Podcast: Challenging Divorce Misconceptions – Never in Reverse Interview

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The Biggest Misconception About Divorce

Jeremy Axel: What’s the biggest misconception that our society has put on our culture around what divorce truly is?

Joe Dillon: Number one is that it has to be a knockdown dragout battle. That it has to be where you just light the powder keg and blow the thing up.

Introduction

Meet Joe Dillon, a pioneer in divorce mediation who’s been helping couples end their marriages with dignity and financial clarity for over 17 years. As a co-founder of Equitable Mediation Services, Joe combines his MBA in finance and specialized training from Harvard, MIT and Northwestern University to guide couples towards emotionally and financially sound agreements. Joe brings personal empathy and professional expertise to his work, helping couples focus on creating agreements that truly work for everyone. Beyond mediation, Joe is a devoted husband, dad, dog owner, and community caretaker passionate about service, food, and music.

Jeremy: Hey everybody, welcome back to Never in Reverse podcast. I’m your host Jeremy Axel. Today we’re diving into a new series, the guest series. We have a very special guest coming on. The gentleman, his name is Joe Dillon. Welcome to the show, Joe.

Joe: Hey, thanks for having me, Jeremy. Looking forward to talking to you.

Jeremy: Yeah, man. Where are you located today?

Joe: San Diego. Beautiful Southern California. But I paid my dues. Originally from the east coast and then spent some time in Chicago. So I’ve earned this weather.

Jeremy: Is that where you live now?

Joe: Yeah. My wife wanted to move out here her whole life and by nature I’m a city guy, but it’s pretty hard to complain in January when you’re sitting outside and you go, “Oh, I need a sweatshirt.” So it’s actually very nice.

Jeremy: The vibes, man. I was in San Diego for a trade show and it’s just such a perfect blend of a city that’s chill, but you get access points to every cool thing.

Joe: Absolutely.

Jeremy: Well, viewers, we’re going to dive into a very unique topic that’s kind of very close to me today. Joe’s with Equitable Mediation Services. Joe, mediation services can bring up some kind of flaring perspective for our viewers to dive and listen to today. What is one thing of why they should tune in? Give me one reason.

Joe: Well, you’ll learn a lot today. I hope that, you know, there’s conflict and there’s compromise. And if you choose to look forward as opposed to reverse and you focus on, hey, how can we solve this together? How can we move forward? You’d be surprised at how well even parties at opposite ends of the spectrum can work together. So I hope I share a little bit of that perspective and be able to give people some tips on just how to incorporate that in their own personal and professional lives.

Joe’s Background and Credentials

Jeremy: And Joe, your background is in finance. And you flipped from finance to mediation. That is like a big jump. Can you give the viewers where you came from? It looks like you went through some courses at Harvard, MIT. You have some certificates or specialized credentials there. Can you give them some authority around that for you?

Joe: Yeah, certainly. So when I was working in corporate, I was in publishing companies and I was working in the finance sales finance department. I was a director and what would happen is I was finding myself actually mediating. So I had both the legal department and the sales department reporting to me. If you know anything about salespeople, they want to do anything they can to make the sale. They don’t care what the terms are. They just want their commission check. When can we process this order? The legal department, on the other hand, says, “No, I’m sorry. There’s a comma out of place. This deal has to die.”

And so here I am now. You’re getting the salespeople going, “But Joe, my commission, I got to make my fourth quarter numbers.” And the legal department going, “Hold on, we need to talk to somebody.” And I found myself in the middle of the client, the customer in this case. These are multi-million dollar subscriptions for technical publications, and they’re just like, “Listen, Joe, we want to give you $30 million. Could you just figure this out on your end?” And I’m trying to mediate between the sales folks, the legal department, the customer who’s going, “When can we get this product or we’re going to take our ball and go home?”

