Keeping it real in the divorce space from a law perspective - Sara Khaki, J.D. || Don’t Pick the Scab Podcast #036 || David M. Webb

[00:00:15] Welcome to the DONT PICK THE SCAB PODCAST with the premise of connecting man over 40 with the tools and community

[00:00:23] To thrive in their divorce recovery either before during or after a divorce

[00:00:28] Check it out. Welcome everybody out there to don't pick the scab podcast episode 36

[00:00:33] Welcome Sarah khaki to the show is khaki correct? I never asked you that yes

[00:00:38] All right, Sarah khaki on the show

[00:00:41] She's a founding member of the Atlanta divorce law group Sarah has numerous awards and accolades

[00:00:46] Just suffice to say she is a kick-ass family law attorney. There we go

[00:00:53] So my first question is what drew you to law when you were younger and why family law? What was your segue?

[00:01:00] so David I

[00:01:02] Am of Iranian descent

[00:01:04] I was born in Iran and my family escaped Iran when I was a baby and I was three years old and we took refuge in

[00:01:13] Sweden and

[00:01:14] I then left Sweden when I was 13 years old and came to the United States as a middle schooler and

[00:01:22] Very quickly fell in love with the US Constitution. I've lived in this is the third continent

[00:01:27] I've lived in I've been to many different countries

[00:01:30] I consider myself a

[00:01:31] International citizen at this point, but I've never seen anything as beautiful as the Constitution

[00:01:37] And I fell in love with it the minute I got to study it as early as I was exposed to American history in

[00:01:44] Middle school and knew very even when I tried as hard as I tried to be a doctor just like every good Persian girl is supposed to be

[00:01:53] To go to the next best thing

[00:01:56] You know, I think if you have any middle eastern

[00:02:00] Listeners they can relate that we have one mission in life from our parents

[00:02:05] Doctor lawyer engineer and it's pretty much in that order

[00:02:09] Nobody wants to be a dentist. Thanks

[00:02:13] No, I can't even go to the dentist

[00:02:17] I don't know what's worse go to the dentist or a lawyer's office

[00:02:22] I

[00:02:24] Anyways, yeah, so how did you pick family law of all this?

[00:02:27] So when I was on in my summers when I when I was in law school

[00:02:31] I would intern for a family law firm and loved it and but I didn't come out straight to family

[00:02:37] I first started doing social security disability and I enjoyed it

[00:02:41] But not as much as I had enjoyed doing the family law work

[00:02:44] I was doing in this when I was a summer interned as a law student

[00:02:47] And I knew I had to work with people that was always the thing I knew I wanted to

[00:02:53] Get results through people and be involved in people's lives and feel like I'm making a difference in people's lives

[00:02:58] I'm one of those co-cliche lawyers that read John Grisham and you know thought I was gonna go change the world with the

[00:03:07] Yes, exactly

[00:03:09] so I knew it had to be with people and I

[00:03:12] Come from a very large family like I call it my big fat Persian family and

[00:03:18] What drew me to family law was it's

[00:03:22] It is all the things that makes family so wonderful

[00:03:25] But also so messy and so emotional and I love the part of it that at the end of the day

[00:03:32] Family law is a real view of what humans are like. We're messy people. There's no black and whites

[00:03:39] We are we make messes

[00:03:42] We have we can have the best intentions. There is nothing that you can just look at somebody and say

[00:03:47] Oh, I know 100% what I'm getting here and no family law is ever the same because

[00:03:53] It's all about humans and their emotions

[00:03:56] I always tell our clients this as much as we would love for divorce cases to be transactional

[00:04:01] What doesn't make them transactional is all the human elements all the psychology all the reasons why one person has

[00:04:08] resentment and is not using just straight

[00:04:12] Calculations and deciding what they want out of it. There's always a backstory behind the numbers

[00:04:17] And I think that's all fascinating and I'm just a fan of family

[00:04:22] I'm I'm a loyal person through and through and I love helping people who have done everything

