Read an Excerpt

Fair Share Divorce for Women

The Definitive Guide to Creating a Winning Solution

St. Martin's Press

What Should You Do First?

Fair share divorce does not always mean equal.

— Kathleen Miller

If you are a woman considering divorce or are being forced to think about divorce because your husband has declared his intention to separate from you, you are no doubt wondering what first steps you should take. If you are like most people, you will think of calling an attorney to help you navigate this difficult process. Though you will certainly need legal advice, there is another professional you should consult, perhaps even before you make that call to the lawyer: a Certified Financial Planner™. A CFP® can be invaluable to you during this time because when a marriage fails, money issues often dominate the divorce proceedings.

The financial aspects of breaking the marital bonds are among the most important decisions you will ever make during your lifetime. You have to protect yourself, and that means you have to make financial plans to preserve what you have contributed to the marriage early on in the divorce negotiating process — even while the shock is still sinking in. These are marital assets you have a right to share.

Trusting that the legal process will take care of you is the worst assumption you can make.

divorce Is Like Riding an Escalator ...

The not-so-funny illustration in Figure 1.1 represents the dissolution process. Those going into divorce face two types of challenges: legal and emotional.

Going through the legal process of getting a divorce is like stepping on an escalator. The escalator doesn't stop. Once you're on, you are going to get off — whether under your own power or by being thrown off by the unrelenting process of the legal system. Ready or not, you will be divorced.

The legal process consists of five separate phases you will have to navigate:

1. Preparation

2. Initiation

3. Analysis and Planning

4. Negotiation and Settlement

5. Implementation

Each phase has its own unique set of activities, tasks, documents, participants, and challenges.

... While Also Climbing Up Some Very Steep Stairs

As if the legal problems were not enough to deal with, you must negotiate the five emotional stages of divorce at the same time:

1. Pre-Divorce

2. Decision

3. Acceptance

4. Mourning

5. Re-Equilibrium

Again, each of these stages presents its own hurdles that have to be overcome.

As you approach divorce, you will find yourself being dragged up the legal escalator while you must struggle up the emotional staircase on your own. That is a tough balancing act!

We will look at the five emotional stages of divorce in the next chapter; a detailed discussion of the five legal phases of divorce will come later on in chapter 6.

My experience shows that most women urgently need divorce advice. Many women dislike confrontation, shy away from conflict, and traditionally have taken a backseat to men with regards to money management. After the legal complexities and emotional nasties have been exhausted, money is what divorce is all about.

Money issues are critical when you go through the divorce process. If you ignore them, you will suffer financially. When the divorce is over, regrets won't provide solace for the financial assets you've lost.

The good news is that you can emerge from divorce with your fair share. That's why I've written this book. I will show you, by instruction and through examples of what other women have experienced — both the good and the bad — how important the first steps in a divorce can be to the final financial outcome.

Divorce Comes in Many Different Forms

Sean is a good example of how and why women come to me when divorce has become a certainty in their lives. She left an urgent message for me after learning my name from another client.

When Sean presented herself, her distress was obvious. As she bit her lip, she told me her husband had left the previous weekend after informing her he wanted a divorce. Sean had three children ages fifteen, eleven, and seven, and she and the children were trying to understand what was happening to them. Sean was calm with the children and attempted to keep them on their regular schedules at school and involved in all the things they would normally do. Her personal agony was intensified by the fact that she had no previous indication of a problem in her marriage.

Panicky, twisting a handkerchief with her fingers, Sean related the events of the weekend.

"After working late at the office on Friday, Jim got up earlier than usual on Saturday and told me he wanted to talk. We sat down and had a cup of coffee. He said he was leaving. Just like that. He had found an apartment and was going to move in on Sunday. He needed time away from me and the family. He was feeling overwhelmed at work and needed to be by himself. That's what he said.

"I asked if he was involved with someone else, and he told me that was not why he was leaving, but he wouldn't answer my question directly. He said he would take care of me financially and continue to put his paycheck into our bank account twice a month. We were only going to live apart for a few months. Other than that, he had no plans.

"First, I was stunned. Then I cried. John, our oldest child, came into the room, and we asked him to leave. We told him we were having a private conversation. He could tell that we were both very upset. John quietly went back to his room, and then Jim went upstairs and started packing his clothes. He was very methodical and organized and seemed to have a careful plan of what he was taking. He asked if he could take some of the furniture and gave me a list of the things he wanted from the various rooms in the house and garage. He said he would have a truck come by on Sunday to pick up his belongings, and then he left. He came back on Sunday just as he planned and moved out. The children and I sat at the kitchen table and watched him leave — it was so surreal. We were all crying."

