Three Years. 170 Experts. 5 Divorce Mistakes They Agree On.

Episode Description - Three Years. 170 Experts. 5 Divorce Mistakes They Agree On.

Divorce isn’t just painful. It’s full of hidden divorce mistakes that can quietly derail your future if you don’t see them coming. 

After interviewing over 170 divorce experts and real people who've been through the divorce process, the Off the Fence podcast team has distilled three years' worth of podcast conversations into the five most expensive mistakes divorcing people make so that YOU can avoid making them yourself.

This episode opens by examining the patterns that kept showing up across all different experts (lawyers, mediators, therapists, financial professionals, coaches, and people who have lived through the process themselves) over the past three years. You’ll discover common themes, hard-won wisdom, and practical tools you can use in your own life.

What makes this episode especially useful is the way it moves from big-picture awareness to practical application. It doesn’t just name common divorce mistakes; it explains why people make them and how those mistakes play out in real life 

You’ll get links to the specific experts and topics you want to explore, from decision-making to divorce process choices, financial preparation, high-conflict dynamics, and emotional regulation. 

This episode functions like a mini divorce roadmap. It will help you slow down, see the divorce process more strategically, and recognize that better outcomes usually come from better preparation, better self-awareness, and better choices made early.

Show Notes

About Karen

Karen Covy is a Divorce Coach, Lawyer, Mediator, Author, Speaker and Podcaster.  She coaches busy professionals and business owners all over the world to make clear, confident decisions about their most important personal relationships. She also helps them navigate through divorce with strategy and integrity, so they experience less conflict and expense, and are ready to create their next chapter sooner rather than later.

Karen is the author of When Happily Ever After Ends: How to Survive Your Divorce Emotionally, Financially, and Legally and The Strategic Divorce Guide: How to Protect Yourself Without Losing Yourself. She is also the creator of the online divorce programs, The Divorce Road Map 3.0 and How to Successfully Mediate Your Divorce as well as the host of the podcast, Off the Fence: Mastering Decision-Making Divorce and More.

Connect with Karen

You can connect with Karen on LinkedIn at Karen Covy on Facebook at Karen Covy.  You can follow Karen on Instagram at Karen Covy Lawyer and on TikTok at Karen Covy.

Exclusive Offers from Karen to Honor the Season Four Launch

3 Seasons.  Countless conversations. One massive thank you!

To celebrate the launch of Season 4, for a limited time, you can get ALL of Karen's online divorce programs AND her Strategic Divorce Guide for 30% OFF! ... because honestly, we wouldn't be here without you.  Use the code CELEBRATE at checkout to claim your discount. But don't wait! This offer ends at midnight Central Time on March 24, 2026.

Key Takeaways From This Episode with Karen

Here are the 5 Biggest Mistakes Divorcing People Make, as relayed by over 170 divorce survivors and experts over the past 3 years:

1. Making Decisions Without Clarity: Unclear Decisions Create Expensive Outcomes. 

• Many people rush into divorce without understanding what they truly want.
• It’s critical to get clear on:
  • Whether divorce is the right choice
  • Relationship needs (including intimacy)
  • Financial realities like assets, budgets, and taxes

2.  Not Paying Enough Attention to HOW You Divorce: The WAY You Go Through Your Divorce Determines the Outcome You Get.

• How you divorce affects both the experience and outcome.
• Choosing the right approach (litigation, mediation, collaborative) and using the right professionals can reduce conflict, cost, and stress.
• Communication, structure, and mindset all play major roles.

3. Not Understanding That High-Conflict Divorce Follows Different Rules

• High-conflict situations involve power struggles and emotional escalation.
• Common mistakes:
  • Expecting a difficult spouse to be reasonable
  • Fighting every issue instead of prioritizing
  • Reacting emotionally rather than preparing strategically

4. Not Understanding Your Finances or Not Having a Strategy to Optimize Them

• Financial confusion leads to costly settlement mistakes.
• People need clarity on budgeting, tax implications, hidden assets, investments, and retirement planning.

5. Not Staying in Control of Your Own Emotions: When You’re Emotionally Triggered, You Lose Leverage.

• Emotional reactions weaken negotiation power and decision-making.
• Emotional regulation is essential — especially near the end of divorce when exhaustion can lead to poor agreements.

BONUS Insight: Divorce Will Change Your Identity in Ways You Wouldn't Think About. Use the change as an opportunity to launch your new life.

Divorce will change you. With the right clarity, support, and strategy, you can emerge stronger and build healthier future relationships.