And I found out that I really enjoyed being that sort of neutral, that peacemaker. Trying to make things happen, getting both sides to give a little, get a little, and make, in this case, the customer happy. So it kind of became a natural evolution when I thought about working for a large company that downsized. I said, “Well, what am I going to do next here?”

And of all people, my mother-in-law said, “I think you’d make a good mediator.” And I’m like, “What the heck is that?” This is like 2007 or 2006. She’s like, “Well, you know, you got this numbers thing. I have a friend who mediates. Maybe you should talk to her.” So I did. I learned more about it and I said, “Well, when you think about divorce, not to be coy about it, but really it’s a financial contract with a parenting plan.” And that’s where, you know, MBA in finance, a lot of high stakes negotiations. I’m like, well, this is right up my alley. Not to mention, my parents litigated their divorce, so they did the opposite of what I like to do, which is keep people out of court.

Personal Experiences with Divorce

Jeremy: In a weird way, it’s like, dude, mine was a verbal beatdown. I was young and I think I don’t know if you watched our episode before, we had a topic on this discussion just around that. It’s like there’s an arc to this. And I think that we all lose sight of that inside of our emotional self. So we’re not safe. So we all dive into this deep level of inherent disruption that there’s no art in it. And I see it all the time. I’m seeing it in some friends right now. There’s no art and integrity in the process. They’re just, and we’ll dive into that a little bit later in the episode, but I just think there’s this structure that I’m curious to learn about. I’m excited to hear from you.

So your parents have gone through divorce and you were able to see that firsthand. Probably the opposite route of hopefully that you want to give the viewers. Because that probably created some structure in you that is probably still with you today, I got to assume. On an emotional level. We all kind of face certain things in life and divorce structure could be very interesting at times and it comes up in different ways as you get older. It does for me anyways, especially in relationships, whether they’re friendships, romantic relationships, that you view it as a battle, as I have to win, you have to lose.

Joe: And when you get out of that win-lose mindset, as cliche as it sounds, it really changes your whole perspective about how can we both walk away from this feeling good? Because we can expand the pie. We can each walk away with something. We can each be happy. And at the end of the day, it also didn’t destroy us internally like you said, Jeremy. It’s just like what’s it doing? You’re the only one who’s upset. The other person walked away from this argument and you’re just still seething. And the other folks are like, “I got to go, dude. You know, like you go deal with yourself.”

Jeremy: And there’s nothing left at the end of it. Depending which direction people go, man. I see people in this process currently and they’re taking different approaches and it’s very painful to watch but it’s unique because everyone’s perspective of what they bring to the table, it can bring cruelty, it can bring a lot of resentment, all these things that we’ll dive into.

But one thing I’m just curious, you know, we’ve talked about a bunch of personal things on this podcast. How did you find us?

Joe: Yeah. So I like to walk and so one of the things I do, I’m always in Spotify and I’m flipping through podcasts and I randomly came across you guys. So I’m like, you know, and it’s funny because we all have our people that we listen to. But then sometimes it’s like, yeah, you know, I haven’t listened to this one for a while, so let me just poke this on during the workday. So I’ll put, you know, you guys, I have like this whole in my Spotify favorites, I have this whole list of kind of things. And you know, I float in and out. So I might listen for a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

And like I said, what really just, you know, sometimes it’s as simple as a title, a thumbnail like on YouTube, and I was like, wow, you know, this is my mantra. This is mediation’s mantra. Mediation is a forward-looking process, never in reverse. So that’s how I came to you guys. And I was like, okay, this is really, what is going on here? I was like, I might know this guy. Like I feel like I know this guy.

Jeremy: And then you listen to me probably beat Doug down and like, “Dude, I’m out of here. I take that email back.”

Joe: That’s all right. He deserves it. I’m sure. I’m sure he’s done something. Not that I know, but I’m sure he’s done something.

Jeremy: Oh, no. It’s daily. 24 years worth. But all right. Thanks for sharing that. All right. So guys, we’re going to dive into Joe’s expertise, and I’m super excited to learn about what your experience is with all the probably the perspective that you’ve gone through with your clients and maybe some personal stuff. The emotional landscape of divorce is kind of like it could be beautiful. I think it’s an art, man. It can be done very well.

