Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from True Story FM. Today we continue the nuts and bolts of your divorce by talking about your responsibility, and that of your toaster.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show everybody. I'm Seth Nelson, as always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright. Today we're talking about you. Now most people are going to say, "That's great," but you might not like it. Here's why. We're going to talk about your actions in a divorce. Everybody wants to talk about all the bad stuff that their spouse or former spouse is doing if it's a post-judgment case. But we want to talk about you in ways and things that you can do and not do to make your divorce easier, and less expensive, and a little more streamlined.
Pete Wright:
Seth, I'm excited about this. I like what we're doing this season, the nuts and bolts of your divorce case. This is going to be a great season and today we're starting with, I don't know, who's to blame in what screws up your case, and how do you know it's you?
Seth Nelson:
A little bit, yeah. So remember when you're going through a divorce, it's a very, very difficult time. It takes up a lot of space in your head. It literally can consume you, and that's not uncommon. And when people are consumed, and their personality traits are heightened, and things are stressful, they don't always make the best decisions. And the reason they don't make the best decisions is they're very reactive, as opposed to responding. And I think the difference between reaction and response is, reaction is without thought, and the response is after thought.
So I always encourage people, and the things we're going to talk about today, we need to be thoughtful, we need to be intentional. You have agency, you have power over... Everything I'm going to talk about today is all within your control, and in a divorce it feels like you don't have control. But these are the things that you can control that will make your life easier and make your divorce less stressful, less phone calls to lawyers, which is less expense, and doesn't slow down the process.
Pete Wright:
You built out a little curriculum for us today. We're going to walk through each of these items one by one. Don't forget if you're listening to this live, you can ask us questions on LinkedIn, YouTube or Facebook. They're all streaming live whatever your platform of choice is, and we may just answer them on the show. For now, let's start with what you are thinking about Seth. Standing orders. What are standing orders? How do they affect behavior of divorcing parties?
Seth Nelson:
This is our favorite tagline. Check your local jurisdiction. But very frequently across the country when a divorce is filed, the court, the judge enters an order and it's called a standing order. It is always in place during the pendency of your case. And what that order does is it tells the parties, we haven't looked at your case, we don't know any facts about your case, but this is how you should be behaving. And if you're not going to be behave in what this order is telling you and how to behave, there could be consequences, and some of them could be severe consequences.
Pete Wright:
Okay, so give me an example. What kind of constraints are they putting on behavior in a template standing order?
Seth Nelson:
The financial makeup and what typically happens, which we call keep everything status quo, should be the same. So someone files for divorce, what happens frequently is one party will immediately start running up a credit card bill. Well, if that's not your typical spending, you shouldn't be doing that. So when someone starts running up a credit card bill, I call it they pulled that rope. They're like, "Okay, here we go. We're going to start playing this tug of war." What does the other person do? Cuts off the credit card. Now one party swipes the card and it doesn't go through and they're mad. Well then they call their lawyer, start running the legal fees.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, we're escalating now.
Seth Nelson:
That lawyer calls the other lawyer, more legal fees. That lawyer has to call their client and ask client, "Did you turn off the credit card? Did you limit it? Did you do this? Did you set up? Did you just cancel it?" "Yes," let's assume they did it. "Why?" "Well $20,000 run up on the bill." And then the question from me, "What's the typical spending on that card?" "Two grand." That first client did not maintain the status quo. They overshot it by 18 grand, which now causes that credit card to be-
Pete Wright:
Cut off.
Seth Nelson:
Cut off.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Right. So how do you handle that?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, what are the implications of that?
Seth Nelson:
If I'm advising a client, I'm telling them leave the credit card where it normally is, and just put the limit to what the normal spending was.
Pete Wright:
So you mean literally call the credit card company and say, I need you to adjust the limit.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. We typically spend on this card $4,000, put the limit at four grand. Okay. And if they want to go argue about that in court, I'm happy to do that because I'm going to say, "Yeah, judge, it went from 2 to 18, or to 20."
Pete Wright:
Right after the divorce was-
Seth Nelson:
Right after or right before, which was not what was typically happening in the year before. "So what my client did is he put a limit on that card that we can show you over the last 12 months was the typical spending on that card. We're maintaining the status quo." Okay?
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Another option is, which isn't necessarily the best option, you got to get the lawyers to try to work this out, but I'm talking about actions that you can do on your own with trying to save some fees. They spend $18,000, they spend $20,000, they typically spend 2. Pay two grand down.