Links to Episodes and Guests Mentioned in This Episode

[NOTE: Guests appear in the order they were mentioned in this episode.  For your convenience, their names are hyperlinked directly to their episode. The time stamps in the right-hand column below are approximately where you'll find that guest mentioned in this episode.]

(Pssst! Remember to claim your 30% discount on ALL of Karen's online divorce programs AND her Strategic Divorce Guide soon!  Use the code CELEBRATE at checkout to claim your discount. 

This offer ends at midnight Central Time on March 24, 2026.

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Share the love so more people can benefit from this episode too!

Transcript

Three Years. 170 Experts. 5 Divorce Mistakes They Agree On.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

divorce strategy, high-conflict divorce, decision making

SPEAKER

Karen Covy 

Karen Covy 0:10

Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck, and more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator, and arbitrator, turned coach, author, and entrepreneur. And now without further ado, let's get on with the show.

This episode of the Off the Fence Podcast is a very special one because it marks the beginning of season four of the Off the Fence Podcast. So, for the past three years, I have interviewed over 170 divorce lawyers, mediators, collaborative divorce professionals, therapists, marriage and family counselors, marriage coaches, financial advisors, financial experts, high conflict divorce experts, sex therapists, and people who were just who were have been through the divorce process and were generous enough and courageous enough to share their stories with us.

Karen Covy: 1:18

And over the years and through all of the hours, hundreds of hours of interviews, certain patterns started to emerge. So, what we're gonna talk about today is what those patterns are. I'm gonna pull back the curtain on the five biggest mistakes that most of the experts and divorcing people agreed on, or the themes and patterns that came out of the interviews. And throughout this podcast, I'm gonna be mentioning different experts and different people that we talk to over the years. Everything is going to be linked in the show notes. So, if you hear a little bit or piece about from somebody and you're like, hey, I'd really like to know what you know what that whole interview is about, all you have to do is go to the show notes and you'll find everything linked for you right there.

Karen Covy: 2:05

So, without any further ado, let's get into the five biggest mistakes that people make in the entire divorce process. And the first mistake is probably a little different than what you might expect. The first mistake is acting without clarity, because decisions that you make without clarity are the ones that give you outcomes that you didn't count on. And you know, it's really hard when you're facing a divorce or you're thinking about a divorce, you want to rush into it. You just want it to be over with. You want, you don't want to get stuck in the muck any longer than you need to, and that makes sense. But when you start to make decisions without first having the clarity of who you are, what you value, what matters the most to you, and where you want to be at the end of the process, that's when you start making mistakes.

Karen Covy: 2:57

And the first mistake or the first decision that you have to face that you don't want to make a mistake about is do you do this at all? And when you're thinking about that, it might, it was interesting to hear what Cristie Cerniglia shared about her marriage. She had been married for 30 years and it wasn't going well. Um, she and her spouse were at odds, they were on the brink of divorce, but instead of rushing into the divorce, she stopped and said, How can I change? What do I want? She started, instead of looking at her spouse and being unhappy with what was going on, and she was unhappy with what was going on, she looked at herself and she started changing her mindset. And her mindset shift changed her behavior. And when her behavior changed, her husband's behavior changed. And long story short, they are still together, more happily married and more in love than they've ever been because of the changes that she made. So if you're on the fence and you're wondering, uh, do I do this yes or no? You might want to give Christy's episode a listen to and find out what did she do and is that something that could potentially work for you.

Karen Covy: 4:10

Another thing a lot of people think to do, obviously, if your marriage is not going well, is to go to marriage counseling. Well, that doesn't always work. Your spouse won't always go, and it doesn't always give you the results that you want to. So a lot of people have soured on marriage counseling, rightly or wrongly, right? And so there are marriage and family therapists who have started saying, huh, can I do things differently?

Karen Covy: 4:35

And two of those people are Christie Bemis and Ann Cerney. So instead of doing marriage and relationship counseling, because they're both therapists, right? Instead of just doing traditional therapy, they've developed intensive marriage counseling weekends where a couple can go on a retreat designed specifically for them and really dive deeply into the marriage to try to help them figure out can this be saved? Is this something we want to save? And if so, how can we start working on our marriage in a way that's productive? So both of those people, both of those episodes are episodes that you're going to want to give a listen to if you're trying to figure out, can I save my marriage?

Karen Covy: 5:20

And when you're talking about getting clarity in a marriage, you also want to get clarity about sex and intimacy. And it's interesting that so many marriages, especially long-term marriages, develop into ones where sex is a thing of the past. But sex and intimacy is what distinguishes a romantic relationship from just a friendship. So we've had experts on that talk about that. For example, Janelle Orion talks about the hard decisions, hard discussions she and her husband had to have when their once uh their relationship that was perfectly fine before they got married turned into a sexless one after they got married, and how they coped with that and what they did to try to save that relationship and revive the intimate part of their relationship.

