A Man's Guide To Divorce
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I would love to hear a little bit about you and your journey. So I'll see you inside. All right, man. Welcome back to the Man Talk Show. Conor Beaton here. Today, we're going to be diving into a man's guide to divorce.

When to know that it's time, tactical pieces, what to do if there's kids involved. I'm going to try and make this as direct as possible. Obviously, this is not an enjoyable subject. It's a very challenging one. There's usually a lot of emotions around it. And it can be one of those very, very disorienting things, whether you've chosen it or whether it has been chosen for you. And both of those paths, whether you've decided that it's time for divorce or your partner has,

Both of those paths can be equally challenging, but have some different obstacles depending on what's happening within your divorce. So let's dive straight in. As always, don't forget to hit the subscribe button, whether you're on Spotify or tuning in on YouTube. All right, let's dive in. It's common for men to stay in relationships.

longer or to try and sort of lean into the relationship and hold on for a number of different reasons. Sometimes men just, you know, we don't want their marriage to end. We want to work on it or, you know, we just have a fear of what might be lost on the other side. I think one of the big things that causes a lot of men to avoid divorce is actually divorce courts. It's actually the divorce process.

And so if you are a man watching this and you are going through divorce or you're about to go through a divorce, probably you are feeling a lot of fear around the divorce process because there are horror stories out there and a lot of men can sometimes get taken advantage of in the divorce process. They can have regret about the divorce process. Resentments can build during the divorce process. And just the legal system sometimes is...

very much in terms of favoring women when it comes to the divorce process. And so one of the big things that

that I really want to have you ask yourself, whether you are going through a divorce right now or not, is am I staying in this marriage for the right reasons? I know men who have avoided divorce because they just haven't wanted to go through the legal system. Now, I get that. I understand it. I haven't personally gone through a divorce myself, but I've worked with countless men that have gone through it, like countless, countless men that have gone through it. And some of them were extremely wealthy. And despite

legal things that they had in place before the marriage. They still lost a tremendous amount of their assets and money and time with their kids and access and all types of things. And so I have a deep empathy for you. But the question is, are you staying in the marriage for the right reasons? Because what the data shows is

is that roughly 70% to 75% of divorces are initiated by women, just depending on the state or the province that you're in. So what that means is that statistically, men are much less likely to file for divorce. They're much more likely to be the one having the divorce served to them. And

A lot of the times, not a lot of the times, but sometimes what I've noticed is that that is a byproduct of the man not wanting to pull the trigger because he's afraid of the system, the legal system that he would enter into. So just ask yourself that question as a man, am I avoiding divorce because I don't want to get separated or am I avoiding divorce because I'm avoiding the divorce system, the legal system? Just an interesting thing to come into contact with.

The main thing that I want to start off with that is super important, that is going to be helpful for any man going through a divorce, is just this one statement. How you go through your divorce will either be an extension of the problems that led to the divorce in the first place, or it will be the reconciliation that the relationship had always needed.

Now, I have seen this time and time again. The worst divorces that I have ever seen are always the ones that amplify the problems in the relationship, the animosity, the contention, the resentment, the lack of communication or communication problems. All of that gets amplified in the divorce process.

The best divorced processes that I've ever seen, the best divorces that I've ever seen, if there's such a thing, are the ones where the issues that were present in the relationship get attended to as that couple, as the two people are going through the separation.

Now, obviously you can sit there and you can say, well, yeah, that's because sometimes people are amicable and sometimes people are out for vengeance and blood and they're hostile. And of course, but the reality still stays the same.

How you go through this divorce will either be an extension of the animosity and the tension that led to the divorce in the first place, or it will be a reconciliation of those problems. And my encouragement for you is that you sit down with the person that you are getting a divorce from, whether they have initiated it or you have, and you say this exact statement.

And you say it directly to them and you say, this process is either going to be an extension of what led to our divorce or it's going to be a reconciliation of that process. And I would like for it to be reconciliation. What would you like?

