Working through your divorce

Hey, this is Gabi with Juba Forensics PLLC. I wanted to talk through today some of the things that might come up during your divorce and how that can make money a little bit harder talking about money and finances as you're going through that process.

We'll jump right into feelings in divorce, things that come up, things that you may not even be expecting until it's happening to you. So you know that you are not alone with the things that you are feeling and it is possible to work through those on the other side of that or during that process as well. There are many other things that do come up throughout the process, but one of the biggest things is a lack of trust, loneliness, anger for things that maybe were said or done, as well as not really knowing who you are anymore, especially if you've been married for a long time, whatever long is to you.

That lack of trust that can be a lack of trust not only in your ex-partner but it can be a lack of trust in future partners that may come across. You may come across can also be a lack of trust in yourself. Maybe you have lost trust in your ability to pick a partner. Trust in your ability to communicate and build a life with someone if it all falls apart and you're winding up getting divorced. That lack of trust does take time to heal. You may never trust your ex again and that is okay. But know that you can trust yourself again. You can trust yourself to pick a better person in the future, a different person in the future, whatever it is that you might need. Also trust that not everyone is going to be like them and things can be different for you in the future.

So lack of trust. I think that also ties into everything. If you have a lack of trust, who do you call to talk to about the things you might be feeling or experiencing? Do you have a good therapist? Do you have a good support system of family and friends? Do you have a great lawyer on your team? Maybe someone like me, a forensic accountant on your team? And how do you trust those people to take care of you when your ex-significant other promised that they would, vowed that they would, and it didn't work out that way for whatever reason. That's hard to trust other people, especially when you are in your most vulnerable state. But know that there are many, many people out there for you to help you through what it is that you're going through.

The next piece is you might feel lonely, especially if you have been with this significant other for a long time, and you've lived together, built a life together, and then all of a sudden they're gone. Maybe they were your best friend, they were your confidant. If something happened at work, you would call them to tell them about it, or you'd come home and tell them about it, whatever it might be. Maybe now you can't call that person. Maybe you can, but in a lot of cases you can't and you don't want to call that person for any little thing that happens in your life anymore.

So it's how do you overcome that loneliness? Number one, how do you become okay being alone and how do you overcome when you are feeling lonely? How do you rectify that? How do you make that better? Because those to me are two different things. Being okay with being alone is fine. That's can look like a lot of different things. That can look like you living by yourself. That can look like you going out to the movies on your own or you going to a restaurant by yourself. You don't have to feel lonely doing those things. You can do them alone. You can go grocery shopping alone. You can go on a vacation alone and be happy with who you are. Be happy that you're doing that alone. Having a great time with your own company.

So that is one thing you might have to learn, especially if you are in some kind of a codependent relationship. Just learning how to be alone can take some time. And I think the other side of that too is loneliness. You might feel both. You may have to readjust to how do I do all this alone? And when I venture into loneliness where I really need some kind of human interaction, how do I find that? How do I work through that? Loneliness, it takes time to work through that. And I also think it looks different for every person. So you might need a really strong friend group. Maybe you don't have that. So it's going out and meeting new people, trying to establish a really great friend group. Same thing with loneliness.

Something else you can do to work through loneliness is to volunteer. Basically, my best advice when you are feeling lonely is to surround yourself with other people. How, whatever that looks like. Maybe your support system doesn't live nearby and you call them or you text them or whatever it might be. FaceTime really does help sometimes, but FaceTime is not a replacement for when you need a hug, when you need somebody in person with you. So, know that there has to be a well-rounded support system. And how do you find that when you need it the most? It's going to take some time to figure out who is on your team, who can you call, how do you establish that community of people that you can rely on. It's going to take some time, but you can get through that. You have to want to get through that. You have to want to work through that as well.

Another thing that might come up in divorce and that feeling is anger. And that anger can be at the ex, anger for maybe things that they did or things that they said. Maybe anger at yourself for things that you did or you said throughout that process. It is hard to show up in a divorce as your best self because something is going to, something can trigger you whatever that might be. So know that it's okay to feel angry. It's okay to feel angry at them. It's okay to feel angry at yourself. But you cannot live in that anger forever.

You don't want to in 10 years from now post divorce still be angry at yourself or that ex significant other. You don't want that. You want to have worked through that anger part of that grieving process and moved on to the other side of that whatever that looks like for you. How do you move through the anger? It's hard. It is not easy. For those of us that are angry people, sometimes moving through that anger takes conscious effort. You have to consciously work through that anger and know that you have other emotions that you need to work through as well besides anger. So don't rush the process by any means. I don't want you to be angry today and wake up tomorrow morning the happiest person in the world and never get angry again. That is not the goal. Things sometimes come up in layers kind of like an onion where you think, "Oh, I already got rid of the onion peel which was anger and now I've moved into all these other more complex emotions." But then later on in the onion is another layer of anger that may come up. Know that that is also okay.

