Pete Wright:
Hello everybody, and welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships, from True Story FM. Today your toaster is divorced, but how's its money mindset?
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show everybody, I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend Pete Wright. Divorce can be messy. It leaves individuals feeling lost and overwhelmed, especially when it comes to navigating personal finance. Today, we're looking at the psychological impact of divorce on financial decision making. How do you replace your financial partner? How are you supposed to know what to do when the post-divorce money situation gets complicated? Ben Hockema is a certified financial planner who has helped countless individuals rebuild their lives after divorce. Ben is here today to help us through all of that and more. Ben, welcome to the Toaster.
Ben Hockema:
Thanks Pete, thanks Seth.
Pete Wright:
I am sure last night Seth saw his calendar today was going to be a money related podcast and he just put his laptop up on his bedside table, opened a blank spreadsheet and just let it lull him to sleep. This is a Fever Dream podcast for Seth Nelson, and I'm so excited you're here, Ben, because we're going to talk about how our brains, how our mindset changes in a divorce. There is something that we're getting in that I don't think we've ever used the words replacing your financial partner. I always hear financial planner, it's hard to read, but I just realized there's a financial partner. Oh, my god.
Seth Nelson:
In some of those partners, we're not good.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, bad partners. We're going to talk all about that and give us a to-do list of what we need to do when we get a divorce. But I want to start with the change in financial psychology that you deal with when you're working with clients who are going through a divorce. We understand divorce is messy. What does that do to your brain and money?
Ben Hockema:
I talk to my clients whether they're divorced, single, in a happy marriage, whatever it looks like. Most of money is psychological, there's only a little bit that's on a spreadsheet. And everyone tries to focus on the numbers first but in my experience, it's all about how you feel about money and how you feel about your relationship with money. And I really believe that there's a relationship with money. Well, when you go through a divorce, you have a complete change in who's in that relationship with money. I'll give you an example. My wife and I are opposites when it comes to how we view about money. I am much more on the opportunity and risk-taking side, and that's part of why I'm an entrepreneur and have my own business. And she is as far to the other extreme as possible.
Well, what that means is as we approach our money in our relationship today, we're trying to meet in the middle and have a compromise that's there. Well, take one of us away, if we were to get divorced. Now, we have a completely different relationship on how we're going to think about money, think about opportunities, think about scarcity, think about what could go wrong, all the things that are already there, throw in a stressful situation, and now your relationship with money will change. And that's not even getting on things like financial abuse, which I know you've had someone on recently talk about, and things like that. But there's so much about your relationship with money. We think about the personal relationships, you got a money relationship too.
Pete Wright:
You just said something that I want to drill down on a little bit. Scarcity. Let's talk a little bit about your experience watching people and the way they change as they think about and experience scarcity.
Ben Hockema:
I like to frame it in people have one of three main relationships with money. One is, "I feel wealth or money about opportunity."
... as I already mentioned, a lot of people fall in the security side, "I have felt scarcity. I have felt that money can only go so far. And I want to make sure I feel secure with that in my situation."
And the last one is a vulnerability which we can touch on but when we talk specifically about scarcity, most people as you go through any turmoil and traumatic experiences, just naturally biologically inclined to go towards a safer mindset. Somebody who was more opportunistic before will now say, "I have scarce resources, I have less things that I can do with my money. I've got half the income."
Or whatever it looks like, "I need to focus on my security first before I think about what I used to be thinking about of the trips you could take or what retirement looks like. Now I'm just worried about how am I going to by in the next week or month or year?"
And that is again, a big change as you go through divorce, of trying to handle that security side before you build off of that, rebuild your foundation so then you can build from there to whatever the future holds.
Pete Wright:
And this is the question really for both of you, I know that the scarcity mindset is one that can really trick you, that you can move because of a high stress situation when you are otherwise compromised emotionally, scarcity can define decisions you make that you may not otherwise make. And that doesn't necessarily have to be around money. I'm curious how ... Maybe, Seth, does that ring anything true for you? Just the way people relate to scarcity and laws?
