by Berni Stevens | Sep 13, 2021
In the inaugural piece that launched the Divorce is Not for Sissies series of blogs, I shared with you that divorce is going to be a difficult and potentially traumatic event in your life, affecting every element of your being. So, how can you champion the divorce process to minimize its adverse consequences?
The first step is to build your divorce team.
You may think the most important professional for your divorce is your lawyer. WRONG. Your attorney is not going to provide emotional support, help you figure out how you got here, give you guidance on your financial future or help you determine the optimal settlement, provide information and assistance on being an effective parent to your children, help you sell your home or refinance your mortgage so you can keep your home. Your lawyer, should you choose to work with one, will charge you over $300 per hour and that will quickly add up to tens of thousands of dollars. Lawyers are trained in the law, period and most only focus on “winning” cases in court. Seeking an attorney’s guidance for anything other than filing paperwork through the court system or preparing for hearings or trial is just throwing money away needlessly. Even if your divorce isn’t ultimately resolved in the courts by a judge (or equivalent), represented negotiation involves your attorney talking to you, your spouse’s attorney talking to him or her and then for them to talk to each other to then come back to talk to you about what they talked about. No joke. And then you spent $50,000 or more so you could get to a settlement that could have been competently worked through for much, much less, resulting in an outcome that would have left you better off both financially and emotionally?
As you prepare for or respond to a request for divorce, think about the myriad of ways your life is going to be impacted.
Let’s start with emotionally and psychologically. If you can’t deal with your thoughts, feelings and emotions, how well do you think you’re going to do managing every other aspect of your divorce—legal, financial, social, parenting, and more? You may be anxious, confused, depressed, feel guilt and remorse, be conflicted, confused, overwhelmed, may question everything, including your own sanity and ability to function. You may be thinking—isn’t that what family and friends are for? They are, of course, a key component to getting you through all of this, but they will not be able to provide you with the objective and expert assistance that a trained therapist can provide. Also, your friends and family are going to get sick of your story and woes. Yes, they are concerned and want to support you, but If you want to maintain these relationships, don’t overly burden them with your misery.
A trained therapist who focuses on separation and divorce is your best resource for dealing with the pain of divorce.
She will understand what kind of support is needed during separation and divorce and bring to the surface the underlying fears and worries that are holding you back so you can effectively address them. A good therapist can help you process your grief, create strategies for maintaining your emotional heath, examine what led to the end of your marriage, and give you the confidence you need to find a new, healthier relationship. Part of the healing process is to create a new vision for your future and a therapist can help you explore the possibilities and create a plan to realize your goals.
How do you find a good a good therapist?
You can search the Psychology Today Directory, ask friends and family, your marriage counselor, or your primary care physician for recommendations, and attend divorce support groups and educational events. MeetUp and Eventbrite are great sources for these kinds of groups and events. Vesta Divorce can also be a great resource and their divorce concierge may have recommendations for you. Once you’ve identified a few potential therapists, meet with several before selecting the one you want to work with. Many will do a complimentary phone or Zoom consultation.
You won’t regret having sought the support of a trained therapist who specializes in separation and divorce but you may very well regret the pain and struggle that you endured without one.
by Berni Stevens | Sep 1, 2021
When going through a divorce, it’s essential to have a divorce support team to help you through what can ultimately be an exhausting process. Since getting a divorce affects multiple aspects of your life, it makes sense to have a variety of team members who can collaborate to help you create the most beneficial outcome for your divorce.
By compartmentalizing the divorce process into different roles, you can build a reliable network of people who will help you meet the obstacles you encounter when separating from your spouse. A divorce team includes your friends and family who can offer emotional support. It can also be constructive to receive psychological support from a professional therapist or counselor, so you don’t feel alone on your journey. Additionally, you will need the guidance of a mediator or an attorney-litigator for the legal side of things, a divorce financial advisor for financial support, and maybe a mortgage broker and real estate agent who specializes in divorce.
Family & Friends
Divorce is a roller coaster of emotions and the sense of being newly single can make you feel isolated; reaching out to friends and family members you can trust helps you feel like people are on your side.
It’s important to be discerning with whom you confide in for advice, though. Friends or relatives who encourage you to “take him for all he’s got” aren’t the ones you want to be listening to right now. The most beneficial approach is to find guidance from people who can help you think through everyday decisions, as well as to clarify what is most important to you in co-parenting. Be careful, however, not to overly rely on your family and friends, they’ve only got so much room for your woes.
Divorce Mediator or Attorney
For almost everyone, divorce is a complex and time-consuming process. Generally speaking, you should start by considering a mediator to help you reach a financial settlement and develop a parenting plan with your spouse. If that’s not possible, a divorce attorney may be necessary to help you navigate complicated paperwork, set terms for child support, negotiate your divorce settlement, and represent you in court.
