Episode Description - First Responder Divorce: The Hidden Crisis That Costs Us All
Here's a secret that most employers and government agencies don’t know. An employee’s divorce costs the company or government agency that the employee works for far more than it costs the employee to go through it. That’s especially true in first responder divorce.
Divorcing employees experience a loss of productivity, increased absences, increased distractions, and a higher turnover rate than non-divorcing employees. Since first responders experience divorce at a much higher rate than the general public, this is even more of a problem for them.
Vicky Townsend, a trailblazer in the divorce industry, set out to change all that.
Vicky has created a groundbreaking program that supports employees - particularly first responders - during the tumultuous divorce process. Employees in these programs get access to concierge-level divorce coaching, mediation services, marriage counseling resources, and specialized support for complex situations like religious divorces or high-conflict cases.
The support they receive not only relieves the employee’s anxiety, but it also reduces the financial cost of divorce – both for the employee and the employer.
Vicky is currently focusing this program on first responders whose job-related stress contributes to higher divorce rates and the need for more nuanced divorced guidance.
If you or anyone you know is a first responder, or works for a forward-thinking company, this episode is one that you’ll not only want to listen to, but you’ll want your boss to listen to it as well.
Show Notes
About Vicky
Vicky Townsend is a trailblazing entrepreneur and advocate, dedicated to transforming the divorce process into a kinder, more affordable experience. As the founder of the National Association of Divorce Professionals, Divorce Right, and Fairwell, she has spent over two decades championing solutions that protect families from the financial and emotional toll of divorce. Her recent efforts focus on supporting first responders and military personnel during this challenging life transition. With unwavering commitment, Vicky continues to innovate and lead the charge for a more compassionate divorce industry.
Connect with Vicky
You can connect with Vicky on LinkedIn at Vicky Townsend and on Facebook at Vicky Townsend and follow Vicky on YouTube at Divorce Right HR Solutions for Divorce in the Workplace.To find out how to work with Vicky visit her websites at:
For employers: Divorce Right
For individuals: Fairwell
Email: [email protected]
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Vicky
- Vicky Townsend founded the National Association of Divorce Professionals, Divorce Right, and Farewell to make divorce kinder and more affordable after spending $100,000 on her own divorces.
- The traditional divorce system is expensive (average $25,000), time-consuming, and lacks coordination between professionals involved in the process.
- Divorce severely impacts workplace productivity, with 10% of divorcing employees quitting their jobs and 92-94% hiding their divorce from employers until after it's finalized.
- Divorce Right offers employers concierge-style coaching services as an employee benefit, including specialized support for different divorce types and discounted mediation services.
- First responders have higher divorce rates due to job-related factors like stress, trauma exposure, shift work, and living arrangements; divorce is the #1 cause of suicide for police officers.
- The company created a Family Assistance Program (FAP) offering resources for saving marriages, parenting support, 24/7 peer support groups, and an AI app that connects with therapists.
- Divorce is a leading cause of bankruptcy, the #1 reason single mothers fall into poverty, represents 75% of welfare applications, and has an estimated $300-400 billion annual impact on the US economy.
- Proper divorce support through coaching and mediation saves money, time, improves workplace productivity, and reduces emotional toll.
- Many companies hesitate to offer divorce support due to concerns about appearing to condone divorce, despite clear evidence of its workplace impact.
- The two biggest mistakes people make during divorce are being uneducated about the process and being unprepared, both of which divorce coaching addresses.
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Transcript
First Responder Divorce: The Hidden Crisis That Costs Us All
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
family assistance program, financial impact, first responders
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Vicky Townsend
Speaker Names
Karen Covy Host
00:10
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
With me today, I have the immense pleasure of speaking with Vicky Townsend, and Vicky is a trailblazing entrepreneur and advocate dedicated to transforming the divorce process into a kinder, more affordable experience. As the founder of the National Association of Divorce Professionals, divorce Right and Farewell, divorce Right and Farewell, she has spent over two decades championing solutions that protect families from the financial and emotional toll of divorce. Her recent efforts focus on supporting first responders and military personnel during this challenging life transition. With unwavering commitment, Vicky continues to innovate and lead the charge for a more compassionate divorce industry. Vicky, welcome to the show.