One of the biggest things that helped me move through some of the anger I had, not only divorce related, but any other time I've been angry, whether that's job related, or something else I've tried to work through it on my own. I do meditate, breath work, yoga, things like that. But know that sometimes that may not be enough and you may need other help besides what tools you have in your toolbox. You may need to rely on other people to help you learn new tools to manage anger, to manage some of these emotions like a lack of trust and loneliness. And that is okay. Whether that person might be a therapist, might be a best friend who's gone through a divorce and learned a lot of things on the other side can look like a lot of different people. So no, anger is okay. You can feel angry, but you cannot, you should not live in that anger forever. You anger will eat you alive from the inside out. So, know that you need to work through that anger.

Another thing that may come up in your divorce for you is not knowing who you are anymore, especially if you've been together for a really long time. And that yet again that what you classify as a really long time is really dependent on you. For some people a really long time might be 30 years. For other people a really long time might be eight or 10 years, might be five, might be three. Whatever that is relative to all your other experiences that you've had in your life. It's definitely not a competition with who's been with who longer. You can still feel like you've lost yourself in that process, lost yourself in that relationship.

And when you step back and say, "Well, I spent all of my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, whatever it might be with this person, now they're gone. Who who am I? What do I like to do?" Instead of the things that we liked to do together, did I even like doing those things or I just do those things because we were spending time together? So being able to give yourself the space to process that is very powerful to really figure out what it is that you like to do. What are your hobbies that you enjoy doing? What's the music that you like to listen to? The movies you like to watch. Really take this time to rediscover who you are as a person. Because even if you were only together 3 years, 5 years, whatever it might be, chances are you may have grown and changed in those 3 or 5 years to look like a different person on the other side of that. So give yourself some space to figure out who are you? What does that look like? You by yourself without a significant other. What is that? Who is that person? That can be very powerful.

Tying in with that a little bit is what does your life look like now that you are either in the middle of a divorce or what does your what is your life going to look like when the divorce is finalized and everything is done. That can also help you kind of work through and get through this process as well is just looking at what do I want what does my life look like and what do I want it to be. One of the things that helped me, I was getting ready to turn 30 when I was going through my divorce and didn't know who I was anymore. Didn't know a lot of things what I wanted my life to look like on my own now that I was on my own. So, one of the biggest things that I did, I created a list of 30 things I wanted to do before I turned 30.

Now granted, I just turned 28, so I didn't have a lot of time to get 30 things done, but they were really 30 things that pushed me a little bit out of my comfort zone to say, "Okay, do I like this? Do I want to continue doing this? Is this my thing?" So, some of those 30 things included I wanted to read 30 books just to reignite my love for reading. I wanted to move to the mountains of North Carolina so I put that on my list. I had a few small local travel places I always wanted to go to that I never did. Put those on my list. I wanted to go to a music festival. Put that on my list as well. And just pushed myself out of my comfort zone to say, "Okay, who am I? What am I doing? What does my life look like now? And what do I want it to look like in the future?" So, made it through my 30 before 30 list. I have made a 40 things to do before 40. And now that I had a full decade to get all 40 things done, I've gone ahead and made them bigger bucket items. So instead of little local travel, big international travel that I want to do, things like that, publishing a book, to really help shape how I want my life to look.

So even if it may not be perfect right this second, I may not have everything I want today, I know where I'm going. And it really gets me excited and happy to talk about all the things that I want to do in the future and work towards and the work to get to that future also is very exciting and happy. So know that while you may be in it right now and you're not sure who you are, you're not sure what the future looks like, you can figure that out. Give yourself the space and time to figure those things out.

Do you want another relationship in the future? And there is no timeline on that. It doesn't that relationship doesn't have to be in six months. That relationship doesn't have to be in a year or two years. Honestly, I've taken four over four years with without a real relationship. And that has been amazing for me. Now, if you had asked me when I was going through a divorce, how long I was going to give myself to work through this, I would not have told you four years. I would have said 6 months to a year tops, I'll be good. Next relationship, here I come. And it turns out I needed longer. I had a lot of things to do, a lot of things to accomplish, a lot of self-discovery to work on and go through. So, what you want your life to look like, know that you can have that. and know that you need to be flexible with yourself through that process. Be flexible as you are learning about yourself to figure out what you actually need. Do not rush into the next relationship. But there's also no perfect timeline either. So just because I took four years, you might find your next relationship in the next 6 months and be as happy as can be. And I want that for you if that is the right thing for you. So take that time for yourself to do that, to figure that out.

The next piece that I have here are related to feelings, which I know are not everybody's cup of tea, but I also know from going through a divorce that a lot of this stuff does come up. And if you're not familiar with therapy and never had a therapist, you may not want to go to a therapist. So hopefully information like this might help open the door to let you feel some feelings and work through some things. Maybe go to therapy if that's what you decide you need in the future. But the last piece I have here is don't blame yourself for staying. If you stayed longer than maybe you should have for whatever reason, don't blame yourself. I am a big believer in everything happens for a reason. As unfortunate as some of those things are, there are a lot of horrible things that happen to a lot of really good people. But I do believe that you can learn lessons from all of those things, no matter how bad they are. You can learn a lesson from that and come out the other side better, different, whatever that is or might need to be. So looking back, you can definitely look back at your relationship.

