How Divorce Coaching Can Save Time, Money, and Stress

[00:00:04] Welcome to the D Shift Podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation, and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready? Let's get this shift started.

[00:00:21] Hello, and welcome to this episode of the D Shift. And today I get to talk to a fellow divorce coach, which is always a great conversation. And I'm going to be speaking with Jamie Lima. She is the founder of Desmond Divorce Coaching. And Julie is a DCA certified ADR divorce coach specializing in helping clients navigate conflict. So Julie, welcome.

[00:00:50] Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. It's always great to talk, like I said, to talk to another divorce coach, because I think we tend to be pretty much on the same page when we're talking about, you know, how to support people going through divorce. But before we get into all of that, and that's the important stuff, but even more important is for people to get a little to understand a little bit more about you and why you're focused on helping people through this very difficult time in life.

[00:01:20] Okay. So, yes, I do like to help people. And it's like one of the worst times that people can go through and having my own bad experience. I'll just put it like that. After I had recovered and got on my own two feet, I then wanted to find a way to help others because it was kind of bad how I went through it with no support.

[00:01:44] You know, calling attorneys who really weren't there for me on the emotional side of it and no family help really in the States. So I just, I kept thinking, how can I help people? And then I came across divorce coaching and thought, yeah, this is what I want to do. I really want to help people get through it.

[00:02:02] And one of the things that you did, which I admire, I'm a big supporter of, if you're going to be helping people through these big life transitions, we really need to be educated as to what we're doing. So I so appreciate that you are certified through the DCA. That's the Divorce Coaching Academy, right?

[00:02:21] Divorce Coaches Academy. It was a very rigorous training and they don't, let me tell you, they don't pass just to anybody for their certification. So you have to have everything completed, you know, practice sessions done. So, and it was a lot, a lot to learn, but it was great. I enjoyed every moment. Yeah.

[00:02:38] Yeah. Yeah. I really enjoyed my training too. And again, it's, it's that difference of working with somebody who has been through a situation and has got training and is able to support other people through that. I, I'm always a little concerned. I know this is a bit off topic, but I'm always concerned with the number of people who are now marketing themselves as a divorce coach that really have no background.

[00:03:07] Maybe they've been through a bad divorce, but you know, just because you had your appendix out doesn't mean you should go operate on other people. Right. I mean, and there are some huge decisions that people are going to be making and bad advice can end up costing you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over the, over your lifetime. If you mess up on some of those, you know, strategic negotiations. Yeah. And I hear that a lot. And that is why I'm proud to be from Divorce Coaches Academy.

[00:03:37] Right. Right. Yeah. I love their podcast too. They have a fantastic podcast. I listen to that quite often. So, so Julie, let's jump into, let's jump into this whole idea of divorce coaching. And, and again, every, every divorce coach is going to have a slightly different approach and a slightly different way of, of handling this.

[00:03:56] But tell, kind of talk from your experience and from your perspective, what does that look like for, for your clients? And what are some of the benefits that you see to having a divorce coach?

[00:04:09] Okay. That's good. Good. Couple of questions there. So I do think my foundation from the DCA training is in alternative dispute resolution. So we focus on keeping conflict out as much as possible, which if you think about it, conflict causes more conflict, which can cause costs to rise with attorneys, you know, people battling against each other.

[00:04:37] So if I work with a client who, they may not necessarily be the one they think creating the conflict, but reacting to somebody else being combative or conflictive, I, I help them navigate that to deescalate conflict in their responses.

[00:04:57] You know, for example, if someone says something that they don't like, take a moment, take a moment, think, don't fire off the first text that you think you want to take a moment, take a pause. You can answer that text in an hour. If you feel like it, when you've calmed down, wait to respond. And then, and it is hard. I'm not going to say it's easy. And, you know, work with some clients and a few months in there, like, I finally did it.

[00:05:22] I finally waited. So, you know, it takes to change their mindset a little bit also. Yeah. And that, that whole idea of not being reactive and being responsive, that's a big one. And, you know, there are, obviously there's different types of conflict that can come up. And I tend to work specifically with the really high conflict situations.

[00:05:46] And so for my clients, I will say to them, like, don't, if, get another phone and use that, transfer everybody but your ex from your old phone to that new phone and do not give your ex that new phone number. Right. Just keep it on that phone and, you know, shut the ringer off. You're going to pick it up and look at it at a specific time. Exactly. And other than that, unless it's, you know, unless they have your kids and then obviously there's emergency.

