Why Most Women Come to Me Months Into Their Divorce
Most of the women I work with during a divorce don't come to me at the beginning of the process.
They come to me three months in, six months in, or sometimes a year in. The legal process is already underway. Attorneys have exchanged financial statements. Documents have been shared. And somewhere along the way, someone handed her a spreadsheet — a list of assets, account balances, maybe a proposed settlement — and said, in effect: here's what we're working with.
And she looked at it and didn't fully know what she was looking at.
I want to be clear about something before I go any further: that's not a criticism.
Understanding the financial architecture of a marriage — retirement accounts, pension valuations, deferred compensation, after-tax investment accounts, real estate equity — is genuinely complex. It's not something most people learn unless they've had a specific reason to. The fact that she doesn't immediately know what a QDRO is, or why two assets with the same stated value might not be equivalent, isn't a reflection of her intelligence or her capability. It's simply not her area of expertise.
The documents are there. The explanation often isn't.
In most divorces, financial information gets exchanged between attorneys in the form of statements, tax returns, account summaries, and proposed settlement worksheets. The legal process requires disclosure. What it doesn't require is that anyone sit down with her and walk through what she's looking at in terms she can actually use.
So she has the documents. She may even have a general sense of what's being proposed. What she often doesn't have is a clear understanding of whether what's being proposed is actually fair — not just on paper, but in real, practical, after-tax terms.
That's usually when she starts looking for answers online and how she finds me.
What changes when we sit down together
Before I look at a single document, I ask questions so I better understand what's important to her. What are her priorities? What matters most to her right now? And what does she want her life to look like when this is behind her — where she wants to live, how she wants to spend her time, whether keeping the house matters or whether she'd rather walk away with more liquid assets and a clean start.
Those conversations shape everything that comes after. A woman who wants to stay in the family home requires a completely different analysis than a woman who is open to selling it. A woman who is five years from retirement needs to think about her settlement differently than a woman who has twenty years of earning ahead of her. Understanding her priorities first means the financial analysis I do is actually useful — pointed at what matters to her rather than at some generic notion of a fair settlement.
It also tells me a lot about whether a proposed settlement is workable. Not just mathematically, but practically. Can she afford to maintain the house on a single income? Does the asset split actually support the life she's describing? Are there gaps between what's being proposed and what she actually needs that we should address before she signs anything?
Only after that conversation do we turn to the documents. And by then the documents mean something — because we're reading them against a clear picture of what she's actually trying to accomplish.
None of this is complicated once someone explains it clearly. That's the part I find genuinely meaningful about this work — watching the moment when something that felt opaque and overwhelming becomes clear. When she goes from feeling like a passenger in her own divorce to feeling like she actually understands what she's agreeing to.
Being at the table isn't the same as being part of the conversation
Sometimes it's even more stark than that. I've worked with women who didn't feel meaningfully involved in the process at all — where decisions seemed to be moving forward around them rather than with them. If that's where you are, I want you to know that's not how it has to be. You have the right to understand exactly what's happening with your own finances, and the right to have someone explain it clearly.
More often though what I hear is a version of this: "I was always included. I just didn't always understand what was being discussed."
I'm not suggesting anyone has done anything wrong in those situations. Attorneys are focused on the legal process. Financial advisors who aren't specifically trained in divorce finance may not know what questions to ask.
A Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® serves a different function. The role is specifically to bridge the gap between the legal process and her financial understanding. To translate. To advocate. To make sure that when she signs something, she knows what she's signing — and what it means for the years ahead.
What I want women to know
The ideal time to bring a financial advisor into a divorce is early — ideally before attorneys have exchanged documents and proposals are on the table. At that stage there's more room to shape the outcome rather than react to it.
But if you're already months into the process, that doesn't mean the window has closed. If you're looking at documents that don't fully make sense to you — that's normal. It doesn't mean you've fallen behind or missed something you should have caught earlier. Understanding what's been proposed — and whether it's truly fair — is valuable at any stage before you sign.
That's what I'm here for.
If you're navigating divorce later in life and want to understand the financial picture more clearly, I wrote the To New Beginnings guide specifically for you — a plain English overview of the financial decisions that matter most during this process.
Download To New Beginnings — The Financial Guide for Women 55+ Navigating Divorce
Or if you'd like to talk through your specific situation, you're welcome to schedule a 15-minute intro call.