[00:04:28] They can to fight for their family and in their gut

[00:04:31] They feel that they are have to make another hard decision now and I want them to find the legal team

[00:04:39] That helps them feel like they're making the right decision. They can look themselves

[00:04:43] You know five years down the line and say, you know what I did everything

[00:04:47] I could all the way down to find picking there my attorney

[00:04:51] Wow, what are some of the family values you grew up with that translates into your law practice

[00:04:59] for you practicing law

[00:05:01] Yeah, that's such a great question. Um, okay self-responsibility is a big one

[00:05:05] I always laugh because I'm one of those moms that my kid comes home with like a bruise or something

[00:05:14] Inside I'm like

[00:05:19] Just like nobody touches my child

[00:05:20] But then my mom voice coming comes in my head just I could never my mom never sided with me on anything

[00:05:26] So if I went to my mom and I said hey so and so was mean to me

[00:05:30] She said well, what did you do and that is a huge?

[00:05:33] I think value that she placed in me because I think it is our job as advocates for our clients

[00:05:40] No matter how loyal we are to our clients no matter how much we want to fight for them

[00:05:44] The best thing we can also do for them is to show them. What is the other story the other person's telling?

[00:05:51] What are they going home?

[00:05:53] Telling their mom. What are they going home and going to their lawyer's office that telling their lawyer's office?

[00:05:58] And if we only give our clients

[00:06:01] Advocating for them to just get clear clear on their story and never giving them chance to say do you see why?

[00:06:08] the psychology on the other end is

[00:06:11] Going to drive this a different direction if we're not ahead of it

[00:06:14] I think that part is very important and it a lot of self-responsibility because the ultimate freedom from this comes from

[00:06:21] Self-responsibility and otherwise you are going to be a victim to the circumstance for the rest of your life

[00:06:27] Wow, well, let's talk about the inward narcissism that was pretty cool wasn't it?

[00:06:33] But it was called something else before but just on the past couple of years

[00:06:38] Narcissism has grown

[00:06:41] exponentially in the court system and

[00:06:43] The psychology system. How does that play a part with us some of your decisions or or how you approach a case?

[00:06:50] I have to tell you when the word narcissists started taking a hold

[00:06:55] Years back. I thought it was just another buzzword. There's a lot of buzzwords. There's a lot of psychological buzzwords going around and

[00:07:03] I don't know if it's age or experience or just having talked to so many people

[00:07:09] It's real David like it is hundred percent real

[00:07:13] I wish it wasn't I wish it was in our heads and I come from such a

[00:07:19] Loving sheltered family that it is hard for me

[00:07:22] That was hard for me to accept that this is a real thing and

[00:07:26] One of the things I do when I have a consult with a client and they're telling me they're in an abusive situation

[00:07:32] I really want to find out. What do they mean by abuse because?

[00:07:37] You have every marriage is

[00:07:39] Is gonna have fights and people have different definitions of what's fair in a fight

[00:07:45] And what can be said in a fight and how you move past it?

[00:07:48] But when I learn a little bit more about

[00:07:52] Why do you think you're in an abusive situation? They start giving me examples?

[00:07:57] I can start seeing the pattern and there is a pattern that you can diagnose. I'm not a psychologist

[00:08:03] I'm not a psych psychiatrist

[00:08:05] I can't diagnose anybody as a narcissist, but I can tell you when I see the narcissistic traits

[00:08:10] I can see when somebody is not willing to take any accountability

[00:08:14] and in the relationship and I and you know sometimes we both know this in any relationship in life friendship

[00:08:22] Partnership whatever it's not always going to be 50-50

[00:08:25] Sometimes one person has to carry 90 the other person has to carry 10

[00:08:28] But when you have a situation where the other person has no

[00:08:32] Accountability no percentage whatsoever

[00:08:35] They're either always have to there's there's two identities that they that's always coming into play

[00:08:41] They're either the charming person that everybody likes and they get the raptor identity and all the the greatness about them