Karen Covy: 6:09

Irene Fehr talked about the same thing about how when you don't deal with the intimacy aspect of a relationship, you start getting resentment, and that resentment hardens until emotionally you've also got distance that grows and grows and grows in your relationship, and what you can do to change that. So getting clear about what you want in a relationship, what intimacy means to you, what sex means to you, and how much of it you want and need in your relationship, and how to have the conversations about that with your spouse, those are all important topics and they're important things that you need to get clear about if you really want to have the marriage that you truly deserve.

Karen Covy: 6:55

Another thing you need clarity about is not just about your marriage, but do you divorce? If things aren't going well, how do you figure out whether getting a divorce is really what you want to do? And one of the best ways to do that is through something called discernment counseling. And Dr. Ginny Wright, who is a guest on this podcast, talked about that in her episode. She talked about how discernment counseling is specifically designed, it is limited scope counseling. So mean limited scope, meaning you're not going to go there forever. You're going to go for maybe, I don't know, four or five sessions, and you and your spouse both are going to help try to figure out do you want to stay married and work on your relationship? Do you want to get divorced? Or are you okay staying stuck in the middle? Right.

Karen Covy: 7:43

And another thing that you can think of, if discernment counseling isn't what you want, you can also try marriage coaching, which is different than marriage counseling. It's again intensive work on your marriage, and it will it will show you is this marriage worth saving or is divorce the path that you want to go down?

Karen Covy: 8:05

And Denise Fitzpatrick, who is who talked with us in season one of the of the show, she talked a lot about the program she's developed for marriage coaching and how it can help couples either become closer, you know, in their marriage and dive into that, or maybe make an alternative choice. So clarity about whether you want to get a divorce is critically important because it's not a binary decision. That's something that I work with my clients in in decision coaching is what kind of a relationship do you want? So if that's the question you're struggling with, any of these episodes can definitely help you get clear about that and make a decision that's right for you.

Karen Covy: 8:47

If you are going to go down the path of divorce, then one of the most important decisions you are going to make fairly early on is which divorce lawyer do you hire? And Ian Steinberg, who is a divorce lawyer in New York, talked about that extensively because the lawyer you choose has got to fit the type of divorce process that you're using.

Karen Covy: 9:12

Jonathan Merel, a Chicago family lawyer, said exactly the same thing. If you hire a divorce lawyer who is geared for litigation, that's their strong suit, that's their skill set, then your divorce is more likely than not going to go through litigation. But if you hire a lawyer who is more mediative and more mediation-friendly, then your divorce may go down that path.

Karen Covy: 9:38

And if you're going to choose a collaborative divorce, as Andrea Vaca talked about, you've got to get a lawyer who's trained in that. So getting the right lawyer is critically important, and you want to ideally, in a perfect world, match the lawyer with the divorce process that you want to use.

Karen Covy: 10:00

And then the fifth area where you really need clarity is financial clarity. And so many experts on the podcast over the years have talked about that. For example, Lauren Connelly talked about getting clarity about your budget, your balance sheet, what you have and what you own. Elke Rubach talked about the importance of financial literacy, of understanding not only what you have and what how much you spend and how much you make, but also how personal finance works.

Karen Covy: 10:27

The same message was echoed by Dr. Barbara Provost and her daughter Maggie Nielsen of Purse Strings, right? If unless you understand and you are really clear about how personal finance works, you can't begin to make informed decisions about how to divide what you have in a settlement, how to worry about things like cash flow, how to plan for support, whether you're the one paying it or you're the one receiving it. The bottom line is you need clarity about what your situation is financially now and what it's going to be under whatever divorce settlement proposal you're looking at. Because without that financial clarity, you can make decisions that dramatically affect your life moving forward and your financial stability moving forward.

Karen Covy: 11:16

Another thing that financial clarity also requires is some basic knowledge of the tax implications of what your proposed settlement is going to be. Because you've got to divide apples and apples. Money in a retirement account isn't the same as money in a savings account. And so understanding those tax implications is critically important. So all of that to say that financial clarity is probably one of the most important aspects of divorce, and you've got to get it before you move forward.

