Latest / #Divorce: Support before, during and after with Sarah-Jane / Season 4 Episode 18 : Grey divorces, and the impact of menopause

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Season 4 Episode 18 : Grey divorces, and the impact of menopause · #Divorce: Support before, during and after with Sarah-Jane

0:01
Welcome to Hashtag Divorce Support before, during and after
0:06
the podcast for anyone going through separation or divorce,
0:10
whether you're in the middle of it or navigating what what comes
0:14
next. I am Sarah Jane Tester, French
0:17
family lawyer, family mediator, and lawyer supervisor.
0:22
In this podcast, we talk about much more than just the law.
0:27
With the help of experts, we explore well-being,
0:31
relationships, parenting, finances, and the often
0:35
invisible emotional realities of divorce.
0:40
My goal is to offer hope, a reminder that divorce isn't just
0:45
an ending, but a live transition.
0:48
And with the right information and the right support, a calmer,
0:52
more confident after is absolutely possible.
0:57
Today's episode explores a topic that doesn't get nearly enough
1:01
attention, the intersection between menopause, long term
1:05
relationships and what's often called grey divorce.
1:10
We are talking about separations later in life, typically after
1:15
20-30, forty years together, and the complex mix of emotional,
1:21
financial and physical changes that can sit behind those
1:26
decisions. To help us unpack this, I am
1:29
joined by someone who works at the sharp end of these issues,
1:34
Sarah Bar Young. Sarah is the head of the
1:38
Financial Remedies department at John Myers and Harrogate.
1:42
Sarah specialises in complex high net worth financial
1:46
disputes including business assets and pension.
1:49
On divorce, she is recognised both in the Legal 500 and
1:54
Chambers directories and is known not only for her strategic
1:58
clarity, but also for her pragmatic and empathic approach
2:03
with client. Sarah, Welcome, it's great to
2:08
have you here. Can you start by telling us a
2:12
little bit more about yourself and your journey as a divorce
2:17
lawyer? Crikey.
2:19
Well, after that introduction, thank you very much.
2:22
Wow, what a start. So, well, Sarah Jane, I've been,
2:27
I've been around, I suppose I've been a divorce lawyer for almost
2:31
20 years. There comes a point where you
2:33
stop counting actually and long you've been doing this and I've
2:38
been very lucky to work 2 very high profile and specialist
2:45
firms and I've done divorcing finances to out.
2:50
I haven't specialised in anything else.
2:52
I'm a resolution accredited specialist in complex finance
2:57
matters. I'm also an accredited
2:59
specialist in children. Law says I don't handle a
3:03
children caseload anymore just because it's the finances that's
3:07
my specialty. But I am absolutely able to
3:10
advise on children matters as well.
3:12
Here at Jones Myers, our children team is so strong they
3:15
don't need another pair of hands, so I'm left to deal with
3:18
finances. So we're hearing more about
3:20
great divorce. What does that actually look
3:23
like in practice? Well, the Great divorce phrase
3:29
feels a bit unkind, doesn't it? We use it as those.
3:32
The term is slang for older couples normally who are
3:35
divorcing when they're retired. Obviously when people retire, it
3:39
can be different ages. Nowadays people can rejig their
3:43
finances and retire much earlier, 5055.
3:46
But the Gray divorce gets a lot of attention because when you're
3:51
divorcing when you're older, it's very stressful.
3:54
But at that point, with your assets you have at that point,
3:58
you don't have 20 or 30 years ahead of you to rebuild because
4:03
frequently you're not working by that point and you have already
4:08
made certain decisions based on the pot that you've got, so to
4:11
speak. You know what you've got in
4:13
terms of your retirement income. You know what you've got in
4:16
terms of your capital. You know whether you can afford
4:19
to stay in the house that you're in.
4:21
Sometimes out the blue, if marriage breakdown pins, you are
4:27
making two households out of what was one household.
