How financial preparedness empowers your divorce, with My Divorce Solution

Jaime's joined by Catherine Shanahan and Karen Chellew, co-founders of My Divorce Solution, a divorce financial preparation service. They share how financial preparedness can make or break a divorce settlement, highlighting the importance of financial clarity and separating emotions from financial decisions. Learn how their innovative approach empowers individuals to make informed decisions and negotiate confidently for a smoother, more strategic divorce process.

Need help from Catherine and Karen? Contact them by visiting www.mydivorcesolution.com.

If you are in need of legal assistance in North Carolina, contact us at Gailor Hunt by visiting www.divorceistough.com.

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While the information presented is intended to provide you with general information to navigate divorce without destruction, this podcast is not legal advice. This information is based on specific to navigating relocation by the law in North Carolina. If you have any questions before taking action, consult an attorney who is licensed in your state.

Creators & Guests

Host

Jaime Davis

Family Law Attorney, Mediator, Author & Podcast Host

What is A Year and a Day: Divorce Without Destruction?

Board-certified family law attorney Jaime Davis and her guests provide information and tips for getting through a separation and divorce without destroying family relationships or finances. From marriage therapists and financial planners to private investigators and parenting coordinators, learn how to navigate divorce without destruction.

Jaime - 00:00:05:

Welcome to A Year and a Day. I'm Jaime Davis, board-certified family law attorney at Gailor Hunt. On this show, I talk with lawyers, psychologists, and other experts with the goal of helping you navigate divorce without destruction. In this episode, I'm talking with the co-founders of My Divorce Solution, Catherine Shanahan and Karen Chellew. Catherine, a former Financial Planner who became a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst after her own painful divorce, is passionate about helping women understand their marital estate to avoid being taken advantage of. Karen, with extensive experience as a Paralegal and Law Firm Business Manager, shares Catherine's mission. Together, they aim to revolutionize the divorce sector by addressing both financial and legal challenges in the process. They're also the hosts of the We Chat Divorce podcast. Catherine and Karen, thank you for joining me.

Catherine - 00:01:03:

Thank you, Jaime, for having us.

Karen - 00:01:06:

Thanks.

Jaime - 00:01:07:

So tell us about My Divorce Solution and what you do there.

Catherine- 00:01:11:

You know, we always get stuck. Who wants to talk? You know, where's our passion? Because we can go in so many different angles there. We've co-founded our company seven or eight years ago now because I had gone through my divorce and realized it wasn't about the finances so much. I had financial clarity, but I didn't really realize how that impacted the formal agreement and the legal language needed. So when I first started, I thought women needed to know how to have their financial clarity. But then I realized it was more than just that. And I knew Karen, who was working at a law firm, and I knew her through a nonprofit that she had and just went to her and said, the process needs to change. It's more than just financial clarity. It's having the knowledge to make sure you have a strong agreement and that you're able to articulate that with your lawyers and your team. So we came together to create a process where you would have financial autonomy. And you'd be able to make good decisions for yourself based on data and not based on emotions so much. And, you know, we came together and created an online platform to get organized and get your assessment and get your clarity needed. I'm sure Karen will add to that, but we get really excited. That's why we hesitate. Like, who wants to talk about it first?

Karen - 00:02:27:

That's so true. So we have a divorce preparation platform because we believe that the preparation piece is essential to know if you want to mediate or if that's going to work or not going to work. And so that you're also able to negotiate with confidence. So when people come to us, whether it's a singular client or a client and spouse, they're able to assemble their documentation and understand what the marital components are. We do their budgets. We work with them with division scenarios so that they even understand what they're dividing and what those different accounts mean to their marital estate. And then from there, they're able to move forward. And sometimes they negotiate a financial settlement with us so that they can move forward and finalize their divorce. Or they can move forward with this, what we call MDS financial portrait to their attorney or their mediator. To further the process.

Jaime - 00:03:27:

So if a client comes to you and they already have an attorney, do you all work with the lawyer? How does that work?

