Transcript:

[00:00:00] Voiceover: Welcome to the Life Unlimited Podcast with Larry Heller. You deserve complete financial advice so you can confidently live your life your way for life. Now let’s get into this week’s podcast episode.

[00:00:19] Matt Halloran: Hello and welcome to another Life Unlimited podcast with your host, Larry Heller. Today’s guest is Dr.

[00:00:23] Matt Halloran: Susan k Bernstein, owner of divorce Coach Plus, she’s a CER certified divorce coach, specializing in high conflict divorces, cases involving special needs children, and pre mediation coaching. Susan. A bestselling author leverages her doctorate degree in education to guide clients through challenging divorce transitions.

[00:00:44] Matt Halloran: She’s also a leader with Vested Divorce and the National Association of Divorce Professionals.

[00:00:49] Larry Heller: Alright, Larry, take it away. Uh, thank you. Welcome, Susan. I’m very excited about today’s topics. We’ve a lot to cover Before we kind of delve into some of the ones that we just talked about. What kind of made you or inspired you to become a certified divorce coach, and what does that really entail?

[00:01:08] Dr. Susan: Thank you for asking. So in my prior career I was an educator, a school administrator, college professor, educational consultant, was going through a very high conflict divorce with three children and I said, why me? Maybe so I can help others. So I switched from educational consultant to divorce consultant, then learned about the Certified Divorce [00:01:30] Coaching Program, have.

[00:01:31] Dr. Susan: Six divorce certificates, the coaching certificates, and teach for two of the national international programs. So it really, my career has become my passion of helping others get through it. And what a divorce coach does is exactly that. We help individuals pre, during our post-divorce get unstuck. Um, we help them find the right resources, legal and financial, and prepare for those legal and financial resources.

[00:01:57] Dr. Susan: So they deal with emotional stuff with us. And go in and save time, money, and headaches with their attorneys and their financial specialists.

[00:02:05] Larry Heller: Oh, great, great. I mean, that’s so important. We work with a lot of divorced people go either going through it or finish the divorce and we can help them financially, but they need somebody kind of on the emotional aspect to get ’em to the next, next stage is getting through this and get ’em, get ’em to enjoy their, their lives again.

[00:02:24] Larry Heller: So, uh, you did mention high conflict, so. Wanted to talk about some of the unique challenges of working with those, going through a high conflict, how you manage them, but what, what do you actually define as a high conflict divorce?

[00:02:39] Dr. Susan: Great questions. So a high conflict can be one, two, or three of the following, hidden money, domestic abuse or custody battles.

[00:02:48] Dr. Susan: And it only takes one individual to create a high conflict divorce. Often they are long and dragged out, and if they have children, the children are manipulated as well during the divorce. [00:03:00] And as a certified divorce coach who specializes in high conflict divorce. It’s not a normal divorce where someone can say to their spouse, I’m really not happy.

[00:03:07] Dr. Susan: I want a divorce. There’s a lot of pre-work to get financials in order and get the children the help they need to prep them so they’re ready for what’s to come during the divorce. There is a lot of preparation as far as getting a contract that will enforce, any default that will give consequences for any contempt.

[00:03:28] Dr. Susan: We’ll set boundaries with that high conflict individual post-divorce. There is such a real thing as post-divorce abuse and helping the individuals co-parent, or as I say, parallel parent with that person and making sure that the contract is enforced. So it is a long. Got dragged out battle pretty much.

[00:03:48] Dr. Susan: normally mediation doesn’t work and it’s in court and you’re dealing with an individual who is unstable, toxic, and really spiteful to say the least.

[00:03:59] Larry Heller: Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately those situations do, do occur. So you mentioned pre-divorce, so how do you kind of help your clients Adre address the.

[00:04:07] Larry Heller: Pre-divorce, getting their ducks in the order. ’cause they probably have so many things going on emotionally and, you know, we get, we get called in as a CDFA sometimes to look at the financial numbers. But how do you kind of get them through that kind of emotional side to address their, their ducks getting an order.

[00:04:26] Larry Heller: And can you give us kind of an example that you want did with someone?

[00:04:29] Dr. Susan: [00:04:30] Absolutely. Well, divorce comes down to custody and finance. So for custody, we want to set those children up for success and have them seeing a child therapist or some type of therapy, play therapy, water therapy, art, therapy, music, get them additional resources and for the financial aspect.

[00:04:46] Dr. Susan: Every state has an asset debt worksheet. here in New York, it’s called the net worth statement, and so having the client look at that, it can be about 17 pages long, can be very overwhelming, which is why someone like you can be extremely helpful the whole journey of divorce. But really helping them see what they need, checking the mail, checking the file cabinet, checking the online banking if they can, getting any resources they can, because the high conflict spouse is not gonna high hand over information.

