Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / The Cost of Divorce And What It Costs You To Stay

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The Cost of Divorce And What It Costs You To Stay · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate the podcast, finding the space for all of you in life and love.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Sally Ann Hartnell, and this podcast is for anyone wanting to reclaim and liberate themselves in their relationships and their life.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are on your relationship journey, these conversations meet you right there in soulful, deeply supportive DNMs with me and interviews with other gorgeous humans.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Moving you from where you are to where you most want to be.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: A life and love completely aligned with your deepest desires to have it all on your own terms.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you're seeking a relationship and a life that lights up all of you, you're in the right place.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also like to acknowledge that this podcast is recorded on the traditional lands of the Wurundri people and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging and acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, and today I'm going to talk to you about the real cost of divorce.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now we all know that there's a financial cost to divorce, and a lot of my clients come to me saying, How much is this going to cost?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: or how much am I going to get?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: But what I want to talk to you today is about the real cost of divorce and also what it costs you to stay in an unhappy, unfulfilling, loveless, disconnected marriage or relationship because it does cost.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: It really, really, really does.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: It costs you your health, your well-being, long-term stress, and let's face it, if your relationship or your marriage is unhappy or dysfunctional, you are experiencing long-term stress.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're in almost constant fight, flight, freeze, fawn, mode, otherwise known as stress.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that long-term stress is detrimental to your health, to your emotional well-being, to your mental health and wellness, and all of that manifests eventually as physical symptoms, real physical symptoms.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it costs you your health and your well-being to stay.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: It costs you peace.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: It costs you choice.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It costs you freedom, joy, happiness, contentment, fulfillment.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it costs you because it erodes you.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It erodes your self-worth, your self-esteem.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It eats away at your self-trust because you're filled with this constant doubt, constant questioning, constant challenging yourself, trying to find solutions or answers.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it costs yourself trust and it costs yourself belief.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: It also costs you the opportunity or the chance at creating and sharing deep connected love.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Whether creating or reclaiming that in your current relationship with your current partner or whether that is going to be created with somebody new in a new space, a new relationship, it costs you that chance.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Staying stuck in indecision costs you the chance of creating and sharing a deeply connected, loving, fulfilling relationship.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It costs your capacity to live a deeply, I keep saying deeply in this episode, um, a truly self-loving and self-honouring life where you are in turn deeply, fully loved and honored by someone else, by the other person you're in a relationship with.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it costs you that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now a lot of people come to me saying, I can't leave because of the kids.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to say there is a cost to staying.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: There is a cost that is borne by your kids.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: What are you teaching them about partnership, about relationship, and about their own worthiness in relationships?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: What are you teaching them about self-sacrifice?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: What are you teaching them about what's most important?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what are you teaching them about choosing themselves in the smallest but also the biggest moments and the biggest spaces of their lives?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: What are you teaching them about love?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: About being loved and about self-love.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It also costs your healing.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It costs your the healing of your soul, the healing of your heart.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It costs because you're closing down your heart rather than opening up and expanding it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: It costs you your sovereignty, your agency, your personal power because you sit in indecision.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I do want to talk here about money.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because yes, divorce costs money.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're dividing$50 or$50 million, there's still division.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a financial cost.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: But not choosing that, not choosing and staying where you are not happy, where you're not fulfilled, costs your financial empowerment and independence.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, leaving can and does cost.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, whether you've got$50 or$50 million, splitting it, dividing it means each of you gets less.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: It means a change in assets, including potentially the home where you live.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It means changed income or cash flow, but the light in that shadow is that you gain control.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You get to choose.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, you trade joint finances, yes, you trade a shared financial future, yes, there's less.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I am not minimizing the hardship that some of you will face.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: We all hear the horror stories in the media of women over 55 being the fastest growing demographic when it comes to homelessness in in this country, in Australia, but choosing you now sets you up to be independent, to make your own decisions, to write your own story, and not be financially handcuffed or beholden to someone else, not having your financial future in someone else's hands, not being free and financially free to choose.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, you trade certainty and safety, but the cost of staying is remaining stuck in that dependence.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So while there is less, there is also, or there can be, more in so many ways, because staying means denying what you really want for yourself and for your life.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Staying means sacrificing your heart, your soul, your joy.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: It means minimizing and staying small because you can't live your full, expanded, amazing life if you are unhappy in your primary partnership relationship.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you're unhappy in your relationship, unhappy, unfulfilled, unseen, unheard in your marriage.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there comes a time yours might have come already, or it might be coming for you.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: There comes a time, a crash point moment when the pain or even simply the numbness of being completely disconnected from yourself, from from your life and from it within your marriage, the pain of staying outweighs the pain of what it would take to take that step, make that move.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: The pain of staying outweighs the pain of what it would take to dismantle your marriage, have the belief in yourself to start again solo.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: The pain of staying, the numbness of living a disconnected life, of squashing yourself down to fit into a box that you've outgrown or maybe you never ever fit in in the first place, minimizing or ignoring your needs, living without the love you know deep down is possible for you.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: That all trumps the fear of leaving.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: The reality of staying and and what that means, what it means to live in an unhappy life overcomes the fear, even the real, tangible, and practical things that you're worried about.