[00:08:48] And their status or it's the victim

[00:08:51] So it's those are the two faces you see and then there's no empathy everything is

[00:08:57] There's no self-awareness and

[00:09:00] You can quickly

[00:09:01] When you poke at it enough and you ask enough questions

[00:09:05] You can see when somebody has no self-awareness versus when you have a client that's sitting there and saying I

[00:09:12] This is what my part in this was I have I haven't been an angel either. Here's all the things I've done wrong

[00:09:18] Here's the things I wish I'd done better. Here's all the ways. I wish we could have gone to therapy or we could have worked on it

[00:09:23] Versus a person that's just completely a victim has no

[00:09:28] Accountability for it at all and they're playing mind games and controlling games and it's and it's absolutely real

[00:09:35] Do I think the word gets overused?

[00:09:38] 100% but that doesn't minimize the mitigate the fact that there's a lot of people that are

[00:09:45] Isolated and living in the dark with narcissists and they could be our neighbors and we don't know because

[00:09:51] Narcissists are not that easily identifiable to the naked eye. You have to spend some time with them

[00:09:57] You have to almost corner them and put them in a spot where their identity is attacked a little bit till you see it

[00:10:04] Wow, very interesting. So let's do another buzzword since some buzzwords

[00:10:09] Parental alienation. Oh man. We're on a roll baby

[00:10:17] Come on give it to me Sarah. All right. All right. All right. So I think

[00:10:23] Parental alienation has a fine line a slippery slope between I am protecting my child

[00:10:31] Okay, right. I am a parent first

[00:10:34] I am gonna put my child first versus parental alienation and I think that when you are in a high conflict

[00:10:42] divorce or

[00:10:43] relationship it is a really hard line to walk because I

[00:10:48] Can't speak for the entire country, but I can speak for the state

[00:10:51] I have a bar licenses was just in Georgia in

[00:10:54] Georgia when we have somebody who is

[00:10:58] Tiptoeing the line between oh, I'm gonna give you I'm gonna buy the kids all these things

[00:11:05] But not give you any child support, right? Or I'm always gonna show up a little bit late or here's my new boyfriend

[00:11:12] All those things and that's just they're just tiptoeing the line and they're triggering the other person

[00:11:18] That other person can't quick cannot

[00:11:21] Start just keeping the child away from the other parents

[00:11:25] It could be considered parental alienation

[00:11:27] And if they're with somebody that is not

[00:11:30] Co-parenting with them in a positive way, then it becomes a real problem. So I think you have

[00:11:36] Let your ranges of parental alienation

[00:11:39] I think you have the one that

[00:11:42] To your point it's a buzzword and it could be apparent that it's truly at their wits end

[00:11:47] Trying to use the system and the system is not perfect

[00:11:51] We know this as much as possible and alarm the system and the system keeps saying hasn't gotten bad enough

[00:11:57] They haven't done enough bad things. You got a play like you got to let them fail more

[00:12:02] But it's like you want them to keep failing on my child on my watch. That's really hard pill to swallow

[00:12:08] It's really hard for me to tell a client. I'm so sorry

[00:12:11] But you're gonna have to go drop your children off with her when you know that most likely her boyfriend might come over the whole

[00:12:17] Time right and we have all these safety measures, but they're not perfect. None of them are correct

[00:12:24] So there's that and then there's just straight up crazy, right?

