Leah Hadley [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Intentional Divorce Insights. I'm Leah Hadley, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, Accredited Financial Counselor, and the founder of Intentional Divorce Solutions. I'll be your guide through the complexities of divorce, finance, and emotional wellness. Join me as we uncover practical tips and empowering insights to help you navigate your divorce with clarity and intention.
Leah Hadley [00:00:24]:
Hi there, and welcome back to Intentional Divorce Insights. Today I want to talk with you about something that I think is quite frankly one of the most overlooked pieces of the divorce puzzle. And honestly, it's probably the piece that matters most when it comes to your long-term financial wellbeing. I'm not talking about your settlement. I'm not talking about who gets the house or how you split the retirement assets. Those things matter. They absolutely matter. But what I've seen over and over again in almost two decades of working with women going through divorce is that the women who come out the other side financially strong are not necessarily the ones who got the biggest settlement.
Leah Hadley [00:01:06]:
They are the ones who made a fundamental shift in how they think about money. And that's what I want to dig into today. The money mindset shift that every divorcing woman needs to make. I also want to share that I recently wrote a book and it's called Intentional Money. The Modern Woman's Guide to Building Wealth, Purpose, and Peace. And while that book is for all women navigating financial transitions, so much of what's in it was born from the work that I do with divorcing women every single day. So I'm going to weave in some of those concepts today because I think they're going to resonate with you in a really meaningful way. So let's start with what actually happens to your relationship with money when you go through a divorce, because I don't think that we talk about this enough.
Leah Hadley [00:01:56]:
When you're married, most couples fall into financial roles. Maybe you were the one who paid the bills, but your spouse managed the investments. Maybe you handled the kids and the household and your house, your spouse handled the money, right? All of it. Maybe you both kind of avoided it and just hope things would work out. Or maybe you were the one tracking every dollar and your spouse spent without thinking about it. Whatever the dynamic was, divorce blows it up completely. And suddenly you're sitting there realizing, I am now 100% responsible for my financial life. And here's what I want you to hear.
Leah Hadley [00:02:33]:
That realization can be terrifying, and it's also one of the most powerful moments of your life. Because for many of the women I work with, it's the first time that they're truly in the driver's seat. I had a client, let's call her Sarah, who came to me in the middle of a divorce and she could barely open her bank statements, not because the numbers were bad, but because she had spent 20 years letting her husband manage everything. She didn't even know what accounts they had. And the idea of being responsible for investment decisions, for retirement planning, for budgeting on a single income, it paralyzed her. And I see some version of Sarah almost every week. Brilliant, capable women who've managed households, raised children, navigated incredibly complex family dynamics, run, um, businesses even. But when it comes to money, they freeze because somewhere along the way, they absorb the message that money wasn't really their domain.
Leah Hadley [00:03:35]:
This is what I call the financial identity crisis of the divorce. It's not just about the numbers. It's about who you believe you are in relationship to money. And until you address that, no settlement amount is going to make you feel secure because security does not come from a number. Let's say that again. Security does not come from a number. It comes from knowing that you can handle whatever comes next. Now, let me walk you through some of the very specific mindset traps I see divorcing women fall into.
Leah Hadley [00:04:07]:
And I want to be really clear, these are not character flaws. These are completely normal human responses to an incredibly stressful situation, but they can cost you a lot of money and a lot of peace if you don't recognize them. The first one is what I'll call a scarcity panic. This is that feeling of, I'm going to lose everything. I need to grab whatever I can right now. Scarcity panic is what makes women fight tooth and nail for the house, even when the numbers clearly show it's really not affordable. It's what makes women agree to lopsided settlements just to get it over with because the fear is so overwhelming. They just want it done.
Leah Hadley [00:04:54]:
Scarcity panic makes you reactive instead of strategic, and reactive decisions in divorce are almost always expensive decisions. The second trap is what I think of as golden handcuffs thinking. This is when you are so anchored into your married lifestyle that every financial decision gets filtered through, but I used to have, I used to have a 4-bedroom house. I used to drive a new car. I used to not worry about what dinner costs. And look, it is completely valid to grieve those changes. But if you're making financial decisions, trying to replicate a lifestyle that was built on two incomes with one income, you, you're setting yourself up for struggle. The shift here is moving from preserving what was to really building what's next.
Leah Hadley [00:05:50]:
The third trap is defaulting to outsourcing. And this one might surprise you.
Leah Hadley [00:05:55]:
I'm a financial planner.
Leah Hadley [00:05:56]:
I obviously believe in hiring professionals. But there's a big difference between hiring a team to support your financial decisions and handing your financial life to someone else because you don't want to deal with it. Now, I see women who go from having their husband manage the money to having their attorney or their financial advisor manage it, and they never actually step into understanding their own numbers. That's not empowerment. That's just changing who you are dependent on. And the fourth trap, and this is a big one, is the, I'll figure it out later avoidance. I've been there, believe me. Divorce is emotionally exhausting.
Leah Hadley [00:06:34]:
I know that. And when you're just trying to get through each day, sitting down to think about retirement projections or an investment strategy honestly can feel impossible. So you just push it off. You tell yourself you'll deal with it once the divorce is final. But here's the thing. Some of the most important financial decisions of your life are being made during the divorce process. If you are not engaged in those decisions, if you are not asking questions and understanding what you're agreeing to, you may be signing away your financial future in ways that you don't even realize. Every one of these traps has a common thread.
Leah Hadley [00:07:19]:
They keep you in a passive relationship with money, and that is exactly what we need to change. So how do you actually make this shift, right? This is where I want to introduce you to what I call the Intentional Money Method. This is a framework that is at the heart of my book, and it's built around 6 pillars. I'll walk you through each one and show you how it applies specifically to what you're going through in divorce. The first pillar is clarity, and this is where everything starts. Clarity means knowing your actual financial picture, not what you think it is, not what your spouse told you it was, but what the actual numbers say.
