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"Strangers", Prenup Prep and Grey Divorce with Lisa Zeiderman · "What's Next? Conversations with Boomers"

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: You are listening to What's Next?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Conversations with Boomers.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Barb Damaray, your host.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: So have you heard of gray divorce?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's actually what you think it might mean.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: The gray-haired people are getting divorced.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out in huge numbers.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're talking after 30, 40 years of marriage.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We did cover this topic once before, quite a while ago.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Today we've got a special guest on, and a very well-qualified guest, Lisa Ziderman.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: She is a divorce financial analyst and a certified financial litigator and a managing partner at the law firm Miller Ziderman LLP.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And she's based in New York.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: So she's going to guide us through the transition process when couples, and in our case, couples who have been married, as I say, sometimes decades, what they face in terms of their finances and all of the challenges that surround that.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we're also going to discuss the memoir, Strangers.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And some of you may have heard of it, actually, probably a lot of you have heard of it.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's by the author Belle Burden, which it's become very popular.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Belle tells her story of suddenly and unexpectedly having to terminate her marriage and wonders, what do I do now?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa, welcome to the program.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me, Barb.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so looking forward to having this conversation with you.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: We had a great chat on the phone prior to us getting together to record.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, it was in the conversation.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa said to me, Well, I'm halfway through strangers.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: How about we talk about that?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes, let's talk about that.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's really an interesting story.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but let's start with talking about what you do when a couple or half a couple sit down with you for the first time for advice on how to sort out their finances.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: So you're right, it's half a couple that is sitting down with me because we only meet with one person of the couple, one of the spouses.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: And essentially we go through our usual consultation trying to get to know the client and their finances.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: We may look at tax returns during the consultation.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: We also may look at account statements.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes we're fortunate enough that somebody has brought a spreadsheet with them of everything they know in terms of the finances.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's always very helpful.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then we talk about whether or not somebody came into the marriage with what we call separate or premarital property, and also whether anyone received a gift or an inheritance that would affect the division of assets.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, we discuss income levels at that point.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure couples don't sit in front of you and think, whoa, this is what I envisioned.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is thinking about themselves at the altar.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And now here's this person, you know, talking about her finances because her marriage is ending.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And especially, you know, as we're saying, after so many years of marriage, how prepared are most people when faced with divorce?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I would say it depends.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: It really depends on whether those people were managing the finances in their household or whether they left that to someone else to manage.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And if they were managing the finances, they're very often very, very intimate with the finances.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: But if they were not managing, if they left it to someone else, or perhaps they have a financial advisor and perhaps they weren't even attending the meetings with the financial advisor, then they may be more limited in terms of their knowledge of the finances, which of course makes it more difficult as you go through the process.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Lisa, I know people who actually say, I don't have a clue how much money we have.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea what our investments are, what we're investing in, how much we have, not a clue.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm always shocked at that.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is that quite common?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's very common.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it is at all levels of income and assets, whether it's a high net worth divorce or a couple who doesn't have a great deal in terms of finances.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: It is very, very common to have one person who's much more knowledgeable and someone else who really may not have paid attention.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's much more common than one would think.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of gender, is it usually the men that are taking over the finances or is it women?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: I would say it's usually the men who are taking over the finances who are paying closer attention, but it's not always the case.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I think that we have to be careful.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: There are definitely situations, and you know, I was raised in a home where my mother ran the finances, right?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: My my father went to work, my mother ran the finances.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think it depends, but for the most part, for the most part, I will very often have when I'm representing the husband, they will come in with their entire spreadsheet with the tax returns.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: They know exactly what they have, and we may not have that same scope if I'm representing the the wife in that particular situation.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not divorced, but I'm widowed.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And fortunately, my husband and I were very open, you know.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: So when he died, there was absolutely no secrets.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was completely aware of what we had and what we had to sell, et cetera, et cetera.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that did make it much easier.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I, yeah, yeah.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So so there's a little piece of advice.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Be informed.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's so important.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think as we discussed, Barb, I am chair of an organization called Savvy Ladies, which really gears itself towards women's financial empowerment through financial literacy.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I practice what I preach.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: I am extremely informed about you know our finances at home.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we talk about them all the time.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: The Wall Street Journal, I a while back, had done an article about myself and my husband and how we deal with finances in our own home and how we talk about them all the time.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I it is not unusual on, you know, in a morning when we're both brushing our teeth for us to be talking about the finances or as we're going to get the coffee or any of those times or dinner, it's just a natural conversation, like what happened in the news today.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so we don't have a date night.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Some people have a date night where they talk about the finances, or they may have an appointment with the financial advisor or they never talk about it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about it all the time.