Testimonials

What love can look like after.

Tatiana Tarnowski

I met Lea before I kissed my husband. And I remember her extraordinary ability to make me feel welcome. At the time, I could not have known that this woman, once married to the man I would later marry, would become one of the great gifts of my own life.

When Lucian and I fell in love, Lea showed up with consistent support, warmth and love. There was never a script we were trying to follow. If anything, together we began to question the scripts we had inherited — about divorce, former partners, new partners, stepfamilies, and what a family is supposed to look like.

In Lea I found an incredibly dear friend. Someone who welcomed me not simply as a stepmother, but as a bonus Mami to a bonus daughter I love so deeply. And someone who has supported Lucian’s and my marriage with extraordinary generosity, love and a lot of humour.

Perhaps nowhere was that more visible than at our wedding, when Lea stood up and gave a speech celebrating our marriage. I remember feeling that something much bigger than the four of us was happening. You could almost feel the room opening up to a possibility many people had never considered: that this could exist. That the end of a marriage did not have to turn love into resentment, history into failure, or family into fragments.

That is what Love After Love captures so beautifully. It asks us to imagine that love can take a different form, and that sometimes our families can grow rather than diminish.

I know this because I am living it.

Lea is part of my family, and I am part of hers. In fact, we are one family. Our story may not fit the conventional definition of what life after divorce is supposed to look like — and that is precisely the point.

Sometimes love does not end. It simply asks us to become brave enough to let it change form.

Sean Meyersfeld

I came into Lea’s life after her marriage had ended, which means I also came into the family she had chosen not to leave behind.

That has been one of the (many) great privileges of loving her: watching, from the inside, what happens when someone refuses to accept the conventional story of divorce.

We are taught that when a marriage ends, a family breaks. That there must be sides. That an ex becomes someone to tolerate, their new partner someone to compete with, and a new relationship something built separately from whatever came before.

Lea has challenged every part of that.

She has shown that a family can expand rather than contract. That love for a new partner does not require less love or respect for an old one. That children do not have to move between competing worlds. And that the people who arrive later can become part of something larger rather than evidence of what was lost.

Many of the ideas of Love After Love are not always easy. They require generosity, humility and occasionally a fairly heroic suppression of ego. But I have seen what becomes possible when people are willing to question the rules they inherited about what divorce is supposed to look like.

This book does more than challenge our assumptions about divorce. It asks a much bigger question: what if the end of one kind of love does not have to mean the destruction of everything that love created?

Love After Love is an important book because it opens a conversation we should have been having for a long time. It offers a different possibility: that families can change shape without becoming smaller, and that sometimes, if we are brave enough to let them, they can become bigger.

I know because I am one of the people who arrived later. And I have been welcomed into something remarkable.

Diane

Love After Love sets a high bar for relationships, not because it pretends they can be perfect, but because it reminds us that we have the power to reimagine them.

I was married for 11 years, in a relationship for 15. Most of my adult life. I believe there is beauty in honouring what we built, the family we created and, above all, the child who will forever connect our stories.

Lea’s book gave me the courage to trust what I already felt in my heart: love can transmute, and co-parenting is a dance. A new partner arrives, and then another child. I saw a family life forming around my own child to which I didn’t belong, and imagined all the small moments of everyday life now shared without me. It was hard, and I broke down in tears countless times.

And yet, I have come to believe that more love in my son’s life is a gift.

Last Mother’s Day, I wished my ex-husband’s partner a “Happy Bonus Mom Day,” an expression I learned from Lea. Her place isn’t always simple either. I am grateful for the love she gives my son.

Love After Love reminded me that a different kind of family after divorce is not only something to aspire to. It is something we can intentionally build. We are all trying, stumbling and learning. An ending does not have to erase what came before. Family can change shape.

And choosing more love is always worth trying for.

Kristina Tencic

Dear Lea, I wanted to share that after watching the video you posted of Lucien and Tatiana’s wedding on IG - and after a few more days of gathering courage and love - I invited for the first time in almost two years my ex-husband into my new home, together with our two kids. We laughed and played and danced and loved after love, and we agreed that we would invite each other if we ever got married again. Thank you so so much for being the inspiration and light you are for so many of us. With deep gratitude for your friendship ✨❤️

Sebastian Tarnowski

Lea and my brother Lucian have been an inspiration to me in showing what is possible after divorce. The loving, respectful relationship they have built, always with their daughter's wellbeing at its heart, has helped shape the way I approach my own co-parenting.

Their example helped us build a loving, united family across two households, putting our child first without allowing divorce to define what our family could be.

And perhaps the loveliest testament to what Lea and Lucian have built is that our two families still spend time together, whether Lea and Lucian are there or not. The love and relationships have taken on a life of their own.

I am incredibly grateful for their guidance, encouragement and continued support.

Scarlette

I met Lea serendipitously at a coffee shop, overheard a conversation about this book, and couldn't help chiming in. I'm so glad I did. The concept of Love After Love resonated deeply with me as I navigate my own divorce. So much of what we hear about this journey focuses on healing on our own and dealing with the negative side of divorce. This book opens the door to something beautiful and profound: healing through the relationship itself.

After a long marriage, part of my process has been accepting what didn't work, understanding myself and my needs, while also honoring why I chose this person in the first place, and finding a way to carry a friendship forward. That's what makes divorce so painful: looking back at all those years and wondering what they meant. I believe that it doesn't have to be a failure and the relationship can continue in a different form. We are growing, evolving creatures, and it's normal that our relationships evolve.

I'm excited for this book to reach the people who need it and shift the discussion on divorce to something more hopeful and less final.

The larger life

Nobody designs a life like this.

I'll send you the opening chapter and tell you when the book is ready.

Opening chapter

Nobody designs a life like this. It accumulates, one decision at a time, most of them too small to feel like decisions. A generous interpretation here. A proper apology there. Responsibility instead of blame. A phone call. Welcome instead of resentment. None of those moments feels like it changes a life. Together, they do.

The life on the other side of this work is real. Not perfect, not painless, not free of disappointment or conflict or the occasional spectacular misjudgment. Real.