Karen - 00:03:35:

Absolutely. So any person who comes to us who have already retained an attorney, The very first thing we want to do is get on the phone with the attorney and the client so that we understand the attorney's positioning and strategy, what the attorney feels that we could best help their client financially, so that we're all on the same page helping the client move forward together. So that's a really important connect for us so that everybody's in the loop and in the know.

Jaime - 00:04:06:

So what is the first step of the process when a client reaches out to you all?

Catherine - 00:04:14:

The first step is for them to take our online assessment to see if they qualify to be a client or not, or if we're even a fit. We ask them a few questions and they get their results. And then we have a call with them to determine where they are in the process, what they're looking for, and if in fact we are a fit for them.

Jaime - 00:04:31:

Why is financial preparedness so crucial when someone is approaching a separation or divorce?

Catherine - 00:04:38:

Oh boy. Yeah, here we go. I mean, we will be all over the place. I don't even know how you would move forward with divorce or even a parenting plan if you don't understand your finances, what your marital state, there's assets, debts, there's income, there's expenses. And those two can kind of intertwine sometimes in people's minds. And so, I mean, Karen and I have these conversations. As a matter of fact, we had one today about a credit card being an expense or being a debt depending on how you pay it. Right. So there's so many things to consider. And going to your attorney, I'm sure, Jaime, you're going to agree. When you have a prepared client, you get to be that dynamic attorney saying, okay, now I can see everything that's here. And we're talking about fact. We're not talking so much about emotions all the time. Even though there is really an emotional value to assets and debts and income and expenses, you have to be able to sort that out to make any... Any type of clear decisions for yourself. And when I say it goes into even the parenting section of it, it's that a lot of times people are fighting over how many days a week you're going to have the children. They're not even really considering what the reality of it is. Like, okay, you work five late night shifts each week. You're not going to have the kids that time. But the person in their mind is thinking, what do I have to pay? You know, what am I paying? What's going to be my child support calculation? What's going to be my alimony? So they're really not making a smart decision for a parenting plan because they're so caught up in what the financial impact is to determine any of that. And then you have these families that are just more contentious than they have to be because they don't have any financial foundation to work off of. It's all just swirling around in this emotional world, which is very costly.

Jaime - 00:06:25:

Yeah, I think separation can be such a scary time anyway. And people have so much fear of the process and what to expect. And if you don't have an understanding of your finances, that's one more thing to be scared and worried about. But if you have someone who can help you and bring clarity to that, what do you and your spouse have? What is your half potentially going to look like? What is a realistic budget for you? How much money are you going to need in child support and alimony to be able to meet your expenses? Having that clarity helps ease the fears and I think helps folks make better sound decisions rather than just spinning and being anxious because they don't know what to expect.

Karen - 00:07:14:

I completely agree. I think a lot of people, when they hire an attorney or a mediator, they believe that that professional is going to tell them what to do, what their share is, and it's just going to be taken care of for them. And sometimes they get all the way to their first settlement conference or a deposition or even discovery. And they realize that the attorney or the mediator is saying, what do you want? I just need to know what you want. And then they're way back on their heels. So our process allows them to get all the way up to speed on what they want and why they want it and be able to talk about different scenarios so that they can compromise again with financial clarity. And then that just makes their relationship with any other professional that they have much more productive and efficient.

Jaime - 00:08:08:

That is such a great point. I say all the time to my clients, as your lawyer, there are certain decisions I just can't make for you. Like, I can't decide for you whether or not you're happy with a particular settlement proposal. And having a really good understanding of what the client wants is important. And there needs to be a back and forth, I think, between the client, the attorney, the financial planner, all of the folks about, okay, this is what the client wants, but is it realistic? Will the law let them get what it is that they're seeking? And there needs to be a conversation about that.