Pete Wright:
And then leave the rest for-
Seth Nelson:
Leave the rest. And if it's after the date of filing in Florida, check your local jurisdiction. Any card that gets run is that person's debt that they have to pay for. Now you might have a support obligation like oh, it was a typical miracle expense, so you both should pay. We can work all that out, and I know interest is ticking, but I assure you the interest on these credit cards, as outrageous as they can be, is less than lawyer fees.
Pete Wright:
That's a really great thing to remember because we already know how a frustrating credit card debt can be. It is hard and counter-instinctual for a lot of people to say, "We're just going to let it go."
Seth Nelson:
Right. "I'm just going to ruin my credit." Nope, pay your bill. But these are just things you can do at the very front end. And one, don't cut off the card, but if this is happening, look at the spending. You got to be honest, you can't just make these numbers up.
By the time this is happening, you're going to be talking to your lawyer, so your lawyer's going to advise you on what to do, and check with them. But I'm just saying at the very front end, don't cut off people's access to credit. Don't reset limits, don't do anything. Leave it all the same. If they start playing games, then we need to respond, but we are going to respond by saying, "Let's go look at what we've done in the last 12 months. I'm going to write a letter to the other lawyer saying, 'Your client's overspent by this much. He's limited to this.'"
And I'm going to put it all out there on paper because then, fast-forward, when you go to court and they put you on the stand and they say, "Did you drop the credit to $4,000?" "Yes." "Why?" "Objection, your honor, attorney-client privilege." Which tells everybody in the courtroom, I'm the guy, the lawyer told him to do it.
Pete Wright:
Okay. That you instructed him to do this adjustment.
Seth Nelson:
And then they said, "Answer the question, but do not reveal attorney-client privilege." I can't answer the question. But you see how now we've done it by being responsible and responsive, and that's a long way to get to court. This doesn't happen overnight, but it creates conflict along the way.
So one thing you do, don't run up credit cards. Keep the status quo on spending. Don't get all upset if all of a sudden there's a $3,000 bill that gets run and you realize, you know what, that was the insurance. We usually run that bill every year, but it just, you saw three grand and you freaked out. You've got to respond. You've got to think about this stuff. Don't be reactive. Okay, that's some basic stuff on status quo on credit cards. Let's talk about other financials. Pay the car payments, pay the health insurance, pay your car insurance, keep it status quo.
Pete Wright:
I mean you say status quo with a lot of weight and gravitas. It sounds very important. What happens when a non-status quo event occurs? Somebody has to have surgery. Somebody that, you have to buy a car because you're in an accident. How easy is it to mitigate those kinds of extreme events that happened during the course of the divorce?
Seth Nelson:
Great question. So something that out of the ordinary comes up, then you're going to deal with that appropriately. But by calling your lawyer and saying, "Look, my spouse has to have surgery, or I have to have surgery. It's not an elective surgery. The doctor's saying I have to have it." Okay, that surgery is going to take place after the date of filing. We're talking about this is all after the date of filing. So in Florida, that's going to be a debt that's responsible for you, and we're going to put that into the mix. But go have your surgery, make sure the insurance is paid up.
But the problem comes in when someone canceled the insurance and now you have to have surgery, and now it's not covered. And now if my client was the one that has to have the surgery and the other spouse let their insurance lapse without letting us know, now I'm going to go argue that the out-of-pocket is all on them.
Pete Wright:
Because they're the ones who essentially sabotaged-
Seth Nelson:
The insurance.
Pete Wright:
The insurance, okay.
Seth Nelson:
Right. Car, you need a new car, that's fine. But let's be very clear. If you're trading in a car, how much was it? Produce the documents. You want to be transparent with the other side. Everybody in divorce wants to keep things in, give them the documents. Here's where it is. We're not hiding anything. We're tracing the money. Be transparent. Get that stuff to your lawyer, get it over to the other side. People that don't have the information, assume the worst. Give them the information.
Pete Wright:
Question coming in. Even if you plan a vacation from work is coming up and you plan a trip overseas, is that considered extravagant if it's a vacation?
Seth Nelson:
Oh, live question coming in. Here we go. So you're getting divorced. So I'm understanding the question I'm going to repeat it back to make sure I understand. You already have a vacation planned and you're going to go on that vacation. That's okay if that's what you've typically done. If it was already planned, that's okay. We can deal with that on the back end, but we're going to be transparent with the other side.
