Rachel (00:00.578)
The number one question I answer every week is, how do I get divorced?
In this episode, we're going over your options for getting your divorce over the finish line, all the way from DIY to lawyering up. Welcome to the Divorce Queens podcast where real women get real about divorce. I'm Taylor Winds, divorce coach, family law attorney, and mom of four.
And I'm Rachel Kennedy, family mediator, parenting consultant, and divorced mom of three. We are here to cut through the noise and bring you the legal, personal, and practical sides of divorce because getting divorced isn't just a legal process, it is a total life transformation.
So whether you're thinking about getting divorced, in the middle of the chaos, or trying to rebuild after it's all over, you're not alone. Grab your coffee, your wine, or your walking shoes, and let's get into it.
Last thing we're gonna talk about here is if you do decide that divorce is where you're headed, we have some tips for you about what you need to start doing, understanding, learning and knowing legally, professionally, personally, practically before you rush out, hire a divorce attorney, go see the mediator, try to file online by yourself. Like what do you need to do to get prepared?
Taylor (01:22.4)
So I'll just kick us off. I think really practically because regardless of how you get divorced, you need to know that your divorce is fair, equitable, amicable, financially beneficial to you and that you're getting what you're entitled to out of the marriage. And the only way to do that is to start gathering all of your financial, personal and important documents. There's a few reasons why. Okay. So I let into the first one.
You need to make sure that you have a clear picture of everything that's happening in the marriage relationship. What assets are there? What debts are there? What is your name tied to? Do you own the house? Are you on the car title? Is the car leased? Like there are a lot of people walking around that has no idea, that have no idea what their spouse has done financially in the marriage. So the best way to verify it is to see it. So before you even maybe bring it up, I'm not telling you to be sneaky, I'm telling you to be smart.
I want you to go out and I want you to find all of the things so that you can independently verify things and you don't have to rely on what your soon to be access telling you as you get ready to start that divorce process.
I don't know. like, what if my what if I think my spouse has, like bank accounts that I'm not aware of, or things like that? Can I find out about that? Or what do do if I think that might be going on?
There's a lot of stuff that there are a lot of cases and circumstances where that happens and there is a lot of stuff that people have done that the other spouse isn't privy to when I got that's one thing you can do for yourself is you can run your credit report and you can find all sorts of things that may be out there for you that you don't know about. But there will be things I shouldn't say there will be but for a lot of people there are things that they've just never seen of their soon to be ex spouses like their retirement accounts. Why would you see that right? That's done through their job. So you know there's going to be that stuff.
Taylor (03:16.994)
there's going to be maybe some bank accounts from before the marriage. I've had several people where like they're on a bank account with their mom still that they had when they were like 12. And so there's gonna be stuff out there, but you gotta do your best to just collect what's available to you. You might have to get a little intuitive and maybe, you know, start looking in the password book, right? Or whatever and find some of this stuff out, but find out what you can and what you can't can be sorted out later.
Yep. Okay. So the next thing, this can be a little bit tricky, but this is probably the number one thing that people talk to me about when they come in for consults is housing. Either, well, actually I would say the one that I hear half the time, more than half the time now is we bought our house back in 2019 and we have like a 2.9 % interest rate, but if we refinance now it's going to be 6 % and I can't afford that or whatever.
We hear that all the time. So really just trying to sort out what, mean, if you rent, that's a different thing. You may need to figure out if you're both on the lease, when the lease ends, that kind of stuff that's a little bit easier to deal with. But if you own a house, it can be tricky. So that's something that you're gonna wanna start trying to figure out sooner rather than later. And you're gonna wanna know what your rate is and all of that. But the one thing I will say,
is I tell people that I believe they should talk to mortgage professionals and specifically divorce mortgage professionals fairly early on to understand really like what their options are. I've had people where they're like, yeah, I already talked to, you know, agent number 6432 at Wells Fargo or whatever. And they said, I can't do anything because whatever. I was like, oh.
Well, that was that was like probably a person in a call center who is just answering all the like typical questions that people normally ask. Do you think they're actually really well trained in specific divorce scenarios?
Taylor (05:25.26)
got some manual and they're like decision tree yes or no.