I think you should really analyze maybe what started to go wrong, your piece that you played in that relationship and how you could have done better or handled things differently. I think that's helpful for growth. But what I think is not helpful is being stuck in the in the past and living your life with a lot of blame for yourself or blame for them. A lot of that hatred, anger, things like that, regret maybe for even getting married in the first place, insert all of those feelings. You're allowed to have those feelings 100% and they may keep coming up for you over the next couple of days or weeks or months, maybe even years depending on what you have going on. But just know that you don't want to live in that place. And you can move past that. You can see whatever good you can see out of that past relationship. Learn what you can from it. and show up and do better in the next relationship. Show up and be better. Be your best self your next time through a relationship.

So, that's a lot of feelings. We talked through lack of trust, loneliness, holding on to a lot of anger, rediscovering who you are, what does your life look like, what do you want it to look like, and not holding on to a bunch of blame, regret, things along those lines. So, I will tie this into being a forensic accountant. So, I'm not a therapist. I've just been through therapy and a divorce. But tying this into money, because I'm a forensic accountant here, is money is hard in general. Money is hard if you're single. Money is hard if you are in a relationship of any sort. Money is especially hard when you're going through a divorce.

Money is hard partly because it's something that we don't really talk about much as a society. It is a sort of taboo topic. People don't like to talk about money. And so that makes it difficult to get good advice, to get good feedback, to figure out what you should be doing, what you know, are you well off or you not well off. It might be hard to figure some of those things out. Having money conversations in a good relationship can be hard if you and your significant other have different opinions about what you should do with your money. If one of you wants to save and the other one wants to go travel the world and you can't seem to get it together on how you can do both, save and travel the world, that's going to be hard, a really hard conversation for you guys to have.

But when you're going through a divorce and tension is already high, there's a lot of all these other feelings we talked about at play here, it can make the money conversation even harder. And I will do other videos that talk about what is fair for financially in a divorce. Is there something hidden? Do you need a mediator to work through things like that with your money? Do you need a PI? Do you need a forensic accountant? All these things I will talk through as well. But know that in a divorce, money is going to be a hard conversation. It may lead to a lot of fighting. You may need professionals on your side. Whether that's lawyers, forensic accountants, private investigators, whatever that looks like, mediators, can be all of the above, one of them, two of them, depends on your situation.

Know that if you are having issues talking about money in the divorce process, you're not alone. It happens to everybody. And there are professionals out there that can help you through that process. Whatever piece you may be stuck at, maybe you just need a mediator to have that conversation. Maybe you need a lawyer to legally tell you guys, here's how you should do it by the book. Maybe you need a forensic accountant because something seems off in your finances. One of the biggest pieces that I can recommend is that you come to the table with what you know you have as far as assets go. And I'm not just talking about your assets. Like if you have your own personal savings account, I want you to have that written down. That's great. But I want you to also know all of your joint checkings, all of your joint savings, all of your joint anything, retirement accounts, investment accounts, whatever that might be.

I want you to be prepared enough to come to the table with that list on in hand with all of your joint accounts and how much is in each one of them and to have done a little bit of digging to make sure there's not something that you're missing. Because that is the only way to have a fair conversation is if you and your ex are on the same page about what assets are there to divide. And as far as how you divide those assets, some of it is pretty straightforward. Some of it is going to be a case by case basis. Maybe you are one of those couples that has seven different pieces of property. And how do you split that equally? It's going to depend on a lot of other things that I'm not going to go into detail here. So, just know that coming to the table with a list of all of your assets that are yours separately and yours combined together is going to be helpful.

And do not rely on your ex to bring that list to the table. Don't rely on that. Don't count on it. Even if they were the ones that ran the finances from the get-go, do not rely on them to generate that list. You are doing yourself a disservice. You need to create a list for yourself and see if it matches theirs because there may be things that you didn't even realize or think about that they purposefully will have left off theirs. So, money is hard. Divorce can make it harder. I want you to be prepared in that. I've got a free PDF guide and a free template and I've made some free videos as well that go along with that is all available between my YouTube channel and my website but I will gladly link a lot of things together to make that easier to find for everybody.

Know that there's going to be a lot of feelings going through your divorce and those feelings are okay. The feelings that we kind of talked through is not an all-inclusive list. You may have many, many, many other feelings that come up. And that's okay. You are allowed to have all the feelings, all of them, throughout this divorce process. But it's important that you feel those feelings and move through them and come onto the other side of that. And you work through and get through your divorce for the sake of that next relationship, whoever that is, whenever that is. You don't want to bring with you all of the baggage of your divorce into your next relationship. You want to come to that next relationship as a healed and whole individual and to show up to that next relationship as the very best version of who you are. So you can do it. You can work through a lot. You can get through a lot. Money conversation may be hard, but you can be prepared to handle those tough conversations.