[00:05:16] Dr. Susan: So what often happens is you get as much as you can and therefore, ideally reducing the chance of having to do depositions and subpoenas for that information.

[00:05:27] Larry Heller: Hmm. So you, you just mentioned something, I guess, you know, hidden money and, you know, could be a situation where there is hi, where there is hidden money.

[00:05:36] Larry Heller: How do you kind of also work through that with them as much as you can.

[00:05:41] Dr. Susan: So in an ideal situation, you’re dealing with someone who has a paycheck. They don’t have a cash business to hide, but when the individual has a cash business and they can hide money, often it’s gone off to the cryptocurrency. But we do have specialists to find that, and often it’s not reported accurately [00:06:00] on the taxes.

[00:06:00] Dr. Susan: So the easiest way is to say, let’s figure out what your expenses are, what are they claiming they make? And let’s work backwards. We can also bring in business evaluators. To say, wait a second, here’s your list of clients. Here’s the average of what you made in 30, 60, or 90 days. Something is off. Right? So really taking a deep dive, looking at transfers that are made, looking at assets versus debts that they’ve incurred.

[00:06:27] Dr. Susan: And, it also gets very sticky if they have a business partner. ’cause then they can claim that a certain percent is not theirs. Um, and things are often hidden in LLCs as well, especially if the LLCs were made in Nevada or certain states. having a specialist who’s aware of this, who knows the right question to ask gives them a jumpstart.

[00:06:47] Larry Heller: Yeah, absolutely. And the business is definitely a of, of a challenge. We’ve actually had some clients come in and they forget about businesses. They didn’t even know where to find their tax return or who managed their money, and we gotta work backwards just for them to get a. Copy of their tax return so we can start to figure out where some of this money is and for them to figure out who their advisor was because the other spouse was not making it easy for them.

[00:07:16] Larry Heller: So the emotional aspects in trying to do that, I’m sure are things that you help walk through, walk people through.

[00:07:23] Dr. Susan: On a daily basis, I absolutely do. And we even tell people to check their children’s credit [00:07:30] scores. ’cause sadly some people will actually take out, debt and charge cards in their children’s social security numbers.

[00:07:36] Dr. Susan: And they don’t know until their children are of age to apply to college and doing the college financial forms that they see their children’s identity and social security numbers and credit was taken

[00:07:46] Larry Heller: a great advice. so you did mention earlier a little bit about special needs child Yes.

[00:07:51] Larry Heller: Children and you know, yes. I know you’ve gone through that yourself. So what is different about working with a divorced client that has a special needs child? I.

[00:07:59] Dr. Susan: So half the country, we’ve all heard half the country gets divorced, but the research shows that 80% of people who have a child with special needs will divorce before that child’s 21.

[00:08:10] Dr. Susan: And of course there’s a range of special needs, but for the children who cannot be independent making their own decisions that 18 and going off to college, those parents will need guardianship. And so it’s a whole lot of extra information that ideally is put in the contract. Who’s gonna be the guardian?

[00:08:28] Dr. Susan: Who’s gonna make decisions long term? Who’s gonna be the caregiver and how are they gonna take care of them financially and physically as they age? And in a state like New York now in. Forced instead of spouse, uh, child support ending at 21 or 22 when they finished college. You can get child support up to age 26 in New York for a special needs child.

[00:08:50] Dr. Susan: And a state like Texas, it can go a lifetime. So you really need a specialist who can get the details in the contract now, who can fight for it so you don’t [00:09:00] have to go to back to court when that child is of emancipation age.

[00:09:03] Larry Heller: Hmm. So plan ahead. Plan ahead for way, way in the future when you will need to still be.

[00:09:09] Larry Heller: Be providing care for, uh, somebody that’s no longer a child. Yes. Hmm. So, you work with a lot of clients and, you know, without naming names, can you, can you share kind of a success story where your coaching kind of really significantly impacted someone’s divorce outcome?

[00:09:26] Dr. Susan: On a daily basis, I get testimonials, and kudos from clients.

[00:09:30] Dr. Susan: And I think that part of it is talking about the term radical acceptance, right? So people come in and they want the house and they want the pension, and they want full custody of the children, but there’s laws in place, and the fact that that would happen is very unlikely. So half of it is getting them to understand what is within the legal realm, right?

[00:09:50] Dr. Susan: Someone thinks, oh, they cheated on me. I deserve everything. Well, the law in New York does not care if someone cheated one or a hundred times. So it’s that radical acceptance of what would you get in court? What does your lawyer say is your best possible outcome? And then how can we try to keep it amicable and mediate so that you can get divorced quicker?

[00:10:10] Dr. Susan: Get things going smoother with your children. With any change, we, we know change is scary, but we say, let’s turn that change into an opportunity and ideally get to that next chapter, helping them navigate it so they can live that bliss that they want and they deserve. Hmm.