[00:06:15] Right. Right. Emergency. And yeah, so I do something similar with the emails to my clients. I'm like, don't read that email before you're about to go to sleep. Right. At night. You know, don't read it before you're walking into work. Set some side of time where you know you've got a few minutes if you do get a little bit annoyed or upset. That you can process it without going, you know, without ruining your evening or your afternoon or your work schedule. Right. Right. So let's talk about the cost savings that you can see.

[00:06:45] And again, we're not here guaranteeing that anybody is going to save any particular amount of money or whatever may be happening. This is for educational and informational purposes only. However, with that being said, having somebody do the divorce coaching part can end up saving you in stress and money. So can you talk a little bit to that, Julie?

[00:07:12] Yeah, sure. I tell my clients that I can usually help them save time and money. Yeah. And really, it's in them being prepared. You know, if you think about it, an everyday person has been married for 20 years, never been through divorce. They don't know what to expect. They don't know what it's like going into a courthouse. They don't even know what it means to file a motion. You know, all things like this.

[00:07:37] So if they come to a coach, I can guide them through what to expect, what the steps are, you know, and answer any questions. If they say, for example, they're preparing for mediation, which also will save money rather than going to a final hearing in a courthouse.

[00:07:53] So really, I would say I'm more, as well as, you know, the conflict de-escalation, I'm there to prepare my clients, which a lot of people don't even realize that you need to be prepared. Yeah. Until, you know, maybe they look back and they're like, I could have done things differently. But if you are prepared, it can make you be aware of what's coming.

[00:08:17] So it's nothing is in a shock, you know, motions filed or the attorney wants a financial affidavit, things like that. And then I can guide them where to find them, how to fill out these forms. So it's not them making a phone call to their attorney that could be way more hundreds of dollars than working for an hour with me. Right. Right. So, yeah, the key, I think, is preparation. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:43] And I think just, again, I know people that have listened to this have heard me say this many, many times, but as a divorce coach, we don't provide any kind of legal advice. But, you know, if you got a financial affidavit sitting there and you don't know what line seven means, whatever might be on line seven, you know, you can call the attorney and speak to the attorney or the paralegal. And you need to know what your billable hours, because every time they pick up the phone, you're getting billed for it.

[00:09:11] Or there may be the option to sit with a divorce coach. And typically we do most of our work virtually. And it's like, okay, well, what does that mean? Okay, well, let's, you know, where can you find out what that information is? Where can you find the answer? Because it's not like we're interpreting. Divorce coaches don't tell you what to put on the forms. But it can be so helpful just to have somebody to say, like, they want all of this information. Where am I going to find any of this?

[00:09:40] Because you have most of it. It's just you're not sure where to look for it. Right, right. And some people are completely in the dark. Right. I mean, Google is an amazing thing these days. And, you know, but, you know, even bank statements. I've worked with clients like I don't even know, like, how much is in the bank. Right. How do I find that out? Right, right. And sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's really hard because maybe you're dealing with

[00:10:08] somebody who has been keeping you intentionally out of the financial picture. And you may find out when you go to your bank and whether you're online or whether you actually go into the branch, not many people do that anymore. But let's say you do actually go in. You may have come to the harsh reality of knowing that you're not even on those accounts. You're only a signature on the accounts. You are not an account holder. So you go to your bank and what you think is your joint account, because it looks like

[00:10:38] it on your checks. Both of your names are on the checks. You go to the bank and the bank says, you're not the account holder. We can't provide you that information. That is shocking. And so it's okay having somebody to tell you, it's okay. There's other ways to get this information. This is what you need to tell your attorney. And you can still give them all the account numbers and then they can subpoena or file a motion to compel that other person to provide. Yeah. Right.

[00:11:04] But that is one instance where they will probably need us for emotional support more than the practical at that time. You know, like you said, it's shocking when they find that out and they come to us upset because it was news to them. Right. Well, I had one client and I don't know if you've had this experience, but I had one client where she filed the motion for divorce. She had turned it up right off the bat. And I was like, oh no. Then she called me afterwards.

