What you really need to know about divorce and money

Welcome to Money Talks, a series in which we interview people about their relationship with money, their relationship with each other, and how those relationships inform one another.

Jackie Pilossoph is 59 and lives in the suburbs of Chicago. Her business, Divorced Girl Smiling, is a media company that connects people facing divorce with trusted, vetted divorce professionals. Michèle Heffron is 63 and lives in the suburbs of Seattle. She is a certified relationship and divorce coach, who provides practical and emotional support to clients as they navigate the legal process and enter their post-divorce life.

The following conversation has been lightly condensed and edited.

Jackie Pilossoph: I got divorced in 2008. I was 41 years old with two toddlers. I had no family living in my town, and I didn’t know one divorced person. The internet was not what it is today, and I did not have a good experience. I felt alone and isolated. I didn’t have a divorce team of professionals to help me. It wasn’t really a thing yet! Divorce coaches didn’t even exist. That was a really, really hard time for me.

I didn’t want other women to have to go through what I did. They should have a community of support. So I started blogging. I started my blog in 2014 and it caught on very quickly. People could relate. Then, after a few years, I thought “I’m not a divorce coach, I’m not an attorney, I’m not a mediator, I’m a journalist who loves to write. I need to partner with divorce professionals who can help these women in other ways.” 

So I started curating the best of the best. There’s not a person on Divorced Girl Smiling whom I wouldn’t do business with myself. They’re all vetted, not only by me but also by my advisory board.

Michèle Heffron: I’ve been through two divorces. My second one was 15 years ago. I had a career, and then I decided to become a stay-at-home mom. Getting back into the workforce after that was absolutely terrifying and very challenging. It was my second abusive marriage, from a verbal, emotional, and financial standpoint. I didn’t have a credit card. I moved out of our house. I didn’t think I had any rights as a stay-at-home mom who hadn’t contributed financially to the household. I had a daughter in college and a son going into middle school and I was scared. I felt alone. I had family and friends around, but I don’t think anybody understands what you’re going through at that point in time. 

One of the mistakes I made was using my attorney as my therapist. It was very expensive therapy, and it didn’t really help me. It’s not that they don’t care, but it isn’t their deal, and they charge you by the minute!

Jackie: I did the same thing. I would call my divorce attorney and cry. My attorney was filling shoes that he wasn’t qualified to fill, and charging me for it. 

While there is a place for divorce attorneys — you need one to get divorced, in most cases — they are such a small percentage of what you need. They are only doing 25 percent of the work you need to do to get divorced. You need a therapist, and you also need a divorce coach. 

Michèle: I facilitate emotional clarity and stability. I also encourage personal accountability, because no matter what anyone says, even if the other party is 97 percent responsible for the damage that has been done, everyone owns some part of the downfall of a relationship. I really help prevent costly decision-making based on values rather than resentment, which I think is a really important thing. Sometimes people will go to great expense to make a point, even though it gets them nowhere.

Jackie: One of your first calls [when you’re considering divorce] should be to a mortgage lender, to see if you can afford to stay in your home. Your divorce attorney can’t help you with that. 

The business of divorce is changing. You need a team of people to get divorced, and that can include a divorce coach, therapist, mortgage lender, real estate agent — and all of these people have divorce credentials. People think that it means you’re going to spend a lot of money, but I think you’re going to spend less because you’re not calling an attorney who charges by the hour.

Michèle: When we were going through our divorces, there weren’t all of these certifications. “Having a team” meant stacking up lawyers. There’s more of a collaborative philosophy [these days], with coaches and attorneys working together — and that doesn’t mean your divorce is going to be any more amicable, but it’s a different approach. 

Jackie: What I see a lot [in my work] is that women, especially, do not take charge of the finances in a marriage. When a marriage ends, they’re financially in the dark. They don’t look at the statements, they don’t know how much money they have, and the mistake is not empowering yourself right at the beginning, either when you think you’re going to get divorced or when you think something’s wrong. 

Maybe your ex is going to start hiding money, maybe you’re not going to get such a great deal. Go to a financial adviser who specializes in divorce and start the conversation. 

I tell women all the time, if you feel intimidated by numbers and you’re nervous and you feel mad at yourself — first of all, don’t be mad at yourself. It’s never too late to get empowered about finances. You’ll feel so much better when you have the numbers in front of you. You’ll know what’s going on financially so you can make good decisions in your divorce. 

Michèle: It’s important to get all of the information without making any assumptions based on what your spouse is telling you — or what happened to your sister or to your friend down the street, because your situation is never going to be the same as somebody else’s. Get all of the documents together, including your tax returns and your bank statements and all of that, so when you go to a financial adviser they’ll have all of this stuff on the table. 

Jackie also mentioned going to a certified divorce real estate broker or mortgage broker, because if you do own a home there are a lot of things that could happen to it that you’re not aware of. It’s not a given that anybody’s going to get the house or not get the house. So many people think they absolutely must have their house, and sometimes that’s just not feasible. I see it more and more frequently with women — they’ve gotten the house and then they’re hit with a big tax bill that they didn’t expect, and then they’re getting extra jobs so they can pay off the taxes.

For me, my husband owned the house before we got married, and it was a relief for me not to get the house because even if I’d fought for it, I couldn’t have afforded it. But I didn’t stand up for what I should have gotten out of that house. There was a lot of information that I wasn’t aware of, and I was so afraid of tipping over the apple cart with my ex that I didn’t go after what I could get. 

You need to surround yourself with people you can trust, so you can get the information and make the decision instead of just getting it over with so you’ll be done with it. 

Jackie: My kids were three and five when I got divorced, and college was never discussed. Huge mistake. You don’t want to have to keep going back to court. If you have a good lawyer, your lawyer will bring up everything — and even if it changes, at least you have something. Everything continually changes. People get remarried, someone might lose their job, you can always modify — but if you don’t even discuss it, you’re going to be in court every five years as these children grow up. I was constantly in court with post-litigation.

Michèle: It’s also about not putting the kids in the middle. I don’t care how mature you think your child is, they’re a kid. You have to think about how they’re absorbing the information they’re gathering. 

In my case, I had a 20-year-old and a 10-year-old. The 20-year-old could hear a lot of different things, but your 10-year-old doesn’t really need to hear that stuff.

Jackie: Also, when you talk negatively about your ex in front of their kids, it really hurts them. I did that, and I’m ashamed of it, but we’re also human. You have to give yourself a break and really try not to do it as much as possible.

Michèle: It’s so easy to do.

Jackie: Which is why you have a divorce coach and a therapist to talk to!

Michèle: You have to think about so many different things with kids. What if they’re really good at sports or ballet? What if they want piano lessons? What happens when they start driving? You need a living document that can be modified that spells out the financial responsibilities for each parent — and if you have a spouse that doesn’t do their share, which happens a lot, at least you have the document so you can go back to it. 

Jackie: When kids turn 18 and there’s no more child support but you still might have to deal with expenses like college, you have to hope that the parents are in a place where they can deal amicably with each other and come to agreements themselves. That’s really what they teach you in mediation. They teach you how to co-parent for the rest of your life.

Michèle: As long as the parents are on the same page.

Jackie: But some people get on the same page after mediation! 

Michèle: That’s the most important part.