Introduction (: 00:06

Welcome to the Better Than Bitter Divorce Podcast, where we flip the script on divorce and show you how to have a more amicable divorce resolution. I'm your host, Tania Leichliter a divorce coach, a certified life coach, and the mastermind behind the Better Than Bitter five-step game plan course, where I help individuals build a pathway towards a more amicable divorce resolution.

Each week, I'll bring you uplifting stories from people who've successfully experienced amicable separations, proving that divorce doesn't have to be a battleground. Whether you're overwhelmed with grief, struggling with custody and co-parenting, or just dealing with a high conflict individual, this podcast is here to guide you towards reclaiming your life and being what I know is possible, better than bitter.

Tania Leichliter (: 01:06

Welcome to episode number 53, Love Wars, Clash of the Parents. Today I am joined by Matthew A. Tower. Matthew is the author of Love Wars, Clash of the Parents. And this is Matthew's story. I was so happy when Matthew came to me because he came to me not because he had a better than bitter divorce story to share, but rather the opposite.

His book talks about this traumatic parental custody battle through this novel; he is giving a warning to all parents out there who are in the thick of that divorce, who are trying to come up with an agreement.

Who even post-divorce are still fighting. He really shares this incredible story. You are going to hear many scenes from Matthew that depict this Star Wars setting. And that's because Matthew saw Star Wars when he was three years old.

And through that, he created this connection. In this episode, you are going to hear clips from Matthew's book, and we are going to have really good conversations about those specific clips that we have pulled. I want to welcome Matthew,

Matthew A Tower (: 02:27

Tania. It is such an honor to be in your program. And I think you're offering an extremely valuable service for parents. Your branding and your message really get that point across. The implication of Better Than Bitter is better than bitter for the benefit of the kids, right? Like that's how it is.

ver it would have been in the: 1980

maximum bitterness divorce, right? You know, I grew up in a custody battle that lasted for five years, right? From age six to 11. And my younger brother, who was three years younger than me, was in that as well. And we were right in the middle of a divorce war, right? And so, my memoir, it might be surprising for you and your audience to hear this, my memoir is the world's first ever

American life since the late: 1960

s in theaters at age three in: 1977

My view of reality, like what's possible, like my gosh, this is, and I just kept rewatching that film and thinking about it. And much of my peer group had a similar reaction to that. And so this exposure to the world of Star Wars was happening as my parents' conflicts were escalating and escalating. And so here's my book, you know, again, it's Love Wars, Clash of the Parents, a True Divorce Story. And it is a true divorce story.

It is a memoir, but I didn't put the word memoir on the cover because kids have no idea what that word means. Like, if you ask the average nine-year-old what a memoir is, they don't know, but they understand the idea of a true divorce story, right? And the primary audience of this book is actually kids. So before it was published, I had readers aged nine to 80 read the unpublished book, and lots of them fell in love with it.

And I actually have videos of some of them talking about it on my website, which is lovewars.com. But it turned out the kids were the primary audience, but then there's another audience. And that relates to you and to Better Than Bitter, which is this book is also a cautionary tale for parents. As it relates to kids, the purpose or mission of the book is to empower kids. It's to empower kids to give them emotional resources.

right, to be able to cope and develop resilience. But for parents, the purpose is to be a cautionary tale that helps them see the worst-case scenario. It's like, hey, parents, if you don't wake up, if you don't start getting these resources to help you de-escalate and use healthy approaches to your relating, you're going to hurt your kids the most. And so

The stories in my book, the anecdotes, which all weave together into a kind of a longer, it's a coming of age journey. It's a hero's journey from age six to 11, where I grew up and transformed within the cauldron of my parents' custody battle, right? And I'm using fantasy in Star Wars as an element of coping, as an element of growth. So in just a moment, I'm going to suggest we play a clip, which will give you an audience.

a sense of this book, but I'd like to just mention one other thing before we play the clip, if I may, Tania, which is I actually have been sharing my book and my audiobook with friends before it was just recently published, like two weeks ago. OK, but before that, I shared the audiobook version with a couple who are friends of mine, and it actually had the impact I was looking for. By the time they listened to it together.

And they're in conflict a lot. They're having a lot of problems in their marriage. They're the kind of couple who, if things keep going badly, could end up divorced. But they listened to it together, and it was a wake-up call for them. And they're like, wait a second. How can we heal our relationship so that our kids can be OK, so that our kids can thrive?

