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Hey left tribe

What's going on guys thanks for tuning in to today's show we have a different show for you today where we have Dr. Carol Hughes and Bruce Fredenberg on the show and we talk about divorce and

you may be like I don't want to hear about that I'm in a happy relationship which is probably your first response but there is a lot of value in understanding

navigating a divorce and unfortunately more than half of marriages end in divorce so maybe you are a child of divorce parents or maybe you're going through a divorce yourself right now there's a lot of value in today's show and Dr. Carol Hughes holds her doctoral degree in clinical psychology and a masters in counseling psychology and she is a two time full bright scholar and has a long list of accolades as a

marriage and family therapists and she is focused on family focused divorce for more than 30 years and Bruce has been a California license marriage and family therapists also for more than 30 years and is a board certified

therapist in clinical hypnosis and a trained and experienced chronic pain management trauma addictions mediation and collaborative divorce practitioner and Bruce helps families as a therapist divorce coach and co parenting specialists and they are experts in this field and share a lot of great knowledge

with us and hopefully you guys get some great stuff out of today's show. Yeah today was super valuable and like Chase said even if you're not going through a divorce there's tons of helpful information on maybe dealing with friends who are going through divorce or other people in your family so we hope you guys enjoy today's episode and as always feel free to check out our website we have a ton of free resources

on there as well as over 300 interviews so if you're looking for a topic or advice that you haven't found yet go on to our website and it's all there we hope you guys enjoy today's show.

Hi Bruce and Carol thank you so much for joining us on the show today thank you for having us yeah in the pre show we talked about how on the show we generally tell people an interview guess about how to have a successful relationship and stay together

but sometimes that's not always the outcome and we have to face the reality that relationships end and whether it's someone you're dating boyfriend girlfriend or a marriage ending in divorce and so you express concerns or we were talking about this and it's like well it's a reality and it's valuable to hear this if you are going through a divorce or separation or a breakup

or as a perspective on what to avoid and how to be in a healthy relationship so today we're going to dive in and talk about divorce and you guys have a term great divorce or divorce later in life but maybe we can start by having you give our listeners your perspective as therapists on divorce and how to navigate it whether someone's listening in a happy relationship or someone in the world.

It's a myth of a breakup.

Right so thanks Jason and your podcast is perfect for us because we don't we're not telling people they should get divorced we're talking about if they do get divorced how to do it in the most peaceful respectful dignified way that is family focused or person focused if there isn't

everybody has family because we have at least our own parents right and uncles and aunts and so forth so some people may not have children but so that they they can learn how to preserve the most important relationships to them in their lives which is often the familial relationships even if they don't have children and the friend group relationships and community like if they have places of worship

because we know that often sadly even places of worship even some religions tell people they must leave the congregation if they get divorced so there's another loss so that's our focus is how to improve and maintain relationships that are important even during a divorce process.

So can you tell us a little bit what that might look like how you would coach someone through that and do you do it individually as a couple and some of the things that you guide them through specifically.

Well in general terms because it can be if the couple comes in together for a consultation if they or if I was having an individual client who is planning to have a divorce I would refer her to someone else for that part of it but the council I would give is that if someone has decided to divorce and they're about to do it then we think that the most important decision

is the most important decision they'll be making after that before they do anything else is what type of divorce process they choose and what there are four ways in most jurisdictions where most people live there's four different ways to get divorced and you can do it yourself and that can work out well for or okay for people who have no assets and don't have kids or what most people do is they'll go to litigation they'll get a family law attorney

that goes to court and often that turns into what we call combat divorce and then there are two other ways to do it and we think for most people they would be preferable because they are family focused and they're designed for people to have more peaceful, more respectful divorce processes and to spare their families from the worst aspects of divorce and one is collaborative divorce

which is typically a team process and anything that they do in that process if they any of either one of them decides to to litigate none of the things that have been revealed in those collaborative meetings or at least none of the documentation can go with them to court which means that they're much safer and freer to put their real feelings and opinions

and agenda on the table because they don't have to worry about it being used against them in court and typically each person has their own divorce coach but sometimes it's just one mental health professional acting as a family communication specialist and divorce coach

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