Latest / Divorce Dialogues / Divorce Financial Planning: How to Stop Making Decisions Out of Fear with Gabriella Martinelli
Transcript
- Gabriella Martinelli (00:00): I always say divorce walks through the door and divorce doesn't come alone. Divorce is a high stakes financial restructuring, disguised as just a legal event constantly hijacked by emotions. We're making significant permanent financial decisions while we're living through temporary emotions. Eventually you may get over (or not), whatever happened in your marriage and then go and hope for a new life. But these decisions you're making financially are very important. You have to understand, I know you're upset about this, but do you understand what this is going to mean for you? We know that these decisions are going to be life changing. If you don't have the information, of course we're all terrified. When we go through any process in life, we want to have information and these individuals are terrified because the information is not there. Katherine Miller (00:50): Welcome to Divorce Dialogues. I'm Katherine Miller. This is where we have honest, thoughtful conversations about divorce, the emotional, financial, legal, and family questions no one prepares you for. From deciding whether to separate to navigating the process with dignity to rebuilding what comes next, divorce dialogues is here to help you find clarity, perspective, and a better way forward. Money is rarely just about money. During divorce, financial concerns often show up as questions about budgets, assets, support, retirement accounts, but underneath those questions are often much, much deeper fears. Will I be okay? Can I do this on my own? What will life look like after this? Who am I if the future I plan for is no longer the future I'm going to have? And the reality is that financial uncertainty can shake our sense of security, identity and confidence in ways we don't always recognize. And when we are afraid, it's easy to make decisions based on fear rather than on what will truly serve us in the long run. (02:11): And I'm excited to welcome Gabriella Martinelli to the show today. She's a divorced financial strategist, founder of Ever After Wealth and hosted a podcast, divorce and money. Gabriella helps people navigate the financial complexities of divorce while also addressing the emotional realities that often drive financial decision making. Through her work, she helps clients move from fear and uncertainty toward clarity, confidence, and a vision for what comes next. Today we're talking about the connection between money, identity, and confidence during divorce, why financial decisions can feel so emotionally charged and how gaining financial clarity can help people build a stronger foundation for the next chapter of their lives. Welcome, Gabriella, to the show. Thanks for coming. Gabriella Martinelli (03:01): Hi, thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Katherine Miller (03:05): I know that you often work with people at a moment when their financial future feels uncertain. And of course, for most people, getting divorced, the financial future does feel uncertain. So what do you think is happening emotionally beneath the surface when someone says, "I'm worried about money." Gabriella Martinelli (03:19): So when it comes to the divorce, I do understand a lot of people are worried about money, but I don't think that that is what is really guiding that fear is what divorce come when it goes to the table. We're thinking about we're living our lives and our emotions are up and down a different type of emotions. And then suddenly divorce is part of the picture. And I always say divorce walks through the door and divorce doesn't come alone. Divorce comes with a whole other set of feelings and emotions. It's the uncertainty, the confusion, the disappointment, the hurt, the anger. So everything that whatever causes divorce too is creating certain emotions, which are going to affect all of the decisions that everybody does. And also the process is complex. Nobody trains to go through a divorce. And I think that that adds another layer of confusion and uncertainty. (04:14): When you're going to buy a house, there's very points that you do. A real estate agent can tell you, "We're going to do this and this and this and this is due diligence and this and this and this. " Well, divorce never happens like that because it's very different. It's very different for everyone. It's very different depending on your circumstances. So I feel like divorce brings all of those emotions that we may not be living with in our normal lives. It's not something that we are accustomed to and it's not something that we prepare for. And of course, if you have children, I talk mainly about money, but the uncertainty with the children, it creates a whole other layer of worry, especially for parents, whether they're going to be able to afford college for their kids or if they're going to be able to continue to go on vacation or what about the house? (04:59): Can they stay in the same school? All of those emotions, I always think it comes with divorce. We don't have those fears when it comes to money. It's just showed up when the war pops up in our lives and it just creates a whole layer of confusion that is very hard, very hard to understand. I think in this industry, it really affects people on levels that we are not paying enough attention sometimes. Katherine Miller (05:24): We often say amongst my colleagues that it's never about the money, it's what the money does for you or it's about what the money represents. It's like because money is a tool. It doesn't do much for you just on its own. It's what you can do with it or not do with it if you don't have it. And so at the same time, people are making financial decisions as they go through the divorce process and there's a lot of decision making that has to happen about a lot of other things, but it's sort of like in this moment where they're dealing with the divorce and the emotional turmoil that happens with that and they're