Divorce with Carolyn

Angela knew her marriage was over long before either of them did anything about it. What followed – infidelity, separation, court proceedings, full-time sole parenting in a regional town on a very low income – was by any measure a brutal few years. What she built on the other side of it is extraordinary. In this episode, Angela shares her story honestly and without filter — the dark days, the ther...

Download your FREE Child Support Paper Trail guide: https://www.womensdivorceacademy.com/child-support-paper-trail If you've ever felt like the child support system isn't working — you're not imagining it. In this episode, I'm joined by Crystal Paduch, founder of Child Support Consultants and a former Services Australia child support caseworker, to talk through exactly how the...

Patricia left her marriage with a washing machine, a toddler, and a baby on the way - with no family nearby or government support - and built a life from there that she never thought possible.  Patricia is the author of The Pleasure Lit Way, and in this episode she talks about leaving, rebuilding, and what it actually means to feel safe in your own body. We talk about the domestic violence cycle P...

Sarah Gallucci gave up her journalism career at 24, became the primary parent, and spent 13 years holding everything together in a marriage that looked fine from the outside. Her body knew it was over long before she did — she just kept overriding the signals. In this conversation, Sarah talks about what it actually feels like to disappear inside a marriage, the $30,000 collaborative divorce that...

Trigger warning : This episode contains discussion of domestic and family violence, including coercive controlling behaviour. Support is available - links below. Ex-detective Anthony Macklin has seen it all – burner phones hidden behind lounge furniture, spy apps that disappear from your screen but keep recording, tracking devices in children's teddy bears. In this episode, he breaks down how...

Psychologist Dr Marny Lishman on why being alone is an unexpected gift – and why the messy middle of healing does the real work. Alone and lonely get treated as though they mean the same thing. They don't. In this episode, I sit down with psychologist Dr Marny Lishman to talk about her new book, Only You: The Unexpected Gift of Being Alone. We unpack why so many of us rush from one relationsh...

Ten years ago, Carrie left a 16-year marriage. She had three young daughters, no certainty about what came next, and a question she couldn't shake: Am I allowed to do this? Ten years on, her daughters have told her they're glad she left. And she describes her post-divorce life as her best years. In this conversation, Carrie shares the moment she knew, the financial mistakes she wishes sh...

Your divorce doesn't have to become trauma. That's not a platitude – it's something somatic therapist Natalia Rachel can explain precisely, and it changes everything about how you approach recovery. Natalia draws a clear line between distress – what's happening to you right now – and trauma, which is what happens when a past experience of threat keeps living in you long after i...

Building a support network during divorce isn't optional – it's infrastructure. In this conversation, Carolyn talks with her close friend Gillian about the real art of asking for help: why it feels so hard, how to do it practically, and who belongs in your support team – both personally and professionally. Gillian shares her own experience navigating an unexpected separation, building a...

Alyssa thought she'd married the love of her life. What she didn't know was that her husband had been deceiving her in almost every way imaginable - an affair, gambling debts, drug use, and lies that unravelled her entire sense of reality. When he told Alyssa he wanted a divorce, she was completely blindsided. What followed was one of the hardest seasons of her life. Severe anxiety and d...

In this special episode, Carolyn is joined by her 21-year-old son Connor for an honest, warm, and sometimes confronting conversation about what it's really like to grow up through parental separation. Connor experienced two of Carolyn's separations – at age two and age twelve – and shares what helped, what didn't, and what he wishes had been done differently. An important listen for...

Ever stared at a pile of financial documents and felt completely out of your depth? Me too – but Julie Garis is here to help. Julie is a forensic accountant who specialises in helping women navigate the financial side of separation and property settlement. Julie has been through divorce herself – and she brings both professional expertise and lived experience to everything she does. We cover what...

If you're going through separation or divorce right now, this episode is for you. After seven years running Women's Divorce Academy and walking alongside over 800 women, I've seen the same 5 mistakes come up again and again – not because women aren't smart or capable, but because nobody tells them this stuff. In this episode I name each one clearly, explain why it happens, and...

Carolyn speaks with clinical nutritionist Susie Allen about what divorce and chronic stress actually do to your body – and what you can do about it. Susie draws on her own experience of two divorces and her clinical work to explain how the nervous system responds to prolonged pressure, why so many women find themselves wired but exhausted, and how simple nutritional choices can help break that cyc...

If you've ever felt completely wired at 2am, unable to make decisions, or like you're operating purely on adrenaline – this episode is for you. I'm joined by my brilliant friend Danielle Colley – integrative life coach and author, and someone who has walked this divorce road herself – to talk about what's actually happening to your nervous system during separation, why sleep fe...

What if your divorce came without any shame at all? Not less shame – no shame? For most women, that question feels almost impossible to answer. In this episode, Carolyn explores the deep cultural, historical and personal roots of divorce shame, what the research says about how women's lives improve after separation, and four grounded ways to start loosening shame's grip. Plus a simple jo...

When Gill's husband suddenly ended their 16-year marriage, she was blindsided. She thought they had a strong relationship - something they could work on together. Instead, the decision was made without her, and she was left reeling. In the early days, Gill couldn't sleep. She was spiralling with catastrophic thoughts about her future and her children's wellbeing. She felt ashamed, b...

Separation changes many things. Money is usually one of the biggest. For many women, money is the part of divorce that feels the most frightening. In this episode, Carolyn Tate is joined by money coach Naomi Holmes (Her Money Matters) to talk about divorce finances, budgeting after separation, and rebuilding financial confidence when everything feels uncertain. If you’re newly separated and worrie...

Divorce is hard. There's no sugar-coating that. But what if moving through it – really moving through it – could lead you to a life that's better than anything you left behind? In this first episode of Divorce With Carolyn, I share my own story: the quiet New Year's Eve moment that made everything clear, and the five phases that took me from broke, scared, and overwhelmed to a life...