Especially if you are dealing with an abusive situation, having legal aid also makes it easier to obtain a restraining order. All in all, having a divorce attorney on your support team will make it easier to resolve disputes and ensure y
Divorce Coaches
A divorce coach will assist you with the inevitable transitions divorce comes within a goal-oriented process that is intended to give structural and emotional support to you and your family.
Separating requires disentangling complex social, financial, and emotional aspects from you and your spouse’s life. A divorce coach can motivate you to envision the life you want to eventually lead and layout pragmatic steps to guide you there. Coaches provide a more holistic service and encompasses helping you process the divorce on a full scale.
Financial Advisors
A financial advisor on your divorce support team will help provide a better understanding of your expenses before and after the divorce. It can obviously be difficult to make sound financial decisions when engulfed in emotional turmoil.
By consulting a CDFAⓒ (Certified Divorce Financial Advisor) to understand all of your financial assets, you can ensure you receive your fair share in the divorce and have a clear picture of your financial future. They also help you plan your long-term financial goals, like getting out of debt or preparing for your retirement.
Mental Health Professionals
In some cases, even having all four of these members on your divorce support team will not be enough. It’s important to have multiple tools and practices in your wheelhouse that enable you psychologically cope with the divorce, and the most qualified person to help impart these strategies is a mental health professional.
There are various methods of therapy for how to cope with uncoupling, including individual therapy like CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) or family therapy where a third party guides sessions that collaborate with your spouse and/or your children.
Divorce can be traumatic, and if unmitigated, can affect your life for years to come. By designing a treatment plan that benefits you, a therapist formulates a mental health roadmap that will take you from feeling overwhelmed and erratic to calm and capable of handling the obstacles of your divorce.
Divorce Support Groups & Meetups
It’s essential to make time for socializing during a divorce and connect with others who are going through the same thing. Meetups have become a popular option for divorce support groups online and provide an easily accessible platform for a wide range of support groups, free of charge.
If you belong to a church organization, you can find community-based groups that meet to work through divorce together. If going to your local church is not a safe option for you, your community library or coffee shop may offer monthly meetings where you can listen to others and share your experience in a judgment-free setting.
Divorce Websites and Apps
When divorcing with children, some courts may order the use of an app for efficient co-parenting or support payment management. If you intend on raising your kids separately, OurFamilyWizard is an app designed by a divorced couple to make this a smoother journey. An interactive calendar allows you to plan schedules and also includes an expense log for tracking shared costs.
The SupportPay app allows you to manage, track, and pay for child support or alimony, and doesn’t necessarily require both parents to use it. You can upload receipts and invoices, and see exactly what is being spent, presumably on your child.
Vesta Divorce can help If you’re at the beginning of your divorce and aren’t sure where to begin building your divorce support team. They provide a tremendous resource for information and professionals.
TruNorth Divorce is on Your Team
Hopefully, this guide will assist you as you build your own divorce support team. As you go forward, it’s best to remember this isn’t all on you; you have people in your corner that you can turn to for practical, legal, or financial advice…or maybe when you just need a hug.
In the meantime, you can find out more about the divorce process through my free downloadable ebook, or reach out to me on Facebook with your questions. TruNorth Divorce is here for your support.
by Berni Stevens | Aug 23, 2021
How to Emotionally Prepare for Divorce
Whether you’ve decided to do it on your own or are preparing to work with TruNorth Divorce, there are several things to consider before filing. While there are extensive and pragmatic ways to financially prepare for divorce, much of the emotional preparation is up to you and the daily choices you make during the duration of the proceedings. This guide offers 5 ways to best approach the emotional side of divorce and prepare you for what can be a traumatic event.
The trauma associated with separation, however, is somewhat unique in that it can be planned and prepared for with some healthy amounts of patience and consistency. If you can respond from a more emotionally stable place, you’re going to be able to make healthier decisions in regards to the divorce.
1. Taking Care of Yourself During a Divorce
First and foremost, slow down, pump the breaks, and center yourself by taking care of you. While the phrase has been distorted by Instagram influencers, self-care applies to divorce too. Self-care encompasses the daily rituals or routines we practice in order to nourish ourselves. This includes the messages we send ourselves when we make choices about what goes into our bodies and minds.
Prepare for your divorce by by empowering yourself to make practical daily choices when it comes to your health and wellbeing. This reinforces your sense of self-worth. More reliable than high self-esteem, a strong sense of self-worth allows you to navigate the obstacles and stressors that often arise with divorce more easily.
Things to Do Before Filing For Divorce
So, stock up on fresh foods, arm yourself with supplements that will assist your immune system and combat stress and tell yourself you’re worthy of being taken care of. Find a physical outlet that allows you to let loose, the sillier and more recreational the better.
