Kevin Anthony: Welcome to the Love Lab podcast. The place to be for honest and real talk about relationships and sex. Whether you’re a man or woman, single or a couple, this is the show for you. I am your host, Kevin Anthony, and I am here to help you have the relationship of your dreams and the best sex of your life. All right, welcome back to the Love Lab podcast. This is episode 368, and it is titled How to Rewrite the Divorce Narrative.

Kevin Anthony: You know, just before coming on here, I was speaking with my guest, who you can see if you are watching the video on YouTube, and I said, you know, my job as a coach is to try to help people before they get to the point of divorce. However, inevitably, there are some couples where it’s too far gone. There’s too much damage that’s been done. And there is sometimes a need for divorce. You know, sometimes when I work with couples, like, I tell them outright, if they come to me and they’re really struggling and they’re really like, this is our last ditch effort, I don’t tell them, okay, if we work together, for sure, we’re going to fix this, and you can go on.

Kevin Anthony: I say, we’re going to work together. We’re going to see what we can do. But sometimes there are situations where two people just really shouldn’t be together. So I don’t like when that happens. But it does happen. And, you know, in those cases, people need to know that the what we’re going to talk about in a little while, this sort of old paradigm of what it means to divorce, doesn’t have to be that way.

Kevin Anthony: There are different ways that you can approach uncoupling. You’ve heard me use the term on this show before. Conscious uncoupling. We tend to use that a little bit more, referring to just any sort of breakup, not necessarily divorce. But today we’re really gonna talk about what happens when you get to that point. Why do people get to that point? Where is that point even right?

Kevin Anthony: Because there’s this whole idea that sometimes people stay way longer than they should, which causes more damage than it should. So we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about, you know, how people can go through this process in a way that is as easy as it can be, as smooth as it can be. And then we’re also going to talk about something really important, which is what do you do after the divorce? Because a lot of times, there are children involved, so this person still has to be in your life.

Kevin Anthony: So, how do you handle that? I mean, that’s, there’s, there are people out there whose whole job is to just specialize in helping people co-parent after divorce. Like it’s that big a deal. So we’re going to cover all of those things and more, and I think it’s going to be a really great conversation. So just bear with me for a moment while I pay for this show.

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Kevin Anthony: Okay. My guest today is Karen McNinney, and she is working to change the way families navigate divorce. Divorcing families are starving for better outcomes with less debt, destruction, and despair. Through her signature good divorce experience, Karen utilizes her training as a mediator and divorce coach to guide couples through the legal process of getting divorced. More importantly, as a trained therapist and co-parenting specialist, she teaches them how to be divorced once the ink is dry. The marriage may be over, but where children are involved, the relationship is forever.

Kevin Anthony: As a leading voice in the field of human behavior and relationships, Karen ultimately sees herself as a social activist working towards world peace one family at a time. Welcome to the show, Karen.

Karen McNenny: Thank you so much, Kevin, for creating an opportunity for all of us to just get better at relationships for full stop. It’s essential in our society.

Kevin Anthony: Yes, it is. And I love, I love how you tied what you do into a bigger why, right? Working towards world peace one family at a time. What a beautiful mission that is.

Karen McNenny: Yes. I’ve spent the majority of my career, ah, 25 years as a business consultant, uh, before adding divorce consultancy and as a human behavior relationship expert. Uh, you know, peace starts at work. Peace starts in the parking lot of the grocery store. It starts with our next-door neighbor and certainly with those who are family and we are in love with. And if we can’t get it right at that micro level, we’re going to have a hard time getting it right at a macro level.

Kevin Anthony: You are absolutely right. You know something, uh, my wife and I, when we started, uh, building all of this together, m our work and our podcast and all of that, you know, we sat down and we came up with our mission statement as well. And part of that was this idea of using the work that we do to try to better the whole world, right? Because we truly felt, and I still do feel, that it’s exactly what you said.

Kevin Anthony: Everything is an inside job. It starts right here. It starts at home. If your relationships are better, then you go outside your home, you go to work, you go to the grocery store, whatever, and you act better there as well. So it has this ripple effect, right? That’s right. The whole world. Beautiful. Okay, let’s dive right in and, uh, talk about divorce. I know nobody really wants to talk about divorce, but trust me, I think this is going to be helpful.

Karen McNenny: Well, I’m going to just add, Kevin, just because we’re talking about divorce doesn’t mean we’re going to have a divorce. But I think so often it becomes a taboo and unknown, and then suddenly we find ourselves at the threshold, and we have no knowledge. And it immediately becomes a heightened topic because we haven’t explored it. Uh, just like when I get on an airplane, the first thing they do is if this plane should crash. Here are the things you should know. And we don’t all sit there and think, why does everyone want all these planes to crash?

Karen McNenny: No, I’m pro marriage, pro partnership, and pro family. But just in case, we should be educated about how to exit the plane if it crashes. Just like we should be able to find an elegant exit to our marriages, should we need it. Yeah, I completely agree, and thank you for bringing that point up, which is that, you know, even if you’re not in a place where you’re like, I think we’re going to get divorced, this knowledge could still be very helpful. It’s. It’s like having a fire extinguisher in your home.

Kevin Anthony: Or like you said, knowing how to operate the oxygen masks when they come down, knowing what to do when an earthquake hits. Right. Like, whatever it is, it’s like, okay, I have the knowledge. I know how to navigate this if I ever have to. And that’s an important point as well. Absolutely. Let’s start by talking about what the current paradigm of divorce is so that we can compare and contrast. Right. Because we’re going to talk about a new paradigm, let’s understand what the old paradigm is like first. Describe a little bit to the audience what is what we kind of call the current paradigm. Like, how do people usually go about this process?

Karen McNenny:  It’s terrible. Let’s just start there. We are underestimating the impact of divorce on families. And we are negligent as a society, and in how we support it. So let’s just start with this statement. Divorce is not a weapon. It’s a tool. It’s a tool of transformation. And I believe divorce exists so that we can improve a primary relationship when it comes to parents.

