How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:00) If you haven't yet filed for divorce, but you are spiraling, crying, rage texting your best friend and Googling, how the fuck do I leave my spouse at two o'clock in the morning? Then this episode is for you. How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:15) If you're going through a divorce or you're thinking about going through a divorce, then this is the podcast that you've been waiting for. Hosted by Morgan Stogsdill, the head of family law at the largest family law firm in the country, and comedian Andrea we are gonna help you avoid biggest divorce mistakes with our expert guidance, along with the laughter and levity you need to get through this process. So let's go. This is How Not to Suck at Divorce. How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:46) Truth be told, we were actually going to take a break this week. We are in the middle of winter break with our families and Morgan is out of town, but there are so many of you who are beginning their process or really taking a hard look at their marriage right now. And we said, you know what? We have got to bring these people some information because I went back to where I was when I was in this state. And this is when I started to make some of the biggest mistakes. So here you go. How do I start? Here comes some action items. The very first thing I want you to do, and if you haven't done this yet, I'm telling you to put pause on this podcast and go do it right now. Start your own email address. Start a separate one. You need a place where you can start collecting all of this information. that your spouse doesn't have access to. And this is not being sneaky, this is being smart. Okay? So go do it. Now that you have your email address, I want you to start gathering information. This means sign up for our email list. Go sign up for other email lists of places who can offer you support. You need support. You need information. When you're corresponding with your attorney and yeah, you should be chatting with an attorney, you want to make sure that they're emailing you to a place that is safe and not a place where your spouse is going to find out some information before you're ready to share that you're moving forward with the divorce. Okay? So let's make sure we're doing that. I want to talk for a minute. about gathering information because I know that for a lot of people that feels uncomfy because you're so used to thinking of yourselves as part of a we. And now it's like, wait, now I'm going back to me and now I have to go and do things that I might not know how to do. And that makes me feel uncomfortable. That makes me feel scared. And it might even make me feel like I don't know that I can do this. Okay, I hear you. I didn't know how to do a lot of this when I first started. The first step is making a list. Make a list of all of the things you know and make a list of the things you don't know. Let's start with money. I want you to make a list and you can do it like if you open an email account through Google, right? If you get a Gmail account, then you have access to Google Docs. So you can have a Google Doc that has a list of all of the accounts that you are aware of. And then you can make a list of things that you maybe don't know, but you should know. It could be your retirement fund. It could be stocks that you guys own. It could be anything that you have a question about. Make that list. Have it organized. You also want to make a list of credit cards that you have. And if you don't have all of the passwords to things, write a list of those too. How Not To Suck At Divorce (03:58) And along with that, you also want to make sure that you know your credit score. So go pull that information How Not To Suck At Divorce (04:05) This is just a time for you to get some framework down of all the things you know and all the things you don't know. What I want you to do with that list is you're going to take that to your attorney when you have a meeting with them and you're going to say, OK, help me. Here's what I have access to, here's what I don't have access to, here's what might be out there, I'm not really sure, help direct me. What do I do? Okay, so that's step one. The next thing that I want you to do, if you haven't done it already, How Not To Suck At Divorce (04:39) And this part's not so much fun, but it's really necessary. You gotta make a list of all of your monthly expenses, okay? I wanna know what, well, not I wanna know. I mean, I do wanna know, but this is for you, not me. You gotta make a list of your mortgage or your rent, the utility bills, everything. I wanna know, why do I keep saying I? Not I wanna know, you should wanna know, but I kinda do wanna know. How much are you spending in a month? What does it cost to be you? What does it cost to be your family? Aside from all of the essentials, you also want to start writing down what are things that you spend money on every month? How much are you spending on kids' activities? How much are you spending on daycare? How much are you spending on all of the major things? And the reason why I want you to do this now is because Pretty soon after you start getting the ball rolling and you file for divorce, you're going to have to fill out this really obnoxious document called the Financial Affidavit. It's probably