Karen Covy: 11:48

If moving forward without clarity is mistake number one in divorce, mistake number two is not paying enough attention to how you divorce. I mean, people think divorce, you just start it and you get through it, and it, you know, it's miserable and then it's done. But the way you go through it affects where you're at when it's done. The process you choose affects the outcome you get. And the when I say the way you go through divorce matters, I mean, yes, the process. And by process, that means do you use litigation? Do you go to court? Do you go through mediation? Do you use collaborative divorce? Do you sit down at the kitchen table and just negotiate with your spouse? Which divorce process do you use?

Karen Covy: 12:33

But the way you go through divorce means more than just your choice of process. It means how do you structure things? What do you do first, second, and third? How do you have the important conversations with your spouse, with your kids, with your lawyers, that it takes to get through your divorce in a well-reasoned way. And the way you go through your divorce is also a lot about psychology. And psychology meaning your psychology, your mindset, and also your spouse's. Because the more you understand where your spouse's head is at, which is no easy task when you're going through a divorce. Let's be clear on that. But the more you can start to understand yourself and understand your spouse, the better you're going to do.

Karen Covy: 13:21

So let's dive into the divorce process, right? And what that means. Because the truth is that in today's world, there are so many ways to go through a divorce. I mean, 50, 60 years ago, you got a lawyer, you went to court, you fought until you worked out a settlement agreement, and then you were done. And if you couldn't work out an agreement, you went to trial. That was your only option. That is not true today. And we have had so many different experts talking about the various divorce processes. For example, Raif Palmer and Jonathan Merel, both Chicago family lawyers, they talked a lot about litigation. And while litigation may not be your number one way to go through divorce, like nobody wants to fight in court, sometimes you don't have a choice, or sometimes litigation is your best choice given the facts and facts and circumstances that you you're dealing with, especially if you're in a high conflict divorce. So if that's what your, if that's the situation you find yourself in, you might want to listen to those episodes and hear what those lawyers had to say about the litigation process.

Karen Covy: 14:26

And we've also talked to mediators about the mediation process. For example, Michael Cohen talked extensively about mediation and how mediation is really a better process to use when you're dealing with children in divorce because it gives you so many more options and so many different ways that you can handle your divorce and your parenting plan, ways that wouldn't be available to you if you went through court and had a judge decide.

Karen Covy: 14:56

Another person who talked a lot about mediation is Rosemarie Ferrante. She talked about mediation and the value and benefits of mediation and how it worked. And she also talked about collaborative divorce, as did Andrea Vaca. Now, collaborative divorce is a relatively new divorce process and it is very specific. In order to do a collaborative divorce, you need professionals who were actually trained in collaborative divorce, right? So you can hear from experts that talk about that. If you're interested in collaborative divorce, definitely go back to those episodes. Listen to what the people had to say, because that might be a process that would work really well for you.

Karen Covy: 15:36

Other processes are the online divorce process, which isn't really a divorce process because you still have to go to court. But some people get their divorce documents done online. Um, and others sit down with their spouse at the kitchen table and negotiate a divorce. Those were traditionally the only ways or the most popular, most well-known, we'll put it that way, ways to get divorced. But today there are even more ways being developed to get through divorce because believe it or not, a lot of divorce professionals are really trying to make the system better.

Karen Covy: 16:09

And one of the people who's trying to make the system better is Tracy Moore Grant. She came up with something called the Amicable Divorce System. And now there are Amicable Divorce Lawyers trained all over the country, actually in several countries, who are using a specific process that's designed, again, to try to keep you out of court, to keep your divorce amicable.

Karen Covy: 16:30

If you live in the UK, if you live in England or Wales, there's something called judge-assisted mediation. It's called, what would a judge say? And Karen Arndt and her ex-husband, believe it or not, develop this process whereby you can get an opinion from a judge right in the beginning of your divorce that says, hey, if this was sitting in front of me, if this was, if these were the facts of the case, the financial information that I saw, this is what I would recommend. This is how you can settle your case. And if you have that information early enough, a lot of people just say, okay, why fight? And they that tool helps them decide their divorce early.

Karen Covy: 17:10

Karen McNenny developed something called the Good Divorce System. And if you're interested in what that is, you can go back and listen to her episode as well. Actually, her episodes, because she's got another one coming up. Um, but she talks about keeping people, again, out of court, helping them settle and helping them use lawyers in a way that doesn't cause a fight, and that's more effective so that the family can keep as much money in their own pocket as possible and not have a divorce that lasts for years and is full of ugly conflict.