Joe: Yeah, it can be done very elegantly, strategically, safe.

What Led Joe to This Work

Jeremy: I want to just have you dive into what led you to this work. That’s what led you here besides just being the mediator with what you shared. What else? What was the passion? I mean, this is a big jump from sales and legal and being in the middle to this. That’s a whole different animal.

Joe: Yeah. I think a lot of it, you know, one of the things, if you haven’t been under a rock lately you probably noticed that the world is kind of on fire. Everybody is screaming and yelling at each other and nobody’s really listening. No one’s hearing the other person. And at the end of the day if you really sit down and listen and you think about who that person is, there’s really a lot of commonality. We’re a lot more alike than we are different.

Now let me share a personal story. I was sitting in a restaurant. I was traveling at the time and I’m sitting in a restaurant in Hong Kong and it’s a Friday night. It’s the night before I’m about to fly home. I’ve been gone for three weeks and I’m just exhausted. I’m sitting there in this restaurant and I’m thinking to myself, man, I can’t wait to get home and get a burger because, you know, this food’s good and all, but I’m tired of eating eel and sea urchin and all this stuff. It’s delicious, but you know.

So I’m sitting there and I’m looking around and I kid you not, I could have been in an American restaurant on a Friday night. There’s a table of girls all giggling, pointing at a table of boys. There’s a young couple with a baby like playing peekaboo. So now I’m playing peekaboo with the little kid. Nobody speaks my language. I look a lot different than everyone else. There’s an older couple. They’re just enjoying their soup, just sitting there quietly. And I’m thinking to myself, oh man, this is like back in 99 or 2000, whatever this was. And I’m just like, man, you know what? People are really all the same. Look, here I am literally halfway around the world and it is the exact same thing that would be happening in America on a Friday night.

And I took that lesson with me and I said, you know, I’m going to make a conscious effort to start looking for commonalities, for similarities, for bringing people together rather than pushing them apart. Because man, at the end of the day, I’ve met some nice people no matter where I’ve gone. We’ve had political differences, religious differences, zealous conversations, but then they’ve had me over their home for dinner. And you’re just like, that can happen if you’re willing to do that.

That’s what mediation does for you. It says, look, let’s treat you as a human. Let’s look at you as a person. Let’s figure out what we’re both interested in achieving here rather than digging into our positions. And that really was kind of the touchstone moment for me which then brought me forward into these situations with divorce to say look you’re going to co-parent, you’re going to go on to marry other people. I want you to leave this space as good, in air quotes, as possible so that you can go on and continue to be positive and productive. And I really bring that to people because it’s going to burn them if they don’t. If they’re not careful, they’re just going to drag themselves down for the rest of their lives. And man, if we only got one spin on this planet, I want to make sure it’s a good one. I don’t want to burn my life down worried about it. So that was the defining moment for me.

Jeremy: Yeah. And it’s funny that you bring that out. I got a friend of mine here in Denver and he has a nonprofit and it’s called The Longest Table, a mile long, all strangers eating at the same table. It’s great. And you just show up as you are. No phones, don’t bring any of that. Just get together. And they just did one in Littleton as well. I think they ended up getting a little over 3,000. They didn’t quite get to 5,480. They’re basically trying to get a mile long of, you know, 5,480. That’s their goal for a mile. So but good for him in his first year, man. And I was so proud of him to dig into that.

And really, what you’re saying is just everyone, we’re all the same, man. Like, take away everything and when we’re buried six feet deep, man, we’re all going to the same place. And if you keep the perspective of that. And I think that situationally sometimes things happen and we kind of bring in a lot of baggage during moments. I do. I can attest to there’s times that I do that and I’m working through that too. Like how I show up in my marriage and how I show up to my team and my family, everything.

