Being a divorce coach in NJ, I hear this question often, and there is never a good answer.
First thing to consider is that divorce never feels “fair”. A good settlement is when both parties are feeling like they did not get what they wanted. Each of you gave away more than you wanted and you both received less than you wanted.
Hopefully, you are not asking this question after you have settled. It is difficult to change things if you have signed a marital settlement agreement.
This is a tough question in a high conflict divorce. Often there is one party that is the cause of the high conflict due to their extreme positions on the issues or due to hostile and abusive behavior. If this is your situation, make sure you have good legal and strategic advice and emotional support from an expert divorce consultant.
Many times you may feel like you just want to be done with the negotiation process and you may walk away from what you are entitled to leaving more on the table for your X.
This is a completely understandable approach; money does not mean everything, will not bring you happiness, and peace of mind is valuable. If this is where you are, just be aware that your settlement will reflect your willingness to walk away.
If you are a non-aggressive spouse, in this type of situation there are strategies to use to your advantage rather than just give in to it. A divorce consultant will definitely help you to understand all the tricks to get the result in your favor. Some of the behavior of your X is predictable, so expect it and plan accordingly. A plan and a strategy can help defuse the hostility, give you more control and bring things to a close with a better outcome. The old saying “the best offense is a good defense” holds true here.
Another issue you will face in the settlement of your divorce as the non-aggressive spouse is that there will be tremendous pressure put upon you to settle. Both the mediator and your attorney will pressure you to give in to conclude the negotiations. If one party does not budge on an issue everyone will look to the other party to move. Difficult to deal with when your divorce consultant is telling you to settle and you do not feel it is fair. If this is happening to you push back on your attorney and ask for their rationale for settling, ask them to run the numbers for you to show you why it is an economic decision to settle.
The reason often given is that you will end up in a trial. Just remember this is as big a threat to the other side as it is to you.
Going into your settlement discussions with a clear understanding of the issues you are facing and developing alternatives around each of them will help you make better decisions.
Remember this is your divorce and you are ultimately responsible for the settlement you receive. If you choose to settle as a way of moving on, that is perfectly OK. It is your choice and if you believe that this is the best strategy, go with your gut. Happiness will come to you and the quicker you set aside the angst of your divorce the faster it will arrive.
The decision to keep the house is a big one. The marital residence typically represents the majority of a family’s assets so buying your spouse out can use a significant portion of your share of the money from the marriage. If you consider keeping the house, you need to look at it as if you were buying from a third party and make sure you understand the costs involved and the physical state of the house.
What are the costs?
Mortgage, Taxes Insurance – typically in the monthly payment
Utilities – Electric, Gas, Water, Sewer, Cable and Internet
Snow and Lawn care expenses
Condo Association fees
Need to consider the condition of the house and ongoing maintenance costs
Roof – how old and when will it need to be replaced?
Heating and cooling systems – are they in good shape?
Structural issues – how good are the windows & doors, garage doors is the porch about to fall apart?
Age and condition of Bathrooms and Kitchen – will these need to be updated to sell the home?
Can you do minor maintenance yourself or will you need to hire someone – makes a difference in managing the costs
If you keep the house the mortgage will likely need to be re-negotiated to remove one party.
Ask your mortgage company what will be required – get an idea if this will be doable for you. No point in trying to negotiate to keep the house if you cannot hold on to it.
If you need the alimony to qualify for the mortgage then you need to show a stable history of support payments for at least 3 months but perhaps up to 6 months, depends upon who your lender is. If this is the case make sure you negotiate the buyout to reflect the 3 to 6 month mortgage qualification period.
Can you start support payments before your actual divorce to facilitate obtaining a mortgage?
Can you get money from family – borrow from your parents or brother to buyout the mortgage?
Do you have sufficient funds not to have a mortgage taking it from other sources?
Sometimes you can borrow from your 401-K to invest in your home but check out the transactions costs on doing this – fees can be high to set up.
If keeping the house does not appear to be doable can you agree to defer the sale for a year or so until your youngest has graduated from high school?
Is there sufficient cash flow from the marriage to make this happen?
If you do decide to wait on the sale for the benefit of the children, who pays for the major items that might happen (eg. Furnace dies) during this period? – Where does the money come from and how are these funds repaid?
If you stay in the house the cleanup of the house for eventual sale will likely fall on your shoulders so be careful what you ask for.
If either a deferral or a buyout is not in the cards and you have to sell, negotiate the time frame for the sale. It is best not to agree to a sale until you have a settlement or you could end up on the street with no funds to pay for a new home. When it comes time to sell, if you do not have the co-operation of your spouse it will be a difficult process. It is best to negotiate the specific terms and conditions of the sale.
Who will list the house – define the name of the realtor
Get the specifics of what the realtor wants; how many open houses, access for showings (what to do with the family pets and young children).
Listing date – set a date.
How will the marketing costs be paid?
Will you need a storage locker and who will pay for it?
If the house needs to be painted or repaired – Where will the cash come from?
If the initial listing price is too high negotiate how to reduce the price – when (90 days) and incremental time frames there after and by how much (5%) each time. When do you take the house off the market if it is not selling?
The more detail you have in your agreement the better prepared you will be in if the person sitting in the house refuses to co-operate and you need to go to court to enforce the marital settlement agreement.
The family home is an emotional asset for most folks in a divorce. Make sure you get the professional advice you need before you make a decision this large. Like everything else, the better prepared you are the better your decisions will be.
When you are in the middle of a divorce life feels pretty tough. Compound this feeling with the stress of the Covid-19 issues and life is much tougher. However, with certainty, there is a better day. This is a phrase that we say at the end of each of the divorce support group meetings that I help facilitate.