Tania Leichliter (: 07:29

And I think

Really, the crux of what better than bitter is. It is about rising above your own bitterness, coming to a place of forgiveness, not necessarily of the other person's and maybe their actions, but it's really about self-forgiveness, allowing yourself

to rid yourself of the resentment, the anger with the bitterness, reach a place of acceptance of this is it, like this is what is happening, and to put your kids first. Because again, you have one chance to do this right, so your kids don't have long-lasting emotional trauma. Because again, your kids are not the ones who are separating. Your kids are not the ones getting divorced. You are.

know, being the adult in the room and being able to say, put all differences aside, we need to be looking at this like a business negotiation where each of us believes that the outcome is the same. We want our kids to be well-adjusted. We want our kids to feel loved. We don't want our kids to feel like they are caught in the middle. And that was such a huge thing and everything that you shared with me in terms of being able to read that book and how

You were there and present and listening to every single thing that was going on between your parents. They didn't do anything behind closed doors. I mean, you were there to listen to everything. And what I got out of it was the fact that each one of them just wanted to win. It had nothing to do with you or your brother. It was like it was a battle of the wills. And each one of them just wanted to be right and to win. And

to get their way. And they hadn't put you first to be like, okay, well, what's best for the kids? And how can we co-parent effectively, productively, and put our differences aside? It's not about winning and losing. Like that is not what divorce is all about. And again, I'm excited for everybody to hear that clip.

Matthew A Tower (: 09:35

Yeah, let's go ahead and play clip one in here. This is from the opening of the book.

Tania Leichliter (: 12:23

So wasn't that such an incredible story? I mean, I am sure that all the listeners, just like I did, were jaw-dropping. And, you know, is this even possible? So if you are in the beginning stages of your divorce, meaning if you're contemplating divorce, or maybe you have decided to get divorced, but you really haven't moved your

divorce forward, then this is so important because if you do not move forward in a mindset by which you are putting your kids first, that type of stuff is going to happen to you because it is all about mindset. It is all about being able to manage your mindset and understanding how your thoughts are what are creating your feelings, which dictate your actions, reactions, and behaviors, which get you those outcomes. It's not that life circumstance, right Matthew? So it's not the fact that one person was supposed to be reading a book to the child that night, or one person was supposed to be on duty to take the child to the activity, because

Again, things happen even in a post-divorce environment when the agreement is made. You have to create flexibility within your plan because if you don't and you continue to fester the anger and resentment and bitterness that things aren't 100 % aligned, the only person who's going to get caught in the middle is your kid. So building in those flexibilities, and we do that a lot at Better Than Bitter.

And so Matthew, tell us a little bit more about that clip and tell us about how it must have felt for you as a child to be just sitting there and listening to those arguments that your parents were having.

Matthew A Tower (: 14:14

Yeah, so in the opening clip that we just listened to and saw, know, I at age six, I was being physically, literally pulled apart by my parents. I was in the middle of a tug of war. You know, it was one of the most extreme moments of my childhood. Those kinds of physical altercations were more on the rare side, but being in the middle of the divorce war, where

both parents wanted to draft me as a child soldier, and I think unconsciously, where they were both constantly bombarding me with criticism of the other parent, and they were both sort of in this kind of vengeance mode. That was my ongoing experience. And the thing that I'd like to share with you, Tania, is that I've had this massive insight now as an adult, which is...

high-conflict individuals and people with personality disorders are in another category, right? Like it's one thing when someone who might be generally reasonably well adjusted goes into a spiral of negative emotions of bitterness about an ex. And there are a lot of people who do that who are not necessarily what, you know, Bill Eddy would call a high conflict individual. But I've been reading a lot of Bill Eddy's work.

And he actually consulted with me on some of the editorial revisions in Love Wars. And I thanked him in my book. And I was really grateful for his book, Splitting, because splitting outlines, here's this special category. And we're calling it high conflict individuals, high conflict divorces that involve one or more high conflict individuals. And what you saw in that first clip was two high-conflict individuals. And that's the worst-case scenario. And what I have come to believe, Tania, respectfully, is that

Often, high-conflict individuals don't have a sense of self-awareness. There's no overarching, wait a second, I need to look at myself. They don't tend to go into those rounds of reflection. Instead, often, Bill Eddy has another term, persuasive blamers. So you can see that mom and dad, in my experience, are blaming each other, they're lashing out, they're not pausing and looking at themselves.