Vicky Townsend Guest
01:27
Thank you, Karen. I'm so excited to be here. I feel like I'm with a star here.
Karen Covy Host
01:33
I'm certainly an influencer in this space so I'm grateful you are too kind and I'm thrilled to have you, because you and I go back a few years, as we should say.
Vicky Townsend Guest
01:47
We don't want to talk about how long, but it's been a while.
Karen Covy Host
01:51
I don't want to date us but you've been in this doing this for a very long time, and so I'm curious. I'd like to start with your story how did you get into this industry? And if you could just take us sort of through all of the things that you've done, or at least the highlight reel, because I don't think it's not a three hour show.
Vicky Townsend Guest
02:11
So a highlight reel of the things that you've done and that you are doing been down the divorce road a couple of times now and you know I spent over $100,000. And I'm a pretty smart girl, Karen.
Karen Covy Host
02:31
I mean.
Vicky Townsend Guest
02:31
I'm, you know, don't ask me to do your brain surgery, but I can pretty much figure things out. And I started to sit there and go. This cannot be something that people do on the regular, you can't. I mean, this is unsustainable for our country and it's just nuts. Because I knew that I wasn't the only one, and so I decided to become a divorce coach and try and help people navigate this labyrinthine system that we have to go through, or we think we have to go through anyway, because that's the brand and it's that system has literally been designed by the very people and you are an attorney practicing it. You understand, you are the ones that and I don't mean you personally, but that designed that system. That's nearly impossible for the average person to get through by themselves, right? So you have to, you know, and the brand of this industry, you've got to have a shark or a bulldog, a barracuda, a tiger, some sort of animal that eats the other person, and that's where the money is and that's where the conflict. You know there's money to be made in conflict and chaos. And you know another thing, that that was clearly evident to me, because you know, like I said, I'm smart girl, but I didn't know this and there was no course. Nobody teaches you how to go through this until people like you come along and I come along that take people through this process and help them navigate those hurdles. That could be done in a different way than your attorney is suggesting for you, because there's money there, there's time there, there's, you know, all of the, all of the things. So in all of these years, you know, if I knew then what I know now, I'd be about $95,000 richer. Right, I mean, let's just face it.
04:36
Then I started, then I, you know, with I, I recognized that really the problem, one of the problems, the biggest problem, was that the, the people that you hire, don't necessarily understand the decisions that they're helping you make over here impact a family over here and nobody's communicating. There was no central hub, there was no team design and you know I've created um with a, with a partner, the National Association of Divorce Professionals, with the idea of putting those professionals together so they could, you know, create teams, they could find like-minded professionals that weren't in this for the money that was. You know, we really wanted to have professionals that cared about their clients, and so I did that for gosh 10 years, I'm guessing. And then I you know, through the education components that we did for those professionals, I really started to recognize that divorce costs the companies and government agencies that we work with far more than it costs their employee to go through it, and that's in lost productivity, absences, distractions. They have to answer their emails to their financial people or to their divorce attorney during the day, they have to answer phone calls and they're just totally distracted. They make errors, they're not participating at 100% on any project.
06:06
And another thing is that 10% of divorcing employees quit. It's a very expensive thing and that's because they don't feel supported, they don't feel cared for at work. And if employers understood that, it's a far bigger return financially for them to support them with somebody like you, like me, with our company, to help their employees make wiser decisions. You and I both know that we can get these people through this in a much faster way if they just had somebody as their advocate, somebody that sits there and says I know this system, I can help you get through it. And let me tell you just the directions and decisions that you're going to need to make, and that's kind of what I. So I started Divorce Right and Fairwell, and it's fairwell with the F-A-I-R, so that we want to. You know, our goal is to make this as fair as possible, but ultimately it's to help employees and we've you know kind of we've really found our niche with first responders military and medical, with emergency room centers, because they're first responders too, but they have higher, high divorce rates and having an employee that is, you know, effective and back on their game is as a good decision for their employers.
