Nobody prepares you for the first night your kids are not there. The house is quiet, their rooms are empty, and you are sitting with a grief that almost nobody warns you about.

In this episode of Divorce Discussions, host Angie Weber sits down with Nora Marcus, LMSW, a New York based licensed social worker, certified divorce mediator, and certified co-parenting specialist who builds child-first parenting plans and stays with families long after the decree is signed.

Nora starts where most conversations skip ahead: the loss itself. She explains why our brains fight this so hard, why the sadness of sharing your children is not a problem that needs solving, and why divorce is not one event you get through but something that keeps resurfacing at holidays, school conferences, and the first week of summer. Then she gets practical. What a developmentally appropriate parenting plan actually looks like and why a fill-in-the-blank form fails most families. How to handle a new partner entering the picture, including the one thing she asks parents never to say to their kids. What you can and cannot do when your co-parent breaks the agreement. And why the small wins you keep skipping past are the ones that matter most.

Whether you are handing off your kids for the very first time or you are years in and still bracing for the drop-off, this conversation will meet you exactly where you are.

Connect with Nora:
www.noramarcus.com
https://www.instagram.com/noramarcusconsulting

This is Episode 17 of the Divorce Discussions Podcast by the Divorce Support Collective, where we seek to reimagine the process of divorce through collaboration and support. New episodes drop every Wednesday.

Follow the show, leave a review, and visit thedivorcesupportcollective.com for resources and support.

You could name the thing that set it off. The pickup time, the tone of a text, who was supposed to handle what. So how did it turn into something so much bigger than either of you meant it to be?

In this episode of Divorce Discussions, host Angie Weber sits down with Adya Riss, MSW, a family mediator at Riss Mediation who spent years as a therapist before moving into mediation and who specializes in helping parents guide young children through divorce. Adya takes the conversation all the way back to the root of personal conflict, and his answer surprises most people. Conflict does not escalate because two people disagree. It escalates because someone does not feel heard.

Adya explains why you can win the argument and still walk away angry, how poor listening turns an ordinary sentence into a demand, and why couples in his office regularly spend an hour arguing for the exact same thing without realizing it. He also talks about what constant conflict does to children even when parents are certain they are hiding it, and he leaves listeners with one thing they can do in their very next hard conversation to bring the temperature down.

Whether you are mid-divorce, deep in co-parenting, or just tired of having the same fight on repeat, this conversation will change how you listen.

This is Episode 16 of the Divorce Discussions Podcast by the Divorce Support Collective, where we seek to reimagine the process of divorce through collaboration and support. New episodes drop every Wednesday.

Connect with Adya:
https://rissmediation.com
https://www.instagram.com/rissmediation/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rissmediation/

Follow the show, leave a review, and visit thedivorcesupportcollective.com for resources and support.

You did everything right. You ran the numbers, you talked to the bank, and you qualified for the mortgage. So the house is yours, right? Not necessarily.

In this episode of Divorce Discussions, host Angie Weber sits down with Mitch Irwin, a loan officer and divorce mortgage specialist at Bell Bank Mortgage and a member of the Divorce Support Collective, to talk about the gap between qualifying for a mortgage and actually affording the house you live in.

Mitch has spent 25 years in mortgage lending, and more than half of his business is helping people navigate home decisions during divorce. He explains why lending guidelines let you borrow far more than most budgets can absorb, what it actually takes to keep a low interest rate after divorce, and the single most overlooked line in a divorce decree: a deadline for getting your name off the loan.

He also shares his Mitchisms, the plain language rules he has built over two decades of watching these decisions play out. The one paycheck test. Borrowing no more than two to three times your income. Sleep at night money.

If the house is the decision keeping you up right now, this conversation could save you from one of the most expensive mistakes people make in divorce.

Connect with Mitch:
www.mitchirwin.biz
https://www.instagram.com/mitchirwinmortgagemn/

This is Episode 15 of the Divorce Discussions Podcast by the Divorce Support Collective, where we seek to reimagine the process of divorce through collaboration and support. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Follow the show, leave a review, and visit thedivorcesupportcollective.com for resources and support.

Mitch Irwin, Bell Bank Mortgage, NMLS #451627. Equal Housing Lender. This episode is for general education and is not financial or legal advice.