Welcome back to the Oxendine Law podcast. I'm your host Jared Oxendine. Have my trusted co-host Christine Palmer. And today we're going to talk about a very important topic. It's something that we get asked all the time. And that is Jared Christine, how do you know when it's time to file for divorce? And really, that is a personal question. Christine, people look at us and say, "Am I crazy for thinking about filing for divorce or am I crazy for staying?" You know, and they have all these personal things they're trying to toy with back and forth to try and talk themselves into either staying or to not filing. And sometimes they are not thinking about things the right way, are they, Christine? >> That's right. I mean, you're right. It is a personal decision of like which trajectory you want your life to go down. Uh Jared and I can help you with that. We can give really good advice on that. Um, but the decision of whether we file, yes or no, it still has to be yours. So, if you've spoken to an attorney and they seem to feel like they're pressuring you toward filing rather than saying, "Is it right to file?" um, that might be a red flag. Um, they might be looking for your money instead of just your uh partnership and their business. >> Yeah. And sometimes I think you know during consultations I'll speak with clients and I'm sure you do the same thing and I'll kind of ask them some questions and they're they're questions designed for them to do some self-reflection and kind of look at this from a practical standpoint and say if this was your circumstance would you stay or would you leave? Such as if nothing changed for the next 5 years would you stay in this type of relationship? >> Right? Because the common idea is something's going to change. Like everyone believes either their situation's going to improve, their partner's going to improve or they are going to improve. You know, sometimes you think I'm just depressed. Like this isn't a bad marriage. I know it's inside me. Or the opposite. You think, well, I'm fine. Like our marriage isn't bad. He's just in a bad place. So it could be one, the other, or the marriage. But one of the three is a problem. >> Yeah. And another question may be, you know, am I staying because I really want to stay or am I staying because I'm afraid to leave? >> Sure. We see that a lot. >> Yeah. I mean, fear stops you from doing a lot of things, but these major life decisions almost always fear is a contributing factor. Even if you're supposed to leave, you're afraid to leave or if you know you're ready to leave and you're still afraid to leave. So, um, do check your fear. >> Or what about this? I've asked a client this question before. If if you were giving advice to your children and your child was sitting in front of you right now telling you the same story you're telling me, what advice would you give to your kids? Yeah. And I think people need to understand, you know, marriages have seasons. And, you know, I'm sorry, I'm just going to blow this out for all those newly married couples that are in La La Land and, you know, they're the honeymoon phase. That is wonderful in the beginning. >> Hopefully, they're not watching our podcast right now anyway, right? Like little red flag if they are, >> right? But, but every marriage has problems. Every marriage has seasons and you have seasons of difficulty. And they're going to be times where you're not on the same page. And sometimes those issues are small, sometimes they're big. But you have to ask yourself in those seasons, are we on the same page? Are we communicating through these issues? Are we both in this working towards the same goal? And if it's a major issue, are we both going to counseling or in agreement to go to counseling or going to counseling in good faith? We've had people check those boxes, right? The the spouse gets caught, you know, cheating or whatever it may be and they're like, "Oh, okay. If you really insist, I'll go to the counselor." And they show up. They just kind of sit in the corner, their hands folded, go through the motions. they don't say anything, right? You've got to recognize those signs. If you're going through that season and you're not communicating and you're not on the same page and you're not trying to, you know, turn this bad season into a good season and you're not on the same page with your other spouse, you really need to look at yourself and and answer these questions that we just posed honestly, >> right? >> And you have to be careful not to make decisions out of fear. You know, are you making this based out of fear or are you making the decision that you really should be making based on your facts and circumstances? >> Sure. Plus the people who stay just because of sheer like comfort. I have a phrase. I've told it to a lot of my clients. Everybody in my office has heard me say it. Um I am personally divorced and I say often I had no business divorcing that man. And it's a joke, but it's not. I had a good friendship, a solid foundation with my partner, but I wasn't in what I thought was a healthy marriage. And you don't have to hate your spouse to divorce your spouse. Um, my former spouse and I get along great. We're still very close. We're still good friends. We learned we're better friends than we were in the roles of husband and wife. So, don't be afraid to maybe redefine your relationship and maybe change your roles around. So, I could have easily stayed, my joke, I have no business divorcing that man is true. I had no reason. I did. I wasn't a victim of abuse. I wasn't cheated on. I didn't cheat. There wasn't some big contributing factor that's like this thing has to end, right? It was just we kind of were on different paths toward our futures. And I sit across from people every day. I have the benefit of having talked to what I feel like would be my future self. And a lot of times they say, "I wish I'd have done this 20 years ago. You know, I wish I'd have done this 10 years ago." Um because those are