Catherine - 00:08:44:

Jaime, you asked earlier, do we get on the call with the attorneys? And that's exactly why it's important because when we talk through division scenarios, we're not attorneys, we're financials, right? So we're going through, we have all of their data, we've assessed it, we know what's missing, what they have. And when we're going through scenarios, we need to talk to their attorney or their mediator. Is this realistic? Is this what, not so much their mediator, but their attorneys. Is this realistic in your county? Every county's different. Every state's different. We're in every state. So that's a really important phone call because It's a realistic conversation. Okay, we know you want this, but it's not realistic. And your attorney cannot advocate for that because there's no case law to match any of that. And so we don't know that. So those phone calls are really encouraged by us so that we can have that conversation. And then we can go through a couple of scenarios that they can bring back to you as the attorney and say, here's my A choice, my B choice. You wanted to know what I want. Well, this is what I want. And it's in line with what you said on the phone call that could be an appropriate strategy to take.

Jaime - 00:09:48:

Yeah, one of the things that we see a lot, you know, A client will come to us, they potentially have young children, and they're worried about payment of college expenses for this very young child. And I have to have a very frank conversation with them that, at least in North Carolina, there is no requirement for parents to pay for college education for children. And so sometimes that can be a very tough conversation to have as well.

Catherine - 00:10:14:

Yeah, it's so emotionally based, right?

Jaime - 00:10:16:

Absolutely.

Karen - 00:10:17:

I just had a conversation with a couple yesterday. They were making those decisions in real time. They had three going off to college and their accountant had recommended that they deplete one of their 401(k) accounts for that purpose. So I was having a mini heart attack just having a conversation with them because I said, you know, I commend you for wanting to help your children. Every parent wants to help their children, right? But if you don't have the clarity of what that means to the remainder of your marital estate and you don't understand the impact of that decision, you could be making financial decisions that you can't undo. So, there may be other options, but you should explore your decisions before making those transactions, especially when they're going to be divided in half in a couple months. And they hadn't even thought of that.

Jaime - 00:11:13:

Well, especially too. In a separation divorce scenario, you're going to want a chance to build back the half of the retirement that you're potentially giving to your other spouse. And so if you were liquidating that retirement, I mean, not to mention the tax consequences and penalties that might be associated with that, you know, you're also depleting what you have left and your ability to recoup that as you continue to work.

Catherine - 00:11:36:

I'm so glad we're bringing this up because it also goes with non-retirement plans. I can't tell you how many times I'll hear, oh, but we opened this brokerage account for our children's education. Mind you, they're not 529 plans. They're just accounts that they've opened up. And sure, while they were married, they discussed fall goes well and everything's great. This account we could use to fund the kids' college education. Well, fast forward, you're getting divorced. Well, your mindset has to change a little bit. We all want to provide our kids everything that we can, but maybe you can't afford to pay for half of your kid's college. So you give away this big brokerage account. There goes a large part of your marital estate that... Now your lifestyle can change. And who knows, your kid might get a scholarship or not go to college. So don't negotiate away something until you really know the impact of what that decision will be.

Jaime - 00:12:28:

So what are the potential roadblocks that can be avoided by having a solid financial plan as you're approaching a separation?

Catherine - 00:12:38:

Prematurely negotiating away, like we just discussed, something that will negatively impact your future is one of them. So it's premature negotiations because you just want to be nice or because your spouse is promising you something in the honeymoon period of the divorce process. Be very careful to make any agreement until you know the overall impact of that agreement. Even if it's a little side-off agreement, so many people sell their houses and they split the proceeds. Okay, well, you can't go back and unsplit that.

Jaime - 00:13:09:

Right. And there's the guilt factor. If one spouse in the relationship committed marital misconduct, they're probably feeling a little bit guilty and probably feeling a little more generous trying to assuage that guilt. And so I always try to caution folks, how are you going to feel about this decision that you're making three years, five years from now? Are you still going to be happy that you gave your spouse 75% of the property or not?