And then you can have a conversation about what that might look like. What might that mean? What might communication need to look like? How do you want to handle the legal process, which in all honesty, you can have the best lawyer in the world and they might guide you in a not so great direction because maybe they benefit from it or they're working the system in a very specific way. And

And so you need to try as best as you can to have some type of agreement with your ex, with the person that you're getting divorced from, to have this process be one of reconciliation rather than one that is going to entrench the two of you in camps of hatred against each other.

And that really is a choice. And you can sit down. I've had couples that I've worked with that are separating. And I've said, have this conversation with your lawyers in the very first sit down. She's going to get her lawyer. You're going to get your lawyer in the very first conversation. You're going to have this conversation. This question is going to happen. Are we going to let this process be an extension of all the chaos and the anger and the frustration that happened in our marriage?

Or are we going to allow this process to be a process of reconciliation?

And hopefully, you both lean into the process of reconciliation, which can be very, very helpful. Sometimes the other people, they do not want to be a part of that or they sort of placate and play nice in the moment, but they're really just trying to take the most from you that they possibly can. So be aware of that as well, but try the best that you can to move through this as a reconciliation process versus one of

anger and hustling and animosity. All right, how do you know when it's time? How do you know it's time to go? Obviously, there's no sort of quote unquote right time. The most sort of cliche answer or the best answer that I could give you is that you'll know, your gut will know, in your body, in your heart, you'll know. But a couple of signs that it's likely time for you to leave

The first one is that resentment has eroded any kind of relationship or intimacy to the point where the relationship is essentially dead. There's two parts here that I want to talk about. One is resentment, and the two is your relationship is really a third body, a third entity, a third energy between you and the other person, right? There's you, there's the other person, and then there's the relationship itself. And it's sort of like a third person that...

has its own needs, that has its own vitality, that has its own life force, that has its own energy, and both of you pour into it. And it's very common that people who have been in a relationship where resentment has really taken over, resentment is toxic for intimacy. It erodes intimacy. Resentment erodes communication. Resentment erodes connection. So

So in many ways, resentment is the enemy. It's the kryptonite of intimacy and relationship. And for most people, when divorce is on the table, it's because resentment for one or both people has built up to such a degree that it has literally choked the life

out of the relationship, out of that third body of the relationship. And this is when you or the other person has zero interest in repairing connection or communication. They have zero interest. You have zero interest in intimacy or quality time or going on adventures with the other person. And basically, you're living your own life

kind of just in proximity to this other person. What I've heard a lot of people that go through divorce say is something along the lines of, we're just sort of two people living in the same house. We don't talk really much. We don't do anything together. We don't have really any interest in spending any time together. Our interests have diverged a lot. And it's likely that the relationship has withered to such a degree where you're both just living two separate and independent lives.

A really big caveat that I want to put in here, and this is a common one, is that divorces happen at a couple different times within life. But one of them, which is very important, is that when women go through premenopause and then menopause, and women go through a massive, massive period.

neurochemical and biological change in their body. And it's really huge. And a lot of women will say things like, I feel like a completely different person, or I feel like I don't even know myself anymore. And for men, it can feel like that as well. We're like, I don't really even know this person anymore. Like this woman that I married is somebody completely different than the woman that I initially got married to.

And so that's something that you and your partner will need to try and traverse, right? Kids are one of the things that can really change the marital dynamic and the relational dynamic. And it can create like a choke point on the relationship itself where the relationship gets less vitality, gets less oxygen, it gets less communication and connection and intimacy and time and adventure.