4:30
Financially, there's a stretch, an absolute stretch, a
4:34
particularly difficult one, to make sure everybody's looked
4:38
after as well as they can be. It's difficult for people who
4:43
may have had a very long marriage to think I'm going to
4:46
be on my own. In relationships, you frequently
4:51
fall into both of you doing certain roles.
4:54
Traditionally, you may find a husband looking after finances
4:58
and a wife looking off the home. That's still popular
5:01
arrangements for arranging how you do things as a family, and
5:06
all of a sudden a woman can find herself managing finance this
5:10
for the first time when she might be in her late 60s.
5:14
So I think all practitioners had to be careful and ensure that
5:21
they're given the right level of support and signposting to their
5:24
client. What do you think tends to
5:27
trigger separation later on in life?
5:32
Well, there's a couple of things.
5:34
You're not the same person in your 60s as you were when you're
5:37
married in your 20s, that's for certain.
5:39
You need to be with somebody who grows with you.
5:42
You both grow and change at different rates.
5:44
And the key is to still be totally committed and paying
5:48
attention in order to have a long marriage.
5:51
We are living a long time now. You and I were at an event last
5:55
week when they were talking about our female life expectancy
5:58
of our age group to be about 84. A few years ago, people thought
6:03
they were going to die in their 60s.
6:05
I might have this wrong, Sarah Jane, but is Esther Perel.
6:08
I listened to her recently talking about monogamy.
6:10
She said monogamy used to be staying with one person for the
6:13
rest of your life, and now it's one person at a time.
6:19
That's not even fashionable families and how we have
6:23
relationships has changed. What we expect out of
6:26
relationships have changed. There is a lot more mobility in
6:30
terms of social mobility, financial mobility, the choices
6:34
that we can make a different from our parents generation.
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We're not bound to stay in a marriage in a way that we were
6:40
before. There's things that you and I
6:43
have talked about quite a lot, such as the effect of menopause
6:47
on middle like women, and why the divorce rates for women in
6:52
their late 40s is so high. All men tell them what to answer
6:55
for, but it's something that isn't going to go.
6:58
Away. So this is one of the question.
7:01
I will go back to the men of course, but there's another
7:04
questions. If we compare young divorce in
7:07
younger couples with divorce in the Gray divorces, what are the
7:11
main differences that you've touched about upon it already?
7:14
But you do you deal with both? What is the main difference
7:18
between the two? Well, ultimately, if we look at
7:21
the money, it's what they've both got, a couple in their
7:24
early 30s is very different. What they've got behind them, so
7:28
to speak, in terms of savings, investments, property, any
7:32
business assets. It's very different from what
7:34
somebody in their early 60s or late 60s might see.
7:36
High incomes, they're flying, they're building their career,
7:40
but they may only have just got on the property ladder 3, five
7:44
years previously. They might be child free at that
7:46
point. They're living their lives and
7:48
spending everything. They won't necessarily have had
7:52
the time to accrue assets or savings in the way that somebody
7:58
in the late 60s would have done. Couples in your late 60's, the
8:02
ones I come across, tend to have sold the business.
8:05
They may have sold the second property, they may have
8:08
significant pensions built up from a long career, especially
8:12
if we're looking at something like an NHS pension, teachers
8:15
pension, armed forces, what have you.
8:17
They're good pensions and they can make a massive difference to
8:21
what life is going to be like at that point.
8:23
So you're dealing with how do we share pensions, how we divide up
8:26
pensions? Whereas a couple in their early
8:28
30s, we may not be looking at pensions at all.
8:31
Maybe the priority for a couple dividing in their early 30s is
8:35
ensuring that the housing needs are met.
8:38
And a court, for example, looking at pensions for a couple
8:41
in their early 30s that have only been married for, you know,
8:44
six years, they're not necessarily going to be filling
8:46
them out with sharing pensions because it's not needed to meet
8:50
needs. Whereas in your 60s, how
8:53
restrict the pensions makes a massive difference as to both
8:56
parties quality of life post divorce.
