Josh the Derelict: The Five Traps Men Face in Divorce

Ask a room of divorced people what they would do differently and you expect to hear something about lawyers or money. Josh the Derelict interviewed a couple dozen of them, including friends, coaching clients, attorneys and therapists, and the same answer came back first from all of them. They got into the next relationship too soon.

Josh the Derelict coaches men through and out of divorce, and he chose the name on purpose. Derelict means abandoned, cast aside, unattended to, which is how he describes feeling during his own contentious divorce: six figures in attorney fees, years in court, returns to court whenever his kid's mom decides to file, and the loss of family, friends and his church community along the way. He also runs a financial planning practice he has had for nearly twenty years, which shows up in how he thinks about divorce settlements. He is the author of The Five Traps Men Face When Going Through Divorce and How to Triumph Over Them, and of a newer book, The Derelict: Fight, Fail, Find Manhood.

He and Lisa go through the traps in order. Rushing the process once the decision is made, which Lisa pushes back on and Josh sharpens: BTGO clients almost always waited too long to leave, then treat the filing as an emergency. Trusting the wrong team, where Josh explains why an attorney is not a financial expert, works through a retirement account split that looks even until you apply two different tax brackets to it, and separates what a therapist does from what a coach does. Setting your own maintenance aside, whether by medicating the pain or by disappearing into work. And turning a blind eye to the kids, where his advice is presence over spectacle.

The conversation also spends real time on why men do not ask for help, the fact that emotional and psychological abuse leave no physical evidence to point at, and what Lisa and Chris see in their own weekly legal abuse support group, where male and female clients are deliberately in the same room. She tells the story of a woman in that group handing a male client a specific line to use, out loud, the next time his ex cornered him at the school playground.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why the rush starts after the decision, not before it, and what the pause is for
• Why having an attorney is not the same as having a team
• The retirement account split that looks even on paper and is not, once taxes land
• The line between what a therapist does and what a coach does, and why it matters here
• How men set aside self-care, either by medicating it or by disappearing into work
• Why presence beats spectacle with your kids, and the Disneyland dad trap
• Why everyone Josh interviewed said they started the next relationship too soon
• Swapping "my ex" for "my kid's mom" or "my kid's dad," and what it changes

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why "Derelict," and the divorce behind the name
5:30 Trap one: moving too fast once the decision is made
11:30 Trap two: trusting the wrong team
14:30 The retirement split an attorney calls fair, and why it isn't
18:30 Why men don't ask for help, and what it costs them
21:00 A support group where men and women back each other up
23:30 Emotional abuse and the evidence problem
25:30 Trap three: medicating the pain, or burying it in work
31:00 Trap four: Disneyland dad, and what kids actually want
35:00 Trap five: your ex, the next relationship, and "too soon"
42:30 The new book, and where to find Josh

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
🔗 Josh the Derelict on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshthederelict/

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.