Karen Covy Host
07:30
Yeah, you have just said so much, oh my gosh. Yes, and there's so much that I want to dig into. But the part about employees have you seen in your experience that employees are afraid to tell their employers that they're going through a divorce? Because a lot of the clients that I work with are, I mean, they're worried about their job. They know they're distracted, they know that they're not giving their job their all because they can't. How does that work?
Vicky Townsend Guest
07:59
Absolutely. That is a great question, because I think the statistic is that it's either 92 or 94% of employees will not tell their employer until after it's over, and the only reason they do is because they have to change their insurance or they have to change their last name, and it's after the fact.
08:26
So employees won't tell their employers and the number one reason that they don't is because they're afraid they're going to be fired. But the difference now, and if, if employers take on our program, instead of being fired or putting that spotlight on them, the HR department can sit there and go let me get you some help now so you can make some better and wiser choices now instead of. You know you and I both know we mediate divorce cases. We can be in and out in just a couple of weeks or maybe months, right, whereas if they go through the divorce process in the court system it could take years and years. So we save them time, we save them money like crazy, but most importantly, we get them back to work because now they have somebody that they can lean on, they have an advocate that's there for them, helping them make better decisions.
Karen Covy Host
09:26
You just mentioned your program. I don't think that people really have a good idea of what your program is and how it works. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Vicky Townsend Guest
09:37
Oh, thank you so much. Well, so what we do is we have like a concierge, like service. So when we go into a company a Google, oracle, Disney we become a part of their benefits package, and I always find it awkward to call it a benefit, maybe a resource I'm not exactly sure what the proper word is, because and I don't the one thing that I don't want people in this industry to think about is that you know, you don't have to add, you don't have to agree with the divorce process to help your employees get through this. First of all, we don't advocate for divorce, we just advocate for it to be done right and for best. So our program is that they call us, they get an hour's worth of our time to coach them.
10:29
We, have a very extensive intake form so we find out if they have special needs, children, if they, if this is an LGBTQ plus marriage, if this is a religious divorce, because we have coaches that are experts in Catholic annulment Jewish gets, Muslim Talis. We have experts in high conflict, personality disorders. We have like you, you're a former family law attorney. People need to understand how valuable this is that you bring that to the table. We have former family law attorneys, former financial advisors, former mental health counselors. We speak 10 different languages, so we understand. We have cultural sensitivities as well, so we can match your employee with anybody that they would need.
11:23
And then, um, then we have a program called a plan right, your better divorce blueprint where we take them through it. It is an online program where they start to understand that there's five ways to divorce in this country and that litigation is probably their most expensive and should be like the choice of least resort, last resort. Yeah, and lastly, we can follow up with a. We provide discounted mediation services to our employers, to their employees. So we offer a 25% discount on professional mediation services.
12:04
You know the average divorce in this country right now, litigated divorce costing about 25 grand. Well, who has that kind of money? Right? I mean, it's just crazy. So going through the mediation process is just a far less expensive, far faster, far more private process where you know you, you especially if there's children involved you can, you know you still have to talk to each other. So the mediation process just allows that and it fosters a better communication as opposed to that, you know, right, the second you're served with your divorce papers. Walls go up, anger starts, crazy emotions happen, right.
Karen Covy Host
12:45
Yeah, I always tell my people, the minute that the word divorce comes out of your mouth, seriously like not in a moment of anger of I'm going to divorce you and it's by the next morning you've kissed and made up, so to speak. But when it's a real thing, and definitely once you get served, everything changes. The atmosphere changes, your access to information changes, your relationships start to change, like everything changes.
Vicky Townsend Guest
13:10
A literal wall of defensiveness goes up and nothing will ever be the same. Nothing will ever be the same.
Karen Covy Host
13:18
I love the way you put that a wall of defensiveness, because that's exactly what it is.
Vicky Townsend Guest
13:23
Yeah, it really is. And when you meet it, well, you know me and mediation, as you know you're, you're a mediator. Mediation's not for everybody, right, it's not for every case, but when it works, it's the chef's kiss to starting your life and starting that next chapter, right, it's just it allows you to move.
