Ep. 67 – The Business of Divorce

Hey, my beautiful friends, and how are you doing today? So today we’re gonna talk about the business of divorce versus the emotional part of divorce, and how to really consider the two as being separate so that you can move on. Sooner than later to your best life and save loads of money. So if you’re ready to get started, let’s get going.

Are you ready to create a life that’s better than ever before? We are Doreen Yaa and Jeff Wilson, and we are here to give. Strategies you need to create the life after divorce that you deserve and desire. As partners, both in marriage and coaching, we use our expertise as well as our own personal experiences to help you make the next chapter of your life the best chapter.

Hey everybody. How you doing? Hello. Hey Jeff. How are you? Good. What’s up? Oh, uh, dodged a bullet last night with the hurricane. I think we got lucky again. Yes, we did. We did. It was what a hurricane won. It was a, it was a mild one. Yeah. So that was good, you know, and we wanna reach out again and pray for our friends over on the West coast who didn’t fare it so well and are still going through a lot in suffering.

So. That’s, uh, everybody out there just say a little prayer for them. We wish. And the best, yes, we do. So let’s talk today about the business of divorce versus the emotional aspect of divorce. And, you know, these subjects, these episodes come to us generally because of something that’s going on in our life.

Something that kind of triggered the thought process of. You guys might wanna hear. So we were out with some friends, right? Yeah, it was, uh, very, it was a lot of fun, of course. But it was, uh, funny how he was bringing up his ex-wife and they’ve been divorced for a while, I guess. And he was saying how much money it cost and how he was, he was definitely, uh, still engaged emotionally.

Yes. You could tell. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, it got me thinking about our listeners, those that. Probably in the middle of divorce or in the, you know, post divorce and how as a lawyer I could help them, but also as a life coach. Kind of think about the divorce in two different ways. One way is the business of divorce.

What do you have to do? Decide to get through the divorce, and really you’re relying on typically your lawyer to help guide you on that. There’s certain issues in the divorce process that have to be addressed. A parenting plan, support for the children, distribution of the assets and liabilities, attorney’s fees, costs, alimony, those are typically the major issues.

Right? Right. But what happens, and so that’s what I call the business of divorce. Getting through, deciding those issues or having a judge. But there’s the other part of it that gets commingled when you’re in the middle of the divorce process, or you’re dealing with a post-judgment issue, like a modification of support or a contempt issue, and that’s your emotion because there’s a lot of anger, of course, that goes along with it, right?

So a lot of times what I find is that my clients in the divorce tend to bring a lot of issues to their lawyer that are really outside the issues that need to be. The ones that I just went through. Right. Right. So they’ll talk about things that I, I brought up an example. Um, the other day I had a client who is a vegan, right.

And she was upset because her ex-husband is basically not vegan. And is feeding the kids things like McDonald’s and fast food and all that. So she called me and she’s like, well, you know, this is unhealthy and this is against their best interest and it’s polluting their body and all that. And I said, look, I get that.

I understand where you’re coming from. I used to be a vegan myself, but the courts aren’t gonna do anything about this, so don’t spend your time, money, and effort on this. Right. And so just a little example of that. Right. So what are your thoughts? Well, going back to the night we went out with a couple, uh, he had mentioned something about, you know, how I spent like a college education on my divorce.

That’s true. And I came up with a thought, well, don’t let your divorce pay for your, you know, take away from your kid’s college education. Yeah. Let me bring that down to numbers cuz some of our listeners, I’m sure can equate things to numbers. I know you, you’re really good with numbers. Okay. But you know, let’s say you’re your.

Usually they charge by the hour, is charging $300 an hour, right? And you send them an email. Let’s use the example about the food. You know, um, every email gets billed typically, right? And so if it’s a 0.10, which is like the minimum billing amount in most states, that’s $30 per email. When you think about that, you gotta choose your battles carefully.

What you wanna discuss. Because you’re paying for it. You’re paying for it. It’s either coming out of your income, it’s coming out of your assets, or it’s coming being paid by the other side. Right. So someone’s paying for it. And that was interesting cuz you said it’s like some of these divorces, it’s not uncommon for them to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and at the end of the day, 97% of the cases on average settle.