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely. It happens all the time. And what I mean by that is we'll have a case and when you're dividing assets and debts, the best I can do is get you half your stuff. And if that was your security, you're now ...
Pete Wright:
Half secure.
Seth Nelson:
Really concerned. And if you were the non-working spouse and now you need alimony, you're terrified. You're terrified you're not going to have the same standard of living. And we've talked about, and I think this is a question really for Ben, is what we've said is go look at new housing, because people covet what they see and they just think, "I got to be in this house for the kids."
Or that. But when you do the math, you just can't afford it. And you've gotten this standard of living. Go see if there's something else out there that maybe you can afford, that you can create a nice home for you and your family. I see it all the time and when people are scared and they feel like they're drowning, they just grab onto a life vest. And that life vest is money. And people will spend a lot of money on attorney's fees and forensic accountants and litigation fighting over money. We try to define how much are we arguing about, before we start arguing about it because the math has to work on that.
Pete Wright:
It's a fascinating mental model for me to wrap my head around because I know how I relate to scarcity. I'm not divorced but I know how I relate to scarcity, particularly in a time of grief. And it leads to this next area that I wanted to talk to you about, which is we mentioned the financial partner. I think the reason that struck me as funny is because I don't think I've ever thought of it as a separate identity, that you have this emotional partner, you have your former spouse, that they were also a financial partner. Doesn't necessarily mean ... Or I should say, I guess implies in my head that there might be another divorce that you have to process in addition to the one where you are emotionally separating, but separating the part that helps you deal with money might be a whole separate emotional process. Is that a fair way to look at it?
Ben Hockema:
Absolutely. I said financial partner and I know you mentioned that, really it came from one of my clients I still work with today. She maybe 15, 20 years ago was divorced and my business partner worked with her and her ex-husband and went through that process, and she stayed with us. She has referred to me as her financial husband multiple times. The way she looks at the way that we talk about money is she's got ideas she would have talked to her husband about of, "I'm thinking about spending money on this car. I think I want to go on this trip. I think I want to retire."
And she has no one to bounce the ideas off of. And so now she's looking to me as be that person [inaudible 00:08:49].
Pete Wright:
The surrogate.
Ben Hockema:
Yeah, exactly. Be the sounding board. She has no one else that she feels she can be that vulnerable with. Money is a very vulnerable topic. And so I think that's something I've seen with all my divorce clients and also widowed clients, I think there's some similarities there where you are losing that person you relied on to help either reinforce what you believed or be ... As it is in my house, "Tell me where I'm wrong."
You need that person to bounce ideas off of.
Seth Nelson:
Or they handled it.
Ben Hockema:
Absolutely.
Seth Nelson:
You had no idea. I get calls all the time from what I think generally people would say are high net worth divorces, in the millions or tens of millions of dollars, and one spouse will say, "I don't know what we have."
Ben Hockema:
It's all the time.
Seth Nelson:
Literally, "I don't know what we have."
I always educate people, "It's very important to know what you have, where is the money coming in, where is it going out? But if you don't, it's okay. We will find it, we'll do the analysis and we'll help you make the best legal decisions you can."
But as I always say, Pete, and Ben, you're going to hear it for the first time from me, I can only help people in what I can get them in a legal sense. I can't tell them what it will do for them in their life. And that's why we need guys like Ben out there.
Pete Wright:
Reflect for me just a minute on the stages of undoing the experience with let's say, a poor financial partner, because everything you're describing to me sounds like there are going to be some stages as you process figuring out a renewed relationship with money. Can you walk us through for those listening, in a way that might help them see themselves?
Ben Hockema:
It starts with a grieving process, honestly. And I think a lot of people just skip over that. You don't realize the loss that you're experiencing, especially the financial partner side. You think of it emotionally and you think of loss of your identity or whatever else, but there's a loss on the finances. And I would agree in some ways, Seth, to what you said about go look for a house. At the same time, we want to avoid making irrevocable decisions that are going to really impact multiple years of your financial life if you don't have a plan in place. And so having that space to have some of that grieving process and go through the psychological impact of the loss of all of the things you're dealing with is step one as I've always seen it. For instance, in my experience, my role is to help say, "You're going to be okay for six months. Let's not make any big decisions."
