair instead of simply moving on.

They look like a relationship where both people may be tired, imperfect, overwhelmed or disconnected, but there is still enough respect, accountability, honesty and willingness to make repair possible.

In this episode, Gabriella explores the relationship green flags that are often overlooked in modern relationships, marriage, family life, parenting, separation and co-parenting dynamics. She unpacks why healthy relationships are not about perfection, why emotional safety matters more than appearances, and why the absence of constant conflict is not the same as connection.

This episode asks what it means to notice the quiet signs of repair, respect, effort and emotional maturity before resentment becomes the whole relationship. It is for anyone who has been so focused on the red flags that they may have forgotten to ask whether there are still signs of care, willingness, accountability and love.

Gabriella also explores the difference between genuine green flags and bare minimum behaviour. A green flag is not simply someone doing one nice thing after weeks of disconnection. It is not a grand gesture that avoids accountability. It is not flowers after harm without change. It is not public affection while private emotional neglect continues.

Real green flags are found in patterns, not performances.

They are found in how someone responds when you are hurt. How they behave when they are defensive. Whether they can hear you without punishing you for having needs. Whether they take responsibility without needing to be chased. Whether repair actually follows the apology. Whether they are willing to grow, not just promise that things will be different.

This episode is not about telling people to stay in relationships that are unsafe, harmful or emotionally damaging. It is not about ignoring red flags or romanticising effort that never turns into change. It is about creating a more balanced conversation about modern relationships, one that recognises that healthy love is not always loud, obvious or cinematic.

The advice, comparison and commentary we are letting into our private lives.

In this episode of Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare, Gabriella explores how social media, TikTok relationship advice, Facebook groups, the group chat, AI-generated messages and curated online lives are quietly changing the way we see our relationships.

We live in a time where our most private relationships are constantly being compared, interpreted, diagnosed and judged through online spaces. We scroll through relationship reels, watch TikTok clips about red flags and emotional neglect, post anonymously in Facebook groups, send screenshots to the group chat, and sometimes even ask AI to help us write the message we are too overwhelmed to say ourselves.

Some of this can be helpful. Online content can give people language for emotional neglect, coercive control, mental load, gaslighting, weaponised incompetence and unhealthy relationship patterns. It can help people feel less alone and recognise when something is not okay.

But online advice can also flatten complex relationships into quick labels and simple answers. A thirty-second clip cannot understand the full context of a marriage, long-term partnership, family system, separation, co-parenting dynamic or private emotional history. A comment section does not have to live with the consequences of telling someone to leave. The group chat may love you deeply, but it often only sees the relationship through the moments when you are hurt.

In this honest and nuanced episode, Gabriella asks whether the internet is helping us see more clearly, or whether it is making ordinary relationships feel inadequate, feeding resentment, encouraging comparison, and replacing real support with quick validation.

This episode explores curated relationship content, TikTok therapy language, Facebook group advice, AI in relationships, online comparison, boundaries, red flags, relationship tests, emotional safety, repair, separation, co-parenting and the difference between validation and guidance.

At the heart of the episode is a simple but powerful question:

Are we using online content to understand our relationships, or are we letting the algorithm become the authority on our most intimate lives?

This episode asks:

• Is online relationship advice helping or hurting us?
• What happens when we compare real relationships to curated lives?
• Can TikTok therapy language become too blunt?
• What is the difference between validation and guidance?
• Are Facebook groups and group chats giving support, or only one-sided certainty?
• How is AI changing the way we communicate in relationships?
• What do children learn when adults outsource conflict to screens?

T

his episode is for anyone navigating modern love, marriage, separation, co-parenting, conflict, repair, online comparison, relationship advice, or the quiet question of whether the relationship they are living inside still feels honest, safe and alive.

Listen to Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all major podcast platforms.

Staying for the Kids: Is It Really Best for Children?

In this raw and honest episode of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare explores one of the most difficult and controversial questions in family life: should parents stay together for the kids?

Many parents tell themselves they are protecting their children by staying in an unhappy relationship. But what if the children are already living inside the tension, silence, resentment or emotional distance? What if the family looks intact from the outside, but does not feel emotionally safe on the inside?