Karen McNenny: If you don’t have children, you can kind of sever your lives and go your separate ways. But if you share children, you have a forever relationship; your marriage might be ending, not your relationship. That is going to go on from graduation to grandbabies. And wouldn’t it be great if we looked at divorce as a tool of transformation to renovate the family across two homes, not start a dumpster fire and leave everyone with scorched earth? And honestly, again, something isn’t going well in the relationship.

Karen McNenny: Let’s release ourselves from that so that we can raise our children in a more positive environment. But instead, we go sign up with a couple of litigating lawyers. Not all of them, but. And we spend thousands of dollars, and our soul is sucked through sometimes months and years of litigation, and this divisive arena. And we leave families worse than when they arrived at the threshold of divorce. And I really believe, through the good divorce movement, which is what I’m all about, is that we should be leaving families better, not worse.

Karen McNenny: Otherwise, why would we spend all this time and money just to make it worse? Which we know has an ascending effect on those children, their future relationships, the trauma they carry, and then their children. Like, we are passing on generational trauma through a divorce system that does not actually support the family. It mostly incentivizes conflict. And lawyers, you are doing precisely what you’re trained to do, which is to fight vigilantly for your singular client. And they’re doing it in a system that is built on an adversary. Right.

Karen McNenny: So what if we could change that entire paradigm and stop drinking the Kool-Aid that says, Oh, you’re getting divorced. Prepare to be enemies, and prepare for devastation and debt, and despair. That’s one choice. But it’s not the only choice.

Kevin Anthony: Yeah. Unfortunately, what we see far too often is that they weaponize the divorce. I was reading a book. Uh, well, I am still currently reading a book. And, uh, I. Because I read a ton of, you know, you can only see part of the bookshelf here. I read a lot of books on relationships and stuff, and people send them to me all the time.

Kevin Anthony: Sometimes they just show up in the mail. Like, I don’t even know who this came from. Right. You know, um. Um, so I’ve been reading one lately, and there was. There was a part in there where they were describing their upbringings. And the. The woman in the story basically describes how her parents divorced when she was very young, and her father fought really, really hard to get custody of her. Not necessarily because he wanted to be a really present, great dad, but because he just wanted possession.

Kevin Anthony: And. And that’s just one Example, right? Because there are obviously children who get, you know, pulled back and forth as a, uh, you know, I won because I got them. Right. So they’re, they’re just this thing in the middle that’s being used to, you know, battle the other person. But, you know, money, you know, finances, that sort of thing also. It’s just like, I’m going to try to get everything I can. People go into fear mode, of I’m going to lose everything. So I got to fight as hard as I can. And so this whole procedure of getting divorced becomes this, like you said, this battle, this, you know, weaponization of the legal system in order to try to get one over on the other person.

Karen McNenny: And, it’s someone you had a love story with. It’s someone who our children come from love. Best case scenario, we had a history, we fell in love, we had a marriage, we built a family. And, I don’t want to be your enemy. I just don’t want to be married to you anymore. So let’s help people get unmarried in, conscious, intentional way. And I was recently in a conversation with a lawyer, and they said, Oh, family court, no place for a family. And lawyers are not trained, you know, in the art of relationship building.

Karen McNenny: And uh, you know, lawyers are going to help you get legally divorced. They’re not going to do anything to help, you know, how to be divorced through that forever relationship that we have to write, have some semblance of it on the other side of the paperwork, because we’re going to raise children together. Children we love, children who no one else in the world knows as deeply the love and devotion to that human, other than your co-parent. Why would we want to make those two people enemies? Yeah. You know, you said something that I think is really important and something that I was going to share later on.

Kevin Anthony: I was just waiting for the right moment. But I’m glad you brought it up now, which is this idea that, you know, one of the things you have to remind people, whether it’s an actual divorce or it’s just, you know, uh, what we call a breakup and a transition of a relationship is like pause for a moment and remember, you used to love this person. There were reasons why you were together. And if you can, maybe just pause for a moment and try to remember what some of those are, that could maybe be helpful in navigating this in a less triggered way.

Karen McNenny: I think you’re so wise, Kevin. And I would even go so far as to say leave while there’s still love.

Kevin Anthony: Oh, we’re gonna get to that. I want to have a whole conversation about that. But before we get there, I have a couple more questions about the current state of things. Yeah. So my, my next question is. And you were telling me you were listening to another episode I I had done with a divorce attorney, and I asked her this question as well. So I’m curious what your answer is, which is what are some of the most common reasons that you see, uh, people getting divorced these days?

Karen McNenny: Well, we can have an interesting chat about this, Kevin, because we’re two little relationship nerds, and I think it comes down to compatibility. And in my, my bigger, uh, heart space of human behavior and relationship, which is my area of expertise and the work that I do, you know, we’re pulling people out of the river of divorce right now, and it’s folks like you and other professionals that are going upstream to help us make better choices in our partnership. And, uh, I was, I was joking recently with someone that if I were to go rent an apartment, they would ask to see bank statements and my credit score, for instance.

Karen McNenny: Right? That is really personal, exposing information. But they’re not going to rent to me. However, I’m going to choose to potentially raise children with you, certainly be a roommate with you, file taxes, enter into a financial obligation, or a business, right? Marriage is a business contract. But we’ve so over-romanticized the whole wedding fairy tale that we forget how this person loads the dishwasher, right? And then just take that and fill in the gaps. How do they see, you know, their, their financial world? What’s their relationship to money?

Karen McNenny: What’s the relationship to the intimate bedroom? What’s the relationship to extended family? What are their thoughts about raising kids? Like, if we could better align our compatibility around some of the really what end up being deal breakers, um, in marriage, then maybe we could reduce. I mean, I want there to be fewer divorces. I don’t want there to be. I want to be out of work. I want there to be fewer divorces. Because starting earlier, like literally in school and in high school and in college, when we have all these humans captured in what I call relationship literacy.