As you're aware, this trip was planned, I'm still going to go on this trip. You need to understand that by going on that trip, you might be ultimately responsible for paying for it. And as long as you're okay with that, then that's okay. If you're like, "Ooh, I only want them to pay for it." Well, they might not. The court might not require them to do that, so then we have to adjust accordingly. And whether it's extravagant or not depends on the trip, and depends on your standard of living, and your typical travel. So I try not to answer without the details.
Pete Wright:
That's fair. Where do you want to go from these financial issues? Do you want to move on to communication?
Seth Nelson:
Well, I'm going to go still with standing orders with kids.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
So a lot of this applies whether you have kids or not, but when it's a kid issue, I'm going to point it out, maintain the status quo again. Let's make sure that kids are getting picked up, that kids are going to their extracurriculars. We all know that the child-rearing will change. We all fall into our habits when we're married. Who's picking up the kids, who's not? Who's game to practice, who's working late? We know some of that's going to change.
Don't come in and try to be dad of the year all of a sudden and just take over. Your kids are going to need to transition to some of these different dynamics and responsibility, but don't put your kids in the middle. Don't communicate with the other co-parent through your children. Don't have conversations about the divorce with your kids. Don't text them about it. Don't get them involved in any way other than to say, "Both parents love you. We're going to do our best to work it out to do what's best for you, and we want you to be a kid."
Pete Wright:
Question. You said something that sticks out to me. Don't text your kids about, I presume what you're talking about, any of the divorce issues. At what point is it okay to have a standing text communication with your kid that doesn't have the other parent on it? Is that ever okay during the divorce?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, it depends on the age of the kid. I don't think every single communication is required to have both parents on it. I think that you need to be very careful with text because texting a lot is reactive. You get one in, boom, you hit it. There's not a lot of thought going into that. And we all know that it's going fast, because we all spell it wrong. So slow down, respond. And at some levels, I would actually be a little concerned if you had a joint text with both parents and the kid, because that's ripe for you to respond to what the parent's saying, and the kid's reading it.
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Seth Nelson:
So just be very, very cautious on that.
Pete Wright:
Okay. Where do we want to go from here? Anything else on kids, or do you want to talk about our favorite communication strategies?
Seth Nelson:
Right there, Pete, because that's going to be 90% of the ballgame is how you communicate. There's a reason you're getting a divorce. No matter what that is, that needs to be put aside, and you need to change the way you communicate with your soon-to-be former spouse. Every single communication you send is literally potential evidence to be used against you in a court of law. Judges hate text messages, judges hate poor communication, and it is a window into your soul. And some of them are like, "I'm tired of hearing it." They're numb to it. But what happens is they're numb to it, and then they read new communication, that even goes beyond their numbness.
Pete Wright:
Triggering.
Seth Nelson:
And then they're like, "This is the worst I've ever seen." And you will get hammered in court on that, and it was all preventable, because you're the one that did it. So couple things on communication.
Pete Wright:
Burn your phone.
Seth Nelson:
There we go.
Pete Wright:
I just want to make sure that's on the list. I just want to make sure the option of just burning your phone is on the list.
Seth Nelson:
I actually am not so violent against the phone. I just say break your thumbs, because then you can't text.
Pete Wright:
Self harm. That's good.
Seth Nelson:
But other than that, one, please go buy the book BIFF by Bill Eddy, and we'll have it in the show notes.
Pete Wright:
We sure will. Bill Eddy is a good friend. We have the, It's All Your Fault podcast on this very same network on True Story FM. You can listen to Bill all the time, he's wonderful.
Seth Nelson:
His way to discuss communication is just wonderful. So buy the book, read it, implement it.
Pete Wright:
Now we got to tell people, yeah, what does BIFF mean?
Seth Nelson:
Brief, informative, friendly, and firm. As you know, adjectives, an adjective is going to describe stuff. It's what writers use, it's what people use in the movies. Our questioner says, "Can I go on an extravagant, extravagant trip?" These are all wonderful words and uses in the English language, not when you're going through a divorce. We don't want adjectives, we don't want descriptive. You're not writing a novel. You are communicating with someone who you have a very difficult time communicating with. So we're going to be brief, we're going to be informative, we're going to be friendly, and we're going to be firm. So words that should be in your communications, please. Thank you.
Pete Wright:
So far so good. I can track with that.