the people that stay too long, the ones that don't have a big event, a big episode. Um, so they think, well, it could be worse. You know, Sally down the street, imagine, you know, she had to get out. And so I think also staying out of complacency is just as dangerous sometimes as staying out of sheer fear of change. >> Yeah, I liked your ex-husband better than I like you sometimes. >> Jesus did my family. >> So, let's talk about some reasons why people do stay too long because you just kind of touched on that. We'll try to flush that out a little bit. So, common things we hear is is fear of being alone or we've got uh financial uncertainty or we've got a fear of starting over or we've got a fear about what the impact's going to be on the children >> or maybe it's what are my what's my family going to think? What are my friends going to think? And so, let's kind of hash that out. And I'll just start with the last one since the last thing I said. What is everybody going to think? You know, back in the day, you know, and I'm talking 20 plus years ago, >> when Sally down the street got a divorce, all the friends would stop being friends with Sally. We can't hang out with S anymore cuz she got divorced. >> And that and society, for better or for worse, has changed. I mean, divorce is common place. I mean, Christine, as you know, it used to be you had to prove a reason to get divorced. You had to prove that there was adultery or abandonment or some type of cruelty or else the judge will make you stay married. So, that law is long gone. And you can now get a divorce for whatever reason you want, which you know there's pros and cons about that. But the bottom line is society has evolved. And now Sally down the street sometimes when she gets a divorce is the hero of her friends. That's right. >> Yes. They're jealous. They're jealous. So let's dispel that rumor right off the bat. And then this fear of being alone. All right. It's all about how you carry yourself. If you were in a bad marriage, I guarantee you everybody could see it. It was written all over your face. It's in your attitude is how you carry yourself. And now all of a sudden you're free. You've got a new independent lease and start on life. You're out there. You're having fun. You're smiling. You look different. You feel better. People recognize that. That is the honey that's going to attract the bee, right? So, you shouldn't be concerned about that. >> You shouldn't. But also, I mean, I just caution anybody, male, female, no matter situation. If you're staying out of fear of being alone, I do encourage you to get in counseling because I said it to Jared earlier today. I am my best friend. I am my favorite company. So if you are that confident in yourself and your relationship with yourself, you will be your most attractive self. So you don't have to think about how do I find my next partner. Um if you make yourself your next partner, trust me, they'll just appear. >> And then the kids, how many times have we seen people stay in bad marriages for the kids? >> Yeah. And as a child of divorce, I will speak on that. Please don't please do not think you're fooling your kids. Don't think that you're benefiting your kids. Don't think you're setting a good example for your kids. um you are not benefiting your kids by simply staying together. Also, you hear that all the time. Well, they don't know. Like, we don't fight in front of them. Um kids are smarter than you think. Kids pick up on energy. Kids pick up on just the way that you talk to one another. So, you're not really hiding anything from your kids. There's not a proper age. Well, when they turn this age or we didn't know if you're staying together for the kids, if that's your primary reason, go ahead and call us. Well, and the psychologists actually would all agree that it's much better for kids to get out of a bad toxic household environment, even if it's just a cold feelings type of household. >> Two happy households, >> two happy households, but also see what a normal household looks like, what a normal relationship looks like before they graduate high school and are on their own. All the psychologists would agree on that. And then lastly, I think I talked about financial uncertainty. You're going to gain your financial certainty as part of the divorce. You're not going to have to argue anymore on how the bills are going to get paid or, you know, how much of your paycheck needs to be given to your spouse because they want to micromanage and control your finances. You're you're not going to be in the dark anymore on how much money is in the bank account or in the retirement account. So, you're actually taking control of your finances and you are now in control of all your own financial decisions. So, if you look at it the right way, all the reasons that people commonly use to stay too long really usually end up not being valid. At the end of the day, they're excuses. That's it. You know, you know what's right. You know where your heart is. Those are just the excuses you rely on to keeping yourself in a bad situation. >> So, I think the point today, everybody, is when you make decisions on divorce, make sure you're making it from a place of clarity rather than fear. We hope you enjoyed watching the podcast. Please be sure to subscribe on any major uh streaming platform, especially YouTube. Hit that YouTube button. You'll be the first to be notified about any future episodes. Thanks for checking us out. We'll see you next time. And for those of you that didn't know, just as a reminder, we have two locations now to serve all of our clients better. We have our Gwynette location which is located in Swani, Georgia. And we also have a location in Athens, Georgia. That is Okone County to serve all of our clients in the Walton, Jackson, Barrow, Okone, and Clark County areas. So check us out online. Uh send that contact form to us. Check us out on social media. Thanks for checking out the podcast. We look forward to serving you.