Show Notes

Extended periods of time quarantined and confined indoors with our partners taught us the importance of healthy and meaningful communication. But what happens when all forms of civil communication breakdown? In this two-part episode on communication our strategies deviate. In Part 1, Isaiah, being a marital attorney, will investigate how you can make a divorce less painful when communication is beyond repair. In Part 2, Meredith, being a licensed psychotherapist, will explore the alternative of not leaving the relationship, but instead finding new ways to connect with your partner, improve communication, and manage conflict.

In this episode we cover:

• A divorce attorney’s take on communication and conflict

• What makes the divorce process so contentious

• Cautionary tales of bad communication

• What you should know going into a divorce

• Conflict management and communication strategies

• Communicating around children and custody arrangements

• Talking finances during a divorce

Transcript

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:00): If you were sick, you wouldn't go on Google to try to figure out why you were sick. Well, y'all do that sometimes. And then we go to a, so that's a good example. We do that. Sometimes we look it up on some website and all of a sudden my shoulder ache means I have cancer.

Meredith Shirey (00:16):

It starts out with you. I've got a cough and I go on web MD and then it ends. And I'm like looking for coffins on Amazon and seeing what can be prime delivery.

Theme Music (00:31):

[inaudible]

Meredith Shirey (00:33):

Hey everyone, I'm Meredith Shiree. I'm a licensed psychotherapist specializing in relationships.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:38):

And I might say, I believe he'll just do the voice return.

Meredith Shirey (00:41):

It's a podcast about filling in the gaps of our relationships, the deeply personal choices we make for our families. and ourselves.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:48):

And the impact our actions have on the rest of our lives. This is Love Me, or Leave Me

Meredith Shirey (00:57):

On our last episode, we talked quite a bit about what 2020 was like and how we should try to restructure things coming out of it. And as we're going into the second way that the pandemic, and we mentioned throughout that episode, several times communication and needing to communicate. So we thought it'd be really, really helpful to have a few episodes on communication. Now, Isaiah and I have very interesting careers where there's a lot of overlap and this is one where our strategies are going to deviate a bit and take a bit of a diverging path. And so we're going to have one episode. That's going to be dedicated to Isaiah talking about how to make divorce, a less painful process, or try to something that can hopefully leave you and whoever else is involved as unscathed as possible and with the best outcome. And so some strategies for how to hopefully make that a little more harmonious.

Meredith Shirey (01:57):

And then the second episode is going to be to focus more on maybe if you're not in a place where you're leaving a relationship, but you really need to find some new ways to connect with your partner and improve your communication, manage conflict. That's what the second episode is going to focus on. And so if you're not finding what you need an episode one, make sure you stay tuned for both parts let's rock and roll. Let's do it. Yeah. So, you know, Isaiah one of the things I have loved about working with you over the years is how effective you are in helping people to get through what is obviously a very, very painful process of getting a divorce and you have this way of connecting with people and helping them and coaching them through it, to make it as pain-free as possible, which I think is incredible. And is then why you're my number one source for referring clients to you. And also to why the line I always use with clients when I'm giving the referrals to say, if I were going through a divorce, Isaiah's who I would want go to. And in fact, when I went to a divorce like eight years ago, I wish he had been my attorney because I might've gone a little bit better.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (03:06):

Well, thank you, divorce is a very painful time in somebody's life. And it doesn't matter if you have kids. If you don't have kids, if you're married for 20 years, five years, three months, regardless, you met a person, you fell in love with a person, you pick the perfect tuxedo, the perfect white dress, and this marks an end to that. And so a lot of people when they're going through the process and not just mourning, you know, the fact that they're losing a spouse where they're also mourning their ideas about marriage and about that real kind of cultural construct, we build around it.

Meredith Shirey (03:36):

So it really becomes an existential loss, not just the loss of the relationship.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (03:42):

I think you'd be able to speak more to that than me, but I think that's, that's about right.

Meredith Shirey (03:47):

You know, you're not just mourning the loss of the relationship when you're mourning a divorce and it's different even than the mourning of death, because when someone dies, that's the end, there is no more. But when you have a relationship that ends in a marriage that ends would that you thought was going to be till death, do us part it's like you're mourning, what would have been like the potential for the relationship in your mourning, the future that you thought you would have had with this person,

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (04:12):

It'd be worse than that because what happens is both parties. They move on with their life. But if there's still like a remnant of a connection, for example, if they're children, you're going to see how that person's doing five years from now. And if that person is doing much better than they were, you know, cause people tend to grow over time when they were married to you, that I imagine can be very painful.