And so that can create a choke point where the relationship starts to diminish. Obviously, there's things like betrayal and infidelity that can cause the relationship to diminish. But the other one that I've seen time and time again is when men move through the middle stage of life, when you as a man go through the middle passage of life, you sort of hit that midlife point and you don't have a crisis. You just have a

a reorienting of your psyche and who you are, what you want, what matters to you in life. Maybe you've been successful and you're like, I just want to travel. And you want life to look very differently than what you initially wanted when you and your partner got married and she's not interested in that. And then outside of that is like I was saying before, when a woman goes through menopause,

It can really reorient and change things in the marital dynamic in a massive, massive way. And so one of the things that you as a couple need to do is have an honest conversation of,

Have we grown so far apart because we are different people and we just fundamentally want different things? And for some couples, that's the truth is that they don't try and maintain that third body of the relationship as they go through these massive transitory periods.

of the middle stages of life, of menopause, of having kids, of moving, of getting new jobs, selling companies, retiring. And so what happens is that they diverge so much that there's just no tether anymore. There's no life force really connecting those two people together anymore. And so one of the things that you can do is have a really honest conversation with yourself and

And ideally with them, if there's that opening, if there's that possibility, but certainly with yourself to say, have we just grown so far apart? What interests do we really share? Am I interested still in dealing with the hardship and the challenges of life with this person? Am I interested in exploring life with this person? And one of the big challenges is when one person in the relationship wants to continue working on it and one doesn't.

This creates a massive, massive amount of tension, which I'm going to talk about in a moment. But a couple more pieces that I really want to get clear on, which is that when is it time for the relationship to end? So when resentment has built up to a point where it's just everywhere and you've tried to work through it and you've seen the therapist and you've seen the couples counselors and you've done the whatever journeys together and the resentment just won't shake loose,

And you both have just grown apart to such a degree that the relationship is kind of just dead. When you unequivocally believe or know that your life would be better off without this other person, when you've kind of either grown so far apart or you've come to the realization that this relationship and that person is not the person that you are wanting to adventure with, explore life with, raise kids with,

continue to face the hardships of life, that's okay. It is all right for you to get to a place where you do not want to do life with that person. And sometimes for some guys, they get to a place where they realize,

Either, maybe not I made the wrong choice in the beginning, although sometimes it can feel like that. I knew this wasn't right from the beginning. I hear guys, I hear men and women say that as well. I knew that this was the wrong choice from the get-go. But more likely that you know that where you are in your life, that this relationship is no longer right.

what you want. It's not for you. You can't make a decision for them, but you unequivocally know in your gut, in your heart, in your soul, that this is not the relationship that you want to carry on with. When you believe, when you know, again, unequivocally, that you've tried everything that you can to make it work, gone to the therapy sessions, you've gone to the couples counselors, you've done the programs, you've had the conversations, you've genuinely put the work in

to resolving the challenges and the conflicts in the relationship. And here's the sort of caveat that I want to put on this because it's super important.

Some relationships, all relationships, I should say all relationships, have some problems that just genuinely aren't going to work themselves out. Pretty much every single relationship is going to have some point of contention, some disagreement, some challenge that is just not going to get resolved. Almost all relationships have these irresolvable problems.

And the key is, are those the irresolvable problems that you're willing to have in a relationship, right? Maybe you have a different value set on where the kids should go to school, or maybe you have a different value set or a different desire around intimacy, as an example, like frequency or something like that.

And maybe those are irreconcilable issues that you're like, actually, this isn't that bad. Like, this is okay. I'm fine with that. But maybe they're an irreconcilable issue where you're like, this is a non-negotiable. This is actually against my character, my values, what I value in life, what brings me joy and happiness.

And so that one of the indicators that it's likely either time to go or it's a sign that like you're justified in and sort of right in the decision that it's probably time to end the relationship. Big thing that I want to end this part with is you shouldn't divorce out of anger. You shouldn't just divorce because you're angry with them or you're hostile or you're pissed off or you're like, I don't like you anymore.

That type of energy is a recipe for disaster. There are always going to be phases in relationships where you're frustrated with your partner, regardless of who they are. There's no such thing as a perfect relationship that is conflict-free, argument-free, and those types of relationships are usually just as equally dysfunctional, right? It's just avoidance instead of conflict.

