Tools for Men Going Through Divorce: Rebuilding Prosperity and Well-Being

In this episode, Jaime talks with Steve Schleupner, Certified Divorce Coach and Financial Planner, about his personal experience with divorce and how it inspired him to become a divorce coach. Steve shares his journey of navigating divorce as a single father and the challenges he faced in balancing his career and responsibilities. He introduces Stoic philosophy and its application in coaching men through divorce, emphasizing the importance of perception, actions, and focusing on what is within their control. Tune in to this enlightening conversation to gain valuable tools and strategies for men to achieve a positive outcome in divorce and rebuild their life.

Need help from Steve? Contact him by visiting www.youtreecoaching.com.

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

Like this show? Rate it here!

Creators and 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.

JAMIE: Welcome to a year in a day. I'm Jamie Davis,

board certified family law attorney at Gaylorhunt. 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 speaking with Steve Schlupner,

certified divorce coach and financial financial

planner and host of the podcast A Man's Journey

Through Divorce, which shares tools and strategies to help any divorcee achieve the

best possible outcome they truly want. Thanks

for joining me, Steve.

STEVEN: Thanks for having me, Jamie.

JAMIE: So, Steve, you started coaching after you

personally went through a divorce. Can you share

a little bit about your experience? And what about

your experiences inspired you to go into coaching?

STEVEN: Yeah, I have been a lifelong planner or

career long planner, and when I moved from Maryland

to Vermont, my divorce happened, and I found myself

trying to juggle many of the aspects that a single

father would have. And I really wanted to have

50 50 custody. And what was happening is I was finding a hard time balancing my career alongside with these new

responsibilities, and it just caused me to take

pause and try to figure out what I really wanted

in terms of work and what I really wanted in terms

of my role as a father. And in that, I decided

to take a gap year. And in that year, I spent

a lot of time understanding some of the stuff

that was coming up, some of the things I didn't

want to let go of. And I took really, a year to

heal. In that time frame, I was trying to figure

out, what is it that I wanted to do? And I had

come across a man that lived in my neighborhood.

I knew him vaguely, and in our conversation that

we ultimately had, I was finding that I was able

to connect with him with some areas around his

divorce. And really what had happened is, when

I first connected with him, we were actually having

breakfast at a counter, and his divorce had just

been finalized the day before, and he had told

me that he had lost everything. He had lost custody,

had lost his assets. He got into an intense legal

battle with his father in law, and he was kind

of forced to drop things. And in that conversation,

he was at his deepest despair. And I shared with

him some of the things that I had learned through

the year long process that I have gone through,

and it kind of just eased the pressure for him.

And we ended up going on a long walk. He had disclosed

to me that he had thought about taking his life,

and I found myself in probably the most difficult

situation I could find myself in. But I just wanted

to help him. We spent time talking. I worked him through some forgiveness exercises and volunteered to help and coach him going

forward for free. And that's what I did, and we

made a lot of progress. I was able to establish

a good foundation with him. And that was the first

clue that divorce coaching was finding me. And

I wasn't really setting out to pursue it, but

I just followed that clue and allowed it to envelop.

And here I am, probably, what, six years later.

JAMIE: Wow, that is such a powerful story. Had

you done any coaching before that time?

STEVEN: I hadn't. I mean, as a financial planner,

I had always coached people to break habits, to

work together to handle a difficult transition

such as retirement. And I started to see that

some of what I was doing as a financial planner

was rolling over to this possibility as a divorce

coach. But I hadn't done that much in depth coaching

before.

JAMIE: So in your experience, do you believe that

divorce affects men differently than women?

STEVEN: Absolutely. I think there are three things

that men struggle with. A lot of it's based on

the archetype that we were taught as boys. Many

men will come into their role in a marriage and

take on a provider role. Not to say that women

don't do this either, but men have this ingrained

thing that we were taught by our fathers and the

forefathers before them, and we fall into that

archetype, and that brings on a lot of pressure.

But I find that men aren't really tuned into developing

the right support network around them as women

are. We don't necessarily understand our emotions.

We don't know how to nurture ourself through difficult

time or even instill our own self care because

our role has been so much reaching out to be that

provider archetype. I also think men allow their

male egos to get the best of them. They seek comfort

in sex, different habits that may not serve them.