Right. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, I know some people, Taylor knows some people reach out. If you're in Minnesota, you need to know who to talk to or whatever. But I just, that's probably one of my bigger pieces of information is figure out what you need to know about your mortgage from a mortgage, a divorce mortgage person.
a specialist and not. Fargo and even if you're not Minnesota, because actually a lot of the professional licenses like mortgage, like financial planners, CDF, is that kind of stuff. Their insurance professionals can either are licensed in all 50 states or can get licensed in your state very quickly. And so if you need somebody good, it's like, you know, yeah, source of referral because you're in fields, those types of fields, you're really lucky.
Sure, for sure.
Taylor (06:18.274)
they can work across state lines. So when you find somebody good, you know, make sure that you're working with them and not with the call center at Wells Fargo or US bank or whatever. Your housing realities and gathering all of your important papers, your personal papers, your financial documents, all of that super closely related. It all has the same purpose or multiple purposes, which are to make sure that you understand like what you are entitled to and what you have coming to you from the divorce. Make sure you're not tied to something that you don't want to be tied to.
that's gonna affect your credit, that's gonna affect your buying power, your ability to go out and start your life over because you deserve that, right? Like as you're exiting the marriage, you deserve to be able to start over. But also you wanna like have access to things that you're gonna need to start over. So for me, like I didn't know what I had done with my social security card. I didn't have a copy of our marriage license, right? And now you've got to like...
Now I'm applying for like this new stuff and whatever, and I have this name change and I got to prove the name change and I can't find the marriage license. Now I got to go down to the county and see if I can get a replacement or, you know, certificate and all of those things. So start collecting it early because nobody likes the, Hey, um, X, could you send me a copy of the kids insurance cards? I'm standing at M health Fairview right now and they need them to be seen. Right. Like be proactive, get that stuff done in advance.
You're gonna find the less times you gotta call that man or that woman to ask for something, the better. The next big thing I always tell people is like you have to prepare for like the temporary support realities. That might be spousal support, but that might just be like, you're gonna have this transition phase, okay? There's gonna be a temporary period in your life.
For sure.
Taylor (08:12.246)
as you start to get divorced. You're getting all your financial documents in order, you're getting your housing stuff, you're taking pictures of everything that you need or scan copies of things you might need later. Then once you have everything and you kind of are starting to put together a picture, maybe you're starting to look at housing, figure out the mortgage, can you assume or whatever, you need to prepare for the interim part of your life where like you're getting the divorce, you're divorced, maybe that first year, two years, and now your life has really started over.
which I would say, I would argue is really about year two or three is like when you really start hitting your upswing. Cause it's hard. Like we would be lying to you if we didn't say it was hard from going to we all live in one house, we share one bank account. mean, we didn't store it for another time. Look at all these episodes coming. But we all have like this one pot of money and we're living here and we're paying this one set of bills. And now we got to take a finite amount of money and we got to stretch it to two houses.
And we got to stretch it to two sets of bills that we didn't have before. And so there is this like temporary period in your life where like you might start here and you might go like this for a little bit and it sucks, but it's reality. But you're going to learn and you're going to do some things different in your life and your life will go like this eventually. Right. And I would say it's about year two, year three is where you really start seeing that because I know a lot of people getting credit card debt post divorce and whatever. But you need to prepare for the temporary support realities of like, how am I going to support myself?
As we separate out, how am going to support myself maybe those first few years until I get child support or those first few months, excuse me, until I get the child support, until maybe I get temporary spells of support, until I get a property settlement that maybe I can cash out and use to fund my life for a while. What am I going to do? For some of us, the reality is we may find a roommate. We might go back and live with mom and dad. We might need to take out a loan. We might need to sell that
really nice car that you're driving. Like, look, I want to push up. What are those called? Rivians? Rivian? Like I want to push one of those too. Those look great, but you may need to trade down, right? And try some things over. I have some clients driving like Land Rovers and Telluride and stuff, and that may not be the car you leave the divorce with. It just might not. So you got to prepare for those realities as you're looking at various things.
Rachel (10:37.678)
sure for sure. So the other thing we like to tell people is know your options for getting a divorce. And to be honest, I would say kind of there are like three main buckets, but there are lots of ways to combine them and a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But probably the three main categories we'll say is doing it entirely on your own, doing it entirely through mediation, or doing it entirely through attorneys.