Meredith Shirey (04:34):

That is actually something that I know you and I have talked about because we're both children of divorce. When you have children with somebody, when you get a divorce don't for a second, think you're ending the relationship. You're shifting the boundaries. But if you have children, you're going to be in each other's lives forever. And so you have to find a way to have some kind of harmony.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (04:54):

Yes. I mean, if you have children, you're going to be working with each other for many years, depending upon how old the children are, the younger, they are, the longer you're going to have a very structured relationship as far as access sharing. And decision-making, so you really should take that into account. But even when the, did the ultimately emancipated become adults, even then, you're going to have a relationship with the other person because there's graduations and weddings and grandchildren,

Meredith Shirey (05:17):

When you're dealing with divorce cases, or when you think about the people you've seen in your office, going through this, why do you think it becomes contentious? Or where do you think are there areas where communication breaks down?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (05:29):

If people are getting divorced, communication has broken down and probably a number of areas and divorce is already a contentious topic. You're ending a relationship in New York, at least, and probably other States as well. The courts view a marriage as an economic partnership. So what you're trying to dissolve is this partnership and all of its ties so that both parties can go on with their lives. But if you're going through a divorce, he probably not going to agree upon what ending those ties and separating looks Like. And that's where a lot of the contention comes in.

Meredith Shirey (06:01):

I know when I went through a divorce, I was lucky enough that we didn't have kids and shared assets. Cause we were both very young. And so it was quick and easy and over with very quickly because there was nothing really to fight over. But I would imagine that if you've had lives that have been intertwined for years and years, that becomes exponentially more difficult. So there's that old adage pick your battles when it comes to divorce and what you're talking about in terms of fighting for your clients and representing them and trying to get them the most in terms of what makes sense for them, right? Um, how should people decide what's worth fighting for? So the things that you were saying take sometimes can take years in court to find out what is actually worth going down that road versus what are maybe some areas where people need to try to just be a little more conciliatory.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (06:55):

Well, I mean, you don't want to be in court, fighting over who gets what couch and who gets, what,

Meredith Shirey (06:59):

What was that all country song? Who gets the family Bible? You remember that?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (07:03):

No, I don't, but that's like, that's a good example. That's a good example. Right? You don't want to end up fighting over those things, which have no real monetary value. And then in the thing, more legal fees for the thing you're fighting over, that it would cost to get a new one.

Meredith Shirey (07:21):

Don't say that to people. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm actually not kidding. But anyway, moving on. Yeah.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (07:28):

So yeah, you want to, you don't want to do that, right. Um, when it comes to picking your battles, then there's other things right there that are completely worth it. Like if there's some type of separate property claim, so like real money or something like that, there may be worth it to have a more contentious battle over that. Or, you know, if the children involved and there's going to be, there's a dispute over children or possible concerns of abuse, things of that nature then yeah. Then absolutely like there's no price you can put on children then all your rights, to the children. So that would be an area where you absolutely want to make sure that you protect your rights fully.

Meredith Shirey (08:02):

Would you maybe say then that children and conversation around those, is that an area where you find that people trip up quite a bit?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (08:12):

Yes and no. Usually in a divorce, people can come to terms, loose terms among themselves about the children. You know, usually people who are getting divorced, aren't pointing at each other and calling each other back. It's usually it doesn't happen. Right. And it does happen often, but it's not, it's not the rule. So in those cases where, you know, if you could look at your wife or your husband or your spouse, and look at that person and say, you know, he or she is or reasonably good parent, then that's the type of matter where you all can probably have some discussions about custody, loosely, and then go to your attorneys and say, look, this is kind of what we've loosely discussed. What do you think as an attorney, we're always going to have labor to add are always going to have ways to protect you more. That's our job, but you have a baseline understanding as to what it takes to be a parent, what it takes to take care of your kids. So you absolutely can have those types of discussions with your spouse. I would always encourage people to speak with their experience and find out what their legal rights are

Meredith Shirey (09:10):

When it comes to situations. Maybe where people either don't see eye to eye on their expectations for having access to the kids, or if something breaks down as they begin the divorce process and maybe one person has unreasonable expectations. Is that something where they then need to go and have the attorneys iron that out? Does the law have any mandates around who gets how much time?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (09:39):

No. The laws mandate is what happens is whatever is in the best interest of the children,

Meredith Shirey (09:45):

But that's pretty subjective, isn't it?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (09:46):

