welcome to stop my crisis i'm your host vivian gas for as many of you know i've spent the last eight years helping people and navigating them through homes in crisis whether that's when to sell their home or why or navigating them through a foreclosure process and they could tell you having sat in hundreds of families homes in the last eight years that unfortunately one of the leading causes of needing to leave the family home and fortune of beyond stand is divorce i am so fortunate to have with me today a lady who is extraordinarily experienced in and has helped many many thousands of people navigate their ways to this aspect of challenge my guest here today elaina chapman is a bestselling author speaker and his mentor thousands through divorce and is also a divorced mom of three and she says there's a better way thank you alina hello vivian i am so honored to be here justin timberlake he says i my parents divorced when i was three i am honestly and humbly finding out that i have a lot of issues with that kids grow up with what we think our scars of divorce but it's how we handle the divorce i how we as the parents handle the divorce that helps the children either be very scarred or to grow up happy and successful and happy i have heard having been divorced myself the children will mirror what they see as our own reactions yes so if we put on the brave face instead of in it could be the euphemism the hiding under the covers and sleeping fourteen hours a day or maybe you just get so absorbed that you want to watch a lot of t v shows because you're  imaginary world there's many different ways to get lost in your own despair instead of teaching your children how to better cope by leading so you know i know you told me there's a few tricks that you could share with our audience on how our children c feel nor secure in the fact that their parents are getting divorced but the world is not going to end yes ok one of those tips when i got it when it you are in a good place when you can get yourself in a halfway decent place then you have got to show your children that it's going to be ok that mommy and daddy love them but that they're going to be fine and that kids worry about financial they do they like their activities they like where they're going to school they like their friends they like they like feeling secure so you also have to let them know financially you'll be ok these are some things that i say to do first of all when my when i will when i was going through my divorce and then mine was five and a half years long so i do know how hard divorce can be but first of all i'd have a family meeting every week we would have a family meeting really a weekly family meeting a weekly thing do you make it part of your protocol yes i did know because but it wasn't something i never thought i would make i would make popcorn it would be fun we would talk about things that were happening at school we would talk about things that you know whatever their friends whatever they wanted to bring up but then i'd also bring up things about decisions that we had to make as a family in either if it was even moving over or if it was having maybe cutting back here but maybe being able to spend here but whatever i did in those family meetings i had i wanted to be supportive i wanted to show love and i wanted to show that it's going to be ok those are the three objectives every family meeting i have heard so many times because i do have children myself a varying ages how do you choose what to deliver to or family your children in an age sensitive area for example we're talking about now and the aspect of having to leave the family home so obviously stresses and of course financial stress is brought on by divorce  them can one parent maintain a certain socio economical level when they're getting divorced right so if they have to leave a certain neighborhood so it's because it's cheaper in another neighborhood and that certainly usually affects the children schooling what can you say to should do you would sit down and speak with them differently so let's say one child's young teenager thirteen fourteen fifteen don't know if there's a difference and another one's maybe seven eight nine do you split them apart and say things differently or do you frame it so that they're together since it's a family meeting and geared toward the a younger audience and then maybe take the older one aside and give them a little bit more information what's the better way to you know again the older the child is they may not like it but they also understand the logistics of we can't afford to stay here so if you have a child that's thirteen fourteen fifteen definitely fifteen understands but when you have a child who is six seven and eight and this has been their school in this world then it's a little bit of i did a little bit differently the older children i would tell my older child who was he was fourteen and i was able to tell him you know we're going to have to move this home has brought us a lot of pain and in some ways and not just me but we went through a lot there and also it wasn't where we needed to be if it was financial i tell him that but it just and it was where we needed to be we couldn't be there so what we did then was he helped me to talk to this is that when you see one row the older one i did on how to speak with the younger one yes how did you pull them aside i just i told her and then tell you that i tell you that other now let's go ahead and what do you think we just go out start looking at houses oh and so we made it a game and my older son was able to make it more of a game for my younger ones too oh that's so you know so everybody got excited and got into the car with the dog and everything else now we were just picked out houses we didn't know when we were just picking out oh i like that one or we weren't there yet we were just trying to get the possibility of moving into our head size and so by the time we really did find a house that we knew was good for all of us and the kids helped with that everybody was on board not shocking you don't just go buy yourself up there the house and say we're moving here that's it too bad and parents can't be afraid they cannot be afraid if if somebody objects then you have to sit down and really talk to them and firm but loving and understand understand that that seven year old really has some friends they really don't want to give up and you have to