Gabriella unpacks the difference between staying and repairing, versus staying and avoiding. She explores why children do not need perfect parents, but they do need emotional safety, repair, honesty and adults who are willing to take responsibility for the atmosphere of the home.

This episode is not about telling people to stay or leave. It is about asking a better question: what are the children actually living inside?

For parents navigating relationship breakdown, separation, co-parenting, family conflict, guilt, fear, or uncertainty, this conversation offers compassion, clarity and a deeply human look at what it really means to centre children.

Key Themes

Staying for the kids

Relationship breakdown

Unhappy marriage with children

Emotional safety in families

Children and separation

Co-parenting after separation

Family conflict

Repair after conflict

Parent guilt

Healthy family dynamics

Conscious parenting

Marriage, separation and children

High-conflict homes

Quiet unhappy marriages

Emotional inheritance

Child-centred decision-making

Should you stay together for the kids?

It is one of the hardest questions in family life — and one many parents carry silently for years.

In this episode of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare explores the reality behind “staying for the kids”: when it can be loving and reparative, and when it becomes fear, guilt or avoidance dressed up as sacrifice.

This is not an episode telling people to leave. It is not an episode telling people to stay. It is a conversation about emotional safety, repair, family conflict, separation, co-parenting and what children are actually absorbing inside the home.

Because children do not need perfect parents.

Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare is a relationship, separation and co-parenting podcast hosted by Gabriella Pomare — Sydney family lawyer, author of The Collaborative Co-Parent, media commentator and founder of The Collaborative Co-Parent platform. Through honest, emotionally intelligent conversations, Gabriella explores what happens before relationships, communication, families and identities break down, covering modern marriage, parenting after separation, co-parenting, conflict, family law, emotional safety, repair and rebuilding. Follow Gabriella on Instagram at @thegabriellapomare, learn more about The Collaborative Co-Parent, and listen to Before It Breaks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all major podcast platforms.

What happens when the third person in your relationship is not an affair partner, but an ex who never really left?

In Episode 7 of Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare, Gabriella explores the complicated emotional space between past relationships and present love. This episode is not just about co-parenting. It is about old flames, exes, former partners, workplace relationships, family friends, friendship circles, divorced partners without children, and the people from our past who sometimes continue to take up space in our current relationships.

Sometimes the issue is not contact. It is access.

A partner may still speak to an ex because they share children, work together, move in the same friendship group, or have long family history. But when ordinary contact turns into emotional dependence, guilt, secrecy, late-night messages, private support, or a sense that the past has more power than the present, the current relationship can start to feel crowded.

Gabriella unpacks the difference between being mature and becoming invisible, between healthy friendship and unfinished business, and between jealousy as control and jealousy as information. She also explores why some people stay emotionally available to an ex out of guilt, habit, conflict avoidance or the need to feel needed — and how that can quietly undermine a new relationship.

This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered:

Am I being insecure, or is something actually off?

Can you really be friends with an ex?

Why does this person from my partner’s past still feel so present?

What is the difference between contact and emotional access?

How do you set boundaries without being controlling?

What happens when your partner keeps dismissing your discomfort as jealousy?

With warmth, honesty and Gabriella’s signature conversational style, this episode looks at the old attachments, emotional third parties and blurred boundaries that can quietly build resentment before a relationship breaks.

Because sometimes the question is not whether someone from your past is still in your life.

The question is whether they are still in your relationship.

In this episode, Gabriella talks about:

The ex who never really left emotionally

Why this episode is not only about co-parenting

Old flames, workplace exes, family friends and friendship circle dynamics

Why contact is not the same as emotional access

How past relationships can quietly affect current relationships

The difference between healthy friendship and unfinished business

Why “we’re just friends” is sometimes more complicated than it sounds

When jealousy is not immaturity, but information

How emotional dependence can threaten a relationship even when nobody is cheating

Why guilt keeps people emotionally attached to former partners

How partners can feel displaced by someone from the past

Why dismissing someone as “insecure” can create resentment

The emotional impact of being repeatedly made to feel secondary

What healthy boundaries with an ex or old flame can sound like

Why kindness after a relationship ends sometimes means clarity

The question every person with a complicated past should ask themselves

How to name the issue without rage, control or accusation

Why the goal is not always to make the person disappear, but to make the boundaries clear

What if the relationship did not end because of the affair, but because of everything that happened before anyone admitted it?

