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Divorce, Alimony & Child Support: How to Protect Your Payments If Your Ex Dies or Becomes Disabled with Jeffrey Landers, Real Estate/Mortgage and Divorce Expert

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

Release Date: 06/04/2026

How to Stop Anxiety from Controlling Your Divorce Decisions with Mindful Drinking Coach, Colleen Freeland Kachmann show art How to Stop Anxiety from Controlling Your Divorce Decisions with Mindful Drinking Coach, Colleen Freeland Kachmann

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

If you've ever felt like you can't think straight, can't stop second-guessing yourself, or can't figure out why you keep making decisions you regret, this episode is for you. One of the most damaging and least talked about effects of divorce is what anxiety does to your decision making. Fear takes over, your nervous system goes into overdrive, and suddenly you're not making choices from a clear, grounded place, you're reacting. Most people don't even realize it's happening until the damage is done, and for many, anxiety and alcohol end up feeding each other during this exact chapter of life....

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10 Year Anniversary Episode: High Conflict Relationships: Self-Love Deficit, Delusions & Boundaries show art 10 Year Anniversary Episode: High Conflict Relationships: Self-Love Deficit, Delusions & Boundaries

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

To celebrate a decade of Journey Beyond Divorce, we're sharing a special collection of episodes featuring Karen McMahon as a guest on some of her favorite podcasts. Over the years, Karen has joined incredible hosts across the divorce, coaching, and personal growth space to share her story and her expertise. This collection brings those conversations together in one place, offering a look at Karen's voice and message from a different angle, through the eyes of the hosts who welcomed her. Thank you for being part of this journey, and for helping Journey Beyond Divorce grow into what it is today....

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The Masculine Dilemma: Why Divorced Men Keep Repeating the Same Mistakes with, Relationship and Men’s Work Coach, Geoff Laughton show art The Masculine Dilemma: Why Divorced Men Keep Repeating the Same Mistakes with, Relationship and Men’s Work Coach, Geoff Laughton

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

What if divorce wasn't really about her? That's the question Karen McMahon poses to open this episode of Journey Beyond Divorce, and the question at the center of her conversation with Geoff Laughton, a Relationship and Men's Work Coach with 33 years of experience, 300+ workshops, and thousands of clients. Geoff calls the pattern the "Masculine Dilemma," a set of unconscious traps that quietly erode men's marriages long before divorce ever becomes a possibility. He's also 44 years into his own marriage, so he's not just teaching this work, he's living it. Karen and Geoff dig into what actually...

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How High-Conflict Childhoods Shape Adult Children with Dr. Sharon Martin, DSW, LCSW show art How High-Conflict Childhoods Shape Adult Children with Dr. Sharon Martin, DSW, LCSW

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

High-conflict divorce doesn't end when the papers are signed. It lives on in the next generation, and often in the very patterns adults bring into their own marriages. In this episode, Karen McMahon sits down with Dr. Sharon Martin to unpack how growing up in a dysfunctional or high-conflict home quietly shapes the adults those children become, showing up years later as codependency, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and conflict avoidance. Karen and Dr. Martin trace how a child's instinct to stay safe around unpredictable or explosive parents can calcify into lifelong habits of...

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How to Start the Divorce Process... What Most People Get Wrong show art How to Start the Divorce Process... What Most People Get Wrong

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

You've made the decision, or maybe it's been made for you. Either way, most people do what feels urgent: call a lawyer in a panic, tell their spouse too soon, move out of the house without thinking it through. Those early moves can follow you through the whole process. In this episode, Karen McMahon shares the five essentials to get right before you file, so you move forward with clarity and a plan instead of fear. First, investigate your legal rights, talk to a matrimonial attorney in your jurisdiction before you do anything else, so you understand where you stand on finances, assets, and...

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Gray Divorce: What Every Man and Woman Over 50 Needs to Know About Retirement, Social Security, and Spousal Support with Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, Andrew Hatherley show art Gray Divorce: What Every Man and Woman Over 50 Needs to Know About Retirement, Social Security, and Spousal Support with Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, Andrew Hatherley

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

Divorce after 50 looks nothing like divorce in your 30s or 40s. Custody battles and parenting plans give way to a different kind of high-stakes negotiation, one centered almost entirely on money: retirement accounts, pensions, Social Security, and spousal support. And with gray divorce rates doubling since 1990 for people over 50, and tripling for those over 65, Karen McMahon believes this is a conversation more couples urgently need. In this episode of the Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast, Karen sits down with Andrew Hatherly, a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA), trained mediator, and...