Yeah, you told me that per that percentage. And I’m like, wow, that’s a lot. So why are they not getting there sooner? Now, there’s the business of divorce, right? Which is the things that have to happen. You have to exchange financial affidavits. You have to potentially take depositions, you know, to find out the other position.

You have to go to a mediation. Many courts require that. That’s the business of divorce. But so much of what we do as lawyers with our clients is we address issues that are really emotional issues. So that’s the emotional side, and we’re not trained as lawyers to do that. Now I’m a little different because I’m also a life coach, right?

But most lawyers are not life coaches or therapists. Those emotional issues are really better served going to those professionals who don’t charge $300 an hour typically, and who also are trained to help. So I love to have a life coach or, and or a therapist working with my client along with me when I’m in my divorce mode, right?

It just makes more sense. Um, but a lot of lawyers also keep in mind listeners that a lot of lawyers out there aren’t gonna stop. You aren’t gonna tell you, Hey, don’t communicate with me about this issue that isn’t really relevant to what the court’s gonna decide or what we need to decide. Because they’re getting paid, right?

And they might be, it might be because they’re getting paid. It might be because they, they don’t mind that you are expressing yourself in a way that isn’t really helpful to their case. You know, they’re just communicating and being kindhearted. It could be for a lot of reasons, but ask your lawyer, you know, what are the issues that I need to know?

What is the business of my divorce? What is it that we have to address? And really try to focus in on that. And take the emotional issues somewhere else. Not easier said than done. I get that. Right. There’s gotta be a way. There’s gotta be a way. Well, let’s talk about a way, well, I know that, uh, one thing we’ve talked and, uh, quite a bit about in our podcast is the model.

Yes. Yes. And, uh, one thing that we can do when we want something bad enough, we what we call the reverse model. So we take the actual result that we. It’s called an intentional model, right? And we, so we intentionally want something and then we work the model backwards, right? So what happens is the intentional model is something that you.

Work backwards and up, up the, I’m gonna say up the chart on, yeah. Because you got a circumstance, you have a thought about the circumstance, you have a feeling about the circumstance. You have an action that you take from your feeling and the result. Yes. And many times what happens is the thought in a divorce is, well, he can’t have that, or, I need to let my lawyer know about this, or He’s not getting away, or She shouldn’t do that.

And then their feeling is anger. Maybe their action might be to call their lawyer to reach out to their lawyer, and the result is they didn’t get any further in the divorce process. Those business of divorce. And they just spent money. Or they went backwards. Or they went backwards. True. Yeah. So how do they start to, how did the listeners learn how to get around that?

Well, let, let’s first come up with a goal. Okay. Let’s, let’s say, uh, you want to save some. On the, on the divorce or you are very common. Let’s say you want the divorce to happen fast. Yeah. Because the two things that most I most often hear as a lawyer is how much is it gonna cost? Mm-hmm. And how quickly can I get the divorce process over?

Sounds like two important questions. They are. So if the result is that you’re looking for is, let’s say, to save money, not to spend so much money on fees and costs. Okay. Okay. Let’s work it backwards. We call it in, in coaching, uh, the, the ladder there, the elevator. Mm-hmm. So you’re taking the elevator back up versus down the, the, uh, model.

So the, uh, result is saving money. First, we have to come up with some actions that drive the results. So what kind of actions would you have to do as an attorney, uh, or as a divorce? Client mm-hmm. To, uh, save some money. Well, think about whether or not what you wanna talk to your lawyer about is truly part of what needs to be resolved.

Is it relevant? Is it, is it relevant? Yeah. Right. So one of the actions you would have to do is maybe inaction, if that makes sense. Well, you’re, no, you hit it right on the head cuz the, the actions are inactions and inactions cuz inactions are really actions as well. So you’re right. So then what happens?

Well, if you’re going back up the ladder, actions are driven by feelings and emotions. So what kind of emotions would you need to have? What kind of feelings are you gonna need to have to drive those actions? Okay, so let me think about that. So to drive the action of really staying focused on the business of divorce.

Right? Right. And not just, uh, you know, spending a lot of time and effort and. On issues that don’t matter. So I think that you would have to have a feeling of neutral, maybe neutrality. Definitely being neutral. Right. You know, they, they call it keeping your emotions in check. Right. You know, and, and deciding way in advance what kind of emotions you’re gonna have to have or what kind of feelings you’re gonna have to.

