Divorce By Design: How building a divorce team can help you get divorced efficiently (without going broke!) in less than a year with Melissa Murphy Pavone

If the first thing you did when your marriage started falling apart was Google the most aggressive divorce attorney in town, you are not alone — and you are not wrong for it. But what if there was a smarter, calmer, more strategic way to get through one of the hardest chapters of your life? In this episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits down with Melissa Murphy Pavone, a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA®), and author of the newly released book Divorce by Design: How Building a Divorce Team Can Help You Get Divorced Efficiently Without Going Broke in Less Than a Year. Melissa brings both professional expertise and deeply personal motivation to this conversation — as a child of divorce herself, she watched her own mother make emotionally-driven financial decisions without the right support system in place. That experience became her why, and it's the engine behind everything she does to help others navigate divorce recovery with clarity, strategy, and confidence.What makes this episode genuinely essential listening for anyone starting over after divorce — or contemplating it — is the framework Melissa lays out so clearly: you don't just need an attorney. You need a team. Emotional support comes first, then financial guidance, then legal counsel. That sequence, Melissa explains, is everything. When people are in heightened emotional states, they cannot make sound long-term decisions — and that's exactly when the wrong professionals or the wrong advice can cause the most damage. Her financial clarity package, designed for people quietly considering divorce, helps replace fear with facts and replace overwhelm with a realistic, eyes-wide-open view of what life after divorce can actually look like. It's the kind of grounded, practical support that makes single mom life — and co-parenting after divorce — a little less terrifying.Divorce by Design is for everyone — not just people in the middle of a split. Melissa makes the case that this book belongs in the hands of happily married people, friends of those going through divorce, family members, coworkers, and neighbors, because divorce does not discriminate. And in a world where vulnerability too often becomes an invitation for exploitation, knowledge is the most powerful form of protection. Whether you're newly separated, years into parenting after divorce, or simply someone who loves a person in crisis, this conversation will leave you with clarity, a sense of direction, and the reassurance that you don't have to do this alone. Build your team. Design your divorce. And trust that starting over after divorce — on your own terms — is absolutely possible.🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry:The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/