also making major financial decisions while they're grieving the end of that relationship, whether or not they chose it or not. What do you think makes that such a difficult combination? Gabriella Martinelli (06:12): It's because we're making significant permanent financial decisions where we're living through temporary emotions. I do understand eventually you may get over or not whatever happen in your marriage and then go and hope for a new life. But these decisions you're making financially are very important. I always say—it's all over my website—is divorce is a high stakes financial restructuring. Divorce is a high stakes financial restructuring, disguised as just a legal event constantly hijacked by emotions because you're literally restructuring your financial life. No matter how much you have, it doesn't matter whether you're at ultra high net worth or just medium earner, your life as you know it financially is going to change and you're trying to do that while you're living this temporary emotion. So if you're not able to separate the two or contain them just thinking about the numbers, it's very hard to make those decisions because you're just going out of the emotions and it's very hard to ask someone, "Okay, I know that this happened. (07:16): Stop thinking about that. Let's talk about what is two plus two." It's very hard to do if you don't have the tools to help these individuals make the decisions and everything seems worse. The fear of being able to afford your life, am I going to be able to afford health insurance? You don't see solutions. You should see problems and fear towards those problems. It's very hard to see it. You're grieving a relationship. I always say if someone loses spouse, if a spouse dies, the spouse doesn't have to make any significant financial decisions immediately. They have time to grieve. They have time to come through terms of what happened. When you're going through a divorce, the system doesn't say, "Okay, you know what? Go there, grieve your relationship, grieve your future plans for six months to a year and then come back and we make these decisions." You literally have to make the decisions as you're trying to grieve and do it constantly. (08:09): I think it's very hard for people emotionally because what guides us at that moment is the emotions. The emotions are so overwhelming that override anything, even very successful people, business owners, they cannot make those decisions without the emotions. And we're talking about highly successful people and they still can because those emotions override the years and years they have of running a company, growing a business. So I think it is because emotions simply override those decisions and it's important for them to find someone to help them stop and understand the emotions. You have to understand, I know you're upset about this, but do you understand what this is going to mean for you? Katherine Miller (08:53): The emotions are necessary and depending on the process you choose, you might have time to process the feelings. Sometimes people live separated for years before they come to the negotiation, but that's not the usual way. And so I think that there's so much, Gabrielle, in what you're saying, and it really depends on who you are as you come through the divorce. So there's a lot of anxiety about a lot of things and it's represented in money a lot. And so it could be that it's represented in fear about what you don't know. So for someone who hasn't been responsible for paying the bills, hasn't been responsible for budgeting in the family, and I hate the word budget because it sounds like diet, it sounds like a restriction, but if you're not the person who's been allocating the resource, who knows what things cost, who's figuring out how are we going to pay these bills? (09:46): And now all of a sudden you're faced with your health insurance bill, for example, something that feels extremely important. Now you're going to be very anxious about what you don't know and how you're going to make that work. Another person might be very anxious about maintaining his or her lifestyle. How am I going to be able to continue to go to the club where my whole social life is while we're living in two households? There are so many ways and the anxiety is really more about, I think I'd like to know what you think about this, Gabriella, more about what it is about the fear of what we're not going to be able to do or what we don't understand about it more than it is about the number itself. And in a conversation about the money, it's really helpful to get behind the actual talk about dollars and cents to what it is people are talking about. (10:37): I'm wondering what you think about that. Gabriella Martinelli (10:38): I agree a hundred percent because a lot of the times also, especially for the spouse that is not involved in the financial decisions, they don't even know what the number means. And yes, and I don't like the word budget either because everybody gets scared, "Oh my God, do I need a budget? That means I'm not going to be able to go where I used to go or buy where I used to buy." No, that's not. It means let's do an inventory of your expenses. That's what I tell usually my clients, let's see what your expenses are. Not because we're going to try to limit you at this moment. There may be some kind of limitations, but let's go back and see. And I usually work with my clients very one-to-one. I'm like, "Okay, this is your expenses, you and I are going to work together because I need you to understand your expenses." So you understand that when someone tells you a number, you don't freak out because you don't know what it is. (11:21): I have seen individuals freak out when someone says, "Oh, he's going to give you X amount of money." And for other individuals, that amount of money is enough and they freak out simply because they don't know. They don't know how much the mortgage is. They don't know what it may be a rental or a new mortgage will be. Health insurance is another one, but it's in general, they