#40: A Good Divorce, with Nanci Smith

Love Is Us: Exploring Relationships and How We Connect

Sometimes the way forward in your life means ending your marriage or committed relationship with your partner. While many people think that means hiring lawyers and battling it out, it doesn’t have to be that way. Collaborative divorce can help you have a “good divorce.” Today I’m going to talk with Nanci Smith about what that means and how collaborative divorce can help you to heal rather than create more pain and suffering. I hope you appreciate this episode and I hope you’ll share it with someone you know who might benefit from listening to it.

Nanci A. Smith, Esq., is an attorney licensed to practice in Vermont and New York. She is the chair of the Collaborative Divorce section of the Vermont Bar Association, a leader in her collaborative divorce practice group, and a member of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals. She frequently writes and talks about divorce, family law, ethics, and collaborative divorce practices. She believes that a good divorce is possible when you show up for it with humility, compassion, and the correct support.

More information about Nanci:

Nanci’s website: https://nancismithlaw.com/

Nanci’s book: Untangling Your Marriage: A Guide to Collaborative Divorce

Nanci’s social media links:

https://www.facebook.com/DivorceUntangld

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nanciasmith/

https://twitter.com/DivorceUntangld

https://www.instagram.com/divorceuntangled/

Karin’s information:

Website: https://drcalde.com

Leave or stay? Get clarity with this free download: https://clarity.drcalde.com/

TRANSCRIPT

Podcast Intro:

[00:00] Karin: This is Love Is Us, Exploring Relationships and How We Connect. I'm your host, Karin Calde. I'll talk with people about how we can strengthen our relationships, explore who we are in those relationships, and experience a greater sense of love and connection with those around us, including ourselves. I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, practiced as a psychologist resident, and after diving into my own healing work, I went back to school and became a coach, helping individuals and couples with their relationships and personal growth. If you want to experience more love in your life and contribute to healing the disconnect so prevalent in our world today, you're in the right place. Welcome to Love is Us.

Episode Intro:

Karin: Hello, everyone. This episode is for those of you who might have worked at your relationship for a while and ultimately decided that it's just no longer viable. Or perhaps you're considering divorce, but you're still unsure. And although divorce might be the right thing for you, it is hard, even when it's like mine was and mine was amicable.

Now, if you go the traditional route and by traditional, I'm talking about where both of you have your own lawyers and you're fighting for what you want, and you're likely really determined to make your spouse pay for what they did as an expression of how angry you are or how selfish you think they've been, well, you can do that. But you're much more likely to come out the other side of it feeling drained, bitter, angry, resentful. Your kids are going to pay the price for many years to come, even if they're out of the house and grown. And you're also going to end up much poorer financially in most situations. It doesn't have to be this way. If you decide divorce is the right decision for you, I want you to know that there's an option that will make it a lot less painful for everyone and allow for you to heal instead of creating more pain for you to carry forward. And that's what we're here to talk about today.

I just want to let you know that one of the things that I do in my role as a relationship coach is to help people decide which way to go without pushing them one way or the other. I have a lot of empathy for you and how hard it is to make that decision. But because I've done my own work, I can be neutral and trust that you will come up with the best decision for you, with some guidance. In the months leading up to my divorce, I would connect with friends who I hoped would be supportive, and for the most part, they were. But often they had their own ideas of what I should do, and it was not what I needed. So as a coach, I'm that person who doesn't have a personal stake in a relationship. I can help you sort through your own feelings and experiences without trying to impose my agenda. And right now I do have a free offer on my website to help you get some of that clarity that you might be seeking. So I'll put my website address in the show notes, but it's drcalde.com.

Today I'm going to be talking with Nancy Smith, who is a lawyer in Vermont, and she wants to see a paradigm shift in how divorce is done. She is a collaborative divorce lawyer. Today we're going to talk about what that means and how it can help you heal rather than create more pain and suffering. I hope you appreciate this episode and I hope you'll share it with someone that you know who might benefit from listening to it. Thanks for being here. Here we go.

Karin: Welcome, Nanci.

[03:49] Nanci: Thanks, Karin. Nice to see you.

[03:51] Karin: Tell us all where you are in the world.

[03:53] Nanci: Sure. I'm coming in from Vermont outside of Burlington, Vermont, east coast of the US.

[04:00] Karin: And remind me, have you always lived in that area?

[04:04] Nanci: Well, I'm originally from Detroit and then I went to San Francisco and then I came to Vermont to go to law school. So I've been here for 30 years.

