We Chat Divorce Podcast

Why can leaving an abusive relationship feel so difficult—even when you know you have been hurt?

Dr. Nadine Macaluso returns to We Chat Divorce to join Karen Chellew, Legal Liaison, and Catherine Shanahan, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, for a conversation about trauma bonds, coercive control, and rebuilding trust in yourself.

Drawing on her lived experience and work as a therapist, Dr. Nadine explores why the label “codependent” can leave abuse survivors feeling responsible for someone else’s behavior. She discusses how control can create emotional and financial dependence, why someone may miss a harmful partner after leaving, and why relationship chaos can feel familiar.

In This Episode:• Why Dr. Nadine challenges the codependency label in abusive relationships• How coercive control can shape financial dependence and self-doubt• Why leaving does not always bring immediate emotional relief• The role of self-care, connection, and support in recovery• How financial clarity can support more informed decisions

Karen and Catherine also discuss the financial consequences of leaving the workforce and the importance of understanding your finances before making decisions. The MDS Financial Portrait™ is a verified financial planning tool and deliverable, supported by expert analysis, that helps you understand your financial picture and evaluate options with your attorney or mediator. Seeking clarity does not require committing to divorce.

Explore Dr. Nadine’s resources, including the trauma bond assessment discussed in this episode: https://drnae.com

This conversation is educational and does not replace individualized therapeutic, legal, or financial guidance.

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“I just want this to be over.” If you’ve felt that way during divorce, you’re not alone. But before you agree to a settlement, do you understand what it could mean for your everyday life—and your financial future?

In this episode of We Chat Divorce, Karen Chellew, Legal Liaison, and Catherine Shanahan, CDFA®, kick off a three-part series exploring the Divorce Clarity Guide in celebration of My Divorce Solution’s 10-year anniversary.

Drawing on their own divorce experiences and a decade of helping individuals and couples understand their finances, the MDS co-founders break down 10 costly divorce mistakes to avoid:

From keeping the house to comparing retirement assets and understanding how bills are being paid, Karen and Catherine explain why a settlement needs to work beyond the page.

You don’t need to have every answer today. Start by identifying what you know, what needs to be verified, and which questions to bring to your professional team.

Your free listener gift: The Divorce Clarity Guide

Download the guide to follow along with this series and begin asking more informed questions about your financial future.

Get your free Divorce Clarity Guide. Enter your email to access the guide and additional MDS resources.

Subscribe for the next two episodes in this anniversary series, releasing over the coming month.

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In a blended family, an argument about parenting or money can carry deeper questions: Do I belong here? Does my voice matter? Are we still on the same team?

Licensed marriage and family therapist and blended family expert April Eldemire joins Karen Chellew and Catherine Shanahan to explore the emotional challenges of stepfamily life—and how those challenges can influence financial decisions before, during, and after divorce.

Drawing on their professional expertise and personal experiences, April, Karen, and Catherine discuss the isolation stepparents can feel, the attachment patterns that continue after a marriage ends, and the pressure to accept financial arrangements just to keep the peace.

In this episode, we discuss:

Whether you’re building a blended family or questioning what comes next, you deserve to understand your role, your options, and your financial future.

Connect with April: Couples Thrive

Explore the MDS Financial Portrait™: Understand your financial picture and the potential impact of different decisions before you negotiate or sign. Visit My Divorce Solution.

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A settlement can look equal on paper and still leave you wondering how you’ll pay the bills. In this episode of We Chat Divorce, Karen Chellew and Catherine Shanahan walk through a hypothetical couple’s proposed division of $2 million in assets. Each person receives $1 million—but one keeps the house while the other receives most of the retirement savings. What will each need to live on after the divorce?

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Why is it so hard to leave a relationship that hurts you—and how can you begin preparing when fear and financial uncertainty keep you stuck?

Before Dr. Nadine Macaluso returns to We Chat Divorce for a new conversation, we’re revisiting our interview from last year about trauma bonds, financial control, and rebuilding trust in yourself.