8:59
So the focus is different depending on the age of the
9:01
parties and also the length of the marriage.
9:04
They're both factors that the court has to have consideration
9:07
to under the Section 25 factors, factors, age of the parties,
9:12
your contributions, your resources, your obligations
9:14
needs. If you both, it won't always be
9:16
called, these are the Section 25 factors, but these are the
9:20
criteria that people are looking at.
9:22
A younger couple, what you've got behind you is different.
9:27
You can have 30 to 40 years of still earning ahead of you.
9:31
Whereas those couples in their late 60s, what they've got most
9:34
of the time is what they've got. They're not going to have any
9:37
capital windfalls necessarily on the horizon.
9:39
They may already have had their pension lump sums.
9:42
So the later divorces later on in life for me, do you find they
9:46
can be quite tense and there's a real sense of vulnerability
9:50
because you don't have the energy you've got in your 20s
9:52
and your 30s to rebuild, and there is a vulnerability that
9:56
kind of seeps into everything. That there will be a different
10:01
kind of vulnerability with the younger ones I.
10:04
Suppose there is. Interestingly, you say that
10:06
because as you're talking, I'm thinking I should be talking
10:09
about mortgages. Getting a mortgage in your late
10:12
60s is very difficult to get. Whereas a few years ago it was
10:15
relatively easy if you're in employment to get a mortgage in
10:17
your, you know, your late 20s, early 30s, you see what's
10:20
happening in the world at the moment.
10:21
The interest rates are very, very high.
10:24
I'm saying more kids staying at home with their parents while
10:26
they're getting on housing ladder simply because it is that
10:29
hard. And you, we talked about this a
10:31
few years ago. I perhaps wouldn't have
10:34
mentioned that. Well, I think anybody getting a
10:37
mortgage now, it's not nailed gone in the way that it used to
10:39
be. Going back to menopause, as you
10:45
mentioned, it's still under discussed in the legal context.
10:51
But. It does play a role in
10:54
relationship breakdowns, doesn't it?
10:57
What kind of dynamics do you see related to menopause in marriage
11:02
breakdown? OK, well I act for a lot of mid
11:06
like women and I asked for a lot of men who are getting divorced
11:09
from midlife women. So I see it from both sides
11:12
quickly. With the women, I've had it
11:15
described to me in different ways as to what they're feeling
11:17
and why they're feeling that they need to be out of a
11:20
marriage and sometimes the patient has run out.
11:23
We're looking after everybody else and that is frequently
11:27
linked to hormonal changes. The difficulty is identifying
11:31
that it is for hormonal change that's created that behaviour
11:36
before things go too far. Everybody comes to the menopause
11:39
conversation with a different level of knowledge.
11:42
Everybody comes to the menopause conversation with a different
11:44
level of support that's available.
11:47
GP understanding or support rather varies geographically.
11:54
It would vary between where you and I are and we're only half an
11:57
hour away from each other today. People's knowledge varies
12:00
hugely. All the ladies who've been
12:03
through it tell me they didn't have any support.
12:05
It wasn't really talked about. They struggled with the physical
12:09
symptoms significantly. Whereas my friendship group, now
12:14
all midlife women, we talk about it a lot, Pretty good level of
12:19
knowledge about availability of solutions or things that help
12:22
sharing of information. But not everybody has that
12:25
available to them. There's a phrase that I heard
12:29
from Doctor Sue Palmer Khan, which is a divorce coach.
12:32
She specialises in helping women later on in life.
12:36
She talks about the mummy brain giving way to the me brain.
12:39
It is that caring, nurturing side of our personalities that
12:43
gives way to this idea of actually everyone else can stand
12:47
on their own 2 feet and I'm not going to look after a third
12:49
child, IE my husband. There's a sense of freedom.
12:53
Perhaps it's linked to being an empty nester.
12:57
There is frequently breakdowns in communication in a marriage
13:01
brought on sometimes white hormonal changes.
13:05
Whether it's mood swings, where it's the fact that somebody has
13:08
no sleep because they're waking up every night with hot sweats.
