Episode 2, Divorced but Not Broken

Michael Avery: Welcome to Episode 2 of Life Chapters, Money Choices, where we explore the prevailing moments that really reshape our lives and how money weaves its way through each chapter.

Michael Avery: Now, just before COVID, and I’m going to say this right up front because this is a very personal episode for me, I went through a divorce. And I can almost feel myself cracking up as I’m talking about it as well. But the thing about it was, it threw me into a world that I felt wholly unprepared for, but it was entirely necessary.

Michael Avery: Thankfully, it was not an acrimonious divorce. We were married for about five years, but there were two young children at the centre of what we like to call, and it is a very modern term, conscious uncoupling. And it actually worked quite well. But I found myself in the midst of the pandemic, suddenly having to juggle the emotional and financial complexity of starting over again.

Michael Avery: And that’s the thing about divorce. Even when it’s amicable, it’s never simple. It’s a shift in identity. It’s a shift in your dreams and your finances. And I think it forces us to rethink who we are and what comes next.

Michael Avery: In today’s episode, we’re very fortunate to be joined by Sarah, a pseudonym, one of Kim Potgieter’s clients, who found herself rebuilding in the middle of her life after her marriage ended. She had to balance generosity with boundaries, some guilt with self-care, and discovery with financial freedom. And really, when it was all on her, what this all meant.

Michael Avery: So we’re going to explore that today and hopefully tease out some of those emotional, psychological and financial lessons that we can draw from this. So, firstly, thank you very much. And Kim Potgieter is obviously in studio with us again.

Michael Avery: Sarah, it’s a very difficult thing to have to wear your heart on your sleeve like this in a very public way. But I think it’s also quite cathartic. So maybe you could take us back to the very beginning and this new chapter. Can you take us back to when the marriage ended, and what were the emotions and feelings that were featuring in the whirlwind of what you were going through at that time?

Sarah: Oh gosh. So, the marriage ended in 2021. In 2019, I guess there was some sort of conflict in it, and we worked very hard for two years, and then it ended in 2021. And it was quite a shock for me.

Michael Avery: But it’s real. These are emotions that I still grapple with now, and it’s seven and a bit years on. You have ups and downs, good days and bad days, because no one gets married with an exit in mind. This is not private equity. We’re not the first ones looking for the exit.

Michael Avery: But sometimes in life, and certainly what I found, I was maybe very fortunate in my marriage in that our relationship actually improved as co-parents afterwards. I think we’re both much happier now that we’ve realised we dived in too young and without really knowing the core belief systems that would later become key friction points.

Sarah: Yeah, for sure. So it’s weird to me that it’s still so emotional because we’re going on four years now. I have moved on and I think I am a lot happier for it. But I suppose it takes me back to how hard it was. To be perfectly honest, it was actually a bit of a blur, what happened in that time. I just wasn’t thinking clearly. So many decisions had to be made, including financial decisions, and Kim and the team were very helpful in that process. I really leaned on them a lot for that.

Sarah: I had to move out and find a house, and there was just so much to deal with. We were lucky enough not to have children, so there wasn’t that additional emotional layer. It was just dealing with myself, which was hard enough.

Michael Avery: No, that is hard enough, trust me. But I think maybe even harder sometimes. When there are young children, you can focus on that, and it gives you a bit of space and objectivity.

Michael Avery: You weren’t solely dependent on your husband financially, were you? You had a career of your own and that kind of thing.

Sarah: Yes, I did have a career. I had actually resigned at the end of 2019, and then COVID hit. I was lucky enough to have quite a good network, and people reached out to me to do consulting. So I ended up consulting.

Sarah: Before I resigned, I had saved quite a lot of money. I had saved about a year’s salary, knowing that I was looking for something a bit different. And then it did take me by surprise to get divorced. So there was this panic of now not earning an income, even though we had some good investments and I was financially okay, which I’m very grateful for.

Sarah: But it still had a whole different dimension, because now I was not earning a salary. We were in quite a privileged position. We were both earning good salaries, had good investments and lived a good life. All of a sudden it made me quite panicky, because now I was the only one who had to provide for my future.