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's really good.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Are you listening, people?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you were written up in the Wall Street Journal.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's very cool.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, Lisa, what are the biggest mistakes that most people make?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to look at it from two perspectives.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to look at it from the male perspective and from the female perspective, or I could look at it from the working spouse and the non-working spouse.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes that's the same.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: But in any event, I think making sure that you encourage your spouse to be in the workforce, that you make them a financial partner, that you actually share the information and that you're transparent about the information so that you can all be on the same page when you're having conversations about budgeting or retirement planning or investing, all of those conversations are best done after someone has been transparent about their finances.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: I would also say that if you are discouraging your spouse from going out into the workforce, that's probably a mistake that you're going to pay for in the event of a divorce.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: Because then that spouse may be qualified for alimony, you may pay more child support, there may be financial consequences to the control aspect of the finances.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so encouraging your spouse to be financially independent is absolutely in your own best interest.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a mistake that many people make, is they think that by encouraging their spouse to be financially independent, they are actually harming themselves, whereas they are actually helping themselves.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to take the other side of this.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think that if you are a spouse who is disinterested in the finances, that's also a problem.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't ask about the finances, if you don't look at the bank statements, but they've been given to you, if you aren't reading the emails or reviewing the tax returns, and nonetheless, your spouse is providing them or the accountant is providing them, you're not going to the meetings with the financial advisor.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Those are all things that you are actually doing to your detriment.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think you can then blame others for your lack of financial literacy at that moment.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is really, really interesting because what's going through my head as you're talking is that so often finances are at the core of their biggest conflict.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, infidelity is enormous, but money is huge, also, right?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Money makes the world go round, and nobody should think otherwise.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't have money to pay for your groceries, your childcare, your child's camp for your everyday necessities, and then more some, frankly, okay, then you likely will have a problem at some point.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think this shame of talking about money is part of the problem.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of people were raised not to talk about money.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that's unfortunate.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, even in my house, whenever they talked about money, that all the windows would get shut.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Even if it was like hot as anything in the summer, all the windows would be shut.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: As if everybody was watching, my family, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, who cared?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember that as a child.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I also think that money and being in a good financial situation means that you can be independent, that you gives you freedom.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think that people who don't understand that, I think that's unfortunate.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So true.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's just making me think of, you know, I went on dating apps just about a year or so after I my husband died.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you get in conversation with people.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, Lisa, there is sometimes I've been in conversation with somebody and they say one thing, and I immediately think, uh-oh, no, he's cheap.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: He's cheap.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that would be a huge problem for me.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that people should be spending willy-nilly, but there's also the harder, the sort of, you know, what is your mundy personality, right?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody's is a little bit different.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're on opposite ends, there's going to be problems.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Although even those couples, if they're on opposite ends and communicating about it and have worked out some sort of a system to deal with that, that could work.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: So for example, they may have a prenuptial agreement or a post-nuptial agreement if it's allowed.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe somebody is a big spender and somebody's a big saver.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: And somebody says, you know what?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be in a situation where I'm in going into retirement and you haven't said we haven't saved dime.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to put my earnings in a savings account.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: And those are going to be my separate prop.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's going to be my separate property that I can keep in the event that we get divorced or the event that there's a problem.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: And let's put it on paper and let's make sure that it is a real contract and that it is in line with the law of the state that we live in.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is such valuable information, honestly.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: So when we spoke on the phone, you talked about the importance of a prenup agreement and you just mentioned it.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And also you advise those of us with adult children to encourage them to get one.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: So why is it so important?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I think prenuptial agreements are so important that I just said to somebody this morning, and I might have even said it to you, because I've been saying it a lot in the last couple of months, that it should be a law that you have to get prenuptial agreements.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now, why do I think that?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think that for a few reasons.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, there is already a prenuptial agreement.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's called the law of the state that you live in.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's your prenuptial agreement, unless you craft it to fit the circumstances of you and your future spouse's life.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: So let's start there.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: You already have a prenuptial agreement.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's called the law of the state.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: Now you have the opportunity to craft it, to develop it, to work with it, to negotiate it, to be perfectly transparent about your finances with your fiance and to make sure you're all on the same page about major decisions.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: What could be more major other than children?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Which, by the way, that starts the discussion about children usually when you're going into a prenuptial agreement.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: Is somebody going to stay home and take care of the children?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: If so, does that person going to have alimony?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Is that person going to be taken care of in some other way?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's an important discussion.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: It allows for transparency.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: It allows for you to keep your separate property.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe you have family money that you want to make sure that you keep separate.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you've started a business that you've been working on for years and years and years, and you want to make sure that it's separate and you don't want to share it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Now's the time to have the discussion.