In this raw and provocative episode of Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare, Gabriella opens the modern relationship inbox and explores the private messages, blurred boundaries, deleted chats, work friendships, gym connections, after-work drinks, travel moments and emotional almost-affairs that often happen long before a relationship publicly breaks.

This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered: are DMs cheating? Is liking someone’s Instagram story disrespectful? When does a work friendship become an emotional affair? Is going to drinks with the same colleague every week a red flag? What does it mean when your partner shares exciting news with someone else before you? Is it insecurity, intuition, or are you noticing the beginning of the break?

Gabriella unpacks the grey zones of modern love: Instagram DMs, deleted messages, flirty story replies, gym friends, work wives and work husbands, emotional affairs, work travel, “just friends” dynamics, private drinks, secret conversations, and the painful moment when someone outside the relationship starts getting the best version of your partner.

Because sometimes the phone is not the whole crime. Sometimes the phone is just the receipt.

With stories inspired by listener DMs from Australia, the United States and beyond, this episode looks at the relationship behaviours people are afraid to talk about out loud — the situations that make you ask the group chat, “Am I being crazy, or is this weird?”

From the husband who follows local women from the gym, to the colleague who knows the exciting news first, to the work friend who becomes a little too emotionally available, to the ex who reappears every time there is a fight, Gabriella explores the uncomfortable truth that not everything has to be cheating to be humiliating, secretive or damaging to trust.

This episode asks the questions everyone has an opinion on:

Are DMs cheating?

Is deleting messages always a red flag?

Can you have privacy in a relationship without secrecy?

When does a friendship become an emotional affair?

Is your partner insecure, or are they picking up on a pattern?

Can work drinks, gym routines and travel friendships become dangerous?

What happens when someone outside the relationship gets the excitement, vulnerability and attention first?

And why do so many modern relationships break in the grey zone before anyone is willing to name what is happening?

Episode 6 is a must-listen for anyone navigating modern relationships, marriage, dating, separation, emotional affairs, online betrayal, Instagram boundaries, workplace friendships, trust issues, infidelity, relationship conflict, communication breakdowns and the quiet moments before a relationship breaks.

Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare is the podcast for the conversations people usually have too late — about love, marriage, co-parenting, divorce, communication, conflict, repair and rebuilding.

Listen now and join the conversation.

For the before.
For the break.
For the becoming.

#BeforeItBreaks #GabriellaPomare #ModernRelationships #RelationshipPodcast #MarriagePodcast #EmotionalAffair #DMs #InstagramCheating #RelationshipAdvice #DatingAndRelationships #MarriageProblems #Infidelity #TrustIssues #BeforeItBreaksPodcast #CoParenting #DivorcePodcast #ModernLove #RelationshipBoundaries #PodcastEpisode

Everyone tells you that having a baby will change your life. Very few people tell you it may change your marriage.

In Episode 5 of Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare, Gabriella explores what really happens to modern relationships after children, when love can quietly become logistics and the couple who once had time, spontaneity and intimacy becomes two exhausted people managing nappies, daycare apps, school emails, appointments, work pressure, invisible labour and resentment.

This episode looks honestly at parenthood, marriage, motherhood, identity, emotional load, the default parent, sex after children, relationship burnout, invisible labour, ambition, resentment and the quiet ways a couple can start to lose each other after becoming parents.

Gabriella explores why a baby does not automatically bring a couple closer, why parenthood can reveal what was already fragile, and why the daily work of raising children can change the emotional structure of a relationship long before anyone says, “I’m not happy anymore.”

Drawing on relatable cultural examples as well as public conversations around motherhood, ambition and identity this episode asks why parenthood can be both deeply meaningful and incredibly destabilising.

This is not an episode about blaming parents. It is about telling the truth about what children can change: the body, the relationship, the sex life, the mental load, the division of labour, the ambition, the nervous system, the childhood wounds, and the version of yourself you thought you would be.

Episode notes

In this episode, Gabriella explores:

How a baby changes the relationship before anyone says it out loud.

Why parenthood can bring deep meaning while also increasing stress, resentment and emotional load.

The shift from romance to logistics after children.

Invisible labour, the mental load and the role of the default parent.

Why “just tell me what to do” can still leave one person carrying the household.

