Divorce is thoroughly devastating. Everything changes. I know, it happened to me.
I approached financial separation with hopeful intentions. Work openly and communicate well. Share information without delay. Don’t sweat the small stuff and work through to a payout figure, as I agreed to keep the family home.
After all, we were both reasonable people and we could work this out.
A quick financial agreement would be best. My former partner could use cash from the family home to buy their own property. Settlement would mean that the children would not be exposed to the issues and they could put their efforts to re-connecting with our wonderful children.
My daughter pointed out that I was about to learn my first lesson. She was right.
That assumption of “being reasonable” was about to be shattered, and along with it, so many beliefs I had made about my life from the last 26 years.
Financial disclosure was unexpectedly difficult. Disputed values for the house, cars or anything. Demands for documentation stretching back many, many years. Topics of transaction from 15 years earlier were raised. Incomplete disclosure from my former parter, including partial screenshots of apps showing unknown balances.
I was drip fed information from the opposing lawyer who with each message stated “Full and frank disclosure”. It was never full, nor frank. I received a zip files and a catalogue of those files. The index never matched what was sent. It took time to sift through and led to a lot of back and forth requesting what was missing.
Then I would receive a follow up email. "Please find attached our full and frank disclosure". My goodness.
Each iteration took 2-4 weeks. Despite my efforts to keep costs low, it was still a significant burden. This could have been done before we engaged lawyers.
I understand the fear my former partner must have felt about starting over. I was about to start over too, but with a mortgage, zero cash in the bank while a single parent with 100% care.
It took three years. Three, painfully long, wasted, years. And I am not the only one.
It is only now that it is over, I wished that I had taken a completely different approach. I was organised. I could gather all the information. I could add all our assets, liabilities and pull together information that lawyers need. What if I had a way for my former partner to agree or dispute values for the items I had recorded?
I needed a system. A system that would allow me to keep adding bank statements or updated valuations to keep current as the process dragged on. I really wished I had a dashboard to show me all information so that I could see what was missing and see all the financials to make an informed settlement proposal.
This is the idea behind Decouple. It’s what I wished I had for me.
You have a new life to begin. Settlement is not your new career.
Decouple will help you get through this process just a little easier so that you can begin to heal and start over.
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