called different things in different states, but that's what it's called here in Illinois. It is overwhelming if you don't already have that frame of mind of listing out how much money comes in every month and how much money goes out. So I want you just to start thinking about that. And if it gets overwhelming, take a break. But this is why it's really important that you become mentally organized and you do a little bit at a time. The problem is, and you don't need me to tell you this, you're overwhelmed. You're emotional, you're scared. You're frustrated, you're nauseated, you're nervous, you're all the things. Well, when we're feeling these big emotions, we're really ready to make a mistake because we just want something to be over with. I'll tell you, one of the biggest mistakes I made early on when I got divorced was I wanted to rush through all of the financial stuff. because it made me uncomfortable, because it made me feel stupid, because I didn't understand it. And the things that make me feel stupid, I run away from. Well, guess what? I left a lot of fucking money on the table, because I just didn't wanna. Don't do that. Don't be like me. Be a big kid. Get organized first. All of this that you are putting in this Google document that only you have access to, you're going to bring to your attorney. Let's talk about feelings for a minute, shall we? Your feelings, my friends, are gonna be all over the place. You're gonna have days where you feel like, wow, this is not as hard as I thought it was gonna be. I am killing it over here. And then you're gonna have days where you feel so... out of control and overwhelmed that you don't want to do this anymore. I want you to adopt this emotional neutrality, if at all possible. And I was just talking about this the other day with a friend of mine, and it's so hard to be neutral when things feel really out of control. And you're probably thinking right now, how the fuck am I going to be neutral, Andrea? It feels like... My life is on fire and you want me to be neutral. I want you to try to not set yourself up for major disappointments. If you have a meeting with an attorney and it goes really well, I don't want you to emotionally skyrocket to this place of, my God, this is amazing. He or she is going to solve all of my problems. Things are going to be incredible. I can do this. I'm going to go buy myself a martini and cheers to me. Because then what happens the next day when something doesn't go so well? You plummet. Counter to that, I don't want you to have a meeting with somebody that doesn't go very well. And then you think, I can't do this. This sucks. I'm never going to I'm not going to amount to anything after this divorce. I won't be able to afford to do this divorce. Don't do that. You have to just be neutral. Okay. I had a good meeting. Okay, good. I didn't have a great meeting. Okay. It's okay. It's going to be okay. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to have another meeting or I'm going to look at all of this shit that I'm taking in and I'm going to extract the facts and I'm going to look at the facts with a critical eye and I know it feels so impossible. But you have to try so hard to remember that as much as you're hurting right now, divorce is a business. Marriage is a Business. Being in love is not. Being in love is all feeling. But you got into a business relationship with somebody that now you need to get out of. So you have to look at these things with logic. And that's why we do this freaking podcast, because it is possible if you take the right steps. Okay, so beyond making your lists and having a document and an email address that only you have eyes on, what the hell else are you supposed to do? You are supposed to start speaking to attorneys. You are not hiring an attorney immediately. You are not filing for divorce yourself online. You are speaking to attorneys. How do you know if you're speaking to the right attorneys? Well, The easiest way to do that is to go grab our Divorce Crash Course and listen to the very first chapter, which is all about how to pick the right attorney. And the reason why I'm telling you to go grab the Divorce Crash Course is because we designed something that does a very good job of holding your hand and telling you exactly what to do. So rather than me rehashing that and taking another hour and a half right now, go grab that product. Not only do you hear Morgan and I walk you through exactly what questions you ask these attorneys and what kind of answers you're looking for, the Divorce Crash Course comes with a printable guidebook. And the very beginning of that guidebook, which speaks to... how do you hire the right attorney, has something that you can print out and take with you on these meetings where you can write down their answers and then compare what attorney number one said versus what attorney number two said. And it helps you find the attorney that's a good fit for you. But something that I will tell you right now is your attorney is your business partner in this divorce. You're not hiring a best friend. You're not hiring the attorney who just makes you laugh or makes you feel comfortable. This is a strategic choice. an attorney we once interviewed, equated it to if you're not a mountain climber and you're going to go climb a really big mountain, well, then you probably