13:13
They generally feel very uncomfortable.
13:15
Things that previously were very easy for them have now become a
13:19
challenge. Brain fog, lack of sex drive and
13:24
the beta. The symptoms are so wide-ranging
13:29
and our lives are so busy, it's hard sometimes for people to
13:33
identify cause and effect, what's gone wrong and how's it
13:37
affected. My marriage for men, Male
13:40
clients have come to me and they're feeling rushing out of a
13:45
marriage, they're feeling neglected and lack of intimacy
13:49
is a very common allegation which sounds quite firm
13:52
describing it as an allegation. But by that point they feel that
13:56
they've been neglected. Their job remains unchanged.
14:00
The difficulty is the level of knowledge on both sides is
14:03
unequal. There is always the possibility
14:06
to bring things back from the brink.
14:08
I love nothing more than a reconciliation.
14:11
When people get back together. It's brilliant and I hopeless
14:13
romantic. I love seeing it when people put
14:16
the work in and manage to claw themselves back.
14:19
But it's tough times for couples themselves.
14:23
The key is education and communication.
14:27
Educate yourself. And that's blokes as well.
14:30
Come on, you know, the menopause discussion is pretty much
14:34
everywhere now. Women, obviously we need to
14:38
ensure that we know what's going on with our bodies and our heads
14:42
and seek the help that's right for you.
14:44
And I'm not saying we need to run off and get an HRC because
14:47
everybody's different and there's lots of different
14:48
things. Sometimes it's a case of you
14:50
just need to carve out some quiet time, but how do you carve
14:54
out quiet time when you're running a busy family and
14:57
everybody is looking to you for something?
15:00
And that's where the communication piece comes in.
15:03
It's really easy for me to sit here and say educate yourself
15:07
and communicate better because communication, even with the
15:11
person who's your person, can be the hardest thing on the planet.
15:17
Getting that proper conversation, getting time alone
15:20
for the two of you to have a proper conversation, making sure
15:22
you're both paying attention in the same way can even be a
15:25
challenge. So I understand how flippants
15:28
and the times my comments can come across in terms of how easy
15:31
it can be to educate and communicate when on their real
15:34
life it's pretty difficult. Well, I get from what you're
15:38
saying, and that's what I believe.
15:40
And I mean men as well as women, because our generation is more
15:46
exposed, we have more resources, even though it's still difficult
15:50
to get the right information. We have a lot of information,
15:53
but maybe men don't have the same.
15:57
But I think if people got the information, do you think it
16:02
would make a difference on those relationship breakdowns to
16:07
realise that when you have those mood swings that when men will
16:13
say I can't stand you anymore, maybe if they actually realise
16:16
that the woman is not doing that on purpose, do you think that
16:23
would make a difference? Absolutely.
16:26
Well, I do raise it with male clients.
16:28
I do ask about how their wives are coping if I know that
16:30
they're in a certain age. Norm and some of them have just
16:34
looked at me so blankly over the years.
16:37
It's very easy in this day and age to grow apart so desperately
16:41
quickly and our lives are busy. Somehow you need to find a way
16:47
to anchor yourself back together again.
16:49
Find it fascinating, I really do.
16:51
I love working with midlife women.
16:53
It's such the privilege and I know that they will share things
16:57
with me that they won't share with other people.
17:01
But it is a challenging time. Now.
17:03
The law makes it challenging as well because everybody varies in
17:08
terms of how they shocked her from menopause symptoms perhaps.
17:13
And if you've got, say, for example, a lady in her early 50s
17:20
who hasn't worked or has only worked part time for a while,
17:25
she's been hit hard with menopause symptoms.
17:29
And part of the husband's finance case will be, well, I'm
17:36
working full time, I can't. You brain fog is a very real
17:40
thing. Not sleeping for night sweats,
17:43
it's crikey, that's a really real thing.
17:45
Feeling physically impaired is such a challenge.