[04:11] Karin: Okay, what keeps you there?

[04:13] Nanci: I love living in Vermont. It's so peaceful and it's beautiful. And every day is an act know, visual beauty. And I like living in nature in the mountains, so I like it. And we also have a lake. Lake Champlain is really pretty too.

[04:28] Karin: Oh, nice. And I imagine it gets pretty green. Does it dry out? It's probably not because you get summer rain, right?

[04:36] Nanci: Oh my God. Well, we've had catastrophic flooding this year, so let's not talk about this year. But generally speaking, yes, Vermont is green mountains and we do get a lot of rain.

[04:47] Karin: Yeah, I do love the green. So tell us about the work that you do.

[04:52] Nanci: Well, thanks so much for having me on to talk about it. I feel like it's impactful. It has an opportunity to be impactful. And so I'm a divorce lawyer, and even though that wasn't what I really set out to be when I was a youngster, I'm finding that doing collaborative divorce, which is the model that I like to practice in, has an opportunity to allow people to emerge from their divorce healthy and wholehearted instead of bitter and resentful. So I am a divorce lawyer and I practice collaborative divorce. That's really what I do.

[05:25] Karin: And I never want to know what I'm going to get when I get these inquiries from lawyers. I have this image in my head of these go, go get them money focused. And I know, of course, that's not always true and you definitely do not fit that mold at all. You are so lovely to sit down and talk with and I really enjoyed hearing you before talk a little bit.

[05:56] Nanci: About what you do.

[05:57] Karin: So tell us what got you involved in the kind of divorce work that you're doing now.

[06:03] Nanci: Sure. And I appreciate that I may not be typical of people's ideas of lawyers and the stereotype that we certainly have in the culture. In fact, the other day a friend, I was dating this fellow and he said, oh, I was telling him about a poetry class that I was taking or some artwork that I was doing. And he's like, oh, so do you want to be a creative? And I said, I am a creative. I also just happen to be a lawyer.

[06:29] Karin: You've got well rounded interests.

[06:34] Nanci: Anyway, but apparently that may not be the case with everybody. So if it is your first experience with an attorney, then I'm really grateful that you can talk with me about it. So what drew me into the practice is I didn't think I was going to be a divorce lawyer. I wanted to be an international human rights lawyer. That was my goal, that was my dream. But I landed in Vermont and I came to law school here. And I met my husband at the time who wanted Vermont to he was very compelling at 25. His argument was, Nancy, don't you want to just stay in Vermont and make this our life instead of that time in our life that we look back on fondly and think, oh, wasn't that great? So I said, okay, whatever. Sure, I'll just stay in Vermont. So I got a job in a general practice firm, and I had always been interested in court work and being in the courtroom, and it was very dramatic to me. And I felt like being an advocate for other people who didn't have a voice was very important to me. I was very hot into social justice issues. I still am, and I just really don't like bullies. So I found this was like a great sort of opportunity for me to combine my generally aggressive tendencies with a socially acceptable venue and I was able to support people and also make a living. So over time though, about ten years into it, I started realizing doing some custody cases, and one in particular that was very challenging and appointed by the court to be the attorney for the children, and just left the courthouse feeling just depleted and thinking, I don't think I am doing justice here. I don't know what I'm doing here. I might be contributing more harm than good. And then once that realization hit me, literally like that day or the next day, an email came through about collaborative divorce. And so I started following I followed the email trail like a little rabbit down the hole, and I was hooked. I'm like, this sounds so sensible. It's a modern, sensible, out of court, non adversarial process to allow people to just separate with some degree of dignity and mutual respect. And so once I knew that was an option, I was in.

[08:50] Karin: Divine timing exactly.

[08:53] Nanci: Only as those things go. Right.

[08:57] Karin: So tell us what collaborative divorce is.

[09:01] Nanci: Sure. So basically it is an out of court dispute resolution model. So people know about mediation. Collaborative divorce is like mediation but on steroids. And the reason why I say that is because some people need more support than just going to a neutral mediator and we can talk about the differences. But in collaborative divorce, it's an out of court, interdisciplinary process. And it's a mindset. It's both a process and a mindset. So we work as an interdisciplinary team with mental health professionals, financial planners and attorneys. And they're the professional team. And we create a safe container for clients to come and start to just breathe and relax into the fact that they are about to make a major life transition. And we just provide the space and the support and the guidance so that they can do it with dignity and mutual respect.