And if you weren’t given the tools, man, later in life, I’m kind of in that process right now, like how do I get better at that stuff?

Misconceptions About Divorce

Jeremy: What are your, for viewers, what’s the biggest misconception that our society has put on our culture around misconceptions of what divorce truly is and what it means?

Joe: Oh yeah. Number one is that it has to be a knockdown dragout battle. That it has to be where you just light the powder keg, blow the thing up. You can have an amicable divorce. I know it sounds like jumbo shrimp. It’s like what the hell does that mean, but it is possible. And that I think is a big misconception.

Another one is that there’s some magic rule book that says here’s what you’re entitled to. States have, you know, they have like guidelines or statutes, but you can still deviate from them. I think a lot of people are very surprised to find out that the judges are overwhelmed. Since the pandemic, if statistics are to be believed, courts are short staffed by 40%. The staff just never came back.

Now you’re a judge. You’ve got cases piled on top of you. You don’t want to listen to people screaming and yelling at each other. You want them settling and getting out. You want to empower them to do what they think is best. And that’s also what mediation does. It says, “Look guys, you can go and have a stranger decide your fate or you can figure out what’s best for you and your family and make the judge happy.” And they’re like, “Great, this looks good. Stamp, go to window five and pick up your copy.”

And it’s not that you want to discount the divorce process because it’s a serious process, but you want people to understand it doesn’t have to be battle. You’re in control. You’re empowered. And that’s what the courts want you to do. So that’s the message to people out there. It’s in your hands. You have a lot more control than you think.

Jeremy: Yeah. And I think that you know, I haven’t experienced it yet. And I never will. I hope. But I just think we’ve been taught that you’re exactly right, that drag down battle and that’s how my experience was seen at a young age. I remember parts of it. And I think that you know from an overall perspective where you can help jump in and fit in. I think that that’s kind of a beautiful position. We’re not jumping right into the court system where you’re basically now trapped into this process until the test of time until the person basically taps out. There’s typically, I’m sure, someone’s tapping out. Like at some point someone’s just like there’s nothing either financially there’s nothing left to give. There’s emotionally nothing left to give.

And I’m seeing that with people that I surround myself in life right now in some groups I’m in and I’m just watching these people that are going through these processes and it’s just there’s nothing left in them. They’re almost like a skeleton. And how are you any good to somebody else then? If you have no battery left, you can’t be a good friend. You can’t be a good husband or wife, coworker.

Joe: And I think the important point, Jeremy, is that people fail consistently to protect themselves. We all have to say no. We have to learn to say, “Listen, I can’t do that. I’d love to go out with you on Friday, but I’m just tired.” And that’s okay. By recharging those batteries, it gives us more energy to make better decisions and to recognize, like we’ve been talking about, like, “Am I really in a good headspace to have this conversation or should I just tap out and just go, listen, I hope you understand. I really can’t have this conversation right now, but I promise we’ll pick it up some other time because if I have it now, it’s not going to go well.”

Jeremy: And that in that space is, I think that’s just kind of the integrity position of divorce and what that looks like and approaching these things with a keen heart. That’s integrity based. Not every relationship is meant to work. It’s not, you know, I know that we all desire that intimacy. But I think that there’s stages in this and I think that the integrity around going through something in divorce is like you can help kind of facilitate that if they’re open to it. Like is that where you come in? So you’re not just going strictly to court. You’re kind of given this nice buffer zone before critical decisions are made. Like, “Hey, let me come in and bridge some gaps that you might not be seeing because you’re emotionally distracted or you got anger that’s kind of captivating in a tunnel. You got tunnel vision.”

Like, I know what that feels like. What does it look like for you from like do you come in and kind of help on the integrity around maybe discrepancies in divorce or heading that direction? Where do you fit in on the process?