17:48
How does that Lady in her early 50s increase in working hours
17:54
with stress of the divorce won't help menopause symptoms?
17:57
The prospect of job interviewing is terrible for some people.
18:02
It's difficult to have the ear of the court, if that makes
18:04
sense. It's difficult to have the
18:06
attention in the court to highlight those issues in the
18:11
absence of medical evidence. The court does have the power to
18:20
be patient sympathetic. There are provisions regarding
18:24
spousal maintenance to enable someone to adjust without undue
18:27
hardship over a period of time. We're seeing to the maintenance
18:30
orders, but when you get down for nitty gritty in terms of
18:35
quantum and term, you can frequently have a husband who
18:38
won't entertain the challenges that his wife is facing at the
18:44
prospect of going back to work. You may have a very stretched
18:48
matrimonial pot. I would like in the future to
18:54
see much more consistency amongst the judiciary as to how
19:00
they treat women in their early 50s.
19:03
In that sort of situation, practitioners need to be, I'm
19:08
very much aware as the challenges that their clients
19:11
are facing. You need to really drill down in
19:14
terms of looking at somebody's budget, looking at how they are
19:20
coping in their current roles, really taking the time to
19:24
understand what they feel they can do, what they feel they
19:27
can't do. You don't want somebody
19:31
promising that they're going to be fine and then they're going
19:33
to secure work on a certain level.
19:37
And then for them because they feel the pressure to say that
19:39
they're going to do something and then they're them not to be
19:41
able to take a massive confidence knock or struggle and
19:45
then have a look finances to meet their outgoings.
19:48
There's obviously a difference in terms of the level of assets
19:53
in a case. Not everybody needs to be
19:56
working, but in most everyday cases, both parties need to
20:01
work. It's interesting that we are
20:04
seeing a lot more. Female judges, are they more
20:07
understanding of the menopause? I don't know.
20:10
Ask me in five years time. Ironically, are female judges to
20:13
from women? Possibly.
20:15
So maybe a conversation for another time.
20:19
Are older male judges nearing retirement?
20:22
Easier on wives? Possibly.
20:25
You know, there's no data to back any of that up, but it is a
20:29
very understandable situation to be in knowing human nature.
20:34
The key is to try to resolve things on a non court dispute
20:38
resolution. Ave. go to mediation of trying
20:41
the voluntary route arbitration. You even do what you can to keep
20:45
it away from court. It takes time and it takes both
20:48
of you putting effort in. But those routes are available
20:52
to politics, divorcing to keep them away from the rolling of
20:57
the dice as we call it. Leaving the decision up to
21:01
someone who you've never met, who's going to make a decision
21:04
in an afternoon or a day or after two days of evidence.
21:07
It's a tricky situation to be in, but don't rush things.
21:10
Take your time. You were talking earlier about
21:18
the fact that you talked to your male clients.
21:22
Ask them about how their wives doing.
21:26
Do you with women make them realise what they're going
21:29
through? Do some women come to you
21:32
without realising that menopause is affecting?
21:36
Them, yes, but thankfully not so much now because things are
21:41
better. Yeah.
21:44
Also I think you and I have talked about this a few times
21:47
with age our abilities to raise sensitive subjects with people
21:53
has improved. I can absolutely, you know with
21:59
confidence and empathy those to someone's situation.
22:02
Whereas a few years ago before I was so well versed in the
22:06
menopause itself, I'm a bit a bit more tentative and I
22:11
wouldn't be quite so brave in ensuring that my female clients
22:14
were doing everything they could to help themselves through a
22:16
difficult process. As lawyers, all we can do is
22:20
offer some signposts. There's a lovely lady that I
22:23
think you and I both know, Vicky Ellison, over at Addley Bridges
22:26
Clinic. Fabulous that there's an awful
22:29
lot out there, a lot of resources.
22:32
Sometimes it is a change of lifestyle.
22:33
You don't have to go down the HRT Rd.
22:35
It is carving out time for yourself.