[09:58] Karin: That's great. And it does remind me of how my ex husband and I did that is we had a mediator, but she was also a lawyer or an attorney and she also brought in a financial person to work with us as well. So we didn't have the mental health piece, but we had that on our own. So I guess we kind of had all the benefits of that.

[10:24] Nanci: That's so wonderful that your mediator had the wherewithal to know that bringing in a financial neutral was going to be important for you folks. And we call that sort of the Ala Carte style of getting divorced. There's different ways to get divorced and using a mediator and using adjunct professionals through the process can be very, very helpful for people. As opposed to just going to one person who's a neutral, who's just trying to get you to yes whatever yes is. And if people don't have the same level of psychological readiness to get divorced, if they don't have access to the financial information at the same level, if they're not on equal bargaining footing to have this conversation with a neutral, it's often very difficult. And we find that sometimes people just need a little more support. And so the collaborative model is just a little value added process. If you need more than mediation but less than litigation because you still want your lawyer to be there with you as an advocate, not to make things worse.

[11:23] Karin: So what keeps them from making things worse?

[11:26] Nanci: The attorneys. Yeah, it's fascinating. The attorneys that are drawn to collaborative practice are the kindest, smartest, experienced attorneys out there. And even the young ones that are coming up, the younger attorneys who are just coming out and want to practice collaborative divorce have that mindset and spirit already. The older ones of us who've been in the trenches for 20 years or more or 15 years and have done contested litigation for most of our lives, a lot of people just get kind of burned out about it or they have that same epiphany that I did, which is I want to help people through the transition. I don't want to make things worse. And so for lawyers, it's called a paradigm shift. You have to shift your mind from being an adversarial advocate to being a collaborative advocate. And not all of us can make that transition. It's not easy because we've been doing one thing one way and we get a lot of respect from society and we have our training and what people expect of us. And so this is kind of modern and new and an opportunity for people to change the way they practice doing divorces and get it out of the court system unless you really need it. Obviously if you need the benefit of a court system because there's imminent abuse or financial shenanigans going on that you need court intervention, then obviously you need to do. But not every case is like that and a lot of cases don't need that level of heavy handedness that the court and structure that the court provides.

[12:58] Karin: So it's a paradigm shift. Is there a special training that collaborative divorce lawyers have in order to do this type of work?

[13:07] Nanci: Yes, there is. So the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals is the umbrella organization through which most of us are trained. And in every state, no matter where your listeners are listening in from, every state is practicing collaborative divorce. So if you haven't heard of it, it's not surprising. It's kind of the best well kept secret among divorce lawyers. However, it is practiced in every state. So if you Google collaborative Divorce attorney near me, you should find a practice group, a website, a statewide organization that would offer you opportunity to contact and have a consultation with collaboratively trained attorneys. And it's usually the minimum is a two day collaborative training, introductory collaborative training practice and it's two full days and that's just the tip of the iceberg. And then there's ongoing education that we do and training with each other on a variety of topics, but we do it all as interdisciplinary team members and so we get the benefit of this collegiality so we don't feel like we have to do it alone. And when we have difficult issues that come up, which they always do, we have colleagues that we trust and can provide good guidance and counsel for all of us. And I think one of the key things for listeners to recognize is that even though you have a lawyer, the lawyers are interested in reaching an agreement that's going to benefit both parties. And so we don't just look at it from the one side, the one perspective of just getting our clients the most that we can get for them. We look at the system, the family system as a whole and we don't even offer settlement options that we know are going to be rejected by the other side. So we already start by high level of integrity where we're not going to suggest something that we know we would accept if we were representing the other party. So it's really different. It's just a very different approach to solving problems.

[15:11] Karin: Yeah. So in traditional divorce, it's about the lawyers trying to get the very most for their client, right?

[15:19] Nanci: Yeah. And it's kind of a myth because the judge is there to be the neutral person in the middle, the arbiter right. The one who's going to decide what's actually going to happen. And the lawyers spend a lot of time and energy, like, making these sometimes extreme arguments, as if that's somehow going to be persuasive. But in the end of the day, I would suggest that most lawyers know within ten degrees of certainty, like, how this thing is going to end up, where the money is going to end up, how the custody situation is going to resolve. And you don't really have to spend all that time and energy plotting dramatic strategies to bring out the worst moments of everybody's marriage to somehow prove a point, because in the end, the court's going to take a more moderate view anyways.

[16:02] Karin: So why do you think that it ends up getting so dramatic and so painful?

