Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

You spend months, sometimes years, negotiating child support and alimony. Then a layoff, a disability, a business bankruptcy, or a death can stop those payments overnight, and most people have no idea there's a way to protect that income.

In this episode, Karen McMahon sits down with Ron Platt, founder of the National Association of Single and Divorced Families (NASDF) and creator of Support Insured, the only policy on the market that covers child support and alimony together. Ron shares how an idea he and his father developed 30 years ago was turned down by carrier after carrier because of the word "divorce," and how it finally found an underwriter willing to take the risk.

Karen and Ron walk through how the coverage works when the paying spouse loses a job, becomes disabled, files for business bankruptcy, or passes away, with payments continuing for up to a year so the receiving parent isn't left scrambling or paying an attorney to go back to court. They cover how premiums are calculated by age and support amount, why the receiving spouse can purchase the policy on behalf of the paying spouse, what happens with renewals and repeat claims, and why it's never too late to apply as long as a settlement is in place.

Ron also explains why the policy is offered through NASDF membership and what members can access for $19 a month, including mental health sessions, childcare enrollment discounts, realtor referral rebates that can reduce closing costs, career services for parents returning to work after time at home, and a concierge service to help match members with attorneys, mediators, and coaches. He closes with the deeply personal reason he built the association, rooted in his experience as a foster parent and his goal of advocating for children caught in the family court and foster care systems.

If you've ever lain awake wondering what happens if the support stops, this conversation offers a practical next step to protect what you fought so hard to secure.

Connect with Ronald:

• JBD Gift: 10 free memberships to NASDF for one year!! Email: [email protected] and tell them Karen McMahon sent you!
• Learn more about Support Insured and NASDF membership at https://www.nasdf.org
• Follow NASDF on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nasdforg/
• Follow NASDF on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NASDF.org

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• Join Divorce Support Network: Back to school offer, 80% off a full year for $99, plus two strategic calls at no cost, one with a coach and one with a financial specialist: https://community.divorcesupportnetwork.com/back-to-school/?utm_source=JBDPodcast&utm_medium=RonaldPlatt&utm_campaign=BTS
• Free Rapid Relief Call: https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/rapid-relief-call
• Join The Steady Circle: https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/hcdsg The Steady Circle is a 12-week group coaching program for women navigating high-conflict divorce. Divorce coach Karen McMahon leads six live, bi-weekly Zoom sessions, where women learn to calm emotional triggers, set boundaries that hold, and respond to a difficult ex with strategy. Each member begins with a Personalized Support Blueprint. She stays connected between sessions through a private peer community, and she gets session recordings, a resource library, and two skills courses: Reclaim Your Mind and Boundary Bootcamp. Members leave steadier, clearer and more confident, with a circle of women who understand exactly what they're facing.

Should you stay for the kids?

Karen McMahon opens this solo episode with a composite scene drawn from moments she has seen over and over in her work: a dinner table, a parent's jaw tightening, and a silence that lasts a beat too long.

Two children respond in two different ways. Nine-year-old Emily fills the quiet with bright chatter, and five-year-old Jake gets smaller, hoping to take up less space. Their parent watches it happen across the table and recognizes the same fear in both of them.

From there, Karen explains what those moments teach. Children who grow up around tension build coping strategies like people pleasing, hypervigilance, and codependence, and they carry those patterns into their own relationships. The research Karen draws on points to ongoing conflict as the source of harm to children, and staying in the house does not shield them from what the marriage looks like.

She leaves you with a question many parents never ask themselves: if I stay, and this is my children's picture of intimate relationship, is that what I want to create in them? Leaving an unhealthy, high-conflict marriage can begin to break generational chains, because you show your children what healthy love can look like.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• Join Divorce Support Network: Back to school offer, 80% off a full year for $99, plus two strategic calls at no cost, one with a coach and one with a financial specialist: https://community.divorcesupportnetwork.com/back-to-school/?utm_source=JBDPodcast&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Stayforthekids
• Mend or End Playlist: https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/mend-or-end-your-divorce-free-gift?utm_source=Libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=Stayforthekids
• Book a Free Rapid Relief Call: https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/rapid-relief-call

Everyone is turning to AI to get organized, prepare for attorney meetings, and make sense of divorce. Seattle family law attorney Amanda DuBois, founder of DuBois Law Group and 30 years into practicing, explains why that instinct can backfire.