22:38
Employers are much better. Every business now should have
22:41
an amenable policy. I'm not sure what you'll do, but
22:44
just like you have a maternity policy, there should be amenable
22:47
policy. That's a massive difference from
22:51
the last few years. I've had to go back to the
22:58
financial side of things. What is the biggest
23:03
misconceptions that people have about foreign ministers when
23:09
they divorce in later years? Because you were talking about
23:14
what you've got in later years, so does that impact people's
23:19
conception of divorce? It tends to because you know
23:23
what you've got but you only envisage paying for one
23:27
household. So all of a sudden when you're
23:30
running you're going to be dividing up a pot of money to
23:36
ensure that both parties are housed and can meet their
23:39
outgoings. That's a stretch.
23:42
So sometimes it can be a shock to both parties as to what the
23:51
net effect of a settlement would mean for somebody at that stage
23:56
in life. Frequently, I'm sure this is
23:59
very common, people tried not to divorce, people would stay
24:02
together. People used to stay together
24:05
years ago for religious reasons anyway, and also years before
24:08
when you're able to do pension shares in the way we can do them
24:10
now. Pensions are very hot topic
24:14
naturally because at that age that is where your income is
24:16
normally coming from. You take a slice of a pension
24:22
off somebody and you give it to somebody else.
24:24
When you're doing that to ensure that we're looking at an
24:27
equalisation of income rather than equalization of pension
24:30
fund, It can mean pension income from one party is severely
24:35
impacted. But that's how you've got to
24:37
produce a fair outcome because they're no longer living under
24:40
the same roof. They're separate legal entities
24:43
and we've got to make sure needs are met.
24:47
It's tough. It can be very tough.
24:49
Pensions naturally. I mean, it's a whole lot of
24:51
podcast or tricky. It's not apples and pears, it's
24:55
apples and pears and bananas and grapes and you know, whatever
24:58
they are, they are particularly difficult to split.
25:02
That's why we talk about them so much.
25:05
It's why divorce lawyers grown when we mention them.
25:07
Sometimes it's difficult for us. We're not qualified to give
25:10
financial advice, so it often means involving third parties.
25:14
Whether it's a pension expert report, it's the ACT juries that
25:17
are the ones qualified to do the calculations.
25:21
It can feel particularly overwhelming.
25:24
It's difficult later on in life, people might be advice that they
25:27
need to be downsizing. Well, it's difficult that
25:31
especially if they're never get their marriage too long and
25:34
especially if they've had heartbreakers, heartbreaker at
25:36
any age. That's what I've learned over
25:38
the years. The oldest client I've more had
25:40
was 86 and really difficult. Really difficult.
25:46
You're not thinking at that age that you'll have your heart
25:49
broke. But.
25:52
You think about death, but you don't think about divorce at
25:55
that. Age and there's different types
25:57
of needs that come into play. You know you you've got your I
26:04
was going to say older generation illnesses.
26:06
They're not necessarily limited to older generations now, but
26:09
now it's time is dementia can be taken taxing on a marriage that
26:15
changes the nature of the divorce entirely.
26:18
If someone can't give instructions, how do a divorce
26:21
is still possible, but things change.
26:24
There's the official sister involved.
26:26
How does it work that that's, as I say, it's been a conversation
26:29
for another time. But there's lots of technical
26:32
complexities that practitioners have to think about when they're
26:36
dealing with older couples who perhaps might be on the cusp of
26:39
not being able to give instructions or perhaps have
26:41
already got to a stage where they can't give instructions.
26:44
This, the protection elements, you've got to make sure that
26:47
they're safe, they're fine, The needs are being met.
26:50
Yeah, it's really tricky. Some of the older awarders I've
26:55
done have been for the loveliest people and I've learnt so much.
27:00
I've had so much life advice from my older clients over the
27:03
years. I know what.
27:05
So it's positive also. It can be, yeah, absolutely it
27:09
can be. And what I'd have discovered,
27:11
it's not something that's talked about that much is is how much
27:14
you know, your own mind in your 70s.