And just let them live their life and figure it out and be their sounding board and have you say, "Hey, I got this in the mail. I've never even seen this before. What does this look like?"
Just to educate. Once you get through, and for different people it's six months, some it's two years before you can really move on and say, "Now we're going to completely put everything away of what the plan was before. If you were working with me before, we had a financial plan, we had a multi-decade plan in place. All that is going in the garbage bin, we are going to start completely fresh."
And so I start with all my clients, whether divorced or just a new client that walks in the door, with what I call the billion dollar question. And the billion dollar question is, "If I had a billion dollars ... "
And I use that number because no one could actually spend all that money, "If I had a billion dollars, what would your life look like?"
And go through that exercise and ask a lot of those questions. The reason I start there is take money off the table as the scarce resource, "What do you want your life to be? And let's talk about what those things are. And now that you're divorced, let's talk about what that means in who you are today, not who you used to be. And so let's reset, have that conversation."
Then we have to put the limiting factor of money, "We don't have a billion dollars, but let's add ... "
Seth Nelson:
We've got 3 billion.
Ben Hockema:
There you go. Love that, love that. Seth, you should give me a call.
Seth Nelson:
See, before when he thought I had crap finances, he's like, "Let's get off the podcast as soon as possible."
Pete Wright:
As fast as we can.
Seth Nelson:
Now that I got 3 billion, he wants to talk a little more.
Ben Hockema:
Yeah, you're reading me pretty well. I see how that works. But let's build the plan so that it works and make sure it's actually the plan that you want. I really see those two stages. It's the grieving process but then you got to start over. It's a brand new plan. Let's not regret what we had, let's just move forward.
Pete Wright:
What are the surprises? I have to imagine that ... And I'm saying this really quite timely because I had this conversation with my mother who is grieving the loss of her husband, my father, two years ago. Grief is a funny thing, it's a funny rollercoaster. And I think she lives in a constant stress about money. And we did a screen share this morning and looked at her assets, and I got out of calculator and I did the math in front of her just to let her know things are okay, but I think there was a grief shroud between her and the calculator, and she could not see it. And so I'm curious, what are the surprises that you find you run into when you do this activity with people and they come to an awareness of the reality of their situation?
Ben Hockema:
I will answer your question, but I'll answer it with more questions to start.
Pete Wright:
Please.
Ben Hockema:
If you're comfortable sharing, Pete, I want to dive a little bit more into what you're talking about there because ... Do you have any sense for what her biggest fear is? What is she afraid of? Is she afraid to run out of money? Is she afraid of paying the bills tomorrow? What does it look like?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. She's 75 years old and she's afraid of living until she's 105.
Ben Hockema:
Okay. And you believe with the calculator she can do it?
Pete Wright:
I believe that based on her current expenses and the budget that I have put out for her that she never looks at, but at least I have a sense of her burn rate and I have a sense of her income and I look at those numbers and I think, "Okay, I think you're going to be fine."
But she's also working with a financial planner. Believe me, I'm not the be all, end all. I'm just trying to make her feel a little bit calmer.
Seth Nelson:
I did the same thing, Pete, with my dad. And Ben, my dad just passed away a few months back. And his fear, he was going to run out of money, that was his fear. And literally, I did the same thing Pete's talking about, I said, "This is what you have. This is what you're spending on a monthly basis. This is what it will last you if you just put it in the mattress and the mattress didn't burn, no investment."
I didn't complicate [inaudible 00:15:57].
Pete Wright:
Yeah, let's not put it in a CD at 5% at all. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Just do the math. And that was actually one of the things that sparked him to move to an assisted living facility because we had 24 hour care. And when he realized that having that care was the burn rate and how long his money was going to last him was dramatically shorter than what he thought, he was like, "Okay, we need to do something."