Karen McNenny: And we talk about reading, writing, and arithmetic as education, right? In our archaic education system. But what about reading, writing, arithmetic, and relationships? And as a business consultant, no one ever hires me to help them with long division. They only hire me to help with relationship issues in the workplace. And so if, if, if there is one thing that leads to divorce, I think it’s a gap in Compatibility that was not yet recognized or researched early on. I kind of say it’s like buying the home without doing the home inspection.

Kevin Anthony: Yeah, I completely agree. And you know, in that episode that you were listening to, one of the things we talked about was, uh, that idea of these, um, sort of shared values. Right, that’s right. Understanding, like, what are your values? What are their values? And is there alignment in those values? I had another guest, um, on the show a while back. His name was Nick. His book is right up there. It’s called Prioritize Us. And he’s created a whole assessment to help couples understand where they’re at. And you, you know, you go down and you, you rank, uh, all the things, and then your partner ranks all the, you know, major things, you know, core values in life.

Kevin Anthony: And then you compare them and you come up with a difference score, and that sort of thing. But the whole tool is just to help people figure this out. I say all the time, I’m like, when you are dating, it’s like an extended interview, right? Should be. It should be. You’re supposed to be trying to find out as much as you can about this person and where the alignments are and where they aren’t. Unfortunately. What do most people do? They put on their best face and their best act, and they try to, like, show up as, you know, being the perfect, you know, per. And they’re not real. Right?

Karen McNenny: Yeah. And it takes about 18 months for all those love draw drugs that are have us intoxicated. I’m sure you talk about this all the time here on the Love Lab, that you have to get to some reality before you decide to get married and sew your lives together.

Kevin Anthony: Yeah. You know, there was a period of time, uh, it was, I think it was shortly after my wife and I got married, that in our local community of friends, we had all these people getting together and like, super quick, like, getting married within months or like one of them, I think, got married like, within like the first week that they knew each other.

Kevin Anthony: And the crazy thing is, everybody in our sort of local community was saying things like, Oh, my God, this is so amazing. They’re so compatible, and they’re just, they’re 100% in. And I wish I could be just like them. And my wife and I are over here going, this is not going to end well. This is worrisome. This is very worrisome as I’m trying to be positive. You know, I’m trying to encourage my friends, and like, you found love. And it’s amazing. Great. And just, please slow down. Well, here we are a decade later, and I can tell you there is only one of those couples still standing.

Kevin Anthony: And they went through a lot of to still be standing. Yeah. And the rest all imploded in some really not good ways. Right. And so this idea, like you were just talking about, it takes about 18 months. Right. So what do we call that? The honeymoon period? This is the first year and a half to two years, maybe upwards of two and a half. But that time period, around where your body is producing all of these feel-good chemicals and you don’t care that they leave the toilet seat up? No. They don’t load the dishwasher correctly because they’re so amazing anyway. Right. Intoxicating. It’s delicious.

Karen McNenny: There’s nothing more wonderful. And I would add that we use our engagement period not to plan the wedding, but to plan the marriage. That the engagement really is a time to engage in our compatibility. We’re through. We’ve decided, hey, I think we’re moving towards this marriage. And, at that time, working with a couples counselor is, is a wonderful idea that pre, even pre-engagement counseling, not just pre-marital counseling, because in America, as soon as you got a ring, it’s all about an event. Now we’re planning a wedding. Yeah, yeah, I, I, I completely agree with that.

Kevin Anthony: Uh, you know, I’m a big proponent of doing a lot of things beforehand so that you don’t end up going, oh, we should have. In other words, you know, for instance, you know, I do sex and relationship coaching, and I do work with a fair number of people who have deeply held spiritual beliefs, some of which say you shouldn’t have sex before you get married. Mhm. And I say I a hundred percent respect, uh, your belief system. I will just, I’m gonna say my piece now. So you hear it and then you decide what you wanna do. But my advice always is, every study ever done says that successful long-term, happy relationships are also relationships that have a healthy, successful sexual component.

Kevin Anthony: Right. So the stats are really clear. If you have a healthy, fulfilling sex life, your chances of having a healthy, long-term, successful relationship go up dramatically. Yep. So how are you going to know if that’s even possible if you don’t have sex until after your mattress? So that’s, that’s one example. I’m also a big proponent of living together before you actually get married because there are lots of little things. You know, the classic one, of course, I just mentioned a moment ago that everybody jokes about is leaving the toilet seat up, right? Or how you hang the toilet roll.

Karen McNenny: And the dishwasher, and cleanliness, and laundry schedule, and paying bills, and all the domestic things of running a home together and being roommates. If you went out on Craigslist and you were searching for a roommate and these were the qualities you want, do they match up with the person you’re about to live with for the rest of your life? Because being roommates is a, uh, high place of conflict, especially once you start putting kids in the mix. And we see that the imbalance of domestic labor often leans towards the ladies. And that can cause a lot of conflict, uh, in a marriage. Yeah, absolutely. And again, there’s no way you could know those things unless you try it out ahead of time. And people think, you know, things like, oh, the dishwasher is like, you know, it’s a stupid thing.

Kevin Anthony: Why is that even important? Well, it. They. These little things that we’re talking about are potentially important for two reasons. Number one, those little things, if you’re really holding on to them, build resentment over time. They start out little, they end up being huge down the road because of years and years of resentment. That’s unresolved. Okay, that’s part of it. The other part, though, is that how you live your life does speak to what your core values are. And so, you know, seeing how somebody shows up in life, like, you know, maybe you date and you’ve never actually been to his house. Right?