Get Organized as Soon as Possible

I listened to Sean carefully, sympathized with her, and told her I empathized with what she was going through. Then, to get her mind on to practical matters, I asked her to get a copy of her last three years' income tax returns, current year-end brokerage statements, an employee benefits summary, a recent pay stub, and a joint financial statement, because those files would be important. I explained to her that a financial statement would have been required when she and her husband financed or refinanced their house. Also, I cautioned her that if she couldn't locate the information, we needed to find out why. Would Jim have taken it with him? Could it be in his office or stored electronically on the computer? The importance of having financial data early on in a divorce can't be overemphasized. Later, you'll understand why.

I tell clients such as Sean that they should see a financial planner who understands the divorce process as soon as possible when divorce looms. A Certified Divorce Financial Analyst™ (CDFA™) is licensed and trained to provide financial support services to clients, attorneys, and mediators. These financial professionals will help you to:

• Identify, collect, and organize the financial information you and your attorney will need.

• Create pre- and postdivorce budgets.

• Determine the amounts of temporary maintenance and child support you realistically need.

• Create a plan to obtain the assets you are rightfully owed.

• Analyze various settlement options.

• Establish a postdivorce financial plan.

You can visit www.institutedfa.com to find a qualified financial planner in your area. If you cannot find a local planner with that designation, you may want to use the Financial Planning Association's search tool at www.fpanet.org/plannersearch/plannersearch.cfm. From there you can find advisors with the Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®) designation.

A financial planner can help you acquire and organize the information you and your attorney will need to be better prepared to cope with the intimidating legal process ahead. The attorney's job is to advise you on such matters as:

• Who should file and when.

• How you will get money for yourself and your children.

• When to issue temporary restraining orders on various bank savings and checking accounts.

• How to address other legal aspects of dissolving the marriage.

In Sean's case, no one had filed for divorce, and Jim had told his wife that he hadn't planned to file at the point of their separation. That may or may not have been his intention. Although Sean was shocked at her husband's surprisingly abrupt departure, his actions were not uncommon. In some cases, the departing spouse has been carefully developing a plan designed to hide his intentions. Shock is a powerful weapon in manipulating an unsuspecting partner. In other cases, women overlook or underestimate the signs of impending trouble, naïvely hoping things will improve.

In my twenty-five years of experience dealing with divorce cases, I have come to live by the motto Trust, but verify.

If divorce is a possibility, get organized as soon as possible. Get the facts while the spirit of cooperation and guilt is on your side. Your life will never be the same. You cannot go back to the way it was, as if there never was an erosion of trust. Even if Sean and Jim eventually get back together, their lives as a couple will have changed irrevocably.

The Corporate Wife

I'll never forget the first woman who came to me about her divorce. Her name was Susan, and she was forty-five years old. One of the first things she told me was that her divorce was going to be amicable. She and her husband had been married for more than twenty-five years, and they had three grown children, all college graduates. Her husband, Tom, was president of a large and successful corporation, and he had become involved with his secretary. Up until Susan had found out about the affair, their marriage had seemed happy and traditional. She had stayed home to raise the children, traveled as his companion when his company sent him around the world, and entertained his business clients and work associates in their beautiful and spacious home. When their children had moved out and started lives of their own, Susan thought it was finally time for them to become a couple again.

She was wrong.

Her story was not an unusual one. During the years that followed, I would hear stories like Susan's time and time again.

Susan did not want a divorce, but she couldn't live with "the other woman" in the picture. Tom, she said, was torn. He did not want to lose his wife, but he was not willing to give up his girlfriend. Since neither wanted a long legal battle, big attorney fees, restraining orders, and the bitterness of a legal squabble, they went to an attorney friend and attempted to negotiate their own property settlement. Property settlement is the term used for that portion of the divorce decree that specifies which party receives what assets, including furniture, stocks, insurance policies, and cars, and which party must assume what liabilities, including credit card debt, policy premiums, and loan payments.

During the next year, they were able to negotiate what they both considered a fair settlement. One of the issues for Susan was her earning ability. She had stayed home during the marriage and had been the primary parent raising the couple's three children. During the marriage, Tom had done a great deal of traveling, and she had spent a lot of time volunteering at their children's schools, driving the children to and from various activities, and helping them with homework. Both parents had placed a strong value on her activities during the child-rearing years. But now what? The children were out of the home.