Karen Covy Host
13:49
Yeah, yeah, I I'm with you 100%. But to your point of the five different ways that there are to go through a divorce, what also matters is have someone who's facing divorce get guidance to know. Okay, first of all, there are five ways, and which ways are more likely to work for you and which are not. Because if you choose the wrong one, you can choose mediation. But if you're married to someone who is very high conflict and is never going to agree with you on you know the fact that the sky is blue or not transparent, yeah, mediation is not going to be your best choice, right.
So it's about people that use their children's pawn as right, or domestic violence. If there's been domestic violence. So I think what people can be hearing out of this conversation is this is very nuanced. There are a lot of factors that influence all of your different decisions as you go through it. A lot of factors that influence all of your different decisions as you go through it, and it's important for people to get the best information possible so they can make better decisions. But what I'm curious about is why first responders? How did you I know you had your company was primarily focused on just employees in general and then you shifted to first responders why, what made you do that?
Vicky Townsend Guest
15:09
Well, I'll tell you, and it is. It has given me such incredible joy to make the impact that we do. First of all, we still work with employers. That's not off the table. But first responders experience divorce at a much higher rate than the average population. They have risk factors for divorce that are literally baked into their job High exposure to stress.
15:38
Right, these guys are making life-changing, life-ending decisions, possibly life-changing life-ending decisions, possibly. So they're under incredible stress. Their exposure to trauma is unlike anything I've ever heard of before, because they're are there when they're rolled into the hospital and they've been cleaned up and they're covered with a blanket. They're there for the actual accident and we as taxpayers don't appreciate some of the things that they've seen. And I've had stories told to me and I won't tell them here because they are so shocking that I am shocked that they could go home and be daddy or be hey, honey, let's go have date night. It is that bad and probably worse than anything you've ever thought of. So they have high exposure to trauma, high exposure to stress.
16:32
Shift workers have a higher exposure to um, uh, to a divorce and that's you know. That's also right. Trauma centers, emergency rooms, those. But in the case of firefighters, these guys, you know and I say guys, it's 96, I think 96 percent men at this point these guys live in a frat house and there's not a lot of good for a marriage. That happens in that frat house. And that's also the same case with military as well, because they live on a base with a bunch of guys, right.
17:06
But you know that's just what happens and you know it's just an increasing of a risk factor that literally causes, you know, and it leads to divorce. So I was actually approached by a chaplain with a fire department in South Florida and he said we don't know divorce, we don't know what's going on and we've got somebody that really, really needs you and we did it. I will be honest with you. He was suicidal a couple of times, um and just FYI, divorce is the number one cause of suicide for police officers. The second reason is finances. And guess what? You can not unlink those two.
Karen Covy Host
18:02
Yeah, that's true.
Vicky Townsend Guest
18:03
So giving them some hope and some resources for them to move into the next part of their life is really important. It's, it's really critical for us to make sure that that happens for them. And but you know, doing our first, our first one was and now to see him I even actually have a testimonial, a video testimonial, and you look at him, he doesn't even look like the same person. And yeah, we just were renewed for his department's contract for the second time today, this morning, just before this call, they saw the impact that we made and it was great. And they didn't spend their life savings and parenting plans, financial analysis, everything out the door. We were in and out for like five grand.
Karen Covy Host
18:57
That's amazing yeah. I want to make sure people understand how what you do works just sort of on a higher level, because you're working with the first responders, with the employees, with people, one-on-one, but it's part of a higher-level program. Like, these people aren't just coming to you as one-offs, it's something that's offered to them as a benefit. So can you talk a little bit more about how that works?