Karen Covy: 17:44

As important as the divorce process you use, the divorce structure that you adopt or that you use also matters in your divorce. And what I mean by structure is the way you set things up. For example, how do you break the news to your spouse that you want a divorce? When do you tell your children? How do you tell your children? How do you structure your divorce so that it actually does the least amount of damage possible to your kids? And that's something that Sarah Armstrong worked really hard in in her own divorce and talked a lot about in her episode about how to protect the children in divorce. So if you've got kids, that is definitely an episode that you wanna, that you wanna check out.

Karen Covy: 18:30

Another thing a lot of parents, divorcing parents, think about doing, whether it's short-term or long term, is nesting or bird nesting, right? And that's where the parents stay in the house and or the kids stay in the house and the parents cycle in and out instead of what traditionally happens with kids going from one parent's house to the other during and after a divorce, right? And so that provides a different level of stability for your kids, but it is extremely hard to do. And Kathleen Brigham in her episode talks a lot about that because she managed to do it for 10 years. And so if bird nesting is a thing that you want to do even for a short period of time while you're transitioning one from one family structure to another, that's going to be an episode that you definitely want to check out.

Karen Covy: 19:18

Finally, another thing that you want to think about when you're thinking about structure so you don't make a mistake as you go through your divorce is how do you want to do it in terms of team? So many of the divorce experts that we've interviewed over the years have talked about using a team approach to divorce, using, for example, a divorce coach who someone like me who can help guide you through divorce so you can project manage your divorce, so you can put yourself in the best position to do as the best possible job that you can as you go through your divorce process.

Karen Covy: 19:53

But it's not just about coaches, it's about using divorce mortgage specialists, using divorce realtors, using divorce financial experts, using a whole host of experts that can help you within their specialty so that you get the best experience and you optimize every step of your divorce along the way. And if you're interested in learning about how a divorce lending expert could help you, then I encourage you to listen to the episodes with Stacey Ellison or Tami Wollensak or Phil LaGiglia or their divorce realtors, for example, Kathryn Hoffman. All of those people have developed specialties that are specifically designed to help you. And by using those experts, it you would think that it's going to cost you a fortune. But the truth is, putting together the right team can actually save you money. So if that's the stage of divorce that you're in, definitely listen to those episodes because they can give you a tremendous amount of guidance and information.

Karen Covy: 20:58

And the final aspect of mistake number two that we need to talk about, and the experts talked about, is optimizing your own psychology and working with your spouse's psychology. This is so important. And when it comes to divorce, a lot of optimizing your psychology means understanding your trauma responses and understanding how trauma might have affected you in the past so that you can heal your own psyche, so that you can do better, not just in your divorce, but moving forward with your life. And that's something that Holly Herzog in episode number one talked about. She talked a lot about how you manage trauma and how you can heal from your own trauma and what that does for you as you move through your divorce, as you build your new life.

Karen Covy: 21:49

Dr. Carrie Johansson talked about the drama triangle and how you can flip it so that you can stop being a victim of your divorce. Because the one place that nobody wants to be is bitter and broken at the end of their divorce and then moving forward, being in that same headspace for years and years and years and years. And so learning about the drama triangle and flipping it so that you stop being a victim and start being an active and influential part of your own life is so very important.

Karen Covy: 22:22

Another part of understanding your own psychology, which is important as you go through your divorce, but also as you build relationships afterwards, is knowing your attachment style. And Bev Mitelman talked a lot about this. As a matter of fact, she had two episodes. We dove that deeply into attachment styles and whether your attachment style is avoidant or whether it's secure or what it is, how you identify it, and how you start to heal so that you can build a secure attachment style moving forward so that you don't just repeat the same mistakes that you made in your first marriage in your next relationship, right?

Karen Covy: 23:00

So all of that is about dealing with your own psyche. And you also have to deal with your spouse's psyche, particularly if your spouse is a high conflict person, because that understanding what your how what your spouse is thinking and how they're feeling and knowing how they might react is key to not making mistakes and to managing your divorce as effectively and as efficiently as you possibly can.

Karen Covy: 23:30

So all of this is to say that the way you go through your divorce makes a huge, huge difference, not only in the quality of your life while you're going through the process, but where you end up afterwards and how well you set yourself up to start your next chapter.

Karen Covy: 23:46

The third mistake is not understanding that a high conflict divorce plays by different rules. Now, not every divorce is a high conflict divorce. Every divorce involves some level of conflict, even the most amicable ones. If you agreed with your spouse about everything, you probably wouldn't be getting divorced. So every divorce is going to involve some level of conflict. But when you're dealing with two reasonable people who just are in a tough situation, that's one level of conflict. When you're dealing with somebody who has a personality disorder, has anger issues, has substance abuse issues, or is just hellbent on revenge and getting their pound of flesh, that creates a high conflict divorce. And those divorces are about something totally different. They're not about ending a marriage, they're not even about doing what's best for your own children, they're about power and control. A high conflict spouse is fighting to win. They want to be right, they wanted to be vindicated, and they don't care if they have to burn the house down in order to get what they think is, you know, a win for them.

