Leah Hadley [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Intentional Divorce Insights. I'm Leah Hadley, certified divorce financial analyst, accredited financial counselor, and the founder of Intentional Divorce Solutions. I'll be your guide through the complexities of divorce, finance, and emotional wellness. Join me as we uncover practical tips and empowering insights to help you navigate your divorce with clarity and intention. Welcome back to intentional divorce insights. It is my pleasure to introduce our guest today, Kathleen Bram, and she has a very interesting story. But let me read you her bio first. In addition to her degree in an advanced education pursuit, Kathleen Brigham is the founder of Brigham Advising and is a certified divorce mediator.
Leah Hadley [00:00:45]:
She's also the author of The Nesting Experiment, 2 divorces, 7 kids, and 6 years of uncomfortable cohabitation, which I'm so curious to hear more about. With consideration to the home environment for children, Kathleen helps parents accelerate resolution and peace in the divorce process. She aims to provide clarity on the new normal of life beyond divorce. In addition to tactics to create boundaries and structure during a fraught time, she urges parents to keep that focus and not let their own experience with their ex color the child's relationship with their parent. Having 3 children of her own and 4 stepchildren, she has worked in every way to create supportive and loving relationships. Welcome, Kathleen. Thank you for being here.
Kathleen Brigham [00:01:30]:
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
Leah Hadley [00:01:33]:
So a lot of people have never heard of nesting. So could you before we get into it, really give us an idea of what is nesting.
Kathleen Brigham [00:01:41]:
Yeah. For sure. You're right. A lot of people have not heard of it. So some people call bird nesting or just nesting. It's of it's a term that people use in separation and divorce. And in simple terms, what it means is that the children stay in one spot and the 2 soon to be exes come and go. So it can look very, very different, but just to give a simple example is there's usually a home where the family is and one person is moving out.
Kathleen Brigham [00:02:11]:
With nesting, the children stay there and the parents come and go. So the mom might be there Monday through Wednesday, and the dad Thursday through, you know, the weekend or something like that. But it basically the premise is that the children are not packing up and going from one house to another.
Leah Hadley [00:02:28]:
Thank you. And I honestly cannot imagine nesting with my ex husband. Like, I just can't even fathom trying to share a space together. I'm curious for you. How difficult did you find nesting?
Kathleen Brigham [00:02:43]:
Yeah. It's a really good question. So I think every situation is so unique but for me, I mean, what I wanna say first off is that so many people when I talk about it, they think, oh my god, you're you're sharing a bedroom or you're cooking together. No. You are just merely providing a space. In my case, my ex came into the house and and slept in his in our kids rooms. So that that's one thing I just wanna clarify because it's not, you know, it is not easy but it's also not just all, you know, beautiful and, you know, easy and you're all like jumping around and it's simple. So it can be very very complex.
Kathleen Brigham [00:03:25]:
I found the most challenging thing because a lot of people do this who are recently separated and that's usually where emotions are high and tensions are pretty strong. So when you do it right away, that to me was the most challenging. Right? Because of the the reason you're separating divorce is probably because you don't wanna be around this person all the time. So then to allow them in is a very hard thing to wrap your head around. But what I wanna stress is that I did not in fact see my ex a lot. It's not like I open the door, let him in. You know, we all did some things together, and we can talk about that. But it's really if you can think about it about just keeping your children in the same space and you are coming and going.
Kathleen Brigham [00:04:09]:
But to answer your question, it was hard. Yeah.
Leah Hadley [00:04:12]:
Because, I was just realizing that I had to, you know, interact with my ex quite a bit when we were transitioning the kids back and forth. And, actually, if the kids were in one place, it would make it so we hadn't we wouldn't have had to have so much communication around those transitions.
Kathleen Brigham [00:04:28]:
Yeah. It's a really good point right. You're not saying, oh, you know this play date here, you know this person's it it for me also when people are asked like you know, can your child come over? You know, all of that was just in one spot. So I did have to communicate which we all do, maybe on those transition days. Hey, I've got homework or soccer or whatever. But to your point, I didn't have to elaborate, you know, about, you know, all the things with my ex. But I also didn't have to explain all these things to my kids. Right?
Leah Hadley [00:04:58]:
Right.