talk to them you have to help ease them through it because it is a big most important jobs i will ever have it is true so i want to just ask you for a parting comment because we're really run out of time oh sure yes if you could just give one more tip oh i well on how to make kids feel more secure what with me you know little notes and little let you see keys yeah little stickies now my school you're able to go inside and stick it on their locker if you're not really yeah but sure if you can't put it in their lunch box and one of their school lunch put it in their coat put it on their mittens put it somewhere and just say honey i am so proud of you just very uplifting and do it like i don't do it every day because it won't be a surprise it won't be special moves especially opponent yes and they love it if you say i hope you do really well on that test and little things like that help the kid say she's really thinking of me or he's really thinking of me it's big especially when their life is changing excellent alaina thank you so much for joining us i'm so happy remember if you have children and you're getting divorced the most important thing is as much stress  strain and anxiety that you're feeling help your child see their world through their eyes remember to keep the compassion and that it's so important to them to feel more secure and you might be crumbling on inside but they're suffering as well keep your children and what they are feeling close to your heart  and most people have not heard of when we think of divorce we think of aggressive behavior people who hate each other and just can't wait to see what they can get out of the situation and maybe even hurt the person they were supposed to love for who knows how many years denise is here to blow that concept out of the water with collaborative divorce denise is a family law attorney from morristown who does practice in new jersey and she is little discovered collaborative divorce about ten years ago she focuses on smart and sensible solutions for families utilizing litigation as a last resort thank you so much denise i really appreciate your being here what you have to say i think  impacts so many people but people forget most families have children and those are the ones who really need to benefit the most from their mom and dad getting along again even if they need to divorce tell me what did you discover when it came to this relatively unheard of concept called collaborative divorce so collaborative divorce is an out of court settlement process very similar to mediation but without the use of mediators it's confidential and it's also non collaborative process sometimes we use child specialists and we had a couple who were in the in the process where they didn't they couldn't decide where their for their first grader would start school and instead of sending them out to a custody evaluation or having a judge make the cision the we sent them to a child specialist who interviewed both parties and the child with the parties and the child and then made the decision for the couple that is a fantastic strategy instead of the typical adversarial one also very important key points that you normally tell prospective clients of yours about collaborative law well it's not for everybody there needs to be a sense of trust and openness to enter into collaborative participation agreement and that's the hallmarks of collaborative is that there's a participation agreement signed by both the parties and their lawyers that really states their commitment to having a an at an amicable process to following this through in a positive way for their family if if either party decides to leave the process and go the traditional litigation both parties both parties must obtain new attorneys because we would be recused would have to recuse ourselves that's something interesting i thought you just switch a process with the same attorneys that's really an important information very important aspect of this but it it's really important because it gives the commitment of the parties right in the beginning and we it's of the it the participation of agreement is very important because there are people out there the other attorneys that think they're going to going to do a collaborative case but then they refuse to sign  participation agreement and that's really key to getting everybody on board and working collaboratively together does collaborative divorce and up usually being a shorter divorced and something that's more of a serial it can be it can be  depends on how quickly the parties actually resolve all their issues but we are we have two attorneys working at the table with them directly and we're able to give ideas that maybe they haven't thought of and it does seem the process does seem to go quicker than a normal adversarial process i think that is the best take away because people once they decide they have to divorce they just wanted to be done and over with right there the key here is both parties realizing that they are getting divorced like you said divorce is really difficult so part most of the time that difficulty stems because one party wants a divorce and the other party is not ready for the divorce so getting them to that point utilizing the divorce coaches a real bonus for the collaborative process this i think is information that love people have never heard of thank you denise this has been very very valued thank you appreciate the value in this great you thank you you thank  e to stop my crisis i'm your host vivian gaspar let's face it even though most people there crisis are slated to money however i've been hearing from so many people writing into the show that their lives have just become so empty and so lonely that they truly believe their crisis is not being able to find a mate so sometimes i believe that that could be an entire paradigm shift within themselves and even though this is something that usually people don't think of a crisis let's face it it's easier to make your bills when there's two people it's life is just easier happier and more how to build just better and how to overcome other to pick racey's when you do it as a team with someone who cares about you and you care about them but i know so many people struggling let's face it in the age of the internet on line dating people are just afraid to approach one another any longer i have been friends who just don't even know what to do because they're