To drive those actions. Okay. So if I wanna have the feeling of neutrality, meaning that I’m not gonna just use the divorce process to punish my soon to be ex, um, what is the thought? Right? That’s the next part. What is the thought that I would have to have? That’s a good question. You know, cuz your thoughts are everything, right?

Do they drive your feelings, your emotions, your actions and, and your results? And to be honest with you, in the model, There’s not a lot that you have control over other than your thoughts because your thoughts are gonna drive everything. Right. So thinking about it, no, no pun intended there. Let’s find out what thoughts we would have to have to keep that even keel.

Keep your emotions in check, right? What do you think? Well, I think one thing you could, uh, think of coming to mind. Being a blended family that we are, is the co-parenting true? You knowing in the future you’re gonna be co-parenting with this person? Right. Uh, knowing that, what type of divorce do you want to, uh, to have to have so that, so that the re so that the co-parenting in the future is, I guess better.

Yeah. So I think the thought could be, listen, I’m going to get divorced and my soon to be ex. A parent, we’re gonna co-parent our child together. And so I wanna try to maintain as best of a relationship as I can so that our relationship after the divorce as co-parents would be a better one. Right, exactly.

And where, where does the divorce fit in the, uh, model? Oh, the divorce is the circumstance. The circumstance, yes. That’s the top of the model is the circum. And that is undeniable, right? You are getting divorced. I’m getting divorced. Everybody knows we’re getting a divorce. And that’s a fact. We all agree upon that.

We agree upon that. We may not agree upon the divorce, but we agree that it’s happening. We may not want it, right, but we’re having it right. You know? But, uh, so then we go into the thought and you said that neutrality, right? And then that’s gonna drive our feelings. So we’re gonna be a little bit more emotional.

Ke uh, You know, being able to, uh, accept him or her for who they are and what they are. Right. And that’s gonna give our actions, uh, a lot better, uh, result of, uh, saving money or getting it over with quicker. Right. Getting those emotions in check and, and really figuring out what I call the business a divorce.

Mm-hmm. You know, talking about co-parenting, it’s always interesting to me when parents going through a divorce, Use the child and the child issues as ammunition against the other parent, um, to spite them because it always ends up backfiring. Just to go a little bit off on that subject, it backfires because you spend more money.

Um, it backfires because your children really do know what’s going on. Um, even when they’re younger, they get it. They know when mom and dad are just not in a good place. Right, right. And they know the opposite when mom and dad are getting divorced, but they’re able to be in the same room together without, you know, the looks and the sna and the, uh, Comments and everything else.

Um, it’s, what else is it? It’s going to help you in the future because they say a village, it takes a village to raise a family. That’s true too. So why wouldn’t you wanna be friends? Well, maybe not friends, but at least don’t get carried away. Don’t get carried away. At least. Civil with your soon to be ex right for the sake of the children and because you’re gonna need them.

Things are gonna happen in your life where you’re gonna wanna go away for a weekend. You know you’re gonna meet somebody else and you’re gonna be like, I wanna go away. And if you don’t have a good relationship with your ex, they’re probably gonna say no, just despite you, right? Right, right. But it takes two to do that.

It takes two to be in that mentality. I promise you. We talked last time about the words we use, right? Yes. Yes. So that’s important to know as well. Well, going into a conversation with your soon to be ex-spouse, I think thinking of the words that you do want to use and the words that you don’t want to use is gonna set you up for success.

Right? And they, they call it being 10 feet tall and bullet. So you’re, you can see the goal cuz you’re 10 feet tall and you’re bulletproof cuz you’re not gonna let anything affect what you really want. Right? It’s so easy for us, um, when we’re going through a divorce, when, uh, when we get a communication from our ex and it’s not really nice to just fire back.

Right. So it’s having that control when you know that your end result is you wanna get through the divorce, um, effectively less expensive of course, and quickly to keep that check in mind. Mm-hmm. Like, Hey, he’s pushing my button, but I’m not gonna react in the way that I wanna react because I’m gonna look at my end result.

And I know that if I do that, I’m gonna have the spiraling effect that’s likely. Result in me talking to my lawyer, or him talking to his lawyer and back and forth, you know, correspondences that costs money between the attorneys, et cetera. So having that knowledge and knowing your end result is really key.