Kevin Anthony: You’re always at your house or you’re out or whatever it is. And you know, he might even show up dressed really nice and then, and then you walk into his house and it’s a disaster. It’s an organized. There are empty pizza boxes all over the place. Like all of a sudden you’re like, oh my God, I had no idea that, you know, and that speaks to your values. What are your values? Do you have a high value for organization or cleanliness, or, you know, I mean, uh, it doesn’t mean 100% that if you’re messy at home, you’re messy in the rest of your life. But it is a sign that that’s potentially true. I mean, if you’re, if your home is a disaster, what’s your business look like?

Kevin Anthony: Like, from the outside, it might look successful, but under the hood, what’s going on? You have back taxes you haven’t paid. Do you know how much money you’re making? Like, who knows? Right?

Karen McNenny: We want to also be sensitive to our audience members who are neurodivergent, who can live in the chaos, and that actually is where they function the best. But yes, that could totally be. But know thyself, and that that’s compatible. Like, oh, right. If I’m a neurodivergent person who thrives in chaos and suddenly I’m dating somebody who’s ocd, we might have a hard time living compatibly, you know, in a compatible fashion.

Kevin Anthony: So, uh, know thyself and pay attention to those that you’re dating. Exactly, absolutely. And that was the idea of, uh, as you learn more about them, you’ll start to get insight into what those values are.  You can start to see behind the show that people put on. Which is another thing I tell people all the time. I’m like, I’m like, look, if you’re dating and you’re not showing up as your authentic self right from day one, what are you doing? Yeah, you’re gonna, you just. You will suffer. You will suffer. You are, you are potentially creating more suffering later on down the line.

Kevin Anthony: If in the first couple of dates she says, you know what, I just don’t think we’re compatible, and I don’t want to see you anymore. Okay, that hurts. But six months or a year or a year and a half later, when you can’t keep up the mask anymore, it’s going to hurt a whole lot more.

Karen McNenny:And I think this changes over age. Curious if you find the same thing. Certainly, as a young person dating in my 20s, I did a, what I call the Karen contortion. Like, oh, I can be a little more like this. Oh, I think he’s gonna like that. Oh, I’ll do more of this, less of that. I was contorting into this chameleon, constantly changing.

Karen McNenny: Which then meant when I was in the relationship, I didn’t have space for my full, authentic self. And now that I’m, you know, 14 years divorced and 53, and in my dating world, like, honey, what you see is what you get. And there will be no pretending because if it doesn’t work for us, that’s fine. Let’s go forth and find where the puzzle pieces actually go together. And I feel that way about my, you know, the father of my children, my first partner, my husband, uh, once removed, is. He’s lovely. I’m lovely. But the alchemy between us shifted over time.

Karen McNenny: Once there were kids, and there were financial obligations, and there was a household that we were running to together. And we definitely bought the house without doing the home inspection. Uh, I will own that for myself. And we got married nine months after our first blind date. And there were lots of factors playing into that. He was 40, I was 32. Tick, tock, tock, here we go. Uh, everything is completely emotional, romantic hijacking, and we have lovely children. And as you were chatting earlier about, you know, divorce and impact and kids and this generational trauma, I always say divorce isn’t what screws kids up, it’s adults doing dumb.

Karen McNenny: That’s what screws kids up, uh, whether you’re married or unmarried. And we’ve been using divorce as a scapegoat and in part because we do so much damage to that primary relationship in our traditional approach to divorce.

Kevin Anthony: You’re absolutely right. And yes, I do feel that it does change as we get older. As we get older, we get more self-confident, we know better who we are, and we have the confidence to show up and say, This is who I am. Yes. Right? And so we, we, uh, and we’ve also experienced what it’s like to either play games or have games played on us, and we, we, we lose our tolerance for that.

Kevin Anthony: Yeah. And you also mentioned a little bit of that, like, ticket talk, you know, the clock thing. Like, we also tend when we’re older to look at it and go, I don’t have time for games. Like, I gotta figure this out.

Karen McNenny: Yeah. And for young women in their early 30s, I also. My ovaries don’t have time to screw around, or I’m happy to, to say yes to this because I’m, um, My biology is overriding my logic. Yeah. And most procreate, most people are; they have a hard time recognizing that because when the biology is driving, they think that it’s their own thoughts or desires, but it’s really just the biology driving.

Kevin Anthony: So bringing awareness to that is hugely important and something that not everybody has. So. Okay, we’re about halfway through the show. I want to talk next about this idea of leaving while there’s still love. And then take a break. And then when we come back from that, I really want to focus the rest of the show on how people can navigate this process in a new way. So first, let’s talk about this idea of leaving while there is still love. What does that really mean? And how do you know when the right time is?

Karen McNenny: Well, I’m going to, I’m going to start with the end and reverse engineer this, Kevin, because I, uh, you know, when people say, what’s one of the big mistakes folks make in their divorce journey?

Karen McNenny: And I would say the first one is, we stay too long. We just stay too long. We’re terrible at breakups. Like, we’re not trained. We’re under-skilled. And I see this with my corporate clients who are hanging on to employees who are just doing damage to their culture. They’re. They’re a relationship wreck. They’re. It. I’m like, why have you not fired them? Well, they’ve been here for so long. Well, you know, their loyalty. Well, we’ll never be able to replace. We have all these excuses of why we don’t break up. And it’s no different in marriage.

Karen McNenny: I mean, first of all, nobody wants to get divorced, as you’ve said, Kevin. We don’t. We don’t arrive at the altar thinking, well, I’m counting on a divorce in a few years or in a few decades. None. We, we are so, um, blinded to the possibility that, that our marriage might be one of these. And, I think we know our truth long before we speak it. And sometimes it’s both parties in the couple. Um, but more often than not, I think there’s one person who actively starts to think about what if? And I refer to this as packing your psychological parachute just in case I gotta leap out of this plane.