Yeah. So it was custody, right? So, so his divorce, each marriage is different. Every marriage is different. Nice. All we say, if anybody ever looks at an individual, marriage would think that two people in the marriage because that's, and it can be a very successful marriage because that's the way it is. So every marriage, every divorce is highly individualized and it makes the law, you know, somewhat flexible. So while there is laws surrounding all these things, especially, especially when it comes to custody, a lot of it is subjective. A lot of it's going to depend upon the individual circumstances of the parents. So for example, if you have the people getting the Boris and they have a couple of kids, but you know, the wife has to work every day to 10:00 PM at night. And the husband is, let's say a school teacher and his home every day at 3:00 PM. You know, there's no hard and fast rule. It's going to say, well, you know, obviously it should be 50 50 access there, or the mom should have primary residential custody. Was that primarily with her? Cause she's not there on the flip side, if there's some type of abuse going on, then obviously that the parent that's, the abuser is not going to end up with real access to the children. So it's really, really highly dependent upon, you know, what's going on in that individual circumstance. And I think that's kind of the way it should be right as human beings. We're all different. Our marriage is all different. Our kids are all different, so you can't have a hard and fast rule for everybody.

Meredith Shirey (11:05):

And that makes sense then, because you're saying couples should try to work that out and come up with some kind of preliminary agreement before you go to the attorney, let's say that I'm coming to you and I'm saying, Hey, I'm going to be getting a divorce. And I'm going to talk to my, my partner about this. What should I make sure to mention or to not mention what would be helpful going into that conversation to make it a peaceful conversation.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (11:29):

Basically, you don't want to get too specific. You want to just talk in great broad terms about what people's expectations are, right? You don't want to really come to any type of agreement or come to any type of like, this is our super definitely access schedule. If you can do that then fine. But I mean, there's a lot to consider and those things you, so basically you just want to come up with like a broad framework of like an understanding as to what people's expectations are, because usually both parties, especially in this day and age, would've have gone on Google and Googled custody and what to expect and, or maybe read a book or two about this. People tend to be somewhat informed consumers when it comes to this stuff. So you can try to take advantage of that and trying to figure out where people are.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (12:08):

And if that place where your spouse is, is diametrically opposed to where you are, then you want to say, okay, well, thanks for telling me that. I'm really gonna think about it. I appreciate your point of view. And then you're going to go talk to an attorney and figure out what's actually possible as opposed to like, you know, just saying, okay, well, let's try to fair it out ourselves. And then like having a huge ball up above the issue unnecessarily maybe, or maybe necessarily, but you know, you're not really fully informed of the legal rights. On the other hand, if your spouse comes to you and says, look, this is what I was really thinking of with respect to access and involved and those things with, with respect to the children and you know how we're going to see them, how are we going to make decisions? And that sounded okay to you. It's okay to say, well, that sounds pretty okay to me. Um, let me think about it some more, you know, and then you go to an attorney and discuss it either way. You want to go to an attorney and discussing your rights, but it there's nothing wrong with having the discussion.

Meredith Shirey (13:02):

I know like a lot of times when I've had clients, who've talked about going through a divorce, people want the option in mediation because in their minds, at least it will be less contentious and lead to something slightly more amicable. But if you have children, is that necessarily in your best interest or in the best interest of the parents to go the strict mediation?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (13:26):

Well, that's a good question. Mediation is an option for any case. And it's something that I help clients from all the time, whether or not it's something that's advantageous for clients is going to depend upon their ability to communicate with each other and to speak with each other and to figure out things, you know, kind of on their own, through the usage of a mediator. If it's going to be a process where, you know, that's going to be more contentious or where somebody is disrespectful of the other person, and when it comes to their methods of communication or ignores the personal or doesn't respect the person's ability to think, or to come to logical conclusions. And that's not going to be a case where I wouldn't necessarily recommend mediation, but if the two people can communicate with each other, um, then you can, whether you meet it or not, you still shouldn't have an attorney to advise you on these things, right?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (14:20):

Because what happens in mediation, at least in New York, is that you meet with that mediator, assuming you have a good one, then you come to terms and agreement and then you will see an attorney, but then the attorney is going to inform you of what your legal rights are. And then once you hearing what your legal rights are, you may not like, like what you agreed to. So then that sense of sometimes not all the time, it's sometimes blow up a deal. So that's why if you're informed all along, you know what you're agreeing to pay, you know, the consequences of it.

