Latest / The Conscious Divorce / Mutually Assured Destruction: The Nuclear Truth About Divorce
Transcript
- Justin: In 1961, President John F. Kennedy sat across from his advisors in the Situation Room. The subject was simple and terrifying. What happens when both sides press the button? The answer was a doctrine that defined the 20th century, mutually assured destruction, otherwise known as MAD. The idea that if both sides launch their weapons, neither side survives. There is no winner. There is no strategic advantage. Part three, the financial cost of escalation. Let's talk about money because the financial reality of high conflict divorce is staggering. And most people don't understand it until they're buried in it. The average contested divorce in the United States costs between 15 $30,000 per person. But that's the average. There is only annihilation. Now here's what no one tells you about divorce. High conflict divorces, the ones that go to trial, that involve custody battles, that involve forensic accountants and vocational evaluators, business valuators, and guardian ad litems, those routinely cost six figures per side. Some run into seven figures. I know this because mine did. And here's the part that makes you want to scream into a pillow. At the end of it, the outcome is often not dramatically different from what a mediator could have helped you reach in the three sessions. or a fraction of the cost. Think about that. Two people spend a combined half a million to a million dollars or more fighting over assets and custody arrangements that a skilled mediator could have facilitated for 10 $15,000 total. The difference in outcome, ⁓ The difference in cost, catastrophic. The difference in emotional damage, incalculable. Every single day in courtrooms and living rooms and lawyers offices across this country, two people who once loved each other sit down and begin the process of mutually assured destruction. They arm themselves, they escalate, they retaliate, they fire everything they have, every dollar, every allegation, every weapon of emotional warfare. And when the smoke clears, they look around and realize the same thing Kennedy's advisors realized 60 years ago. Nobody won. This is the behavioral economics of divorce litigation. People are not making rational cost benefit calculations. They're making emotional ones. And the emotional calculus says, I would rather spend $100,000 to prevent them from getting something they don't deserve than save that money and feel like they've won. That is the arms race. That is nuclear escalation applied to family law. The house is gone. The savings are gone. The retirement is compromised. The children are traumatized. And both people are standing in the rubble of a life they burned down together, wondering how it got this far. I know this because I lived it. And that's exactly why I became a divorce coach. Every retaliatory motion, every discovery request designed to harass rather than inform. Every deposition scheduled to intimidate. Each one is a missile launched and each one triggers a counter launch. and the only people profit from this exchange are the people selling the missiles. I am not anti-lawyer. Far from it. ⁓ Good lawyers are essential worth the cost. Welcome to the Conscious Divorce Podcast. I am your host, Justin Milrad. I'm a certified divorce coach, MBA, financial planner, entrepreneur, and author of 2.0 Divorce a Better Way Forward and the You ⁓ Workbook, and the founder of Reclaim and Reboot Transformational Coaching based in Atlanta, Georgia. Before we get into it, the standard but important note, I'm not an attorney, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a financial advisor. What I am is someone who's been through but the system creates perverse incentives and anyone going through divorce needs to understand those incentives clearly. Part four, my story inside an eight day jury trial. I wanna get personal here because I think it matters and because I think the credibility of everything I teach comes from the fact that I've lived it. My divorce went to an eight day jury trial, eight days in a courtroom with a jury, with witnesses, with exhibits. who has worked with hundreds of clients navigating it, and who has made it his mission to help people move through divorce, not just as a legal process, but as a transformational one. The show exists because divorce is one of the most disorienting, painful, and misunderstood experiences a human being can go through. And most of the guidance out there treats it like it's a problem to be solved as quickly as possible. But I believe something different. I believe divorce, when navigated with awareness, strategy, and intention, with opening statements and closing arguments and cross examinations, the full production, seven figures and legal fees combined, because two people who wants to go across from each other and said, I choose you forever. And I want to tell you what that experience actually felt like, not the legal strategy, not the procedural details, the human experience of it. It felt like drowning in slow motion. Every day in that courtroom was an exercise in controlled devastation. can be one of the most profound growth experiences of your life. Today we're talking about something that has fundamentally changed the way I think about divorce. Not just as a