Karen - 00:13:33:

And a lot of times a physical separation will occur in just the way the spouses are managing the cash flow can have financial impact moving forward. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. I'll ask them, have you spoken with your attorney about how you're arranging this and the date of division of assets? The answer typically is no. So they're just spending money how they think they should be spending money. And sometimes it is a guilt factor, Jaime, for the lower earning spouse. But, they could be setting up a precedence. Again, that's really hard to undo.

Jaime - 00:14:16:

Yeah, that is a great point. Also we tell folks, be careful of the standard of living that you set up during the marriage because if you get separated, you're probably going to be stuck with that same accustomed standard of living. And so folks who potentially were overspending during the marriage, not saving as much as they should or could havemaybe looking at a precedent where the other spouse gets to maintain that level of spending following separation.

Catherine - 00:14:48:

That's a very confusing concept for a lot of people. It's a good conversation to have before you start any decisions on that as well. I want to bring up the guilt factor of, in particular, women. Women who just want a divorce. There's no cheating going on. They just want to be happy. They can sustain their lifestyle with the money that the family has or the income they have. They carry so much guilt. And when I say that, I say it in the fashion of, I'm just going to let him have that. No, he can have that. No, I don't want to take his pension. No, I don't want to do that. I make enough money to support myself. No, it's okay because they feel so guilty for just wanting to be happy. They have nothing bad really to say about their spouse. They just don't want to live with them for the rest of their lives. I always say, be careful before you give all that stuff away because you don't know if you're going to get sick down the road, if you can't really afford to maintain your lifestyle, if you lose your job. So guilt should not play a role in what you think your marital state, how you think your marital state should be divided. Find out first the way the law would go and what it would look like, and then decide if you really want to give all that stuff away.

Jaime - 00:15:57:

Yeah, it needs to be a business decision. I feel like folks at least need to know what the law would do for them. Like, what would you be entitled to? What would your spouse be entitled to? And if after having time to think about that, review it, understand it, you still want to agree to something that is less than what you might be entitled to, of course, that is your decision to make. But at the very least, you need to know what you're entitled to.

Catherine - 00:16:25:

That's one of the things I love about our process. Because we're not attorneys, because we don't file for you, when you have that space to come get organized. Come look at what your marital state might look like, what some division scenarios would be. I mean, we have a lot of people who actually end up staying married. They just had a total financial imbalance. They then go meet with their attorneys and they really get an eye awakening of what it's going to look like. And they say, hey, let's just go back to marriage counseling and see if we can work this out emotionally. So it gives you that space to really get prepared before you take that next step.

Jaime - 00:17:01:

Well, and to be frank, some folks can't afford to be divorced and to live at the same level that they're living as a married couple. I mean, let's face it, it costs more to run two households than it does one. And if you're already barely making ends meet, you're certainly not going to be able to pay for two comparable homes at that same level of income. And so that can be a decision-making factor that, hey, maybe counseling is not a bad way to go and maybe we just need to make it work.

Karen - 00:17:31:

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes just balancing that financial relationship creates a pathway for reconciliation. And I think that's what you're saying, because sometimes it's just about someone feeling restricted and that's the only way they know how to fix that issue. You know, we say when you come to my divorce solution, it's not, divorce isn't always your solution. It could be a whole variety of things, but you can't make those future decisions unless you know what you have and you know what it means to you, whether you stay together or whether you separate or divorce or get a postnuptial agreement or whatever you decide to do.

Jaime - 00:18:12:

So if a person is contemplating a separation, how should they begin the process of gathering and organizing their financial information? Are there key documents that you think they should prioritize?

Karen - 00:18:24:

So our process is educational, structured, efficient. So if you come to us, we're going to build out all of that step by step. But to your point, if you were just contemplating it, you weren't ready to make an investment into financial clarity, your tax return is a very key document. Some people have access to them. Some people do not. And tax transcripts aren't typically the best option. But having account statements, retirement account statements, things like that, making sure you have pay stubs. Those are the beginnings of building out key and supporting documents as we call them. And then you continue to build on that.