Seth Nelson:
Okay, so you get some scathing text about how you're not agreeing to put a child in an extracurricular activity, and they're going to go on and on, and they're going to blame you, you, you and you. So you're going to respond to that by saying, "Thank you for your message. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts." Then you're going to say, "I don't believe that soccer with this team on these dates work best. Because," and now you're being informative. "They also have gymnastics later that day, the grades are struggling, I believe it's too much." Okay, so you've been brief, you've been informative, you've never say anything about the other parent. Then you're firm, and it's just your beliefs. So you've been brief, informative, and now you're going to be friendly and firm and you're going to say, "I'm sorry that we can't work this out at this time, and I'm not in agreement. If you have any other thoughts regarding it or how to solve these other issues, please let me know."
Pete Wright:
Tell me in your experience how people who are in a contentious divorce deal with the term, "I believe." Because it feels like that can be triggering too, and sort of open a door for someone to say, "I don't care what you believe. I care about the fact that I set up soccer, and they need to be at soccer."
Seth Nelson:
So I'm not concerned how the other person is responding to this. In a way of saying I believe is you're just giving, this is my perception, this is what I believe is right. By saying I believe, in my mind you are open to other interpretations. Someone else can have another belief.
I'm not poking them, but it just softens it for me. And there's other ways to do it, but what I don't like is, "It's not in the child's best interest," Because then you just sound like you're arguing in court. She seems to be struggling, the grades appear to be lower. I find her to be tired. So you can use these things that kind of like, not-
Pete Wright:
Observational, try to make it like, "This is what I'm seeing."
Seth Nelson:
That's right. What I always like to say is, and for the sports fans out there, you have the play-by-play announcer that only says what they see. Then you have the color commentary guy that puts it into perspective. No color commentary. No color commentary, it's all play by play. You are just looking at the field, you're telling them what you see, and you're done.
Pete Wright:
Okay, all right. I get that.
Seth Nelson:
Bill Eddy is great.
Pete Wright:
Now we're going to move to Love Island.
Seth Nelson:
Okay, here we go.
Pete Wright:
So we're talking about dating during divorce.
Seth Nelson:
That's a twist.
Pete Wright:
I know. Hard left turn to Love Island. Let's talk about the potential legal and emotional consequences of dating during your divorce.
Seth Nelson:
First off, if you're looking for a long-term relationship that you want to be sound, it's not the good time to start that relationship. Talk to a therapist about it.
Pete Wright:
Right. There are better times.
Seth Nelson:
When you bring in a third party into your divorce, which is what you're doing if you start dating-
Pete Wright:
Very different than bringing a third party into your marriage, if you know what I mean, wink.
Seth Nelson:
That's true. Which would frequently lead to the divorce.
Pete Wright:
Yes, indeed.
Seth Nelson:
You are asking for trouble. One, people tell me, "I don't understand why this is a problem. He's already dating someone. He had an affair, they've moved in together. What does it matter if I go out on a date, or if I'm out on the dating website or apps?" The problem is people are not rational and in their mind, yeah, they're okay to go out and they're okay to move in, but they don't want you to be happy. "And what do you mean you're now dating somebody?" They feel like they've lost some control on that. And I'm saying this, even if you don't have kids, but if you have kids now, "Oh, who's this person coming around my kids?"
Pete Wright:
Right. Suddenly that's a new thing to argue about.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. Which wasn't there before. So in my perfect world, as your lawyer, you wouldn't date during your divorce. I also understand that that doesn't always occur.
Pete Wright:
Lives are messy.
Seth Nelson:
If you are going to date, you need to understand the following things. That person you're dating can be a potential witness in your case, and we're going to talk about talking to friends and family. Where you go matters. So if all of a sudden you start dating someone and then you're with your kids, and you're getting text messages, and you're texting back, all of that is discoverable and can come into court, and they're going to say, "Well why is that discoverable?" Well, you're fighting for 50-50, and here you are and you're supposed to be with your kids that you want the time so badly, but we've got an hour of text messaging back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Pete Wright:
When you were with your kids.
Seth Nelson:
You're not spending time with your kids. So you need to be careful about how you communicate. You get that text message and you respond, "Thanks for the text. I'm with my kids. I will call you after they are asleep in bed." So you've got to be careful, but really the way the soon-to-be ex spouse, former spouse responds, you never, and this also happens after people are divorced, they're getting along great in their relationship, they're co-parenting great. Then someone starts dating someone or someone gets remarried, and it goes south quick.
Pete Wright:
So discoverable, like is cell phone like metadata discoverable?
Seth Nelson:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
We hear so much about metadata. So you're going to see who I called, and how long I was on the phone in addition to when, all of that kind of stuff, like actual phone?