Amanda walks through why conversations with a chatbot have no attorney-client privilege, which means your prompts and the AI's answers can be requested in discovery or subpoenaed. She connects it to something she has seen for decades: journals and diaries are discoverable too, unless you are keeping them at your lawyer's direction for the case.

Amanda shares examples that show how a casual comment to a chatbot can carry major legal weight, including how a remark about when your marriage ended could affect a date-of-separation argument worth a million dollars in stock.

You'll also hear where AI genuinely helps, like sorting credit card statements or calendars, and why it is usually better to hand that work to your attorney, where it stays privileged.

Karen and Amanda talk about the hidden cost of AI-generated questions and AI-edited legal briefs, including hallucinated case citations that your attorney's team then has to untangle at your expense.

The episode closes with practical steps: ask your attorney what they are comfortable with you using AI for, and ask any attorney you are considering how they use AI in their own practice. Amanda also shares more about her firm's Seattle, Edmonds, and Port Townsend offices.

Karen will revisit this topic every few months as the rules evolve. This conversation was recorded in July 2026.

Connect with Amanda:

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AmandaDuBois206
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amandaduboisauthor
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amanda.dubois.author,
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-dubois-2b46071/
• Websites: www.duboislaw.net, www.amandadubois.com

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• Join Divorce Support Network: Back to school offer, 80% off a full year for $99, plus two strategic calls at no cost, one with a coach and one with a financial specialist: https://community.divorcesupportnetwork.com/back-to-school/?utm_source=JBDPodcast&utm_medium=highearningwomen&utm_campaign=back-to-school-2026
• Book a Free Rapid Relief Call: https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/rapid-relief-call

This episode is for education only and is not legal advice. Consult an attorney in your state.

High-achieving women often carry the whole household on their shoulders. They build the career, bring home the bigger paycheck, and still come home to the kids, the laundry, and a spouse who assumes they can handle it all. When divorce enters the picture, and especially a high-conflict divorce, that weight doubles overnight. In this episode, Karen McMahon sits down with fellow high-conflict divorce strategist Ksenia Muench, founder of Thrive Again Divorce Coaching and creator of the High Conflict Playbook, who lived her own high-conflict divorce as the higher-earning spouse.

Karen and Ksenia start by drawing an important distinction between couples who intentionally chose a stay-at-home dad arrangement and marriages where one partner simply stopped showing up, leaving her to fill every gap. From there, they unpack what makes a divorce truly high conflict: the endless stalling, withheld financial disclosures, petty battles over a single picture on the wall, and a court system that too often looks at two exhausted people and calls them both difficult. They also talk honestly about how the high-conflict spouse knows exactly which buttons to push, why the kids become the bait, and how even the most composed professional woman can get pulled back into the chaos.

The conversation then turns to money. Paying alimony as a woman can feel like a deep injustice, especially after years of carrying the load, yet a judge's job is to look at the present numbers and leave the past alone. Karen and Ksenia share how radical acceptance, the choice between a lump sum and monthly payments, and reframing support as the cost of freedom can help women release the bitterness and reclaim their energy.

They close with what comes next: dating after divorce. Ksenia explains why high-achieving women often lead with masculine energy, why learning what safety feels like in your own body is the first sign you're ready, and Karen shares a powerful client story about how two very different husbands created the same experience of emotional abandonment. When you do the inner work, you stop attracting the same person in a different face.

Connect with Ksenia:

• Free Guide - Seven Myths of High-Conflict Divorce: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NHnFRsAtF-L5rHdq13ZaQZpdKuwoX4zy/view?usp=share_link
• Podcast - Uncoupling Unfiltered: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncoupled-unfiltered/id1820205268
• Website: https://www.thriveagaindivorcecoaching.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thriveagaindivorcecoaching/

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• Join Divorce Support Network: Back to school offer, 80% off a full year for $99, plus two strategic calls at no cost, one with a coach and one with a financial specialist: https://community.divorcesupportnetwork.com/back-to-school/?utm_source=JBDPodcast&utm_medium=highearningwomen&utm_campaign=back-to-school-2026
• Book a Free Rapid Relief Call: https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/rapid-relief-call

Whether you've decided to divorce and haven't told your spouse yet, or the decision has been made for you, the first weeks can bring a wave of fear, guilt, overwhelm and uncertainty. In this solo episode, Karen McMahon, high-conflict divorce coach and founder of Journey Beyond Divorce, explains how to prepare for divorce in a way that protects your emotional health, your finances and your children. After 16 years of coaching, Karen has seen that how you handle the emotional side of divorce shapes how well you handle the legal, financial and co-parenting decisions that follow. She explains why staying present, focusing on what you can control and taking one baby step at a time will serve you better than trying to solve the whole divorce in a single day.