They also tend to want to control things that

aren't necessarily within their control. And all

these have a greater ramification on their ability

to make their way through divorce and end up with

the best possible outcome that they can achieve.

JAMIE: So if these habits are so just ingrained

in men, how do you help them work through breaking

those habits?

STEVEN: Right. The key is in the emotions. A lot

of times when you start to experience a tough

transition, you're going to have emotions that

come up. And I like to see the emotions as opportunities,

because when you're faced with divorce and this archetype is breaking, what I mean is

that men or anybody going through divorce, but

I'll speak to it from a male's perspective. There

are three divorces that happen throughout the

divorce process. The first one is you lose your

spouse. Whether you love them or not, you had

great memories together and you're losing an important

part of your life. That's what I call the first

divorce. Then we move into the second divorce,

and the second divorce is the breaking of the sacred vowel. Now, a

sacred vowel is when you get married and you automatically

start to attach dreams around what your future

will hold. It's also similar to holding your child

for the first time and looking at your child in

the face and saying, this is what I'm going to

do for you. It's a deep seated intention. It's

the highest attention that we can set. And when

we break that, we're breaking away from the dreams

that we attach to and that becomes very difficult.

The third divorce is the divorce of the identity.

We're not the full time provider, we're not the

full time partner, we're not the full time father.

And so that starts to open up these fissures in

who we think we are. And when you start to divorce

away from the identity, you know you're not the

person you thought you were. The divorce is introducing

this to you. You're not the person you thought

you were, but you don't know quite who you are.

So there's this transition that we go through.

So a lot of times when men come into me, they're

really struggling with this divorce of the identity.

And the trick is to help them be patient through this space of learning that

opens up for them. Most of them want to rush through it or mask it in some way because

it's uncomfortable. And the trick is learning

how to be patient so you can figure out who you really are because you've attached to this form of identity that's

given you a lot of self worth, but it's not necessarily

who you are. That's what divorce teaches us.

JAMIE: I was going to say that's very interesting.

I have never heard it described that way, that

there are actually three divorces that happen,

but it makes sense, and especially the divorce

of the identity. I mean, you've been living for

however many years as a married person and that

is very much a part of your identity, your social

space, your interactions with your neighbors and

your friends and your coworkers. And then all

of a sudden you're a single person. And so I can

imagine that that's just huge.

STEVEN: It is. It's the most complex and it's

the one, I think that we run from the quickest.

JAMIE: So what is your philosophy for coaching

men through divorce?

STEVEN: Well, I was introduced to studying Stoic

philosophy, so we have all this great wisdom that

was built thousands of years ago and a lot of

actual psychotherapy cognitive behavioral therapy is somewhat based on principles of Stoic philosophy. So I started

researching different forms of philosophy and

what it means. And what I found is that the idea

behind the Stoics is to live well. And when you're

going through divorce, divorce is presenting you

challenges that are going to test every element

of whether or not you can live well. So you have

a choice do I want to live well and follow this

in a virtuous way, or do I want to work against

it. So if you choose to want to live well, if

you choose to want to look at the divorce as an

opportunity to thrive, then you need to have a

platform to do that. So the Stoic philosophers

teach that it's important to perceive things correctly.

We have a choice. Do we want to perceive something

in the negative, in the victim state, or do we

want to perceive it as an opportunity or a challenge

that I can work around? How we perceive all the

things that come up in divorce really dictate

the next part of Stoic philosophy, which is direct

your actions from your best self. Now, the divorce

itself is going to present obstacles and challenges

and these interactions with an attorney or a mediator or your ex spouse that that are going to attempt you to

drop into your lower self. And when you do that,

you fall into these patterns of self imposed suffering.

And then the third part of the Stoic philosophy

is control only what it is that you can control.

Now, when we're working as a married couple, we're

working to bring in the most certainty as possible.