[00:12:28] bad talking dad

[00:12:31] That's the other range just bad talking dad

[00:12:35] Telling dad about telling the children about the reasons for the divorce or why mom marked out on you or

[00:12:41] Just telling the children lies and making the children hate the other parent

[00:12:46] So I think you have a range of it and I think the word gets used a lot by both sides

[00:12:55] The crazy people and also sometimes it gets overused

[00:12:59] When people are really just fun trying to find a way to protect their children at the end of the day I

[00:13:05] Think you've really got to know the circumstances and you have to do everything

[00:13:10] To show that you've mitigated and you've communicated

[00:13:14] But I always tell clients, you know what there's a legal system

[00:13:16] And then there's you as a parent and I will never stand in the way

[00:13:20] Between a client and their parental instinct

[00:13:23] Wow

[00:13:25] Wow

[00:13:27] I got that passion going man with two questions

[00:13:32] Man oh

[00:13:34] Man that was pretty interesting

[00:13:38] Wow

[00:13:39] So rebuilding the confidence after divorce, you know, do you I know you're not therapists this any other

[00:13:46] How do you not try to?

[00:13:49] Therapies which is not a verb by the way

[00:13:51] Therapies clients. How do you how do you hold that back?

[00:13:54] You know, I have personally done a lot of personal development and coaching

[00:14:00] Mm-hmm, and I haven't done any therapy just full transparency

[00:14:04] I advised therapy for all of our clients because I've seen the results in our clients with therapy

[00:14:08] But I have a bit of any therapy myself, but I've gone through

[00:14:12] thousands of dollars in personal development work and

[00:14:15] Coaching okay, and I and I do consider myself that one of the hats I wear is a coach to our clients

[00:14:21] I'm not

[00:14:23] Advertising myself or marketing myself or have a package up to sell as a divorce coach

[00:14:28] But I do think that what sets

[00:14:32] our team apart is that as

[00:14:35] The founder of the firm. I'm evangelizing the rest of the team on how to challenge the mindset of our clients

[00:14:42] interesting

[00:14:44] Wow, what about something different two things?

[00:14:48] grandparents rights and pet custody

[00:14:50] How do you that those are those are two that are so foreign to me at this point, but it's very very common lately

[00:15:00] Yeah, and I think

[00:15:02] You know, I'm a big fan of grandparents rights

[00:15:05] Because not when it's not when they are causing more harm than good and getting in and their

[00:15:12] Overstepping boundaries, but in almost every case we've dealt with with grandparents rights

[00:15:17] This has been

[00:15:18] grandparents who would want nothing more than for their own child or for the other

[00:15:23] Parents to step up and be the right parent

[00:15:26] But when you see your own flesh and blood or even your adoptive grandchildren being hurt and you just seeing children getting hurt

[00:15:34] I admire the grandparents that take their retirement money and their retirement time and

[00:15:41] Spend it on attorneys like us to go and fight the system to get custody

[00:15:46] And we're talking about grandparents who were retired and coming out of retirement to go work

[00:15:51] So that they can now become parents who should have the energy of 30 and 40 year olds, right?

[00:15:57] so

[00:15:58] I

[00:15:59] I've seen more good than bad and grandparents

[00:16:02] Of course, I think there's always the outlier situation

[00:16:05] But if you take the bell curve, which is the reasonable person

[00:16:09] Which is what the system always wants this to any law you look at wants to evaluate the reasonable person

[00:16:16] with the reasonable person want in their 60s or 70s

[00:16:22] Come in and spend

[00:16:24] Their time that was supposed to be meant for retirement and their money

[00:16:27] That's supposed to be their nest egg on going through a court battle to protect their grandchildren

[00:16:32] And now have to go through soccer practices do work stay up late and do homework and prepare lunches

[00:16:38] I don't think the bell curve reasonable person would like to do that

[00:16:43] So I do think grandparents rights is not to be taken lightly and I do

[00:16:48] Have deep respect for grandparents who step up and

[00:16:52] Look at a situation that's dysfunctional and want to do everything they can to protect the children

[00:16:58] What about pets?