Karen then walks through five steps from her free Smart Start Pre-Divorce Checklist. First, she explains why a one-time consultation with a family law attorney matters, even in a high-conflict marriage where your spouse threatens to go scorched earth. She also covers the differences between a litigator, a collaborative attorney, a mediator and an advising attorney. Next she covers how to plan telling your spouse you want a divorce and how to reset your home environment, from separate sleeping arrangements to shared spaces and household tasks. She explains how setting boundaries while you still live together shows you how your spouse is likely to negotiate. She shares guidance on how to tell your kids about the divorce, including when telling them together may not be best. She closes with how a temporary parenting schedule before separation can show you how shared custody might work.

Download the free Smart Start Pre-Divorce Checklist here: https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/pre-divorce-checklist

Feeling overwhelmed and ready for support? Book your free one-hour Rapid Relief Call at https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/rapid-relief-call to get a new perspective and a clear action step from a Journey Beyond Divorce coach.

Join Divorce Support Network with our back-to-school offer: 80% off, a full year for $99, plus two strategic calls at no cost, one with a coach and one with a financial specialist: https://community.divorcesupportnetwork.com/back-to-school/

To celebrate a decade of Journey Beyond Divorce, we're sharing a special collection of episodes featuring Karen McMahon as a guest on some of her favorite podcasts. Over the years, Karen has joined incredible hosts across the divorce, coaching, and personal growth space to share her story and her expertise. This collection brings those conversations together in one place, offering a look at Karen's voice and message from a different angle, through the eyes of the hosts who welcomed her. Thank you for being part of this journey, and for helping Journey Beyond Divorce grow into what it is today.

Karen McMahon on Confessions of a Freebird with Laurie James

In this episode, originally recorded for the Confessions of a Freebird podcast, host Laurie James sits down with Karen McMahon, High Conflict Divorce Coach and Strategist with Journey Beyond Divorce, for a candid conversation about thriving after a midlife divorce. Karen shares her own raw divorce story and the mindset shifts she has gained over 15 years, from moving through the emotional rollercoaster and practicing self-compassion to setting boundaries that actually hold. She offers three neutral statements for communicating with a difficult ex without giving in, strategies for co-parenting without becoming emotionally drained, and ways to heal your triggers so toxic patterns don't follow you into future relationships. She also walks through her 3 A's as a path to building a life that aligns with who you truly are. Laurie is a mother, divorcée, recovering caregiver turned author, certified somatic practitioner, and coach who helps people divorce, heal, and date differently in midlife. She is the author of Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go, and her podcast is its sequel, a space for women navigating divorce, empty nesting, loss, and reinvention.

Learn more about Laurie James and her work at https://www.laurieejames.com/, and listen to Confessions of a Freebird: https://www.laurieejames.com/podcast2

Connect with Karen:

• Book a FREE Coaching Call: https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/rapid-relief-call
• Join Divorce Support Network: Back to school offer, 80% off a full year for $99, plus two strategic calls at no cost, one with a coach and one with a financial specialist: https://bit.ly/jbdpod

Changing the locks is no longer the same thing as changing the access.

In this episode, Karen McMahon sits down with Jonathan Steele, a Chicago based family law attorney and certified cybersecurity professional, for a conversation Journey Beyond Divorce has never had in over 425 episodes. Jonathan has spent more than a decade litigating high conflict, high net worth cases, and he brings a layer of technical expertise that most family lawyers simply do not have.