Karen Covy: 25:00

So when you're involved in that kind of situation, for whatever reason, no matter what kind of high conflict spouse you have, if that's the situation that you're in, you have to handle the conflict differently. Now, within the area of high conflict divorce, there are several mistakes that you can make. And mistake number one, as Tracy Malone said in both of her episodes on the podcast, the biggest mistake you can make if you're dealing with someone who's high conflict with a narcissistic personality disorder is expecting them to be reasonable. They are not going to be reasonable. They are fighting to win. And the more you try to be reasonable, the more they level up the fight, the more they escalate. So if you're dealing with a narcissistic spouse, you have to understand their psychology in order to be able to do as best you can in your divorce. So if that's the situation that you find yourself in, or even if you're not sure and you're saying, well, I don't know if this is really high conflict or not, definitely listen to Tracy Malone's episodes on the podcast. She talks in one about dealing with a high conflict spouse. And another one, she talks about dealing with your own child's spouse who is narcissistic and is alienating you from your child, from your adult child, right? So both of those are really going to be eye-opening when and give you a lot of tools and tips. And how do you deal with a high conflict spouse? Because it's different.

Karen Covy: 26:35

Mistake number two when you're dealing with a high conflict spouse is fighting every issue. That will just exhaust you. It's like Samantha Boss talks about when she talks about creating an airtight high conflict parenting plan. She says, you know, she encourages her clients to start with a list of what are your non-negotiables, which means you have to sit down and think about those, right? So you decide what your non-negotiable items are, and then you create a parenting plan that makes sure that you get the things that really matter to you. And then you have to be willing to let go of what doesn't matter.

Karen Covy: 27:18

Karen McMahon, who is also another high conflict divorce coach, she talks about exactly the same thing: that if you try to fight every battle, you're gonna lose, you're gonna be exhausted, and you're gonna end up at the end of your divorce with everything except what really mattered to you. So if you're in that high conflict situation, don't make the mistake of trying to fight every battle. You've got to pick what matters most to you.

Karen Covy: 27:44

Mistake number three when dealing with a high conflict spouse is trying to be reasonable with them, trying to negotiate fairly or reasonably. Somebody who is hellbent on revenge or who really just wants their pound of flesh is never going to be reasonable. So your best defense in that situation, as Jonathan Merel talks about, is to create a strong offense. Get yourself ready for trial. Doesn't mean you're gonna go to trial. You might, you might not. But you've got to prepare as if you were, because you can't, if you just try to negotiate reasonably and fairly with a high conflict spouse, you're gonna lose.

Karen Covy: 28:30

Mistake number four when dealing with a high conflict spouse is assuming that the conflict will end when your divorce does. Mia Hanks, who uh bravely came on the show, talks about her narcissist her divorce from a narcissistic spouse and how long it took and how much it cost and how horrible it was. Paulette Gloria Rigo talked about the same thing. Um, just about how expensive it can be when somebody just wants to fight and wants to fight and wants to fight. And so Mia Hanks, again, she talked about what it took her to be able to leave that abusive situation. And just to give you a hint, you know, if you want to listen to her episode, Mia Hanks is not her real name. She's been divorced for years, and she still can't like divulge who she really is and what really happened to her. And in a high conflict situation, your spouse will continue to take you to back to court over and over and over again. And that's what happened to Mia Hanks, that's what happened to Samantha Boss, that's what happens to so many people, unfortunately, who are in a very high conflict marriage and are trying to divorce somebody who has a personality disorder or substance abuse disorder or some other sort of issue that makes them high conflict. So if that's the situation you're in before you make mistakes, I encourage you go back, listen to those episodes. They can give you so much information about what to do and what not to do.

Karen Covy: 30:05

And finally, mistake number five is not controlling your own emotions when you're dealing with a high conflict person, because they live for your reactions, they thrive on the drama. So when you react emotionally to your high conflict spouse, you're making the situation worse. And I know you think, well, I'm reacting emotionally because it is emotional. And I get it, it truly is. But that's why going back and listening to the episodes for from all of the therapists that we've had that we've spoken to who say, this is how you deal with your own trauma. This is how you understand your own psyche so that you can control yourself so that you don't react. You stop being reactive and you start being proactive. And when you're dealing with a high conflict spouse, really, that is your best strategy is to control yourself because that's all you can ultimately do at the end of the day, anyway.