The Mediation Process

Joe: Yeah. So it’s a great question. It’s funny. When I talk to prospective clients, I always say that I apologize in advance and say, “Listen, you’re going to hear me say we’re a lot different than other mediators way too many times. You’re going to think broken record this guy.” But, you know, having been mediating 17 years, you get into this place where you understand the pitfalls and the traps and how important the process is.

So one of the things that we do a lot differently is to your point, before we even get into anything, we do a one-hour strategy session where we say, “Okay, what are all the issues on the table? What are your grievances? What are your grievances? What do you want to work on? What do you want to work on? And what order do we want to work on these things?” So now I have buy-in right up front that says, “Look, here are all the things we’re going to cover.” And sometimes it gets a little heated, but I have the protection of this just being a strategy session and saying, “Listen, you might not think that, you know, your whatever XYZ is a problem, but if your soon-to-be ex does, then we need to talk about it.”

And I think by putting all those things out on the table, suddenly there’s no landmines that we’re stepping on. We all know what issues we’re going to be talking about. And at the end of the day, if you focus people on the interest-based negotiation rather than the positional like I win, you lose, that’s where you can really make some conversation happen.

And one of the things that often happens and you’ll smile at this and feel free, I have a rule. If I say something you like, you got to quote me on it three times, then after that it’s yours.

Jeremy: Oh, absolutely. Give me some one-liners. Doug takes all of his dad’s, so I’ll take some of yours.

Joe: There you go. So the phrase I say to clients, they go, “You know what, you guys? You’re in violent agreement.” And they stop and they look at you and they’re like, “What?” I’m like, “You are in violent agreement. You are so much in agreement, but because you’re just yelling at each other, you can’t see that you’re in agreement.” And then they stop and they go, “You, what do you want?” “Oh, well, I want to make sure our kid does well in school and isn’t overscheduled.” “You, what do you want?” “I want to make sure they get to a good college.” Well, how do they do that? By doing good in school. Well, how do they do that if they’re not overscheduled? Oh, and then there’s this moment where people are like, “Oh, yeah. Okay, so we’re both in agreement. They only play one sport.” Yes, you are.

And that happens, Jeremy, over and over and over. But it’s because when they’re yelling, you’re in violent agreement. And that’s where we try to get them to understand that when they do that, there’s usually that aha moment, we’re moving forward. They can sometimes get to that by themselves, but it’s that, like you said, that fleshing out up front and getting those things out on the table that I think really helps and brings them together to say we’re going to do this. This is what we are going to talk about. We collectively.

Jeremy: Yeah. And I think the art of that, I think there’s a book, Art of Negotiation, and just using that integrity side of life, being either in integrity, out of integrity. Like what does that truly mean? And just getting people to show up with that baseline. Because sometimes viewpoints are not in integrity. We might have some baggage. We’re human. We’re all human. We bring stuff around us. Sometimes you show up in ways like I didn’t think I could ever do that. That was not smart or I said something that I thought was funny, but it maybe offended someone. And now you feel out of integrity and maybe now you’re shaming yourself. There’s so many dynamics that come into your line of work that I can imagine that typically go back way in childhood for both those people.

What’s the hardest part of you doing this work? What do you find the most difficult?

The Personal Toll

Joe: Well, I think most difficult is, or personally most difficult is not carrying it with you after hours. As a human being and as an empath and as someone who is a peacemaker, I really have a difficult time when I’m sitting on the couch watching a baseball game just keeping my mind clear rather than man I can’t believe what happened today or oh boy there’s kids. You just know you don’t want this to be, especially when children are involved, you don’t want the specter of their parents’ divorce impacting them in the way it impacted me and it sounds like may have impacted you. Because as an adult it takes a very long time and a lot of work to undo that damage, but your parents don’t realize it at the time when they’re in the middle of their storm that it’s really, you know, it’s raining on you too and it’s raining big, man. Those drops get bigger.

