Episode 359: Assessing High Conflict Divorce Risk with Sarah McDugal

What happens when you're the one who gets left? More specifically, what happens when the end of your marriage comes with a level of betrayal you never imagined possible from the person you trusted most, the person you thought you were building a life with? A listener wrote about her own similar experience, and it made me realize how little attention we give this side of divorce on the show. So this week, I'm taking it on, and then some. Some women never wanted their marriages to end. They were planning a future while their husbands were quietly consulting attorneys, moving money, or carrying on affairs, all while insisting everything was fine. And sometimes the truth arrives at the precise moment a woman is least equipped to handle it. In this solo episode, I take on how a husband who claims he wants things amicable can manufacture one emergency after another, and why early legal support matters so much when shock has a woman in survival mode. I also look at spousal support when the higher-earning wife was carrying the household too, and why what's legal, what's fair, and what's moral are not always the same thing. What you'll hear about in this episode How "I just want this to be amicable" can mask an aggressive campaign, and why chaos becomes leverage

Today we're talking about drinking, emotional sobriety, and what both have to do with navigating divorce. I've shared my own sobriety journey on the show before, including how heavily I relied on alcohol to cope with trauma I didn't yet have the words to describe. At the time, drinking felt like the easiest way to get through it. Looking back, I wish I'd had better tools, and that's exactly why I wanted to have this conversation. My guest, Colleen Freeland, is an Intuitive Drinking Coach and host of the globally top-ranked It's Not About the Alcohol podcast. She founded Emotional Sobriety Coaching to help high-achieving professional women reduce their alcohol consumption by 80% without relying on willpower or deprivation. Her approach combines neuroscience, cognitive reframing, and spirituality to help women change their relationship with alcohol. She's also been through divorce twice, so she brings both professional expertise and personal experience to this conversation. Together, we unpack mommy wine culture and how drinking has become such a normalized response to the stress and overwhelm women experience. Colleen challenges the idea that overdrinking is about overindulgence, arguing instead that it's often a symptom of self-neglect. We explore what emotional sobriety actually looks like, how to distinguish fear from intuition, and why the emotional state we're in when making decisions about our marriages matters. And we talk about what happens when women stop numbing their feelings and start paying attention to what those feelings are telling them. As Colleen jokes, her future swag might just say, "Emotionally sober. Warning: May cause divorce." What you'll hear about in this episode When drinking shifts from something we do for enjoyment to something we rely on to manage stress, and how alcohol became "mommy's little helper" (4:32)

Content warning: This episode covers the Cornell 7 case and includes discussion of sexual assault, drugging, and how survivors are failed by the systems meant to protect them.

Today we're having a conversation that so many of us need to have but don't want to have, and that's end-of-life planning in the middle of a divorce. Divorce already comes with so many choices, and most of them feel urgent, so the paperwork that comes with planning for the end tends to fall through the cracks. But updating healthcare proxies, beneficiaries, and wills needs a place on that list too. My guest this week is here to help us feel a little more at ease and organized about all of it. Marni Blank is an End-of-Life & After-Loss Consultant and the founder of Begin With The End, a Brooklyn-based practice that helps people get their lives in order before a crisis forces the issue. Together, Marni and I walk through what actually needs updating, even in the thick of decision fatigue, from healthcare proxies and living wills to powers of attorney and guardianship. We also talk about why a spouse may still be the one making medical decisions if the divorce isn't final, and why naming an executor without asking first is a big ask. Doing this work now, while we're clear-headed, means we're not scrambling in the middle of grief or a crisis later. What you'll hear about in this episode: Where to start with updating paperwork after divorce, the documents and accounts beyond the obvious ones, and why it's never just paperwork (2:59)

"Why am I suddenly missing the person I worked so hard to leave?" A woman wrote to me recently with this question, and I know this is not an uncommon thing to feel. Many women know without a doubt they made the right decision. Yet, suddenly the desire to have the family back comes roaring back. In this episode, I'm unpacking why this happens, what might actually be driving it, and how to come back to the whole story when the heart is only showing part of it. Afterall, loneliness and grief are terrible historians. Sometimes it's another layer of grief. Sometimes it's attachment after 20 or 30 years together. If the relationship ran on cycles of cruelty followed by tenderness, there may be a trauma bond at work. I break down intermittent reinforcement, why co-parenting makes a clean break so hard, and why 12 minutes of charm in a school parking lot shouldn't be used to reconsider 20 years of data. Missing someone is information about our emotional experience, not evidence that anything about the relationship has changed. I hope this episode brings some perspective and clarity to a really confusing thing so many women feel. It's possible to build a life where pain doesn't have to be followed by reconciliation with the person who caused it. It's possible to miss someone and still choose yourself. What you'll hear about in this episode: How intermittent reinforcement works and why the nervous system becomes so accustomed to the cycle