And so ideally, we don't want to move into a place of getting divorced and separated out of a place of hostility and going to war. It's not like I've tried everything and F you. Now I'm going to come at you with divorce and we're going to go to battle and go to war. That is a recipe for a really, really, really hard divorce. Divorce is best served with resoluteness and not vengeance. It's almost like from a place of apathy, where you're like,

Okay. I think this it's time. This, this is going to happen. We're going to get divorced and there's not this massive charge around it. Like I'm doing this because I hate you. That's a very, very hard place to go through divorce.

So like I said, those are the pieces of maybe when it's time, let's talk about the tactical pieces of how you actually go through divorce. The first thing is, and this is what I say to all men that I'm working with that are like, hey, I'm going to go through divorce or we're going through or she filed or I filed, decide what you're willing to lose and decide what you're willing to be flexible on because this really, really matters.

Some men, they'll go into a divorce and they'll say, you know what? I just want this to be over with. So give her whatever she wants. Give her, doesn't really matter. Maybe you don't have a lot for her to take in the first place. You're just like, or maybe you feel guilty because you cheated or were unfaithful. Or maybe you feel like you were the problem in the relationship and you couldn't get things right. And so you're just like, give her whatever she wants.

Very common that men that do that within a year to five years have a tremendous amount of regret. I wish I didn't do that. I wish I didn't just bend over backwards and give her whatever it was she wanted because

because I was people-pleasing again. I didn't stand up for what I wanted and needed. Again, going through divorce is either going to be an extension of the marriage and the problems in it or a resolution of it. So the big piece tactically for you to start to think about as you go through a divorce or a separation is,

How have I contributed to the breakdown in the relationship? And how can I begin to work on that as we move through separation? So for example, if you're the nice guy that's like, you've spent the entire relationship in marriage just giving her whatever she's asked for it.

money, vacations, trips, whatever TV shows she wanted to watch, whatever she wanted for dinner. If you've just been this constant people-pleasing guy and you've literally just never said no, then you need to be able to reconcile as you go through a divorce by having some very clear boundaries.

What are you not willing to part ways with? What are you going to not take a stand and dig your heels in and like, I'm going to be this immovable force, but what are you not willing to sacrifice any longer? Maybe there's a part of you that's like, oh, just give her the house and give her 75% of my net worth and my savings. But maybe you shift that to, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to end this amicably and we're going to find an equitable solution

resolution and dissolution to this relationship that doesn't put me in the same position of being this constant people pleaser and giving up more than I probably should give up. So decide what you're willing to lose and decide what you're willing to be flexible on, but really decide how am I going to go through this in a way that reconciles

my contribution to the dysfunction in the relationship. And you need to decipher what that is, okay? Next is obviously get a good lawyer. Get a good lawyer and be as clear as you can about what you'd like in terms of how you want to go through this divorce. The lawyer is going to focus really heavily on the logistics and

And I think what I've seen to be very helpful for a lot of people going through a divorce is that you and your ex focus on the morality. You focus on the ethics.

So your lawyers are going to focus in on the details, the logistics, who's getting the house, what percentage of the house is going to who or the equity in the house. How is the savings account getting divvied up? Who's getting time with the kids, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let the lawyers focus in on the logistics and you and your ex focus in on the morality.

How do you want to go through this in a moral, ethical, value-based way so that the two of you don't dissolve into loathing, seething, angry people every single time one of these logistics comes up? Next is ask yourself a very specific question. What do I know I will regret in 10 years about this divorce? And what won't I care about, right? What won't I care about? And this can help you to kind of decipher

What matters to you as you go through this divorce? Because for some men, again, like I said, they dig their heels in. They're like, I am not going to give up a single penny more than I think she's owed. And I'm not going to give up a single dime, whatever it is. Or they swing the pendulum in the other direction. They say, I'm going to give everything away. Give her everything. It doesn't even matter. And then they really, really regret that. So ask yourself, what do I know I would regret in 10 years? What I regret going through this

in a hostile, condescending, contemptuous way? Probably. Would I regret having my kids see me yell and argue and call my ex names and talk badly about them? Probably. You probably wouldn't respect yourself very much for doing things like that. So get very clear on what you would likely regret and what you really just won't care about. Maybe