Most people kind of have a little bit of each. Maybe they want to have attorneys, but they want to do more mediation. Or they go with attorneys from the beginning and they mostly want their attorneys to handle things, but they maybe go to like one or two mediation sessions. Or maybe they mediate the whole thing and then they file on their own or whatever. There are lots of different options, but make sure you know what your options are and what are the pros and cons because there are plenty of pros and cons for any of the options.
And even what's your most important objective? Are you just trying to get divorced for absolutely as cheap as possible? Don't recommend that. I can probably speak for Taylor. We don't think that's good idea, but for some people that's their number one priority and you do that. Some people are like, I don't care what it costs. I need the absolute best representation for, you know, whatever reason. I would say most people are somewhere in the middle.
They're not trying to go absolute most expensive. They're not trying to go like, you know, free, but what are your needs? What can you mediate? What do you need lawyer support for? Is there, you know, all those different things? Personally, I would say it makes sense to maybe talk to some people that you know who have gone through the different options, research the self-filing online, talk to a mediator or two, talk to a lawyer or two, and really get a good understanding of what your options are.
And then, you know, again, weigh the pros and cons.
Taylor (12:36.29)
There's some great literature probably in every state, but we can speak to Minnesota about what the divorce process actually entails and what it looks like. So, I mean, you can get on mencourts.gov and you can go through their literature about like getting a divorce. How do you file? What can you expect? You know, that kind of stuff. There are blogs on the internet. You can ask chat GPT, right? Gemini on Google. can...
Law Help MN is another site that has like it's it's a nonprofit like this is public service, right? So they give you all this information about what you can expect in the divorce process and how to get divorced. I would say if you're doing it all on your own, that's I 10 out of 10 don't recommend. But if you're going to get divorced on your own, it's a great option if you have no kids, minor or adult.
You have no joint assets. make the exact same amount of money. have nobody's contributed more than the other person to the marriage and you are literally able to just get a divorce and walk away with you taking your stuff because you have exactly a hundred thousand dollars in your retirement account and he's got exactly a hundred thousand dollars in his retirement account. You bought the house together. There's a hundred thousand dollars in equity and you agree you're going to split it fifty fifty when you sell the house. But then yes, go get divorced by yourself.
But that's not the reality for most people, right? Somebody earned more than the other person. Somebody put a down payment on the house and the other person didn't. Somebody stayed home with the kids. Somebody worked 80 hours, you know? And like, are all these, you have children. You have adult children you're still supporting. You own a business together. There are like all these reasons where you probably need to see somebody if you're gonna get divorced. I would say I can speak very well to what it's like to have an attorney when you get divorced, being that I am one.
And so there are a lot of people that say, hey, look, I want to do the thing where it's like, I don't need to worry about this. I have dedicated support. You're only looking out for my interests. You're only on team, you know, Stephanie or whatever your name is. Right. And then go get an attorney and your attorney's like, give me this, fill out this questionnaire, give me this documents. You done? Okay. Go like this. Cause I got it from here. Right. And so then I'm going to do the filings for you. I'm going to get you.
Taylor (14:40.354)
to skip the initial court hearing. I'm going to sit there in mediation. And while you tell your story and you start talking too much, I'm going to go, that's enough Stephanie, right? Like I'm going to help you negotiate. I'm going to tell you what's a good deal and what's not a good deal. And then when it's done, I'm going to draft the most beautiful decree you've ever seen with it. And I'm to put a bow on it. And then when your divorce is final and I call you into my office to sign your quit claim deed, we're popping champagne, baby. Like it's over, right? And that's one method. There are a lot of people who do that though, and who are really
not very amicable, right? And then I'm going to court, I'm doing your court trial, right? Or your motion or whatever. But there are a lot of people that recognize that hiring an attorney is scary. Like I am an attorney and I have a visceral reaction to every single time that I've had a situation where I have had to hire an attorney. I've had to hire three attorneys and I'm like sweating. I'm like, my God, like how much is it gonna cost? Like what's gonna happen? Are they gonna pay attention to my case?
Am I better attorney than them? Like, am I smarter than them? Like, should I just do like, you know, should I do it? Like, there's all of these things that you think when you have to go hire an attorney, it's really scary. So for people that are like, I think we can do this. Maybe we've been through discernment counseling. I think we can do this. I think we agree the best interests of our children are served if we do this. I think we just need support communicating about this. I think we need to understand our options a little better than maybe you go to mediation.
