How I handled my finances during my divorce

(It's April 1st, I know, but no April Fools here. Promise.)

A reader recently left this comment:

Hi Kristen, I was wondering if you would considerer sharing a step by step post or a series on how you made all the financial plans once you decided to divorce. I think it'll be a life changing post for women/ moms who must leave after a long-term DV/ DA marriage, especially as a SAHM/ homeschooling mom who lived most of their lives in Stockholm Syndrome. I just met a mom with 3 little kids, and her husband just left them for another woman- totally out of the blue, and she has no clue what to do for money!!! Please consider it. Thank you.

I typically keep my marriage/divorce talk confined to my Patreon, where I share 1-2 posts a week. But since this question specifically relates to finances, I'm going to write about it here, and I'll probably just be a little more vague than I am in my Patreon posts.

I know my situation is unique

Many stay-at-home, homeschooling moms have no paid income, or if they do, it's not enough to sustain them. I always had a way of earning money during my marriage, though, and always had a plan for how to scale it if necessary.

(The theoretical event I was preparing for was widowhood, but the plan also stood in nicely for a divorce.)

For instance, when I was a piano teacher, I knew I could have added more students if I suddenly needed more income.

I could also have picked up more photography work, and I could have hired myself out as a pianist.

And in my actual situation, I relied on my blog income to get me through.

I recognize that not everyone has the options that I did, so keep that in mind as I share my story. I am not prescribing anything for anyone; I am merely describing what I did.

I absolutely did not make a plan

Every preparing-for-divorce course you take will advise you to make a plan, and I do think that's prudent!

However, I left with no plan.

(ATTENTION: Next section talks about suicidal ideation. Skip if you're not up for that.)

I had gotten increasingly depressed in the late fall of 2021 (due to the state of the marriage).

And in early January of 2022, I was so hopeless that I kept having the thought, "I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up."

(I wrote more about that on my Patreon in the post, "The Desperation of Living in No Divorce Land".)

One night, I had a dream that someone shot me. In my dream, I knew I was going to die, and my dream self felt so happy because that meant I would not have to live in my marriage anymore.

That morning, I left on my own and went to my parents' house, thinking I just needed a weekend break to get my head straight, and that I'd go back. But then, in fairly short order, the girls followed me. Then we all got Covid (it was the Omicron times!), so we obviously couldn't go back.

Despite all this, I started feeling much, much better mentally, and I decided to stay away for a while. We started one last-ditch effort at marriage therapy (the fifth round) over Zoom, and this time, after a number of sessions, I realized things were never, ever going to change, and I was the one who decided I could no longer do it.

I let him know of my decision over Zoom, at the last therapy appointment, sitting in the garage at my dad's work desk.

The Rental Hunt

I had asked if the girls and I could have the house, and if he could find somewhere to rent, but the answer was no. So, I set out on a discouraging hunt for a place to rent.

My credit score is great, but as a self-employed person, it's complicated to provide proof of income, and landlords prefer a simple renter.

Thankfully, my mom got word of a home for rent through someone at her church, and I was able to apply directly before the rental was even listed.

The divorce process

At that time, the law here specified that the two parties had to live apart for a full year before filing, unless both parties agreed to file sooner.

Such an agreement was not given to me, so I settled into my house here to wait the year out.

I'm good at keeping expenses low, and I was able to pay my bills using my blog income. Luckily, our health insurance was still in place through his employer.

I applied for scholarships left and right, and I continued on with my nursing school prereqs during the wait.

Once the year was up, I promptly hired a lawyer and made efforts to move the divorce process forward through mediation. Unfortunately, these efforts were not terribly successful, and about halfway through the year, I officially filed for divorce and had papers served.

This happened in the fall of 2023, in my first semester of nursing school (not an ideal time to be filling out pages of interrogatories and preparing for depositions). STRESSFUL!

(But I was still much less stressed than I'd been in my marriage.)

Thankfully, we did not end up having to see the process all the way through to a trial, and in December of 2023, we had a final divorce hearing and signed the papers.

The judge did the final sign-off in late January 2024, a little over two years since I'd initially left.

The finances

In the settlement, I received a payout for half the value of the marital home, I got half of the retirement accounts, and I got some back child support, since Zoe was under 18 for the entire two years of the divorce process, and she lived with me full-time.

(Something I did not know: the back child support can only go back to the date you file for divorce. That meant basically all but about six months of those two years were ineligible. In that sense, it would have been advantageous to file something official much sooner, but I was naively optimistic about cooperation levels, and I thought mediation would work. Whoops.)

My lawyer also negotiated for me to be able to keep my blog as my own, with almost no stipulations about what I can and can't say here. My story is mine to share, and though I keep most of it on my Patreon, I am grateful to feel a sense of freedom here (even if I rarely exercise it!).

I got sole ownership of my van, and I also kept the Civic that I'd bought for Zoe to use.

My legal fees got very high during the last six months of the divorce process, and by the time we got to the court date to sign papers, I was nearly broke.

To pay the last fees and tide me over until the settlement check arrived, I opened some 0% credit cards and put my legal fees on them. Thankfully, the 0% period was long enough for me to pay the balances in full after the settlement.

And since then, I've been in the process of rebuilding my finances. Divorcing in midlife is not a recipe for financial success, of course, but the financial destruction has been entirely, 1000% worth it.

My life is better in every single way, and my worst post-leaving day has never been harder than my marriage (and that includes the worst of the divorce process).

Finances for the future

Thanks to all the scholarships I applied for, I graduated from nursing school with no school loans, and I should be able to get my BSN degree with no loans as well, thanks to my hospital's reimbursement program.

After the divorce, I was obviously removed from his health insurance, and I bought my own through the state (unsubsidized). But now that I work full-time at the hospital, I have regular health insurance again (yay!).

My expenses are fairly reasonable now (no more lawyer retainers!), so I'm working hard to save and invest so I can put myself in a good financial position in the future.

I honestly feel very optimistic about the future; since I am the one in charge of my finances now, I can make some really good progress, and I am seeing the fruits of my frugality. Such a nice feeling!

Again, I recognize that I had some serious advantages here, and I know it will not be this easy for everyone. But I can say with certainty that even if things had worked out more poorly for me financially, I still would make this choice.

I can always figure out ways to make more money, and I can always rebuild financially, but I cannot get years of my life back. I would not want to waste one single more moment of my life living in an environment that was slowly draining my will to live.

Peace is priceless.

Did that answer your questions? If it didn't, let me know in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer, maybe in a follow-up post.

P.S. At a therapy appointment shortly before I left, I was displaying all the symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder. After I left my marriage, all of that dissipated. I was not mentally ill; I was merely living in an environment that was...not good for me. And this is why I say it was worth it to leave.