That's what sparked the move. And right when he made the move, his money was going to outlive him. But it was a fear factor of running out of money.
Pete Wright:
Fear factor.
Ben Hockema:
And part of why I ask those questions is what you're describing is the majority of my experience, which is most people are afraid of ... And they don't use these terms, but they're afraid of running out of money. And even if you show them the numbers, if they're not number oriented, they're not engineers, they don't like the spreadsheets, they don't want to think about it, what they're not seeing is inflation, cost going up, "Yeah, you said on paper I can do it if expenses are the same, but what if it gets more expensive? Then what do I have to do?"
And then long-term care, those are the two biggest pieces that I've always seen. And I think the most important thing is recognizing who you're talking to in that case, or if I'm speaking to you right now, are you someone who the spreadsheet's going to give you that feeling of security? That's all you need. You need to know that the projection works. Or are there some things you're not sharing with the people in your corner that are really the fears? It's not that the numbers don't work, it's, "There's something I'm not telling you that I'm afraid of."
And spending the time to open up your mind to what that could be and really articulate that ... There's a lot of ways to protect. If someone says long-term care, I can say, "Okay, we can get insurance. You can self-insure by putting it in a special account over here. We can do assisted living that's already got some built in."
There's a lot of things we could do once we know that's your concern, but until you've articulated it or you even know what it is yourself, we can't help address and let you move forward with your life.
Pete Wright:
Talk more about that because the question is, who are you lying to? Are you lying to me or are you lying to yourself? But what does it take to ... You're sitting across from somebody and you have a suspicion that you're not getting the whole story. What does it take to unlock that for people? At this point, you're a counselor more than a financial planner.
Ben Hockema:
Yes. And it helps that my sister is a therapist, and I've had a therapist in my own life and lots of mentors who've helped on that. It really goes into the therapy side I think, of whether you have your own therapist or a financial planner who knows how to speak in this way, whatever it looks like. There's a lot of questions that need to be asked in a lot of different ways. I like the six whys framework. And I forget where this came from but, "Okay, why is that important to you?"
And then they answer the question. And then you say, "Okay, but why do you feel that way?"
And you just ask why six times and eventually they get down to the real heart of it, of why is that important or why do they feel that way? And I think that's a really helpful framework to just keep asking, to the point of people get annoyed with me, but then we know. And then once it's in the open, now you can address the actual problem and not use the spreadsheet that ...
Pete Wright:
Ben, do you think most people know what they're afraid of or do you ...
Ben Hockema:
No.
Pete Wright:
It's through the conversation that it comes to light.
Ben Hockema:
I think most people, especially if you've gone through a recent event, divorce, widow, whatever, you don't know why you feel the way you feel. And there's nothing you can do about that. Have someone who can listen and you can ask the questions.
Seth Nelson:
Because I am terrified, I am so fearful that I'm going to have to be doing this podcast for 30 years with Pete.
Pete Wright:
It's so weird. We've never talked about it but that's exactly mine too.
Ben Hockema:
Great, that's great.
Seth Nelson:
Literally, it's so interesting that you're saying this because I'm thinking about how I can use this to better serve my clients. Because I talk to them about the numbers all the time. And I have some clients that will dig in on the spreadsheet and others are like, "Just tell me what it says."
They can't even deal with it. But I do have conversations around grief and fear about, "Okay, what's most important to you? Is it the house? Why is it the house?"
"Well, I want to keep the kids in a good school district."
"Okay, is there another way to do that? Maybe he can stay in the house and then you can move. But if you do that, maybe you get more retirement."
And I always tell people, "You need money now and you're going to need money in the future."
Getting retirement is not a bad thing. In fact, I think it's a good thing if you don't touch it, if you don't withdraw it. And I find that to your point, Ben, is a lot of them are just like, "How do I get past Tuesday?"
Ben Hockema:
Absolutely. All of our clients, when they become a new client, I say something like this, "I am working for two people in this situation. I'm working for you today and I'm also working for who you will be in 20 years. Hopefully we're still working together."