We want certainty of income. We want certainty

to know that all is going to be well with ourselves

and our family and our kids. Divorce enters into

a window of tremendous uncertainty, so it starts

to peel that away. So our reaction is to try to

control the things that we can't control, to try

to regain certainty. Now, when you drop into your

lower self, you control the things that you can't

control, and you're perceiving things wrong, then

you open up the door to suffering. Now, suffering

happens. A lot of things in the Buddhist religion

will teach that suffering happens in your life

as a result of three things. One is feeling that

I'm not good enough, two is feeling that I'm alone,

and three is wanting what I cannot have. So when

you start to work against those three principles of Stoic philosophy, you'll find yourself running up into one

of those three forms of suffering. And it's easy

for us to sit back and blame and judge as the

cause of our suffering and our pain onto something

else. But most likely, everything that's happened

to you has already happened, and you're making

a choice whether or not you want to continue your

suffering. And the reason that occurs is because

people don't have a structure. They're absent

a structure to move beyond. So they're falling

into these unconscious patterns that they don't

realize are there.

JAMIE: So this is so interesting to me. I have

never referred to it as Stoic philosophy, but

so many of the things that you've just said, I

try to counsel my clients through the divorce

process all the time. We tell our clients, Take

the high road. It's not going to help you to get

down in the mud and argue with your spouse if

that's where they are. There is no truth, right?

There's just perspectives. There's each spouse's

perspective of what had happened. And so often

I will have clients say, well, that's not true,

that's not what happened. And I have to remind

them, well, there's another side to that story.

And your spouse may have viewed that interaction

very differently than you did. So I think this

is great. Can you share some of the tools that

you teach men as they're going through a divorce?

STEVEN: Yeah, absolutely. So we need to have a

tool, right? When you're going through a divorce,

it's only a result because your marriage wasn't

working for the both of you. It's not broken,

it's not a failure. It's just simply not working.

But the divorce process itself requires us to

go through some steps to legally dissolve a marriage.

There's a legal process to that. And that process

and the interactions that you had with your spouse

will build up levels of uncertainty. They'll create

time and energy, distraction. I'm a big believer

that we have to focus on full prosperity, recapturing

full prosperity, which just isn't money. It's

our time, our energy, and our health. So the divorce

process itself will create distractions. It'll

bring in unfairness. It'll tap us into areas where

we feel like a victim. So some of the things that

I do, first off, is I help clients get clear intentions

on what they want. I use a five F model. The F

stand for family, finances, fitness, fervor, and

faith. So what are your intentions for each of

those things? And an intention is different than

a goal. An intention is a noble goal without attachment. It's something I'm going to reach towards, but allow

things to guide me as I reach towards this higher

self intention. So the first thing that we'll

do is we'll set intentions. Then the way you start

to tackle an elephant, I was always told you,

eat an elephant one bite at a time. So how are

you going to eat your divorce? One bite at a time.

You do it on a day by day and moment by moment

method. So I teach them how to book into each

day the right way. The way you start is very indicative

of the way your day will unfold and how it will

finish. So we start the day with a routine, and

we end the day with a routine that will actually

do things like help us get better sleep. And then

inside the day, you're going to have these tendencies

to fall or drift. So we'll customize a rebound

strategy that you can fall on to stop those patterns

of rumination that are distracting you from your

own well being and who you want to be. As a coworker,

as a parent, as an ex spouse, I teach people how

to become aware of their emotions and to see their

emotions. As teachers, we have tools for that.

We have tools for enhancing sleep, using breathing

to reduce anxiety, increasing movement through

our day, probably my favorite ones are tools to

recognize the Toxic Dance. And I call the Toxic

Dance as the lower self invitations that you and

your ex will give each other. And you have a way

of poking each other and you've developed and

you've perfected your Toxic Dance while you were

married and you still want to dance when you're

in divorce. So the idea of the Toxic Dance is

to recognize the patterns that lead to the Toxic

Dance and then develop your own unique way to

stay off that dance floor. You want to find a

new way to dance. You don't want to go through

divorce in this toxic manner. And the last thing

that I spend a lot of time doing is educating them on the ending of Unequals. The ending of Unequals

happens because most divorces will go through

a phase during the marriage where one spouse will

disengage from the other. And through that disengagement,

they are releasing their spouse. They're accepting

the fact that their financial life is going to

change. They're accepting that there's going to

be a new living situation. They're accepting the

loss and they tell the other person it's over.

So the person that's done the disengagement has

exited at what I call the higher stair of the

ending of Unequals. And they're telling the person

at the lower stair it's over. And even though

that person may be unhappy, they sit there and

they ask why? Why won't you work on it? Why wasn't

I good enough? Why weren't my efforts the right

way for you? And they think that they'll get the

answers to those whys and everything will be okay,

but it never is. And eventually understanding

that dynamic, what's happening, whether you're

the person that's choosing to leave or you're

the person that received the news, will help you

better understand how the divorce is coming through

and why you're experiencing some of the challenges

that you have.