Jeremy: And I’ll tell you what, I’m in that fight right now, within, not internally but I’m going through it like discovery of the reality of it. And actually, last night I get together a group of guys on Wednesday nights and it’s funny, man. They were pushing into this part of me because I was just like, man, I’m getting more curious about why certain things show up. And the curiosity has got me interested in like myself. And it wasn’t like I’m mad at myself, but I’m like I got certain things like I’m a judge. I’ve learned I judge and then when I judge, I become not clear with people because I’m probably judging them and I’m putting up a barrier that maybe potentially this isn’t safe.

So I’m just in this weird phase around that, but that all stemmed from me not feeling safe as a young child. So you’re right. And that’s what I was going to play back to. He’s like, man, all that stuff, I’m 43 years old, man. I’m still dealing with it because I hadn’t even discovered that side of me. And now I’m getting more clear. I’m laughing at it now. I’m like, “Okay, the other day I did something and I go, man, I’m sorry. Part of me, my false self is I’m a judge. Like I tend to do that and I think it was…” And then I was going through that last night just discovering why. What, where did that come from? And we’re digging in. I’m like, “Oh man, that makes a lot more sense.”

Yeah. So I just think that, you know, in terms of what you could see as a child, you’re right, those raindrops are bigger than you think. The storm is big and you can really transition someone’s life from a stability standpoint for what the child needs. So I can’t imagine sitting on the couch in your role and trying to absorb that at times, man. It’s got to be the hardest part.

Joe: It is. And you can’t, there’s a couple of sayings in our profession. Well, we have a lot in common even though I’m not a mental health professional, we have a lot in common with therapists, whereas the therapist and myself, we’re sitting on the outside observing this behavior and having been doing it so long, you watch the patterns. You know where this thing is going. The couple might not, but you know exactly where this train is going off the tracks. And it’s really hard in the therapist world, the phrase they use is you can’t get in the box.

So you have to visualize a couple as inside a box, standing in a box, and you’re outside the box. Like, as a mediator, you’re outside the box. But sometimes you want to just get in the box and shake people and just be like, “What are you doing?” You want to fix them. Like, we’re guys, “Let me fix you, dude. I know what’s wrong with you.”

Jeremy: I know, but they have to.

Joe: If they don’t make the fix, if they don’t make the solution, it’s not going to stick. Think about as a kid. When your parents told you what to do, you’re like, “Screw that. I’m doing the opposite.” But when you came up with the idea yourself, you’re more likely to adhere to it. And that’s ironic about mediation. You know, one of the things that you see statistically about mediation is that when you talk about a mediated divorce versus a litigated divorce, the adherence to the agreements is far higher. It’s like 20% for litigated versus 70% for mediated. Because it’s really hard as a person when you look at a person as a mediator and they say, “Well, this is unfair,” and you can look squarely at them and say, “Well, you developed this. You agreed to this. You negotiated this. So if it’s unfair, that’s on you.”

And people don’t like taking responsibility. They don’t, they want to blame. They want to point fingers. And like we were just talking about, it’s really hard to look at yourself. You don’t want to look at yourself in the mirror very much. And when you do, a lot of people don’t like what they see. So we try to get them to understand, this is on you, man.

Remember, at the end of the day, I say to them, I’m going to sleep at night, go on the pillow, I’ll think of you fondly, but 10 years from now, if you’re still bitching and moaning at each other, that’s ruining your life. It’s not impacting mine. So let’s do something now that can prevent that. And that helps also bring people together.

The Future of Mediation

Jeremy: And I think that dynamic in your space, just the ability to, you know, in the mediation ecosystem, and I think we’re going to go through a transition in our country. I think there’s a different perspective. I think people are, I’m hoping, going to lean more into their marriages with connection. I think we’re all getting more united. I have a feeling I can sense that just with what’s happening in Denver. I just feel like people are really pushing to get more connected again instead of being so distracted. But in the future of mediation, what do you see in the business side of this? I was thinking about this for you. I’m like, man, what’s AI going to do to this?