How motherhood can change identity, ambition, body image and emotional capacity.

Why sex and intimacy often change after children.

The grief of missing your old life while still loving your children deeply.

How parenthood can awaken childhood wounds and family patterns.

Why couples can become adversarial after children, even when both people are exhausted and trying.

How to protect the couple from becoming only the parents.

“Everyone tells you a baby will change your life. Very few people tell you it may change your marriage.”

Alternative pull quotes

“Love becomes logistics when the relationship starts running on calendars, lunchboxes, daycare apps and exhaustion.”

“The baby does not always break the relationship. Sometimes the baby reveals what was already fragile.”

“Being needed all day is not the same as being seen.”

“Parenthood can bring the deepest meaning of your life, but meaning is not the same as ease.”

“The question is not how do we get back to who we were before kids, but who are we becoming now, and are we becoming those people together?”

Ambition, absence, emotional disconnection and the modern marriage trying to survive work.

Not every relationship breaks because of another person.

In Episode 4 of Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare, Gabriella explores what happens when work becomes more than work, when it starts sitting at the dinner table, sleeping in the bed, coming on the holiday, interrupting the conversation and quietly taking the emotional space that once belonged to the relationship.

This episode looks at modern relationship burnout, emotional absence, overwork, workaholism, career pressure, ambition, resentment, intimacy, emotional availability and the loneliness that can exist when someone is physically present but emotionally still at work.

Gabriella explores why work is not always the villain. Work can be purpose, survival, identity, provision, independence and love in action. But when work receives the best version of someone and the relationship only receives what is left over, something starts to change.

Drawing on relatable cultural examples from The Devil Wears Prada, Marriage Story, The Intern and La La Land, this episode asks why ambition can be so seductive, why home can become the place of criticism and exhaustion, and why so many couples are living around work rather than with each other.

You will hear about phone distraction, laptops in bed, emails at dinner, the “just one more thing” cycle, the busy season that becomes the whole relationship, and the quiet grief of feeling like love is always scheduled for later.

This episode is for anyone who has ever felt like they are competing with a partner’s career, business, inbox, ambition or constant availability to everyone else.

Because sometimes the relationship does not need a grand romantic gesture.

Sometimes it needs to stop receiving the leftovers.

For the before.

For the break.

For the becoming.

In this episode, Gabriella explores:

How work can become the third person in a relationship.

Why ambition can be meaningful, seductive and emotionally consuming.

The difference between being physically present and emotionally available.

How phones, emails, laptops and constant work interruptions affect intimacy.

Why the “busy season” can quietly become the whole relationship.

The loneliness of feeling like your partner’s work gets the best of them and you get what is left.

Why work can feel safer than home when home has become a place of criticism, pressure or disappointment.

How resentment builds when love is repeatedly postponed.

Why the relationship needs to be allowed to feel urgent too.

Whether couples can protect ambition without sacrificing connection.

In Episode 3 of Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare, Gabriella explores emotional affairs, work wife and work husband dynamics, DMs, phone secrecy, deleted messages and the quiet relationship shift that can happen before a physical affair. This episode looks at why emotional betrayal can feel so devastating, how secrecy and denial break trust, and why “nothing happened” can still hurt when emotional energy has already moved elsewhere.

Not every affair begins in a hotel room.

Sometimes it begins with the private message, the deleted thread, the work wife, the work husband, the phone turned face down, the late-night reply, the sudden new pattern, or the person who seems to get the best version of your partner while you are left with the tired, distant one at home.

This episode asks why emotional affairs can feel almost worse than physical affairs, because the harm is not only about attraction or another person. It is about the lying, the minimising, the secrecy, the denial, the “we’re just friends,” the “nothing happened,” and the way someone can be made to doubt what they can clearly feel.

Gabriella also explores the modern relationship grey areas that so many couples are facing now: work wife and work husband dynamics, private messages, changed phone behaviour, going out more, emotional distance at home, increased defensiveness, and the quiet sense that emotional energy has moved somewhere else.

This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered whether they are being insecure or intuitive, whether a “friendship” has crossed a line, whether DMs count as betrayal, or whether emotional intimacy outside the relationship can damage trust even before a physical affair begins.

For the before.

For the break.

For the becoming.