coach, not just as a father, but as a person who lived it. We're talking about the seasons. This episode is gonna reframe not just how you see your divorce, but how you see the entire arc of your life right now. So settle in, put on your seatbelt, and let's go. You sit there while your life, your parenting, your finances, your character, your decisions get dissected by strangers. Witnesses testify about your marriage. Lawyers argue about your children. A jury of people who've never met your kids, who've never been inside your home, who've never seen you read a bedtime story or coach a game or hold a sick child at two in the morning. Those people are now making decisions about your family. And the whole time there's a clock running. Today we're going deep. This is not a surface level conversation about being the bigger person or just letting it go. This is a strategic, emotional, evidence-based masterclass on what happens when divorce becomes war, and more importantly, how to stop the escalation before it destroys everything you care about. We're gonna talk about the neuroscience. We're gonna talk about money. We're gonna talk about the lawyers, the right ones and the dangerous ones. Not a metaphorical clock, a literal billing clock. Every objection, every sidebar, every recess, the meter is running on both sides. And you sit there doing the math in your head, realizing that the single day in court is costing more than most people's annual salary. But here's what really broke something open in me. It wasn't the money. Money can be rebuilt. It was a realization that we had created a machine that neither of us could stop. We're gonna talk about what high conflict divorce does to children at a neurological level. And we're gonna talk about the hardest truth of all, that winning in divorce court often means losing everywhere else. If you're going through a divorce, about to go through one, or helping someone who is, this episode might be the most important thing they hear this year. So let's get into it. ⁓ The escalation had taken on a life of its own. Each filing triggered a response. Each response triggered a counter filing. Each counter filing required more preparation, more discovery, more expert witnesses, more cost. And at some point, the original issues, the actual things we disagreed about, got buried under layers and layers of procedural combat. We weren't fighting about what we thought we were fighting about anymore. We were fighting about fighting. And when it was over, when the jury came back, when the judge issued the final orders, when the attorney shook hands and packed up the briefcases, I sat in my car in the parking lot and I just sat there. I didn't feel victorious. I didn't feel defeated. I just felt empty. I felt like I had survived something I should have never had to survive, something I helped create. This is a moment that eventually led to Reclaim and Reboot because I realized that if I Today's episode is called Mutually Assured Destruction, The Nuclear Truth About Divorce. And I chose that title very deliberately someone with a business experience, strategic thinking skills, access to good counsel, financial resources, and a background in mental health. If I could get pulled into mutually assured destruction, anyone can. The system is designed for it. drive it. And without someone standing outside the blast radius saying, stop, there is another way. Most people will follow the same trajectory I did. Because a Cold War metaphor is not cute. It's not clever wordplay. It's the most accurate description I have ever found for what happens when two people decide to destroy each other instead of divorce each other. So let me start with the frame. Part one, why divorce becomes emotional warfare. Here's the thing about nuclear war that most people don't think about. So when I stand here and I tell you that escalation will destroy you, I am not speaking theoretically. I am speaking from the rubble. And the wisdom I earn from that rubble is this. There is nothing you can win in a courtroom that is worth what you lose getting there. Nothing. Part five, choosing your attorney, the most important decision you will make. This might be the most important segment of this entire episode because the attorney you choose will shape not just a legal outcome of your No one starts with a nuclear option. No one wakes up on day one and says, I'm going to launch everything I have. ⁓ Escalation happens in stages. It builds, it compounds. One provocation leads to a response. That response leads to a counter response. And before either side fully understands what's happening, they're locked into a cycle where backing down feels more dangerous than pushing forward. Divorce works exactly the same way. It rarely starts as war. It starts as disappointment. Hurt, betrayal, grief. One person files. The other person feels blindsided. they will shape the emotional trajectory of your entire family for years to come. And most people choose wrong. Here's how most people pick a divorce attorney. They're hurting, they're scared, they're angry. They call a friend who went through a divorce and that friend says, you need someone aggressive. You need a pit bull. You need someone who will destroy them. And so they go find the most aggressive, combative, take no prisoners attorney they can find. And they feel a