And I think it's very hard to get through to those people. And one of the things Bill says is you can't even tell them, confronting them and saying, hey, you might have a personality disorder. That often backfires, according to what I've read from Bill. And I'm just doing my best to paraphrase him respectfully. So this is just my interpretation of his work. But.

What I believe is that with love wars that there might be a chance to get through to people, even people, even people who have high-conflict personalities or even people with personality disorders, because with love wars, it's not criticizing them. With the sat scene that we just saw, that scene is not criticizing.

anyone out there, whether they're listening to this podcast right now or not. It's just saying, here it is. Just take a look at this. This is what happens. And this is what happens to the kid. And it shows you me as the six-year-old kid and the trauma I endured. And it's like a, it's like a wake-up call. Do you want that to get to be your kid's experience? And I think I believe it's, there is some way or other that people who

have high conflict personalities and or personality disorders, or, you know, or just in a spiral of conflict that something can get through to them where they're like, okay, wait, I need to slow down and think about myself and think about the impact I'm having on kids. And if my book can accomplish that for any, any adults at all, then it will have contributed something to the world.

Tania Leichliter (: 17:35

What you were talking about, the high conflict, is that some people just don't have a fully mature prefrontal cortex, or they have an overactive

amygdala. So that overactive amygdala is so reactive. people who have anger management issues or people who have reactivity issues, impulse control issues, they're not accessing that prefrontal cortex. They are immediately in that fight, flight, or freeze. And it sounds to me in your book, you had two parents who were like, wow, wow, wow, all the time. And they didn't have the capacity to bring in that

calmness or that ability, what I call regrouping and re-scripting. Regroup, re-script, react, or respond. And your parents, gosh, my gosh, Matthew, we should definitely share the next clip because, like I said, this level of reactivity in your book is just unbelievable.

Matthew A Tower (: 18:34

Just to build on what you just said, and to also set up the next clip. You know, in splitting, Bill Eddy talks about, you know, the high conflict personality types, the high conflict behaviors, and there's certain behaviors that are repetitive. You know, the persuasive blaming where...

The high-conflict individuals kind of always focused on blaming someone else instead of pausing and self-reflecting and saying, Hey, what am I contributing to the situation? And how can I make that better? And how can I improve my own behavior? Like that, that moment of insight was completely non-existent in my childhood with my mom and dad. Like, I didn't see either of them really say, I might be contributing to this problem.

And I might have a problem, and I might need to change that problem so that I can create more peace and harmony in our relating. Like that's not going, that self-insight is going on. And instead, all that sort of negative energy of grief, loss, you know, the end of the relationship, the feelings of betrayal. And it doesn't matter if it's based on a real betrayal or an imagined betrayal. Like all that negative energy is then going

outward towards the other parent and coming through the kid because they don't have the self-restraint to stop themselves from

pushing that negative energy onto the kid. And in splitting, and this is actually think it's great for people. If you're gonna read my book, Love Wars, for parents, I definitely recommend splitting it side by side. You could actually put them together and sort of have Love Wars be the cautionary tale, and then splitting be the toolbox, I believe. Because when I went through that book, I was like, Wow, I wish my parents had had that toolbox of here are things you can do to make things.

better than bitter, as you would say, Tania, you know, here's how to respect the needs and care and safety of your kids. And for example, don't ever criticize the other parent in front of the kids, which is like, that's all they did. Both my parents were like nonstop when I was with them one-on-one, nonstop criticism of the other parent. And so here's the transition we'll make from clip one to clip two, just to set this up. The first clip you heard was like right at the beginning of the divorce.

You know, or it's actually before, like the beginning of a separation. Like, my parents are about to separate, and they're already fighting over custody of me, even though they're under the same roof and I was six. So that was just before mom moved out, and she actually kidnapped me, and that's chapter two. And then there's a whole process they go through over the years where they're finalizing the divorce and they're creating custody arrangements.

And what gets really bonkers, and I know a lot of your audience knows this, is that the worst case scenario, the maximum bitterness scenario, is the custody conflicts and the court conflicts continue on and on and on and on for years, even after there's some sort of agreement, whether the agreement is generated through a mediator or the court system. Even if there's like, here's the agreement, here's the custody agreement.

There are still conflicts going on, and the kids are being put in the middle of the conflict. So the next clip you're going to hear is like two or two and a half years later, the conflicts are still going on, and I'm still in the middle, and they're fighting even more than ever. And the impact, and here's the other thing, is the book is showing my development as a kid. So the first clip you heard was six. Now you're hearing me at like age eight.