A therapist, author of Run Like Hell, and former wife of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Dr. Nadine brings both personal experience and professional insight to this conversation with Catherine Shanahan and Karen Chellew. Together, they explore how controlling relationships can affect your emotional well-being, your access to money, and your confidence in making decisions.

In this episode, we discuss:

Whether you’re considering divorce or trying to understand your relationship, this conversation offers a place to begin. You don’t have to have every answer today, and you don’t have to navigate the uncertainty alone.

Stay tuned for our upcoming conversation with Dr. Nadine.

Free Listener Download

Ready to make sense of what you've read?

Download our free companion guide, You're Not Crazy: A Guide to Recognizing Trauma Bonds and Reclaiming Your Clarity — inspired by our conversation with Dr. Nadine Macaluso. Inside, you'll find the episode's key lessons, a grounding exercise straight from Dr. Nadine, and reflection prompts to help you apply it all to your own life.

Explore divorce financial planning and free resources at ⁠My Divorce Solution⁠.

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When a business is part of a divorce, determining what it is worth is only the beginning. The company may also be a marital asset, a source of household income and the employer paying expenses for the family. Each of these roles can affect the financial outcome for both spouses.

In this episode of We Chat Divorce, Karen Chellew and Catherine Shanahan explain why business decisions should never be made from a valuation number alone. They explore the questions that reveal what is actually included in a valuation—from intellectual property, real estate and goodwill to personal expenses paid through the company.

Karen and Catherine also discuss why two qualified experts can reach very different conclusions. The difference may not be the math, but the assumptions behind it—including valuation dates, reasonable compensation, normalized expenses, growth projections and goodwill. Understanding those assumptions can help you ask focused questions and avoid unnecessary professional fees.

You’ll also learn why cash flow matters when one spouse keeps the business, how personal expenses paid by the company affect post-divorce budgets and what to consider before accepting a multiyear buyout. Karen shares her own experience of remaining legally connected to a former spouse’s company—and the costly consequences of not being formally removed.

In this episode:

Download the Business Divorce Financial Clarity Checklist

Organize what you know, identify what may be missing and prepare more focused questions for your financial and legal professionals. This practical checklist covers business assets, valuation assumptions, cash flow, personal expenses and the steps needed to protect your financial future.

Learn more at MyDivorceSolution.com

Because when a business is involved, clarity means understanding not only what it is worth—but what your financial future depends on.

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What happens when the life you planned suddenly falls apart—and you have to decide what comes next?

Three years after her first appearance on We Chat Divorce, bestselling author, filmmaker, and creator Gabrielle Stone returns to share how heartbreak, solo travel, and honest self-reflection transformed her life.

After discovering her husband’s affair and experiencing another devastating breakup shortly afterward, Gabrielle made a bold decision: she took the month-long European trip she had planned—alone. That experience became the foundation for her bestselling book, Eat, Pray, #FML, and a much larger journey toward healing, independence, and trusting herself again.

Gabrielle opens up about the financial manipulation she experienced in her first marriage, why she became more involved in managing finances in her current marriage, and how she and her husband created clear protections for their blended family.

She also shares how her women-only international trips are helping participants step outside their comfort zones, build meaningful friendships, and rediscover who they are beyond heartbreak, fear, or the roles they have held for years.

In this episode:

If you are wondering who you are after divorce—or whether you can trust yourself to begin again—Gabrielle’s story is a powerful reminder that rebuilding happens one courageous choice at a time.

Ready to take the next brave step? Download The Brave Choice, a free companion to the episode featuring Gabrielle’s two-paths reflection, a “Small Brave Steps to Reclaim” checklist, the Know Your Numbers financial-clarity prompts, and a set of permissions to help you make the rest of your life the best of your life.

Listen to Gabrielle’s previous We Chat Divorce episode:

Connect with Gabrielle:
Instagram: @gabriellestone
TikTok: @gabrielle_stone

To learn how the MDS Financial Portrait™ can help you understand your finances and prepare for informed negotiations, visit MyDivorceSolution.com.

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Financial agreements are often viewed as a way for one person to protect their assets from the other. But a prenup, postnup or separation agreement can begin with a more constructive question: What are we trying to accomplish financially?