surge of power. Someone hires an aggressive attorney. The other person thinks if that's how they want to play it, fine. And the arms race begins. James Sexton, the divorce attorney and author of If You're in My Office, It's Already Too Late, put it perfectly. He talks about how divorce attorneys often become emotional accelerants, pouring fuel on a fire that was already burning, not always intentionally. But the system itself creates incentives for escalation. More conflicts means more billable hours. Finally, someone is on their side. Finally, someone's gonna make the other person pay. That feeling, the surge of righteous empowerment, that is the most expensive emotion in divorce. Because what feels like protection is often acceleration. What feels like strength is often escalation. And what feels like justice is often just retaliation, wearing a suit and billing 500 to $1,000 an hour. Let me be very clear about something. more motions, more depositions, more hearings, more money flowing from your bank account into the legal system. But the escalation isn't just financial, it's emotional, and this is where the science gets important. John Gottman's research on conflict and relationships identified what he calls the four horsemen, criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. These are the communication patterns that predict relationship failure with over 90 % accuracy. There is a critical difference between a strategic attorney and a destructive understanding that can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars, ⁓ years of and immeasurable emotional damage. A strategic attorney that the goal is resolution, not domination. ⁓ They assess the identify your actual priorities, not your emotional reactions, but your real long-term priorities. But here's what most people don't realize. Those same four horsemen don't retire when the marriage ends. They show up in the divorce. They show up in custody negotiations. They show up in email changes and text messages and co-parenting apps. The marriage may be over, but the destructive communication patterns are just getting warmed up. And when you combine those patterns with the adversarial structure of the family law, a system that literally puts two people on opposite sides of a courtroom, you have created a perfect engine And they build a strategy designed to protect what matters most while minimizing collateral damage. They tell you hard truths. They push back when your emotions are driving your decisions. They understand that every dollar spent on litigation is a dollar that doesn't go into your children's college fund or your retirement account or your next chapter. for mutually assured destruction. Let me say something that might land hard. Most people going through divorce believe they are the reasonable one. They believe the other person is escalating. They believe they're simply responding to provocation. And here's the brutal truth. Both people usually believe this simultaneously. Both people feel Both people feel justified. Both people feel like they're playing defense. A destructive attorney, and I want to be careful here because I do believe in the legal profession, but a destructive attorney, whether intentionally or not, becomes an emotional accelerant. They validate your anger. They near your outrage. They file aggressive motions that provoke aggressive counter motions. They create conflict where negotiation was possible and the bill grows and the timeline extends and the damage compounds. Here's a question I want you to sit with. That is the psychology of an arms race. And it's exactly why it's so hard to stop once it's in motion. Does your attorney make you feel powerful or do they make you think clearly? Because those are very different things. Feeling powerful is an emotional state. Thinking clearly is a strategic advantage. And in divorce, strategy beats emotion every single time. Let me give you a framework for evaluating an attorney. Five questions to ask before you hire anyone. Part two, the neuroscience of conflict, your brain on divorce. Let's talk about what's actually happening inside your body during high conflict divorce, because understanding this changes everything. Dan Siegel, the neuroscientist and author of Mindsight, describes a concept he calls flipping your lid. When the brain perceives a threat and during divorce, threats are everywhere. Financial threat, identity threat, the threat of losing your children, the threat of public humiliation, the amygdala, First, what is your approach to resolution? If the answer is primarily about litigation and being aggressive, proceed with extreme caution. If the answer includes mediation, negotiation, collaborative process, and settlement as primary goals with litigation as a last resort, that is strategic thinking. Second, how do you handle clients who want to escalate emotionally? A great attorney has the courage to tell you ⁓ your brain's threat detection center takes over. The prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for rational thought, long-term planning, impulse control, and empathy essentially goes offline. You are no longer thinking strategically. You're reacting. You're surviving. And when you are in survival mode, you make terrible decisions, decisions you would never make if your full brain were available to you. Gottman calls