Setting even 5 minutes aside every morning to meditate can literally be the difference between feeling capable of handling the day or not. Last, do this on a cadence that works for you. The idea is to be compassionate with yourself; you are, after all, going through a divorce.
2. Accepting the Divorce Process
Our strongest cause of suffering is the attachment to our ideas of what should be happening, what we shouldn’t be doing, or most often than not, what someone else should be doing. These elements are entirely out of our control, especially during separation and divorce mediation, and when we cling tightly to a specific outcome, we suffer when our reality doesn’t match up to our expectations.
In the case of court proceedings with divorce lawyers, there isn’t an emotional “winning” or a “losing.” There is only finding the solution that will benefit both parties, children included, for the future. This requires letting go of the narrative of what happened or what your spouse did wrong.
Self Compassion & Divorce
Easier said than done, acceptance is a daily choice. With an attitude of acceptance, however, you can be aware of your triggers and prepare for the subjects that are touchy before the courtroom. Knowing what your triggers are ahead of time and communicating them with your divorce lawyers can save you a lot of self-loathing and feeling emotionally out of control.
The point is that you are human, and this is a process, one where you will move between stages of denial, isolation, bargaining, rage, and depression before you can fully accept the reality of the divorce. Accept you will have bad days and accept you may need to cry in order for your body to have a release. After accepting it, you can focus all of your attention on beginning your new life.
3. Focus Your Attention on the Divorce In Spurts
There can be a trap of fully immersing yourself into the doom and gloom of divorce papers and landing in a click bait circle of misery. While it is important to research what to expect in a divorce separation in order to fully understand the process, healthy boundaries still apply. An example of a healthy attention goal could be no divorce talk after 6pm. Strive to not allow the divorce to become a defining stick of furniture in the living room of your life; this is not the end, your life is not ruined, and it will ultimately be okay.
There are a myriad of tips on how to prepare financially for divorce, but from an emotional perspective, the object is to not create a story where you are a victim, powerless to choose how you feel. Choosing what you focus your attention on, and away from, can help you feel more empowered throughout the divorce.
4. Preparing for Separation If You Have Children
When it comes to emotionally preparing for divorce, often the greatest anxiety among parents is how this decision will affect their children. This anxiety may not go away for several years, but rest assured to know there are no perfect parents and no one knows exactly the right thing to say all the time. However, as long as you are willing to talk about the divorce and are emotionally available for their fears and concerns, you’re on the right track.
Some key guidelines are not disparaging your spouse in front of them, or using them as a source of sympathy to your stressors; they aren’t the therapist you need to vent to. Another good rule to follow is to not lie to your children about what’s going on. This only further complicates the situation, and will ultimately lead to your child resenting you or feeling as if they’ve been betrayed.
It’s best to keep things as honest as possible while also bearing in mind that your child’s age will have a lot to do with how they handle such a large change. If you feel challenged by talking with your children about divorce, there are a ton of great resources and self-help books that can provide valuable scripts on how to best communicate the changes that come with divorce.
5. Find Divorce Support
Your separation and unlimate divorce can be a tumultuous and incredibly grading stressor on your sense of well-being, not to mention the necessary grief that comes with mourning your previous life. Intentionally seek out support before, during, and after your divorce, even if it means fighting through the uncomfortable feelings of being vulnerable or feeling like you’ve messed up.
There’s nothing shameful about joining a Meetup or support group and talking to others who are also going through a divorce. In fact, having conversations with fellow divorcees can help you feel less alone and far less alienated throughout the divorce process.
Another essential way to prepare emotionally for divorce is to ask your friends and family if they have any referrals for a therapist or contact your insurance company to find out if your policy covers mental health; even if it’s only an online therapist, it’s wise to have a professional guide you through what can ultimately be a traumatic event.
TruNorth Divorce Can Help
These are just some ideas to consider when emotionally preparing for divorce. Taking care of your body and mind first and foremost, like putting on your oxygen mask on a plane before anyone else, allows you to approach the divorce with a greater sense of self-worth and stability.
Use these five best practices to make sure you are emotionally prepared for your separation, before it traumatizes you. If you need some extra assistance, we’d love to hear from you in the comments section. We’re also on Facebook, and if you want to learn more about divorce or want to explore your options, which includes my free ebook, reach out to me. TruNorth Divorce Solutions can help you.
by Berni Stevens | Aug 18, 2021
“Divorce is Not for Wimps” is about the realities of divorce and how it too often leads to painful and long-term emotional, financial, social, and parenting consequences. Unless you’re made of steel, pain in divorce is unavoidable. Long-term trauma can be mitigated if you assume the position of a winner or champion in your divorce. There is, of course, no true winning in divorce but there is surviving, mitigating damage, and putting you and your family on track for a better future.
Whichever end you’re on—initiator or responder—you need to decide that divorce will not define you. At the same time, it’s going to be a dominant force in your life for a bit. That bit of time may be short or quite long depending on your circumstances and how you manage the process.