don't know. And when we don't know something and we know that these decisions are going to be life changing, if you don't have the information, of course we're all terrified. When we go through any process in life, we want to have information and these individuals are terrified because the information is not there. But then once the information is there, then we have all those underlying emotions that are going to come back and make those decisions for us or help us make those decisions that are based on the emotions and not just on the information. (12:10): And what you just said about the club is so true because you're talking about 15, 20 years, even longer sometimes that you create your life. That is your life. So you are not just changing your relationship. Now you have to change your friends and you have to change everything else that defines you as a person. Katherine Miller (12:27): Or it feels good like the fear is there, right? Gabriella Martinelli (12:30): Exactly, exactly. Because you're still the person, but it's very scary to think in those terms because there's no absolutes. You're trying to hold onto everything that was or felt was your identity during this relationship except for the person because you're splitting up and that desperation almost to hold onto. You're just holding onto the feeling of what that lifestyle was because you feel that you are not that person without the lifestyle. And by the way, this is even before we even come to numbers and maybe you still can go to the club. This feeling happens before you even know anything. So it's not about, oh, well, we had to have the hard conversations and this is not going to be able to be sustainable. They had these reactions before they even know anything. And I think that the lack of information I think is a big one and the fear of losing what you had. (13:24): So for a state as a home spouse, it could be the club and the friends in the neighborhood from a business owner can be their business. They grow this business. So their identities attached to things that they feel they won't have anymore, it's too much to lose. You're losing your relationship, you're losing your marriage, you're losing all those hopes. And on top of that, you're losing everything else that created that identity that you're part of. And it's just very important to understand what that means, that where are you attached to as an identity? Let's see how the numbers fall if we can continue to keep you with that identity. And also knowing that the identity is still you. You may need to adjust a couple of things financially, but you can still be that person. You still that person that you were before. Katherine Miller (14:13): Divorce dialogue is brought to you by Miller Law Group. We believe divorce isn't just a legal process, it's a human transition. At Miller Law Group, we help people navigate divorce with dignity, clarity, and respect, focusing on conversations that lead to better outcomes for families. Learn more at miller-law.com. What are some of the stories that people tell themselves about money during or after divorce that just aren't true? Gabriella Martinelli (14:41): Because of the time we're living now, a lot of the stories are not even people telling them to themselves are things that are read online. The misinformation and the friends and this social media, there's a lot of things about I'm never going to be able to make it. I'm not going to get anything. She's going to take everything from me. He is not going to want to pay me money. I am going to end up with nothing. I'm not going to have retirement. I have to go get a job. I won't be able to care for my kids. All of those things are extremes and I think they're not so much because the individuals themselves, they have those fear. They wonder, am I going to be able to do this? But I do believe that what society brings around, it gives us those absolute and we don't realize that that's not their life. (15:28): That's their story. We don't know what happened to the neighbor's cousins, husband's, coworker, that maybe they lost something, which probably they didn't, but that's how it's told. And I think individuals hear all those stories and they are terrified because they don't want to be that person. What if I can't retire? What if my business goes down in bankruptcy? What if I don't get any support and I can't buy anything for my kids? What if I lose my home and I have nowhere to go leave? Those are so enraved in the fear of the people. And when they hear the stories, they feel even worse because they're terrified about the system and the judges and the court system or, "Oh, attorneys only want your money." Those stories affect these decisions because then you have individuals that don't want to talk to an attorney because, oh no, no, the attorney's just there to take your money, which is not true. (16:19): But all of those little thoughts actually affect the way they make decisions and they may end up in a worse place because they're just telling themselves those stories and it's almost like self-fulfilling in a sense. Katherine Miller (16:32): So a lot of this is focused on what people are losing and I think a lot of people do focus on what they're losing. So for someone who's listening, who is focused on what they're losing, and in fact, in that list of things, Gabrielle, that you just said, "Wow, I hadn't even thought about this I could be losing or that I could be losing all these other things." What do you say to that person to help them shift toward what they're building next or something that's a little less fear-based? Gabriella Martinelli (16:59): So I have a program that I created my EAW frame and the E is when I start understanding their evaluate is their feelings. When people come to me with all the things they're losing, I try to understand why are they telling this. So my question is this, okay, you feel that you're going to lose your home. Why? What makes you feel that you're not going to have a home? It may not be this home, but you will have a home. What is