But we have two clients and we have to balance those two clients. And part of my job is knowing how to balance between planning for the future and living for today. But a lot of people, you're just looking for Tuesday, it's "How do I get by?"
And so you're only focused on the next week. And I think advisors as a whole, anyone working with people in this situation, it's about adding that longer term perspective.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, that's it. My mom lives in Colorado and her number one concern right now is the fact that in winter she's paying $400 a month for snow removal for her house. It's winter, that seems like a predicted expense, and she'll make it up in the spring. But that reality, when she's writing those checks, because she still writes checks, is the thing that puts her in that trance of scarcity, that she feels like that $400 is representative of all her savings, because she cannot fathom numbers with more than two zeros behind them.
Ben Hockema:
And as we bring this all back to what the podcast is about, if you're the spouse that has never had to handle the money ... My wife's in that situation. If we ever got divorced, she wouldn't know what to do. She wouldn't know where we pay bills. Now, I have given her access to see everything and I actually have a meeting with her once a year so she knows where everything is, we have a net worth statement. And now I'm a financial planner, I got to have it all documented.
Seth Nelson:
He puts it up on the fridge right next to the kids' pictures that they do at school, Pete. It's so neat.
Ben Hockema:
It is, [inaudible 00:22:57].
Pete Wright:
He grades himself in crayon too.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. And he color codes it. And then he freaks out because his kid turns it upside down and all the arrows are going the wrong way. And Ben doesn't know what to do before he has his coffee in the morning.
Ben Hockema:
That's right. That's why you got to color code. Even if it's pointed the wrong way, the green is up.
Pete Wright:
Green is good.
Ben Hockema:
Green is good. We're good there. But she wouldn't know what to do if something happened. And most people that I work with, that's the spouse they were. They don't know what they don't know. They don't even know where to begin. And there's a very easy way for someone to be taken advantage of if they found the wrong advisor or the wrong person to help them.
Seth Nelson:
No, it's a problem.
Ben Hockema:
It's a big deal. And so that $400, Pete, that feels like a big expense. And you look over a year and you say, "That's not enough to move the needle in the situation, so you shouldn't worry about it."
But she doesn't have probably the ability to think of money from a bigger picture perspective. And so that's going to be a fear. And that is pretty typical, I think.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, exactly. Your relationship with your own wife is my mom and dad. She had some visibility but my dad moved just faster. And he rehabilitated homes and he was into real estate and he had a job and ... He just did a lot of things. And there was no way for her to keep up. When he passed, his financial house as a representation of the family's financial house, wasn't completely in order. He didn't have a lot of debt but things were in motion, balls were in the air that we had to catch. And I think she was in the wind, which amplified her financial anxiety. And I just feel that when we talk about divorce, we talk about any situation of compromise, grief that makes it feel like the balls go up as balls and they come down as pumpkins.
Ben Hockema:
And I think there's something you can do but the number one thing that I've seen is you should expect she's always going to feel anxious about money. There's things you can do to help but that's not going to go away. She's had 75 years of that relationship with money, it's not going to change now. And I'll tell a quick story. I have a client, he passed away last year but he was 97. And between my partner and I, we worked with him for 35 years. And he would still talk about things that happened to him when he was 16, related to money, that he didn't recognize impacted his view of money today. But I absolutely saw the connection to the way he talked about giving to his kids and how something that happened in his first job or maybe second job when he was 16, and how that impacted his relationship with money. It's a lifelong thing. And a lot of the formative years, your first interaction with money is going to impact the rest of your life. And so I think part of ... As I try to look at it, is we can help sand on the surface. On the edges I guess, but at the end of the day she's probably always going to be a little bit anxious. And helping her have a little less anxiety is beneficial, but you can't fix it.
Seth Nelson:
And on that note, this is a learned skill though. Managing your money is a learned skill. And I tell my clients, "You're going to have the most financial freedom you're ever going to have because this is going to be the first time that you're actually going to be doing it. And you're going to know where the money's coming in and going out. And that is empowerment."