27:18
It's like if I'm married to somebody who's difficult and I'm
27:21
mid 70s and they only have 10 years left, I'm not going to
27:25
spend 10 years being in a difficult relationship where I'm
27:29
running around after somebody. It's being particularly
27:32
difficult. And if you've got the resources
27:34
to create 2 households out of what was one household, then
27:38
yes, I am seeing people doing that.
27:40
Generally tends to be the woman. Interestingly, you make that
27:43
decision, but then women do we. As women, we do tend to if we
27:48
feel unhappy in a relationship, we will leave the relationship
27:51
to be on our own. Whatever the age.
27:54
Yeah. And do you feel that with those
28:00
couples? Do they open to negotiations or
28:06
do emotion run high? Is it like for other age groups?
28:13
It varies. It varies, it really does.
28:18
I have seen some of the most contentious divorces I've been
28:21
between people who are well past retirement.
28:26
Is that a case of they feel they've got nothing to lose and
28:29
they've got plenty of time to get the last word?
28:31
I don't know. And lots how a divorce goes and
28:35
how bumpy it can be comes down to how much money they have for
28:39
nuclear costs to have a row. It's expensive, really expensive
28:44
to have a row. So the majority of people,
28:46
especially those younger couples, the marriage has come
28:51
to an end. They have the rest of their
28:53
lives ahead of them and they will focus on getting a deal
28:59
done in a timely manner. They can get on with their lives
29:04
as promptly as possible. Perhaps mediation is easier
29:09
sometimes to be younger couples, I'm not sure.
29:13
I have absolutely no data to back anything up.
29:16
That is just my gut feel. All the generations perhaps opt
29:21
for options that they're more familiar with over the decades.
29:26
Things like non court dispute resolution wasn't an available
29:29
thing. The divorce wasn't a thing
29:30
necessarily. So maybe the natural urge is to
29:34
lawyer up as we call it. I don't know.
29:37
But I have no data on that whatsoever.
29:39
It is literally gut feel. Ask me again in a couple of
29:42
years time. Everybody could change do.
29:47
Adult children get involved. Do you have to deal with adult
29:52
children? Absolutely yes.
29:55
They're worried about where their inheritance is going to
29:57
go, they're worried about mum or dad remarrying and making a bad
30:03
decision and they can watch their inheritance go away to a
30:06
new spouse. They watch with Thea in case one
30:10
parent is left with no money and they have to move in with them.
30:14
It's a very emotive time and you're frequently trying to do
30:20
the best for your client and managing pressure that they
30:23
might be put under the light that family.
30:26
Whatever the age the children are, there will be pressure.
30:30
Well, thank you so much, Sarah, for this incredibly insightful
30:36
podcast. Thank you for answering all
30:38
those questions. We are talking about them more
30:41
and more, but I feel that, like you say, it all depends on what
30:46
people have been used to being exposed to.
30:50
But thank you for sharing with us your experience.
30:53
You've given us a real seal for what it is to divorce at a later
30:58
stage in life. It gives hope, people who have
31:01
been living with somebody difficult who will say at some
31:04
point though I've had enough of being bullying.
31:07
I just for what is less of my life.
31:10
I want to live me time now. I think it's fabulous.
31:15
Some of the best life advice I've ever had has been from my
31:18
older clients. I love those cases.
31:21
They're great. They're tricky.
31:23
It's privilege to be chosen by somebody in that situation to
31:27
help them navigate what is a really tricky and odd area of
31:32
law. I'm very grateful and I enjoy
31:36
the quirks and foibles that come along when I love my job.
31:40
It is a privilege to work with people who want you to help
31:42
them. I'll put all your contact
31:46
details in the podcast notes so that people can contact you if
31:51
they need your services. Thank you very much, lovely to
31:55
chat. Lovely way to start the.
31:56
Day likewise. Thank you so much, Sarah.
32:01
See you soon. Thank you.
32:03
Thank you.