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What happens when a relationship does not break from one dramatic moment, but from all the conversations that never happen?
In this episode of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare speaks with Dr Sabrina Romanoff, a Harvard-trained clinical psychologist based in New York City, about emotional affairs, silence, guilt, avoidance, resentment, attachment, rebuilding trust and the psychology of what couples do not say. This is a conversation about the quiet places relationships begin to fracture.
The truth that gets swallowed to keep the peace.
The need that is minimised for too long.
The guilt that turns into distance.
The emotional energy that starts going somewhere else.
The resentment that hardens into contempt.
Gabriella and Dr Romanoff explore why couples often wait until they are at the end of the rope before they finally tell the truth, and why withdrawal can be more dangerous than conflict. They discuss the difference between a peaceful relationship and one that has simply gone quiet, why avoidance can feel like a protective strategy, and how silence can become a band-aid holding the relationship together.
This episode also looks closely at emotional affairs and modern betrayal. Dr Romanoff explains that emotional affairs are not always about one dramatic decision, but often a slow redirection of emotional energy away from the primary relationship. In a world of social media, DMs, micro-cheating and constant access, the line between connection and betrayal can become harder to define — but secrecy is often the clearest warning sign.
Together, Gabriella and Dr Romanoff discuss what couples can notice earlier, including emotional distance, unmet needs, guilt, shame, withdrawal, defensive conflict patterns, contempt, attachment dynamics and the moment one person starts feeling more emotionally alive outside the relationship than inside it.
They also explore whether trust can be rebuilt after betrayal, why real repair requires honesty and transparency, and why some relationships can become stronger when couples are willing to face what they usually hide.
In this episode, Gabriella and Dr Sabrina Romanoff discuss:
This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered whether their relationship is peaceful — or simply quiet.
For anyone who has felt their partner pulling away.
For anyone who has started seeking emotional connection somewhere else.
For anyone trying to understand emotional affairs, guilt, secrecy, resentment, avoidance, attachment, trust and repair.
Because before a relationship breaks, there is often a long period where people are not necessarily fighting.
Sometimes they are simply not saying the truth.
This podcast is for general information, education and discussion only and is not legal advice, psychological advice, counselling or therapy.
What if the thing you have been calling failure is actually the first honest moment?
In this episode of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare sits down with Lola Berry — Australian author, podcaster, actor, nutritionist and host of Fearlessly Failing — for a warm, honest and deeply human conversation about failure, reinvention, relationships, self-trust, ambition, wellness, therapy, creativity and the courage to start again.
This episode is about the moments when the old story stops working.
The relationship that no longer fits.
The career that once made sense.
The timeline you thought you had to follow.
The identity you outgrew.
The dream that changed shape.
The version of yourself you kept performing because leaving it behind felt too much like failure.
Gabriella and Lola explore why so many people stay too long in relationships, careers, friendships, cities and life chapters because they are afraid of being judged, misunderstood or seen as inconsistent. They talk about adult friendship breakups, value alignment, long-distance love, moving to LA, starting over, creative rejection, therapy, comparison, self-care, emotional honesty and why the body often knows the truth before the mind is ready to admit it.
Lola shares what failure has taught her, why she now sees it as a gift, and how letting go can sometimes create the space for something more aligned to arrive. From selling a business with her name on it, to pursuing acting in Los Angeles, to learning how to stop living up to other people’s expectations, this conversation is a reminder that changing direction is not the same as giving up.
It may be the moment you finally stop abandoning yourself to keep the old story alive.
In this episode, Gabriella and Lola discuss:
This episode is for anyone who feels behind, stuck, uncertain or afraid to change direction.
For anyone who has outgrown a version of themselves.
For anyone who is scared that starting again means they have failed.
For anyone watching other people’s lives unfold online and wondering why theirs looks different.
For anyone trying to decide whether to keep forcing the plan — or finally listen to the part of themselves that knows something has shifted.
Because sometimes the break is not the end.
Sometimes it is the beginning of a more honest life.
Listen to Before You Call It Failure: Lola Berry on Reinvention, Self-Trust and Starting Again on Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare.
This podcast is for general information, education and discussion only and is not legal advice, psychological advice, counselling or therapy.
In this episode of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare speaks with Erica Komisar about children, parenting, marriage, emotional safety and the invisible ways children absorb the relationship between their parents.
This conversation explores a powerful idea: children do not live outside the relationship between their parents. They live inside it.
They feel the tone.
They feel the distance.
They feel the silence.
They feel the resentment, even when no one says the words out loud.
So often, parents tell themselves that children are fine as long as there is no open arguing, or as long as everything is functioning on the surface. But children are deeply sensitive to the emotional weather of the home. They know when warmth has disappeared. They know when one parent is carrying too much. They know when repair is not happening. They know when the home has stopped feeling safe, even if no one has explained why.
This episode is not about blaming parents. Parenting, marriage, work, stress, resentment and modern family life are hard. Most parents are doing the best they can with the tools, histories and pressures they have.