And they're like, "Well, I don't even know how to set it up."
I said, "We'll get you to a good financial planner. All this stuff is online, you can do it a lot on your phone."
It's a learned skill, and that's always something I want people to take away from, "I know you're dealing with a divorce, I know there is getting past Tuesday. This is something that will actually make you feel better."
Pete Wright:
You're going to give us a to-do list, a checklist, a post-divorce financial checklist. And I want to hear what we need to do 8:00 AM day one. Before we do, I want to throw out a book because I use the words the trance of scarcity, and that is clumsy of me without mentioning that it is the title of one of my favorite books, The Trance of Scarcity: Stop Holding Your Breath and Start Living Your Life. And it really does define ... Victoria Castle, author, she's delightful. It really does define helping to make the shift from seeing the world as one of scarcity to seeing the world as one of abundance. I've had the pleasure of interviewing her a number of times on other podcasts and I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It just is a really grounding experience. If you find yourself in a space, not just financially but seeing the world writ large as a place that is of scarcity, this is a reassuring text. We'll put it in the show notes. Ben, 8:00 AM day one, I'm divorced. What do I do?
Seth Nelson:
Day one after your divorce, first financial thing you do.
Ben Hockema:
And I know I sent you a few things, so if I miss something on here, let me know.
Pete Wright:
That's right. Because this is actually a test. You didn't know that, but we're just here to embarrass you. Whatever we can do.
Ben Hockema:
First financial thing you do in my mind, is understand what you have.
Seth Nelson:
Wrong, wrong. You've already been wrong,
Pete Wright:
You're already wrong. Based on your own list, we've got your answer key ...
Ben Hockema:
Seth, what's the first thing that we should do, day one?
Seth Nelson:
Pay your lawyer. Pay your lawyer, first thing.
Ben Hockema:
Fair enough.
Seth Nelson:
Come on now, Ben.
Ben Hockema:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
I just don't like what happened day before. Okay, that's fine.
Seth Nelson:
Or better yet, if you're a client of mine, you should be saying, "We're over. I know I have money left in trust, refund me my money left in trust."
Ben Hockema:
There you go.
Seth Nelson:
That's really what you should be doing. All right, go ahead, Ben.
Pete Wright:
It's all voodoo. What's the first thing, Ben?
Ben Hockema:
That's great. Doing the best you can to understand what you have, that's day one. Where am I? What did I get out of this, whether I understand it or not? What is this for? Can I pay my bills on Tuesday? That is day one, first thing. Once you've established that and you're comfortable with knowing what you have, now we can look at fixing the things. Hopefully you've already checked the boxes of, "Hey, I changed my life insurance beneficiary designations."
Things like that. Unfortunately, I'm working with a client right now who is still dragging his feet three years later and still has his ex-wife on his life insurance. I remind him every time but I don't have power of attorney, I can't do it. But there are just some things like that that man, you just overlook and miss and move on with your life. You're like, "I'm ready to be done."
Seth Nelson:
The worrying is worse than the doing. When you have a stack of things that you just don't want to do, it just eats at you. And then when you finally sit down and get it done, it feels so good and it's like, "Oh, it wasn't that hard."
But it's a struggle for people.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Ben Hockema:
I would say that the first thing is you figure out what you have and then your to-do list, honestly. I think I'll rephrase what I said, "What are the things on the stack that I have to get done?"
And work your way through that. Okay, you get through those basic things. You go through the grieving process, we already touched on this. Now we think about what's possible. And there's so many ways that you can ... You can change your entire life now, you have more freedom to do it. Let's figure out what that looks like. And you have to be emotionally ready to have that conversation, that process, but that's broadly where you'd want to go. I know I sent you a few other things, if there's anything I didn't ...
Pete Wright:
You did it. Beneficiary updates, I am still stuck. That one is stuck in my throat. Beneficiary updates, not making those for three years because that ... The fact that you are aware that that has to be done and you have not done it underscores how incredibly powerful the grief and loss is and how weird it can be three years later still feeling that strongly about it.