[00:10:27] Larry Heller: So it’s kind of managing [00:10:30] expectations and Yes.

[00:10:30] Larry Heller: I guess you’re more therapists. I know you say coach, but I’m sure that comes into play to kind of focus on the things that are. Critical so they can get the best outcome for themselves.

[00:10:42] Dr. Susan: So I do say a therapist in general can help pale their path, and I’m not trained for that. So it’s great to see a therapist, but what a coach does is give them strategy and gets them unstuck.

[00:10:53] Dr. Susan: Very often you don’t leave a therapist with an action plan, and my promise to my clients is they leave with an action plan. It can be baby steps or giant leaps and bounds. Legal or custody or financial, but I move them forward. So certainly there’s the emotional aspect a therapist helps with, but I do believe in the team approach.

[00:11:11] Dr. Susan: I believe every client should have a CDFA, like you Larry. Mm-Hmm. They should have an attorney or mediator and they should have a therapist as well.

[00:11:18] Larry Heller: So, you know, so how do you ensure that your clients can stay focused on their long-term goals throughout the process? ’cause this is gonna be a, unfortunately, a long, a, a long time.

[00:11:29] Dr. Susan: So I always start off our session with the first five to 10 minutes of the hour is fill me in what’s happened since we talked and let me know what you wanna focus on. And the remaining 50 or 55 minutes is focusing forward on what they want to accomplish. And then that last five minutes of the call that you feel that you have a plan, do you feel like you know how you’re going to move forward?

[00:11:52] Dr. Susan: So it’s, it’s not like a therapist call where the majority of it is talking about what’s happened. We limit that, and then we talk about how you’re going to [00:12:00] overcome any obstacles in the way to achieve the goals you want and which path you’re gonna take. I never want someone to feel that there’s no options or only one, and then how to walk down that path successfully.

[00:12:12] Larry Heller: So do you work, do you work with mostly people going through a high conflict divorce or do you work with people that are maybe doing collaborative or mediation, divorce?

[00:12:20] Dr. Susan: So I would say that, nationally the people find me for high conflict ’cause I have the MO of taking cases that no one else wants to touch with a 10 foot pole.

[00:12:31] Dr. Susan: But I also do say that my initial goal is to try to deescalate it and tion does deescalate it. So we always say, can we try to mediate? And yes, if there’s no restraining order, you can sit across the table from someone. And yes, if there is financial disclosure. But if there’s not financial disclosure, how can you negotiate?

[00:12:51] Dr. Susan: Right. Financials and knowledge is power, and as you know, you’re a money guy. You get your knowledge through numbers. So we try to mediate. If it’s someone who has a W2 paycheck and there’s the financial cannot be hidden, even if that person has a personality disorder or an addiction. You still, the numbers are the numbers and you can’t change them.

[00:13:11] Dr. Susan: So that’s the ideal situation. And then we go from there. If Plan A didn’t work, what is plan B? Plan C?

[00:13:18] Larry Heller: Right. So you did mention a couple things. You wanna move people along and you talk about, you know, some of the business valuations and the numbers, and obviously we do some of that. So how do you collaborate with, someone like [00:13:30] a CDFA, myself with an attorney?

[00:13:32] Larry Heller: How does that work? I mean, it’s great for my team approach, but for the client. But how do you see that working?

[00:13:36] Dr. Susan: So whether they mediate or litigate in court, they can always use their attorney or mediator to propose settlement offers, right? So even if you’re going in court here in New York, it’s 10 to 18 months.

[00:13:51] Dr. Susan: You don’t just have to wait until you have your court date. You can send proposed settlement offers. To the other side. So what I would say to people who, have a CDFA like you or who I encourage to call a CDFA is say here, okay, let’s ask the CDFA. What would your spousal support look like? If it was this number or if they broke the cap, what would child support look like if you imputed your salary or not?

[00:14:18] Dr. Susan: What. Would splitting the assets look like if this was taken into account or not, right? Because there’s always complications. And then what percent of the add-ons. And then I do tell people child support and the add-on percents are never set in stone. So sometimes you might have to adjust accordingly, but saying, let’s see what offer we can give them, which likely would be what the judge would give.

[00:14:40] Dr. Susan: 18 months down from the road from now, and who’s winning that money? The attorney. Not that I’m against attorneys, but let’s expedite the process with the attorney.

[00:14:50] Larry Heller: No, I mean, I love that so much. I mean, we, we deal with a lot of different matrimonial attorneys and not too many of them wanna bring us in. We recently were, brought into a [00:15:00] case.

[00:15:00] Larry Heller: And same situation. in this case the, one spouse was kind of being unreasonable, but the other spouse basically came to us and we, we ran a plan. He wanted to see how is this gonna affect him now, but even in retirement, that if he gave away certain amount of assets. And what he basically concluded is he would probably go to court and, good chance that he would win, but.