JAMIE: Yeah, some of the more difficult cases

that I see involve situations where one spouse or the other has made the

decision quite some time ago that they want a

divorce and the other spouse had no idea. And

so they're coming into it from two very different

places and it just takes a lot longer for the

spouse who was kind of, I'll call them the outspouse

because they didn't know to get to the same place

that the other spouse is in terms of the divorce.

And that can make trying to resolve the property

and financial issues, custody issues, much more

difficult just because the one spouse just wasn't

ready and it was really out of left field for

them.

STEVEN: Right, exactly. There's a lot of catch

up. So the spouse who's leaving needs to understand

this as well. I need to be a little bit gentle, impatient as the other spouse tries to

catch up. And oftentimes what I'll see is the

spouse that's on the lower stair will actually

catch up and surpass the one. Then the spouse

that started it ends up asking, why was it so

easy for you to move on?

JAMIE: Right. It's like the spouse on the lower

stair is forced to do the work, to do the soul

searching to figure out some of what has gone

on. And so they can often end up probably better

off in the process.

STEVEN: Right. They actually have a greater growth

opportunity.

JAMIE: And I love your analogy about book ending

the day. I think that is so thoughtful and apropos

of this situation. And really it sounds like it's

all about self care and learning how to take care

of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally,

throughout the process. Is that right?

STEVEN: Yeah, that's where the philosophy comes

in. Stoic philosophers weren't really tuned into

practicing their philosophy only in the most difficult

times. They were tuned into making sure that I'm

making a life change. There is a miracle hidden

behind every person and every divorce. And you

can choose to say, I just want to get through

this divorce. And you will divorce successfully,

but it doesn't mean you will have a successful

divorce. The real success comes from learning

and understanding these things that are here to

teach you so that you can then grow and move on

being a much more, a better father, better mother,

better partner, better coworker. There's things

that you can learn here about yourself that will

be instrumental tools to help you in many situations

in your life going forward.

JAMIE: Right. Because the goal should be not to

just survive your divorce, but to thrive through it.

STEVEN: Right. Divorce is an ongoing process.

I am about eight years through my divorce. My

ex wife and I still I say that we're married in

every element that we used to be, except we don't

engage in intimacy anymore. And so I continue

practicing different ways to handle situations

that come up. And I'm sure it's going to be like

that for a long time.

JAMIE: Right. I mean, like it or not, you're connected

to your ex spouse in many cases forever, especially

if you share children. You're going to be co parenting

with that person till your kids are 18. And then

once they're adults, you're going to be attending

graduations together and weddings together and births of grandchildren together. And so you

have to find a way to make it work.

STEVEN: Right, exactly.

JAMIE: Well, at what stage of the divorce process

do you recommend men seek out a coach to help

them?

STEVEN: Well, obviously as early as possible.

That's the best way to do it. However, if you're

not Amicable so on my website I have an assessment

called the Divorce Suckiness assessment. I love

that, but when I talk to men and I say, how's

your divorce going? 90% of the responses are going

to say, it sucks.

JAMIE: Right.

STEVEN: So I built this assessment so we can gauge

the suckiness and what it does is it starts to

show you three general scores. You're either going

to be Amicable, you're going to be fully contentious,

or you're going to be what I call amateous, which means you're Amicable in many

ways, but there's some areas of specific contentiousness

that are really driving you crazy. So if you're

not scoring at an Amicable status, then we need

to figure out how to lower your suckiness so you

can work on the things that you need to work on

so you can walk away from this with a better possible

outcome. So if you're going through divorce and

you have these things, these elements of contentiousness

that exist, and there's these dynamics that you

haven't learned how to work through with your

ex, you need to have a strategy to help you get

through this. Otherwise you're going to be tied

to the pain body of the divorce.

JAMIE: What are the biggest mistakes you think

men make during the divorce process, and how can

they avoid them?