Meredith Shirey (14:45):

That makes a lot of sense. And I think while we're on the subject of children in custody, because again, I would imagine that this is probably one of the main points in a divorce that becomes tricky to navigate. One of the things that I get asked all the time by clients is how do I tell my children about the divorce? And especially when you're talking about when you've got instances where maybe there's a power imbalance between these partners, if you've got two spouses who don't see eye to eye, right? But we have these children that we're both still going to parent, how do we go about communicating with them about what's going on with the divorce and how do we communicate with each other?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (15:29):

That's a, that's a great question. Um, the truth is that like, while there may be power imbalances and all those things, when it comes to the children, you need to be on equal footing, right? And usually a lot of times the power and balance when it comes to let's say finances, or it comes to working that power balance is as reversed when it comes to the children. If there's two spouses and one's works more than the other, then the other one is usually taken care of the children more than the one who's working more. And that happens a lot. And where that happens, you know, the children are going to naturally lean on the person, that's there for them more sometimes, right. And all the time it's sometimes. So sometimes those power balances will shift. But the truth of it is that you both have equal rights to your children, right?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (16:14):

This is the person who you decided to get married and to have these children with, we didn't create the situation. You kind of created this situation. So now that you're in this situation, when it comes, I mean, you chose the, that you wanted to have children with. That's what I mean by create the situation now that this has been done. Now you have, you should, guys should sit down together. If you're going to speak with your children and tell them, you know, what's going on, but you do that as equals and as a United front, without any imbalances, because of what you don't want to do is drag your children to a messy divorce, because that can hurt them. You know, usually you can correct me if I'm long Meredith it. I think he may have been the one that actually told me this, but the studies will show that divorce doesn't necessarily affect, uh, children negatively, uh, the two things, right? Either a marriage that's abusive and it's just gone on for too long or a divorce are very messy and that children are very much involved.

Meredith Shirey (17:10):

That's exactly right. So there's this big misnomer misconception that divorce is just across the board, categorically bad for children, leads to maladjustment all these other things. And that's simply not true. What leads to better adjustment outcomes for children is parents who are connected or can communicate with one another. And there's a trusting, safe relationship there where the children find their parents to be emotionally safe with the children and with one another. Um, the other big predictor for poor childhood outcomes is actually maternal depression, which is also a big part of again, relationship adjustment. So one of the things we said last time was that the couple is so important. That's why it's so important to take care of your relationship because without that, there is no family. And so one of the best things you can do for your children is to have a healthy relationship with the other parent

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (18:12):

And actually the believe it or not, because of those studies right, New York in particular has said that the parent who gets custody of the children is the parent. who's going to engender a better relationship between the child and the non-custodial parent. So you want to make sure that you're fully supportive of your children, of seeing the non-custodial parent of your children, spending time with each other splitting time. You know, it's funny, we've come so far along and technology and we've come so far along in everything. And when it comes to custody, this is still the court of Solomon, right? Where Solomon said, cut the baby in half. And the real mother said, no, no, please don't do that. That is the person who gets custody. Right. But if I have one piece of

Meredith Shirey (18:59):

New York has not like taken a baby to court and be like, all right, who are we doing this? I mean, we're getting to some biblical stuff here

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (19:04):

Right? Well, if I have one piece of advice, I have one real piece of advice for parents out there. Don't cut your baby in half.

Meredith Shirey (19:12):

We just went to a weird dead baby jokes segment. Wow. This took a turn guys

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (19:18):

Seriousness don't w what does that mean? Right. That's metaphorical.

Meredith Shirey (19:24):

Oh, you meant emotionally cut. I was literally thinking you're like, you know, Texas Chainsaw Massacring your kids, like I'd went. So literally

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (19:32):

That's not a divorce case, that's a criminal case. And somebody is going to go to jail for a long time.

Meredith Shirey (19:36):

Yeah. That's not family court anymore. Okay. Different sections. Aright, moving on.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (19:40):

Well, metaphorically speaking, what that means is you put your children's needs above your own, right? And the parent does kind of willing to do that. That's the parent, who's going to get custody of this uncontested a custody battle. And if both parents are willing to do that, then you know, it's really a joint custody situation. The most, most cases are joint custody situation. Finances are the other big area of a divorce. And what my recommendation for people is always the same. Before you have those types of discussions, you should really find out what your rights are in the financial realm of things. And that doesn't only deal with a child support. It also deals with maintenance, New York calls, the maintenance, the rest of the country calls it alimony or palimony. New York likes to be special. We're special here in New York. Yeah. So there's that there's equitable distribution.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (20:25):

You know, if you guys own a home together, or if you have their bank accounts or, or various other assets, business interests, things like that, you need to find out what it is that you're possibly entitled to, or what your possible exposure is before you go and have financial conversations with your spouse. You know, there are attorneys who will charge you consultation fees for that. And there's attorneys that, that won't fees technically are usually not tremendously expensive. Even if you have to pay them, it's definitely worth the money to do that prior to having those discussions, especially if you don't know what your rights are generally, or you are in the dark with respect to what your finances are.