[00:11:31] He was served at his place of work, which I am going to say, if your partner doesn't know the divorce is coming, serving them at work is only going to cause even more problems because now they're embarrassed and they're mad and humiliated at their workplace. But anyhow, and instantly, like I don't know how it wasn't instantly, but within a half an hour, she had all her credit cards were dead.

[00:12:00] She couldn't use any of her credit cards. All the bank accounts were locked up. Her checkbook, she couldn't write a check. He had put a stop thing on her on any change might issue. She had literally no access to money. And you know, that could have been avoided had things been planned and prepared. I'm just going to say she was not prepared for that. Right. Right. Yeah. Working with a divorce coach, you know, helps you get a strategy. Right. In plan.

[00:12:29] And it's not to be deceitful. It's just to protect yourself. Right. Because you don't know what's going to happen when the person is filed. Like that's a prime example there. And it depends on where you're living. And I realize people listening to this are living in all different parts of the world. Even in the United States, where I am now, or in Canada, depending on when you take money out, what you do with money, if you move it out of a joint account, you can face some really

[00:12:57] significant consequences for doing that. You know, the days of grabbing all the money and squirreling it away, it's harder and harder to do that now with all the electronic. Right. Everything's so traceable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I've had people that have done that, that have thought, well, I'm going to file for divorce. So I'm going to start siphoning money out of the joint fund. Well, you can do that.

[00:13:23] It's your joint account, but you're still accountable for all that money you take out. And there's a transaction record that it came out. Right. That it was there and now it's not. So. Yeah. And that works both ways. You know, that works for both parties, both people involved. So Julie, this is, this is really, you know, this is really important to understand that it's a lot of it is that preparation and knowing what's going to happen next.

[00:13:49] And again, having somebody to say, is, is that really in your best interest and how people think through, and if you don't know the answer, who can you, who do you need to talk to? Maybe you, maybe you should ask your attorney before you move that money from the joint account out. And that's all good, good use of your attorney time. Yes. Yes. And that, but that's one quick question, right? It's not going to be on the phone crying to them.

[00:14:16] So, and I also like to prepare my clients for that. If they are going to have a call with an attorney, make sure they have their list ready. Yes. Specific questions to ask. So it's quick and efficient, time efficient. Yeah. And, and even that, just having those questions to keep that conversation focused, because your attorney is not your therapist and good attorneys will kind of shut you down if they get, you get too emotional.

[00:14:45] They're just going to say, look, this is not productive use of your time. When you feel you're able, I'm going to get off the phone now because this is costing you money. And you need to know what is that increment of time your attorney is billing you? Six minutes, 12 minutes. What is it? Half hour? Who knows? Right. Keep track as well. Keep track on your end. Yeah. That's what I tell my clients. And, and even things. So I've, I've run into this with a few of my clients now where attorneys are now,

[00:15:15] now having, there's a, there's a flat fee every time they open an email or a text message. Um, so again, what, what is it? Like, what is that? Yeah. When I went through my divorce, I have to tell you this, this was like 30 years ago. So there was no such thing as divorce coaches, but my attorney said, Hey, if you have any questions, just call me. And I took advantage of that for the first month until I got this statement. You didn't realize.

[00:15:41] No, because it wasn't, I mean, he wasn't disingenuous or he wasn't sneaky. He just, you know, he just assumed I realized and I didn't. So yeah, you just never know. A lot of people don't realize. And also, you know, getting back to the, they charge per email. That's why I say to my clients, don't fire off emails every two minutes, right? Go a few days or once a week. Yeah. If it's, if it's necessary, put your list down once a week.

[00:16:08] So he's got that one email for the week, recapping what's happened or what you think is going to happen. So it's just all in one email. Yes. That's, that's a wonderful piece of advice, Julie. And I think the other thing is that your attorney deals with legal issues. Your attorney doesn't deal with your ex sent your kids back with their clothes dirty instead of laundry. Or you're, you know, you sent your kids with a $50 sweater and they came back with something

[00:16:37] that looks like the dog slept in it that you've never seen before. You know, your attorney doesn't care about that stuff. I'm sorry. And the court doesn't care. No, not at all. And it's so hard when you're going through it. Right. To realize that. Right. Like, why don't they care? This is this, this was the biggest deal ever that they came back with dirty laundry and the whole grand scheme of thing. When you look back, it's not. But when you're in it, it is a big deal.

