EP #9: Mental Health & The Decision to Separate with Guest Laurie McNulty

EP #9: Mental Health & The Decision to Separate with Guest Laurie McNulty

Divorce isn’t just a legal event—it’s an emotional evolution. In this episode, Cary Jacobson welcomes therapist Laurie Chaikind McNulty to discuss how to navigate the mental health challenges of separation.

Inside this episode:

• The Decision Phase: Navigating the "should I stay or should I go" anxiety.
• The Anchor: How to support your children’s emotional health during a family shift.
• Sustainability: Addressing burnout and secondary trauma for family law professionals.

Connect with Laurie: https://www.elmtherapyandwellness.com/

Connect with Jacobson Family Law: jacobsonfamilylaw.com

Visit jacobsonfamilylaw.com to learn more.

Visit jacobsonworkshop.com to learn more.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The first thing I think it's really important is to make sure the kids get support and for the co-parents to get support together. Because maybe you want two different outcomes and you've got to figure out how to do this well. Maybe you want the same outcome, you both want your kids to be happy, healthy, resilient, but the paths that you would choose to get there are incredibly different. So figuring out how to have a person who can support you in navigating that together, but also has the child development background is really important. Or if you have a blended family or there's a new relationship, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Welcome to the Drama Free Divorce Podcast. I'm your host, attorney and mediator Carrie Capison. Each week, we bring you practical guidance, real conversations, and expert insights to help you navigate divorce with clarity, confidence, and less conflict. If you're ready for a calmer, more empowered path forward, you're in the right place. Welcome back to the Drama-Free Divorce Podcast, where we focus on helping families navigate separation, divorce, and life transitions with clarity, compassion, and less conflict. I'm your host, Carrie Jacobson, attorney and mediator at Jacobson Family Law. Divorce isn't just a legal process. As we all know, it's an emotional one as well. And today we're talking about the mental health side of divorce and separation, from making the decision to separate to begin with to supporting children and even caring for professionals who work in the space every day. So I'm honored to welcome Lori Chakin-McNulty, an individual, child, couples, and family therapist and a board-certified clinical supervisor in Maryland. Lori has over a decade of experience supporting clients through complex life transitions and takes an integrative client-centered approach to therapy. Lori, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. We always like to start with kind of getting a little bit more information about your background and what really led you to working with people who are in this divorce and separation space.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yes. So I am a clinical social worker. So I've been working with kids and families and individuals for 15 plus years. I started in the child and kids space, really, in schools, in hospitals, in private practice, and the family dynamic space. And I would say in like the last eight years or so, I've really transitioned closer to working with individuals and couples, but it kind of allowed me to see the impact on the whole family and support individuals making these decisions, couples making these decisions because I have that background. So I think that has been a really kind of a useful thing, particularly as I see people who are really in that stage of life who are making these hard decisions.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Absolutely. Making the decision as to whether or not to separate can really be a challenge. And I see it all the time, whether it's our clients, whether it's, you know, Facebook groups. How do you know it's time? How did you make the decision? What do you see with the clients that you're working with?

SPEAKER_01 3:03

I see a very similar thing. I think this is a huge decision to make. What I tend to see that I don't know that is really talked about a lot is this feeling of ambivalence. And it's not just sort of pre-decision making, right? So we often talk about in therapy there's different stages to decision making. And, you know, contemplation is one that we get stuck in for a long time, but there's even pre-contemplation. Like when you know something isn't right, but you're not even really ready to think about it. Right. We kind of go back and forth between stages, you know, then we have action and we go back and forth between contemplation and action. But the thing I think that we don't necessarily talk about is the ambivalence that we see before, during, even sometimes after the process, right? Do I wanna stay? Do I wanna go? What does the other person want? If I am so sure that I want to go, then why is it that I still feel love or attraction or sympathy or empathy? So we feel this ambivalence, and oftentimes we're holding these conflicting emotions of both, you know, hope for the future, but also dread for the future. What's that gonna look like? And even I think people who I see who haven't processed a year, two years, years out of, you know, I'm in a new healthy relationship. Why is it that I'm still attracted to my old partner? Right. Why am I having these loving feelings? So I think the whole process, there's a ton of ambivalence, and it's just really important to normalize that this is uh often not a thing where you're like, okay, here's the moment, I'm sure. It's more about small steps towards something, and then we make meaning of it afterwards and we can afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Right. There's sometimes the thing that happened, right? That made someone to really take that next step. And for everyone, that seems to be a different level of, you know, like what is it going to really take to make that decision?