In this episode of the We Chat Divorce Podcast’s Divorce Explored series, Karen Chellew and Catherine Shanahan challenge the traditional mindset surrounding financial agreements. Rather than focusing only on what happens if a marriage ends, couples can use these conversations to decide what they want to build together, what should remain separate and how both people will stay financially informed.

The conversation is especially important when one spouse leaves the workforce, contributes to the growth of a business, manages the household or depends on the other spouse’s income. Catherine expands on insights she recently shared in a USA TODAY article about former stay-at-home wives who became financially vulnerable when their marriages ended.

Karen and Catherine discuss:

Download The Know Before You Sign GUIDE

Ready to put these ideas into practice? Download the free Listener Companion to this episode, a printable guide featuring the three agreements and when each one applies, a disclosure checklist to complete before any terms are negotiated, a side-by-side look at managing money versus controlling money, an annual financial review checklist and four reflection prompts to start the conversation at home.

Financial clarity should not begin when you are getting divorced. It should be part of the financial relationship all along.

My Divorce Solution does not draft prenuptial, postnuptial or separation agreements. These are legal documents with requirements that vary by state. MDS helps individuals and couples understand the financial information behind those decisions so they can move forward with greater clarity, confidence and control.

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The divorce may be final—or still unfolding—but your mind and body may remain stuck in survival mode.

In this episode of We Chat Divorce, Karen Chellew and Catherine Shanahan welcome back Jackie Miller, certified trauma-informed coach, author, speaker, and host of Out of Crazy Town: Your Guide to Divorcing a Narcissist.

Jackie shares insights from her new book, Winning: Rewiring Your Brain and Your Life After Toxic Love, explaining why people leaving toxic or high-conflict relationships often continue to experience fear, rumination, and emotional overwhelm. She also explores how these patterns can affect financial decisions during divorce and make it harder to move forward.

The conversation examines the three powerful hooks that can keep someone tethered to an unhealthy relationship: the need for justice, the need for closure, and the need to prove yourself. Jackie shares her own experience spending significant time and money searching for hidden assets—and the important lesson she learned about balancing the pursuit of answers with the cost of remaining emotionally and financially stuck.

You’ll also learn practical ways to interrupt the cycle, including creating a “rescue thought,” practicing future orientation, and using Jackie’s WIN Method:

Jackie explains why writing down your values and creating a clear vision for your future can become your North Star throughout divorce. Karen and Catherine connect this work to financial clarity: when you understand the known facts, you can identify which unknowns truly matter and make more strategic decisions about where to spend your time, energy, and money.

In this episode:

Financial clarity gives you the facts. A healthier mindset gives you the ability to act on them. Together, they create the foundation for rebuilding your life.

Ready to put these ideas into practice? Download The Rewiring Toolkit, a free companion to the episode featuring a guided rescue-thought exercise, the Three Hooks Self-Check, Jackie’s WIN Method and a daily future-orientation checklist.

If you are considering divorce, currently navigating the process, or rebuilding afterward, visit MyDivorceSolution.com to learn how verified financial information can help you move forward with greater clarity and confidence.

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Should you keep the house in your divorce — or sell it? Your realtor can give you an answer. But excellent real estate advice can still be a costly divorce mistake.

In this episode of Divorce Explored, Karen Chellew and Catherine Shanahan use the marital home — one of the most common and emotional decisions in divorce — to expose a bigger problem they call "professional silos": your realtor, accountant, attorney, financial planner, and mortgage professional each giving you sound advice that doesn't coordinate with the rest of your settlement.

A realtor can't tell you how much equity actually remains after the mortgage and selling costs, what assets you'd give up to keep the house, or whether you can refinance and maintain it on your own income. The same siloed thinking shows up in tax advice, support orders, bifurcated divorces, and forensic accounting referrals — leaving you, the client, as the unpaid translator between five different professionals.

In this episode, Karen and Catherine cover:

The answer isn't fewer professionals — it's making sure they're all solving the same problem using the same financial facts. That's what the MDS Financial Portrait™ was built to do.

Learn more at MyDivorceSolution.com

Download this episode's checklist: Should you keep the house or not

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