Seth Nelson:
You can go get, you might have to fight for it, but I have gone to a phone and sent it to an expert who's downloaded everything, especially text messages to and from kids, to and from other parties.
Pete Wright:
That, I imagine is easier. Do you often, do you find yourself in a position to like, okay, I'm going to call AT&T Wireless and I'm going to get them to send me your call records.
Seth Nelson:
It's called the power of a subpoena. And the answer is yes.
Pete Wright:
Okay, that's good to know. Keep that in your quiver.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, be careful what you do on your phone.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. This dovetails into talking to friends and family.
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Seth Nelson:
You need to have support. We want you to have support during difficult times. Be careful what you say. I would much prefer you go pay a therapist and talk to them, and deal with that for that hour once a week, or twice a week, or once every other week, whatever you need to do. Because when you're talking to your friends and you're talking to your family, everything you say can be used against you in court, and you're making all of those friends witnesses.
Pete Wright:
Right, because you're in court and you suddenly see, they call your next witness and it's your best friend.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. You're going to-
Pete Wright:
That's horrifying. Why would you want to put them in that position?
Seth Nelson:
You're going to find out before. Because what I've done is I take depositions, and one of my questions is, "Who have you talked to about this divorce?" And they give me this long list, and now I can go depose every single one of them. "What did they say? What did they do?" And then, "Who did you talk to about preparing for this deposition, Mr. Witness?" And then they say, "Oh, well I talked to their lawyer." "Well what did their lawyer tell you?" And it gets a little vague in this, but you can start digging in.
"Did you talk about the divorce?" "No." "Did you talk, complain about the spouse?" "No." "Yes. What did they say? Did they say anything good? Did they tell you"... Why are you going to put your friends through this? So be careful. Be careful. Therapist, it's a protected communication. And let me tell you, your friends are great, but sometimes they get tired of hearing about this anyway.
Pete Wright:
Use your friends to talk about stuff to get your mind off your divorce.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. That's right. And they say, how's the divorce going? You can say, "Look, it's really difficult. My lawyer told me I don't really want to talk to you, because I don't want to make you a witness, and hopefully we're going to get through it, but it's stressful. Can we talk about something else please?"
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Seth Nelson:
Your friends will respect it.
Pete Wright:
Okay. Just in terms of friends and people who are also on your divorce team, can you just remind us whose communication is protected versus unprotected?
Seth Nelson:
I'm just going to tell you who's protected. If you're talking to your doctor, that's protected. If you're talking to your therapist, that's protected. You're talking to your lawyer or someone in your lawyer's office, that's protected.
Pete Wright:
Full stop.
Seth Nelson:
Full stop. With the exception. See how I did that, Pete?
Pete Wright:
Of course, that was good.
Seth Nelson:
Lawyer is full stop. There's always exceptions to the rules, we won't get into the minor ones on lawyers. Like if you're going to commit a crime, we have to let you know and stuff like that. But your medical records, if mental health is an issue, those might come out. But they're just, there's different levels, but be very, very careful on who you're talking to that does not have these protections. Super, super important.
Pete Wright:
All right, do we need to talk more about your therapist?
Seth Nelson:
Get one. That's why it's back on the list. I'm serious. It sounds so silly. Get one. It will save you money.
Pete Wright:
I mean is there anything specific one should consider when looking for a divorce therapist? What are the questions that you as an attorney would say, "Go ask this person these questions. They're going to be a good partner for you."
Seth Nelson:
I would tell you, if you're going through a divorce and you're getting a therapist, your number one goal isn't to solve all of your problems and figure out why you got where you are. Your goal is, I am coming to you to help me emotionally get through this difficult time called a divorce. Help me, give me the skill set on how I can respond better, how I can compartmentalize what's going on in my life so when I'm with my kids and my ex texts me, it doesn't set me off. It doesn't trigger me. What skills can you give me to regulate my emotions, to focus on what I need to focus on when I need to focus on it? That's why you should be going to a therapist.
Pete Wright:
That is so good. I love the way you're thinking about that, the way you talk about that, because it's as if I'm going to a therapist and saying, "Look, I am creating trauma for myself right now by way of this process. I don't want to talk about my childhood, I don't want to talk about anything else if it doesn't relate to getting through this trauma, and being different on the other side."
Seth Nelson:
That's why you should be going during your divorce. On the other side, Pete, I'm with you. Figure out why you got into this mess.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, do that.