But it is a reminder that protecting children is not only about what we say to them. It is also about what we model around them.
How we repair.
How we speak.
How we handle conflict.
How we apologise.
How we make room for their feelings.
How we show them what love, safety and emotional responsibility look like.
Because children learn relationships long before they have one of their own.
They learn what closeness feels like. They learn what silence means. They learn whether conflict can be repaired. They learn whether love is steady, conditional, frightening, distant or safe.
In this episode, Gabriella and Erica explore why the emotional life of the home becomes part of the emotional life of the child, and why one of the most important things parents can do is notice the shift earlier, repair sooner and soften where they have become defended.
Because before a family breaks, children often feel the shift.
And sometimes the greatest gift we can give them is to notice it before it breaks.
In this episode Gabriella and Erica discuss:
Key themes
Disclaimer
This podcast is for general information, education and discussion only. It is not legal advice, psychological advice, counselling or therapy. If you need support with your relationship, parenting, family conflict, separation or your child’s wellbeing, please seek advice from an appropriate qualified professional.
S2 E5: Before the Stories Disappear: Food, Family, Memory and the Rituals That Hold Us Together with Rossella Rago
What do families lose when they stop gathering?
In this episode of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare sits down with Rossella Rago, the creator and host of Cooking with Nonna, author, entrepreneur and culinary storyteller, for a beautiful conversation about food, family, memory, culture, divorce, grief, grandmothers and the rituals that hold generations together.
Rossella shares how Cooking with Nonna began in 2008 after her father bought the website and built her first set, and how what started as filming Italian grandmothers sharing recipes grew into cookbooks, products and a platform dedicated to preserving culture, memory and the wisdom of older generations. She speaks movingly about her grandmother, Nonna Romana, who passed away at 92, and the way she became a symbol of love, strength, family and belonging.
This conversation is about food — but really, it is about so much more than food.
It is about Sunday dinners.
The smell of sauce.
The recipe you never wrote down.
The grandmother who showed love by feeding you.
The stories we assume we will always have time to ask.
The family rituals that quietly disappear when people become busy, distant or estranged.
Gabriella and Rossella explore how families begin to drift before anyone realises what is being lost, and why sitting around a table can be one of the most powerful ways to preserve connection, identity and belonging.
They also talk honestly about divorce, cultural expectations, Italian family traditions, bella figura, grief, resilience, and why love is often found in the smallest daily gestures — the coffee made, the favourite cereal bought, the meal prepared, the effort made.
As Rossella says in the episode, falling in love can happen quickly, but falling out of love often happens through “a hundred thousand micro disconnections.”
In this episode:
This episode is for anyone who grew up around a family table, anyone who misses a grandparent, anyone who has watched family rituals fade, anyone navigating divorce or changing family traditions, and anyone who knows that food is sometimes how love says: you belong here.
Because before families break, they often stop gathering.
And before the stories disappear, there is often still time to ask.
Listen to this episode of Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare for an honest, emotional and deeply relatable conversation about food, family, culture, memory, relationships, divorce, grief and the rituals that hold us together before it breaks.
In this episode of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare sits down with lifestyle expert, television host, media personality and author Valerie Greenberg for an honest conversation about validation, confidence, self-worth and meaningful connection.
We all want to feel seen, loved, desired and understood. But when the need for external validation becomes stronger than our trust in ourselves, relationships can quickly become places where we perform, over-explain, settle, shrink or wait for someone else to confirm that we are enough.
Gabriella and Valerie explore how low confidence can influence the people we date, the relationships we stay in and the behaviours we accept. They discuss the difference between attention and intimacy, why some people move quickly from one relationship to another, and how social media has made it harder to separate genuine connection from performance and comparison.
Valerie introduces the idea of creating a “confidence community”: a group of friends, mentors and trusted people who remind you of your strengths, support you during difficult seasons and encourage you to keep moving when rejection, disappointment or self-doubt begin to take over.
The conversation also moves beyond romantic relationships and into ambition, career rejection and the pressure to constantly achieve. Valerie shares how it took years of persistence to build her media career, why she refuses to allow rejection to define her and how she learned to turn “a no into a nod.”
This episode is a reminder that confidence does not mean feeling fearless every day. It means continuing to trust yourself even when someone else does not recognise your value. It means knowing when to listen, when to speak up, when to ask for support and when to walk away from a relationship that requires you to become smaller.
Because healthy love does not ask you to disappear in order to be chosen. It allows you to become more fully yourself.
In this episode, Gabriella and Valerie discuss:Valerie Greenberg is a lifestyle expert, entertainment host, television personality and the author of You’ve Been Validated: A Playbook for Confidence and Connection.
Connect with Valerie GreenbergInstagram: @valgreenberg
TikTok: @therealvalgreenberg
Website: youvebeenvalidated.com
You’ve Been Validated is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other major book retailers.
Are you really “too much”—or have you simply been asking the wrong people to meet you where you are?