need a guide. You probably need someone who's showing you, ⁓ You don't want to go this way because you'll fall and break your neck. You want to go this way, but you want to make sure that when you do this, you do this move and not that move, whatever. I don't know anything about mountain climbing, but your divorce attorney does. So you want to hire someone who's going to show you the ropes, someone who is going to guide you and help you make really smart decisions. So when you're interviewing, You wanna look for those things. Is this person offering me a strategy or is this person just agreeing with everything that I said? If they're agreeing with everything that you said, then that's a red flag. And that feels weird, right? Because you want someone who agrees with you because that feels good, but that's not gonna help you get through this thing any better. You want someone who's gonna say, you know what, Andrea, I hear you. I know that you... want to have, the kids 70 % of the time, and you want dad to only have the kids every other weekend, and you want him to pay you of this money in child support because that's what you feel is fair. But here's the deal. It's not going to work out that way. And let me tell you why. Now, that conversation might piss you off and it might make you feel really disappointed. But that conversation is also gonna give you a realistic expectation of what it's gonna be like when you go forward with this process. And that realistic expectation is going to save your sanity. The last thing you want is to do what I just talked about, to have these really high highs where you have this expectation of, my God, everything is gonna be great. This is really good. God, I'm gonna take a full page ad out in Vanity Fair congratulating myself on having the world's easiest divorce. And then the next day you get an email and that comes tumbling down and you are in a puddle on your bathroom floor. I want to help you avoid that. So it is crucial that you have an attorney in your corner who's going to give you realistic expectations. And I do not want you to hire an attorney until you've interviewed three individuals and it is crystal clear which one is going to be your best business partner through this ride. Once you have that person, then you file. From there, you want to ask your attorney, when do you suggest I tell my soon to be spouse? We've done lots of episodes on how to tell your spouse and when to tell your spouse, but really depending on where you live and what the particulars of your case is, you wanna lean on your attorney. Speaking of, we have just recently, and I'm so glad that we have done this, because I think it was long overdue, we have just recently put together playlists on our website. So if you go to hownottosuckadevice.com, and you go to the podcast page, there's now, there's different links for different playlists categorized by whether you're still debating on whether or not you should leave your marriage. If you're leaving an abusive marriage, you have a lot of concerns about money or if you have a lot of concerns about kids, we've pulled like eight episodes in each category so you can just binge listen to topics that. you feel like you really need in that moment. So make sure that you guys go and do that. Okay. How Not To Suck At Divorce (15:38) Let's talk about some things that I do not want you to do during this time. I do not want you to make any major changes in your household or your spending. You want to keep things the way that they have always been. So this is not a time to say, okay, I'm planning on leaving Brenda at the end of the month. So right now I'm gonna go buy a whole bunch of shit and go hog wild before I pull the trigger and leave this marriage. Don't do that. That's not gonna look good later in court. Don't start treating your spouse like absolute garbage. while you are in the process of collecting information to eventually leave the marriage. That's kind of hard to do. Like I can tell you from experience, that's really hard to do. But don't do it. That's not gonna help you either. Because even though you're planning for the future, you still currently need peace in the house. So this is a time when you're gonna lean really heavy on routines. Bedtime routines, evening routines, television watching routines, all the things, keep it consistent. If you have a hobby, keep freaking doing that hobby. That hobby is gonna save your life. That's actually, let me back up. I said a minute ago, I don't want you to do anything new, but there is a caveat. If you currently do not have a hobby, something that you do, just for you that makes you happy. That's the one thing that I would add right now, because you're going to need it. And I don't care if you take up needle pointing or pickleball or I don't know, like anything that's legal, do it. I like how the only things I can think of are needle pointing and pickleball. Like what kind of a loser am I? But Scrapbook making, that got better. Clearly, I don't have any hobbies, but don't be like me. Again, be smarter than I am with money and get a fucking hobby. But you need a hobby. You need something that you can go and do. You're going to need that outlet. But when you go and do the thing, if it's with other people, it's not the time to share all of your divorce plans. No, no, no, no. And I'll make it