[00:15:23] Larry Heller: As long as he had enough money, he was fine and they were able to settle the, settle the case. But I, you know, I think that’s far and few between. So love that you hear that. You kind of Suggest that as well.

[00:15:34] Dr. Susan: Absolutely.

[00:15:35] Larry Heller: So I think you might have mentioned this before, but I’ll ask you the answer to this, but what is the biggest misconception people have about working with a divorce coach and how do you address it?

[00:15:44] Dr. Susan: I think one misconception is adding an additional professional might make the case cost more money, and I explained to them that my fees are a fraction of the lawyer or mediator’s costs. That they buy a package of two, five or 12. One, like a therapist who they have to see every Tuesday. They can see me twice a week or twice a month or twice a season.

[00:16:07] Dr. Susan: Right? It’s not, it does not have to be a weekly or a monthly thing. It’s as much or as little as they want. And that they leave with that action plan. So they’re actually expediting the process. So the clients who do use me, sometimes they’ll put their foot in the water and buy a, a package of two and they’ll say, oh my gosh, I did the thinking work with you.

[00:16:27] Dr. Susan: I went into my attorney prepared. [00:16:30] And I didn’t cry to them for two hours. I was organized and look, I just saved two hours worth of legal fees when I spent one hour with you at a fraction of the price. So they see it and they end up buying more packages, and then being there post-divorce as well, because the attorneys went to law school to deal with the legal and a lot of the emotional stuff.

[00:16:49] Dr. Susan: You can talk to an attorney about, and they’ll pay, you’ll pay their hourly rate, um, or your retainer will, you know, go down, but you’re not, they’re not trained to help you. So using the right professionals in what they’re trained to do.

[00:17:03] Larry Heller: just off the top of my head, actually, I have somebody that I’m thinking I’m gonna refer your name to.

[00:17:08] Larry Heller: Thank you. That she’s, that came from a therapist, but since you’re different than the therapist, she’s kind of stuck. Yeah. Stuck. Hasn’t been able to figure out. To actually go forward with a divorce, but I think maybe hiring you and talking with you may be beneficial, so we’ll, we’ll talk about that offline.

[00:17:25] Larry Heller: Thank you. And

[00:17:25] Dr. Susan: I always offer a confidential call that’s nonjudgmental, so. They have nothing to lose and it’s complimentary. Right? So they only can walk away with some more information that will be helpful.

[00:17:37] Larry Heller: Awesome. So I mean, this has been great information. I think so many people out there when they going through a divorce, the first thing they do is call the attorney.

[00:17:45] Larry Heller: And a lot of times attorneys will say they want to get a CDFA, but now also a divorce coach in there. If you have the right people behind you and it can get done quicker. Some of the fees and expenses may be less, but it also gets your whole [00:18:00] process working on all different aspects of your divorce and if they can work together that that could be very powerful.

[00:18:07] Larry Heller: Any final words you kind of wanna let our audience know today? Susan? I.

[00:18:11] Dr. Susan: I always like to say to the people listening, whether it’s the husband or the wife, or if it’s the same sex marriage, that don’t let your ex ruin your chance or your hope for a future relationship. So many people say, I’m never getting married again.

[00:18:26] Dr. Susan: I’m never dating again. I’m never looking at another man or woman, and I say, why would you give your ex that power? Right? There’s so many good people out there. And just because things didn’t go right with your spouse doesn’t mean that you should give them the power to not take the chance to find someone else.

[00:18:43] Dr. Susan: So that next chapter really can be whatever you wanna create it to be. And I help people overcome that fear and get to find that next person who they really deserve to be treated well.

[00:18:56] Larry Heller: Hmm. Well said. Great way to finish up today’s podcast. Susan, if they wanna, somebody wants to reach out to you. Where’s the best way of getting ahold of you?

[00:19:03] Larry Heller: I.

[00:19:04] Dr. Susan: I give everyone my number, 5 5 1 4 4 4 2 6 0 9 or my website www.divorcecoachplusplus.com.

[00:19:14] Larry Heller: Great. Thank you so much for joining us today, Susan.

[00:19:18] Dr. Susan: Thank you, Larry. It was a pleasure.

[00:19:20] Matt Halloran: Power is a huge component when it comes to divorce and having the right people in your corner. Absolutely gives you more power, more options, and makes the [00:19:30] process more smooth.

[00:19:31] Matt Halloran: Our guests today, including the host, are the people you need to have in your corner. So if you need to find out any more about working with Larry or Susan, we’ll make sure that we have all of those things in our show notes. So for Larry and for Dr. Bernstein, this is Matt Halloran, and we’ll see you on the other side of the mic very soon.