Karen opens with the uncomfortable truth that almost nobody going through divorce thinks of themselves as a cybersecurity target. Jonathan walks listeners through what a spouse may still be able to see long after someone has moved out: the Ring camera, the Nest footage, the Gmail account still signed in on an old iPad, the shared iCloud photo album, the luxury car app that logs where the car has been and how fast it was going, the location sharing nobody remembers turning on. He explains why the smart devices that were supposed to make life easier, the robot vacuum, the smart refrigerator, the video doorbell, are often running years old software while sitting on the same Wi-Fi network as every device that holds something sensitive. The front door may have an excellent lock on it. The window screen is full of holes.

When Karen asks when in the process people should start addressing this, his answer is immediate. Before you file. Before discovery. Before trial. As soon as you possibly can.

Then the conversation gets closer to home. Jonathan describes how children become tracker beacons without anyone intending it, how a single mutual friend inside a list of eight hundred followers can hand a spouse the photograph that ends spousal support, and how one of his own cases terminated a maintenance obligation of more than a million dollars a year because a woman's adult children were quietly feeding her social media posts to their father. She was simply living her life and posting about it, the way everyone does.

He also answers a question a growing number of listeners are asking. Conversations with AI about a divorce are discoverable, and lawyers have already started requesting the logs.

Karen asks him to triage the overwhelm into a short list, and he does. Move sensitive communication to a more secure messenger. Open a brand new email address. Run the Safety Check tool already built into the iPhone, which was designed for exactly this situation and walks you through revoking access in plain language. Prune the follower lists, including the connections that feel harmless. Cut off camera and car app access. Pause the next time an app requests a permission it has no legitimate reason to want.

And for every listener who has been told by friends that she is paranoid and ridiculous, Jonathan offers the line worth the entire episode. It is only paranoia if you are not right about it.

One small step a day still counts. This is a marathon, and every setting you turn off is protection you did not have yesterday.

Connect with Jonathan Steele:

• Website: steelfamlaw.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steelefamlaw/

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• Join Divorce Support Network: Back to school offer, 80% off a full year for $99, plus two strategic calls at no cost, one with a coach and one with a financial specialist: https://bit.ly/jbdpod
• Free Rapid Relief Call: https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/rapid-relief-call

If you've ever felt like you can't think straight, can't stop second-guessing yourself, or can't figure out why you keep making decisions you regret, this episode is for you.

One of the most damaging and least talked about effects of divorce is what anxiety does to your decision making. Fear takes over, your nervous system goes into overdrive, and suddenly you're not making choices from a clear, grounded place, you're reacting. Most people don't even realize it's happening until the damage is done, and for many, anxiety and alcohol end up feeding each other during this exact chapter of life.

Karen sits down with Colleen Freeland Kachmann, a mindful drinking coach, host of the globally top ranked It's Not About the Alcohol podcast, and founder of the Accelerated Recovery Process, to talk about what anxiety is actually doing to your brain during divorce, why so many people reach for alcohol to cope with that anxiety without realizing that's what's happening, and how to get clear, get grounded, and start making decisions you can trust, with or without a drink in hand. They dig into why anxiety and fear take over during divorce and what's actually happening in your nervous system when they do, how anxious drinking during divorce becomes a coping mechanism for dysregulation rather than an actual solution, how to recognize when anxiety is making your decisions for you even when it doesn't feel like anxiety, and what it feels like to make a decision from a calm, grounded place instead of a fearful or alcohol-numbed one. They also talk about the role of emotional sobriety, a concept that applies whether or not alcohol is part of your story, in rebuilding self-trust during and after divorce, and what Colleen's work helping women change their relationship with alcohol taught her about fear, the nervous system, and self-trust that applies directly to divorce recovery.

Colleen Freeland Kachmann is a mindful drinking coach and host of the globally top ranked It's Not About the Alcohol podcast. She helps high-achieving professional women reduce their alcohol consumption using holistic, evidence-based strategies in neurophysiology, nervous system regulation, and growth mindset, without willpower or an all-or-nothing approach to alcohol. Colleen is an addiction and recovery-certified master life coach with an MSc in health coaching, a BS in biology and chemistry, and certification as a women's functional and integrative professional. She founded Recover with Colleen, an intensive group coaching program built around her Accelerated Recovery Process.

If this conversation resonated, whether it's the divorce anxiety, the drinking, or both, and you're wondering whether coaching support could help, Karen's Rapid Relief Call is a free way to find out. You can also connect with Colleen through her podcast, It's Not About the Alcohol, and her program, Recover with Colleen.