[00:17:00] I

[00:17:05] David I'm gonna ask you what happened with you and your pets absolutely nothing believe or not

[00:17:09] Is there a story there? There's no story

[00:17:13] Well, you know you have two types of people you have the people who like people more than you have the people like animals more and

[00:17:20] I

[00:17:22] To me it depends on the pet or they animal or the human

[00:17:25] When I would prefer have you seen the tug of war and of course I have

[00:17:30] And I have seen people that actually delay getting divorced because of it

[00:17:35] Not not not that many but yeah, if it is your child if you really think of your pet as your child

[00:17:40] But the court system treats it as property and there is no there. You know that is difficult

[00:17:48] There have been many cases we've seen though where they actually come up with their own

[00:17:52] Arrangement where they share the custody of the pet but nothing that the court's really gonna uphold

[00:17:58] It's again, I think it's an outlier situation most reasonable people that we deal with

[00:18:04] understand that okay if

[00:18:07] If they if the other person was the one who was a main caretaker for the dog

[00:18:11] Maybe he or she should have the dog

[00:18:14] I'm gonna miss the dog

[00:18:16] In any home usually there is that one person that's the alpha person for the animal and

[00:18:22] When push comes to shove and you've had that you've had enough and you want to be divorced bad enough

[00:18:27] Mm-hmm, believe me David. You'll walk away from the pet walk away from that dog. Sorry

[00:18:32] In the state of Georgia have you seen well most most days I think are they swaying more toward a 5050?

[00:18:41] Co-parenting time because I remember back of the day because I'm older than you just a couple years

[00:18:45] There was a couple years

[00:18:47] There was a movie called Kramer versus Kramer and

[00:18:52] They did the 80 20 like ever the weekend and I was like man, I am not an ever-the-week-end father

[00:18:58] So I have a movie is heart wrenching. Oh, yeah

[00:19:01] It is and I fought for 50% and we did 50%

[00:19:05] And and I loved it and it was a great time and and now my kids are grown and they they survived

[00:19:11] But people don't realize that kids are more resilient than they think

[00:19:16] 100% yeah, and go ahead

[00:19:19] Yeah, I 50 50 is

[00:19:22] Is it became very trendy about 10 years ago and not all the counties in Georgia?

[00:19:28] And and each county has judges that are feel different way about it

[00:19:33] Not all the counties in Georgia were went above and beyond with it

[00:19:37] But some of the more some of the main counties here in area. I'm in the Atlanta metropolitan area like Fulton

[00:19:44] Decav they they are a little bit more progressive. They like to do newer pool or different things

[00:19:50] So 50 50 took was became very trendy with them

[00:19:53] But there's also a lot of studies that have come out now

[00:19:57] That say it actually turns out to be a lot of parallel parenting because 50 50 at its heart supposed to be a lot of

[00:20:04] Collaboration a lot of communication

[00:20:07] still partnering together in the care for the children and

[00:20:11] that is

[00:20:13] It's an ideal thing and I think a lot of people have been able to do it successfully and have written about it and talked

[00:20:20] About it, but I don't think everybody pulls it off as well

[00:20:23] So I think that it's one of those things that you really have to be honest with yourselves and say

[00:20:28] are we can we parent partner up and parenting together and

[00:20:33] Sometimes it's hard to say that when you're in the heat of divorce

[00:20:37] There are people that have a don't have a pleasant divorce

[00:20:40] But once the pain wears off and they've grieved it and they're over it

[00:20:44] They're able to put that aside and go into partner up with each other on

[00:20:50] Co-parenting and that might take some time. So I

[00:20:54] Personally, I like to really know when somebody tells me 50 50. Why do you want 50 50? Is it because

[00:21:02] It's the new trend you've heard about and all the neighbors are talking about it and I understand two perspectives

[00:21:12] Or so let's talk about that could it be the child support issue because there's two perspectives

[00:21:17] I have come across one is the woman who would be ashamed to ever say she wants anything less than 50 50 custody

[00:21:26] But she doesn't really want 50 50 or more but she is it's an it's a

[00:21:33] Cultural societal thing that women are supposed to want their kids

[00:21:37] But just because you're a mother doesn't make you a good one and just because you're a woman

[00:21:43] Doesn't make you a natural caregiver, right?