Karen McNenny: Could we both afford to live in two new houses? Would I be able to keep this house? What would custody look like? Are we gonna? What, uh, would the. In law, right, we just start doing all these sorts of fantasizing about what if? And we start maybe talking to other people who are divorced. How did it go for them? How are their kids? How do you do transitions? Um, did you end up with the house? What. What kind of lawyer, right? We start maneuvering in our mind, and then when it does get spoken again, because we don’t talk about it from an education standpoint, the first time it gets spoken in the house is usually in an inflamed rage of like, ah, uh, that’s it.

Karen McNenny: If you don’t, I’m going to divorce you. I’m going to. You can just move. And the emotional hijacking of divorce is where our starting gate is. And how we begin is often how we end. So people go into couples counseling, they call up Kevin, Anthony, save my marriage. Let’s fight for the marriage, our relationship. Push, push, push. And I would suggest we can also fight for the good divorce, and what happens, in my opinion, is our, uh, our marriage is a little like the mayonnaise jar in the fridge. And we take it out and we keep using it, and it’s good. And then one day we notice there’s a little green something on that lid.

Karen McNenny: But I mean, look in the jar. It’s fine. I’m going to just wipe away that. You know, we just. We just wipe it out, put the lid back on, stick it back in the fridge and take it out again. Oh, yeah, there is a little bit of mold now. It’s kind of on the jar. That’s okay. Most of the jar is good. Why would I throw out this entirely good jar of mayonnaise? But the reality is it’s going bad. And if we keep putting it back and putting it back and putting it back, you’re going to. You’re going to have food poisoning. It’s going to be an ugly scene. It’s no good. If we, as a culture, and it’s part of my mission, is the permission giving that if we could come to the table and recognize this is where our marriage is eroding.

Karen McNenny: This isn’t working for me. And we’re in couples counseling, and if there could be an elegant exit that says we don’t have to be on fire before we leave. And during that ambiguous time, should I stay, should I go? Which is a purgatory. It’s a terrible, terrible time. And I. I think what can happen for folks, and certainly part of this started to happen for us, is that we. We want to convince the judge and jury that this is bad enough to leave, because it better be pretty bad if you’re going to give up on your marriage. So addictions start to raise their ugly head. Infidelity starts to show up. We distance, you know, it’s that whatever you go looking for, you’re going to find.

Karen McNenny: And if you’re building a case to leave your marriage, we just become a house full of bickering, angry people where more and more problems start to present themselves. So now I can turn to the. You know, maybe it’s the church, maybe it’s my parents, maybe it’s the children. It’s whoever is the judge and jury in our mind and says, Do you see how bad this is? Of course, we have to. Of course, I’m leaving him. Of course she’s. But whereas probably there was a point before the addiction, the infidelity, the bickering, the. The personal attacks on character are made to make a case for departure.

Karen McNenny: And if we could back up the train before that damage starts inside the house, then we might be able to move through our departure and our breakup with more elegance and compassion, and care.

Kevin Anthony: You just hit on something that we see often in relationships, which is the idea that, you know, relationships that still have good components to them are the hardest ones to walk away from. And people struggle with that. They go, well, this isn’t good, and that isn’t good, but this other thing is. Right. And it’s so hard to let go of the pieces that are good. And so we often tell people, you have to see it as a whole. Right.

Kevin Anthony: You can’t just, you know, pick and say this is good or this is bad. But when people are confronted with that situation of, uh, well, you know, there are things here that really aren’t working, but there are some good things, and I don’t want to let go of that. Then they get into the self-sabotage portion, where they will intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously start creating things that give them the excuse.

Karen McNenny: Precisely. Call it quits. That’s the mayo jar. We just keep holding on to it and like. Yeah. And uh, in the instance where there are children, if you still have good mayo in the jar, great, take it with you. You’re gonna need it. You’re gonna need those parts of the relationship because you’re going to have a forever relationship with your co-parent. You’re going to show up at that wedding. And the last thing that I want for my clients is that their children have to navigate their BS on their wedding day because my parents can’t be in the same room because they flamed out in such a giant war at the end of their marriage for no reason. Like truly for no good reason. And you’re right, Kevin, that conscious, unconscious, sabotaging, nitpicking, if you, uh, you’re going to find whatever you go looking for. That’s just the common psychology.

Kevin Anthony: Yeah. And I think, you know, I asked the question, where is that line of knowing when it’s time and when it’s not time? And I think it’s not always 100% clear, but if you realize that you are at that point where you are consciously or unconsciously starting to create reasons to be angry at the relationship, that’s a pretty clear sign that that’s, that’s a time. Yeah, right. Because otherwise you’re just going to go down that, that road of just creating more and more destruction along the way, because that’s what you feel you need to justify your decision?

Karen McNenny: Sure. And I think we’re avoiding divorce. Not just because I don’t want to be divorced and single and divorce is sad and hard and grief and loss. But what we have on offer in our culture for divorce looks terrible. And it certainly was true for me. It wasn’t that my marriage was, like, so bad and nobody was beating each other and no one was, you know, all of this financial infidelity. There wasn’t anything like that. It was an issue of, of the alchemy between us and the compatibility. But divorce. I’d rather die than go through, like, a dumpster fire, ending up with $30,000 in debt, our kids are caught in the middle, and I’m now an enemy with the father of my children.

Karen McNenny: I could not face it. And that’s the story we’ve been fed. This is what’s on offer. There’s only one thing on the multiple choice: how to get divorced. I don’t want that. I’ll stay in a, uh, I’ll stay in a bad marriage and wait for it to get worse. But if we knew that there was an amicable approach and there were professionals to support us and that a good divorce with our family, right, we can end the marriage without ending our family, then I think people would lean into it sooner, knowing that there was an option that wasn’t going to be so disastrous and destructive.

Kevin Anthony: That is the perfect segue into what I want to talk about next. So we’re going to take a short break, and when we come back, I want to talk about this new paradigm, this new option, because you are absolutely right. A lot of times, people stay longer than they should because they fear the process of divorce. And so we’re going to give them a new option just on the other side of this break. Are you a couple? Are, uh, your relationship and sex life where you want them to be? Are there changes you would like to make but just don’t know how? Maybe you think there is nothing that can be done. If you’re not 100% happy with where your relationship or sex life is, then get help today and change your life.