Vicky Townsend Guest
19:26
Yeah, so we are baked into their EAP plan. As a matter of fact, we have started our very own EAP plan, effective January of this year, and we are so an EAP. For those listeners that are on and don't understand, it stands for Employee Assistance Program, or sometimes Employee Assistance Plan, and that's around a lot of mental health benefits, but you can also find discounts on legal services and discounts to Disney World, that kind of stuff. But we have created this one for families at a crossroads right, families at crisis. So we have a program for families that want to try and keep their marriage together. So we've partnered with a company called Our Relationship. They are currently being used by the Department of Defense because nobody has a higher divorce rate than our military. it's sad to say
20:27
We've partnered with a company called Peace at Home Parenting, because families with children going through a divorce or having just a stressful time during their marriage can have behavioral issues at home, academic decline, behavioral issues at school. But they can also be at higher risk for teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol use, even incarceration. So Peace at Home Parenting offers almost 1,800 videos from experts around the country highly degreed pedigreed experts on child behavior, psychology, psychiatry and, you know, all sorts of assistance to help that family raise their children in the right way. And then we've also got an app. That's um. You know, it sounds like you're talking to a real human being. You're actually talking to an ai app. What it does is, at the end, it'll take your summary of your notes from your session, and send them to your therapist. So, yeah, it's very cool.
21:32
Does the therapist. They must have to have the app right.
Vicky Townsend Guest
21:37
They have to be connected, but that's easy. And the value for that is that you know, as you know, our problems don't happen Monday through Friday, nine to five, right. Our problems happen when that SOB doesn't come home on Thursday and it's three o'clock in the morning, right, and no, you know, you don't have access to your therapist at that time, you know. So that's why the app is a really good resource.
22:10
So we've also partnered with one of the other things that firefighters need is a peer to peer support group. So we have an app that offers a peer to peer support group 24 seven, like right now. You could hop on the app If you're a first responder and jump into a group any time of day or night. That's pretty awesome. We've partnered with a company that offers um psychological support for children that find themselves hospitalized for mental health issues. They do a lot of work with university students, so they're that conduit. They actually are now doing in in person in what is it called in-house therapy as well, but they started to be that conduit between the time that your child was released from the hospital to the time they could get with their therapist in their community, and sometimes that can be weeks, you know, yeah, so that's what they do. So we're really creating our EAP and we're not going to call it an EAP, we're going to call it an FAP for family assisted program.
Karen Covy Host
Love that.
Vicky Townsend Guest
23:20
Thank you, yeah, you know it's interesting. So in these peer-to-peer groups with the first responders, 80% of their peer-to-peer group conversations are relationship issues. More than 50% of calls to EAP programs for mental health support is for relationship programs and with chaplains, more than 60% of their calls are for relationship program of problems. So we are solving an issue that the world needs we're really uncomfortable to talk about. Um, we have a lot of, what's the word? I'm looking for hesitation on the parts of HR departments and um, uh, other people that feel like they're condoning or supporting divorce. I have a city that wants to bring us on and they're going listen, we're in the Bible belt. How do we bring this to the city commission and saying we want to support our guys are as they go through a divorce process? How do you do that? And I'm like you start by saying the words and saying 50% of your calls are for relationship issues. This is happening whether you're in the Bible belt or whether you're up in Chicago, where you are in San Francisco or Miami, Florida or Maine, it doesn't matter. Divorce and relationship problems are happening. It is impacting company's growth, it impacts your bottom line and it impacts the readiness of our first responders and our medical personnel.
24:54
Like you know, think about one of the questions I had. I had to have some surgery. I was like, how's your home life? And it's like it was like a joke at the time but I kind of in the back of my head, was like going, if you have a great morning, I don't know that. I let you cut in on me. You know what I mean.
Karen Covy Host
25:15
That makes all the sense in the world, and you're right. Look, it's not that anyone is supporting divorce. Encouraging divorce, I guess, is the word, and I think that your program, it sounds like you go both ways. You have support for people in making their marriage better. You have support for people making their divorce better if that's the direction that they go. And the reality is people are going to do anything and the reality is people are going to do anything?