[16:08] Nanci: Well, I think couples come as, you know, come to the separation point with their own dynamic. And if the lawyers don't encourage sort of the better angels of their clients, if they don't encourage them to take the time to go look within and do some insight work and sort of acknowledge where you may have wronged the other person and where you could have done better and maybe accept some responsibility for your contribution to the end of the marriage. I feel like a lot of people do a lot of shame and blame. And then the lawyers, we don't really get caught up in that. If you tell us what you want, we take our direction from you. And usually people come to their divorce lawyer in their most wounded, angry, upset state of mind. And sometimes we don't even see our clients for maybe a couple of months afterwards, and we just assume that they're in that same state of mind. And I feel like people can easily get stuck in that angry, vindictive, wanting retribution, wanting justice, whatever they think that's going to be. They want to be heard. And then the lawyers just take our clients as we find them. And it's no knock on the lawyers. We're just doing what we're trained to do, which is advocate for our clients and in the system that we're given. And it's an adversarial system. So in my worldview, you get out of life what you put into it. So if you go into an adversarial system, it's very likely you're going to emerge adversaries.

[17:38] Karin: Yeah.

[17:39] Nanci: And that's a tough way to live a life with a spouse, especially if you have children.

[17:44] Karin: Yeah. So what is the cost of going that route?

[17:48] Nanci: So it's a little more upfront cost because you've got three professionals to manage. Well, each client has a lawyer and there's a mental health coach, and then there's a financial neutral. So you pay retainers for both of them. I'd say the entry is probably close to 15,000 and then by the end of the day, average 30 for the whole thing by the time it's done. And a lot of the cost of a divorce depends on the client's psychological readiness to be divorced. So by that I mean divorce is a grieving process, is the way I look at it. It's 80% emotional, 10% legal, 10% financial, and you cannot make a good decision about your future financial security and the nature of your relationship with your spouse, your in laws, your children. If you are feeling heartbroken and depressed or feeling rejected or betrayed or you're in your anxiety because you do not see how the future is possibly going to work without your spouse and there's so many losses, right? You lose your best friend, you lose your lover, someone's going to lose their housing, you're going to lose time with your children, you're going to lose half of the marital wealth that was established during the marriage. You're going to potentially lose friends and extended family and relations, maybe even with churches or what have you, in laws. Nobody's going to know where they're going for the holidays. And you lose the dream of what you thought you were building, which is the thing that I think crushes people's souls. So I think that's why divorces can be so hard, because it's really a grieving process and the family court system and an adversarial system is not designed to address that. That's why I like, even though it might cost a little bit more upfront in the long run, what you save in your integrity and your decency and your humanity and the relationships that can be healed when it feels like everything is falling apart, that's, I think, one of the great benefits and gifts of doing it in a collaborative model.

[19:51] Karin: Yeah, and from my understanding is that when you go the traditional route, the lawyers end up getting a lot of the money. It's not that you end up just getting half. You end up getting a much smaller piece of that when you're in court and battling it out. It's pricey.

[20:15] Nanci: Oh, it's super expensive. So, yes, a traditional adversarial divorce, if you've got a custody case and you're arguing about it, it's easily 80,000 per person, up to 100 and 2300. I mean, it depends on where you're living. But the cost of your divorce is directly related to your level of conflict and your willingness to set aside some of that stuff and do the work to come together so that you can separate well. And that's kind of a paradox, and that's a hard thing for a lot of people to think about that I need my spouse for a good divorce.

[20:49] Karin: But you do, right? And then if there's kids in the mix when you go the traditional way or have the traditional divorce, then there's quite a big impact on them as well usually, right?