the though behind it thinking you're just going to be homeless? There has to be a reason why that's the case. Why do you think the first thing you're going to lose is your club membership? There is a reason you go there. And to be honest, a lot of the times it's because previous conversation the spouses have between themselves, right? Somebody threatened them to do this or threaten them to do the other thing. (17:44): So they're terrified because that's what they told them. "I'm going to take you to the cleaners and you're not going to have anything and you're going to take the house. "And a lot of the times it's because yes, there's uncertainty, but also there is that fear of what somebody told them they were going to do and they don't feel powerful enough to make those decisions where they're not losing what they really feel they're going to lose. And honestly, I think it goes back to a little bit of what I said earlier. They're holding onto things and a lot of the times they don't know they are losing those things, that they're holding onto those things. I had a very short story, this client, I would never forget her, it was years ago with one of my first clients and the attorney called me and he said," Listen, she can't keep the house and she's going to lose the money. (18:29): She's going to be in a bad place. He's taking all of the retirement. Can you please help her? "I'm like, " I'm going to try. "And this was a home that it was several million dollars. There was several million retirement. She was willing to keep the house. Older lady retired, no kids. The first thing she said is, " I'm not leaving my house. "But she never said the things like, " Okay, the kids are going to grab from high school. This is where the kids grew up. This is where I'm in the club in the golf course. "None of those things. All she continued to say is that she was not going to give up the house, never told me why. When I went to visit the house, long story short, I asked her, let me visit. I asked her what was the favorite room in the house, her favorite room in the house. (19:09): And at the time she walked me through the pantry in her home and then there's this big room that opens up and the back wall, there's a door. When she opened the door for me, she said," We redid the whole kitchen and I wanted a big pantry, but I asked them to leave this wall here for me so I can have it. "That wall had the markings of the kids growing up all the way to when they move out to college. When I saw that wall, I thought, okay, this is exactly why she wants to stay in this house, but she doesn't even know that because she never said that to me. And when I told her, I said," Hmm, what do you think about cutting this shit rock? And maybe you take it with you if you ever decide to downsize. "And she looked at me and she said," Can I do that? (19:53): "I'm like, " Oh yeah, let's do it right now. I get a person here. We're going to cut it out. You're going to put it in. She's like, Oh, he's going to be upset. "I said," Nobody needs to know. "She did it. And a week later, the attorney called me and said that she was okay with letting the house go. They were going to sell split retirement in the house. She didn't know why she was attached to the house. She couldn't say it. It was so unconscious. And I was like, " That's exactly why we have to be very careful when someone is so afraid of something because sometimes they don't even know what they're afraid of losing. It's just somewhere unconsciously there is something that is making them hold onto something and a lot of the times they don't even know. Katherine Miller (20:36): I love that story because I think that oftentimes the things that lead someone to not want to let go of the house is the sense that my family grew up here, my children grew up here, my children were born here, even if they were born in the hospital and they came back there, the history of it. But for that client of yours, she was lucky because she'd actually created a physical talus, a representation of that in the house that she could cut out and take with her. I do think that holding onto the house is one of a fear-based decision financial decision. It's a fear-based choice that has financial consequences that people often make during the divorce, even if it's not really affordable to do it. I'm wondering just a thoughtful idea, how could someone do that even if they didn't have those lines of, this is how tall they were when they were six, seven, eight, nine, 20. (21:36): I just think that it's such a great idea of taking a piece of the house with you to allow you to move on. So if somebody is listening and they feel really overwhelmed by the financial side of the divorce, maybe there's someone who's like, "Listen, I'm not good with math. I'm not good with numbers. This has not been my job at the marriage to manage the money." Where do they focus their energy first to try to get ahold of that? Gabriella Martinelli (22:04): I think it really depends on the case where they're going. I think that it would be very important if they're not working with a financial expert like a CDFA. I think you have to tackle one thing at a time. Usually the cases don't happen all at once unless you're going to mediation, but there's always like, okay, if you don't know anything about your numbers, let's start with your spending. Let's see what your expenses are, not because we're going to cut them. Let's go to the basis. What is your bank account? What is your paycheck? What are you spending money in? Do you have a internet account? Do you have cable? Very basic. Start from the very button. Spending is one of the biggest things that you start. Very, very basic. And then you can go up to the bank accounts. Okay, do you get a paycheck? (22:48): Where is it deposited? Do you have a business? Okay, where are the business accounts where the money goes in? I think for someone that doesn't understand numbers and we have spreadsheets and everybody gets like, "Oh, that spreadsheet seems a lot." And for us, it feels like, oh, this