And you're hearing a more sophisticated view and a more sophisticated insight, but also a much more sophisticated process of self-almost grieving for myself that I'm stuck in a situation and I can't get out of it. So let's go ahead and play clip two.

Tania Leichliter (: 26:40

Matthew, again, such a crazy story, and listening to that is one of those, again, wake-up calls to parents. I am literally blinking those lights at all of you, just telling you as a cautionary tale. Like you have the ability to have this not happen in your home. And to do that, again, you need to be doing what Matthew was talking about. So what Bill Eddy talked about

You know, in terms of taking responsibility, I separate that out into two very kind of easy ways to think about things. It's about being a victim or a victor. People who are victims are in bed. They blame other people. They make excuses, and they are in full denial of any responsibility. They are pointing their fingers back at the other person.

for making them feel a certain way. They take no responsibility for what is happening in front of them or for how they could potentially contribute to making things better. So it's the acronym BED. Blame, excuses, denial. And on the other side of it, I talk about being a victor. And being a victor is an oar. So if you can take this visual that you're in a river and you've got two oars,

and you have the opportunity to row up the river. And it could be against that current, and you could be feeling, right, the resistance of the water, but it's ownership, accountability, right, and responsibility. So to be a victor in this process, you need to be able to take ownership, accountability, and responsibility. So those are the two things.

We separate them out at better than bitter. We make it very easy to remember how to be a victor versus a victim. If you are sitting there and you are in bed and you continue to point fingers back at the other person, you know where your power is going. You are giving that other person all of the power over your emotions. When you blame somebody else for how you're feeling, then they have power over you. So flipping that switch to become a victor has a lot.

of very positive ways that it's going to help you move your life forward towards a better journey, not just for yourself, but for your kids. And the last thing I want to talk about is Matthew continues to talk about how his parents continued to throw each other under the bus, continued to disparage those, you know, each other in front of Matthew and his brother.

But what happens is, when you start to disparage your soon-to-be ex or your ex, and you have a child who's sitting there listening to that, subconsciously, those children are like, huh, I'm 50 % mom and I'm 50 % dad. Wow, Dad's really bad. Mom keeps telling me Dad is so bad. Well, guess what that kid is thinking? I must be 50 % bad.

because I'm half mom and half dad. And if you're Matthew and you have both parents telling you how bad each other are, this kid sitting in the middle is like, I must be horrible. My parents have just told me that each one of them is so horrible, and I'm 50-50. I must just be so bad. I might like, there must not be any good qualities in me because they're telling me how bad everything that's made me who I am is all bad. So again, I've had like three other guests on my podcast that

have brought that up and not from me asking them that question, but just from their experience and from what they've read from a psychological perspective. So Matthew, tell me a little bit, like, is that something you experienced as a kid?

Matthew A Tower (: 30:27

Yeah, well, you covered some very interesting points around the victim-victor dynamic that I want to address first, because in the clip we just listened to, one of the things that was going on within the clip was a very extended back and forth.

dialogue slash scream fest between my parents, where you heard them going back and forth and saying, you know, I want my photo albums back. I want my records back. You need to pay me more money for this thing. You know, your parents did this. And then and then they both conclude with I hate you. And there's sort of this escalating spiral of complaints, negativity, and blame that culminates in this absolute explosion of rage.

And so I would like to just, I think, respectfully submit a third model here. And I think it's really especially true around these high-conflict situations. And I would submit that model as being the word I'm going to use, is the cooler, the de-escalator.

The thing is, you see my parents clinging to a war path towards victory. And sometimes victory, I think, just looks like.

Did I de-escalate? Did I protect my kids? And did I find a way to not get sucked into the bait of their emotional escalation, which neither of my parents has the ability to just pause and be like, okay, how about we calm this down because we don't want to hurt our kids? Like neither of them ever says anything like that.

That kind of feeling is what would come from the cooler. So I'm going to just put that out myself as a third archetype that you can consider, or maybe you could come up with another word for it. And I think it's especially true for these high-intensity custody battles. The other thing we saw in my clip is the child, me, at age eight, fantasizing about running away, feeling unwanted and neglected.

You know what you don't see in this clip, Tania, but it does happen in other parts of the book is parental figures directly and intensely screaming negative things at me. So it wasn't just, the kid is picking up on mom hates dad, dad hates mom. Like, there were tons and tons and tons and tons of verbal abuse directly.

addressed towards me, which is also throughout the book. And this is one of the patterns that I've read about in these high-conflict divorces is that a high-conflict personality who is directing high-conflict negative energy at a spouse is much more likely to directly address that kind of negative energy at their kids at some point. To take, if they're in a hate spiral and they're directing hate at another parent, eventually they might direct that kind of

Tania Leichliter (: 32:44

the last fours of the video.

