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]:
I want to start with something that a client of mine did a couple of years ago, right around Christmas. She had reached out to me worried about money, very specific money. Her house needed repairs, the kind that just couldn't be put off anymore. Um, it was— she was having an issue with the furnace. She was having an issue with the roof. She knew exactly the amount of money that she needed. She'd done the math more than once, quite frankly, because she kept hoping it was going to come out different. Now, during that same season, when she went out and she bought her boys gaming equipment.
Leah Hadley [00:01:02]:
And it was not a small gift. It was the kind of purchase that meant putting something on a credit card that she just didn't have room for, on top of a repair bill she already couldn't fully cover. Now, she knew it didn't make sense. She told me that herself, sitting across from me before I even said a word about it. But I want to talk today about why smart, capable, financially literate women do this anyway all the time. And what's actually kind of underneath it, what I think is worth doing instead, because I don't think this is really a story about a bad decision. I think it's a story about guilt, and guilt is a lot harder to budget for than a furnace. Welcome back to Intentional Divorce Insights.
Leah Hadley [00:01:49]:
I'm Leah Hadley. I'm a certified divorce financial analyst, an accredited financial counselor, a mediator, And this show exists to help you get through divorce with your head clear and your finances intact, one honest conversation at a time. Today's episode is about something that I have watched happen over and over with women that I work with, especially around the holidays, especially around birthdays. It's the moment where the money conversation and the guilt conversation collide. And quite frankly, guilt is usually the winner. And I want to name that pattern out loud today because once you can see what's happening, it can be easier to catch yourself in it before the decision is already made. So here's the pattern that I'm talking about. Birthdays and holidays, they feel hard in a divorce in a way that most people are not going to warn you about ahead of time.
Leah Hadley [00:02:48]:
And I'm not talking about the logistics, which can be challenging enough. You know, I'm not talking about whose weekend it falls in, who's hosting, you know, who has the kids the morning versus the afternoon. I'm not talking about any of that. It's that you suddenly become aware in a way that maybe you never have before that there is an entire other household that's making its own decisions about your kids at the same time that you are making decisions. And somewhere in the back of your mind, Whether you've ever said it out loud or not, there's a comparison running. What's the other house doing? What are they buying? My kid's going to walk back in the door on Sunday feeling like this house came up short. That comparison is where the guilt spending starts, not because you're trying to win anything or you're trying to outdo an ex. Maybe you are, but most of the women that I talk to would actually not describe it that way.
Leah Hadley [00:03:43]:
And I don't think it's usually that accurate. For most people, it's because they're scared underneath it that their kids are going to associate this new version of their life, maybe a smaller house or a tighter budget, the holidays that look and feel different, with loss. And so you reach for the one lever that feels like it's actually in your control in that exact moment. Which is what you can put in their hands. And I want to be really clear here that this comes from love. It's not indulgence, it's not weakness, and it's definitely not a character flaw. It's a parent trying to protect their kids from feeling what they're probably already feeling themselves. But love and good judgment do not always point in the same direction.
Leah Hadley [00:04:35]:
And this is one of the places Where they quietly split without you noticing it happening in real time. Now let me go back to that client because I think the specifics do matter more than the general idea does. She was not a woman who overspent as a habit. That's actually really important to understand about her. This was not a recurring pattern in her finances. It was one that was really kind of out of character. Honestly, it was made under a very specific kind of pressure that she was feeling, and that is exactly why it caught my attention when we sat down to. together to work through her budget.
Leah Hadley [00:05:11]:
She had already made a lot of hard, smart calls that year. She had cut things that she didn't wanna cut. She had conversations with herself, honest conversations about what she could and couldn't afford. She knew to the dollar what those repairs were going to cost her, and she knew what she actually had available. And she went and bought the gaming equipment anyway on credit in the same season she was telling me— Oh my gosh. She couldn't sleep at night because she was so stressed out about having to deal with the roof and the furnace. When we talked through it together, she didn't try to explain it away. It's a good financial decision.
Leah Hadley [00:05:51]:
She was not in denial about the math. What she told me was that she couldn't stand the thought of her boys going back to their dad's house that Christmas and comparing notes and turning—
Leah Hadley [00:06:04]:
eyes.