this emotional flooding. when you're wrong, when your anger is costing you money, when a particular battle is not worth fighting. If your attorney agrees with everything you say and validates every impulse, they are not your advocate, they are your enabler. Third, what is your estimated total cost and what drives that cost up? Transparency about money is non-negotiable. An attorney who cannot give you a realistic range and explain the factors that increase cost is either inexperienced or not being honest with you. when your heart rate exceeds roughly 100 beats per minute during conflict. At that point, your capacity for problem solving drops dramatically. Your ability to listen drops to zero. Your ability to see another person's perspective disappears entirely. psychologically incapable of a productive evaluation machine. Now think about what that means in the divorce context. ⁓ receive a legal filing that accuses you being an unfit parent. Your heart rate spikes. ⁓ floods your system. Fourth, how do you think about the long-term co-parenting relationship? This one is revelatory. If your attorney views the other parent as purely an adversary to be defeated, they are not thinking about the next 20 years of your life. Because here is the reality. The trial ends, the judge issues orders, and then you still have to co-parent with this person at graduations, weddings, grandchildren's birthdays, holidays, school events, essentially for the rest of your life. Adrenaline surges and in that state, in that chemically altered threat-driven survival mode state, you pick up the phone and you call your attorney and say, it all down. That phone call might cost you $50,000. ⁓ might extend your litigation by six months. It might permanently damage your co-parenting relationship. But in that moment, your brain doesn't care about any of that. ⁓ brain cares about one thing, neutralizing threat. ⁓ Any attorney who doesn't factor that relationship into their strategy is thinking about the case, not about your life. Fifth, you tell me when to stop fighting? This is the most important question because there comes a point in every contested divorce where the marginal return on additional litigation approaches zero, where you are spending more to fight than you could possibly gain. A great attorney will identify that inflection point and advise you to settle. A destructive attorney will never find that point. That is why Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory matters so much in describes three states of the autonomic nervous The ventral vagal state, where you feel safe, connected, and capable of social engagement. ⁓ The sympathetic state, ⁓ where you're in fight flight, and the vagal state, where you are in shutdown, collapse, or freeze. During high conflict divorce, because every additional hour of conflict is another hour of revenue. I wanna say something that might sound controversial. Your attorney should not be your emotional support. That is what therapists, coaches, and trusted friends are for. Your attorney should be your strategist, and those roles should not be conflated. When you pay an attorney $500 to $1,000 an hour to listen to you vent about your acts, you are paying the most expensive therapist in human history, and you're not getting therapy. people oscillate between fight or flight and shutdown. They're rarely, if ever, in the eventual vagal state, the only state where you can actually make good decisions, connect with your children, or negotiate productively. And here's the compound tragedy. Chronic stress doesn't just affect your decision-making, it affects your health. Research from the American Psychological Association shows that prolonged adversarial divorce is associated with increased rates of cardiovascular disease, You're getting a legal pad and a billing clock. Separate the emotional work from the legal work. Get a therapist, get a coach, get a support system, and let your attorney do what they're trained to do. Protect your legal interests with clarity, strategy, and professionalism. The right attorney is not the one who makes you feel the most powerful. It's the one who helps you make the best decisions during this really difficult and hard time. autoimmune conditions, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and substance abuse. I don't think that comes as a shock to anybody. Your body is essentially keeping score as Bessel Van der Kock would say, and the longer the war goes on, the higher price your body pays. let me reframe something. ⁓ I talk about mutually assured destruction and divorce, I'm not talking about your bank account. ⁓ talking about your nervous system, ⁓ immune system, ⁓ mental health. Part six, the children, collateral damage, and the hidden war. I need you to listen very carefully about this next part, because if nothing else in this episode changes how you approach divorce, this section should. Your children are absorbing everything. Not some of it, everything. Every argument they overhear, every tense exchange of pickup, every disparaging comment about the other parent, every weaponized silence, every slam door. Your capacity to be present for your children. Your ability to rebuild a life worth living after this is over. ⁓ The destruction is total and bilateral. That is the whole point of the metaphor. every whispered phone call