afraid of online dating and they think that every time they pro choice they'll be called a predator so i want to know what is the answer nowadays i  fantastic new guest michelle may go all to richelle nagle is actually america's number one resilience expert and let's face it after two failed marriages she knows her resilience is she felt about all the same as a lot of women do that all good men were taken i think that's a negative misnomer and knowing that she had a lot of emotional baggage to deal with as well as three children to raise she did a sabbatical from relationships all together i think a lot of us have done that and maybe our sabbaticals are getting too long and she worked on her own emotional health happy at last she finally was fortunate to come and meet her permanent new life partner actually as a in that new it's been over twenty years the show come educate our viewers as to what they can do because i think so many people are dragged down by this that it's affected every part of your life and now they're laden where crises i mean people like this all the time the show tell me how many people are truly single of reached over age eighteen united states in the united states there are one hundred and seven million single people over the age of eighteen wait a second i thought our population is three hundred sixty thousand three hundred sixty million or so in the united states maybe three eighty so you're saying a third equivalent of the population is single yes that's just sounds quite lonely it does to financial crazes if they're trying to make all their bills by themselves i don't know how some people can afford to pay rent without somebody else to help them along especially in some of our more expensive parts of the country like the parts we're in now it's really challenging and so i want to know what are the reasons if you find someone you're dating and perhaps the other party is less interested and willing to commit because then it's really hard challenging to make that will ation ship more permanent what are some of the reasons someone's afraid to commit many times people don't want to make a commitment because perhaps they come from a divorce home if their parents divorced or were never married then they see how much struggle that their parent went through and they don't want to repeat that they don't want to take the risk of having another generation have to go through what they had to go through and so another reason also that they find that they're really reluctant to make that commitment is perhaps they are somebody who wants to play the field if you don't have that understanding between each other i had a friend recently who just said that the guy she thought was her one and only was dating multiple women all at the same time because they'd never had that conversation wouldn't you notice if the person you're really interested in was dating many other people or even one or two other people if they're not emotionally or physically available to you a lot he would think so this was a long distance relationship if they lived in two separate cities and so she didn't see him all the time so she didn't know what he was doing but he wanted to have you know all the benefits of course but he didn't want to make that commitment so if also if a person has already had a failed relationship they've already been through all the pain and anguish of perhaps a divorce they don't want to go through that again that's very understandable can you just give us five tips for someone to find mr or ms right the first thing that you should do in order to find mr or miss right is to be mr or mrs right fix ourselves first you know we're attractive for the other person well it's interesting because you will find that you will attract a different flavor of person when you've got your own stuff together it was when i received reduced all of my baggage and i had a lot that i ran into my husband and i was even upset because it's like my life i like my life and your inconvenient but you have to convince him did he have to work a little hard to convince me that he was not that inconvenient so but the most important thing that you can do in addition to clearing out your own baggage is to accept one hundred percent responsibility for your life that means you stop blaming and complaining and oh i'm single you know nobody wants to listen to you whining right just stop doing that and say from this moment on i'm going to accept one hundred percent responsibility for my life and i'm going to be responsible for my own happiness it does not hinge upon mr or miss right except yourself completely yes is there any last tips you can get because so many people i know are in this predicament they can't especially have a for single parents i know i just haven't new person that i'm working with that i just met recently a single dad of kids and he's completely fed up but yet his life would be made easier with a partner and he knows it but i want nothing to do with it and he's actually someone who was actually introduced to me by a business partner and it's becoming more and more rampid i think you know he actually drives a car service for a living and he says oh i don't have time but yet i want to make the time he says seems a little conflicted anything that's a particularly find that look back at your life if you've got all that baggage then hire an expert they can help you clear out the baggage so that you become the person that you want to marry somebody like you so make a list of the most important things the absolute must haves that you will not take any kind of compromise on i must have this in a partner and then make a list of the i would like to have this those you can fudge on don't fudge on the must haves because you cannot change anybody else you can only change yourself people need to remember that more michelle thank you so much for this great information and remember life is easier with a partner don't just be satisfied because if you're struggling in any aspect of your life think about that you might be fed up but don't give up hope and remember the better person you are especially on the inside the more attractive you are to someone else it's not just about your looks because however old you are now looks can always fade a crack skin can happen you turn twenty years old or it's what's inside that someone is really going to care about that's all for now remember that will stop your