Leah Hadley [00:06:05]:
That turning out that this house, her house, was the one that had less to offer. She wanted more than she wanted to be financially careful in that particular moment for her sons to never feel like the divorce meant one of their parents' houses came up short. I think almost every divorced parent listening to this knows that feeling in some way, whether you've acted on it the way that she did, or you've kind of white-knuckled your way past it. And I don't tell you this story to make her sound like she did something wrong, because honestly, I don't think that's a useful takeaway. I tell it because naming it precisely, this is what guilt spending actually feels like from the inside. And a woman who's otherwise financially sharp is the only way any of us catches it before it continues to happen. So here's the part that I really want to connect for you, because it's bigger than one Christmas. It's bigger than gaming equipment.
Leah Hadley [00:07:04]:
I have spent a long time watching what happens to people financially over decades, not just in the thick of divorce, but well past it. Sometimes, you know, 10 years, 20 years. And one of the clearest patterns that I've seen in the adults who struggle the most with debt, who have the hardest time actually building any real wealth, even when they're earning good money, is that a lot of them got most of what they wanted as kids. Not all of them, not all of them, but enough of them that I genuinely cannot unsee the pattern anymore when I'm sitting across from a client. They never had to build the muscle it takes to want something and wait for it. That muscle— wanting something, sitting in the actual discomfort of not having it yet, and finding out you can survive that discomfort just fine— is not A small thing. It's actually one of the core skills that makes someone good with money as an adult. Building real financial security almost always means choosing to wait at some point, letting time and consistency and frankly compounding do the slow work instead of reaching for whatever fixes the feeling of discomfort in the moment.
Leah Hadley [00:08:22]:
Now there's a second piece to this too, and I think it might matter even more than the first one. Kids who get handed things instead of learning to wait for them also tend to trust themselves less as adults, not just with money, generally across the board. They haven't had as many small, low-stakes chances to find out that they can handle something hard and come out the other side of it. Just fine. And every one of those chances they miss, that adds up over time. Divorce doesn't have to be the defining hardship of a child's, um, childhood, right? I actually believe, and I believe this very strongly, and it's a lot of what this show is about, but whatever your family's version of this season looks like, there's still gonna be moments inside it that ask for something real of your kids, an adjustment. A disappointment, a new normal to get used to. If we soften every single one of those moments with stuff or gifts, upgrades, whatever makes the sting go away for an afternoon, we're quietly taking away their shot at finding out on something real and something theirs that they can handle it and they can be okay.
Leah Hadley [00:09:41]:
And we're taking that away right at the moment. That discovery could actually matter for them. That's the trade nobody names out loud when they're standing in a store trying to decide what to buy their kid for Christmas or scrolling a website at 11 o'clock at night before a birthday. It's not extra presents versus fewer presents. It's whether your kid gets the chance to learn this year that they can handle disappointment and be okay on the other side of it, or Whether that late lesson gets postponed all the way into adulthood, when quite frankly, the stakes are a whole lot higher than a gaming console and a lot harder to recover from. I want to pause here and I want to say something about the other household, because I think it's the piece that makes this so much harder in divorce specifically than in an intact marriage. Sometimes the competition I'm describing is entirely in your own head and the other parent isn't thinking about any of this at all. But sometimes it isn't in your head.
Leah Hadley [00:10:48]:
Sometimes the other house really is spending more or spending differently on purpose or not. And your kids really do come back describing something bigger or newer than what happened at your place. That's a real thing. And I'm not going to pretend that it isn't or tell you it shouldn't sting a little when it happens. But here's what I'm going to offer you anyway. You cannot control what happens in the other house. Trying to match dollar for dollar is a race that doesn't even have a finish line because there's always a version of it where someone spends a little more the next time. What you can control is whether your house is a place where your kids learn that love isn't measured in what shows up in wrapped paper.
Leah Hadley [00:11:34]:
Now that's a genuinely harder thing to build than matching a gift. And it's also the thing that actually lasts once they're grown and neither house is buying stuff anymore. If it's possible, and I know for some of you it isn't, okay, a short, low drama conversation with your co-parent about not turning holidays and birthdays into a spending con— contest can be really helpful for both of you. And not a negotiation about dollar amounts, just an agreement that you're both trying to protect the kids from feeling like this is a competition at all. Now, where that conversation isn't possible because of conflict or trust or whatever reason, that's a conversation for your coach or your mediator to help you navigate, not something to force on your own. In a difficult moment. Now, before I give you the 3 things that actually help, I wanna say something as plainly as I can because I think it matters more than anything else in this episode. How much you spend on your kids has nothing, nothing to do with how much you love them or how strong your relationship is with them.