Kevin Anthony: Go to https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/couples/ and schedule a strategy call with me today so we can map out a strategy to get you where you want to be so you can have it all your way. That is https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/couples/. This is where you have the opportunity to work on all of this stuff first and have the relationship of your dreams and the best sex of your life, and then you don’t even have to worry about the idea of divorce. But having listened to this show, you will know what you need just in case that ever happens. Okay?

Karen McNenny: I’m so glad you’re out there, Kevin, doing the work to help relationships. That’s what we want. Thank you. We want successful long term relationships for those who want to choose that.

Kevin Anthony: Yes, we do. And unfortunately, just like people haven’t been taught how to divorce in an amicable way, people also have not been taught how to have good relationships. Yeah, we just weren’t taught it. It is another one of those things in school that they just never taught us. And a lot of us grew up in families where we didn’t learn it through observation, because our parents had a dysfunctional relationship, and their parents had a dysfunctional relationship. And so it’s just a skill we never learned.

Kevin Anthony: If you want to be good at anything, you have to learn it. You know, that’s just how it is. Okay, so let’s start by telling the audience what is this thing we’re going to call now the new paradigm of divorce. Sort of outline for people what’s possible. So they, they’re at this point where they realize that it’s time. Right. What do they do, and what does this look like?

Karen McNenny: Well, in an ideal world, from my perspective, as we fight for our marriage and then on a Sunday night after the kids have gone to bed, we realize we’re, we’re done. Uh, and that we first recognize that this is a death and a grief journey for families.

Karen McNenny: If my husband had died, people would have shown up with a casserole. There would have been a food train. They would have approached me in the grocery store and hugged me up, and checked how I was doing and how the kids were doing. But divorce, everyone kind of scatters like it’s contagious and awkward, and they don’t know what to do with it. So we need to recognize it’s the death of a family as we knew it. It’s the death of my marriage. It’s the death of my identity as a partner and a wife. It’s the death of how my parenting life is because I, uh, probably went from 100% parent to some smaller portion.

Karen McNenny: And that’s so much grief. So if we can start there as a culture and recognize that we’re under, supporting, um, and, and almost neglectful, and, and one of the policy changes, um, through the work of the good Divorce Academy, and the experiences that, you know, the family and medical leave act in our workplace. Divorce is not covered by FMLA. And we know it is like the second most stressful, traumatic event for people, second to the death of a spouse, the death of a child. And then we have divorce, but we’re going to skip over that and then these other ways. So that’s just one example of us underestimating what families are going through.

Karen McNenny: So that’s part of the paradigm shift. So if on that Sunday evening, families then decide, uh, we’re going to dissolve our marriage, we’re not going to end our family, but we’re definitely ending our marriage. Do not call a lawyer as your first thing; call a coach, call a co-parenting specialist, find a divorce consultant, find a mediator, um, who is going to start working with you side by side, not immediately turn you into adversaries. Now, there are couples that have huge trauma within them, and maybe there was domestic violence, maybe they’re was painful infidelity that was chronic, maybe there’s been abuse of the children.

Karen McNenny: Right, That’s a different story. But honestly, and you know this, Kevin, there are a lot of us normal neurotics running around who just need to get unmarried. That’s what we need help with. We don’t need a whole big dramatic change. Now, the couples that work with me, what we’re trying to do, and I always tell them, well, first of all, the unique thing is I work with the couple together that I’m finding is rare um, but there is a movement, shifting. That’s when you’re going to get your best outcome is mom and dad side by side. And even without children, I’ve got, I have had a number of families, and a lot of times it’s, it’s older couples, um, you know, in the, in the Silver divorce, the senior divorce, who didn’t maybe have children or they have adult children.

Karen McNenny: So it’s not really about the kids anymore, but they’re still unraveling, following a lifetime, a journey. And in my case, the children are my clients. That’s who I work for. And I’m there to protect their future, their graduation day, their wedding day, so that their parents can show u,p and it can be all about the child and not them.

Kevin Anthony: I think it’s amazing that you work with both of them, because even if you know, somebody knows that consultants in this realm exist, and they go out and hire one, if you each have your own, there’s a high likelihood that what’s going to happen is a similar dynamic to what happens with the lawyers. You got a coach on this side saying, well, no, you. You gotta. You gotta go to him and say this and do this. And then. No, no, you’ve gotta. You gotta set a boundary with her and say that, right? And then. And then you have that contention happening again. Whereas having one person in the middle who has the best interest of the family unit as well whole, you can hopefully potentially avoid that. So I think that’s pretty cool. The other thing is, your first piece of advice was Don’t call a lawyer right away. Call a divorce consultant or a coach or somebody. And I don’t think a lot of people even know they exist.

Karen McNenny: That’s right, which is why I’m grateful for this platform and the work that you’re doing. Kevin. You know, there’s a collection of us. There is a whole group of pioneers out to disrupt the divorce industrial complex as we know it. I’m one of many voices. It’s coming, and in five to 10 years, divorce is going to look different. And. And part of that is because we’re spreading. We’re spreading the news. I’ve been invited to write a book that will come out in May of 2026. The good divorce. How to end your marriage without ending your family. They’re the. The amplification of this message is growing.

Karen McNenny: And with my clients, we do family before finances. We commit to getting the family stabilized. So you, uh, know, I might spend a month or more with a family just like, where. Where are people going to live? And you’re probably still under one roof. Um, do we need a nesting schedule? A cohabitation schedule? How do we create fewer opportunities, opportunities for conflict? What’s the communication plan? And that’s not just how we tell our kids. That’s how we tell our kids, coaches, and teachers. It’s how we tell our shared group of friends. It’s how we tell the grandparents. And I always say, you write the headline and stay ahead of the press.