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Sure. And even in those instances, even if you're moving forward in action, your emotions and your mental health may not be right. If for you it's the line is an affair, or for you the line is, you know, financial betrayal, you may move forward in that action, but it doesn't mean you're not still gonna have those thoughts of what if we had done things differently? What if we had tried that harder, all of those things happening. And so just to normalize, even if there is a clear line in the sand, you're not gonna say, okay, and then all my other feelings go away after that.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Right. And there's so many different feelings that come up, like you mentioned, you know, the feelings of potentially betrayal, but also the still caring for that person because they have been together. They are often the parent of your child. And so all of those things can coexist. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

And they do. I think like we think that you're gonna feel relief or hope or something. And you may, and you probably will, and also you will feel fear and dread and guilt. You may feel like you failed something, but also you're looking forward to the next thing. And I think all of those things coexist and it doesn't mean that something's necessarily wrong with the process that you're going through. It just means those emotions coexist in a complex situation.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Now I know that you also extensively work with couples, even those who are also considering separating and divorcing. How does therapy help couples who are going through that process together, even if divorce is ultimately what they decide to move forward with?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a hefty decision, obviously, right? For your life, for if you have children, for your finances, for where you live. I mean, there's no part of your life that goes untouched. So making that decision, sometimes it's one person, but oftentimes it's a unit. I will see, I mean, inherently in couples, I will often couples come in trying to sort of salvage something or save something or feel more connected. Sometimes they get to a place where they realize this isn't, you know, something that we want to move forward with. But couples therapy is really about the space to have those conversations. If you're at that point in your relationship, oftentimes the cycle of communication is really challenged. Right. And so I think that having a space where you can have positive communication around those things is pretty critically important. If you're already struggling in your own space, the conversations about divorce are just gonna be within that same pattern of communication over and over again. You're probably gonna have that same interaction. So if you are somebody who talks a lot and your partner withdraws, those conversations are gonna look the same. Or if you get really volatile and angry, those hard conversations are gonna get this be the same. So in couples therapy, it gives you a space and a place to think about how to thoughtfully do this with a different style of communication. And it's not so much having a mediator. I'm not a referee, but I am gonna help the two of you sort of understand each other in a better way. And you know, ultimately, if the decision is we want to separate, then how do we do that in a way that's thoughtful? There's also like a subset of therapy called discernment therapy, which I don't practice, but I'm sure you probably have talked about on here, which is much more of like a structured, standardized way of like if you're gonna go into couples therapy and your thought is we need to make a decision whether or not to stay together, that can be a really helpful, just like baseline starting point that I will refer people to often.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Absolutely. And we have, I don't remember the episode, but we have had a discernment counselor on previously. Many times, if we've got a new client who is kind of in that I'm not sure space, or you know, they think that their spouse may be in that space, we will also refer them to discernment to see if that's the path that they're going to choose. And sometimes it's choosing to go that route so that they do have that safe space to have the conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So children, you know, especially those families where there are kids, even adult kids, right? We don't often think about adult kids being impacted by divorce, but you know, they are obviously. But when we've got younger kids, you know, it's very common for them to be the silent carriers of that divorce stress. Yeah. So what can parents do to be mindful of when it comes to supporting their kids emotionally through the process?

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah. So I think the number one most important thing is making sure that you're getting support and your kids are getting support and how to manage this. There are experts in divorce and healthy co-parenting and divorce for all different kinds of developmental ages, right? There's little kids, it's gonna look very different than for teenagers and for even young adults, or if you have a kid in college, a lot of families. I mean, I'm sure you see this all the time, right? You say when the kids go to college, then right, and then that kid's world is destabilized already because they're away. And then they're like, What do you mean you were just waiting this whole time? Or whatever it feels like for them. So the first thing I think it's really important is to make sure the kids get support and for the co-parents to get support together. Right. Because maybe you want two different outcomes and you've got to figure out how to do this well. Maybe you want the same outcome. You both want your kids to be happy, healthy, resilient, but the paths that you would choose to get there are incredibly different. So I think that's often what I see is two people who want the same things for their kids, but their paths and their choices are so different. So figuring out how to have a person who can support you in navigating that together, but also has the child development background is really important. Or if you have a blended family or there's a new relationship, what does that look like? For kids, there's a few basic rules I think that I like to think about with families. So one of them is do what's developmentally appropriate, not less and not more. So what you say to your five-year-old is gonna look a whole lot different than what you say to your 14-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