Connect with Colleen:

• Free Gift: COMING SOON
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hangoverwhisperer
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehangoverwhisperer
• Website: https://itsnotaboutthealcohol.com

Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:

• Book a Free Rapid Relief Call: http://rapidreliefcall.com
• Free Divorce Support Network Gift: https://divorcesupportnetwork.com/jbdpod

To celebrate a decade of Journey Beyond Divorce, we're sharing a special collection of episodes featuring Karen McMahon as a guest on some of her favorite podcasts. Over the years, Karen has joined incredible hosts across the divorce, coaching, and personal growth space to share her story and her expertise. This collection brings those conversations together in one place, offering a look at Karen's voice and message from a different angle, through the eyes of the hosts who welcomed her. Thank you for being part of this journey, and for helping Journey Beyond Divorce grow into what it is today.

Karen McMahon on the Self-Love Recovery Podcast with Ross Rosenberg

In this episode, originally recorded for the Self-Love Recovery podcast, host Ross Rosenberg, M.Ed., LCPC, CADC sits down with Karen McMahon, Chief Visionary and High Conflict Divorce Coach with Journey Beyond Divorce, for an in-depth conversation on high conflict relationships. Together they explore the behaviors and reactions that define these dynamics, from a self-love deficit at their root to the delusions that can keep people stuck, and why setting boundaries is so essential to breaking the cycle. Ross brings decades of clinical expertise in codependency, trauma, and narcissistic abuse to the conversation, while Karen offers her perspective on how these patterns show up in divorce and relationship transitions. Ross is a psychotherapist, educator, and author of The Human Magnet Syndrome, and founder of the Self-Love Recovery Institute, which he created in 2013 as a hub for personal development, workshops, and professional training.

Learn more about Ross Rosenberg and the Self-Love Recovery Institute at selfloverecovery.com, and listen to the Self-Love Recovery podcast on all major platforms.

• Podcast: https://www.selfloverecovery.com/pages/podcast
• YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/RossRosenberg
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCodependencyCure
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rossrosenberg_slri
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/RossRosenberg1
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rossrosenberg

What if divorce wasn't really about her?

That's the question Karen McMahon poses to open this episode of Journey Beyond Divorce, and the question at the center of her conversation with Geoff Laughton, a Relationship and Men's Work Coach with 33 years of experience, 300+ workshops, and thousands of clients. Geoff calls the pattern the "Masculine Dilemma," a set of unconscious traps that quietly erode men's marriages long before divorce ever becomes a possibility. He's also 44 years into his own marriage, so he's not just teaching this work, he's living it.

Karen and Geoff dig into what actually drives men toward disconnection: confusion about what masculinity even means today, growing up without strong masculine models, and the gap between who a man was trained to be and who he actually is underneath the training. Geoff unpacks the real differences between masculine and feminine energy, not as stereotypes, but as wiring, and explains why so many marriages die from a thousand tiny paper cuts rather than one big blowup.

One of the most useful moments in the episode is Geoff's breakdown of "MSU" (making shit up) and "MUS" (made-up shit), the stories partners tell themselves about what the other person is thinking, without ever actually asking. Karen and Geoff both push back hard on the idea that a partner should "just know" what you need, calling it a setup for failure in any relationship.

The conversation also tackles the "Sir Lancelot syndrome," the nice-guy pattern of trying to rescue and fix a partner's every feeling, at the cost of a man's own needs and boundaries, and why that pattern so often ends in resentment rather than intimacy.

In the back half of the episode, Geoff walks through what he calls a relationship postmortem: a brutally honest look at what worked, when things started to break down (often, he notes, right around the arrival of the first child), where a man went out of integrity with himself, and what he's committed to doing differently before jumping into the next relationship. Karen and Geoff agree this kind of self-honest inventory, done without self-blame or shame, is essential before dating again.

Connect with Geoff:

• Free E-book: The Masculine Dilemma - https://theundauntedman.com/path
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/ln/theundauntedman and www.linkedin.com/li/yourrelationshiparchitect

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• Book a Free Rapid Relief Call: http://rapidreliefcall.com
• Free Divorce Support Network Gift: https://divorcesupportnetwork.com/jbdpod