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so a prenuptial agreement is a vehicle that you and your spouse can work on and that can be drafted to be a legal document.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: It is very important.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I will say that more and more young people, and I was just on the a call today with another attorney, more and more young people, very young people, are coming into our offices for prenuptial agreements.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that they are also going to Helloprenup, which I think we talked about before, which is an online app, and you get to put your own prenuptial agreement together, and then you can go review it, and it's nationwide.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: And all of this is democratizing prenuptial agreements for everyone.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what's so important.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that it's a it's a big mistake, frankly, not to be discussing a prenuptial agreement before you get married.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Can you just repeat the name of that app?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: I can.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it's called Hello Prenup.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you go online and you can create your prenuptial agreement, and it will also give you ideas for prenuptial agreements.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then there are, it's nationwide.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: So there are a list of attorneys, then you can seek out to review your prenuptial agreement.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: They're called review attorneys in your estate and make sure that you know it's well done and and that you have covered all your bases.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I sometimes run into people who actually have used Hello Prenup by accident.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: I was just, we we have friends who said, Oh, my daughter used Hello Prenup.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I I was so satisfied.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: I am, you know, just for purposes of disclosure, I am an investor and I am an advisor to Hello Prenup.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: I believe in it totally, and it's a great company.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Is it only for US residents?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, right now it is only for US residents.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, because this podcast is heard all over.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to just make that clear.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, Lisa, do you ever find there's a problem?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can't imagine that there is not a problem with this.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is people honoring the prenup?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: There are people who won't honor the prenup, right?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that'll be the same for any agreement that you draft in any way, shape, or form, or any situation.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: There is always going to be a situation where somebody doesn't honor something.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: So the question is, what is it that is not being actually followed in the prenuptial agreement?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: And is it to your detriment?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: And if it is, then you would need to have the conversation.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, sometimes people don't follow the prenup and they just don't follow because they haven't dusted off that prenup in a while.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they need to do that every once in a while to read it and dust it off and make sure of what's happening.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's move on to talk about strangers, because definitely prenups come up in this book.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to be honest in saying I have not read the book yet, but I have listened to two hour-long podcasts with Belle.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I certainly have a general idea of the of the story.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: She tells it so well.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: It started out with an article in Modern Love in the New York Times and then moved to a book.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So do you want to, just for the listeners, give a give a synopsis of the story?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: So Belle Burden, I I did read the book and I loved the book.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: It was very compelling, and I actually listened to it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: So um listening to it in her voice is is very compelling, and I highly recommend doing that.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: So Belle Burden is a woman who comes from the Upper East Side of New York and comes from a very well-to-do and prominent family and gets married.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: And right before she gets married, they're going to sign a prenuptial agreement.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's certain points I'm going to hit, and this is one of them.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: And right before they sign their prenuptial agreement, he asks for a change.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the change is that his income is going to be his income.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: And everything they put into a joint account will be joint.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: And they go on to start leading their life together.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And she's very thrilled and happy.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: And they are in during COVID.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: And during COVID, the husband of a woman contacts her and says, Your husband is having an affair with my wife.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they're all in lockdown and they're all in Nantucket in their favorite, you know, home.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: And she's there with her children.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously they're all together.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: And by the next day, he has decided to leave the marriage.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And she found it obviously shocking.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she thought that she would be, when she she got a text like this, that she would be the one to leave the marriage, but he has decided that he's going to leave the marriage.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't, according to the book, he doesn't express much interest in the children.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: There is a moment in the book where he asks her after he tells the children about the divorce and that he's leaving to go make him a sandwich.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: She is trying to decide, do I make him this great sandwich?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Do I make him this really bad sandwich?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: What do I do?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: She very smartly makes the best sandwich that she can for the father of their children.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then the book goes on to talk about other things that she did.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: I would call them red flag moments.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: So for example, they were supposed to go see their financial advisor.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: She stayed back, wasn't engaged in that, which we talked about earlier.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: At some point, they were going to modify the prenuptial agreement in some way with their trust and estate's attorney.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: They are about to see the trusted estate's attorney, and he says, you know, we'll do that another time.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: So the agreement is never modified.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: She takes her family money from the trust and she puts it into joint property, which makes it then joint.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: So she loses the separate property credit that she would have had, or the separate property because the prenup is not set up to give a separate property credit if you put it in joint names.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: She claims in the book that she has done this for the good of the family.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, it goes on and on.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: I will also say that basically she's disengaged with the finances in many, many ways and leaves this to him.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: And he becomes very successful according to the book.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: He's making a great deal of money.