13 Things to Know Before Divorce
Divorce advice for the naive and trusting
“Put money aside,” says my friend.
“No,” I say. “That’s unethical, I don’t want to do that.”
“You don’t know what is going to happen,” she says.
My friend is correct.
A LOT happens and I am unprepared. While I am busy leaning into my Catholic schoolgirl guilt, my Catholic schoolboy husband has been saving for a rainy day.
A monsoon, or hurricane, wipes out our savings type of deep divorce pocket. He had a plan. Sadly, I did not. Nor did I realize I was divorcing someone capable of severe emotional and financial abuse.
I was a deer in headlights.
1. Divorce Advice — Interview Lawyers
Interview multiple lawyers before you choose one even if you get a referral.
Many lawyers will give fifteen or thirty minutes free. Some will even give you an hour. Call the offices of several lawyers to determine what their billing is. You may decide it’s worth paying one or two who will not give you any free time.
These lawyers will listen to your situation and may have different insights.
No divorce is created equal. Even if you choose to go with a referral from someone you trust this only strengthens your knowledge of the divorce process and your unique marital situation.
2. Divorce Advice — Be Your Own Advocate
Be your own advocate.
Divorce is emotional and exhausting. It can also involve abuse. You need to educate yourself and become your own advocate. Do not trust that every professional you enlist is going to be fighting for you.
Think of it this way.
If someone you love is in the hospital, you still oversee their care. Doctors and nurses are busy and no one knows your loved one like you do.
You need to ask questions, dig deeper, and educate yourself throughout the divorce process. Unfortunately, too many individuals learn the hard way and do not get a good outcome because of it. Divorce mistakes cost a lot emotionally and financially.
If you’re exhausted, enlist a family member or friend you trust to help advocate for you. Ask them to do research into various aspects of the law and divorce. Ask this person if they will be an advocate buddy throughout the process.
3. Divorce Advice — Recognize Individual Professions
Consult the proper professionals.
A lawyer is not a financial expert. An accountant is not a lawyer. A private investigator is not a lawyer.
You get the point.
Make sure to consult with the proper professional during your divorce.
If you have a retirement account you are resolving in divorce, consult with a financial expert as well. This type of cross-referencing for additional divorce advice will help ensure the best possible outcome.
For instance, if you are settling tax debt and it’s included in your divorce agreement, that is between you and your spouse. If your spouse defaults, you could possibly end up owing the tax bill if you don’t have the money to take your ex back to court and ensure they pay it.
These are technicalities you may not think of as you are signing a divorce agreement. You may just assume it’s in the agreement and there is nothing to worry about in the future.
4. Divorce Advice — Plan During Marital Struggles
Start being your own advocate and plan during marital problems.
Don’t wait until your divorce to self-protect, plan, and educate yourself.
If your spouse controls the finances you need to regain some form of control. If you are financially vulnerable like a stay-at-home mom you should see if you can begin paying the bills.
If not, ask to do a joint accounting of the finances monthly.
You need to understand exactly how much money is coming in and going out each month and the balance of your accounts. You need to pull your credit to confirm your credit rating and to ensure no cards or loans have been taken out in your name.
5. Divorce Advice — Never Say Never
Don’t say my spouse would never do that.
One day I met a woman who divorced a divorce attorney. She told me I seemed like a smart woman and wanted to know how I had such a terrible divorce outcome.
I told her I trusted my husband.
She shook her head and said, “Women! They never think their husband is hiding money and they never think their husband is cheating and they’re usually doing both.”
My Catholic college sweetheart proved her right.
6. Divorce Advice — Plan for a Rainy Day
Start some type of savings account in case you are a victim of financial abuse.
If you go to the grocery store get a few dollars over in cash every time you go so you can begin to build some type of emergency fund.
As previously mentioned, I thought this was unethical.
Later, I found myself without food to feed my children. Our marriage had struggled for six years before I retained an attorney. If I had taken fifty to a hundred to several hundred dollars here and there, I would have had an emergency fund.
This would have been a form of self-protection. I wouldn’t have been taking a vast amount of money. I would have accumulated enough to meet the emergency expenses when my husband withheld money.