Matthew A Tower (: 33:13

hatred and abuse towards the kids. So this is the real warning sign, and people don't talk about that as much. Like, I don't see the conversation about what's really going on for kids behind closed doors. That conversation is not happening in our society, in my opinion.

Based on like, I'm the first one. This is the first memoir out there to even vaguely get at this, this is what a kid's real experience is in a high-conflict custody battle, because there are different kinds of abuse happening and different kinds of stuff.

So just to briefly set this up, what I want everyone to be thinking about is how parental figures can show up in a good way that's protective and helpful to kids in any kind of conflict situation? And those parental figures can be parents, they can be step-parents, they can be aunts, they can be uncles, they can be friends of the family, they can be grandparents. So there is a parental figure here who's a step-parent, but...

It can be any parental figure who can do what this parental figure does. So let's go ahead and listen to that clip.

Tania Leichliter (: 38:27

Matthew, that clip really kind of hit home for me because I do come from divorced parents. And although my parents did have an amicable divorce, there wasn't a huge custody battle. But I did have my stepmom, who was my dad's second wife, who is now divorced from my dad, but has a very strong relationship with him still. She

played such an incredible mentor role in my life. And one of the things that she said in the interview that I had with her on my podcast early on, is that she acted as a really strong facilitator between my father and my mother. So without her, my question is,

would I have had such an amicable divorce between my parents? Or was it her ability to facilitate and really communicate with my father and get him to understand that his actions had a huge impact on me, and that he needed to maybe rethink some of his discussions and negotiations with my mom, because

He needed to put me first. And I did not realize, Matthew, until I interviewed her for my podcast, that that was happening behind the scenes. That was the first time she had ever shared with me her role. So again, in your clip, I just loved the fact that you had that level of vulnerability to find an adult that you felt

close enough with that you could open up to and confide in, and that it wasn't about taking sides, but they really empathized with you. I felt very connected to that compassion and felt that she could potentially work to make things a little better for you.

So, do you want to expand on that and the relationship you had with her?

Matthew A Tower (: 40:30

Yeah, so that was ⁓ Holly, my stepmother, and she actually reached out to me in that scene; it wasn't that I figured out that she was the safe adult and started opening my soul to her. She, as a parental figure, which I think is the role of parental figures, realized that I was in an impossible situation, that I was being

completely abused, that it was a nightmare for me, and that she reached out to me. That was the first thing we saw there. The second is that she brought the only sane perspective in the room, right? Like, if you've listened to the first two clips, there's no sane adult perspective going on. Like, the best case thing we've got is like, dad was a little less escalated than mom.

In the opening scene, Dad's the one to let go in the middle of a tug of war, but neither of them is acting in an adult, sane manner. And she is, just being a calm, sane adult who's like, wait a second, this thing is not okay. And she even puts a name on it, as you heard in the clip, she calls it the craziness instead of mom and dad, are both calling their relationship the war. Both of us are calling it the war.

And Holly calls it the craziness, implies, you know, like that's an insane way for adults to be, and it's not an okay way. And any justifications they're giving for their own behavior or excuses for their behavior are rationalizations of insanity. So, and I could get all of that from the very eight-year-old-friendly language she was using, right?

Just to make this point, she was on Dad's side. She was my stepmother who'd married my dad. So she was on his side. And I think she was trying to find a role to play that was consistent with her dad's side. But how can she?

For her marriage's sake, for his sake, for my sake, find a way to talk to him to de-escalate. And of course, that's a different role than someone who's truly neutral, who's been brought in for whatever reason as a mediator, whatever. Like, there are lots of different roles that different adults can play who have a connection to the family system. And she, think, was playing the best role she could.

And she didn't have resources. She didn't have this podcast. She didn't have books. She didn't have the tools showing her how, but she thinks she instinctively knew priority. Number one is to talk to Dad and persuade him to start de-escalating himself. And she was effective with that partially. And so that's one of the things that comes out of that, that we get into later in the book, is the.

Sometimes you can't make things perfect, but if you're familiar with the term harm reduction, she persuaded dad to de-escalate his emotions. And then that rippled out into, okay, that's a calmer household living environment than mom's, where there is no intervention happening for de-escalation. If anything, it's actually escalating more.