[21:04] Nanci: Oh, for sure. And it's not just the minor children that have an impact. Children watch their parents like a hawk, I think, during a divorce. And how you respond to adversity and conflict with your spouse in front of your children is going to teach them worlds about how to live in the world with conflict and differences of opinion. And people can have different values and still be kind and generous to each other. You don't have to be hateful. Even if you're feeling hurt and wounded. The other parent is the only other parent your children have and the damage that can be done so quickly, even if you don't even use words, if you just vibe in a certain way, your children know exactly what you're saying. Like if you roll your eyes or you give a sarcastic comment or you undermine the other parent in any way, it hurts your child. It affects them deeply on their identity level because they are both of you. And if you are putting down the other parent, you are putting down a part of them and that is not nice and it does a lot of damage. And so in the collaborative model, we are very at our forefront of our minds is the health, psychological health and well being of everyone, including the children. And there is a great book out there about adult children, the impact of a divorce on adult children. Because even though they're not quote relevant, if you're more than 18 years old to a divorce, in most jurisdictions, the impact on 18 year olds to 25 year olds is one thing, 25 to 35 another. If you're 45 and you've got your own kids and all of a sudden your parents are getting divorced, that is going to cause a lot of confusion in your own mind, for which you will want psychological counseling, because you're going to start questioning everything about your own identity and what you thought you saw when you were growing up. And are you now going to be divorced as a parent? And how secure am I in my relationships and my attachments? And it does cause a lot and then you don't want your kids to start taking sides and feeling bad or having to parent the other parent. So there's a lot of emotional complexity involved in getting divorced. And I think sometimes the divorce lawyers don't focus on that because it's not our jobs. And then we also don't necessarily know how to support the clients and finding the best support for them while they go through this process.

[23:29] Karin: Yeah, and you know what I think about is even if you are super careful during your divorce with your kids. When it comes to what you say, if you are in this fight or flight or even freeze system, your nervous system is in that state, your kids pick up on that too. And it might be that you redirect your stress to other areas of your life because we know you can't just control it all when you don't manage that. So yeah, if you are super stressed going through a divorce, you don't have a lot of support and you have kids, it's going to be really hard for them to not be impacted, that is for sure.

[24:20] Nanci: And I really appreciate you mentioning the fight, flight or freeze dynamic because it's very common to feel like you're being attacked and we don't want to ever underestimate the impact of rejection on the human spirit. So if you are the person on the receiving end of the divorce news, you are going to feel it, it is going to hurt it, it is going to hurt because you're going to feel like you are being rejected in a very public way. And the key is going to be to get good support and to recognize that maybe this is an opportunity. This doesn't have to be like, you don't have to be the victim of this situation. You could actually take a moment and say, you know, somebody doesn't want to be with me. Do I really want to be with them? And maybe this isn't for my highest and best good and maybe there's an opportunity here and what can I learn about myself? How can I process my intense emotions in a way that's going to be helpful, that's going to set a good example for my children and manage my own stress? It's so hard. Like life is stressful enough and when you add a divorce to it, it is a major life transition and it's going to have an impact. So getting the correct support where you could at least that's what I like about the collaborative model is at least the clients can know that once they commit, they can just relax a minute and they just know that nobody's going to take advantage of them. The lawyer is not going to let somebody take advantage of a client and we're going to do it in a way where everybody's needs are going to be met. So for example, in my experience, I don't know about you in your practice, but when people get divorced, somebody's been thinking about it for a really long time and it could be like a year, it could be longer than a year. And the other person is just like hearing it for the first time and they are taken aback. It feels like the proverbial rug has been pulled out from under them. They feel like they've been kicked in the gut. They never saw it coming. And as professionals, we can say, really, you didn't see that coming. We could all see it coming, but the person who's receiving it didn't see it coming. And that is their experience and they're going to need support and time to catch up psychologically to the other person who wants it done yesterday. And so in a collaborative model, I could say to my client, who wants it done yesterday, look, you've been thinking about this for a long time, your spouse hasn't. And now we're going to need to be discreet in whatever it is that you're up to. We're going to work on the divorce, we're going to move forward at some pace. That's going to be reasonable, but we're not going to jam a divorce down your spouse's throat when they're not can't handle that right now. It won't take a lot of time. It just takes a little bit of patience. And really in a couple of months, most people can kind of bounce back if they're not feeling chronically attacked. And I think in an adversarial process, you feel chronically under attack because you're gearing up for war. And that's the nature of the process. It's adversarial. You don't get relief from that until the thing is over. And that could take six months to a year or whatever. And a collaborative model, you know, right away, like you could just kind of relax a little bit. It's going to get done, but we're not rushing.

[27:19] Karin: Yeah, sounds very respectful, right?

[27:23] Nanci: We try.

[27:26] Karin: And yeah. I just want to say that divorce is going to be hard no matter what approach that you take, but it can be just miles and miles better if you decide to do collaborative divorce. When I was going through it, my biggest concern was the kids because I had been the kid of a childhood divorce and it was really, really hard and I didn't want to put my kids through that. And so I put them front and center. I think all of my years of self work and training as a psychologist and all of that also helped. I also recognized that my partner was not a bad person and that we had some issues. But yeah, I still loved him in a very real way, even if we didn't want to be together anymore. And I remember my daughter a few years later talking about how when we first told them, I mean, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. It was so hard. But she was so upset and stayed in her room for, I think, 24 hours didn't come out and I was a mess. But then as she said a few years later, she says, you know, I realized that it was going to be okay, that it wasn't like all the horrible stories that I'd heard and the way that you and dad did this made it okay. And I just want people out there to know that that there can be a different way.