Seth Nelson:
But in the meantime, and a therapist I think should be like, "Oh, if I can help this person through this, they're going to really be able to work through their other traumas in life if there are some, or just how did they get here, and what did they do, and how to move forward." But literally go to them and say, "I'm looking for you to teach me how to better handle this very difficult situation."
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Okay.
Seth Nelson:
A hundred percent.
Pete Wright:
All right, we're on our last point here, and it seems to be, for me, this one feels the most sort of ceremonially weighty. We're talking about relocation, moving out.
Seth Nelson:
Moving out and actually filing for divorce sometimes go hand in hand, so we're going to talk about both of those. But moving out is where a lot of stress occurs because one, you're going to have belongings that you want to take with you. Some are going to be your personal belongings that everyone agrees are your personal belongings. Some people are going to argue about like, "No, that's ours. No, that's mine. No, that was a gift for me." They're just objects. They're just objects.
But moving out, I'm going to move out without kids first, then talk about moving out if you have kids. Moving out, once again, transparency is key, where if you're in anything unsafe, get out. We'll figure it out later. But if you're going to move out, it's important to go get a place, this goes back to the finances, status quo, but now we've got another expense that wasn't in the status quo.
So this is the type of thing that you do want to talk to your lawyer about before you just up and move about, how are we going to handle it. I am a big, big believer that before we do anything, we send over an agreement, a joint stipulation that this is how this item, or action, or event is going to occur. Both parties have their lawyers look at it, they negotiate it, they agree, and then they give it to the court to make it a signed order. Because once it's in the court file and then the court signs it, the judge signs it, it's an enforceable order.
Don't trust an email from one lawyer to another, because your soon to be former spouse might get a different lawyer and the other lawyer like, "Yeah, we're not doing that." You want to put this stuff in writing, and you want to get it in the court file. It's really important. It's a little more formalized, it does cost a little more, but it saves money on the back end.
Pete Wright:
And what does this thing actually say?
Seth Nelson:
So if you're moving out, we're going to agree that, I'm just making up. The wife has exclusive use and possession of the marital home, and that the husband is going to get a rental apartment or a place for a rent. This is how the bills are going to get paid at both places. The husband shall have access to come get his personal belongings, including the following categories of items. Here's a list of items that shall stay in the house, and neither party shall remove them. But by doing this stuff upfront, it takes me no time to draft that one sentence. It takes a lot of time when we're dealing with, "You know what? My baseball collection's missing."
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Wife says, "I never touched it."
Pete Wright:
Husband says, "Prove it." Can't prove a negative. Yeah, what are you going to do?
Seth Nelson:
And now you're going to the Ring cameras to see if someone's walking out with a baseball collection, but they're walking out with a suitcase. And even if you can "prove it," like what's a judge going to do? Well, what was the value? Judge can say, "Okay, you lost your baseball collection. What was the value? What proof do you have? What was in that collection?"
Pete Wright:
Yeah, documentation. You say it's worth $7 million.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. That's right. And it wasn't a Babe Ruth rookie card signed by him in mint condition. Also just when they're not around, you can just take pictures of stuff, just take pictures, and then it at least helps, it gives you a little thing. And if you're removing something from the house, let's be transparent, I do this all the time. Is there anything in the house that you really want that you're afraid is going to go missing? Yes. Take photos, remove it from the house, go put it in a storage unit, tell them where it is, where the receipt is, we will give them the pictures. It's transparent.
Because then you're going to go to court and they're going to say, "They took all this stuff." We're going to say, "Yes, we did judge. We also sent them a letter with the photos, and this is where it is. And the storage unit is right there. And judge, my client has the key."
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
So when you are reasonable, and you're being responsive, and thinking it through, and being brief, informative, friendly and firm. I took these items, here's the picture, this is where it's located. Done.
Pete Wright:
Okay. Can you just briefly walk through what you tell clients in terms of best practices for the actual move event? Do you wait until the former spouse is on a trip and go in and take your stuff, or how do you handle that?
Seth Nelson:
Unfortunately, I know people hate this from lawyers, it depends. And kind of rolling my eyes, it really is fact specific. One, it's a double edged sword when you have kids. Part of it is they don't want to see dad moving out or mom moving out. The other part is you don't want to come back to an empty house and like, oh, it just got empty. So there's no good answer here. So it's more how you communicate it.