Joe: I think moving forward, one of the things that you learn, now I’m not an attorney as you know, my background, I’m a non-attorney mediator and you do not have to be a lawyer to be a mediator. Mediation is a skill in and of itself and quite frankly I have a lot of great friends who are attorneys. I have utmost respect for lawyers. Lawyers are advocates. They’re one-sided. They have to stick up for their client. Mediators are neutral. We stick up for everybody in terms of neutrality.

In terms of AI, in terms of these kinds of things, I think with the proper guidance that maybe not right now, but maybe five or 10 years from now, you’re going to be able to see systems that will be able to guide people through these negotiations, ask them those questions, help them evaluate those options. That’s what humans do well. Critical thinking. When we develop options, we throw a bunch of options on the table and I say, “Okay, let’s not choose what’s right or wrong. There’s no good or bad ideas here. They’re just ideas.” If we remove the emotion from the idea, it’s not a position, it’s just an idea. We look at each one. What’s the pro of this and the con of this? Now we weigh them. We go through a whole process. I think you’ll see as technology gets better at critical thinking, it’ll be able to help people evaluate that.

Where I do think you have difficulty, and this is just an entrenched issue, is the court systems are not exactly modern. They’re not built to be technologically adept or cutting edge. They still are upset if you staple something versus paperclip it. And you’re just like, really? This is why you’re going to reject this divorce because there’s a staple in it? Yes. That’s where we’re still at. Unfortunately, some states are better than others. Some lead, some follow.

If we can get past that part of the process and we can let people and empower them to make their own decisions and give them enough information, then I think we’ll be okay. But unfortunately, I think the legal profession is so entrenched in defending, protecting, advocating. You can’t compromise. You have to get X, Y, and Z. And most people are like, you know what? I’ll say to folks, okay, do you want to go to court over child support when you’ve got a 10-year-old, so you’re going to get child support for another eight years and you’re going to get another $10 a month. Do that math. That’s $120 a year times eight years. That’s about a thousand bucks. You’re going to spend $25,000 to $50,000. Or do you just take the loss and walk away? But no, we have to win.

So I think if we can get by that and technology because it’s passive. It doesn’t take a side. If you’ve ever used like Claude and it’s like that’s a great idea. You’re fantastic. You’re like yes I am.

Jeremy: I know. But dude I think you’re right. I think like you said something earlier that’s dear to kind of where I’m going on this, like taking ownership in yourself first and man if we as a country, if Jeremy can do this. I feel like that that is going to make a bigger impact around my circle. I’m responsible for myself and go through this thing like I’m trying to take a lot of ownership around me and that’s what I’m going through and I was like I statements like I can do this. And so now what I’m doing, I’m doing with my kids and I’m instilling in them the I statement like I walk through when they make a decision. It’s like is it me or is it you? Whose decision was that? Just so that we can start grooming this understanding that there’s reality around your decisions and it’s true and you’re responsible.

And it’s not everyone else’s fault. It’s not Macy’s fault that you went and bought a new dress. It’s not McDonald’s fault that you eat a hamburger. It’s none of that. It’s all, it starts within us. And we got to if we start pushing towards that, I think it’s just going to give us strength in our society that we desire. I desire anyways.

Advice for Those Getting Married

Jeremy: You know, I think as we wind this episode down, Joe, I got a couple quick questions for the viewers. If you were going to get married today, what would you tell those people that are going towards that? What would you want them to know?

Joe: Get a prenuptial agreement. That’d be number one. Believe it or not, you don’t have to be a millionaire to have a prenup. There’s a lot of stuff that we all carry into marriage, especially as we’re getting married later. Cheryl, my wife, and I, we got married later. Each of us owned a house. She had a business. We had things. We were older. We were 36 and 35.

And so as people get married older, you’ve probably achieved more, done more. But also, it can help in the more acrimonious times where if you have a prenup, even if it’s something as simple that says if, god forbid, we ever get divorced and we have children, we’re going to agree to a 50/50 parenting or we’re going to agree to use our state child support guideline. Really, just real generic stuff. I think that’s a big help.