[29:27] Nanci: Absolutely. I appreciate you naming love as part. Of the conversation because you don't just stop loving somebody just because you want to get divorced or somebody asks for a divorce and you're feeling hurt and wounded doesn't mean that the love stops. And we just act as if somehow you have to hate the person to get divorced. And then we use that hate energy to propel us into an adversarial battle, which does not serve anyone or the children especially. And this idea of telling the children, I really appreciate that you and your spouse were so your former spouse were so thoughtful and mindful about how you were going to do it. And not everybody we would want to encourage everybody who's listening. If you're thinking about getting divorced, have a plan before you tell the kids and do it jointly. And as part of a collaborative model, we actually spend time either as a group or the clients can go talk to the mental health coach and plan the narrative and what are you going to say? And we choreograph it like, what time of day is best for your family? When are you going to be most relaxed? When is everybody going to be together? Can you plan for something to do afterwards? Can you anticipate the questions that are going to arise based on the age of the kids and what to do if they just run up to their room and hibernate for a little bit? How do you give space? And then what's the narrative? What are you going to tell the children when they start asking the deeper questions like, why are you really doing this? And if there's substance abuse or infidelity or something going on, alcoholism, whatever it is, addiction. If you can restrain yourself from saying, oh, it's because pointing the finger at the other spouse. If you could just say something simple like a mantra like, dad and I love you kids and or, mom and I love you kids and we just believe that we'll be better co parents than spouses. That could be the default. And no matter how deep they poke, you don't feel that compulsion to tell them the truth. Because I think that most people don't even know what the truth is at the early stages of their divorce.

[31:36] Karin: It's so true, right?

[31:39] Nanci: Yeah. And it's so subjective. Your version of the truth is just not your spouse's, and that's okay. However, it's so easy to influence the children, and you just want to be really careful about that. And I just feel like sometimes people don't realize that they can have a different way of approaching it. They can do it together, even though they out of fear and anger and anxiety. They want to rush to have conversations that may be too soon to have. They may not really know what the plan of action is. Kids just need to know that they're safe, they're stable, they're loved, they're consistent. Like their lives aren't going to change that much both of you are acting like stable, authoritative adults. There's going to be two homes, like, how to create two homes. But before you can even talk about that, you have to know, what is our strategy, what's our plan of action? And as the grown ups in the room, those are the difficult conversations that start out a collaborative divorce. Like, what are we doing here? How are we going to say it? What's the narrative? What can we commit to? Is it too soon to say anything to anybody?

[32:41] Karin: Yeah. Yes. To all of that. So important to get on the same page. I hear the stories about one having an agreement and then one jumping the gun on it, and it really makes things a lot worse. So, yes, come together. And I'll also echo what you said about how, at the time, the couple often really doesn't know or fully understand what's really going on. I mean, it was only until I was continued to do my own work that it's like, oh, so that was touching on that wound. Oh, okay, now I have a fuller understanding of some of the things that were happening between us. So that's really true as well.

[33:28] Nanci: Yeah, it really can be an opportunity for personal growth. That's what I really like about it. It doesn't have to be this shame and blame game that people play. And it's so easy. I almost feel like that's the easy way out. But I think, like, you and your listeners, people who want to have a little bit more insight, who do the work, who want to look within and live a healthy life, are going to want to be more thoughtful about it. And I just want them to know that there are other people, even lawyers, divorce lawyers, who want to support that kind of journey. And looking at it like that and setting goals for yourself and how you want to see your future manifest really does depend on how you behave now. And to your point earlier, that we don't have a lot of control over many things in our lives. And if you're on the receiving end of a spouse who wants a divorce, it may feel like your life is now completely out of control. However, you do have control over how you show up, what you say, what comes out of your mouth, what goes into your mouth, what you think, and where your feet go. Like, just keep it simple and know that you do have control over how you show up and what you say. Very important.

[34:45] Karin: Yeah. And I find that if people can do the work and get to a place of loving themselves, considering their children and what their needs are, and that we don't want to be in this hateful, adversarial place, and they are able to bring some love, and if they can do that consistently, oftentimes, that'll shift things totally.