Meredith Shirey (21:03):

I can't tell you how many people I've had in my office, who really have no idea what their spouse's financial situation looks like, especially, and not to be too stereotyping here, um, or gender normative. But when their spouse is a male who works, especially in the finance industry, there seems to be a lot of secrecy where the partner who's maybe making quite a bit more money, doesn't actually want the other partner to know. And so one thing that's come up when I, when I'm talking to clients who are going through divorce, and they'll say, they're like, I don't know how much he or she makes. So is that something that you're obviously saying go to an attorney, but is that something that I guess you would find out through your own attorney? Is that something that the, the other spouse could hide or continue to hide?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (22:00):

You definitely find it out, right? There's various ways that we have to do that. Um, various forms that need to be filled out various discovery, that financial disclosure has to be done. It's very difficult to hide money in a divorce, because money is no longer cash in a wall. You know, most of it is electronic. It's all on paper, somewhat. It's not an easy thing to do to hide money in divorce and, and then needs to be full disclosure as to, um, assets in a divorce.

Meredith Shirey (22:28):

Let's say you both came into the marriage without much. Maybe you were both just starting out or you got married young, and then one or both of you became very successful after you got married. Does that change? How assets are freed up and also how long you're married and then the opposite. So let's say that you both had a long life and long careers before you got married, and then you continue to have financial success after you got married and yet a shorter marriage. Does any of that matter when it comes to dividing assets and who gets what?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (22:59):

Yes. It matters. Generally speaking, anything that you earned during the marriage is marital property to the extent that you still have it, right? So if you spend your income, whatever you spend your income on, if there are assets that you're spending your income on, think you bought a house or you have savings accounts, or you bought a car or whatever you did, that those are marital assets that are subject to equitable distribution. Everybody says, well, it's 50, 50, but a lot of things are 50 50, but it is equitable distribution and not equal distribution in New York.

Meredith Shirey (23:28):

So what's the difference there. Can I ask you to, like, just say a little bit more, because I'm actually glad you said equitable does not mean equal. So what's the difference?

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (23:36):

It's hard to speak to us. I don't want people on the podcast thinking I'm automatically inside of the 50%, or I'm not entitled 50% because I don't think that's fair. Right, right. Um, it's dependent upon what you're speaking about. Very general. Very, very generally speaking business assets are often not divided on 50 50 basis, unless there has been physical contributions from the non titled spouse, meaning that the non-Title spouse has picked in money or work than the business itself. Right. Other than those two things, it's usually not a 50 50 thing. And it's going to depend upon how long the marriage was, whether the business was created during the marriage. It gets, it gets very complex, right. But what people should take away from this, okay, is that both parties contributions to the marriage are respected and valued. So if you have one party who made all the money or who made most of the money, opened the business or worked on wall street, whatever that person's contributions to the marriage are respected in rate in raising the kids and getting access to the kids in, and maybe having a disproportionate share of the business, distributed to her or him on the flip side of that coin, the other spouse's contribution to the marriage also respected, so if that person, whether it be him or her stayed home with the kids and raised them and maybe for-went their own careers to do so, while you're not going to be able to leave that person broken in the street.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (25:00):

Now that doesn't work like that. So the way that person's contributions are valued is that whatever you've kind of garnered during the marriage is usually broken apart more or less on a 50, 50 basis, depending upon whether you had it before the marriage or after the marriage, or if it's an active asset or a passive asset, it gets very, it gets very complex. But the one thing that people should take away from this really is that just because you may have been the person who didn't work, or maybe you were the person who did work, your contributions to the marriage are respected in the law in New York is not a title state. So whoever has title, it doesn't really matter or matters is when the asset was obtained. And if it was obtained in a marriage that is marital property,

Meredith Shirey (25:42):

