Rhonda Noordyk: Choosing the Right Divorce Professionals

The false sense of amicability: that is what Rhonda Noordyk calls the pull that keeps people agreeable while their case falls apart. She has recorded an episode on the false sense of financial security too, and the one still sitting unrecorded in her queue, because she is still working out how to approach it, is the false sense of justice.

Rhonda Noordyk is the founder and CEO of the Women's Financial Wellness Center, which she started in 2014 after years in the financial industry and a stretch teaching in higher education. She wanted a model that helped people through the financial side of divorce without any financial product being sold at the end of it, and when she went looking for one to copy, there was not one. She works with clients across the country and hosts the podcast Divorce Conversations for Women. She is also open about why she is good at this: her own trauma history, a childhood that taught her to be passive, and the years it took to learn to be assertive instead.

Rhonda and Lisa talk about the layers of harm in a family law case. There is the harm from the relationship, the harm from the system, and then the harm from professionals who are not trauma-informed and make it worse. They cover what happens when an attorney shuts down a client's questions often enough that she starts to believe she is the problem, when the things she is asking for are communication, transparency, and respect. They cover why emotions cannot be left at the door in a financial conversation, and why Rhonda refused to work the way her colleagues told her to.

The rest is method. A vetting question to use on any professional, which is to ask for a specific example of a case like yours and what came of it rather than accepting a reassurance. Identifying the gaps in a case, whether those are gaps in information, confidence, income, or transparency. Two cases from her own files, one where an account was frozen in time and one where the same request went unanswered until the account had lost a significant amount of value. And Lisa's own account of representing herself, prevailing, and ending up published as case law in Connecticut.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why a professional who is not trauma-informed can set a client back
• The false sense of amicability, of financial security, and of justice
• What it means when an attorney shuts down a client's questions
• The vetting question to ask: give me a specific example and the outcome
• Why we handle every kind of case is a red flag, not reassurance
• Identifying the gaps in a case: information, confidence, income, transparency
• Why asking early about freezing or splitting an account can be worth real money
• Knowledge plus experience: how confidence gets rebuilt after a controlling relationship

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Leaving the financial industry to build something that did not exist
3:00 What makes someone good at this work, and why trauma-informed matters
5:00 Being retraumatized by your own professionals
7:00 The false sense of amicability, of financial security, and of justice
10:00 When your attorney shuts you down, and who is left holding the case
14:00 Emotions and money, and why nobody leaves them at the door
17:00 Vetting a professional: ask for a specific example, not reassurance
21:00 Strategy, budgeting, and identifying the gaps
23:00 Freezing one account and splitting another: two cases, two outcomes
30:00 Agency in your own case, and the confidence formula

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Women's Financial Wellness Center: https://wfwcdivorce.com
🔗 Rhonda Noordyk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhondanoordyk/

🎧 More with Rhonda Noordyk on this podcast
Ep 152: Asserting Your Financial Rights in Divorce

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.