How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships

“We owe it to them to ensure they’re not collateral damage due to this divorce.” Meet Sarah Armstrong Sarah works at Google but decided as a side gig to write her book “The Mom’s Guide to a Good Divorce: What to Think Through When Children Are Involved” largely because it gave her the opportunity to share what she’d learned during her own divorce with others. And that’s not to say her divorce was...

Meet Shannon Jenkins Divorce is never easy, but when you’re trying to divorce a narcissistic sociopath, things are so much more complicated. Add in complications involving international moves and it’s quite a process. Shannon Jenkins had to deal with all of that and more when she made the decision to get out of her relationship with her now-ex. It was the most challenging part of her life, but she...

Divorce and Cryptocurrency Hiding money from a spouse has been a part of divorce since divorce started, but what happens when it’s crypto? How about art in the form of NFTs? How should you handle these assets in your own divorce? Seth and Pete are joined in this episode by divorce attorney Sandra Radna to discuss how these assets in a divorce are similar and different from other assets. About Sand...

Our guest today has spent years in the publishing business, but it was only when her marriage broke up that she found the inspiration to write a book of her own. Available: A Memoir of Sex & Dating After a Marriage Ends , is a no-holds-barred look at post-divorce rehabilitation and the experiences of a woman on a journey of invention. “Don’t judge me,” says author Laura Friedman Williams. And...

We're still on our summer break and using the time to resurface some of our popular conversations. This week, we're talking to Erika Anne Englund about her experience as a former divorce attorney, mediator, and now chief of strategy at SupportPay. The big lesson from this episode? The path we walk can change with the language we use to define it. Erika Anne Englund spent 15 years as a divorce atto...

Bringing in a "forensic accountant" to your divorce team sounds serious, and it is. But it's far from the dour experience the title implies. In fact, having an expert in understanding the numbers in your divorce can play an invaluable role in creating a clear, accurate, and fair split. As you listen, if you're not a numbers person (as Pete is certainly not), you might find the thought of the whole...

Deborah Driggs Today we’re talking with Deborah Driggs. Her experience with divorce, trauma and recovery has fueled her across the career landscape — from model to actor to sales to motivational speaker. She joins Seth and Pete in the Toaster to share the story of divorces in her own life – first her parents’ and later her own – and to explore how she learned the power of taking risks, staying pos...

Solicitors and Barristers and Judges, oh my! Even though many of the foundations of our legal system stemmed from our country’s history with England, there are many differences in today’s family law. On today’s episode, senior associate solicitor and mediator Nicole Phillips joins Seth and Pete to talk about divorce in England and what’s different about it here in the US.It’s not just the wigs (th...

Finding Peace After Your Divorce Today on the Toaster, Seth and Pete are joined by Keith Wilson, a licensed mental health counselor and author of “The Road To Reconciliation: A Comprehensive Guide to Peace when Relationships Go Bad,” and “How to Make an Apology You’ll Never Have to Make Again.” How do you forgive after your divorce? What if the other party doesn’t want to forgive? Or is forgivenes...

Movies often feature prenups, or prenuptial agreements, as this thing that rich people get when they pretty much know their marriage will end in a divorce. Today, Pete and Seth talk about these mysterious beasts. Are prenups really signals of inevitable divorce? Are they all that bad? And are they just for rich people? Turns out, prenups can be quite helpful even when it’s not about large piles of...

Divorce is hard. But love on the other side of a divorce? You might feel like it’s never going to happen. You might feel like you never want to try again. Well, in this episode, we’re joined by an exciting guest who can not only help you realize that there can be love out there for you after your divorce, but also can help you navigate this confusing – yet wonderful – time. April Davis runs LUMA –...

Brittany Bliss and Reid Givens each had been married for 19 years to other people before divorcing them. While figuring their new lives out, they met each other and fell in love. Now, almost five years later, they not only are about to get married but also have started a band together. In today’s episode, Brittany and Reid talk with Seth and Pete about lessons learned along the way and how they’re...