Jaime - 00:19:14:

How do you handle it if someone comes to you and they want help with their finances, but they just don't have access to any of their spouse's financial information?

Catherine - 00:19:24:

Well, our process does allow for us to invite their spouse to participate. So what we do is we start with, like Karen mentioned, we do build out what you think you have. And having that conversation, people really realize a lot more than they know, right? So when we have the one-on-one conversation, we're able to talk through different types of accounts, their history, and kind of pinpoint some. If they don't have a tax return, we will try to help them apply to the IRS to get that. And then if they feel comfortable. Then we could do an introduction to their spouse. We tell them what to say to their spouse. We ask their spouse to participate. If the spouse does not want to participate or our client does not want the spouse to participate, there will come a point that their attorney will have to get involved because legally we cannot force somebody else to participate. And then, of course, it goes to the attorney, as you know, and subpoenas and anything else that they would need to get that.

Karen - 00:20:19:

But at least they have the foundation of what they have and they have the knowledge of the type of marital estate that will be, you know, eventually divided. More times than not, a very high percentage of our clients have access to so much more information and documentation than they ever thought. We help them know how to go to the bank. We help them know how to talk to their financial planner, their accountant, other financial professionals that have a fiduciary to them that will provide them information and documentation that they otherwise would have no idea that they had access to. That's a large percentage of people.

Jaime - 00:20:56:

Can you share an example of where your approach has made a significant difference for a client?

Catherine - 00:21:03:

Oh my gosh, we can share several. A good example is a woman who came to us. And she and her husband just decided to get a divorce. And they were getting along. It was the honeymoon period. And he said, okay, you can have access. Go into my whatever accounts and pull down the statements because she handled their finances. So she does. And she pulls down his company, RSUs, Restricted Stock Units, ledger, and some other documents. And she has them. Well, we're getting her organized. And about a month into the process, he decides he doesn't want to be involved anymore. He talked to his attorney. And he wants to go the attorney route. And he doesn't want to be involved. So we tell her to go to her attorney now. There's nothing we can do. And we'll complete your portrait with the information that we have. And we met with her attorney. We kind of told her what we got, what was missing, and left it at that. A couple of months later, she calls us back and she says, you know, can I just have another meeting with you? Because I feel like there's something missing. My husband said he didn't have something financially. And I believe that we went over it and he did. And so she comes in and we meet and I compare the agreement that's going back and forth with the financial portrait that we have. And I said, oh. Well, there's no RSUs on here. And it was like two or 400,000. I think it was like 400,000. And so we call the attorney and we know the attorney and we say, okay, there's something missing here. And she said, no, I asked about the husband said he didn't have anymore. I said, well, wait a minute. Here's the ledger. We got it way back when she first came to us. So the attorney said, oh, so should we give it to her? So the attorney goes, okay, well, the other side didn't disclose that, you know, reaches out to the other side. And the husband says, oh, well, no one ever really asked me about that. They just asked for my W-2 and they never brought it up again. And so because she had come to the process and got prepared and had that documentation, her attorney was able now to go back and get that for her. So that was almost a $200,000 mistake that she would have walked away from just because her husband says, well, nobody really asked me to disclose that.

Jaime - 00:23:11:

Wow, that's great that you guys had that ledger that you could show the client's attorney.

Catherine - 00:23:16:

Oh, her attorney was like, you know, she sends us people because she just loves, you know, attorneys love a prepared client, right? And because we don't come as an aggressive standpoint, because we're not attorneys, we're just trying to help people gather the information they're going to have to supply at some point and do it in a less costly manner. And then their attorneys are prepared to actually advocate for them. But if you don't have the information. So it was really very interesting. But I was really proud of her because she was very emotional in the beginning and everything was emotionally based. And then when she started gathering statements in the documents, she was still scared, but she felt like, okay. And then it, you know, it went left, so they, you know, they weren't talking anymore. But because she had that information, she just felt so much better about herself and moving on. And she did have to go back to work. I mean, it was a different lifestyle, like you mentioned before. But for her, that was a big change in her overall agreement, moving forward, that's a lot of money.