[00:21:47] so but I think that we have this expectation that

[00:21:51] Even though we're supposed to be away from the law supposed to be gender-neutral

[00:21:57] It's humans applying this law and we're talking about humans are messy

[00:22:01] And we have all this psychology and all the societal patterns and rules inside of us

[00:22:07] So I think sometimes you're not getting the honest truth from

[00:22:11] The mother in the picture on what do you really want? You haven't been he's been the primary caretaker

[00:22:17] He's the one working from home. You're traveling all the time you are out on the weekends

[00:22:23] Building business whatever whatever doesn't matter, but is this really what you want versus do you feel compelled to say that?

[00:22:31] Because it feels shameful to admit that you want less. I think you also have the other side which is for the father

[00:22:37] I think there's a huge expectation of our society now that you know fathers need to step it up

[00:22:43] And there's this thing such as 50-50 whereas before before 50-50 became trendy

[00:22:48] I think men had an easier time accepting the fact that okay

[00:22:52] I guess she'll be the primary caretaker and I'll have visitation and and even though in their heart

[00:22:58] They wanted more they weren't saying that but I think now that we have this 50-50 option

[00:23:03] Men also come up feel this sort of weight to say well

[00:23:07] I guess I should be asking for 50-50 and

[00:23:10] Could it be because of the child support because neither party wants to pay for the child support?

[00:23:14] But in Georgia you the state has an interest in child support that all matters of the child

[00:23:21] It's not just between the parents the state has an interest as well

[00:23:25] So you have to satisfy the state's interest to do the child custody arrangement and the child support arrangement

[00:23:30] So just because you have 50-50 in Georgia doesn't mean you get away from child support

[00:23:36] Long story short David

[00:23:38] 50-50 it's I think it's a beautiful ideal

[00:23:42] State that allows children to have a significant relationship with both parents

[00:23:47] But if it sets the child up for disappointment if it sets the child up for being ping-pong between two homes we're better off

[00:23:56] Doing something more

[00:23:58] Old-fashioned different. Okay. What about the multicultural family divorce? That's got to be interesting

[00:24:06] Uh, what if what if you dealt with that that that puts some different nuances into it?

[00:24:12] You know, some of the things I see is

[00:24:16] a when we have

[00:24:18] somebody who is married to um

[00:24:20] An immigrant like myself who has a lot of family abroad and now that they're divorced they have expectations of i'm gonna want to go

[00:24:28] Um across seas with my children, you know travel with the children to another to my homeland

[00:24:35] Um, that's that's a that that can be a tense

[00:24:38] situation

[00:24:39] Especially if you're you know, you're in a conflict with this person

[00:24:42] You're getting through the divorce and now they want to travel with your child to another country

[00:24:46] And if you have any concerns that they're not going to come back with a child

[00:24:49] So that's a huge multicultural issue we face. The other one is um

[00:24:54] you know

[00:24:55] The religious stuff if we we have seen

[00:24:59] where

[00:25:01] The divorce happens one parent all sudden becomes very involved in a congregation of any spiritual practice

[00:25:09] and

[00:25:09] Brings a child into it and the other parent is freaking out because

[00:25:14] They're coming the child is not is coming back with a completely different behavioral issues. So that's some

[00:25:20] Issues we see with the religious aspects. Um

[00:25:24] You know multicultural i'll tell you

[00:25:27] You have living in it being a family law firm in

[00:25:31] The metropolitan atlanta area, which is a very i believe we have a diverse city

[00:25:36] You have to be aware of some of the major factors and some of the big cultures we have here. Um

[00:25:42] For instance, you need to know what a dowry is a lot of internet countries like iran india

[00:25:48] They have a lot of these countries have something called a dowry

[00:25:50] Which is sort of like a down payment you put down at the time of marriage so that in case of divorce

[00:25:55] One person has to hand it over to the other and sometimes those things are negotiated in the divorce here in america

[00:26:02] But you've got to know these factors

[00:26:03] The other thing you need to understand is that some other cultures

[00:26:07] The whole family gets involved in the divorce and that's very common in some of the indian divorces that we handle

[00:26:13] We literally have to have both sides of the family that want to be involved in mediating it

[00:26:18] So we kind of have to set some expectations of what does this process look like for the court system?