Leah Hadley [00:12:52]:
None, nothing. Now that's an easy sentence to agree with, but it is a much harder one to actually feel, especially when you're in a season where you're already worried you're not doing enough for them. And I want to flip this around for a second because there's a pattern that honestly worries me more than the one we've been talking about. Now I've watched plenty of parents, divorced and married both, using spending as a stand-in for actually showing up. The bigger gift, the extra yes, the thing that keeps a kid happy and occupied enough That nobody has to notice the parent isn't really in the room with them. Money is an easy substitute for presence. It's fast, it's visible, doesn't ask anything of you the way sitting with a kid through something hard or boring or uncomfortable does. So if you're listening to this and you're worried that today's episode is about you because you bought your son a video game during a rough week, actually put that worry down.
Leah Hadley [00:13:50]:
That is not the pattern I'm describing. The pattern that concerns me is the one where spending becomes so consistent, so automatic, that nobody, including the parent doing it, ever notices the actual relationship isn't getting any real time at all. So what do you actually do with this in real time, standing in that exact moment my client was standing in? The first thing is separating the decision From the feeling that's driving it. Before you buy anything big in that competitive, guilty headspace, ask yourself plainly, am I buying this because my kid needs it or genuinely wants it and it fits the budget? Or am I buying it so I don't have to feel like the house with less? That's not a question to torture yourself over. It's just information. The same way a number on a bank statement is just information. If the honest answer is the second one, that doesn't make you a bad parent. It just means this particular purchase isn't really about your kid at all.
Leah Hadley [00:14:57]:
It's about you. And it's worth knowing that before the card comes out. The second thing is staying consistent on the ordinary, unglamorous stuff, even when everything else in your life is upside down. Bedtime, screen time rules, allowance and chores, the regular boring structure of your house that nobody ever thinks to be grateful for until it's gone. Consistency is what actually reads to a kid as safety, even more than a matching pile of presents does. A kid who can count on the rules staying the rules in the one house that still feels predictable in a season where nothing else does is getting something a gift genuinely can't give them. And the third thing, honestly, giving yourself permission to say the plain truth to your kids in an age-appropriate way, of course. Something like, this year looks different and I'm not going to pretend to you that it doesn't, but you're going to be okay and so am I.
Leah Hadley [00:16:00]:
That sentence does more for a kid over the long run than an extra gift under the tree, even though in the moment it feels like it does a lot less. Kids can carry more honesty than we usually give them credit for. What they can't carry as easily is the sense that the adults around them are scrambling to paper over something. I want to say one more thing because it genuinely matters, and I don't want to skip past it. If what you're noticing in yourself or in your kids goes beyond ordinary guilt, If a kid is really withdrawing or acting out in a way that worries you, that's not something a podcast episode or a mindset shift is going to fix. That's the moment to bring in a co-parenting counselor or a child therapist, someone trained specifically for that work. What I'm describing today is the everyday version of this pattern, the ordinary guilt that shows up in an otherwise healthy family. It's not a substitute for professional support when a kid is really struggling.
Leah Hadley [00:17:05]:
Now, I'm going to say this before I go. What we hand our kids without making them, um, wait for it, and what that quietly teaching them is not only a divorce topic. I actually wrote a whole article about this recently, um, on Substack about my youngest son asking a question about cars that has nothing to do with divorce at all. But it's the same underlying idea, entirely different season of life. So I will point to you to that resource in just a second, and we'll include a link to that in the show notes as well. If this episode described where you're at right now, I want you to hear this clearly. You should not have to make permanent financial decisions, big ones or small ones, without understanding what they'll actually cost you down the road. Most of the choices that you make in a divorce, and honestly, a lot of the choices you make as a parent inside one, are harder to undo than they look in the moment you're making them.
Leah Hadley [00:18:02]:
If you want a second set of eyes on your actual numbers, not just this year's holiday budget, but the bigger picture behind it, my team offers a divorce financial consultation and you can book it right through our website at intentionaldivorce.com on the contact page. And if you're not ready for that, we have tons of free resources. You can even just start with our divorce checklist. No pressure. Just start from where you actually are today. And if this episode landed for you, remember to go check out that piece on Substack. The publication on Substack is called Intentional Money. And this article was The Question My Son Asked That Surprised Me, But It Shouldn't Have.
Leah Hadley [00:18:43]:
It's over there. And so For sure, go check that out and I will include a link in the show notes to help you find it faster. I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I know that this is a challenging path, but we are here walking it alongside you every week and we will see you next week.
Leah Hadley [00:19:03]:
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.