where your voice changes and they know, they always know that you're talking about the other parent. And it's not just emotional, it's neurobiological. Dr. Bruce Perry, the child trauma researcher has documented extensively how chronic stress in children literally reshapes a developing brain. Children who grow up in high conflict environments and high conflict divorce absolutely qualify. They develop hyperactive stress response systems. Their brains become wired for threat detection. Their cortisol levels remain chronically elevated. Their capacity for emotional regulation is compromised. And this is not temporary. This is structural. This rewires the architecture of a developing brain. unambiguous on this point. parental particularly the kind that characterized as high conflict divorce is a significant adverse childhood experience. ⁓ And cumulative effect of ACE is associated with increased lifetime risk for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, chronic illness, relationship dysfunction, and reduced life expectancy. We're not talking about children feeling sad for a while. We're talking about measurable, documented long-term. Dan Siegel talks about the window of tolerance, the emotional bandwidth within which a child can function, learn, connect and grow. During high conflict divorce, that window narrows dramatically. Children become either hyper aroused, anxious, reactive, clingy, acting out or hypo aroused, withdrawn, shut down, disassociated, eerily fine. And the parents who are themselves dysregulated often miss these signals entirely because they are too consumed by their own war. Dr. Becky Kennedy puts it beautifully when she talks about children's primary need, to feel safe in their attachment to both parents. When divorce becomes war, Children are forced into loyalty binds that no child should ever have to navigate. They learn to read the room. They learn which parent they can mention in front of the other. They learn to split themselves into two versions, one for mom's house and one for dad's house. They become diplomats in a conflict they never signed up splitting, that emotional contortion, ⁓ it doesn't resilience, it builds anxiety. It builds a fractured sense of self. It teaches children that love is conditional and that relationships are battlegrounds. I want to share something that still hits me in the chest every time I think about it. There was a moment during my divorce, I will not get into the specifics, but there was a moment where I looked at one of my children and I could see it. I could see the weight, the confusion, the silent question that every child of divorce carries but rarely asks out loud. Is this my fault? and do I have to choose between you and mom? And in that moment, I understood something with absolute clarity. No legal victory, no financial outcome, no courtroom triumph is worth what this conflict was doing to my kids. Nothing, not one thing. And here's what the research actually says about what children need during divorce. It is not complicated, but it's extraordinarily difficult to execute when you're in pain. Children need permission to love both parents freely without guilt, without loyalty tests, ⁓ without sense that loving one parent is a betrayal of the other. Children need emotional safety, not perfection, ⁓ not conflict free environment that is unrealistic, but the fundamental assurance that the adults in their lives are going to handle the adult problems and that the child's job is to be a child. Children need consistency and predictability. The research on attachment theory, Bowlby, Innsworth, and more recently, Dr. Dan Siegel's work on attachment and the developing brain is clear. Secure attachment requires predictability, and high conflict divorce obliterates predictability. And children need to see their parents regulate their own emotions children learn emotional regulation through co-regulation with their caregivers. ⁓ the caregivers are dysregulated and during high conflict divorce, they almost always are, the children lose their primary model for how to manage difficult emotions. I'm going to say something very direct. If you're using your children as leverage in a divorce, if you're limiting access to punish the other parents, if you're interrogating your kids after visits, if you're making disparaging comments about the other parent in their presence, if you're forcing them to carry messages or be your emotional confidant, you are causing harm. Not maybe, not potentially. You are actively damaging your child's developing brain and their capacity for healthy relationships. And I say that without judgment because I understand the pain that drives those behaviors. I understand the fear of losing your children. I understand the rage of feeling like the other parent does not deserve them. But understanding that emotion does not justify the action. And your children are paying the price for war they didn't start. Co-parenting is not a post-divorce convenience. It's a decades long relationship. You will co-parent through graduations, first jobs, weddings, grandchildren, health crises, and holidays for the rest of your life. person you are at war with today will be sitting across from you at your child's wedding, ⁓ your children will remember how you handled it, all of it. Protect them fiercely, even from yourself. Part