Karen McNenny: And I help families write public service announcements to their circle of shared friends. Hey, we’re. We’re. We’re so sad to share this hard news that we’ve got decided to dissolve our marriage. Don’t expect us to pick sides and get in a big battle. And the only side we want you to be on is the side of our kids. And when you see us in the grocery store, please don’t dodge into the cereal aisle. You can come over and check in on us. We just ask that you don’t ask us why you just ask how we’re doing. So I train the couple to train their circle of support because it might be grandpa who’s like, what do you mean you don’t have a lawyer yet? You’re going to get screwed. Crude. You got a lawyer up like, oh, we have to re, do a lot of re-education.

Kevin Anthony: Yeah. You know, years ago we weren’t, we weren’t married, but uh, I did exactly that. I had been with a partner for a number of years, and we lived together for a number of years, and at a certain point, you know, we decided we wanted different things from life. We were still both young, I mean, still in our 30s, I think. So I did exactly that. This is the very early days of social media. Like, just Facebook had sort of just come out, you know. And uh, and I did, I wrote, I wrote basically a public service announcement.

Kevin Anthony: Yeah. And wrote all of that to all of our friends, telling them this is the decision that we’ve made. But it’s okay, you can still invite both of us to your event if you want. We’re okay with that. We know how to interact with each other. Like I wrote all of that down and sent that out to everybody.

Karen McNenny: That is a wonderful idea. Because if we do finances before family, then kids start to get weaponized. Oh, you took the Jaguar from all the banking accounts. So I’m gonna fight for full custody. Screw you. And those kids get put in the middle. But when we stay in that heart space of what do we want best for our kids, and what makes sense for us, and how will that change over time? And I’m not talking about dollars and dates. That’s what lawyers care about. Who’s paying for the insurance and what’s child support, and where are they spending Christmas? And it’s even years and odd years. But with my clients, our co-parent education is.

Karen McNenny: We’re going to talk about discipline across households. So dad takes the phone away on a Thursday, kids transition on a Sunday. He says, You don’t have your phone for two weeks. This is the infraction. Will Mom carry over that same consequence in her home? We’re going to talk about that before you’re ever standing in that river. And we’re going to now talk about the values of our co-parenting. And I have, uh, I have clients who, like, I wish we had done more of this when we first got married. This would have been really helpful. Exactly. Yes. That’s all part of that, figuring out your shared values.

Kevin Anthony: I just did a YouTube video on this the other day, and I said that you’ve got to get on the same page with your parenting right from the start. You got to sit down and figure out, are we in alignment with the way that we parent. You should be doing that before you even have kids. Right. And if you do that, then you don’t have all of these types of conflicts. Uh, so, okay, so you’ve been talking about some of the things that you help couples with while they’re going through the process, but I know that you also work with them after the divorce is over. Right? Talk about some of the things that you help them do after the dust has settled, and now they’re just in basically a co-parenting situation.

Karen McNenny: Yes. Well, I’m gonna have a little confession. First of all, early in this work, I took co-parenting counseling, uh, clients who were referred to me from other specialists whose caseloads were full, and, you know, and I’m here guiding people through the good divorce experience. And it’s graduation day, and they sign their paper, and we’ve, we, you know, we have sadness, but we have relief. We haven’t. We’re not in debt. They’re doing pretty good. But these couples that were coming my way is because they’re in high conflict two or three years post-divorce. Sometimes the judges are like, you’ve got to go find co-parent counseling.

Karen McNenny: I don’t want you back in my courtroom. Or it’s a couple who’s like, we’re just still really struggling and we’re not communicating and our kids are suffering. It is incredibly difficult to pull people back from the brink once they have come through a traumatic divorce experience. So I personally am taking less and less of those, those clients, because I was finding it so challenging to repair the pain and the damage that had been done. But for those who can arrive before too much damage has been done, like, pretty early on. Right. And if you’re listening, like, oh, we just got divorced. We’re already screwed. No, it’s never too late to have a good divorce.

Karen McNenny: I really believe that. And if both of you come to the table with us just now, we need co-parent education. So that is going to be things like communication. You know, one parent, uh, wants everything on text. Someone else wants everything in an email. Someone writes a book, someone wants five sentences. So we actually talk about that. We might set them up with a co parenting app such as our Family wizard which you can put all your communication on our Family wizard. Your calendar. Have a, uh, residential schedule, doctor’s appointments, and basketball games, as well as track all the money that’s going back and forth between parents. It’s great.

Karen McNenny: I also recommend people to parent team T E a M m not parenteen ing but parent team. Uh, and my colleagues Brandon and Jennifer here in Montana have a wonderful online curriculum that you can work through together. Self-guided video. So you’re learning those skills. We also might need to go back and talk about some of those things, like consequences across homes. Um, at what age do we feel comfortable with our children getting their driver’s license and driving curfews? Younger age. It’s sleep hygiene. We know our kids do better when they go to bed at 8 o’clock in both homes. Not 8 o’clock. One home and 11 o’cloc,k the other home food.

Karen McNenny: Right now, I might want my kids to have a good protein hot. Huh? Breakfast every day, and my partner is feeding them Froot Loops. There’s a point at which you’re not in charge. You’re not in charge of that home, and you can’t micromanage it, and it will lead to conflict. But if we can get people back into co-parent education, then they can talk about that in a mediated way. You know, I’m a certified mediator as well as a divorce coach and a co-parenting specialist, and mediation work I’ve been doing in corporate America for years. So um, it’s project management. I’m just bringing the same skills over here.

Karen McNenny: And often when you have a third person who can help you hear each other, and you know this, Kevin. It’s just relationship dynamics. Sometimes we’re, we’re just. It’s like the teacher and Charlie Brown. And I can translate. So what I’m hearing dad say is that his budget is really tight right now, which is why he ends up with more processed food in the house. Now I’m wondering if there’s something we can do to to shift that. Right. Let’s look. And, it puts them in a place of problem-solving and brainstorming on behalf of their children. The other thing that I sprinkle in when I’m doing co-parent coaching is to soften their heart towards each other.