If dad is moving out to a place where the kids are going to go, and the kids are teenagers, or middle schoolers, or even grade schoolers, you can make that an exciting time for them. "Hey, we got to get your new room set up. We're going to move some stuff." You've already talked to mom before you talk to the kids about what stuff. What are we going to do when they want to bring everything? I'm going to say, "Well you're going to need toys here." You want to communicate and work this stuff out. What stuff is going to go back and forth is usually the really, really important stuff, but has a higher likelihood of getting lost.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Now I will share with you as Pete, you know, my son, Kai was 2.5 years old when his mom and I split up, then we got divorced. He had a blanket, and that blanket went back and forth, shoved in the bottom of his book bag for years, for years.
Pete Wright:
Everybody knows where it is.
Seth Nelson:
Everybody knows where it is.
Pete Wright:
Sounds like a promising story, it's a Pixar candidate.
Seth Nelson:
It is. Everybody knows where it is. And that blanket went back and forth, back and forth all the time.
Pete Wright:
What did he call the blanket?
Seth Nelson:
Oh, that's really, that's a really good question. The blanket's name was Girlfriend.
Pete Wright:
That's really good. That's better than I expected. I thought this is, okay, it's going to be binky or something. Girlfriend is good.
Seth Nelson:
So as you know, Kai has an older half-sister who is six years older. And so when he had his little blanket when he was born, my former spouse, Nancy and Isabel, her daughter, my stepdaughter at the time, Kai's half sister, were coming up with names for the blanket. And they were saying very sweet names, that I would've identified as very girly names for this little boy with this little blue blanket, like Lovey, or whatever. And I can't remember all of them.
Pete Wright:
Girly with that, like Megan.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, not like that.
Pete Wright:
Stephanie.
Seth Nelson:
No, no, no. So I said, I think we should call it Girlfriend. Just joking around as I do, and it stuck.
Pete Wright:
That's a win for the ages. That is a great name.
Seth Nelson:
Because then he has his first girlfriend and you can be like, it's not your first girlfriend.
Pete Wright:
At two and a half.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, right.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding.
Seth Nelson:
So anyway, but be careful with those possessions going back and forth, so talk to them about it. Okay, now if you're moving out without kids, a lot of people are very concerned about what you're going to take, and that's why you work on that document first. But if you need to have a third party there, if you want to hire an off-duty police officer because you're concerned about violence, then you can do that. You can hire a private investigator to come help you and stand there and kind of be play by play. Not color commentary, here's what I saw. But you need very, very specific things on what you're going to do and how you're going to do it, and go from there.
Pete Wright:
I just want to say, you know how loathe I am to give you any undeserved credit, but in this case I have something. I got an email from a listener who said, "We had to separate our art collection. We have not very many pieces, but things that we bought together, and we used Seth's advice, and it was great." Do you remember what that advice might have been?
Seth Nelson:
Oh, that's so unfair, Pete. That is so unfair. Well, first off, I'm glad for whatever I happened to make up that day worked. No, here's a couple things on ways to do it, and there's different ways to do it.
Pete Wright:
Well, I know how they did it, what you already said and are getting credit. Would you like me to tell you before you talk about other ways?
Seth Nelson:
Oh, that would've been good. We could have started with that, but go ahead.
Pete Wright:
I was trying to set you up for a fall, and it worked.
Seth Nelson:
Right, perfect.
Pete Wright:
I got to give you a compliment and take you down a peg.
Seth Nelson:
It's perfect. That's why people love this show.
Pete Wright:
I love our, our relationship is perfect. She said, "Seth told us by way of the podcast, flip a coin. Stand there at your first piece and flip a coin. And the person who flips the coin does not call the coin. The other person calls the coin, and whoever wins gets to pick the first item, and then just go back and forth. It's like, it's schoolyard games. And it worked like an absolute charm." They didn't talk about value, they didn't talk about relative value of all the assets. They just said, "What do you want next?" And it worked great.
Seth Nelson:
I am so disappointed in myself. Here's why. You know how your first answer is always the right answer? When you said that, I literally thought to myself, it's the flip the coin.
Pete Wright:
It's the flip the coin.
Seth Nelson:
Then I thought, I can't say that right now. Which one was it? There's all these different ways, but here's... I'm so disappointed in myself. If only Andy would let us rerecord.
Pete Wright:
So he said it solved what she could only imagine would've been many hours of fighting and arguing over these things. And all they had to agree on was one thing. It was the act of flipping the coin that was the most valuable part of that transaction, because then they could just move on.
Seth Nelson:
And it limited conflict. That's great. Well, I'm glad it was helpful for them. That's great. We could talk for hours on things to do, not to do, but there's a couple more that I really need to just hone in on. When you're dealing with kids, and money, and documents. So this goes under documents.