[00:26:23] Court system may not listen to both sides

[00:26:26] We've had indian couples before that are like

[00:26:28] Can we please help us get divorced and get through the finish line and keep it super private because

[00:26:35] We don't we want to be done and then tell our families otherwise our families are going to have a meeting and um tell us

[00:26:42] You know what to do so

[00:26:44] I do think that

[00:26:46] There's obviously you don't want to stereotype anything because you never know right like i

[00:26:52] i moved to um this country with

[00:26:57] Looking like a middle eastern but with a swedish accent wearing european clothes

[00:27:01] So nobody could stereotype me into anything they had no clue what they were dealing with

[00:27:05] So you never know what a person's full background is but i do think

[00:27:09] Understanding the cultural significance of their heritage and if what that will do to the psychology of the case

[00:27:16] And how hard is this pill of divorce for them to swallow because of their cultural background and their heritage

[00:27:24] And helping them through that um

[00:27:26] Week and and i'll be frank with you if there's a way to leverage that in the opposing party like for instance

[00:27:32] Hey, he does not want anybody to know that he's going through divorce because in his culture and or his religion or his family's religion

[00:27:40] This is super shameful

[00:27:42] Okay, well can we leverage that to get a settlement agreement and get this thing done and get some of the things we want

[00:27:49] negotiated quickly because

[00:27:52] his pain point is privacy

[00:27:54] And protecting his cultural identity

[00:27:58] We can give that to him in a silver platter if he's willing to give us x y and z in a silver platter

[00:28:04] Wow sarah you're not gonna not gonna socks office

[00:28:07] We already do

[00:28:10] How can and i saw this too on on your website or or somewhere

[00:28:15] How can social media be used in family court? What's a good general example of that?

[00:28:22] so

[00:28:23] We have you all social media posts

[00:28:27] Even if they're old if there's a screenshot of them we can use them as evidence here in our state in georgia

[00:28:32] And so you can submit all of that

[00:28:35] Now let's say

[00:28:38] David that we have a client a female client that's saying that she's not earning any money. She has no income

[00:28:46] um, she can't support herself and she needs x amount of child support because of it and she needs this much

[00:28:52] Alamoni because of it and

[00:28:54] We go on social media and look her up and we see

[00:28:59] You know pictures of her with extravagant travel pictures of her

[00:29:04] and

[00:29:06] showing off that she's shopping pictures of herself, you know

[00:29:10] Doing luxurious things that don't look like any kind of necessity

[00:29:15] Or maybe bragging about a new deal. She just closed

[00:29:19] We're gonna use that

[00:29:22] Interesting wow

[00:29:24] I just learned something men

[00:29:26] to stay off social media

[00:29:28] Stay off social media and you know

[00:29:30] That is a bit of an extreme example. What usually happens is not that black and white what usually happens is

[00:29:38] She still might have access to your social media

[00:29:40] Do you don't even know about it? And she's watching you message with other people

[00:29:45] And flirting and even though it might not do anything in your state because you're a no fault state

[00:29:50] and the

[00:29:53] Flirtation you're engaging in doesn't have any legal standing

[00:29:57] But guess what you just fueled the fire of somebody who is now

[00:30:02] going to find reasons

[00:30:04] To trigger you and you know pick at you and make this more costly and drag it out

[00:30:11] Not for rational reasons, but because what she saw she wants to punish you for it

[00:30:16] Wow

[00:30:18] all right, so

[00:30:19] The last question you got three people

[00:30:23] And you can tell these three people to tell each person one thing

[00:30:27] What are the three most important things you want to tell men there over 40 going through a divorce?