And also along those lines, talk about money and money styles. I can tell you time and time again, there’s a lot of things that happen when people come into our office. There’s two things and they both revolve around money. One, different spending styles. There’s always a saver and a spender in a lot of relationships, and that creates friction. Number two, when you talk about family, one of my favorite lines I hear from people, not favorite because I like it, but favorite because I just know it’s coming. When you’ve got a couple where one spouse works outside the home and one spouse works inside the home, we want to make sure we’re careful about that. We don’t say you’re a stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home dad. You’re working. You’re raising these kids and changing those diapers. That’s way harder than the outside work.

And one of the spouses says, “Well, you get to stay home all day,” and the person is like, “Well, I didn’t want that. You know, you decided that I was going to stay home all day.” And that is another big conversation. What’s going to happen if we do have kids? I would say definitely do the very best you can to maintain your career, your independence and be your own person. And again because that’s financial independence, it’s social independence. It’s keeping your role. You went to college, you wanted to build a career, keep going at that. I see a lot of those things, if people fall apart on it, and it’s unfortunate because you had that talk, you could have avoided it.

Jeremy: The what I’m hearing from you is like the front end, the art of negotiation before you get married is so easy. It’s so much easier. I can, it’s like anything. It’s like in sales like just you close a deal. It’s easy to get the contractual stuff before. Once that contract and money exchanges hands if that contract is not clear, meaning that we both understand how we’re going to maintain integrity in this marriage or integrity for the, it’s “I never said that” or “that didn’t happen.” That’s what typically happens because potentially that person’s not showing up the way that they thought they were. Maybe they were that person that was in the closet hiding that didn’t want to show that skeleton in their closet and all of a sudden or something traumatic happens that stems something that was deep rooted and hidden. I mean there’s so many dynamics. So it’s easy to help on the front end from what I’m hearing.

Advice for Those Going Through Divorce

Jeremy: And then, more for the purpose of kind of your role and in your career, if someone’s going through a hard time right now that’s potentially leading to divorce, what’s something that would be really good for them to hear that you think that, you know, it doesn’t have to be the end of the road. It doesn’t have to be the end. It doesn’t have to be permanent. But what would be something that you would give them advice on? Because I personally see divorce is much harder than working at the marriage, but sometimes there’s things that are out of your control. But what’s one thing that you think people would want to hear that are going through this process? Either they’re just in the discovery phase, doing their due diligence, or in the middle of it, and they need help.

Joe: I’d say to them, this too shall pass. As terrible a time in your life this is, a low point, it’s a significant trauma. You have one life. You will get through this. Again, putting aside the emotion, you have an interest in moving forward. You have a life to live. You might have kids to take care of. You may meet someone new. This doesn’t have to define you. This is a point in your life. Yes, it’s a low point, but as cliche as it sounds, be glad you had this time.

It may be that you simply outgrew this person and you’re now going in different directions and now what a wonderful opportunity to rediscover yourself and perhaps to discover someone else who is on the same journey you are and will meet you in the place you currently are and then the two of you will carry forward. I don’t want to discount anyone’s divorce by any stretch, but I do want them to understand that they will get through it. They will survive. It is a traumatic event. There’s no question about it. But there is a lot of life ahead of you. There’s a nice bright horizon. It’s hard to see it in the clouds right now, but you will get there if you just just keep on moving forward.

Closing

Jeremy: Well, Joe, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Never in Reverse, being our first guest in this episode. Your perspective on navigating one of life’s most difficult moments is great. If you guys liked what you heard, you can follow Joe on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. He also has a website. Again, his business name is Equitable Mediation Services. I’m your host, Jeremy Axel. Never in Reverse. Always moving forward, guys. Please like, subscribe, PM us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, all the above. Until next time, Joe. Appreciate you, buddy. Have a good day.

Joe: Thanks, man. Have a good day. Take care, man. See you.