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: He's highly successful.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: And she was a lawyer, by the way.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so she worked for a very large law firm.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: They both started out basically at exactly the same place, except now she doesn't have the earning power, that's what she says, that he now has.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: And yet she feels like she's been left out in the cold.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I will say there's been a New Yorker article, and I don't know if you've seen that, Barb, that contradicts quite a bit of what Belle has said in her book, which says that there was a great deal of money that she had in trust, that the year before they actually divorced or the year before she filled out her net worth statement, she had approximately$800,000 in income, that there were other trusts.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know the real circumstances, but notwithstanding the New Yorker article, what's interesting to me about the book is that I think most women have Bell's story was so compelling that it doesn't so much matter about what the New Yorker article says.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I think to some degree, okay, the facts matter.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Don't get me wrong, they matter, they would matter to me, but the story and the lessons in the book are so compelling.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so whether or not it's a hundred percent true, or whether parts of it are true and we don't have the full story, it doesn't so much matter to me.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: I decided this yesterday, by the way.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't so much matter because I think the lessons about financial literacy, about paying attention, about making sure that you button up certain aspects of your financial life, okay, so that if you end up in a situation like Belle Burden claims to have ended up, that you have done all of the things to protect yourself and make yourself safe in terms of your financial future.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's what the lesson here is.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And whether it is partly fiction and partly nonfiction, I don't really.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Care.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's a very, as you say, compelling story.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to go back to the sandwich story because the podcast where I watched her talk about it, she said, I decided, well, she said she wasn't going to argue about making a sandwich because both of them had come from divorced parents.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that she hated was when one parent put down the other.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so she was just going to be, for the sake of her children, she was just going to be polite about this sandwich.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, you know, I'm going to make the best damn sandwich.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And he's going to walk out of here.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And how can I possibly leave up marriage?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Leave someone who makes such a good sandwich.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I, it was, it's really funny how he tells she's very down to earth.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, as you point out, a very intelligent, well-educated woman.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: But what was interesting to me also was when the sandwich story was when he came back and they were going to tell the children about this.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And because he had said, I don't want the kids.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're yours.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm out.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done with this.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I just can't even imagine the mental anguish that produced in her.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have somebody that comes on regularly, Jackie Adams, and this is no secret.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Jackie has a very similar story.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Also married for decades.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: She got a phone call, also, a man asking for her husband.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, I'm sorry he's not here.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's at a conference.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, he isn't.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: He's with my wife.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And oh gosh, she tells the story really well.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, so of course, you know, when I heard about this story, I thought, oh gosh, this is another one.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, I think that you've pointed this out.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just from your perspective, what were some of the mistakes that Belle made when faced with divorce?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything else to that you want to add?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, I think that the overall mistake was just the lack of being in touch.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe being in touch in a lot of different ways, frankly, but certainly being in touch with her finances.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's the biggest mistake.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I will say she went on to write this great bestseller.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: So for her, the story was good at the end of the day.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we don't know, of course, as I said, how much money there really is.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the interview that I watched was with Oprah.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm sure she got a few sales off that one.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, she is doing podcasts all over, and um, it's it is a highly, highly popular book.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: What were some things you that you think she did right?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, she made the sandwich.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: She portrayed herself as a great mom.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, that was good.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: She was extremely generous during the marriage.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: If she did indeed contribute her separate property to the homes that they built, I'm not sure that I agree with a lot of her choices.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's hard for me to say that there were so many things that she did right.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think that there were a lot of things that would have been different had she made different decisions.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think that she did put her children and what she thought was a great marriage first and foremost.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: That is admirable, but maybe to her detriment is the problem.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: That really stood out for me, and you know, hence the title Strangers, because she was under the illusion that they had this wonderful marriage.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, I was still in love with my husband.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: This came as a complete shock to me.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then you wonder, how often does that happen?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think it happens quite a bit.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think it happens for both genders.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think that it is not uncommon that one person is way ahead of the timeline in terms of divorce, that they have decided that they are done in some way, and they either it's not ideal in terms of timing.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps they're waiting for the children to finish school because they don't want to be away from their children full time.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps they think it's better for the children to stay in the marriage, and so they are in it.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: So timing, I think, is one reason.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that there's also people, you know, have affairs.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: There is infidelity, there are secret lives, there are all those things that we see every day.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think it's very common.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that you started at the beginning to say that we were going to be talking about great divorce.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: And in gray divorce, what we're seeing are more and more people who whose children have launched, and now they are in that situation of finding themselves in a divorce because somebody waited for many, many years before perhaps saying that they were unhappy, or the other person didn't hear it and make the changes.