Kathleen Brigham [00:04:59]:
Pack your bags. Don't forget your homework. Get your soccer uniform. Like, everything was there. I also didn't have to say to them, hey, you have to end this play date early because dad's coming over, you've gotta get to dad's, you know, he's picking you up kinda thing. So for a lot of reasons that you're right to point out that there are some it does simplify some things around divorce.
Leah Hadley [00:05:20]:
Mhmm. So you've already mentioned some of the benefits for kids, but I'm curious if you could talk more about how it's beneficial for children.
Kathleen Brigham [00:05:29]:
I think the main way is that, you know, what we have to remember, we are choosing to separate and divorce, right, from an individual. This shows the the children that really the family, they're not affected by it as much. They are not, almost they are not the ones suffering, right? It's so interesting that we choose to separate and divorce and then we are asking our children to move around. It's not entirely fair. It's like wait, I didn't have a say in this. I'm not asking for this. I'm not divorcing my mom. I'm not divorcing my dad.
Kathleen Brigham [00:06:03]:
So I think the biggest benefit is that in a really difficult time when your kids no matter how amicable it is. Right? You are dividing, you know, a home, it lets the kids just have some stability. You know, they can just be in the same room. They can have all their same things. They can have their friends over without explaining things. So I think just the hugest benefit of all is stability.
Leah Hadley [00:06:29]:
So important. Mhmm. When kids are going through this. Absolutely. So what made you write the book?
Kathleen Brigham [00:06:35]:
So when I was newly divorced and explaining this to friends, family, potential mates, I mean people are just like rolling their eyes. Well I don't understand this. Either it was, oh you must not be over your ex because you're allowing him into the house or you're getting walked all over because, you know, you're making this compromise. There's so many sort of negative reactions. And then when I met my now husband, it was amazing to to sit down. And I was sort of prepared, as I said, to have, you know, the reaction, and then him to respond, oh, my gosh. I go into my ex wife's house every weekend. You know, I sleep in the bedroom basement and all that sort of stuff.
Kathleen Brigham [00:07:21]:
So as we were dating and really negotiating, right, how we develop our relationship, how we continue nesting with our kids separately, it just became such a point of conversation. And then we started thinking, okay, other people have to do this. We need resources. And we started looking at resources, almost none. You know, googling things, looking in the library, very little. And we thought, but this would be really interesting because of the different voices, Right? If I had written it, I would just be telling you my story about the challenges of having my ex husband in my house and all the things that have to do with sharing that space or even that space for that evening. And then speaking to my husband, Chris, about it, I got that other vantage point of like, wow, maybe it's not so easy for him to go into the home. I didn't have really that vantage point.
Kathleen Brigham [00:08:15]:
And quite honestly, I didn't have the empathy. So to hear him say, hey, it's not so easy to go in and and you know, see where you spend all this time and now you're only there on a weekend or see some of the pictures on the walls being taken down. So I thought having the two sides in the book would be so helpful and I I found it really helpful to to write for myself.
Leah Hadley [00:08:38]:
That's wonderful and such a wonderful resource for people. Where can they find the book?
Kathleen Brigham [00:08:43]:
So you can find it just looking on our website, my website, Brigham Advising. You can find it on Amazon as well, and the link is there.
Leah Hadley [00:08:52]:
Mhmm. Terrific. So what have been some of the most difficult challenges that you've experienced?
Kathleen Brigham [00:08:58]:
So I think the most difficult so I'll start with the kids. Right? So all the advantages I told you about stability, sometimes there can be a little bit of a a negative with that and that maybe they're not quite grasping the reality of the situation. So if they're kind of along in their rooms and nothing's changing and dad comes by after work on a Wednesday and has dinner, you know, in their minds, they may not quite understand. No. This is really a a divorce, you know. So those conversations really open and honest conversations with your kids. Age appropriate. Right? I've had these.
Kathleen Brigham [00:09:35]:
It's now been almost 14 years. So I've had different conversations over the, you know, decade plus with my kids. Because we were starting off when they were 3 going on 4. You know, now they're they're you know, 2 of them are full grown adults. So I think that is one of the one of the things that I wish I'd had on my radar earlier. Right? I think the other thing is just overall, you have to decide about how you how you insert this person, right, in your life and how you have conversations with your kids about the space. All of that I think was just I wish I'd, you know, I wish I'd know now obviously and just thought through things. I kinda just jumped into it but there's some things that I might have planned a little bit better.