Open a credit card in your name only. The bank account with the rainy day savings and a few credit cards in your name only will build your own individual credit.
7. Divorce Advice — Reduce Your Vulnerabilities
Assess and reduce all of your vulnerabilities.
You need to minimize all areas of potential manipulation and abuse. You don’t truly know who you are married to until you divorce them. Some spouses manipulate children and finances and use any and all tactics to achieve the outcome they desire.
You need to be prepared not reactionary.
Get your children in counseling. This can only help them and reduce parental manipulation and/or spousal alienation. Make a financial plan. Have a plan for housing if necessary. Get a full-time job if you have been a stay-at-home mom. Get an individual cell phone plan.
Get in counseling yourself. Pare down your commitments. Get enough sleep, exercise, and eat well. Do everything you can to take the best possible care of yourself because the divorce will deplete you.
Minimize areas of potential abuse and manipulation.
8. Divorce Advice — Expect Exponential Losses
Be pragmatic and expect personal exponential friendship losses.
You think you are divorcing one person. Sadly, you will discover you are divorcing many individuals. Nothing fosters immaturity more than divorce. Grown adults will feel the need to take sides.
Some people will surprise you and others will disappoint you.
It’s sad but it happens to even the nicest people.
9. Divorce Advice — Understand Family Law
Understand the truth about family law.
Someone once told me, “The problem with the family law system is honest people go in being honest and dishonest people go in being dishonest.”
Unfortunately, there are spouses who abuse the family law system.
It’s not fair but it happens. They get away with lying, manipulation, cheating, and stealing. It’s not going to change until they change the consequences. For instance, if someone is hiding money, they would have to pay more money. But they hide it and get away with it.
A lawyer I know told me, “In any other court of law your husband would be prosecuted to the fullest extent for forgery, stealing from your business, taking out credit cards and loans in your name, but in the family law system anything goes.”
Have your own back and understand how to approach your divorce if your spouse is lying, cheating, or stealing.
Educate yourself on divorce abuse and tactics. The self-employed lower income, how people hide income, etc.
10. Divorce Advice — Do Not Sign Anything
Do not sign anything you feel pressured to sign.
Do not sign anything you are uncomfortable signing especially if you are under duress and experiencing severe emotional and financial abuse.
If your instincts tell you not to sign, do not sign.
Even if a professional makes you feel forced to do so.
11. Divorce Advice — Pull Every Financial Record
Pull every financial record you can.
Bank records only go back seven years. If you experience ongoing marital problems, money could be hidden for years. You do not want to lose valuable forensic accounting information.
In my case, I trusted my spouse and tried to save our marriage for years.
Money was being hidden without my knowledge.
By the time I discovered it, I could only find six months' worth of untraceable transactions. Pull other financial records too. Get copies of your retirement accounts, etc.
12. Divorce Advice — Check All Policies
Check and/or pull every policy you own.
Call your mortgage company. Make sure you are both listed as owners of the house and make sure money hasn’t been borrowed against the house.
This is a common form of financial abuse.
Call your life insurance policies. Some policies can be borrowed against and you want to make sure they are still up to date. During our marital problems, my husband switched our policies.
I signed without realizing he had made himself both the owner and the beneficiary of my policy. Additionally, he stopped paying his own life insurance years before I divorced him without my knowledge.
Call your health insurance to make sure it is still up to date.
13. Divorce Advice — Don’t Be Naive and Trusting
If there’s one takeaway, don’t be naive and trusting.
Expect the unexpected. Don’t trust your spouse to do the right thing. You hope they will but they may not. If someone had told me, the college sweetheart that I met in a Catholic college in Scranton, Pennsylvania would lie, cheat, steal, and leave me with nothing, I wouldn’t have believed it.
The joke was on me.
If they told me he had been doing it for the decade I had tried to save our marriage I would have said he wasn’t capable of such calculation and ruthlessness.
Multiply your spouse’s personality by ten.
If they lie, control, manipulate, etc. expect that behavior to grow exponentially.
Summary
Divorce is an experience that demands self-protection.
It’s one of the most painful times of your life. The more planning you do the greater the chance of lessening that angst and having a better outcome.
Do not be a deer in headlights.
Be your own advocate and enlist others who will support that advocacy.
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