Jaime - 00:24:13:

Oh, absolutely. What a great story.

Karen - 00:24:16:

I just want to bring up one more recently. And this is, we see this quite often where, I guess I'm going to say the financially restricted spouse comes and is so fearful, for lack of a better word, of how their spouse is going to react if they ask for documentation or if they say, I just want a copy of the tax return or all of these different type of financial documents. They're really afraid. I think just this past two weeks, Catherine got this couple through where we did reach out to the spouse. He did come to the table. And they were both able to discuss in a way that they. That just created the financial autonomy for both of them because all of our divorce financial specialists or CDFAs are mediation trained. So they're able to help with that communication piece. And at the end of the day, they just had such a dysfunction with the way they talked about finances. And when that is balanced out, they can have productive conversations. And I think then they negotiated all the way to a settlement. And that's one of the really great things is really just becoming rooted in financial clarity to the extent that you can speak with your spouse about it in a way that either you reconcile or you're able to move through negotiations way more effectively.

Jaime - 00:25:43:

Yeah, it's interesting. They say that those underlying issues that you've had in your marriage with communication or in this instance, talking about finances, all of those things just become exacerbated when you're going through a separation. And so helping folks work through that communication and making sure that perhaps the spouse who did not have all of the information is on equal footing with the other spouse can make such a huge difference.

Karen - 00:26:12:

Absolutely.

Catherine - 00:26:13:

And I imagine even for you as an attorney, it makes a difference with how you get to work, right? Because You have to work with. The data, not the emotions. You can't make good decisions or help people make good decisions if you're not basing it on the facts, I should say. And so when they come to you. I've been on calls with attorneys where we're going through a division scenario and I just watch our client because they've gone through it. We're not telling them what they're going to get and we're not telling them what they should get. That's not our role. Our role is to put the information together, assess it and put it out there. And the attorney was asking her questions because it's the week before mediation and that's when the attorney wants to be really fully prepared on what their position is going to be. And this client knew her A and B scenario. Every time the attorney asked something, she was answering it based on this. And the attorney was so impressed with her because he was like, I can go do this. Like, I could do this. You're telling me what you want, I have the data here and I see it. It makes sense. And he had one little tweak about something. And so we made that little tweak about it because that was his legal opinion. And it was really a very enlightening call to be on to watch the whole exchange. I really wasn't needed there for that much because this client was so prepared at that point. I was actually really proud of her. And so he was so impressed. He was so geared up for their next step.

Jaime - 00:27:46:

Yeah, it can be really tough when we don't have the information that we need. And you're always wondering, especially if your client is the one who does not have the financial information, is something being left on the table? You know, has the other side fully disclosed everything? And so if the client can work with someone to help them get their financial information in order, that's certainly helpful to us. I mean, we do a bit of that as well. But like you mentioned, it may be more cost effective for the client to work through some of those initial things with you all.

Karen - 00:28:15:

That's so true. And I'm going to say one more thing because so many times, especially with the non-financial manager, as we refer to them, they sometimes focus on things that aren't really worth investing time and money in. For instance, he or she cheated or they, you know, whatever the case may be. So we'll explore that a little bit with them. And sometimes it is worth investigating. Sometimes it's not, but we do try to help people to stay focused on the, on spending and investing money on the piece of the marital estate that will impact them. Because if you spend 20 or 30 or $40,000, chasing a $5,000 trip to Costa Rica. You know, that's just an imbalance and it's emotionally upsetting. So we also try to help clients in that space as well to really chase or investigate assets and debts that will impact their division scenario.

Jaime - 00:29:24:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it sounds so cliche, but it doesn't make any sense to spend good money going after bad, right? If you don't know you're going to get it, it may not be worth it.