really simple. You don't want a whole lot of people knowing what you haven't done yet. You need just a friend or two whom you really trust. You don't want a lot of opinions. You don't want people clouding your judgment and you don't want your business out there, especially before you pull the trigger that is going to cause you much more of a headache. So don't treat your spouse like shit. Don't use threatening language like, And I know right now you're thinking, yeah, I'm not an idiot. I would never do that. But you would be surprised. That resentment gets deep quickly. And we all get to a point where we're like, that's it. You know what? You looked at me the wrong way one too many times. Boom. I'm about to drop a bomb on you. Don't do that. You don't want the tension in your house as especially if you have children. Kids are so smart. They pick up on the silence. They pick up on all of the tension. So do not bring more tension into that house if at all possible. Speaking of kids, again, this feels obvious, but I still have to say it. You never want to use your kids as a sounding board. I don't care if they're grown adults. You never want to use them as your sounding board and bring them into this It makes them uncomfortable. It hurts them. It puts them in a loyalty bind. Don't do it. If your kids are younger, one thing that I would do if you feel like this divorce is going to really rattle their worlds, start looking into a therapist for your kids to speak to. When the divorce gets underway and you can tell that the kids need somebody, that's a good thing to have on board. A lot of times kids aren't comfortable talking to their parent about how they feel about what's going on. best parent in the whole world is going to make a mistake at some point. It's inevitable. Your kids are gonna get hurt. It's okay. They're going to be okay, but there's going to be something that you say or something that they overhear or even just the process in it of itself. It's not ideal. The kids are going to get some emotional cuts and bruises, but they heal. And in the end, it makes kids a whole lot more resilient and adapt to things that are ahead of them. So know that. And again, if you are really worried about the kids, we have a bunch of episodes on our playlist on our website that you should go and listen to. Okay. Let's do a little recap, shall we? Here's what we need you to do. How Not To Suck At Divorce (20:56) Get organized. First things first, get a separate email account. You want everything coming to a safe place, all of the correspondence from attorneys or anybody else, get a separate email account. If you open up a Gmail account, perfect, it's free, and you get access to Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, all the things where you can start organizing everything you know. and everything you don't know that you need to go and get. It could be passwords, could be balances in certain accounts. Just start listing all of the things. You want to know what your credit score is as well. So all things money related, you want to be organized. You need to go and talk to attorneys. Grab the divorce crash course if you don't already have it because that's going to help you figure out who the best attorney is to get you out of this business that you are in. And speaking of businesses, another little realistic expectation for you, just because you are divorcing your spouse. If you have children, it doesn't mean that you get rid of them. Your relationship is shifting to co-parent. That's a business too. So start getting in that mindset of, I have to figure out how I'm going to work with this person. And know that sometimes in business, you're not going to always agree. Just like how you probably don't always agree with your coworkers or the person you work for and other people you have to deal with in business, but you still have to work with them because that's how you make money. So know that now you are in the business of raising these kids together. It feels impossible, but it's doable. You just need help. And I'm gonna give you another resource right now. There is a co-parenting app that we talk about a whole lot on this show. It's called Our Family Wizard. Even if you don't feel like you need to use a co-parenting app to communicate with your kids once you guys are divorced and living separately, you should definitely. go to ourfamilywizard.com slash not suck 20 because if you go there, not only can you save 20 % off your first year of the app if you decide you need it, but you can also sign up for the newsletter. In that newsletter, you get so many free tips on how to navigate the divorce process with just your kids in mind. And make sure when you sign up for that newsletter, you put in that brand new email address that only you have access to. This is a time when you are just gathering information. So gather all of the information, everything that could possibly help you get through this thing. And I promise you, your life is going to be so much better on the other side. You just need these tools, okay? Speaking of tools, get a hobby. And again, I don't know why I can't think of hobbies right now. This is a indication that I need to get a freaking hobby, but do something. Find something that brings you joy because you are going to need it. And I'm, as I'm talking right now, I'm thinking to