Today we’re talking with Karen Covy, author of When Happily Ever After Ends: How to Survive Your Divorce Emotionally, Financially, and Legally. Karen has been working as a divorce professional for over 25 years as a mediator, attorney, arbitrator, decision coach and more. She’s come up with an online program called Divorce Road Map 2.0 that helps people navigate the challenges that come with divor...

Does dealing with divorce while in the military make it more complicated? Former US Army Military Policeman Paul Phipps, also an attorney at Nelson Law Group, joins Pete and Seth in this episode to discuss about the complexities of divorce when one or both of the parties are military members. We talk acronyms – USFSPA and SMCRA, not to mention the 20/20/20 rule. How do they affect you? What happen...

No matter how you slice it, infidelity is not a word you want associated with your marriage. That’s true for financial infidelity as well. So how do you figure out if your partner is being financially unfaithful? And what should you do? Pete and Seth are joined today by Wealthspire’s Aviva Pinto to discuss financial infidelity, rebuilding your credit, alimony, and more. What is financial infidelit...

Pathological Altruism Co-dependency, or pathological altruism as we like to call it, is unhealthy in marriage, but how do you know it’s there? It can turn a once healthy marriage into a bad one and often leads to divorce. How does co-dependency affect marriage and divorce? And how do you figure out if you’re co-dependent or part of the problem? On today’s show, we have Mary Joye, licensed mental h...

De-Escalating Conflict By its very nature, divorce is ripe with conflict. It starts because of conflict, it’s full of conflict all the way through, and often – particularly in cases with children involved – there is still conflict on the other side. Is there an easier way to deal with it? How do you learn the fine art of control in this minefield of conflict? Joining us on the Toaster today is div...

It’s become a bit of a running gag throughout our five seasons that we often tell you to “check your local jurisdiction,” but there’s good reason behind the joke. Every state, or jurisdiction, has its own laws that need to be followed and adhered to. To help us in this conversation, we’ve invited family law specialist Courtney Shepard from Burch Shepard Family Law Group – all the way from Orange C...

Movies and TV shows always make out the opposing counsel as this unstoppable and evil force with unlimited resources and ill intent. Okay, maybe it’s not that extreme, but you get the idea. We all have an idea as to what the opposing counsel is. But are they that bad? Do they naturally hate your lawyer and vice versa? Well, on this episode, Seth invites Michael Lundy – a family law attorney in the...

Vicki Vollweiler helps parents and students finance their college experience. If you’re in the process of a divorce, Vicki has some things for you to think about to make sure you don’t make it harder for your kiddo to get the money they need to get educated! (00:00) - Welcome to How to Split a Toaster (01:31) - What does the college finance landscape look like in 2022? (04:19) - Early Decision v....

Seth lost his mom. Pete lost his dad. And both are working through the experience of grief that comes with the impact on their lives and families. This is not an episode that answers all your grief questions. There are far better topical podcasts with experts to help with that. This show is an exploration of the experience with two guys living through it, and a reflection on how grief — whether fr...

You're doing all the right things, all the things your team has told you to do: you’re facing the prospect of divorce head-on . But when the process gets hard, it’s even harder to keep your head held high. How do you keep your focus on a successful outcome when everything else in the divorce process feels so ugly? To help us through it all we welcome Elizabeth Ann Atkins. Elizabeth is America’s Bo...

What does it mean to forgive after your divorce? You can count many reasons to hold a grudge; you have all the reasons that led you to divorce in the first place, but divorce isn’t normally a process that naturally cultivates calm and understanding. So, how do you find peace in the process? Our guest today is Twyla M. Marks, host of “Divorce Talk with Twyla” and survivor of her own toxic divorce....

Whatever your position on Valentine's Day as a holiday, there's no denying the cultural charge of romantic expectation around us. That charge can work wonders, lifting us to romantic heights and hormonal bliss — when it’s working. But what happens when it’s not? What happens when the spark is gone, the romance stifled, the marriage over? What do you do when you run into your first post-divorce Val...

Our hiatus continues as we get closer to season five! In today’s episode, we return to season one for a conversation Pete and Seth had without any guests – what do post-divorce relationships look like? What’s going to happen to your kids and their relationship with former grandparents? Step- and former step-spouses? Former step-siblings? What rights exist to keep these family relationships togethe...