[00:17:05] So that's when they need to come to us. Right. For that court to talk them down, you know. It's a reality check, right? You know, sometimes, sometimes I'm a little bit abrupt with my clients and I just say, you know, okay, is this worth $500 for a billable hour to discuss this with your attorney? Right. Your attorney's going to say, there's nothing I can do about it. You know. Do you want that? I don't call it, I don't call it being abrupt. I call it a love shove.

[00:17:35] Yes. That's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Julie, we touched on something here, that idea of having a divorce coach as your safe space maybe to express some of these feelings that are coming up. How does that actually help a person going through divorce to have that? I think it helps a lot because, you know, there's obviously a lot of emotions involved.

[00:18:03] But I do find a lot of the time when someone's getting divorced and they turn to family, whatever they're venting to the family, the family tend to agree and take their side. So, what was a little flame, you know, will get ignited into a bigger flame and make everyone a little bit more heated. But I find coming to a divorce coach totally neutral to the outcome.

[00:18:31] You know, they can vent that it's a safe space. But also, like you said before, it's reality testing because are things that bad? Because the kids came back with the dirty laundry. Whereas if, say, I had a female client and she told her mother, oh, my God, he sent them back with dirty laundry. The mother is going to say, well, he should never do that. How dare he? But coming to a divorce coach, you know, we can calm things down. We can talk through things. No judgment.

[00:19:01] And I'm neutral. I'm not going to be on his side. I'm not going to be on her side saying, yes, he never should have done that. Let's just look at it. Did your child come home safe? Did your child come home happy? So what? You've got to do one extra load of laundry. Right. Is that the end of the world? It really is that big picture. And you're right. We're when we're going through divorce, especially when there's kids involved.

[00:19:27] That can be such a disorienting experience. You know, maybe you've, you know, if you've been mom to your kids for or dad to your kids for 12 years and their primary caregiver. And now all of a sudden you don't have them. You don't see them for a week in the summer. That can be pretty distressing for people. Awful. Yeah, very much so.

[00:19:51] And it's makes the client or the person getting divorced, you know, question their self-worth. Right. You know, I've been a mom, but they're gone for a week and now I'm not a mom. Right. But you're always the mom. You're always the dad just because they're not with you. You know, and that's what I try to tell my clients. Don't think of it like that. Yeah. Yeah. They're with the other parent. You will always be the parent, you know, the mother or the father. And they're coming back. Yes. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

[00:20:19] Now, Julie, I know we wanted to touch on this because this is something I experience a lot with my clients. And I know that this is something you work with your clients as well. Sometimes, despite the best efforts of the couple to go through an amicable divorce, because they just know the relationship is not going to make it. Or one person just cannot stay in the relationship any longer for whatever reason.

[00:20:46] But there can be external factors that really make it tough to get out of that relationship. So I'm just going to throw out there that a lot of the, you know, the religious beliefs can and faiths practices can really create this extra layer of complexity for people trying to get a divorce in some areas. Can you talk a little bit to that? Yeah, sure. And 100 percent, it can make it more difficult.

[00:21:17] So first of all, you know, they want to divorce their partner. But if people are involved in a religious community, it's a lot of time spent, you know, gatherings, families, spending time with other families in the same kind of religious aspect. So it's not just you're going to divorce your partner, but you're kind of divorcing a community as well, because it's very hard to stay in the community.

[00:21:44] In some instances where the client or the person asking for the divorce feels like they're not going to be so welcome now because they're going through a divorce. So that's an added layer of pressure that people find.

[00:21:59] I do work with a lot of clients under these circumstances and just really, again, the emotional support for them and say, you know, either you can work on staying in the same community or look at your options.

[00:22:16] You know, join new, different communities, a little town, one town over where you can start afresh, things like that, where people are not going to maybe judge you if you came in as a divorcee or they don't know what happened in your past. It is very, very difficult because it's like they're not only losing a partner, but they also feel like they're losing friends and community as well, because there's a lot of people siding, you know, taking sides.

[00:22:46] Right. And faith can be a really strong, a really, a really strong thing in people's lives. And sometimes it can, it can sort of be weaponized against a person who wants to leave an unhealthy relationship or, you know, no longer satisfying relationship. Right, right. Yes.