So, what are the essential steps?
- Acknowledge that you can’t do it alone. Build your support team. Initially, it might be your best friend and sister or mother. But don’t stop there! Your best friend can’t fix this for you—they don’t have the skills or knowledge.
- Build your divorce team. You need emotional, psychological, financial, and “legal” help. A divorce coach, therapist, divorce financial planner, parenting coach, mediator, real estate and mortgage professional who specializes in divorce and maybe a lawyer
- Stop burdening your family, friends, and children. Especially your kids, whether young or adult, don’t want to shoulder your divorce! If they are young or teens, you can create long-term damage for them. Your family and friends will be there for you, ask questions, call to check in, but they can not fix this for you and trashing your soon-to-be-ex is going to grow very old very fast.
- Get organized. Gather your financial statements, tax returns, trust documents, will, insurance policies, business documents and financial reports. Put them in a safe place (electronically or physically).
- Develop a plan. Do NOT pick up the phone and call a lawyer! You are setting yourself up for an unnecessarily miserable and expensive divorce. Call a divorce coach, a divorce financial analyst, a mediator. Make a plan to champion your divorce. It does not start with an attorney, even if eventually you need the services of a lawyer to deal with a contentious divorce.
You got this. It’s going to be hard but you can do it and you’ll be glad you took charge.
by Berni Stevens | Aug 18, 2021
After reaching the decision to end a marriage, divorcing couples must do their best to set hard feelings aside and rationally deal with the division of household assets. But, turning attention toward your finances while processing the complicated emotions surrounding the end of a long-time partnership is oftentimes no easy task. Financial advice during your divorce is an important step towards you best outcomes.
The impact of a divorce on your finances is something that you should prepare for as you move from a double to a single-income household. Divorce often brings with it a change to both your income and expenses. TruNorth Divorce Solutions has put together a quick list of financial tips to set you up for post-divorce financial success.
1. Full disclosure and equitable division of property
Unless you have a prenuptial agreement in place, Maryland divorce law calls for an equitable division of joint assets. This doesn’t necessarily mean that property is divided 50/50 down the middle between spouses but instead, a fair settlement of all martial assets is sought. Any properties or assets owned prior to the marriage are considered non-marital assets and things like inheritances and gifts that were willed or given to a single partner are considered individual assets.
When you enter the divorce settlement process, financial transparency is a must. This type of honesty will help you and your soon-to-be-ex get through negotiations quicker. Having your finances outlined ahead of time cuts down on some of the leg work involved in the divorce mediation process. Getting accurate divorce financial advice means that both you and your ex will have an idea of what you own and what you owe.
2. Considering retirement accounts
One of the biggest mistakes a divorcing couple can make involves the splitting of retirement accounts. Some retirement plans also come with penalties for early withdrawals. If you are working with an expert in divorce finance, they can guide you through the process of drafting a qualified domestic relations order (QDRO) to shield your accounts from penalty. It’s also important to note that not all retirement accounts are governed by the same tax laws—a 401k is pre-tax money and treated differently than a pension plan just as the value of a Roth IRA differs from the already taxed value of the cash you have sitting in savings.
All this can make things muddy when it comes to dividing various accounts. Depending on how many jobs you have held during your marriage and whether you rolled them over as you’ve started a new position. Sorting through your retirement accounts can end up being a bigger undertaking than you might have anticipated. These are the types of financial details that are important to go over with a fine-toothed comb otherwise, things can easily slip through the cracks.
3. Additional tax considerations
If you are selling the marital home or dividing investment accounts, you must also consider the taxes involved in those sales. Stocks and ETF investments are subject to capital gains tax and the value of these accounts can go up and down over time—depending on the market. It could be a hard sell to divide these assets without selling them as you’d be gambling since it’s not possible to predict their future value, but that’s a bridge that you’ll have to cross when you get to it. Ultimately, whether or not you sell positions in your investment accounts or decide to divide them up will depend on the particulars negotiated during the settlement process.
Likewise some larger sales, like the family home, are subject to local tax laws. The state of Maryland has a 5.8% capital gains tax rate that applies to property sales—this means you’ll be looking at a capital gains tax of upwards of 30% (taking into account things like state and county transfer taxes).
4. Working with a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst
If you are seeking divorce financial advice, working with a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® (CDFA®) or a CDFA®-Mediator is a great way to make sure that you leave no stone unturned when it comes to sorting through shared finances and dividing assets and debt appropriately. Weeding through your joint finances can be a particularly daunting task if you don’t have a solid background in finance and knowledge of tax law.
A divorce mediation financial consultant brings a certain level of financial expertise to the table and can relieve some of the stress associated with sorting through the particulars. Interested in learning more? Schedule a free strategy session.