And it’s your choice whether you wanna be the bigger person or do you want to go, uh, you know, jump in the bandwagon and. And not be nice like he or she is. You know, it’s amazing when, when you do the exercise, when you, it’s like a little test, and I would encourage my li the listeners, our listeners, to do that is try communicating differently with your ex, right?

If it’s not working the way you’re communicating now and you find yourself in. Text wars or communication wars or whatever it is. Maybe just try, try it on for size, a different way of approaching it. It’s amazing how a few kind words that may be challenging for you to do, but if you’re looking at your end result, if you try it, you might get the same back.

You know, you, you can, you can really start to change. The, um, the relationship. Yeah, maybe they’ll save the marriage. They might be past that point. And if anything, the bottom you, you’re, you’re probably gonna be in another relationship. After in the future. Sure. And I think the way you communicate with somebody is gonna affect your future as well.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So what else, what else do we wanna talk about The business of divorce versus the emotion of divorce? I think it’s really important that, you know, you seek the resources available out there to deal with the emotions. Right. Uh, I know one resource that we should, uh, talk about and What’s that?

Hiring a coach. Yeah. Life coach life. It’s important, you know, they have different types of, um, coaches. They actually, in Florida, they have a recognized divorce coach mm-hmm. Through the Supreme Court of Florida that they’re trained to assist a client, uh, kind of understanding. It’s a in between, between the lawyer and the court system, but it, it’s this divorce coach that can really help you to see things clearly and to keep the emotion out.

And there are people that just do that. And then there’s people like us that also do that with our clients going through divorce. In the same, in the same way, but a little more because we’re helping you not only to stay focused on the business of divorce and put the emotions over here and focus in on what you need to talk to your attorney about, but we’re also helping you simultaneously to start creating the life you want.

Start thinking. When we’re working with them. Right. And how much of the issues that you’ve seen in, in your practice, uh, come from emotions and just thoughts and feelings that don’t even belong in there? Well, you know, unfortunately it happens way too often. Will be in a mediation, as an example, all day, and we’ll have 90% of the issues resolved, maybe even 99.

And then it’ll come down to this one piece of furniture, you know, cuz we usually save as lawyers and mediators, we usually save, like we go for the big issues first. Cuz you figure if you can conquer the big issues. You know, like the distribution of the assets or the time sharing schedule and alimony is always big.

If you can get through that, you’re always thinking, okay, we’ve got it made. We can now conquer the little issues, which is how are we gonna divide up the pots and pans? Oh no, grandmother’s chair. Well, if it’s grandmother’s chair and you got it, it’s non-marital, remember? Oh. So that would go in that person’s column, but it’ll, so many times it comes down to these arguments about.

Personal property at the end that can blow up and have in many of my cases, blown up an entire agreement that we worked all day on. That’s pure emotion. That’s nothing more than that. That’s nothing more than he’s not getting it. I’m gonna get it because he wants it. And as lawyers, it’s, you know, it’s that challenge that we have to reel them back in and we have to really get them to understand the chair doesn’t.

You know, and they’ll, they’ll be like, but he’s gotten so much, you know, he, he got this and I gave up on that. That’s not the point. The point is to keep it to the business of divorce. And I’ll tell you, we have a saying, um, in mediations or settlement negotiations, if you both feel like you gave too much and didn’t get.

That means you had a successful mediation. Oh, wow. I like that because nobody, look, you’re giving up half of your assets. You’re giving up your money, you’re giving up, um, time with your children. It’s not a win-win. You don’t win in divorce, right? You might win an issue ultimately, like for example, in my bigger cases, the valuation of a business, right?

That’s a big issue. It’s a very technical issue. We bring experts in and one expert, you know, says the value is 3 million. The other expert says the value is 5 million. Well, that’s a 2 million swing. 1 million to each party, right? Those issues you understand, but the other little issues that don’t really make a difference, that’s where you need to move on.

They’re all gonna be forgotten about and in the future anyway. Let’s talk also about, um, because we’re talking about divorce, but this is also true when it comes to post divorce actions. There are some couples that even after the divorce, they tend to be in this, uh, love hate, and maybe it’s that you’re not ready to let go.