[00:23:07] That's, that always concerns me because quite often, you know, they, they are, they do feel like they have nobody to talk to because they don't get support from maybe, you know, if everybody in the community is of the same faith, you don't get, you can't talk to your neighbors and you can't talk to your, your religious leader and you can't talk to. And so even though you've grown up in this faith now, all of a sudden, none of the resources are available for you. And this could be cultural as well.

[00:23:35] It doesn't have to just be faith and it could be a specific community or neighborhood, you know, there can be all kinds of pressure. Right. And it doesn't mean that you don't want to continue your faith just because, so some people look at it like that, you know, like you can't get divorced in, in, in our faith, the faith that they believe in. And it's not, divorce is not an option, but it doesn't mean because that person is unhappy that they don't want to believe in that faith. Right.

[00:24:03] You know, they still want, they still have their faith, but they need help. So if there's no one really in the community, that's another resource is to come to a divorce coach. Like I said, again, completely neutral party, you know, and help them get through it. So, and because it is tough, you know, and they feel even more alone. Yes. Yeah. And I think sometimes this is where even like guilt and shame can, can really begin to erode like self-confidence in the decision.

[00:24:33] And I worked as a domestic violence client advocate for, for many, many years. And, you know, this was, this was back in the early, like 2010, where a lot of the emotional abuse and coercive control and stuff, we, we knew it was happening. We didn't really have words for it. We didn't talk about it. Right. But I would see situations where, you know, women or men would get the strength to leave because it takes a lot of courage to leave in these situations.

[00:25:01] They left, but then they felt so much pressure from other people that they came back and they ended up staying in. And I'm going to say for some of my clients in the domestic violence world, it was a, it was a dangerous situation. It was life threatening because of the abuse that they were facing, but they just felt like they were doing something so morally wrong if they left. Right. And that's a, that's a real burden to carry on your own.

[00:25:30] No, that's, that's really tough. And also, like you said, a lot of people don't think that they have the strength. Right. To move forward alone as such. So, you know, working with a divorce coach, as you know, like we help to empower people, get their confidence back. And yes, you can do it. You know, like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's such an up, I mean, that's a really positive thing.

[00:25:54] Um, and again, it's the saving of the time, the money and, and building that, that courage to be able to go through, uh, the divorce. And as you said, you don't have to give up, um, one to have the other, like you don't have to leave everything behind. Maybe you just have to shift some things around in your world and maybe some different priorities and values come into play. Right. Right.

[00:26:19] And a lot of times, you know, the people in the, sorry to cut you off, but a lot of times people in the community, when things calm down, they do come around. Yes. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But Julie, this is such a great, we could probably talk for a long time, but we are out of time already. I can't believe how fast these go. So what, what do you think that you'd like to people to, when they get off this call, when they go on about their day, when they're finished with the podcast, what do you want them to remember?

[00:26:48] We just want them to remember that if they are even thinking about divorce or in the first stages of divorce, think about divorce coaches. You know, maybe make that your first call rather than an attorney. Just have a conversation. It doesn't, you don't necessarily have to hire someone straight away, but have that in your mind that it's a person to have on your team. Yeah. I love that idea of team.

[00:27:12] That's, that's my, my goal with my clients is there's a few people I say, Hey, you know, and you're right. A lot of times it's just having a call. It's not even necessarily that you have to hire them for a long time. And some people offer consultation calls with at no cost. They'll, they'll take. Yes. I actually do. Right. Right. Yeah. And that way you can see if you're a good fit and yeah. And some people are just not ready. Sorry. And some people are just not ready.

[00:27:38] And in two or three months they'll, they'll reach out and say, I've been thinking about this. It takes a while. It's not, it's not a snap decision for most people. Exactly. Julie, if people do want to work with you and find out more about what you do, that what's the best way to reach you? They can go on the website. It's Desmond Divorce Coaching or email me at Desmond Divorce Coaching at gmail.com. And I will make sure that gets in the show notes. Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I so appreciated you coming on.

[00:28:08] And like I said, it's always great to talk to another divorce coach. So thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. It's been great. Thanks. And thank you everyone for listening to this episode of The D-Shift. And don't forget to tune in to the next one. Thanks for listening and supporting The D-Shift Podcast. If you would like to attend live trainings by our amazing guests and have a chance to ask questions and get answers from our experts, join the D-Shift crew.

[00:28:34] For more details and to sign up, head on over to www.divorcecoachforwomen and click on the podcast page.