[35:13] Nanci: And even if you can't quite manage the love, you might want to think about just acceptance and maybe a little bit of self compassion and a little compassion for your spouse because none of this is easy. Even if the one who wants it, they can be filled with guilt and remorse and a whole bunch of feelings. And even though they know it's the right thing to do, it is still one of the hardest decisions that anybody's ever going to have to make. And let's not forget, in the old days we didn't live that long. So like a traditional marriage until death, the apart, that was like 15 years. So now we're like we age. And what you want when you're 25 may not be what you want when you're 45. And when you're 45, it may not be what you want when you're 65. So have a little grace. Have a little compassion for ourselves and each other. And if it's not working, you can get out of it. I mean, that's one of the beautiful things about being able to get divorced if you need to.

[36:10] Karin: Yeah.

[36:10] Nanci: Sometimes it's just not working for you. And there's no sense in being miserable. And it doesn't serve your children, in my view, to watch and maybe you can speak to that. For children to watch their parents be miserable, it almost seems like it's worse than if you give them the opportunity to see two healthy, thriving parents in two separate homes.

[36:29] Karin: Right. That is really important for people to understand. I think. Some people want to stay married because of the kids, but if you're miserable in your relationship, what you're modeling for them is that you have to sacrifice yourself for your kids. And that's not necessarily the right thing either. I mean, I know that I would want my kids to grow up and be in healthy, happy relationships. And if those relationships weren't happy, I'd want them to do something about it. Yeah, that is really important. And I also just want to go back and say, everyone's going to have their own process, right?

[37:11] Nanci: For sure.

[37:11] Karin: And there can be a lot of pain. And I know that there are a lot of people out there that are in situations that were far different from mine. So I don't want to compare too much and minimize the struggle of a lot of couples. So just want to put that out there too, that it's okay to feel whatever you're feeling and to have a hard time, but when you have the support of a team like you're talking about, it really can't help.

[37:44] Nanci: Making it worse. Yeah, that's true. And everybody does have their own experiences. And obviously if you're in an abusive situation and you need support and you need to get out, then there are domestic violence hotlines. There's support in your communities. If you need a restraining order, you go get one. Like the court is there to support people in extreme circumstances. But if you feel like you're just wounded and really sad and hurt and feeling very mad and just sort of your garden variety emotional stuff, not sort of high level dangerous stuff, then knowing that you can feel your feelings and that you are not your feelings is like an important sort of recognition and that you are entitled to be angry. But that doesn't mean you're an angry person and you can feel your feelings and still move forward in some way for your own sort of future self.

[38:38] Karin: And what if you want a collaborative divorce but your partner doesn't?

[38:44] Nanci: Sometimes you need to educate your partner as to why this would be a good idea. So usually what I do is I do a 90 minutes consultation with folks to talk about their divorce options and one of them is collaborative. And if they want to do collaborative divorce, learning more about it so that you can be a good advocate for it is important. And if your spouse hasn't really thought about it yet and you say, look, I've done some research, and I'd like us to do it this way, and here's a list of attorneys that practice this way, could you at least go get a consult with one of them and tell me what you think, and we can have a conversation about it? That's one way of doing it. It's also good, like if you haven't even told your spouse that you want a divorce yet, that's also a good thing to do because you can offer them at the same time that you're dropping that giant D bomb on them, the divorce bomb. You can also suggest a process so that it doesn't feel like it hurts so much. And if you've done the research, they might be interested in hearing what you have to say. They also might just reject whatever you say outright at that point because they're so mad. But getting a consultation is the key. If your spouse really doesn't want to do it and they decide to go to an adversarial attorney, then that's a bummer and you may lose that opportunity. However, just because you don't do the process doesn't mean you can't take advantage of the mindset of you don't have to go low. Even if they and their lawyers go low, you don't have to. And you can talk with your lawyer about how you want to handle yourself and you want to do it with dignity and grace. And you're going to have to stand up to your own lawyer sometimes if the lawyer seems to be acting a little more aggressively than even you're comfortable. So people often feel like they have to just do whatever their lawyer says. And I think it's important that you have a good relationship with your attorney, that you respect your attorney, that your attorney listens to what your goals are, asks you what your goals are, and kind of wants you to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

[40:46] Karin: Right.