Susan did work fifteen hours a week as a part-time marketing representative for a friend, earning $10,000 a year. As the top executive in his company, Tom earned more than $350,000 annually, in addition to stock options, a generous profit-sharing plan, an expense account, a car, and an international travel allowance. There was no doubt that Susan's life was going to change dramatically once she was divorced, since she would no longer be the partner who shared in her husband's corporate benefits.

Susan was plagued by fears, doubts, and insecurities about the transition from being married to being single, with good reason. Not only was she losing her financial support, but her emotional support as well. Many women become emotionally paralyzed during this time. Though they understand that they must bring in some kind of income, the last thing these women can think about is what kind of a career they should pursue. They can barely force themselves out of bed in the morning and make their way through the day.

For the husband, on the other hand, very little changes. He still goes to the same job every day, occupied with a career that normally requires his full concentration. He suffers very little long-term career and financial upheaval. Even so, neither party escapes without some emotional and financial scars and pain.

Susan came to me after she and Tom had been separated for six months. Although Tom was physically out of the house, he had continued to deposit half of his paycheck into their joint account. However, Susan had been informed that Tom was going to start reducing her allowance, or "maintenance" as he called the deposits, by 30 percent starting the next month, because he believed she didn't need as much as she had been getting.

Since Susan and Tom had worked out the details of their separation together, no court order or legal separation restricted Tom's decision. This meant that Tom was free to do whatever he wanted with his earnings — regardless of Susan's wishes or needs. This left Susan at a distinct disadvantage.

Clearly, Susan would need to increase her income to compensate for the reduction in her allowance. She made an appointment to see a career counselor. Although she'd never had a full-time job outside of the home, she felt that she had enjoyed a successful career — that of a corporate executive spouse, managing many business and social functions for her husband and for his company over the years. Now that the marriage had ended, she felt uncertain as to where she could apply her skills in the workplace. She also lacked motivation and drive.

Susan found herself facing some sobering statistics about the financial status of those who divorce:

• Women's economic well-being drops an average of 36 percent following a divorce, while men experience an increase of 28 percent.

• When compared to continuously married men and women, individuals who have not remarried following a divorce have been shown to experience a 66 percent lower level of personal wealth.

The career advisor helping Susan was excited to learn she had someone working with her on her finances. Susan had an attorney — a friend of the family — but she was unable to relate the property settlement numbers being discussed to her life. She needed to create a practical financial plan for her postdivorce life, but the reality of being on her own had not sunk in. She had married Tom after he graduated from college and had never really lived alone. Now, as she and Tom divided up the property, she had to anticipate what life would be like after divorce. For example, she wondered whether she should keep the 4,000-square-foot home. It seemed an attractive option, as it was a nice house and she was emotionally attached to it. But why would she maintain such a large home now that no children were living there, and with no income to support its upkeep? Tom believed she should get the house, along with most of the furniture, while he would get some of the cash from their bank accounts and most of the profit-sharing plan. But Tom didn't need the house. He had purchased a townhouse and lived there with his girlfriend when he was not traveling for his company.

Everyone seemed to have a plan but Susan. Together, we changed that. Working as a team, Susan's attorney, her career counselor, and I helped her create a strategy and execute it. As a result, Susan did receive a fair and equitable settlement. She eventually found a satisfactory job and is happy with her postdivorce life. Choosing the right professional team was Susan's first step toward a win-win solution.

The Wife as Alpha Earner

Sarah is an alpha earner, a term that now popularly describes a woman who makes more than her husband. As a radiologist, Sarah earned $300,000 a year. Her husband, Jeff, worked at the telephone company, earning $100,000 a year. They had three children ages twelve, ten, and seven. After their second child was born, Jeff and Sarah hired a nanny to help take care of the children.

Jeff had survived two mergers during the three years he worked following the birth of their youngest child, and he was finding his job less and less satisfying. Given the expense of a nanny and other help for the three children as well as Jeff's increasing job dissatisfaction, Sarah and Jeff agreed he would become a stay-at-home father. He had an interest in graphic arts and planned to take a one-year community college course in this area of study and then open his own business, which he could run from the house. They tried that arrangement for four years.

---

Excerpted from Fair Share Divorce for Women by Kathleen Miller. Copyright © 2007 Kathleen Miller. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---