Leah Hadley [00:07:59]:
What do you own? What do you owe?
Leah Hadley [00:08:01]:
What are you earning? What are you spending? You would be amazed at how many women going through divorce cannot answer those questions. And I don't say that to shame anyone. I say it because getting those answers It's the single most empowering first step you can take. When you know your numbers, you can stop making decisions based on fear and start making them based on facts. The second pillar is values, and this one is especially important during divorce because everything is in flux. When I sit down with a client, one of the first things I ask is, what kind of life do you want on the other side of this? Now, what your attorney thinks you should fight for might be what you want, but it might not be, right? So we're not looking for what your attorney thinks you should fight for, or what your sister thinks you need, or neighbor, or not what looks good on paper. What actually matters to you? Maybe it's being in a certain school district for your kids. Maybe it's having the flexibility to travel.
Leah Hadley [00:09:00]:
Maybe it's building a business. Maybe it's simply feeling safe. When you know your values, your financial decisions have a true north star, and that makes everything clearer. The third pillar is mindset, which is really what this whole episode is about. This is the shift from money happens to me to I'm intentional with my money. It moves from fear to agency, from avoidance to engagement, from that I can't to I'm learning. And I want to be honest with you, this shift doesn't happen overnight. It's a practice.
Leah Hadley [00:09:37]:
But it does start with a decision, the decision to stop telling yourself a story about not being good with money, about, you know, really writing a new one for yourself. The fourth pillar is strategy. This is where the actual financial planning comes in. And during divorce, strategy means making settlement decisions based on long-term financial modeling, not gut reactions. It means understanding the tax implications of keeping the house versus taking retirement assets. It means knowing the difference between assets that look equal on paper, but have very different real-world values. This is where working with a certified divorce financial analyst like myself can make an enormous difference because honestly, a good CDFA isn't just crunching numbers. They're helping you see how today's decisions play out over the next 10, 20 years.
Leah Hadley [00:10:33]:
The fifth pillar is action, because mindset without action is just positive thinking, and that doesn't actually pay the bills, right? Action during divorce looks like opening accounts in your own name, building or rebuilding your credit, creating a cash flow plan for your post-divorce life, setting up an emergency fund. These aren't complicated things, but they do require you to show up and to do them. And every single one of them reinforces that new financial identity that we talked about earlier, the identity of a woman who's in charge of her financial life. And the sixth pillar is support. And I saved this one for last because I think it's the one that women honestly resist the most. We are so conditioned to do everything ourselves, to be strong, to not need help. But going through a divorce without support is like trying to navigate unfamiliar territory without a map. You really need a team, a CDFA, a good attorney, somebody for emotional support, like a divorce coach or a therapist, ideally a community of women who understand what you're going through.
Leah Hadley [00:11:39]:
Going it alone, that's not strength. It's usually the most expensive and most painful way to get through this. These 6 pillars, clarity, values, mindset, strategy, action, and support, They work together. And in my book, I go much deeper into each one of these with exercises and real stories and practical tools that you can use right away. But even if you're just hearing them today, I hope you can see how this is a fundamentally different approach than just worrying about who gets what in the settlement. If you take one thing away from this episode, I want it to be this: the single biggest mindset shift you can make during divorce is moving from, what am I going to get? To what am I going to build? I say that again. The single biggest mindset shift you can make during your divorce is going from what am I going to get to what am I going to build. Now, when you're focused on what you're going to get, you're operating from a place of loss.
Leah Hadley [00:12:43]:
You're trying to hold on, you're looking backward, and that energy affects every decision you make from how you negotiate to how you spend, to how you plan for your future. But when you shift to, what am I going to build? Everything changes. Now divorce isn't the end of your financial story. It's a chapter. And honestly, for so many of the women I work with, it turns out to be the chapter where they finally take control. I've watched women go from not knowing anything about even how to log into their investment accounts to confidently making portfolio decisions. I've watched women build businesses, buy homes on their own, fund their kids' college education, create a level of financial security they never had in their marriage. Not because they got some windfall in the divorce, but because they decided to become intentional with their money.
Leah Hadley [00:13:38]:
And that's available to you. I don't care what your financial situation looks like right now. I don't care if the numbers feel overwhelming or if you think you're not a money person. You are capable of managing and growing your money. So here's what I want to leave you with today. Your financial outcomes after divorce is not determined by the size of your settlement. It's determined by your mindset, your willingness to get clear on your numbers, your courage to align your numbers with your values, and your commitment to building something new. Now, if this episode resonated with you, my book Intentional Money goes, um, so much deeper into all of this.
Leah Hadley [00:14:22]:
Uh, it's a guide. It's part workbook. We have a journal coming out later in the year. It's a conversation with a friend who also happens to understand the financial stuff. I wrote it for women at every stage of a financial transition. And I especially wrote it for women going through divorce who need someone to say, You can do this, and here is exactly how to do it. And if you're looking for that community of women that I mentioned, that support pillar, I'd love to invite you to the Empowered Sisterhood. It's a membership community I created specifically for women who want to take control of their financial lives with education and support and a whole lot of encouragement.
Leah Hadley [00:15:02]:
I'll put all the details in the show notes. Thank you so much. For being here with me today. And I want you to remember that this is not the end of your financial story. This is just one chapter, and it's the chapter where you take control.
Leah Hadley [00:15:19]:
Thank you for joining me on Intentional Divorce Insights. It's a privilege to share this time with you. I hope each episode offers valuable guidance to navigate your journey. If you find our content helpful, please leave a review to help others discover the benefits of intentional decision-making in divorce. Until next time, take care and continue to embrace your path with intention.