[00:30:33] What are the three? Okay, so this is this is to tell men over 40 going through divorce. Yes

[00:30:40] All right, here's the first one. All right

[00:30:43] Don't get engaged

[00:30:46] Right after

[00:30:49] I didn't see that one coming

[00:30:54] You said it was going to be fun. So how much how much how much time was the what's the timeline?

[00:30:59] So I believe statistically speaking

[00:31:02] Um men get engaged within 18 months

[00:31:05] After getting divorced dumbasses

[00:31:10] Yeah, so that's one okay two

[00:31:15] Even if the kids

[00:31:18] Are shunning you out

[00:31:20] And are putting all the blame on you

[00:31:23] Don't stop fighting for them because they will come to an age

[00:31:28] Where they will see clearly for themselves

[00:31:31] And we'll realize that man dad fought for me no matter what dad didn't give up on me

[00:31:37] And you want to be able to look yourself in the mirror and say I never stopped fighting for them

[00:31:42] I am promising you. I know when they're teenagers. It's really hard

[00:31:47] And I know that it's they're going to be connected to their caretaker if it's the mom

[00:31:52] And you feel that you've been basically taken out of the picture

[00:31:57] But don't stop and any shape or form

[00:32:00] Do not stop fighting for them because even if you don't get to have that relationship with them as a minor

[00:32:05] When they are an adult

[00:32:06] Nine out of ten times they will go through therapy and then with and talk about their their parents divorce to a therapist

[00:32:13] And they will start pulling the threads apart and realizing

[00:32:17] Man dad actually never really gave up on me. Dad actually did not have been huge

[00:32:23] and number three

[00:32:26] And I thought two was so good. I like

[00:32:31] Number three, number three hold on I got it in me. I got it in me

[00:32:34] No, I I think number three is

[00:32:37] You should not use the divorce process

[00:32:41] To throw away your future because you're buying your guilt away

[00:32:44] And I see this a lot in men if they are there is something in the marriage

[00:32:50] That they feel guilty about whether I worked too much and I didn't take care of her enough. I wasn't there for her enough or

[00:32:56] I

[00:32:58] had a flirtation with somebody else or there was infidelity or

[00:33:02] I wasn't involved enough or

[00:33:05] I should have stood up to her and said no when she was about to make that really dumb decision

[00:33:10] If there is something in the marriage that you take responsibility for being the breakdown of your marriage

[00:33:17] The answer isn't

[00:33:18] throwing all your

[00:33:20] Life savings all of your life's work financially on that guilt to make it go away

[00:33:26] And you come out of the divorce in a terrible situation where you can't take care of yourself or your children

[00:33:32] Because you were hoping that if you just give her

[00:33:35] Beyond what is fair

[00:33:37] You can crush this guilt you feel inside take therapy for that, but you still

[00:33:42] Know in your heart

[00:33:44] Financially you're still responsible for your children and you are responsible for you

[00:33:49] So don't flush it all down the drain because there's there's guilt talking. Don't fall into the guilt

[00:33:55] Right. Wow. Well, sir. I want to thank you. This has been awesome. This is way

[00:34:00] Better than I thought it be because you never know going into a podcast as we said before

[00:34:04] Uh, let the listeners out there know where to find you your website all that good stuff

[00:34:10] So you can find us on atlanta divorce law group dot com

[00:34:15] and we also have a podcast the happily ever after divorce podcast and

[00:34:21] Guess what? We're coming out with a narcissist book as well

[00:34:26] So yes, if you follow us in atlanta divorce law group, you'll get all the latest news on us and um,

[00:34:31] We can be of any service we'd glad to

[00:34:33] Well, we want to thank you

[00:34:34] We're going to have all that those contacts in the above in the show knows

[00:34:37] But we want to thank sarah for taking time and hanging out with us and this was definitely worth waiting after work for this

[00:34:43] I I really appreciate it sarah. I

[00:34:46] I was my pleasure same. Yeah, so you take care and have a nice night. Bye. Bye. You too. Bye. Bye

[00:34:55] You