Vicky Townsend Guest
25:43
Yeah, absolutely, because even the chaplains that I've worked with have said we try to help them save their marriage, but we also understand when it's time to let that go and when it's time it's more toxic to stay in that marriage than not. And even they get it. But, most importantly so, getting back to that city that is in the Bible belt, we have this stigma around even having that conversation. Well, I actually have a program. If anybody's in HR that's listening today I have a five-hour program on how to talk to employees that you think are getting a divorce. What are the signs of an employee that's going through a divorce, what are some of the things that they have to go through that you may not be aware of to have some empathy and compassion for them and, most importantly, the things you can say and the things you can't say, because there's, you know, legal stuff here too, but happy to give that to anybody that would like to take that program so that they can be better stewards for their employees, because it's important. This is, by the way, the statistics with the general population, not the first responder population, which we think is much higher, but on the marriage program that we have, they say that, at any given moment, 37% of your population needs to have marriage support. I would not be surprised.
27:17
Yeah, you know, yeah, so think about that as an employer going. If I had, you know, happy or married employees are better employees. They're more productive employees, right, yeah? And then if we can get them, you know, and the statistics, the sad statistics are, as you probably know, that 50% of couples that go through marriage counseling end up needing us and go through a divorce. Couples that go through marriage counseling end up needing us and go through a divorce. So let's support them through this process so that they can make better decisions. They don't impact your bottom line. Because they're supported, we can help keep them out of bankruptcy. There's so many things. Divorce is a leading cause of bankruptcy. It's the number one reason that single mothers fall into poverty. 75% of all welfare applications are as a direct result of a divorce 75% of all welfare applications. It is not a joke.
Karen Covy Host
28:17
And that's totally crazy when you think of so. Here are these people and I'm sure that the mom doesn't want to be there and on welfare and having to ask for support, and the dad can't feel great about this either. But when you've got a family who's at that level of income, to take $25,000 out of their asset base and pay it to divorce lawyers makes zero sense.
Vicky Townsend Guest
28:46
I have to tell you I was brought one um. One department brought me in. One of their union presidents brought me in and he is eight and a half years out of his last divorce and he's now remarried and he's still paying off his credit cards.
Karen Covy Host
29:07
Wow. So yeah, I mean the impact that. I think that's what people need to hear and, you know, especially for people who, whether they have a small business or a big company, whether they're an employee, I mean this affects productivity. It affects your ability to perform as a, whether you're talking about as a company or as an individual. All of this makes so much sense. What doesn't make sense to me is why don't more companies have this?
Vicky Townsend Guest
29:39
I know. First of all, we're the first company that's doing this, so it is new. It will, by the way, it'll take a ramp up time for people to understand that this is A available to them, and we have a whole marketing strategy and communication strategy for employers, by the way, to help get this out. And you know, you don't know in whatever we're in January now, you don't know what's going to happen in August, right, that suddenly somebody is going to come home and say I need a divorce. So we are here to support them, and meet them where they are and get them the support that they need. Because there was a study and I'll share it with you if you'd like. It's from Family Innovations. It's getting. It's probably about 12 or maybe even 15 years old by now, but back then, when it was done, the impact on our economy divorce on our economy was over $300 billion a year. That was 10 or 15 years ago.
Karen Covy Host
30:54
Whoa.
Vicky Townsend Guest
30:55
Yeah, so it's got to be what close to $400 billion a year. That's insane and that comes again. Right, that's the, those are the welfare applications, those are the food stamps and WIC programs and section eight, housing, you know. And it's all because of bad decisions spending all their life savings on a divorce and having no resources at the end of the day. So yeah.
Karen Covy Host
31:20
So let's say there's an employee, whether it's a first responder or not, but somebody who is saying you know they they're facing a divorce, they know they need help. How do they get help from your company? How do they find out if their company or their employer or their you know military base or whoever it is that they you know? How do they find out if there are resources available for them?
Vicky Townsend Guest
31:44
Well, we are, since we are pretty new. We launched about two and a half years ago, so we're not everywhere yet. We're in four different states, we're on one military base as a resource, but we want to do more.
32:02
So what I would love to have is that, if you are somebody that is facing this problem at your employer, tell them that you heard about this on Karen Covey's podcast and that this is an employee benefit. Our return on investment is unbelievable as an employee benefit. You get an employee that is back to work really, really quickly and out of worry. You know, and I don't know, I'm sure you see it when you talk to your clients, Karen, because I know that they like they come to the, to the call and they're like all tense and they're like this, but by the end of the call and they're like all tense and they're like this, but by the end of the call you can see them just go okay, do this Right, I use physically. You see it. It's crazy, but you see it and it's wonderful.