myself, are you scaring all of these people, Andrea? Are they listening to this episode and think, well, I don't want to do any of that. Maybe I should just stay in this miserable marriage because getting divorced sounds terrible. Getting divorced is not easy. It is kind of terrible. Being divorced is not terrible. Being divorced is just something that you chose to do or that maybe your spouse chose and you did it, but we all deserve to be happy. And if you are in an unhappy and unhealthy and Definitely, if you're in an abusive marriage, that's never gonna get better unless you get brave and you make a change. I did it. I left a marriage that was... Bad, bad, bad. And not because I was married to a bad person. It just was a bad marriage. And I had two tiny kids when I did it. And this was six years ago. And now my life is so different. I am happily remarried, wildly happily remarried. I could not imagine my life now. when I was in my first marriage. And that's not true, actually. I used to daydream a lot to kind of save myself, to take myself out of that place that I was in. And in those daydreams, I thought about all the things that my life could possibly be one day. And the life that I'm living now is actually better than my daydreams. And you can have that too. You just have to get through this. And the reason why we do this show is because, like I mentioned before, when you're really overwhelmed and you're really scared, you don't make good choices. Our brains don't let us make good choices because we're acting on that instinct of like, my God, fear, I have to solve this. And so you do the first thing. You're not thinking logically, you're not thinking clearly. So that's why I want you to listen to this show. Don't do the things that I did. If I could go back and redo things, I would do things so much differently. And I can't go back and redo it. The mistakes are done, but I can help you avoid them. And you guys are so lucky. She won't brag about herself, but she's not here right now. She's skiing, so I can brag about her. guidance that you get from my friend Morgan is invaluable. That woman is a powerhouse attorney who helps, who only a small fragment of the population can work with her. And you're getting guidance from this woman for free. So my God, listen to what she says. This show is designed to help youThis show is designed to help you not suck at a sucky process. But like I said, once you're on the other side of it, your life has the ability to be so amazing, so fulfilling. And if you're listening to this show, then it means that something is really not right with where you're at right now. And if you haven't yet decided whether or not divorce is right for you, well, then you need to back up. You need to back up and you need to go listen to some other episodes that we have on really deciphering whether or not you need to get a divorce or if you have some other things going on. But if you know, if you've done all of that work and you know that it's time to move through this, then... start doing the things. Get yourself organized because when all of the emotional chaos kicks in, you need to revert back to these spreadsheets and these Google Docs where you have everything organized. Something else that I want you to do in this Google Doc is I want you to write down why. Why are you leaving? What do you want? What do you want that you're not getting? What's your daydream? I know that for me, I wanted to laugh more. I wanted to feel safe. I didn't feel safe. And I don't mean like physically, I didn't feel emotionally safe. I didn't feel like I was married to somebody whom I could share absolutely anything with. And they would get me and love me unconditionally the way that I wanted to be loved. and make me laugh so hard that I was about to pee my pants. And I got that now. And that's what I want for you. Whatever it is that you want, write it down. It'll be a really good thing to look at when things get hard. you know, we say this at the end of every single episode, divorce is a marathon. It is not a sprint. You're going to have to keep your stamina through this thing. Your arms might get tired from doggy paddling, but that's what we're here for. Think of us like your emotional and mental floaties. We are going to keep your head above water as you swim to the other side. You'll get there. It doesn't happen in a day. It's a process. But I promise you, if you have the right team in place. you will get to the other side of this thing. Your kids will be Your money will be okay and your life will get so much better. Go join our private community. There is a direct link to that in our show notes. Check out the website. Follow us on our social channels. Leave us a review. There's a direct link in our show notes of where you can go and leave us a review. The reviews mean so much to us and we appreciate all of the love. We are honored, so honored to be the number one divorce podcast because we've worked so hard at bringing you this information. We love you all. We know that you can do this because you have got this. And we, my friends, have got you. How Not To Suck At Divorce (30:14) The How Not to Suck a Divorce podcast shall not be copied or rebroadcast without consent. This podcast does not contain legal advice. The information heard on this show shall not and should not be used as legal advice.