Karen McNenny: So a lot of times we’ll end a session and I’ll say Kevin, can you identify something that the mother of your children does that you don’t do? Right. That isn’t one of your parenting superpowers that you really appreciate, and suddenly, mom hears you say something that she didn’t even know you recognized. Oh, mom is so great at making friends with all of the kids’ parents so they’re very involved, and there are lots of activities, and I say mom, what do you notice about Kevin? Kevin is more of a hands-off parent, but that’s helping our kids to be more independent and sometimes I over-micromanage, and he gives them a little more freedom to make a mess and figure it out.

Karen McNenny: And I really admire that. To hear your co-parent say anything kind-hearted about you is such a, uh, softening. So we’re doing repairs from the rupture of the relationship and we’re also helping those folks to learn how to be co-parents across two homes.

Kevin Anthony: Yeah, you know, I just learned something new. I should have probably known this, but I didn’t know there was an app made specifically to help people co-parent. Yeah. Ah, that’s awesome. Of course, there’s an app for everything.

Karen McNenny: But our family wizard is one of the pioneering ones, and it can be great. And, part of it exists because some families are court-ordered. All of their communication has to happen on an app and all of it is submissible in court. So and it has a tone meter when you write a message like that’s a little snarky. Let’s soften it up in it.

Kevin Anthony: Oh, that’s great. It is also helping your success. I’m immediately going to recommend that to a few people I know who need it. I have a couple of friends that are still in this paradigm where they’re divorced and they’re co parenting and their kids are still somewhat young and they are struggling with a lot of all the things that you just said which is like, you know, I make sure the kids have this diet and then they go to dads and he’s like eat whatever you want. Right? You know, so there’s, there’s still a lot of that happening. So good to know that there are other resources like that.

Karen McNenny: There are apps and there are co-parenting specialists and coaching available um, out there, and I’m always happy to work with couples who come to the table ready to learn and wanting something to change. Sometimes I’ve had couples who are just there to fight the process and check it off the list and said, we did it. Nothing’s gonna change.

Kevin Anthony: Well, you know, that’s why when I, when I do, uh, what I call strategy calls with clients, you know, obviously the client, the potential client is thinking, this is where they get to see if they want to work with me.

Kevin Anthony: But I’m doing the exact same thing. This is where I get to see if I want to work with them. Absolutely. You know, I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, uh, if I feel like I’m not going to be able to help somebody, then I don’t want to work with them. Because it’s not about the money. It doesn’t do me or you any good. You don’t get the help that you want. Right. You walk away going, I paid this guy this money, and you know, we’re no better off. Right. And then you go around and say, Oh, this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Right. Like, if I don’t feel like I can help you, I, I don’t, I don’t want to. It doesn’t do either of us any good.

Karen McNenny: Okay, so we are out of time, unfortunately. And honestly, I asked you about a third of the questions. I had so much to talk about, you and I. Kevin. It’s so, such a, just a really rich discussion. I appreciate that so much. Yeah, me too. Uh, you know, in an hour-long show, there’s only so much that you can do. But I think we did a pretty good job of showing people what the current dynamic is, letting them know that, you know, they can leave earlier than they think. And if that, if they do, you know, they’re potentially, um, avoiding a lot of problems down the road. And then I think we gave them a taste of what it’s like to potentially navigate this situation through this new paradigm that we’re talking about.

Kevin Anthony: So I think we did a pretty good job of helping people see that there is a different way, that it doesn’t have to be the way that they have always known it or observed it in other people or thought that that’s how it was going to be. So from that perspective, I think we did a pretty good job. Even though I got more questions. Maybe there’ll be a part two someday. Maybe. Before we wrap up, however, please tell everybody how they can find out about you and your services.

Karen McNenny: Thank you for the opportunity. And I’m, I’m talking to those of you who are hearing this. And maybe just in the beginning, baby, thoughts of Divorce, maybe navigating it, maybe know somebody out there.

Karen McNenny: And the quickest way is to Google the Good Divorce Coach or just the Good Divorce, because we don’t put those words together very much. And you’ll find my website, karenmcveney.com or thegooddivorce.com, and I also have a podcast, the Good Divorce Show. Not only do I bring experts on the show to talk about some of the hard skills and practicality of moving through divorce professionals in real estate and finance, and legal, but I have lots of adult children of divorce talk about what their parents did well, and then couples who come on and chat about their divorce experience.

Karen McNenny: Um, and we only highlight how to do it well and what it sounds like when it’s done well. And there are lots of people out there who have great models. And in May of 2026, the book The Good Divorce will also be published under Wiley Press.

Kevin Anthony: Awesome. You know, when we were talking about books, because I mentioned books earlier, I was thinking to myself, I’m like, I need to ask her if she’s ever considered writing a book on this.

Karen McNenny: It’s finally happening. It’s so exciting. Maybe that’ll be our next conversation in. In the spring.

Kevin Anthony: Exactly what I was just going to suggest, that when the book does come out and you are promoting it to get it out there, please come back on the show and let’s talk about, um. All right, those links, of course, will be in the description, so, uh, you can always just find them there. And I just want to. To thank you, Karen, for coming on the show, sharing your knowledge and wisdom, and opening people’s minds to the idea that there is a better way. And I am glad that there are people like you out there doing what you do.

Karen McNenny: Thank you.

Kevin Anthony: All right, everybody, that’s all the time I have for this episode, and I will see you next week.

Kevin Anthony: I hope you liked this episode of the Love Lab podcast. If you enjoy this show, subscribe, leave me a review, and share it with your friends. And for more free, exclusive content, join me in the passion vault at https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/vault/. That’s https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/vault/. Thanks for listening, and remember, as Celine used to say, you’re amazing!