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Divorce Without Court: Choosing the Right Approach - Mediation, Collaborative Divorce, and Settlement Negotiation with Collaborative Divorce Attorney, Cary Jacobson show art Divorce Without Court: Choosing the Right Approach - Mediation, Collaborative Divorce, and Settlement Negotiation with Collaborative Divorce Attorney, Cary Jacobson

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

Most people assume divorce means courtrooms, legal battles, and losing control of the outcome, but Karen McMahon knows that's not always true. In this episode of the Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast, Karen sits down with Cary Jacobson, a collaborative divorce attorney, mediator, and child advocate, to break down every path to divorce outside of litigation and help listeners understand which one actually fits their situation. Karen and Cary walk through the full spectrum of options, from do-it-yourself kitchen table agreements and settlement negotiation between attorneys, to mediation, to the...

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Divorcing with a Special Needs Child: 5 Critical Considerations with Mary Ann Hughes show art Divorcing with a Special Needs Child: 5 Critical Considerations with Mary Ann Hughes

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

Parenting a neurodivergent or special needs child already takes constant coordination and advocacy. When divorce enters the picture, Karen McMahon believes those needs don't get simpler, they become the center of every decision. In this episode, Karen sits down with Mary Ann Hughes, founder of Special Family Transitions and a certified special needs divorce coach, mediator, and co-parenting specialist. As the mother of sons on the autism spectrum, Mary Ann brings both lived experience and deep expertise to a conversation most divorce professionals aren't equipped to have. Together they cover...

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Healthy Masculinity After Divorce: The Skill Men Were Never Taught with Brent Perkins show art Healthy Masculinity After Divorce: The Skill Men Were Never Taught with Brent Perkins

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

Karen McMahon sits down with Brent Perkins, founder of 3x Bold and director of leadership at Front Row Dads, to unpack a pattern she sees constantly in her work with high-achieving men going through divorce: they know how to control themselves, but they were never taught capacity, the ability to stay present in emotional, messy, or uncertain moments without fixing or shutting down. Brent built seven and eight-figure companies, led global teams, and did everything right on paper, until his marriage ended and forced him to confront the patterns his success had never solved. In this conversation,...

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When Co-Parenting Isn’t an Option: A Trauma-Informed Path to Protecting Your Child with AJ Gajjar, Trauma-Informed Parenting Consultant show art When Co-Parenting Isn’t an Option: A Trauma-Informed Path to Protecting Your Child with AJ Gajjar, Trauma-Informed Parenting Consultant

Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast

Co-parenting is often held up as the gold standard after divorce. But that advice assumes two emotionally healthy, cooperative parents. In high-conflict divorce, and especially in situations involving coercive control, manipulation, or post-separation abuse, that assumption can do more harm than good. In this episode, Karen McMahon is joined by AJ Gajjar, Parenting & Trauma Consultant, child development specialist, and creator of Trauma Healing Parenting, for an important conversation about what children truly need when co-parenting isn't possible. Together, they explore why many parents...

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More Episodes

Alimony and child support only work if the checks keep coming. And in high-conflict divorces, or honestly, in any divorce, that is a far more dangerous assumption than most people realize.

One accident. One illness. One unexpected death. And the financial foundation you spent months negotiating can disappear overnight.

Karen McMahon sits down with financial strategist and CDFA Jeff Landers to pull back the curtain on the one protection most divorce agreements quietly ignore, using life and disability insurance to secure your alimony and child support payments before the ink is even dry on your settlement.

What most people don't know is that the chances of your ex becoming disabled are three to four times greater than the chances of them dying. And yet disability insurance almost never appears in a divorce agreement. Jeff explains why that gap exists, what it costs you if you don't close it, and exactly how to bring it up during negotiations, while you still have leverage.

Karen and Jeff also tackle the details that can make or break your protection: why you, not your ex, must own the policy, what happens when a paying spouse quietly stops making premium payments, how 26 states automatically revoke beneficiaries upon divorce without you knowing, and how to use insurance as a negotiating tool if you're getting pushback.

If you're counting on alimony or child support to keep your home, feed your children, or rebuild your financial life, this episode isn't optional. It's the conversation your attorney probably never had with you.

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