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: The money, the kids, the fallout, losing friends, stability, security, letting go of the dreams.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: They are real, tangible, practical things that need to be addressed.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not minimizing them.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you might feel like there's no safety net if you choose to leave.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: It might seem like you actually don't have a choice or that you've been stripped of choice, but I want you to know you do have options, you can actually reclaim that for yourself, you can reclaim your agency, you can create choice, and you can create a new reality for yourself.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, it's gonna look different in all sorts of ways, but it is possible.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know it is because I've done it and I've coached so many others through it.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it is possible, and it's possible for you to, even if it's damn damn scary.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Our brain is hardwired to keep us safe, it's gonna bring up all that scary stuff, it's gonna tell us all the stories and raise up all the reasons why you can't or you shouldn't leave.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It will force you to consider all of the worst-case scenarios.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And let's be realistic, there will be hard stuff.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain is gonna tell you all the stories and create all the reasons why you can't possibly choose something different for yourself.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Something that's scary, something with uncertainty, and probably, yes, something which is going to cause short-term pain.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: But our heart, as opposed to our brain, our heart is attuned to hope and possibility, and it is desperately trying to tell us, to tell you to choose yourself, to choose you, even if it's scary as F, even if it's scary AF, even if it feels so uncertain, so unsure, and your brain is telling you it's unsafe, even if you know there will be short-term pain, even if you're not really sure how that long-term future will pan out for you, but your heart is still calling out to you or nudging you to at least look at and consider something different for yourself, whether that is reimagining and recreating your current partnership or leaving.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Safety is familiar, and familiarity is safety.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So our brain works double, triple time even to keep us where we feel safe.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: But are you stuck in the stories that your brain is telling you?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're stuck in the grief of loss, the grief of all that you might or think you might lose if you choose yourself.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there's loss even if you choose yourself and stay in that relationship.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: There are things you will let go of, parts of you will need to reinvent, reclaim, let go of, lose to connect back with your current partner.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe if you really want to leave, perhaps you are stuck in the grief of loss, unable to accept the things that you will lose if you choose yourself.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what about what you're missing by staying in that safety zone?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are you actually selling out on your heart, your soul, your dreams?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are you selling out on who you could become and what you could create by listening to the fearful part of your brain rather than the hopeful part of your heart?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Your heart's trying to tug you forward.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, what could you create space for in your life if you dare to listen to that tug and you dare to act on that tug?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, there's loss, yes, there's grief, but what about all the possibilities?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what could flow into the clear space that you create by choosing what you most want for yourself?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: What could you make space for if you release and heal this pattern or this connection or this relationship?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: What are you missing by s what are you missing out on by staying?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, there are things that will go wrong.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: There are things that are going to be hard and tough and painful.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's stuff that'll go wrong, but what about all the things that could potentially go right?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know you're not, and I certainly was not naive about how hard leaving is or was going to be.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard emotionally, it's hard practically, it's hard mentally, it's hard physically, and it's hard financially.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna sit here and tell you it's gonna be easy or that it's simple because it's not, it's complex, it's layered, it's nuanced.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm certainly not gonna tell you that walking out on a relationship, walking out on a marriage, leaving your partner is an instant fix to all the problems you're experiencing.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna tell you that it won't change things, because it's gonna change a whole lot of things, of course it is, but have you thought about what it's costing you to stay stuck?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: To not create the change you want to see and feel and to live?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Have you thought about what it's costing you to not walk away when you know deep down that the price of staying is actually too high?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's going to be a trade-off, whatever that looks like for you.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: You may trade a super comfortable shared financial future for the uncertainty of a single income household.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your trade-off is about losing time with your kids.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: But what they gain is two parents living life on their own terms, not self-sacrificing to stay somewhere that they're not happy or fulfilled.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: They gain you, a parent who has chosen themselves, has chosen to lead with their heart and live true to themselves.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, what would you want for your daughter if she was in this situation?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what would you want for your son?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if your trade-off is losing time with your kids, think about what they will gain.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever your biggest fear is, whatever your trade-off is going to be, I invite you to think about not only what you will lose, but what you might potentially gain.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because staying in an unhappy, unfulfilling relationship, staying and not choosing to separate or divorce does cost.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: It costs your your being, your bringing to the light and living your life as the whole version of yourself.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Living your life your way, fully present, deeply connected, all the colours of the rainbow that is you.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Staying in something that is unfulfilling and unhappy costs.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful, beautiful soul, it costs.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: It costs you.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want that for anybody.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want it for myself.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly don't want it for you.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: If any of this resonates with you, with where you're sitting right now, I want you to be really tender with yourself.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it resonates with you for someone that you know and love.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's the case, please share it with them.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also invite you to jump on a free intro call with me to talk about how coaching can support you to move through this, to make a clear decision, to leave if it's the right decision for you, to reconnect and stay if that's the right decision for you.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to choose you.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to bring and be all of you to life to love, and that is a big part of why I do what I do.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want each and every one of us to be able to have the freedom to choose exactly what we most want for ourselves, to demonstrate that to our kids and to bring all of us to life to love, to reclaim, to reflect, to liberate themselves.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is what I want for you.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you once again for sharing time and space with me.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time.