Ben Hockema:
Yes, and in this case he's about to get married again, remarried, and Seth ...
Seth Nelson:
Maybe that's what he was waiting for all along.
Pete Wright:
For a prenup.
Seth Nelson:
Is on the list.
Ben Hockema:
There's a prenup on the list
Seth Nelson:
There we go.
Ben Hockema:
That is for sure on the list. But the other thing I'll mention relates to what we ... Especially if you're not used to handling the money. Figuring out how to automate as much as possible is so helpful. You don't have to write the checks every time. If they're going to pay the mortgage and you have to pay it now, let's make sure it's set on auto pay so you don't have to worry about it. You're not used to worrying about it. Figure out what the to-do list is and let's automate that. If you want to save for retirement, let's automate that so it's happening behind the scenes and you never have to make the decision. Reduce as many decisions that you can screw up, whether it's intentional or unintentional. Automation I think, is key for everyone's financial health. Have a plan, automate it, and then when you need to, you adjust.
Pete Wright:
Ben, this is fantastic. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today and giving us a little starter, a check list. You passed, you did all right.
Ben Hockema:
Thank you, thank you.
Seth Nelson:
I love the automation on that. That's so smart.
Pete Wright:
It's so smart. Get it out of the way. Just coming to understanding where you are in the stages of financial grief is really important in the process of replacing your financial partner. Hits me right in the chest, right in the chest. Thank you. Where do you want to send people to learn more about the work that you do?
Ben Hockema:
Best way to learn more about me is just go to our website, illuminatewm.com. If you want to just skip reading about me and just schedule a free 20 minute call, doesn't cost anything, go to talkingwithben.com and you can just book directly on my calendar and I'm happy to talk to people for 20 minutes for free and then if there's something that needs to happen, we'll take it from there.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding. Ben Hockema, thank you so much for hanging out.
Ben Hockema:
Thank you.
Pete Wright:
Hey everybody else, it's time to turn to a listener question. Listener question. Seth, we've got a question from anonymous, and it's a good one. And it's for something right in your backyard. Here we go, Can you please explain the new 50/50 custody law in Florida? Is this still applicable to infants and small children? What if it's a long-distance plan across the country? What is a typical long-distance parenting plan across country for an infant?"
Is it me or are there multiple questions in there? Do we need to break that apart?
Seth Nelson:
There are multiple, I'll handle, this is a typical Tuesday, so it's good. The new 50/50 custody law in Florida, it's called timesharing, but what the law says, and it went into effect July 1st, 2023, there is now a presumption of 50/50 timesharing for the parents.
Pete Wright:
That seems perfectly logical to me.
Seth Nelson:
Well, I'm not a big fan.
Pete Wright:
Okay, tell me why I should not be either.
Seth Nelson:
Because I think it is parent-focused, not kid-focused. The whole statute is best interest to the child, best interest of the child. And then we say all this sudden we're not going to apply that. We're going to say you're starting at 50/50. I don't think you should start anywhere, I think you should figure out what's best for the kid and where the chips fall, they fall. It's a little mindset different, but that's what the law is. And it can be overcome, the presumption can be overcome. When you overcome a presumption or anything in the law, there's different burdens. The highest burden that we all know of is beyond a reasonable doubt, the criminal standard. The lowest burden is preponderance of the evidence. If you think of the scales of justice, it's just got to be a little bit more, you should be able to overcome it. That's not necessarily how the judges are applying it. They're saying, "Tell me something good."
... which this listener question, anonymous, says two things. One is what about infants and small children? That is not a reason to overcome a presumption. What that refers to is called the tender years doctrine. Wait, it's a little baby, mom typically raises the babies or the little children. And this is historically how it happened, that tender years doctrine saying that children should be raised more by the mom when they're infants or small children, has been abolished in Florida for many, many years. The other reason that she ... Or anonymous I should say, mentions as a reason, what about a long distance parenting plan or if they're living across the country?