seven, strategic divorce versus emotional divorce. So let me bring this back to the central metaphor. Mutually assured destruction only works as a deterrent when both parties recognize that escalation leads to annihilation. In the Cold War, that recognition prevented the launch. In divorce, that recognition should prevent the war. But it requires a fundamental shift from emotional divorce to strategic divorce. And emotional divorce is driven by pain, anger, betrayal, fear, and the desire for retribution. Every decision is filtered through the question, how do I make them pay for what they did to me? And that question, however justified it may feel, is the launch code for mutually assured destruction. A strategic divorce is driven by clarity, priorities, and long-term thinking. Every decision is filtered through a different question. What outcome gives me and my children the best possible future? That question changes everything. It doesn't mean you roll over. It doesn't mean you accept unfair terms. It doesn't mean you're weak. It means you are disciplined enough to fight for what matters and wise enough to know the difference. Perel talks about how the quality of your divorce determines the quality of your next chapter. And she's right. A scorched earth divorce does not just end a marriage. ⁓ poisons the soil for everything that comes after. Your ability to trust, your financial stability. your emotional availability for your children, your capacity to build a new relationship. All of it is shaped by how you end this one. Here's my framework. I call it the strategic divorce checklist. Before you take any action, before you send that email, make a phone call, file that motion, ask yourself three questions. First, does this move me closer to my actual goal or does it just feel satisfying? Second, what will this cost me financially, emotional, and relationally? And is that cost worth the potential gain? And third, how will this decision look to my children when they're old enough to understand it? If you cannot answer those three questions clearly, do not act. Wait, regulate, consult your strategist, not your anchor. Because here's the counterintuitive truth about divorce. Restraint is not weakness. Restraint is the most sophisticated strategy available to you. The person who can regulate their emotions, think long term and resist the seductive pull of is the person who will emerge from this process with the most intact. Let me give you an example of what strategic divorce looks like in practice. Because the concept is easy, the execution is difficult. You receive a text from your ex that is provocative, accusatory and designed consciously or unconsciously to trigger your reaction. Every fiber of your being wants to fire back. You want to correct the record. You want to defend yourself. You want to launch a counter-strike that makes them feel what you're feeling. Strategic response, you do not reply. Not because you're weak, not because they're right, but because you understand that that text is a missile and your reply would be a counter launch. And within 48 hours, what would you both be drafting motions and calling your attorney and the billing clock would restart and the war would escalate and your children would absorb every tremor of that escalation through the walls of your home. Instead, you screenshot it, you save it. You discuss it with your therapist or your coach. you evaluate whether it requires a legal response. And if it does, you respond through proper channels with measured language crafted to protect your position rather than express your rage. That is the difference between strategic and emotional. One is a reaction. The other is a decision. And in divorce, decisions beat reactions every single time. is a concept in behavioral economics called the hot cold empathy gap. When we are in a calm, rational state, a cold state, We dramatically underestimate how differently we'll behave when we are in an emotional, activated state, a hot state. This is why people make commitments when they are calm that they can't keep when they're triggered. I will never respond to a provocative text. Easy to say on a Tuesday night when things are quiet. Nearly impossible to execute 11 at night when your ex sends something designed to detonate you. The solution is not willpower, it is systems. Put systems between your triggers and your responses. A 24 hour response rule, a trusted person who reviews your communication before you send them. A coaching relationship that gives you accountability. Structure creates freedom. And in divorce, structure is the difference between escalation and resolution. Part eight, healing outside the courtroom. The courtroom can't heal you. A judge cannot restore your sense of self. A favorable ruling cannot repair your nervous system. And a legal victory can't fill the void that divorce creates. Healing happens outside the courtroom. It happens in therapy, where you process the grief and identify disruption that the divorce creates. It happens in coaching, where you build the strategy and structure for your next chapter. It happens in community. where you find people who understand what you're going through without judgment. It happens in the daily practice of showing up for your children with presence instead of performance. Brene Brown defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. And divorce is all three, all the time. The willingness to be vulnerable, to admit that you're struggling, to ask for help, to sit with pain instead of converting it into rage. That's not weakness. That is the beginning of transformation. My framework, Reclaim, Reboot, Become, is built on a simple premise. You cannot rebuild your life on a foundation of unprocessed pain. You have to reclaim your identity first. Figure out who you are outside the marriage, outside the conflict, outside the roles and expectations that define you. Then you reboot. You build new systems, new habits, new strategies for the life you're creating. And then you become. You step into a version of yourself that the marriage may never have allowed you to be. But none of that is possible if you're still fighting the war. You can't build a future while you're burning down the present. At some point, you have to choose. Do I want to win the divorce or do I want to win my life? Because increasingly, those are mutually exclusive objectives. I think about this through the lens of endurance athletes, something I know intimately from training for and completing multiple triathlons. In endurance racing, there is a concept called racing your own race. It means ignoring what the person next to you is doing. It means not going out too fast because someone else set a pace you can't sustain. It means understanding that the only competition that matters is between who you are and who you're capable of becoming. recovery is an endurance event. It is not a sprint. It is not one in a single dramatic moment. It's one in the daily discipline of showing up, of regulating your nervous system, ⁓ becoming present for your children, of doing the therapeutic work. of rebuilding your financial life, of making decisions from clarity instead of pain. And just like in endurance athletes, the people who try to win by destroying their competitor almost always destroy themselves in the process. The people who focus on their own race, their own health, their own strategy, their own growth, those are the ones who cross the finish line intact. I want to acknowledge something that doesn't get said enough in conversations about divorce. Healing is not linear, is not a straight line from pain to peace. There are setbacks. There are days when the anger returns with the force of a tidal wave. There are moments when something, a song, a smell, a date on the calendar pulls you back into the grief with shocking intensity. And that's normal. That is not failure. That is the nature of processing major life disruptions. The goal is not to never feel pain. The is to stop letting pain make your decisions. So here's my final reflection, lowering the weapons. The Cold War ended not with a launch, but with a stand down. It ended because enough people on both sides recognized that the cost of destruction exceeded the value of victory. It ended because someone decided to lower their weapons first, not out of weakness, but out of wisdom. Your divorce can end the same way, not with surrender, not with capitulation. not with pretending you were not hurt, but with a strategic decision to stop escalating, to stop retaliating, to stop feeding the machine that is consuming your money, your health, your peace, and your children's well-being. what I learned sitting in my car in that parking lot after the eight-day jury trial. The war doesn't end because one side wins. The war ends because someone decides to stop fighting. And that decision, that single courageous strategic decision, is the most powerful thing you can do in divorce. I want to close with something I wish someone had told me at the very beginning. Your divorce will end, the motions will stop, the hearings will conclude, the judge will sign a final order, and when that day comes, the only thing that will matter are these. Are your children okay? Do you have enough resources to rebuild? Is your health intact? And are you someone you can be proud of? Everything else, the wins, the losses, the granted and denied, ⁓ arguments you made and the ones you wish you had, all of it fades. What remains is who you became during the process and that is entirely within your control. Choose strategy over emotion. Choose your children over your anger. Choose your future over your pain because the only way to win it mutually assured destruction is to refuse to play. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today on the conscious divorce podcast. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it because somewhere right now someone is about to press the button and maybe Just maybe this can be the voice that says, don't do it. If you want to go deeper, I'd love to connect. You can find me at www.reclaimandreboot.me. My books, 2.0, Divorce a Better Way Forward and the You ⁓ workbook are available wherever you buy books, but also on ⁓ And if you're at a point where you think you might benefit from one-on-one coaching, I offer you free 30 minute consultation. No pressure, no pitch. just a conversation. The show's been valuable to you. Please take 30 seconds right now and subscribe and leave a review. It matters more than you know. I'm Justin Norad. This is a Conscious Divorce Podcast. Until next time, reclaim your story, reboot your life, and become the person you were always meant to