Karen Covy Host
32:49
Yeah, because people come in and they're so stressed and worried and bound up and they're overwhelmed and confused. It's all the things right and people don't understand what coaching brings to the table. Because that's what we're talking about here. Is divorce coaching right? And then you could also provide them with resources, because the other thing that a coach does and I can tell that you do it in your company is you become that central hub and you say, okay, you could benefit from a mediator, you could benefit from a financial advisor, and you help them start to understand who they need on their team. Because this is a team sport, right?
Vicky Townsend Guest
33:31
That was what was so important when we came up with the concept of the NADP was that you need a team, you need a team, and sometimes the family law attorney is the quarterback, sometimes the financial advisor is the quarterback, sometimes the realtor is the quarterback, but ultimately you can be that coordinator as the coach that sits there and says well, wait a minute, she wants to try and keep the house. We need to find the right certified divorce lending professional for her, or we need to help her. I assisted somebody in South Florida. Just do some repairs on their roof just to get her homeowner's insurance down Right, you know, so that she could afford and make the monthly payment. So those are the things that you know. We get intimately involved in all of those areas of their life, right?
Karen Covy Host
34:26
Yeah, 100%. And you know it's about knowing not only who to put on your team, which is a big part of it, but where do you find those people? What do you need, what don't you need? And I think when people hear the word team they're like they immediately think dollar signs, right, you know? Oh, you did have to refinance. The lender's not going to charge you for their time and their advice. They make their money on the loan. The realtor makes their money when the house sells. The financial advisor a lot of them work on a fee for services basis or they work on a percentage of assets, so they're not charging you for divorce advice. They're charging for the financial work that they do.
Vicky Townsend Guest
35:19
Absolutely. But one of the things that I would suggest even like to put a bow on this is hiring the wrong people is expensive. Yeah, I agree, it's the expensive part. Yeah, I think there's two really main things that people do or don't do that cost them the most. The first is being uneducated and the second is being unprepared. And as a coach, we do both of those things. We get you educated and then we get you organized so that you can start. You can show up if you need an attorney which that's never been my favorite way to go through a divorce right. But if you have to go, that you have everything that you need because you did the work first and you got educated and you understood what you have to do to make something happen expeditiously and efficiently and what a divorce coach helps you do. We save people thousands and thousands of dollars in bad decision-making.
Karen Covy Host
36:31
That's exactly it. I couldn't have put it better myself, and I know we have a little bit different opinion on lawyers being on myself. Well, you know what I mean.
Vicky Townsend Guest
36:38
I'm not somebody like you, but you know what I mean. Like there are people out there that I've seen it happen. I've even seen it happen in the collaborative process, where people stirred up conflict where there was none. I you know Well, and it's not even Maybe it's a new pair of shoes.
Karen Covy Host
36:54
Yeah, and it's not even stirring up the conflict. That's one way, but there are more, even more subtle ways that the lawyers can take advantage. I have a client now. I was just horrified at the amount her divorces cost her. She's not done, by the way, an average divorce where their kids are grown right, so the only issue is money. They both have like W-2 employee type jobs, so there's no business involved. This should not have been. I mean, yeah, they had some financial assets, but this should not have been complicated. And she just what she paid. I don't know what he paid, but she's $80,000 in and still hasn't. She's not done, not even close to done right, for no reason.
Vicky Townsend Guest
37:45
Karen, I spoke at a first responders conference in October and part of my presentation is that I spent $100,000 on mine and there was a room of about 175 firefighters, police officers, dispatchers and EMTs, right, about 175. And you know that these are not this is not just Jeff Bezos, right? Or Elon Musk that we're talking about, right? These are hardworking blue-collar guys for the most part. And so I said you know, I spent $100,000. I said can anybody beat me? Four hands were raised, but wait, so I was like I was kind of blown away and then I was right before lunch.