So we wanna give kids accurate, truthful information that is developmentally appropriate. We don't need to explain to our five-year-old in the same way we're gonna talk to our 14-year-old, which makes sense on a lot of things. But I think sometimes we kind of either over or undereducate our kids about what's happening. So we say, Right, they don't need to know, we're just gonna avoid it and wait till you have some semblance of an idea of what's happening, especially with smaller kids. But kids pick up on things, they notice, they see things, they feel the instability, and without any information, all they have is their imagination. And we as adults know what that's like. Right. So for a kid, that's really hard. So give them information. And if you have some information, but not all, which will happen throughout this process, but it is okay to say to a kid, I'm gonna tell you what I know when I know it. And that's all we know so far. And when I know more, I'm gonna tell you more, and leave it open for questions and thoughts. I think sometimes what we want to do to just make our kids not unhappy is to either not tell them or to like lie to them. And it's really harmful to lie about what's happening because eventually they'll find out. And then whatever trust you have there is broken. So that's pretty important. You know, the other thing that we know, right, is to not put kids in the middle. And we don't know that inherently, but what that looks like can be carrying a parent's emotional load or trying to make the parent feel better, or you know, sort of either explicitly or implicitly telling a kid, don't talk to me about mom's new boyfriend or dad's new girlfriend or whatever it is. And so I think that putting the kids in the middle kind of ends up in two different things. Either the kid internalizes and becomes responsible, and that's really hard and creates a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress that's sort of beyond their developmental ability or externalizing and they get bigger louder. You start to see behaviors and oftentimes both. So we really want to make sure, and you know, not talking badly about the other parent, you know, we end we know that in the long term, what ends up happening is if you're talking badly about the other parent, you become the enemy at some point. So all of those things are important, but to navigate all of that, because it's hard and a lot going on, and you're gonna feel less patient and you're gonna feel angry, and you are gonna have feelings, and maybe you don't want to hear about what's happening on the other side. I think finding support for everybody is pretty critical.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Absolutely. And I appreciate what you kind of said there, which was, you know, not putting the kids in the middle, but I think many people don't necessarily realize how those that can take different manifestations, yeah, right. Like just telling your child to relay a message is one way of putting the child in the middle, but also, as you mentioned, kind of expressing your feelings, not that's inappropriate, but it's um the manner in which you do it so that the kids aren't feeling responsible for your emotions.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

I mean, if every time the kid comes and they say, We did this at mommy's or we did this at daddy's, and you start to cry or you get upset or you get angry or you walk away or you say, We're not talking about that right now, that kid's gonna start to notice. I mean, what we know from attachment theory, interestingly, is kids can pick up on and change their behavior based on their parents' emotions starting at 11 months old. So it's really early and they do that for survival. So even if you're not, you know, doing these big things, you can say, Oh yeah, that, you know, that makes mommy sad. I I miss, you know, I miss that sometimes, but that's okay. That's I can deal with that. And tell me more about what you did. Right. And then making sure for you that you have your own support because you may feel really sad or really angry or whatever in that moment. And if you do, that's okay. Going back and saying, you know, I know I got really upset earlier, but let's talk about this a little bit more. You can always sort of go back if you do have a human reaction to something that your kid is telling you.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Absolutely. There are so many different pieces of that to navigate. And like you mentioned, having support for both yourself as well as the kids is absolutely critical. Tell us a little bit more about your practice, Elm Therapy and Wellness, and how your practice supports, you know, whether you're an individual who is seeking support, couples or even families through these transitions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

So I think we see a lot of individuals. We have been, I mean, we serve men and women, and you know, we are very like sort of open and trauma-informed, and we're well being out of all different family structures, but we tend to see people sort of in these contemplation stages, right? Maybe there's especially we get with a high percentage of midlife women who are in these places of trying to make decisions. So we support them throughout the process and men. And when you see couples, that's inherently just part of the work. I wouldn't say that, you know, people seek us out specifically for discernment, but you know, part of the work is is this something that we want to continue doing? Right. So we see that quite a bit. And I think that we have a lot of expertise in sort of supporting people through that process. For kids, we tend to see kids sort of on that backside after custody is determined. You know, I think there are certainly specialists for like supporting families like throughout that like specific process. We tend to see kids on that backside of, you know, once custody is settled and the dust is settled and we sort of know what the situation is gonna be, then we help kids sort of process through that and we can help families through that as well. But that's what tends to be kind of what we we see in terms of, you know, that's a normal part and stage of a lot of people's lives. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

And what ages of children do you typically work with?

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Well, you know, as little as four or five, and we can go up through all the way up throughout the lifespan. And we do have a lot of people who will work with those younger kids and those elementary, medical kids, and high schoolers, but we have a few people who have a real expertise in that college years, as you mentioned. Right. And that young adulthood, which I think sometimes is surprising to families, you know, they're not living in the house anymore. But I think that's a particularly interesting phase of life because they are working on their identity formation. And if thus far the identity has been a nuclear family, and then that has to change. And they feel like there's loss or there's division or they come home and where are they supposed to be and who are they supposed to be with and what does that look like? And I think that people are sometimes surprised by the impact that can really have, especially during that identity formation stage of life. Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

It's a whole different process. I think, you know, as you mentioned before, a lot of parents think, well, I'll just wait until they get it out of the house and then we'll deal with this that's been ongoing for, you know, so many years. And it is, you know, almost in some ways shocking to some, you know, young adults to say, why did I think that, you know, the family was perfect? And, you know, there were no necessarily weren't signs and that sort of thing. And then they're kind of blindsided and it can really impact.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

