Years ago, when I was going through my own divorce, many of the consequences were ones I had expected. Finding a new home, reassessing my budget, and addressing the impact on my young son were stresses I had seen coming. But I also noticed something I hadn’t expected.
Most of my married friends didn’t treat me any differently. In fact, those who seemed happiest and most secure in their own marriages were generally the least affected by the change in mine. But a very small group of friends who seemed less secure reacted differently, almost as though divorce might be contagious. They questioned my thoughts and actions and sometimes even judged them harshly in a way they hadn’t when I was still married.
I could understand it, at least a little. When something happens to someone close to us that we’re afraid could happen to us, it’s comforting to believe their situation must be fundamentally different from ours.
But I hadn’t changed much at all. I was still very much pro-marriage. I didn’t speak disparagingly about my former husband or anyone else’s. I loved being a mother and even hoped one day love would strike again and I could expand my family.
Yes, my marriage had ended, but my values hadn’t changed.
The Financial Questions Arrive All at Once
Years later, as a financial planner working with women going through divorce, I see how much that distinction matters.
Divorce has a way of making women question not only their marriage, but sometimes their own judgment, often at a time when their support system isn’t quite as supportive. Then, at exactly that moment, we ask them to make some of the biggest financial decisions of their lives.
Should I keep the house?
Is this settlement actually enough?
Can I still retire when I planned?
How should I invest assets I’ve never managed before?
What will my life cost when there is only one income supporting it?
Most of all, am I going to be okay?
When Advice Starts to Feel Like Judgment
These aren’t small decisions, and they often arrive alongside an enormous amount of unsolicited advice and, sometimes, uncomfortable judgment.
Friends have opinions. Family members have opinions. Your attorney is appropriately focused on protecting your legal interests. Everyone may genuinely want to help, but it can become difficult to separate what other people think you should do from what actually makes sense for you.
What Judgment-Free Financial Planning Looks Like
That’s where financial planning during divorce, with a professional who isn’t only focused on the math, can make a meaningful difference.
A good financial advisor meets you where you are and isn’t interested in grading the decisions that brought you to this point. Rather, their focus is on helping you understand your choices and the tradeoffs that come with them.
That might mean modeling what keeping the house would do to your cash flow and retirement plan, comparing after-tax settlement options, reviewing how your investments should change, and making sure your estate plan and beneficiary designations are up to date.
But financial planning through divorce should also create room to ask questions, reconsider assumptions, and even change your mind without feeling as though any of those things say something about your competence.
Divorce is an outcome. It isn’t a character trait.
Starting From Where You Are
I’ve now been happily remarried for nearly two decades, and I still believe deeply in marriage. My divorce didn’t change that, but it did help teach me not to assume that I know the circumstances of someone’s life or that their marital status tells me who they are.
We can start with where you are, without judgment about how you got there, and focus instead on what matters now: understanding the choices in front of you and deciding what makes sense for the life you want to build from here.