Life will get better from where you are now with the passage of time. Wounds become less raw, your ability to cope grows with each passing day and life changes. You will find a new normal and begin to live again.
It took me a long time (longer than most) to get to my better day, but it did come. Last June I remarried and am happier than I ever have been. Wardrop became Sparrow.
Being cautious and taking your time is a good idea; you do not want to fall back into the same sort of relationship that you just left. The pressure to find a new person in your life to fill the hole left by your marriage is sometimes overwhelming but, really, take your time.
As you exit a divorce you want to examine yourself and see where you are. Even if your X had an affair and you were blindsided, what did you miss, what were you not seeing, what were the subtle clues that things were not good between you?
Finding answers to these questions will help you make peace with your situation. Once you are at peace you will be open to a new relationship and can enter it free of the past and with an understanding what happened so that you can avoid these situations in the future. This is hard work, but I highly recommend it.
The other great piece of advice I was given during my divorce was to take care of myself first. Be kind to yourself and drop all the “shoulds” running around in your head. There is no schedule for recovery as each person is different and needs their own amount of time to heal. Make time for a few minutes of meditation or prayer each day, even if it is five minutes, and find some quiet. This quiet will help silence your inner demons, reduce your stress and help you shed your burdens.
Journaling can also be a powerful tool. It will allow you to purge your anger, sorrows and regrets. The mere fact that you commit words to paper is therapeutic. You never have to go back and read it again, and if you are feeling toxic you might not want to read it, but getting the feelings out of you will help bring an end to the repetition of the same stories in your head.
There is a better day. Do what you can to make it happen.
When you are going through a divorce the hurt and sorrow can be overwhelming and can drown you. One of the key things you can do is to forgive yourself for the failure of your marriage. Even if, on the surface, you do not believe that you were the one to blow up the marriage, forgive yourself.
A friend gave me the ho’oponopono, the ancient Hawaiian practice of forgiveness, during my divorce and it was life altering for me:
I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.
She told me to say it to myself, for whatever hurt was inside of me. When I started to repeat the poem, tears filled my eyes and I could not finish it, I could not get beyond “please forgive me”. The act of saying sorry, to myself, overwhelmed me. I found, over time, that there were other wounds inside of me, beyond my divorce, that this poem helped me identify and heal.
Say it slowly one part at a time letting the words sink in. Go to a mirror and look yourself in the eye and say it, feel the words in your heart and begin to release the pain that is inside. You will cry, a lot, but I think that is the idea.
Let me know if this worked for you as well as it worked for me.
Divorce is tough, very tough. This is likely the hardest thing you have had to go through in your life. Other events, while they may have been harder at the time, did not last for months, if you are lucky, or for years if you are not. Divorce touches every aspect of your life; your family, friends and your work. Nothing will be left unaltered.
This is the reality of divorce so you need to cut yourself some slack. Try not to be so hard on yourself. Recognize that your world has been fundamentally altered and the new way of life needs time to settle.
If you are a mom who now has an empty house when the kids are with dad and the silence is killing you, or if you are a dad who does not get to see his kids every night before bed and misses that goodnight kiss, it is OK to feel the emptiness. Let that feeling sit with you. You need to grieve the loss and accept the change.
Think about all the things you never had a chance to do when you were married. Go to the shore with a book, a picnic lunch and watch the waves. Go into the city and spend the day people watching. See old friends you may have lost touch with and go on weekend trips to visit family who are out of town they will be glad to see you and you will give them comfort that you are coping. Your life will begin to fill with new experiences and you will begin to discover the person that you are outside of your marriage.
The re-creation of you will not only be therapeutic, it is essential for your children. They will sense that you are becoming more centered and at peace and that life goes on and expand. They will begin to see that things are going to be fine. Your children need you to be happy, it will reduce their stress. Their ability to see a happy future depends, to a great extent upon you moving on.
Again, this is easier said than done but it is doable so get started with baby steps if necessary.
In my last post I explained what a divorce consultant does. So why should you hire one? Divorce is an expensive process on its own, why should you add another professional?
A few questions you need to consider. Are you talking to your lawyer about non legal issues and incurring large legal bills? Do you understand the decision you will need to make during your divorce? Do you have the time to do the leg work required to respond to court replies, pull the financial information together to determine your marital lifestyle, respond to the information requests and document production(discovery requests)? Are you prepared to respond to the potentially outrageous demands from your spouse in a way that will lead to settlement as opposed to leading to court? Do you know your money situation, how much you have and where is it being spent (without this knowledge you can find yourself in a world of grief)? Have you thought out the best possible parenting strategy for your children and how you will manage it given your work schedule or that of your spouse? What will your financial situation look like when you get to the end of your divorce?
Simply, without knowledge of the decisions you have to make and the alternatives around those decisions you will spend longer getting your divorce done, you will be in a reactive mode rather than being proactive and controlling the situation and, your legal bills will be many multiple times what they would be with a consultant having your back.
When you work with a Divorce Consultant you will:
Have peace of mind that you made the best possible decision given your circumstances.
Understand the potential alternatives around the decisions you need to make.
Have a picture of what your outcome will look like from the beginning so that you can plan for your future.
Get a better outcome for your children so that they suffer less.
Be able to be proactive rather than reactive resulting in less drama.
Go into mediation with a plan and strategy to get your divorce done.
If you have to go to court provide your lawyer with the evidence to support your arguments so they can win your position in court.
Sleep better at night.
Have less anxiety.
Have someone to talk to as you think through issues and not be on the clock incurring costs for every minute of conversation.
The better question is: Can you afford not to have a divorce consultant?