And what is a typical one? That is a reason to overcome the presumption, because it physically will not work. You can't do a week on/week off with a parent in Tampa, Florida, and the other parent in LA. A typical, 'long distance parenting plan', and I don't mean long distance just Florida to California, it could just be Tampa to Jacksonville or Miami, a five hour drive, because once you get more than about 50 miles under the state of Florida statute, it's just not workable. And even sometimes across the bridge to St. Petersburg or Pinellas County, it might be 20 miles but in traffic you can't get the kid to and from school. It's going to be an hour and a half in the car each way. Typically, the long distance parent I'll call it, and that's the parent that doesn't have the child the majority of time during the school year, the long distance parent might get more time over the summer. If it's a 10 week summer, instead of having five weeks and five weeks, week on, week off, maybe that parent gets seven, maybe they get six, maybe they get eight. They make up that time, okay.
Pete Wright:
Now you got me thinking. Can I ask a question?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, fire away.
Pete Wright:
May it please the court, you said best interests of the parents, not best interests of the child, and suddenly taking the kid out of their home turf during the summer for all summer seems like best interest of the parent.
Seth Nelson:
I appreciate that. The policy, public policy of the great state of Florida says the parent should be involved and the child should have a positive relationship with the parent. And the only way to do this, spend time with them. It's more important to spend time with dad across the country than it is to spend time at a camp with your friends. And there's camps in other states that you can go to and make friends there.
Pete Wright:
Find a new camp, good luck.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. That might be one thing. Maybe the long distance parent gets every spring break. Then you have travel arrangements, and this is where it gets tricky with an infant. You can't just put them on a plane as an unaccompanied minor. You've got a lot of travel back and forth. And who's going to do the travel? And remember, for every round trip ticket that infant goes on, there's two other round trip tickets that an adult is going on. It gets really expensive really quickly. Thankfully, you can bridge this gap a little bit because you have FaceTime now, so you can do more of that to keep the parent involved.
Pete Wright:
Are these technologies like FaceTime, Zoom, Signal, whatever, are these taken into account in decisions right now?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I've had parenting plans that says long distance plan, you can FaceTime with your child every night for up to 15 minutes between the hours of 7:30 and 8:30, not to be disrupted by whatever. Sometimes it's twice a week or whatever the case may be. I also suggest on a long distance parenting plan that you have an online calendar to help put what the kid is doing because then the long-distance parent can check the calendar and say, "Hey, you got a soccer game coming up. How was the math test that you took today?"
The more information you give to them where they can be asking questions about the child's life, not, "What are you doing in mom's house?"
That's not what I'm talking about. Then it's very helpful. Maybe more time in the summer, maybe every spring break. You look at holidays, Christmas and winter break, usually switch those every year, Thanksgiving the same. Long weekends are a way where maybe a parent, the long distance parent, can fly in for the weekend and have time with the child. Now, look, they're going to want to spend the time but I always tell the long distance parent, "When you're in town, part of being a parent is going to the soccer game and not being on your phone. Part of being a parent is still letting the child have the sleepover at their friend's house, and maybe you drop them off a little late and pick them up a little early, but you can't always steal, 'that time from them being kids'. It's not their fault the parents got divorced."
Just because they're divorce shouldn't mean that they're not allowed to go to the sleepover with their friends on a birthday party.
Pete Wright:
Smart. Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Anonymous, I hope that helps.
Pete Wright:
Very thorough, Seth. Well done.
Seth Nelson:
Thank you, sir.
Pete Wright:
You earned your stripes today.
Seth Nelson:
Not my first day on the job.
Pete Wright:
I really appreciate that. And thank you again to Ben Hockema, who gave us a great tutorial on getting through the financial partner divorce. We sure appreciate everybody for downloading and listening to that. If you want to get your question on this show and you want our own fair Seth to answer that question, your legal question, visit howtosplitatoaster.com, click on the submit a question button, and it's a perfectly anonymous form. We don't care what you ask, we don't track you. Just leave us a question, we'll get it on the show in an upcoming episode this season. On behalf of Ben Hockema and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you next week 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 and 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.