is so clear. I think you go one little bit at a time, collect everything little bit at a time. Spending is one that is super important. Do you have credit cards? The best way to do this is go get your credit report. Go see your credit report and see all of the credit cards that are listed there and say, "Oh, do I have this credit cards? Do I spend any money on this credit cards? Let me go get those statements." From a very basic way, don't try to get very complicated. Then you can go and say, "Look at my paycheck. (23:31): Oh, it looks like there's a retirement account here that I'm putting money in and I may not even know about this. Let's go find out where the money is. Let's go find out if I can get a statement." I think that take it one step at a time. You cannot know everything at once, especially if you're not really involved in the finances. It is extremely overwhelming because there's also a lot of words that you had to learn IRA, qualify accounts, 401k. I mean, there's so many things. So one at a time, but I think spending is very important because this is part of what your lifestyle may change depending where you are. So knowing where your money is going with your spending, I think that's critical and it may change the fear. A lot of my clients, when we start working the spending, they're like, "Oh, I think I spend more." Or you have the ones that think they spend less and then they spend a lot. (24:23): And some feel like, "Oh my God, why I spend all this money?" And I'm like, "You're not spending. You're spending normal money. Don't feel you're spending too much. You really are not. You're very normal for where you are in life." So I think one thing at a time, ask your attorney what's next. What is coming next? Is it a temporary hearing for support? Are we going full on mediation? What can that be helpful to start one thing at a time? When you try to do it all at once, it becomes very overwhelming and you're going to miss things and you're going to get so overwhelmed that you're going to be closing your eyes and saying, "You know what? Forget it. Whatever happens, happens. I can't do this. " It's overwhelming. Katherine Miller (25:04): What do you think in your experience separates people who emerge from divorce feeling, well, empowered versus those who feel still stuck in fear and scarcity? Gabriella Martinelli (25:14): Information and a plan. I don't want to get ahead of myself. I know you have a couple questions for me at the end, but once you start thinking about your life going forward and you have somewhat a plan of what you could potentially be doing, you will succeed because when you make the financial decisions, you're going to be thinking about that goal and it's not going to be just going through this process however we can and try to make it to the other side. No, it's going to be you're going to be making more grounded decisions, but you have to have the information. Katherine Miller (25:48): Can you think of a story of someone that, don't tell us their names, address and social security number, but someone as an example who discovered strength or his own capabilities through the financial challenges of the divorce. Gabriella Martinelli (26:01): I worked with a lady. She was a stay-at-home parent. It's been a long time that they would already, the kids were grownups, but she was very confused about the numbers. They tried to go to mediation and she still feel that nobody was explaining to her the numbers. And she thought there was something off about the offers. She had worked on her budget with the attorney, but she was a little confused and she literally wanted to say yes to their last offer. So when she came to me, somebody sent her to me. We were talking about it. She said, "Listen, I am done with this. I can't understand it. I don't care if I'm leaving things on the table, I want to be done." And I said, "Okay, so let me take a look at the numbers and what you guys have and what you work with the attorney and then I can tell you what I see and then maybe you can make better decisions." She had been a little bit of financial abuse I uncovered during the marriage. (26:49): So she was very hesitant to ask questions or be a little too confrontational. So we started working and I realized that there was a miscalculation on his income. I had conversations with her about what that meant, what the calculations I saw before I went back to the attorney with that and what they were offering her. And I was able to show her why the numbers didn't match and why if she would go back with a counter, she would potentially be okay. And we worked through her spending, what she wanted to do. She wanted to move, no younger kids. She was ready to go. We look at numbers where she wanted to move to, and she started seeing the picture a little bit more clear. And when she looked at statements she understood. When she looked at the spreadsheet, she started to understand. She found herself more secure to go back to the attorney. (27:39): I help her with that, but she went back to the attorney and said, "Okay, I think this was a miscalculation. My expert says there was a miscalculation. I would like to counter this. This is what really will work for me. " She made a counter, they accepted and she moved on. And she's always telling me that if she was going to say yes because she was confused and she was scared, something told her that she needed to find some kind of answers. And when she came to me, she ended up feeling so secure about her progress. She knew what she was going to get for retirement. She knew what she was going to get in support. She was moving to a whole different state, but she knew the numbers too. She felt so empowered to make the decisions and that is why because she found information. (28:22): She understood what was in front of her, but also she had a goal and she was able to put this part here of the settlement of the strategy towards that particular goal and that made her change. And she's always telling me that she never felt she could make those decisions. She