Catherine - 00:29:34:

Right. A lot of times we hear, oh, my attorney said I need to hire a forensic. And we're wondering, why do you need a forensic? There's no business here. There's checking. And it's because the client would go to the attorney and say, my husband's been stealing money for years. He's had affairs. It's been like this for the last five or 10 years. So what is the attorney going to say? Okay, well, then we need to get a forensic because how, you know, how are they going to figure out? A lot of those times it's, it's the conversation that Karen's saying, is this worth them even looking at? And we don't need a forensic to check just bank accounts, right? Certain bank accounts, you could see if money has been spent, but how far back are you even going to go as the attorney? What legally is their right to go back if you're married and it's been going on for 10 years? So you need to know that first before you go down any rabbit hole.

Jaime - 00:30:24:

Yeah. And another interesting nuance we see too is, I'll have a client say, my spouse has run up all of this credit card debt. There is no way that is marital debt. I didn't know they were doing it. And we start to look at it and we're like, well, it's normal household spending. I mean, maybe they didn't tell you they were going to the spa or buying whatever they were buying, but it's still a marital expense and still counts as marital debt.

Karen - 00:30:47:

And getting all of that information and data neutralized to some level is really helpful for people then moving forward.

Jaime - 00:30:54:

Yeah. It's all about separating the emotion, as you said earlier.

Catherine - 00:30:59:

Yeah. And not discounting it, but separating it for sure. And again, because we're a flat fee and because our process is set up, we have a 10-step process. We can hear your emotions in there. You have a team and you message us and so forth, but we're able to let them unload that in a certain way that we can just focus it down to their portrait, which then is so useful to you as the attorney or if they go to mediation or what have you.

Jaime - 00:31:26:

So I have a question for each of you. If you could give only one piece of advice to someone going through a divorce, what would it be?

Karen - 00:31:35:

So my piece of advice is take it one day at a time every day. Schedule those panics. I call it the 20-day panic rule. Sometimes it's a 24-hour panic rule, but whenever you want to get upset or whenever you want to react. Schedule that for whatever time, for as far down the road as you can push it. And if it's still an issue at that time, then you can choose to panic. Because I think in divorce, there's things happening every single day. There's triggers that's being set off. There's so much emotional trauma, for lack of a better word, that's happening. And to the extent you can just say, it's here today, I'm going to get these things done. I'm going to set this aside. I'm going to either talk with my therapist about it, or I'm going to see how it plays out, whatever the case may be. That is so effective in getting through these types of situations. It helps you to clear your head and make good decisions one day, one step at a time.

Catherine - 00:32:39:

I'm going to say, give yourself a little bit of grace. And the most important thing, even for myself going through it, is to remember that divorce is not your entire story. Divorce is a part of your story. It's not going to define who you are for the rest of your life. You get to define who you are for the rest of your life. So when going through this period, listen to your gut and get the financial information that you need to make really smart decisions for yourself moving forward.

Jaime - 00:33:08:

Those are both very wonderful pieces of advice for folks going through a divorce. If any of our listeners want some more information about your process and My Divorce Solution, where's the best place for them to get that information?

Karen - 00:33:23:

So they can go to our website, www.mydivorcesolution.com. We're on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. And again, we have the WeChat Divorce Podcast. We're on YouTube. So our information is all over the place. But if you want to engage our services or explore our services, the website is the best place to start.

Jaime - 00:33:46:

Well, Catherine and Karen, thank you both so much for joining us.

Catherine - 00:33:49:

Thank you, Jaime.

Karen - 00:33:50:

Thanks for having us.

Jaime - 00:33:56:

Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, be sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss the next one. While the information presented is intended to provide you with general information to navigate divorce without destruction, this podcast is not legal advice. This information is specific to the law in North Carolina. If you have any questions before taking action, consult an attorney who is licensed in your state. If you are in need of assistance in North Carolina, you can contact us at Gailor Hunt by visiting divorcestuff.com. I'm Jaime Davis, and I'll talk with you next time on A Year and a Day.