STEVEN: The biggest mistake men make first is

falling into a scarcity mindset. So we measure

success oftentimes by what we're able to retain

and how much money we're able to have, and we

drop into scarcity mode rather than prosperity

mode, and we start to try to protect what we can. So they don't necessarily want to spend money on therapy

or coaching or anything that they think they can

shoulder themselves. The second thing is men don't

tend to have a support network. They might reach

out and speak to their buddies or a family member,

but that male ego starts to resolve and you're

going to be okay. I've been divorced, I've worked

through many situations. In fact, I just got together

this last weekend with my college buddies, and

one of my good friends is going through a divorce,

and we're sitting there watching the games, and

he came to me seeking help, but he doesn't feel

comfortable even open up and speaking to another

man about it. So men aren't as good as women are

in nurturing each other through our needs. We

tend to step in and say, this is the bravado male

ego. Smack them on the butt, get out in the field,

you're going to be okay. And that doesn't necessarily

work. And I think the third thing that people

in general, not just men, is you're going to argue

against the truth. And Byron. Katie has a great

book called Loving What is and in there, her whole

premise is when you argue against the truth, you're

only going to lose 100% of the time. And that's

what I see men doing. So how you get around it

is you need to have a structure or a foundation.

I believe each man has their own innate wisdom

that they can fall on and they can get themselves

through this. They're smarter than they think,

they're more capable than they think. They just

need to become aware of the things that are missing

and having different tools and strategies and

a structure on which to build, and they'll be

okay. But not taking any steps, thinking that

you can shoulder this transition yourself, is

difficult. I've been a financial planner for over

20 years. I've had clients die. I've had clients

get disabled. I would say a divorce is as difficult,

if not more difficult, than some of those other

major life events that occur. So we need to have

support, and we need to support each other through

this in the right way.

JAMIE: Yeah, I would agree with that. I think

people are surprised to learn that divorce takes

a village and that you often need a team of professionals

to help you through it. It's not just your lawyer,

it's not just your coach, it's not just your therapist.

It's not just your financial planner or your accountant.

You need everybody to help you get through the

divorce process, in my opinion.

STEVEN: Yeah, absolutely. What I would encourage

men to do is sit back and look at your child,

if you have children. One of my sons started juuling.

Right. A common thing. But when I found this out,

I pulled together his mom and the school and the

counselors, and we found other parents that had

dealt with kids that were juuling and got advice

from them. And I surrounded my son with his whole

and support network to make sure that his life

is heading in the right direction. So why wouldn't

a man do that for himself when he's going through

this major transition? They'll do it for their

kids, but they won't do it for themselves.

JAMIE: Sounds like that's. What they would have

you for, is to help them look inward and make

some of those changes that they need to make.

STEVEN: Exactly.

JAMIE: If you could only give one piece of advice

to someone going through a divorce, what would

it be?

STEVEN: I think the one piece of advice is if

there's levels of unresolved contentiousness with

your ex or there is high degrees of financial

complexity, realize that these don't necessarily

work through the legal process efficiently. So

it's very important to pause. Pause. And if you

have high contentiousness, that's a symptom of

you and your ex. Probably not fully understanding

what your shared intentions are. I've worked with

some couples in the past, and the first step that

I'll do is have them express to each other what

their shared intentions are for themselves, for

the other, and for their family. And oftentimes

after they get through it, they see that they

have the same shared intentions, but they haven't

had a platform to work that through. So ideally,

it would be to pause and make sure that you're

approaching this the right way. When you jump

right in with levels of contentiousness, things

start to compound through the divorce process.

They don't start to go away.

JAMIE: Yeah, I think that's wonderful advice.

Like folks say, if you don't know what to do.

Just don't do anything. Take a minute and pause.

I like that. If someone listening is interested

in reaching out to you for coaching through their

divorce, what is the best way for them to connect

with you?

STEVEN: Probably through my web page. You can

find [e-mail] that's youtree coaching.com.

Just go on the contact page. Send me a message.

JAMIE: Okay? Thanks, Steve, for joining us.

STEVEN: All right. Thank you for having me. Jamie.

JAMIE: Thank you all for listening. If you like

this episode, be sure to follow the show wherever

you get your podcast so you don't miss the next

one. While this information is intended to provide

you with general information to navigate divorce

without destruction, this podcast is not legal

advice. The 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, contact us at gaylorhunt by

visiting divorcestuff.com. I'm Jamie Davis, and

I'll talk with you next time on A Year in A Day.