And maybe you just get up in some mediation and you sit on Rachel's couch with the plant, right? she waters the plant during the mediation for you. And she's like, we have some aromatherapy? Don't do aromatherapy, Rachel doesn't like scents, like some unscented candles, like flickering light. There might be a waterfall, right? Like maybe you just go to mediation and that's what you do. And maybe you see
you know, an attorney at the end, maybe you can self file, who knows, but like get well versed in what's out there. And then Rachel and I are super, super passionate about doing things in a collaborative way. So that's also another thing too, is like, there are some really great collaborative programs out there. We might have one that helps you ensure that you stay out of court, that helps you ensure that you have all the legal and the mediation support, and then hooks you up with other professionals that you might need to know.
Taylor (17:04.225)
So do your research, right? There is a lot on the interwebs nowadays, right? That can help you understand how to go through a divorce. The last thing we would both say, I think we both echo this very highly in a lot of like Facebook moms groups and on the internet and social platforms amongst our friends that anytime you're in this space and you have questions, get a consultation with someone, right? Like I don't know.
Facebook mom group. Because Taylor and I are... We are going to be on here talking about all the... We're both moms who hang out in way too many Facebook mom groups. We're both like, my god, what is that advice? Please don't listen. So anyway, as you were...
Go to Peace McMomber, bro!
Taylor (17:40.206)
of them.
Taylor (17:46.784)
like all the groups like moms and BIPOC gymnasts. Moms of S.P. girls like we're in the groups. Okay. And it never fails that somebody is getting a divorce. Somebody has a very difficult co-parent. Somebody's got a psychopathic acts like, you know, their children are struggling with transitions and whatever. All these things come up because this is the reality of being a mom, a person who's divorced, a parent, a co-parent, like all those things. And there are a lot of people that don't know what they're talking about. So
We want you to go out and be getting the consultations with someone professional, even if you're not ready to file, even if you're not ready to buy the house, even if you're not ready to start investing, even if you're not ready to split that retirement account. Like start utilizing the resources that are out here. A lot of people do have free consultations and they're happy to work with you all the way through, like up to the point where you're ready to file. And then for people, know, professionals that don't have free consultations,
of that sort, right? Like we don't always do free consultations at my office, but you know what we're happy to do? To give you a strategy session for a fee, right? Like there are a lot of people out there. There are divorce coaches. There are financial advisors that are fee for advice, right? Go get hooked up with these people so that you can make the right choice. Like don't be cheap because let me tell you when you start cheap, like if you really don't have the money, okay, I can hit you with some resources where you can
get some things done. But like, if you have the money to invest, like you do have the ability to do it, just do it because there's a lot of heartache and doing divorce wrong. Like there is a-
see a lot of people with post-degree stuff and I know Taylor does too. And when I say post-degree, what I mean, you know, once you're already divorced and I have seen people back as soon as three months after their, after their decree is signed. I had someone just this week who I think is 11 years post-degree, anything in between where they're like, this just is not working. And I would say a lot of the times it's because they did exactly that. They tried to just like,
Rachel (19:52.03)
save all the money and file on their own or whatever. And then they're like, this is decree. Yeah. I see. I've seen that so many times where they're like, I just can't stand them anymore. I have to be divorced. And they're like, first mention of divorce to like paper sign six weeks. I'm like, Ooh, okay. I bet that felt feels good today. That's not going to feel good a year from now when everything blows up and it's not working because you did not take the time to really think through your strategy and make sure you were making the best decisions for your family.
You pass.
Taylor (20:20.118)
and to get those financial documents so you know that you got what you were supposed to get and to understand custody and parenting time and to take the time to get child support and to like fight a little bit for the maintenance that you're entitled to, right? Like not fight in a negative way, but to say this is for yourself. Yes. So all of that. That's so good. I love that. Well, Rachel, as always, thank you so much for being in this with me and following this mission that we have.
yourself.
Taylor (20:49.954)
to help people experience divorce differently. until next time, that's all for now.
Thanks for hanging out with us on the Divorce Queens podcast. If you loved today's episode, be sure to hit subscribe and leave us review. It helps more women find the support they deserve.
Rachel (21:20.494)
And of course, isn't that the end of your story? It is the beginning of your comeback. See you next week!