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I recently heard about an 80-year-old woman who has decided that she's going to leave her marriage, 80 years old.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: She said, I, you know, who knows?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: I might have 10, 15 years left, and I want them to be good years.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: What do you find are the reasons, the main reasons people leave?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when we say gray divorce, so I'm talking about, I mean, in a lot of cases, it's I went out with somebody who had who had been married for 40 years and left.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: So what are the reasons that people leave after so long?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think that they have become disenchanted with their marriage in some way.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they have no more common ground with their spouse.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps they have nothing to talk about anymore.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Their um sex life may have diminished.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: They really were there for the children.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: They find themselves, and I hear this very often, that they are friends but not lovers anymore.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: That is a huge reason people leave.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: They found someone else and they really want to be with that person.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's less, I think, the reason that many people leave.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's less, that's one of the lesser reasons that we see.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, control.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: They felt that they were being controlled and they were either controlled economically or in some way in terms of career or in another way.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: They were abused and felt that they could no longer take it.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe they thought that if they left the home when the children were growing up, they would be leaving the home with and leaving the children essentially with the abuser for some period of time.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: And at least if they were there while the children were growing up, they would be there to protect the children.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: These are things that we hear.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't necessarily agree with them because I think that there's other issues with that, but those are definitely reasons that people have stayed and that we see more and more great divorce now.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And people are living longer, they just are.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: And to your point about your this woman who is 80 years old, they don't want to waste that last part of their life with someone that they are not having, you know, the time of their life with, essentially.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just read an article that said, and I might be remembering this incorrectly, but of all divorces, now, and this was a US statistic, something like 40% of them are gray people, you know, people that are 55 plus.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that number is growing.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think that that is exactly what's happening.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: But remember, the population is also getting older, right?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: Our population is getting older.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it wouldn't be surprising that more of the population that is getting older is also going through a divorce.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that, as I said, you know, maybe you used to have a 25-year marriage that used to be long, but to your point earlier, this could be 35 or 45 years, and maybe that was just too long for some people.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think that there are a lot of different reasons why people leave their marriages later in life.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's unfortunate, frankly, because I think that they could have left earlier.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: And in some cases, it might have been better for their children had they left earlier.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: They thought it was better for their children to stay, but we see a lot of those children coming in for prenuptial agreements now and talking about how dysfunctional those relationships were.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so I don't know that they did any big favor here, but they thought that it was the right thing to do.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure quite often, like so many things, there's the why didn't I do this before?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Why did I wait so long?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in the 60s, Lisa, and parents of my parents' age, it was so rare to find somebody that was divorced.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was scandalous for one thing.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just so it just hardly ever happened.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Rarely.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now it's completely mainstream.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: It well, everything is everything's changed, you know, including marriage and divorce and who you marry and who you don't.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, then there's all sorts of different configurations, but that's a whole other topic.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: But okay, is there anything else you'd like to add to this conversation?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: No, I think we've covered it.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I will say for people out there who are finding themselves in a situation where they have financial questions, they might check out Savvy Ladies, which is for women's financial empowerment.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: It is a helpline, it is free.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: We have about 300 volunteers nationwide in the United States who will help women with their financial questions.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And they can go to the app store and download the savvy ladies app and put their question, or they can go to savvyladies.org and do that.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: If people are in a situation where they're considering whether they should stay or not, I think that there's plenty of resources out there now.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, they should always feel that they can go to an attorney and get a consultation and make their decisions.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, find out who your resources are, who your people are, who do you need to connect with.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Could be a whole variety of people.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: So lastly, how do people get in touch with you?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: So they can go to my blog, which is LisaZiderman.com.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: And first of all, there's a lot of articles and resources there.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: But then there is also a place to connect with me so that you can schedule a consultation if you want.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: I am a New York attorney, so it needs to be in New York, and it it would be a New York matter.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: But in any event, that's one way.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then my email would be lz at mzw-law.com.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa, this has been so informative and so important.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think more important than we realize because, you know, obviously people are getting themselves in a lot of trouble and trouble that they didn't for a minute anticipate when they were at the altar.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is yeah.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: So many thanks to you for coming on.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're a busy New York attorney, and you took the time to spend with us, and I appreciate that hugely.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I appreciate you having me on.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was wonderful to be a guest on your podcast, and I appreciate your questions.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: They were very interesting questions, and I hope it's helpful to your listeners.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: This episode was written and recorded by Barb Demaray, edited and produced by Aidan Glassy.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: As always, special thanks to our guests for making it possible.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed and you'd like to hear more, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can also follow the show on YouTube at what's next.convos with boomers.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.