In Season 2, Episode 3 of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare sits down with Emma Klipstein, creator and host of the Too Much podcast, for an honest, funny and unfiltered conversation about modern dating, situationships, relationship red flags, breakups, self-trust and why so many women are exhausted from pretending to be “chill.”
Emma opens up about rebuilding her career and identity, launching her own podcast, dating in her thirties and learning to trust herself when something in a relationship does not feel right.
Together, Gabriella and Emma explore:
• Why situationships can become so addictive
• The dating red flags women commonly explain away
• Love bombing, inconsistency and hot-and-cold behaviour
• Why confusion can be an answer in itself
• Chemistry versus genuine compatibility
• The difference between choosing someone and needing them
• Why women take dating problems to the group chat
• How to stop abandoning yourself inside a relationship
• Emma’s Five Box Theory for building a life that can survive a breakup
• Why the best post-breakup “glow-up” begins before the relationship ends
• Creating relationship non-negotiables
• Rebuilding confidence after heartbreak
• Balancing love, independence, ambition and career growth
• Choosing yourself without closing yourself off to love
Emma also explains why consistency is one of the greatest green flags in a relationship, why dating can act as a mirror and why the qualities somebody once called “too much” may be the very qualities you need to stop apologising for.
This episode is for anyone who has ever stared at a message wondering what it meant, made excuses for someone’s inconsistency, stayed in a situationship that was affecting their confidence or asked the group chat to confirm something they already knew.
Because before it breaks, your intuition is often already whispering. The work is learning to listen.
FOLLOW EMMA PAIGE KLIPSTEIN
Personal Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/lifeofemmapaige/
Too Much Podcast Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/emmastoomuch/
Listen to Too Much with Emma Paige Klipstein on your preferred podcast platform and follow @emmastoomuch on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube for more conversations about dating, breakups, self-trust, reinvention and becoming unapologetically yourself.
FOLLOW GABRIELLA POMARE
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thegabriellapomare/
Learn more about Gabriella, her work, books, podcast and speaking:
https://gabriellapomare.com.au/
Subscribe to Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare for conversations about modern relationships, dating, marriage, divorce, friendship, parenting, identity and the quiet moments that happen before everything changes.
Available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
ABOUT BEFORE IT BREAKS
Before It Breaks is hosted by family lawyer, author, relationship commentator and co-parenting expert Gabriella Pomare. Each episode explores what happens before relationships, friendships, careers and identities begin to fracture—and what we can learn before reaching breaking point.
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:
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.
From the publisher's feed
Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare is a raw and honest relationship podcast about what really happens before love becomes distance, before resentment replaces repair,…
Hosted by Gabriella Pomare, author of The Collaborative Co-Parent, speaker, mother, co-parent and family lawyer, this podcast explores the private relationship patterns people often recognise too late: emotional disconnection, quiet withdrawal, relationship burnout, the mental load, invisible labour, communication breakdown, marriage resentment, intimacy issues, conflict, repair, motherhood, parenting, co-parenting, separation, divorce and the complicated process of rebuilding.
Most relationships do not break in one dramatic moment. They begin to fracture much earlier, in the silence after conflict, the repeated “I’m fine,” the missed bids for connection, the conversations that keep getting postponed, the text message that shifts the entire day, the loneliness of lying beside someone and feeling completely alone, and the quiet moment one person slowly stops reaching.
Each episode of Before It Breaks looks at the emotional reality of modern relationships and family life. Through conversations with experts, authors, thought leaders, creatives and real voices, Gabriella explores what people wish they had understood earlier — before the distance became normal, before the resentment felt too heavy, before the mental load became unbearable, before the relationship, family or sense of self began to break.
This is a podcast for anyone searching for honest conversations about relationships, marriage, emotional disconnection, relationship repair, communication, intimacy, conflict, mental load, motherhood, parenting, co-parenting, blended families, separation, divorce, modern love and what it means to rebuild with more clarity and self-awareness.
For the person lying awake next to someone and feeling completely alone.
For the mother carrying the whole family in her head.
For the partner wondering whether this is just a hard season or the beginning of the end.
For the person who feels the relationship has changed, even if nothing obvious has happened.
For the parent trying to protect their children from the emotional weight of adult conflict.
For the co-parent trying to stay calm in a conversation that still hurts.
For anyone navigating love, resentment, repair, grief, parenting, separation, rebuilding or the quiet question: “How did we get here?”
Before It Breaks is about the moments people often dismiss, minimise or explain away. The loss of warmth. The absence of repair. The emotional labour no one sees. The small ruptures that build over time. The silence that becomes the relationship. The ways modern life, ambition, motherhood, stress, family expectations, social media, mental load and unresolved hurt can slowly change how people love, communicate and stay connected.
It is not just a podcast about endings. It is a podcast about noticing earlier.
Before the resentment hardens.
Before the silence becomes normal.
Before the emotional load becomes too heavy.
Before love turns into distance.
Before it breaks.
This podcast is for general information, education and discussion only and is not legal advice, psychological advice, counselling or therapy.