Leah Hadley [00:10:22]:
Could you give us some example?
Kathleen Brigham [00:10:24]:
Yeah. I think, thinking about the space ahead of time so we can get very territorial and thinking about some ground rules, like, you know, sounds obvious, but no. Not going to my bedroom or the office or whatever it might be. Or if you're coming in, you know, you really have to bring your own food or replace food. I mean, there it can seep into this kind of shared space, and the ground setting the ground rules in from the beginning are so so important.
Leah Hadley [00:10:57]:
That makes a lot of sense. I was telling you before we got started that I have just one client that I've seen successfully nest for, you know, extended period of time. And a lot of people try it initially, and find that it's too difficult, but I think that's a big piece of it. Right? Is that they didn't set appropriate boundaries or clear ground rules for each other.
Kathleen Brigham [00:11:18]:
Exactly. And then you're sort of winging it as you go, and you're already tense, and it just is it's not ideal. The other thing I always mention to people is look, I did a pretty extreme version of nesting, right? But it's I mean, that you don't have to do that. I mean, a version of nesting could literally be just coming in on a weeknight and and allowing the the spouse or soon to be ex spouse to help out with homework and dinner while you leave. You know, it doesn't have to be a sleepover all the time. So it's mostly just what are the least disruptive ways for your children to continue on in their lives.
Leah Hadley [00:11:54]:
That leads me right to my next question, and that is if you're not a candidate for nesting, where are other things you can consider to make the transition easier on kids?
Kathleen Brigham [00:12:04]:
Yeah. Such a good question. I think distance is key. So when I stopped nesting, we found homes very close to each other. And I think just thinking through the logistics for your child, like where they go to school, what it would be like getting to mom's house to dad's house, and and any simplification you can do would be super helpful. You know, we're not all made of money but whatever duplicates you can get. Right. So just keeping clothes, keeping toothbrush, things like that there.
Kathleen Brigham [00:12:35]:
It seems obvious but a lot of homes and I've you know not to over generalize but a lot of dad's homes when I work with people don't have those those things, those obvious things in them. So don't make your kid pack his toothbrush, you know. Just if they can enter that space, if they are 2 spaces and feel like they're at home as opposed to they're visiting. That was probably one of the biggest sort of complaints for my kids when they did go to their dad's was that it didn't feel like any part of them was there. So photographs, bring in half of your stuffed animals, get your own bedding, whatever whatever it might be to make the kids feel really warm and welcome there.
Leah Hadley [00:13:18]:
That's such a good point and I didn't even think about it, but my ex husband and I have always lived very close together, and that has made our lives so much easier in so many different ways. I mean, it just I I hear about these families, and I work with several families where they're, you know, traveling across the country to, you know, change time with each of the parents and it's just it's so hard on everybody right, but that's such a good point that just living physically close to one another can relieve a lot of a lot of challenges.
Kathleen Brigham [00:13:52]:
Yeah. I mean, your kids don't wanna be told, look, you can't play with your friend today because, you know, it's a 2 hour drive to dance or whatever it might be. And I know that I mean, these are hugely challenging times economically, everything else. It always it doesn't always work perfectly. But I always say, let's start off with the best case scenario Right. And tick things off from there. I mean, we had to choose homes that weren't lavish or, you know, big, but we are rather have we understood that it was important to be next to each other as opposed to having maybe the kind of home, you know, somebody would have wanted. But, you know, these are some of the compromises that I was I was fine with.
Leah Hadley [00:14:31]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even we've been thinking about potentially moving to a different school district, and I keep having in the back of my mind, but I don't wanna be too far. Exactly.
Kathleen Brigham [00:14:42]:
Exactly. I mean So I'm so curious.
Leah Hadley [00:14:44]:
Now you have a couple of adult children. Have they talked to you about your their experience, Dusty?
Kathleen Brigham [00:14:50]:
Yeah. A lot. It's funny. When we wrote the book, we invited all 7. Like, do you are you okay with this? Do you wanna read the draft? Do you wanna part we would love you to participate, you know, things like that. And most of them are like, no, thank you. But 3 of them did participate. So in the book, there are 3, you know, firsthand accounts from our kids.
Kathleen Brigham [00:15:15]:
And they're more in the teenage years and that where they are now, but that was really that was it was really wonderful to read from their perspective how they viewed this whole thing. And the big takeaway was that they didn't really realize what a big undertaking it was for all of us. Right? They just sort of took it for granted, which I guess is the whole point of this. Right?