I mean, maybe you need to dig deeper and work with a therapist or a coach if that’s going on in your post divorce relationship, that there’s this, you know, continuous anger going on still. But if you’re gonna file a post-judgment, Issue with a court. You know, let’s say he keeps bringing the child home late, or she’s, um, I don’t know, she’s not reimbursing, reimbursing on the, uh, the children expenses like they’re supposed to.

Whatever the issue is, think about is it really worth it to take this issue post-judgment to court? Because so many times people wanna do that and I, I’ll sit there and I’ll say, but you, you do, I understand that he owes you, let’s say $200. He didn’t re, he didn’t pay the reimbursement, okay? And the agreement says he’s supposed to pay it, but it’s gonna cost you.

I charge 4 75 an hour as a lawyer, why would you spend that? You know, it’s the business of divorce. In those cases, what I recommend is let’s just let it unfortunately add up and then we can bring it when there’s, of course we can send a letter and do something, you know, Hey, just a gentle reminder, we don’t wanna have to file an action.

But you know what I’m saying? You don’t wanna go full steam into the litigation post, post-judgment if you can avoid it. Right. I agree with that. Yeah. So what else? I think that’s, uh, that’s our, probably our episode today, right? Yeah. I mean the business of divorce versus the emotion of divorce, and let’s equate it to.

Uh, saving for your, your children’s college education. Don’t pay the lawyers. See what you can work out between yourself. And, and, and also, uh, touching back on what he said, he’s, they’re dreading going to their child’s wedding because they, they have no idea what’s gonna happen when they both get in the same room together.

What do you mean? Uh, they got a wedding coming. Okay. And, uh, one of their children’s getting married. Correct. And, and he’s like, he hates her. Yeah. She hates him. Yeah. And they gotta go to a wedding. Yeah. And, you know, think about your child’s wedding. You don’t want that, right. That emotion in your wedding.

So, I don’t know, it doesn’t, you know, I always, I’m probably not the most, uh, how do I say it, like objective person to look at. What it takes to get through the divorce, meaning because I’m a lawyer and because I’ve been through my own divorce and I was a child of divorce, so I have a lot of experience with divorce.

Um, it’s really not that challenging. The business of divorce is usually pretty simple in most states and in most countries. There’s particular issues, like I said, to work out and that’s it. And we kind of know as lawyers where it’s gonna fall, right? We know based on the facts, here’s what the alimony’s gonna look like.

Here’s what the child support’s gonna look like. Here’s more or less with the distribution of the assets. We know that it’s math, isn’t it? It’s just math’s, math. It’s math. The, the only, um, you know, Exception to that certainly is if you have child issues, you have major child issues, you have somebody who’s abusive and things like this, uh, we don’t put a price on that, right?

That is, that is something you’re gonna do as a good parent and you’re gonna try to protect your children. But taking that out of the equation, it’s really, it’s just the business of divorce. Plain and simple 1 0 1. There you go. All right, guys. Listen, what else do you wanna say? Well, we wanna talk about, uh, if we wanna get some comments or if they, somebody has some questions.

How do they get ahold? Um, well, they can reach our email address, right? Your email address Mine is Jeff, l a d. That’s life after divorce. L a d dash coaching. Dot com. And if you wanna reach Doreen, it’s d o r e e n instead of Jeff. Yeah. And if you wanna come visit our website, it’s life After Divorce Coaching and come visit us, uh, come talk to us.

If you wanna speak to us more about your issues and moving forward to the best life you can have, certainly reach out because we give a complimentary first, uh, consult. Yes, we do. And uh, it’s pretty cool stuff. It’ll change your. All right, my friends, listen. Have an amazing week. Hope you, uh, love yourself.

Remember, love yourself. Be kind to those around you. And remember, Yes, you can have an amazing, amazing, go ahead. No, you go ahead. Leave it in. Leave again and remember, yes, you can have an amazing life after after divorce. Bye everybody. Byebye.

You have the vision of what you want your life to look like after divorce, but maybe you just don’t know how to get there. So if you’re ready to take control. Life and want to find out more about our coaching, visit [email protected]. That’s l a D as in life after divorce-coaching.com. Until next time, have an amazing rest of your day.

And remember, yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce divorce.