Sarah: When you’re used to a certain lifestyle, you have to tone down some of the fun a little bit. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to be doing. While I was having to find a house and move out, and I really loved our home that we were in, I took on a project of renovating a new place as a focus.

Sarah: That was one of the decisions that came in there. Maybe it wasn’t a great one. Kim did encourage me to rent, but I thought I would probably never move out of the house otherwise. I needed a house, or a project really, to make a home and create something that I was excited to move into. That was the journey initially, and it took a good six months.

Sarah: Then I started thinking that I really needed to do something for myself. Divorce takes its toll emotionally, and it is quite a trauma. I started looking into different courses, just to study again. I love studying, so I do tend to do it a lot. I started studying nutrition and health coaching.

Michael Avery: And so when the fog clears, you start developing this plan. But I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves on that point. Kim, take me back to the first meeting you had with Sarah. That emotional fog is something I can absolutely relate to. There was a period of about 12 months that is still very blurry in my own mind. You are in an emotional fog. It’s very difficult to see the wood for the trees at that stage.

Kim Potgieter: It really, really is. And doing the work with Sarah, you need to be patient because, as a planner, you are not in that emotional fog. You can see everything clearly. When I was working with her, I could see her potential, I could see how she could do it. But you need to take yourself back to where the client is, and be there with them.

Kim Potgieter: Four years on, seven years on, you wonder how you got through all of that. I think through the process, it is very much about knowing you have someone who can support you, someone who can be objective, and someone who can help you put the plan in place. You want to do it, but you are just not in the right mindset to do it.

Kim Potgieter: Sarah says I told her she should rent, and I did. But when I’ve been to visit her in her home and seen how happy she is there, I realise that when you’re going through a major life transition like this, you need something to go to. For Sarah, it was a home. She needed a base, a place where she could feel safe and secure. She listened to her gut. She did not follow what I said, and that was important. She found that secure place where she could heal.

Michael Avery: The important lesson in all of this is that financial planning can sometimes feel formulaic. We talk about life stages and playbooks, but we do not always see the person behind the plan. In many cases, renting may be the best financial planning advice, but it may not be the right emotional advice for the individual. No two people are the same, and you have to look at the person behind the numbers.

Kim Potgieter: That is why it is so important to take the time to get to know your client. So many times, when a client comes in, the first thing they want us to do is look at their assets. They want to go there because that is where they feel they should be going with a financial planner. They are not always sure why we are delving so much into their lives and their personal story.

Kim Potgieter: But we would do a disservice if we went straight into planning and started talking only about the numbers. Even with Sarah in the beginning, the conversations were around what number she should feel comfortable with for her divorce settlement. I have that discussion with many people going through divorce. Do you keep fighting for a higher number and put yourself through all that pain and distress, or do we work on what is fair and what can serve you for your lifetime?

Kim Potgieter: There is a whole discussion around what you need and what is fair. A lot of the time, fairness disappears because you are angry or hurt. In Sarah’s case, it was not like that, but the conversations were still difficult because she was in a fog. We were asking, “What do you want to do with your life?” And she was saying, “How would I know? I wanted to be married. I wanted to be in my home.” So you have to take it gently.

Sarah: I would add that although you had a process that you prefer to follow, mine did not necessarily follow that same process. I needed to make real decisions in quite a short space of time, especially around investments and name changes. So we flipped the process around a little. We started with what I think you would usually prefer to do at the end, made some decisions, and then went back to basics.

Michael Avery: How did you find moving through those early conversations? It must have been difficult to sit down and think about settlement figures while also going through emotional trauma. You’ve got lawyers and other people involved, and it can feel very impersonal. How did you manage that space?

Sarah: I don’t really remember. But although I didn’t want the divorce, I also didn’t fight it. It was relatively amicable. We used one divorce lawyer, and it was not too complicated. There were certain investments and a bit of back and forth, but it was more about deciding what to do.

Sarah: Because you are in such a fog, you are not really sure if you are being taken advantage of or not. I did get some consulting on the side, just to know. I did not want to fight, and I did not want it to be prolonged, but I also felt I deserved what was fair to me. I always said from the start, “I don’t want anything else that isn’t mine, but what is mine I want fairly.”