38:30
We go out into the lunch area where all the tables were. I cannot tell you how many. I didn't spend a hundred, but I spent 80. I didn't spend a hundred, but I spent 65. I had two people tell me that I had another one saying you know I spent 40. You know, I just went on and on and on and on and I'm going. You know these are guys that are. These are not wealthy individuals. You know they can get by, but they're pretty much living paycheck to paycheck, trying to raise their family and do the right thing by their kids, right? $40,000, $50,000. And those are net dollars, by the way, how much do you have to make to save? $50,000, right, a lot of money $75,000, right and it kills me.
Karen Covy Host
39:23
I was like going I know, I know it was crazy and it's like this particular client that I talked about. She only found me, like you know, a year and a half into her divorce. She finally found me. She's like, oh my gosh, what I could have seen. Now she's going the right direction and hopefully things will come to a conclusion for a whole lot less money, but like, once you spend it, that's it, it's gone.
39:50
So it's important and it's in somebody else's pocket, yep, and it's important to get the help you need, like for all of the first responders who are out there, or employees or firefighters or military. Get help sooner rather than later.
Vicky Townsend Guest
40:05
And don't be afraid to ask if. Go to your fire chiefs, go to your police chiefs, go to your HR department and tell them about programs like this, cause I'll bring Karen. Karen will be one of the divorce coaches that comes in and helps you do a better job at this process. So Chicago Fire, Chicago Police. So let's do it, let's go, let's go.
Karen Covy Host
40:31
You have your site set up. Yes, CP, the Chicago Police Department and the Fire Department. I mean I've had clients in those areas and I know what they go through, and I mean the job is hard enough without the extra stress of a divorce. When you add that on top of it, I honestly don't know how some of them do it.
Vicky Townsend Guest
40:52
I'll tell you yeah, it's. These are good men. These are really good men that are just doing their jobs and because of their job, their risk of divorce is increased. So, city commissioners, mayors, hear this your people need support because their job increases their risk of spending their life savings ending a marriage. Because of the work that they do for us as first responders.
Karen Covy Host
41:19
Yeah, and we need them as a society.
Vicky Townsend Guest
41:23
Did you see that? How about did you see that in North Carolina, here in Asheville, where I am, or out in LA with these fires? Yeah, I mean, come on, guys, they went, what they saw and the trauma that they went through just for those two events I had that my daughter had a friend here in Asheville. She was pulled from her car by a firefighter when her car was going down the river. So these people do stuff that you and I would never do.
41:48
Yeah, that's never do so let's support them and understand that we're asking a lot from them. They need support and, sadly, their marriage can sometimes not make it and they need our help 100%.
Karen Covy Host
42:05
Vicky, thank you so much for all that you do and that you are doing and all the things, and thank you for coming and being a guest on my podcast. I am thrilled beyond words to help you share your message. But if people are curious, if they want to learn more about you, if they want to send their boss or their employer, their fire chief, or if they are the boss and employer and want to look into finding you, where's the best way they can find you?
Vicky Townsend Guest
42:30
Well, I have two websites. The one for the employers is DivorceRightIncc.om not DivorceRight.com but DivorceRightInc.com. That's for employers and for people that are going through the divorce process. Fairwell.com, f-a-i-r-w-e-l-l. Focus on the fair and your wellbeing in mind. So those are the two places I'd love to give my email address. Hit me at Vicky@farewellcom, and I'm Vicky with a Y, and again it's F-A-I-R-W-E-L-L.com. So thank you so much for giving me the opportunity, the audience and the opportunity to share my passion for what we want to do.
Karen Covy Host
43:11
You are definitely passionate. For anyone who's listening and not watching, go to YouTube and watch the video and you will see the passion oozing out of Vicky Every single pour. You really believe in what you do and it's such a great mission.
Vicky Townsend Guest
Thank you,
Karen Covy Host
Thank you for being here. Everything for those watching and listening, everything's going to be linked in the show notes so you can find Vicky everywhere. And for those of you who are listening, for those of you who are watching, please, if you enjoyed today's episode, do me a solid and just like subscribe. It makes more of a difference than you know and I look forward to seeing you all again next time. Thank you.