Karen Covy: 31:06

If mistake number three has to do with high conflict divorce, which thankfully doesn't apply to everybody, mistake number four does. Mistake number four is universal, and it is not understanding that the most expensive mistakes come from not knowing your numbers. And so many people think, oh, but I'm not good at numbers. I don't know personal finance, I'm not good at math. Divorce math is math. It's simple math. This is not high-level calculus, it's addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. That's all you have to know. And if you're not feeling secure in that area, then the episodes that you want to listen to are number one, Lauren Connolly. She talks a lot about how do you build a budget? How do you get a handle on your numbers? And how do you understand what a balance sheet is and how that works?

Karen Covy: 32:00

Karen Chellew and Catherine Shanahan of My Divorce Solution talk about exactly the same thing. They have built an entire company around helping people organize their finances and put together a financial, um, like a financial report and then understand that financial report so that they can model out different potential settlements. So when you go into a settlement negotiation, you can say, okay, we have option one, and that looks like this. Plan two looks like that, option three looks like this, and you can start to make choices. But you can't make choices about money until you know how money works. So listening to those experts is critically important to understand how your financial situation is going to play out in your divorce.

Karen Covy: 32:48

Now, knowing your numbers is really important. You've got to do that. But so many people come to me and they say, Karen, I can't get my numbers. I don't have financial information. My spouse is sitting on it, they're holding up the whole process. Well, then if that's true for you, then you want to listen to Becky Sampson's episode. Because in that episode, Becky Sampson talks about subpoenas. And a subpoena is a way to send a request to a third party who is not your spouse, someone like a bank or your spouse's employer or a financial institution that says essentially to that third person, hey, give me information about my spouse's income or assets or whatever they have there, right? So it asks for documentation, but it's a court order. It's not a request. And getting that subpoena right and getting your attorney to send the subpoena can make the difference between you having the information that you need and your not having the information that you need to make financial decisions. And sometimes, once you get that information, you're trying to find the threads. You're trying to say, okay, I know my spouse is hiding money somewhere. Don't know where that might be. I've got all the data, but I don't know what it means.

Karen Covy: 33:07

Well, in that case, you might need the help of a forensic accountant. And so you want to listen to Tracy Coenen's episode. She is a forensic accountant. She has worked with hundreds and hundreds of people, I don't even know how many, over the years, trying to trace money and say, this is where money might be, this is where your assets are, and guess what? Your spouse is hiding this, this, this, and this. Or your spouse isn't hiding money, right? So understanding, do you need a forensic accountant? What can they do for you? How do they work? If that's your situation, if that's the situation you find yourself in, you're definitely going to want to listen to Tracy's episode about forensic accounting.

Karen Covy: 34:46

And then once you've got your financial settlement, you have to know what to do with it, right? So understanding the basics of investment, for that, you're going to want to listen to Karen Stawicki and Samantha Irish. They have a very unique investment strategy that helps you maximize the dollars that are in your pocket by minimizing the tax burden that you're going to pay after you retire. So not understanding taxes can be a really big divorce mistake because it just because you have a certain settlement on paper doesn't translate into dollars in your pocket. And you want those dollars in your pocket at the end of your divorce. So if you're wondering what do you do with your money, how do you invest it, then definitely listen to Karen and Samantha's episode because they can be a big help to help you figure out what do you do with your money so that you don't make mistakes after you're divorced.

Karen Covy: 35:43

Finally, when it comes to money and not making mistakes about financial settlements, especially if you're in a gray divorce, which means you are 50 years old or older, you have to understand how Social Security works. And for that, you're going to go to Eric Blake's episode. Because Eric talked so much about the difference between spousal benefits and death benefits and how you optimize and maximize the social security benefits that you put in your own pocket. This area of the law, of finance, of whatever you want to call it, is very complicated and you've got to understand the rules. And if you don't, or if you want to know those rules, then you're definitely going to want to give Eric's episode a listen to because that can be so critically important in your life post-divorce and in your ability to retire if you ever want to retire, right? So that's an important part of the puzzle as well.

Karen Covy: 36:40

The fifth biggest mistake that you make when you're dealing with divorce is not being in control of your own emotions. Because when you're emotionally triggered, you lose leverage. So it is strategic. Staying in control of yourself is strategic, but it's not necessarily easy. Because when you're triggered, when your spouse pushes your buttons, and your spouse really knows how to push your buttons, right? But when that happens, your stress hormones raise, your brain clouds up, you can't think clearly, and you can't make good decisions. And some of that has to do with your own, again, your own trauma responses. And that's something that Bethany Dotson talked about in her episode. How to deal with your trauma responses, how to heal from your own traumas of the past, because when you're reacting, you know, from an emotionally triggered perspective, you can't negotiate as well. So you definitely want to get in control of your own self.