[40:47] Nanci: I just want people to know that there are other options and it is a shift and it's a change and people aren't used to it. And people have experiences from their parents divorces which were really ugly and bitter, and we have more language, we have more ability to have honest and open and authentic conversations. I feel like there's an opportunity for sort of people to just do it differently if they choose to. It does take courage, especially when the community around you. There hasn't been like 20 years of experience with this like there is with mediation. 20 years ago, people would say, Mediation? What do you mean? Like meditation, medication? What are you talking about? Everybody knew what people were talking about, about mediation. Now, 20 years later, everybody knows what it is. And so I feel like collaborative divorce is going to be like that. Some people know it. It's been around for almost 30 years. But like I said, it's been a bit of a secret. It hasn't been out there in the mainstream, which is why I wrote the book, because I just wanted people to understand that this was an option. And I think that the lawyers will change when the people start demanding it. So if the people understand that this is an option, and you go to your lawyer and you're interviewing lawyers and you say, do you do collaborative? And the lawyer says no, you can say, well, thanks, I appreciate that. I'd like to talk with somebody who does. And then you make the choice with your feet as a consumer about how you want to get divorced. And it's really going to be up to the people to make the decision and the choices because the lawyers are going to be I feel like the lawyers are like the last to change. Law is conservative by nature. Things don't move quickly. Ideas take a while to set in. Paradigms don't shift easily. But I think it will shift faster if people came, if they came prepared and they knew that it was an option and they started asking for it.

[42:40] Karin: Right. So perhaps conversations like this, perhaps your book, can help show people that there is a different way and it doesn't have to be so unusual. Perhaps this can become the norm.

[42:53] Nanci: Right, exactly. That's what I would hope. I mean, how much more love and peace and impact, positive impact, can we have on our children and our communities and ourselves if we can actually manage to untangle ourselves from the most important relationship in our lives and do it in a way that's respectful? I think that's a gift.

[43:12] Karin: Yeah. So what's the name of your book?

[43:17] Nanci: Oh, thanks. It's called Untangling Your Marriage a guide to collaborative divorce.

[43:22] Karin: Great. Well, I'll put that in the show. Notes for people who are interested. What role does love play in the work that you do.

[43:30] Nanci: I think love is everything, right? Like I was taught, love makes the world go round. It's not money, it's love. And so I feel blessed that I have a work practice that I enjoy, that I feel like is impactful, that I can talk with people and kind of shepherd them through a very difficult time in their life from my skill set and my background as an attorney. So I think it's really important to love what you do, otherwise you'll be burned out and miserable and it's kind of no way to live.

[44:04] Karin: Yeah. So how can people learn more about collaborative divorce and learn about you?

[44:11] Nanci: Yeah, thanks. They can certainly contact me through my website, Nancysmithlaw.com, and they can go on their website and Google collaborative divorce near me. They can have a consultation with a collaborative divorce attorney. They could look for their statewide collaborative divorce organization. They can read the book, there's articles, there's blogs, there are podcasts, and just anything that people can do to try to think in a new way. I think people know intuitively they don't want a bad divorce. Nobody wants a bad divorce. First of all, nobody wants a divorce. Secondly, you don't want it to be bad. So once it's happening and you can accept that it's happening, then you have choices about what is your process? Are you going to do it yourself? You're going to do mediation, you're going to do collaborative, you're going to go to court. It's a limited universe. You have choices and you don't have to be a victim to a system that doesn't serve you.

[45:14] Karin: For those listening and might be considering divorce, what's one thing that you'd really like them to walk away with today after listening to this?

[45:25] Nanci: Sure, I would like them to know that you're not alone. This has happened to many people before you. Many people have gotten divorced using a collaborative model. It's not weird, it's not woo-woo, it's not kumbaya. It is still hard. However, it is an opportunity to emerge healthy and wholehearted and not bitter and resentful. And that's what I'd want them to know. Like, you don't have to be bitter and resentful and your divorce does not have to ruin you. It really can be an opportunity for personal growth and change.

[45:59] Karin: Wonderful, Nanci, thank you so much for being here and talking with me about this topic. It's really important.

[46:07] Nanci: Thank you so much.

Outro:

[46:08] Karin: Thanks for joining us. Today on Love Is Us. If you like the show, I would so appreciate it if you left me a review. If you have questions and would like to follow me on social media, you can find me on Instagram, where I'm the Love and Connection Coach. Special thanks to Tim Gorman for my music, Aly Shaw for my artwork, and Ross Burdick for tech and editing assistance. Again, I'm so glad you joined us today because the best way to bring more love into your life and into the world is to be loved. The best way to be loved is to love yourself and those around you. Let's learn and be inspired together.