⁓ and the other thing you heard in that clip was a bit of the Star Wars stuff. And that's the last thing I'll say is just you heard some of the Star Wars fantasies. How can we blow up the divorce war death star? In other words, how can we put an end to all this fighting? Cause it's been going on for years. The fighting keeps ending, you know, and Holly makes this joke at the end about the yeah. Yeah. Right. Kid. You know, you, me, and an army of lawyers, may the force be with us, you know, like those were the kinds of jokes we made all the time in our family, relative to Star Wars, but there was a very serious element of like,

This is all-consuming. Like just as the Death Star is an all-consuming negative force in the world of Star Wars and the Rebellion Camp live their lives while it's hovering over them, threatening to blow them up, the Divorce War itself was an all-consuming thing, and somehow that had to come to an end so that I could like

Be a kid and have a happy childhood if possible. And that's the story arc of the book, and that's where it goes. And your readers can find the book at lovewars.com and all the links to check out the book, print, ebook, audiobook; it's fully illustrated. All the links are at lovewars.com.

Tania Leichliter (: 44:25

That is awesome, Matthew. And we will have all of these links in our show notes, so you'll be able to go directly to Matthew's website from our show notes. We are so excited to be able to have such access to Matthew; he just published his book. I feel very honored that he opted to come on to the Better Than Bitter podcast as an incredible platform.

Matthew and I both have a mission. Our mission is to touch as many people as possible in order to prevent this type of custody war or parental clash from happening. And the onus goes back to all of you. And I'm just going to leave you with this. You have to remember, you cannot control other people, but you can control your reactions to them. And this is an incredible tale of two individuals

who were so reactive, trying to control one another. And each of them were not successful because when you're going out there to control others, you're not going to get the results that you're looking for. You need to throw those manuals away. You can't control. You can just take that ownership back to yourself to control your own reactions to them.

Take ownership, take responsibility, take accountability. I love the fact that Matthew created a new archetype for us, which is the de-escalator. So we have the victim, we have the victor, and right in the middle, the de-escalator. And I feel like the de-escalator definitely will have that connection to the victor. It's on your way to victor status because you do within that victor mentality.

Where you're taking that ownership, you have to have that skillset of de-escalation. You need to be able to learn how to regroup, how to re-script, and then respond. And we do so much of that at Better Than Bitter. We have an incredible five-step game plan course that we teach that talks about all, actually teaches a lot of what Matthew outlined today. We go into a lot of Bill Eddy stuff with BIF and...

a lot of so many other things that he spoke about today. We have support groups out there for all of you who are interested in joining other people who are really struggling, not just contemplating divorce. Maybe they're in the thick of it, but we do work a lot with people who are also post-divorce. Matthew's experience ran all the way through post-agreement. It doesn't end.

You need to continue to work to be a better parent. You need to continue to work to have a more amicable divorce resolution. It doesn't end when you sign that agreement that day in court. So again, thank you, Matthew, so much. Please check out our show notes. Please subscribe to our podcast channel. And I wish, Matthew, all the success with this book. I know when it hits the shelves and continues to be out there for everyone to read.

That anybody going through a divorce should definitely pick it up for themselves and for their kids. Because again, it's something that you do have control over, even if you don't have control over the other person. Thank you again, Matthew.

Tania Leichliter (: 47:36

Thanks for tuning in to Better Than Bitter, navigating an amicable divorce. Whether you are at the beginning of your divorce journey, midway through, or even done, we want the stories from our guests to give you hope that an amicable resolution is possible. If you'd like to dive deeper into today's episode, check out our show notes for a full transcript, reflections, and links to learn more about Better Than Bitter's coaching courses,

and how to connect with our fabulous guests. If you're ready for more support, you can head over to betterthanbitter.coach. Daily, you'll find details and additional information on our five-step game plan multimedia course, our one-to-one Zoom coaching, group coaching, monthly memberships, events and retreats, and a whole lot more. Plus, we've got a ton of free resources, like our monthly newsletter,

our private Facebook group, Instagram channel, and a library of articles and free webinars to help you along the way. When you go to our website, you'll be able to schedule a free 45 minute breakthrough call. Remember, we're here to help you reach an amicable resolution. Find your courage and believe in your brighter future because you know what? It is possible.

At Better Than Bitter, we measure success by what we give and not by what we get. So let's change the divorce dialogue together. It's time to be better than bitter.