3 Things I Wish I Had Known Prior To My Divorce

I wish I had known that there were more resources available to me than mediators and lawyers. I'd quickly dismissed mediation because I'd felt like I was being bullied so I wanted an advocate. Had I known about any of the resources below, I would have used them.

• There are Certified Divorce Financial Analysts® (CDFA®'s like me) that help you figure out your finances.

• There are Certified Divorce Lending Professionals that have training in sticky divorce situations who can help with either fixing your credit or maintaining your credit and may be able to propose more creating lending solutions for your situation.

• There are Certified Divorce Real Estate Professionals who have training in handling contentious home sales. They receive training on what to do if one spouse is attempting to sabotage the home sale.

• There's such a thing as collaborative divorce, a team of divorce professionals representing the different facets of divorce because no one person can be an expert in all things. These teams include a CDFA® and can include trained psychologists. This setting can even sometimes work well when dealing with narcissists due to the group setting.

• There are divorce coaches and strategists who can help you deal with the things that lawyers can't and usually for a much lower hourly rate.

While I had a good support system of friends and a good attorney, I still felt very alone during my divorce. I wish I would have known that I didn't have to figure everything out on my own.

Don't rely on your lawyer for everything. Attorney's are typically not trained therapists any more than they are trained financial experts. Their expertise is the law and how it pertains to your case.

• When your ex is out partying all night, buying new clothes, getting cosmetic procedures and maxing out credit cards in your name while you're home every. single. night. with the kids, stressing about being able to buy them groceries, your lawyer may tell you that it's ok for you to spend "within reason". It might even feel good to get the permission to spend more. While you don't deserve to be in that situation, you could end up paying for attempting to even things out later.

  1. "Fair" is a subjective word. Forget about "fair" and what your ex is doing vs. what you're unable to do. You can't control what your ex does. You can only control your own actions. Instead, focus on maintaining your sanity affordably and on what kind of life you want for your future post-divorce.

  2. "Within reason" is highly subjective. It's not a legal term and there are no legal protections. What you might think is reasonable in comparison to what your ex is doing, a judge might find excessive.

  3. There's no guarantee that you'll get any form of dissipation from your ex for their spending no matter how excessive.

  4. Increasing your spending opens up a can of worms. Even though it might pale in comparison to your ex's spending, it could be picked apart, used to drag your case out further and weaponized against you.

  5. Whatever debt that is racked up will need to be paid off. That means you'll be paying for it either by spending down existing assets, over time or worse, via bankruptcy.

  6. Even if that debt is assigned to your ex there is no guarantee that they will pay it. If the debt is in your name you could end up stuck paying and/or having to continually go back to court to force your ex to pay it.

• A therapy session can run anywhere between $80 up to $200+ an hour. A lawyer charges $300 -$350 per hour and bills in 15 minute increments.

  1. Do NOT vent to your attorney! Keep your conversations with them focused on the legal aspects of your case. Talk to your therapist, vent to your friends, join a divorce support group either in person on online. Hire a divorce coach that specializes in the emotional aspects of divorce, vent to your dog, cat, fish, plant etc. just not your lawyer (or your kids).

• Lawyers have their people that they regularly use for consultations. This might be someone that they've worked with successfully multiple times in the past or it might be someone that their firm has a formal business relationship with that they must use but don't know much about. Whether it's a forensic accountant, a CDFA®, psychologist, or business valuator, ask about their vetting process and working experience with these professionals. Do some vetting of your own.

  
  

Karma eventually comes around without you having to lift a finger. I'm a big believer in doing the right thing and taking the high road. There were many times in my divorce

when it felt like a rigged contest that I was losing. There are a lot of shady things people can pull when divorcing and it wears on your soul to be on the receiving end of them. It can be tempting to try to fight back, fire with fire. However, if being shady isn't in your nature, you're just going to exhaust yourself further and risk harming your case rather than helping it. You will never be able to compete with someone who is willing to stoop as low as possible, discard basic social contract of behavior to harm you even if it means hurting themselves or their children, to get what they want. Don't bother trying, let karma handle it for your own mental health.

• At the end of it all you have to be able to look yourself in the mirror. Through it all were you able to remain true to yourself and your values? Were you able to stand tall and model how to handle adversity with grace for your children? The divorce process can feel never ending but end it does. Karma comes in when you're going about building a new, happier version of life for yourself, determined to become the best version of yourself, teaching your children to become the best version of themselves, arming them with ways to handle toxic people. And as for your ex? Not your problem anymore.

I can't definitively know how differently I would have handled things knowing what I now know or whether I would have made different decisions. However, I do know that divorce has an enormous stress load that pushes people into survival mode. When people are in survival mode they tend to not be thinking as clearly as they normally would.

The best revenge is when they no longer take up your energy or space in your head rent free.

 my seat