The Second Essential Truth
The second essential truth is that you cannot blindly depend on divorce “professionals” to look out for your best interest. Many lawyers, accountants, and even some therapists make the divorce process a lot more complicated and drawn out than it needs to be. This is no accident, because they get paid by the hour. These people have zero incentive for you to quickly wrap things up and move on with your life. The longer you are tied up with your divorce and the more you fight, the longer and more you will be paying them. A divorce can drag on for years and cost thousands of dollars more than it should while the “professionals” line their pockets.
Of course, there are divorce professionals with high standards and integrity, and I will show you how to find them. Armed with the knowledge of how the system really works, you will be positioned to know who has your best interests in mind and who doesn’t. The fact is that most divorces are not that complex. If you can make a human in nine months, you can untie the knot in less time.
The Third Essential Truth
The third essential truth is that you cannot rely for advice on Aunt Martha from Chicago who got divorced back in 1983 or on your friend from college whose husband is a patent attorney. Although well intentioned, friends and family members can steer you in the wrong direction, and the unintended consequences can be emotionally and financially devastating.
Who can you trust? Where can you turn? The Divorce Hacker’s Guide to Untying the Knot. In these pages, I show you how to take action so that you can create a new and better life with your sanity intact and your money in the bank. I’ve created a program that works. I offer up the same insider information I deliver to my clients every day: truthful advice about legal, financial, custody, real estate, and career issues, plus compassionate guidance for caring for children, healing emotional wounds, and regaining your power.
Wellness is an essential part of my program for getting through your divorce with your sanity intact, and it is absolutely indispensable to creating a new and better future. My divorce was nastier and messier than Kramer vs. Kramer. In spite of that, I learned how to access the power within in order to move forward and eventually coparent with my ex. If I could do it, I assure you that you can, too. In this book, as I walk through each step in the legal process, I also walk you through some simple yet powerful strategies for healing your emotional wounds, so that when the divorce decree is entered, you are ready to start your new life from a place of strength and self-worth.
Using a checklist approach to simplify what you need to do and when to do it, The Divorce Hacker’s Guide outlines each step in the legal process from the decision to file through the final judgment. It addresses all the things you must consider in six key areas — legal, financial, career, children, home, and well-being — and breaks them down into manageable tasks so that nothing falls through the cracks and you aren’t overwhelmed. Look for these icons throughout the book:
Certain steps in the legal process are common to every divorce: filing and responding to the petition, preparing financial disclosures, engaging in settlement negotiations, and preparing the final judgment of dissolution. The book takes a chronological approach to working through these common legal tasks, but don’t hesitate to jump in wherever you are in the process. My goal, by dividing the book into clearly defined topics, is to help you easily customize the advice to serve your unique situation, so you find the information you need. For example, if you have kids, look for the children icon; if you don’t, skip those sections. Need to know what to do right now about your house? Look for the home icon in each chapter to answer your questions.
Successfully re-creating yourself through divorce requires more than just navigating the legal process. The Divorce Hacker’s Guide takes the guesswork out of such difficult questions as “Should I, or can I, keep my house?” “When do I tell the kids about the divorce, and what do I tell them?” and “When should I get back to work, and how can I use my divorce to start a new career or launch a business?”
Throughout, “Insider Tips” take the mystery out of divorce — for example, revealing the real reason your husband wants you to mediate and why he is suddenly insisting on spending more time with the kids. The Divorce Hacker’s Guide reveals the secrets some divorce professionals don’t want you to know — and how to avoid the traps that can cause your case to drag on so that they can keep billing you.
In conjunction with this book, check out the DivorceHacker app (available on my website, www.thedivorcehacker.com, and through Apple’s App Store), which is a handy tool that can guide you through the same steps as the book and that provides easy-to-use checklists when you’re on the go. In the app, select the icons that apply to your situation, and as you work through them, the app will show you where you are on track and where you need to focus more time and energy to reach your goals.
You can create the life you choose if you implement this program and follow these steps.
Preparing to Get What You Need
“A crisis is a gift, an opportunity, and perhaps a manifestation that life loves us, by beckoning us to go beyond the dance we presently perform.”
— Leslie Lebeau
As soon as you learn that your marriage is in trouble, take some key steps to protect yourself. While you may be hoping that things will work out, there is simply no substitute for being prepared in the event that they don’t. Do not be lulled into complacency if you are working with a marriage counselor or clergy in an effort to save your marriage; don’t expect that things will somehow magically get better if you wait long enough for your husband to “come around.” While it’s fine to hope for the best, you need to prepare for the worst.
In the legal system, knowledge is power and money is key. Set aside money and gather information now, before you or your husband file for divorce, so that you are in the driver’s seat when it happens. Once the divorce is filed, everyone retreats to their separate corners, and it becomes much more difficult and costly to obtain the information and the money you need. The odds are high that, if your husband is anticipating divorce, he is already taking action to prevent you from accessing your money. I see this happen in virtually every divorce case I handle.
I had a client, Cecilia, who is a perfect case in point. Cecilia fell in love with Jeff, a handsome professional athlete, and they married when she was young. She became pregnant shortly after they married, and since Jeff traveled frequently with his team, she stayed home with first one baby, then two. When Jeff’s career as a player ended, he became a coach for a professional sports team in Los Angeles. He made good money, and their family had a great life. Cecilia didn’t have to work and devoted herself to raising the kids and enjoying the perks of being a coach’s wife.
But then came the signs and the alarm bells — which Cecilia chose to ignore. Even after Jeff left the home and was openly having an affair with another woman, Cecilia believed that everything would be fine and that Jeff would “do the right thing.” She remained in denial, hoping that Jeff would return to the family. Despite all the signs that her marriage was ending, Cecilia did nothing to prepare for the inevitable, until it all came to a screeching halt. One day, Cecilia and the kids arrived home from dinner while Jeff was traveling with the team. When they pulled into the garage, they found it empty. Their teenage son’s Jeep was gone. They frantically called the police. Only after the police located Jeff, driving the Jeep,