felt so comfortable when she signed. That is so important. Katherine Miller (28:41): It is. And you know what I love about that story and stories like that is when someone takes ownership of the information and forms it into a plan that works for him or herself and it changes everything. Could it be like push, push, push, push, push this sort of zero sum game. They're locked in battle over this thing. And when someone just says, wait one second, let me understand myself better. Let me understand what's on the table better. Let me understand my own goals better. Now all of a sudden you're like this and there's movement and it can work like that. And it leads really to a much happier life. And of course that was the point. All right, so we're almost at the end of our time together and I have a couple of questions that I always like to ask my guests. And so Gabrielle, the first one is called the reframe. (29:27): So what is one mindset shift about money and divorce that you think changes everything once people understand it? Gabriella Martinelli (29:35): Money is not a price. Money is not the enemy and money is not a tool to inflict hurt on the other spouse. Money is the tool. Money is a tool that is going to help you move forward to the next chapter. When you start understanding that money is for you to create a life that you want and could Create when this process is over, they start changing the way they make decisions because they don't make decisions based on what the other person wants and I want to hurt them or they hurt me and I want them to hurt. Or it's like, I can make these decisions because I'm going to be in a bad place regardless or how I'm going to win because I'm taking everything from them. It doesn't feel that way after the divorce and you cannot make good decisions, that's what you're basing your decisions on. (30:26): Now, if you start thinking about yourself, what is the future looking like for you? What do you think you would like to be or where would you like to go? If you focus on you and how money is going to be the tool, you make better decisions because you understand what you really need out of this settlement. That's the strategy. What works for you for what you want to do in the future rather than I want to win against the other person or I want to hurt the other person or I just want to be done because this is too stressful. It's about thinking about themselves. Katherine Miller (31:02): So what surprised you most after helping all these people throughout your career, navigating the financial side of divorce? What has surprised you the most about the role money plays in people's healing and recovery? Gabriella Martinelli (31:15): They put a lot of weight on the amount of money without understanding what the money is. Again, and it goes related to the other. Money is a tool. If you utilize the tool the right way, you will be in a better place. Individuals feel like money is a big thing that I want it or I want it all, or I think I need to have this without thinking through it. But when we look at it, as I just mentioned, a tool and it's just so hard for individuals to do no matter how smart, no matter how successful, and no matter how much money are we talking about, they all have a problem understanding that it's a tool and you should think about it, okay, what is this tool going to help me build next? So then you know how to utilize and how to make the decisions. (31:59): But it was very surprising that no matter where they are in life, they all come through the emotions and they have a hard time understanding how they could put money to use. Katherine Miller (32:11): Yeah. Great. Well, Gabrielle Martinelli, thank you so much for being my guest on Divorce Dialogues. It's been truly a pleasure. Gabriella Martinelli (32:17): Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Katherine Miller (32:24): I have a few more thoughts about my interview with Gabriella Martinelli about money, about money as a tool. And that was a phrase that Gabriella used a lot during the interview. And I think it's so true. Oftentimes we find ourselves negotiating for more or less. More is more, less is less, but it's hard sometimes to connect that negotiation for more or less with what it's for, what it's really going to do and how that's going to actually work because money is a tool. Money is a medium. It's the way you get what you want. It's the freedom to do what you want, to live where you want, to go where you want, and to maintain your lifestyle or change it, travel or not, travel how or one way versus the other, but it's not do or die. It does give you options and thinking through what each of these things is going to cost and what it does and what I would have to give up is such an empowering exercise in planning your life. (33:33): So allocating your money, budgeting your money as well as your time. I think that people so misunderstand what that means in the divorce negotiation. In fact, in any negotiation and thinking through a plan for my life to get to what I want proactively in a planning, this is for me way rather than a reacting, I don't want to lose this. They're not going to get away with that. I need to prove blah, blah, blah or this and that. And I don't mean to discount or be derogatory about those things that people want and the reactions that we all have, but pay attention to yourself and your own goals and how that's evolving through the divorce negotiation, how your own feelings of acceptance or sadness or grief or anger, anxiety, how that's impacting the negotiations and get some help from somebody like Gabriella about the money from a divorce coach or a therapist about the feelings so that you are acting in your best interests and giving your lawyer the most relevant instructions that you possibly can. (34:47): Thanks for listening. If this conversation was helpful, share it with someone who might need it. And if you're navigating divorce yourself, you'll find more resources and episodes at miller-law.com. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.