Karen Covy: 37:45

Dr. Greg Stewart talked about the same thing. He talked about emotional regulation and emotional dysregulation. And he gave some concrete tips about what you can do to start regulating yourself because it's a learned skill. You can do it. And when you start to regulate your own emotions in any relationship and definitely in a negotiation, you start becoming more effective, you start becoming more in control. And during the course of a divorce, you're going to, of course, be triggered at different times.

Karen Covy: 38:21

But the one that's kind of surprising that a lot of people don't see coming is at the end of your divorce. And that's what Leah Mazur talked about, about how when you've gotten near the near to the end of your divorce, you're just exhausted. And that's when you're tempted to give up the farm, to give in, to forget about what matters to you and just settle for anything because you want to be done. And that can be one of the biggest mistakes that you make financially, emotionally, and on every level. So if you're coming up towards the end of your divorce and you're like, okay, I've got this, it's good, you might want to give Leah's episode a listen to so that you are prepared so that you understand your own psychology as you're coming to the end of your divorce so that you can make the best decisions and not blow it at the end.

Karen Covy: 39:08

So those are the five biggest mistakes that people make as they're going through the divorce process. And they are not getting clarity before you make decisions, not understanding that the way you go through the divorce process dramatically affects your experience and your outcome. Number three, not understanding that high conflict divorce is a whole different animal. Number four, not truly understanding and grasping your finances before you start making settlement decisions. And number five, not having control over your own emotions as you go through the process.

Karen Covy: 39:45

And all five of those are critically important. And the really the podcast over the last three years has covered much more than that. And so there's a bonus piece of wisdom. I won't call it a mistake because it's not a mistake per se, but it's bonus information, something to keep in mind. And that is that your divorce dramatically affects your identity in ways you can't expect or anticipate. When you come out of your divorce, you will be fundamentally a different person than when you went in. And that the key is to be a person who is better, stronger, more confident, and more in control of themselves and their future. And that's entirely possible to do.

Karen Covy: 40:27

And if you don't believe me, go listen to Natalie Fairchild. She went through, you know, a very, very difficult divorce and decided to divorce a spouse who had serious health conditions. And they were a good couple. She loved him, he loved her, but the marriage was not working on so many levels. And so she talks about how she went through the process and how it changed her and how it changed him. And now they're really good friends, they're close, they're still in business together, which is another thing that's a bit of a challenge.

Karen Covy: 41:02

And if you happen to be in business with your spouse, you want to go listen to Alex Paul's episode in season number one, because he and his wife are in business together. And that makes a difference if you are going to go through a divorce or not. There's different considerations if you're working with your spouse than if you're just married, just married, as if that's just nothing, right? So definitely listen to those episodes because divorce changes your identity.

Karen Covy: 41:29

And finally, one of the things that you're going to have to do with your new identity after your divorce, or not, it's up to you. But you may want to get to the point where you want a new relationship and you want to start dating again. And we I've talked to so many experts who have such great insight into the modern dating world, which is something that if you've been married for a long time, you haven't been involved in the dating world for quite some time. So you're going to want to check out Laurie Gerber's episode because she talks about how you can bring your best self to the dating world because it all starts inside of you, right? And so you've got to deal with your own stuff first and then dive into dating.

Karen Covy: 42:13

And if you want to know how to dive into, for example, online dating, Andrea McGinty is the queen of that. She started a company called It's Just Lunch, ran that for years, sold it, and is now running a dating company geared specifically towards people who are 50 years old and above. Jonathon Aslay is also a dating expert. So there are a lot of people who have talked about how do you start dating again? How do you rebuild that next chapter of your life so that it truly is fulfilling, so that you can have the life you really want.

Karen Covy: 42:47

So there has been so much wisdom that everybody has shared, all of the experts and the people who have come on the podcast. I am eternally grateful and thankful to every single one of you who has been on the show and all of you who are listening to the show, because without you, we wouldn't have a show. So all of this is to say that it's been quite a ride doing the podcast for three years. I am totally looking forward to doing season four, to bringing you more experts, more people to share their stories, to share their wisdom with you.

Karen Covy: 43:20

So if you've enjoyed today's episode, do me a big favor, give it a thumbs up, please like, please subscribe, subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and I look forward to seeing you all again in season four of the Off the Fence Podcast.