Sarah: It was a bit more complicated because there were family businesses involved, and I did not want any part of that. But you do feel that maybe people are not playing open cards. Kim was very helpful in helping me see through some of that. I also got legal advice, but it was not too complicated in the end. It just needed to be done.

Sarah: Then the emotional side came. After all the admin, there were so many decisions that had to be made. You just do them, but you do not know if you are doing them correctly. I am quite a perfectionist and a control freak. I like to plan and know what is happening. So this was very hard for me because I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I was going.

Sarah: I made a decision to take a little bit of a break, and I had enough money to do that. Then I started studying, and that gave me a little confidence, purpose and something to hold on to.

Michael Avery: I found exactly the same. Creating routines, studying, yoga and running were hugely beneficial for helping me re-anchor. So often we feel like a small boat cast out into a vast ocean during this process.

Michael Avery: Kim, how do you work with your clients to not just make decisions about money, but to begin crafting a new sense of identity after divorce? Because that is often one of the things that is completely deconstructed. Who am I now that I am no longer this person’s wife, husband, or part of a couple?

Kim Potgieter: I love what you said about routine. I think I even mentioned that to Sarah in the beginning. Your whole identity is gone. Your routine is gone. Everything is gone. So it is about re-establishing that and putting small routines in place that can give you a little bit of comfort. Whether it is walking in the morning, journalling, reading or yoga, it becomes part of your new identity.

Kim Potgieter: When we started doing the life planning process, even though we did not begin with it, we went back to it. It is around asking, “Who am I now?” That is such a difficult question to answer in the beginning. But if you can start with small things, such as waking up at six and having your cup of coffee on the veranda, those little things start creating an identity of who you are.

Kim Potgieter: The more you do that, the more confident you become. That is what I love seeing in people. When they start doing those little things, they suddenly realise, “But I’m actually okay.” And when they can say that out loud, then I know we are getting somewhere.

Michael Avery: That is such an important line, “I’m actually okay.” And it often takes a long time to get there. Sarah, you spoke about needing purpose. Can you tell us how the nutrition and health coaching journey gave you that sense of direction?

Sarah: I just needed something to focus on. Although I had done some part-time consulting work, and I knew I could go back into that space, I was not feeling very fulfilled. I had been interested in health, wellness and food for a long time, so I looked up a course and thought, let me do this.

Sarah: I found it quite tough to study during that time. My concentration and my brain were not functioning at their best. But I really enjoyed the course, then I got involved with another company and have been doing a bit of work with them.

Sarah: Then I did a health coaching course, which I also really enjoyed, and I think it helped me in my own healing. It helped me feel better about myself and start thinking about what I enjoy doing. It is not only about what will earn the most money. It is also about how I want to spend my day and what I want to do with my time.

Sarah: I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to do that, because I know many people do not have that chance to figure it out. Kim has been very helpful in helping me see the potential in that and not only focus on the money side.

Michael Avery: Beautifully put. And just before we wrap, Kim, any final thoughts for anyone listening who may be at the beginning of a divorce journey and feeling overwhelmed by the emotional and financial unknown?

Kim Potgieter: I think the biggest thing is that you are stronger than you think. You are going to get through it. You need to have a team around you, whether that is your best friend, your sister, your financial planner or your therapist. Build that team around you.

Kim Potgieter: And as Sarah said, take it one step at a time. You do not have to know all the answers today. Start with one small thing you can do today to take care of yourself, whether that is making your bed, eating a healthy meal or going for a walk. That is how you start. That is how healing begins.

Sarah: Get a support system. Surround yourself with people who love you. Have small goals and work towards those. Eventually, you wake up one day and realise you are not crying every day. You do get through it. And I am a lot happier for it. But it is a process.

Michael Avery: Well, thank you for joining us, Sarah. And Kim, as always, thank you for your heart and wisdom.

Michael Avery: This has been a deeply personal episode of Life Chapters, Money Choices. If you are listening and you are in the middle of a difficult chapter, I hope you heard something here that made you feel a little less alone. Until next time, I’m Michael Avery. Thanks for listening.