And with divorce or particular betrayals, and when we think about betrayal, what it is one minute my world was one way and the next minute was another way, and the rug has been pulled. And I think that happens oftentimes in divorcing couples, right? With how your life view is shifted, but also for kids that can be that way too. And then for some young adults, they're like, Why didn't you do this earlier? And they're angry at one parent. Protect us from the yelling or the whatever, why did you wait? And so I think that there's all kinds of different dynamics. Again, that's where the sport comes in. Right. For your particular whatever particular thing, because no matter what happens, or you can you can always get to a place where people feel supported and where people can feel calm and at peace with things, but you have to go through the process.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

I know that one of the other groups that you work with are often attorneys and other professionals who are kind of working in this space. You know, I talk to lots of attorneys who are kind of in the family law world. We talk about it regularly, how burnout is such a huge piece of working in this field. And so, how do you work with attorneys, other professionals who are kind of in this divorce space?

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yeah. So it's interesting. We see a ton of attorneys as clients. We also do like specific workplace wellness consulting for like whole, you know, workplace groups. And so we kind of see it both from like a holistic group system perspective and from an individual perspective. So I mean, I can start thinking about the individual perspective, which is like burnout, right? If we kind of really define burnout, it's three categories it's emotional exhaustion, it's depersonalization and cynicism, and it's a lack of loss of agency or a loss of control over things. So from like a you know, scientific definition, those three pieces together, that's what's gonna let you know that you've got burnout going on. And right, all of those things are very you're susceptible, right? To those things. So it looks, I'm sure everybody kind of knows what that burnout feeling looks like for them individually. It's not only thinking, I don't want to make this call, it's not making the call, right? Or putting it to the next day. It's feeling completely exhausted before you've even started for the day. It's feeling like, what am I doing because it's just end up messy anyways, or what's the point? Or I think maybe particularly something that we don't talk a lot about in family law is that many couples have the same sets of issues.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Therapists have to work really hard to be like, to sort of say, like, yes, I recognize this issue in this couple, but also like this is in my relationship too. Like, we're not unique in that, right? We all have these sort of dynamics that we get into. And I think in family law, it's probably very easy to say, okay, like look at this dynamic. I have this dynamic. And then you sort of are stressed not only about what's going on in the work life, but also you get like secondary, vicarious, upset trauma, whatever it is, working with these couples. So I think that takes a lot out of people. So we do see that quite a bit. The other thing we can see is, you know, it can be hard to turn it off. So especially I would imagine if you're working with high conflict to not come home and look for the facts and look for an argument to win and look for like that the your house is not your courtroom, right? Can probably be very hard. And it's hard on families, it's hard on spouses, it's hard on you because you don't want to be engaging in that way either. So we definitely sort of will see that. The other thing we see is like there's only so many hours in the day. And so I think something that was really important to us at our practice is we're really grounded in understanding psychological theory and understanding treatment and what's evidence-based, but we don't lose sight of the person in front of us. To so to say to an attorney at 5 p.m. you have to close your laptop and go home is not a realistic task. Right. So, how do you how do we help support high-achiev individuals, lawyers who have, you know, a family and have work actually realistically take care of themselves and manage burnout is a really important question for us because I think a lot of times, you know, you got sort of standard advice of turn it off and take care of yourself. Right. Is that really realistic? Like let's actually talk about what works for you in your life, rather than you know, what is sort of self-care.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, this is a very challenging topic for many attorneys, especially as you mentioned, who are working in that high conflict, you know, litigious environment, because it is all day, all the time. So it's complicated.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah, yeah. It's hard to switch, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

And it's hard to to feel, you know, you're also watching what this what it does to the people in front of you too. And I would imagine that's really hard.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Yeah. Well, Lori, thank you so much for having such a thoughtful and compassionate conversation. I appreciate your being here today. And your work reminds us that divorce is not something that you have to just get through, but something that deserves care, intention, and support. For our listeners, how can they find out more about you and your services?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah, our website's uh pretty comprehensive. So it's elmtherapy and wellness.com, or you can email us. We're very much of the belief that if you email us, we get back to you quickly because we know we need help help or support, you want it quickly. So it's just admin admine at elmtherapy and wellness.com.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Wonderful. We'll be sure to put that in the show notes. And for all of our listeners, as always, if you need legal guidance or mediation support during your separation or divorce, visit us at jacobsonfamilylaw.com and thank you for listening to the drama free divorce podcast. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Drama Free Divorce Podcast. If you found today's episode helpful, be sure to follow, subscribe, and share it with someone who needs it. For more resources or to work with us, visit jakobsonfamilylaw.com. Until next time, stay grounded, stay informed, and stay drama free.