That is I think a really, really good point to drive home because I've had a lot of female clients who did not get a divorce or were very, very reluctant to, for that reason because they were worried thinking, well, he makes all the money. I haven't had a career in 15 years because I've been raising the children. And I'm worried that he is vindictive enough, that he would want to just leave us on the street. But I think that what you're saying is really helpful to hopefully empower people who are worried about that situation. Maybe you're staying in a bad marriage because they're, they're worried that that could happen, that their contribution wouldn't be taken into account.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (26:22):

And I I've seen that situation several times. And look at the end of the day, you're entitled to what you're entitled to. If the children are in child, child support, if you haven't worked in a while, you could be entitled to maintenance or alimony, right? As you're entitled child support, as long as their primary residence, residential custodian in New York, there's equitable distribution. You bought a house during the marriage and the house gets sold. You're entitled to half it, depending upon whether or not they were separate property contributions. Meaning if one party had $500,000 before the marriage, and then took that $500,000 and bought a house, then that party is going to be entitled to a credit for what that party contributed. But outside of those kinds of scenarios, there are ways that you're, you are protected, right. And really what those types of people should do when they have those questions, they should just go speak with an attorney.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (27:08):

Really. I mean, that's, that's my number one piece of advice. You know, people, people sometimes can be intimidated to speak with an attorney, or they can be hesitant to speak with an attorney because they think that this means that they're definitely going forward with the divorce. And that's not true. What you're trying to do is educate yourself on what your rights are. If you were sick, you wouldn't go on Google to try to figure out why you were sick. Well, you all do that sometimes. And then we'd go to, so that's a good example. We do that. Sometimes we look it up on some website and all of a sudden, my shoulder ache beans, I have cancer,

Meredith Shirey (27:47):

Right? Or like, uh, have you seen the ones where there's like some YouTube video or something where it starts out with the, I've got a cough and I go on WebMD and that it ends. And I'm like looking for coffins on Amazon and seeing what can be Primed to me

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (27:59):

Exactly. And then, and then you go see your doctor and the doctor's like, you have nothing, take some aspirin and you're fine. Right? So

Meredith Shirey (28:08):

Stop consulting Dr. Google.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (28:09):

Exactly. So Don't, don't, don't consult lawyer, Google either. It's not a good idea. You go, you go to a lawyer, you know, you find out some information and then you can figure it out from there, what it is that you want to do. And then I think what you'll find out is that things aren't necessarily what you thought they would be.

Meredith Shirey (28:29):

That's very, very important. And making sure, again, like everyone's, situation's different. Everything needs to be taken to account your situation is unique. And so you need a trained professional to walk you through your specific relationship and situation. That makes a lot of sense. And I think that that's, again, why I've always loved working with you over the years is because I know that you take the time to build that rapport with people and given what I do, it's so important because people, if they're asking me for that referral, one, it's one of the most vulnerable times in your life, right? Your marriage is ending. And then two, it's such a personal relationship with me that I find referring somebody. I need them to be able to trust who they're going to. And, and that's why I think it's so wonderful when people work with you, because you take so much time to understand the situation, to develop rapport and to really build that trust so that you can get through this in a painless, in a less painful way, because they can rely on your guidance.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (29:32):

But I also believe in something like, I'll call it like almost a holistic divorce, right. Where you've come in and this is ending, but we're gonna out a plan for kind of like everything. You're going to have your financial plan. You're going to have your plan with your children, but let's not forget about you. Right. And you personally, how do you get a new job? You know, maybe you have some emotional issues going on that you want to work through. Well, then I have people within my network that I'm like, all right, well, you should go talk to Meredith for the therapy. You should go talk to this person to help you out with finances. I think some of these people are actually going to be coming on the show. So you'll hear from them. But that's the point is to make the entire person better at the end of the process, or maybe not better, maybe that person is still hurting or what's going on, but give them the tools with which they can rebuild their lives. So it's not just a matter of, okay, you're divorced now. This is the end of the relationship, but okay, you're in divorce and not, but now you have the tools with which you're going to go forward and live this next part of your life.

Meredith Shirey (30:28):

I think that that is such an incredible place to maybe wrap this episode up is the hope right? And you reminding people that life doesn't end when you sign these taper, in fact, the next chapter can begin and you're giving people hope and excitement and motivation to do that.

Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (30:48):

Yeah, I would say that every end is a new beginning.

Theme Music (31:02):

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Rich Hackman [Producer] (31:03):

Love me or leave me is a podcast production of the board brand. This podcast is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute medical or legal advice and is not a substitute for professional consultation, diagnoses or treatment. Always follow up with a licensed attorney or healthcare professional who can address your specific needs. Thanks for listening.