Any document that is already in place, life insurance, beneficiary forms, do not change. Do not change. Because you change the beneficiary form on your IRA to give it to your brother. You're in a divorce, you die. That was a marital asset. Your brother is now going to get sued by your former spouse. The insurance company's like, look, I got to change the beneficiary form, they're going to say it was a fraudulent... You are just setting up problems. Okay? And they're going to come back, "This happened after the date of filing, there was a standing order, he wasn't allowed to do that, Judge. This is unjust enrichment to the brother. He got stuff unjustly." Don't change any forms.
If you have children and you are signing them up for school, extracurriculars, anything, you put both parents' names, you put both their addresses, you put them both as contacts, both emails, both phone numbers, both emergency contacts, you first, them second, or you put both names. Call whoever you can get a hold of first, we don't care. And then you can put other people to contact. Don't put your boyfriends, don't put your girlfriends. Don't... No, okay? So these are, critical, critical when you are going through this process, because this stuff will haunt you. Also do not, do not ever take a picture of your soon-to-be ex or your ex spouse because-
Pete Wright:
Just any picture?
Seth Nelson:
That will also-
Pete Wright:
Any picture?
Seth Nelson:
Any picture. You have no business taking a picture of your former spouse in any situation, or your current spouse. People do this all the time. "I'm going to look at what they're doing. I'm going to video it. I'm taking a picture." Okay, because that will come back to haunt you. And here's what I mean. Sometimes people will take pictures because they're so upset with their spouse, or ex spouse, and where are they? They're in the emergency room and their kid is waiting to be seen, and the other spouse is there on their phone, or sitting with their new girlfriend. And in this time of need for your child, you decide to take a picture to show what a jerk they are. That does not play well in court.
Pete Wright:
Nope. Not a good color on you.
Seth Nelson:
Okay? So do not take any photos of them. There's no reason for it. So I'm saying this emphatically in firm, in brief, and informative, but please, I'll be nice about it. Please don't do this. You're just going to hurt your case.
Pete Wright:
Excellent. I feel like I would not have thought of that, especially because we are so telephonically promiscuous right now. We always have a phone in our hands, and taking a picture is the easiest thing to do at any given time.
Seth Nelson:
And listen, I know this is a typical little longer podcast than our normal one, but these are so important. They're so important. And they are 100% all within your control.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Look at yourself, look at yourself, look at yourself. Put your mask on before you put the mask on your attorney. I think that's the rule. I'm sure that's what they say. This has been great Seth. And in terms of the nuts and bolts of your divorce case this season, we are going from your actions matter, to next week, pleadings. What they are, why they're important. I'm actually looking forward to that.
Seth Nelson:
What we're trying to do this season is to say, listen, you're going through a divorce, there's a lot of words, there's a lot of things you can do, but what is this all about? We are dealing a lot historically on the show with relationships, and therapists, and all sorts of other great content out there, how to deal with addiction, and how to better co-parent.
But we're getting a lot of questions coming in about, "I don't understand these documents. I don't understand why my lawyer's advising me to do X, Y or Z. Why aren't we doing A, B and C?" We're trying to answer some of those nuts and bolts questions. Of course, check with your lawyer, check your local jurisdiction, but we just want to get you some really quality information. That, the good news is you can go back and listen to it. There's not a quiz at the end of these shows, right. It's going to be there for you.
Pete Wright:
Absolutely right. Little curriculum. This is your divorce curriculum. That's what we're doing this season. We're very excited about it.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. And the reason there's not a quiz is we did a quiz, and Andy failed miserably, and it was so just difficult to grade. It was so disappointing.
Pete Wright:
It was hard to grade. You're right. Well, he did misspell his name, and that's worth 400 points off the jump.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. Y-I-E-E.
Pete Wright:
There was a heart over the I, which isn't even in its name. Oh, well. This has been great. Thank you everybody for downloading lesson and listening. Don't forget howtosplittatoaster.com, you can submit your questions there and they will come to us, and we will answer them on a future show. Now is a great time to do that. It's still the very start of the season, and we are collecting questions with great abandon. We're excited to start answering those as well.
Thanks for hanging out with us today. We appreciate your time and attention. On behalf of Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you next week for pleadings right here on How to Split a Toaster, a Divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
How to Split A Toaster is part of the True Story FM Podcast Network, produced by Andy Nelson, music by T. Bless & The Professionals, and DB Studios. Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law, with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney, or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