Leah Hadley [00:15:38]:
Right. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. So, Kathleen, where can people find you?
Kathleen Brigham [00:15:44]:
So mostly what I do is meet with people on Zoom so you can always just Google Kathleen. Brigham. You can find me at ins on Instagram, which is at the Kathleen Brigham, so just the in front of my name. And you can find me on Brigham Advising. I give a free consult for anybody who signs up there if you just wanna chat more about, you know, what what I do. Yeah. Those are the main places people find me.
Leah Hadley [00:16:08]:
Fantastic. And I know you were talking before a little bit about Brigham Learning in addition to Brigham Advising and how there's more of a, overlap than some people might think. I'm curious if you'd be willing to talk a little bit about what that is.
Kathleen Brigham [00:16:23]:
Oh, I'd love it. Because most people think, wait. How did how did these go together? So my background obviously was education until I was a divorce mediator. But I work with families all over on advising them on their children from an academic standpoint. So that might be the challenges having a kid at home with ADHD, what are some strategies we can use at home. It might be just understanding who their child is as a learner and how they can support. So I'm always trying to help and advise parents on what they can do at home to help the students out in their environment, be that socially or in the academic environment. And then I also have a team of tutors, so we do a lot of 1 on 1 work with with
Leah Hadley [00:17:05]:
students. Fantastic. And so where is the overlap with Brigham Advising?
Kathleen Brigham [00:17:10]:
So the advising part comes from helping a family, usually a couple, under start understanding how the dynamics in their home might be affecting their child. Either and again, it's I'm not a therapist. This is more from an academic standpoint. Sure. So what's happening at home academically, what the home environment is supporting or not supporting, how are we setting them up for success. So it might be talking about strategies and some kind of, sort of format at home to help the child. And a lot of times what that falls around is 2 parents with very different ideas of what that looks like at home. So we sort of listen to one parent and then another, bring out who the child is, like, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and then try to, not try, but usually come up with some really applicable strategies of a few adjustments they can make at home to support their child, and that just really changes the whole home environment in general.
Kathleen Brigham [00:18:10]:
Because if you have that one kid who's really difficult with homework or something like that, you know it affects everybody in your family, not just not just the one child.
Leah Hadley [00:18:19]:
Sure. Absolutely. I love what you're doing, Kathleen. I think this is fantastic. I think there are so many people out there who have so many questions about nesting. So for those who are listening, be sure to share this episode with friends or family who you may know who are going through a divorce and might be considering nesting as an option. And check out Kathleen's book because that sounds like a fantastic resource, and I love the firsthand accounts. I'm actually I'm so curious.
Leah Hadley [00:18:46]:
I can't wait to read, to hear what your children had to say about it. I really appreciate you being with us today.
Kathleen Brigham [00:18:52]:
Well, I really appreciate you having me. I I love talking about this, and I really look forward to helping, you know, just really continuing a conversation like this and helping as many people as I can.
Leah Hadley [00:19:03]:
Fantastic.
Kathleen Brigham [00:19:04]:
Thank you.
Leah Hadley [00:19:05]:
Are there any last words that you have for our listeners?
Kathleen Brigham [00:19:08]:
I think the main thing that I try to tell people is just take it from your like take it in very small bits, right? So if you hear a podcast like this, of course, you know, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna do this. I never can allow my husband my ex into my home. Just think about the small ways that you can do it. Even watching a sports game on the sidelines without being separate. Can you stand next to each other? Could you share a meal in a restaurant as opposed to in the home because you don't want them in your home? I just always invite people to think of small ways they can soften which means they're really doing a service for their children, right? They're not people, you know, we're not doormats. That's not what we're saying. We're really just trying to soften a little bit because ultimately, your kids have 2 parents and they they just deserve to experience that family unit, I think, as much as possible.
Leah Hadley [00:20:02]:
Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing those very wise words. And I appreciate our listeners for listening in today, and we'll see you next week. Thank you for joining me on intentional divorce insights. It's a privilege to share this time with you. I hope each episode offers valuable guidance to navigate your journey. If you find our content helpful, please leave a review to help others discover the benefits of intentional decision making in divorce. Until next time, take care and continue to embrace your path with intention.