Giving her the car isn't really a big deal. I just genuinely won't care about that. It's not really a big deal. So start to get clear on that. Big piece of this, just on that part, as you go through it tactically, do not disparage your assets.

ex. Do not talk badly about your ex, especially to your kids. Be the bigger person. This is a trap. And this is a trap that I see, not that men never do it, but I see that women do it quite a bit. Women really go in on their exes. It's very common that because 70% of divorces are initiated by women, a lot of those women have their perspective

that you as the man are the problem and that you're the issue with why the relationship is ending, something that you did or didn't do or wouldn't provide or whatever it is. And what happens is that they sometimes will allow that to seep into talking about you to the kids, to the lawyers, to friends and family members and yada, yada, yada.

And guys can fall into this trap too. I see a lot of you guys falling into this trap where you have villainized your ex to such a degree that you lose any type of conscientiousness around how you talk about that person. They're still the mother of your child.

if you have kids, you still chose to be with them. You still chose them. So there's still a reflection of you in some way, shape, or form. And so you need to allow yourself to take the moral high ground as much as you humanly can, especially with your children. And this is really important because in some states, the parent who has been seen as disparaging the other parent

will have less parental rights. It's actually a part of the judicial system that they look at how are the spouses talking about each other and how are they talking about each other around the kids and just not even around the kids. And that will play a role in parental visitation because generally speaking, the court systems do not want to incentivize putting the kids into the care of the parent who is disparaging and shit-talking and bad-mouthing the other parent.

So try and take the moral high ground as much as possible without moving into a space of pretending that they're a saint when they're not or bending over backwards to be overly nice and kind. Just be genuine and don't talk smack about them.

Get support. Find a group of men that have gone through separation or divorce or are going through it. So for example, in the Man Talks Alliance, we've got about 700, 800 guys in there right now. And there's a group, there's a separation group for men that have gone through divorce, have gone through divorce proceedings, have had to deal with custody battles, have gone through the legal battles of where their finances go.

and they support one another. This can be incredibly helpful. Surround yourself with men that have gone through this process before. You can pick their brains, get their advice, and when you feel like you're making a bad decision, you can bounce it off of other people and you have some support as you go through this process because what can happen is you as a man might just be surrounded by your friends

And your friends are much more likely to be like, yeah, F her and screw her. And they can sometimes not have

a kind of separated perspective, a third-party perspective that can sometimes be too close. And their advice and their guidance and direction can be a little bit more detrimental sometimes because they want to protect you. They just really want to protect you at all costs. And so they can feed into your resentment, your hostility, your animosity towards your ex and towards the process.

Final piece is what to do if there are kids involved. A bunch of things are really important in here. The main one is that you and your ex try to create agreements for how you are going to operate with the children. That means how do you want to speak to one another around them? How are you agreeing to communicate about

transitioning the kids, transferring them? How are you agreeing to co-parent them together? How are you going to communicate the separation and the divorce to the kids? Big piece there, depending on their age, is be as transparent as possible. It's very common for a lot of kids to make themselves responsible for the divorce or the separation, to not know why it's really happening. And a lot of the times parents say, we just fell out of love.

And they say something that's like, while that might be true, that doesn't actually say anything to a kid. And so they're left with a big question mark of like, well, why are you actually separating? Like, I don't understand. Because to a kid, all that they understand is, well, you love me. And like, could you fall out of love with me? Like, that doesn't make any sense. And so they have no context for what that means. So try and be as clear with your children as you can without disparaging either party, right? Like if infidelity was involved,

You might decide like, you know what, the kids are too young to understand that mom had an affair or dad had an affair and you don't want to villainize one person or another. And so you need to get on the same page of how exactly are you going to present this? And in some ways, and this is the really hard part, but it's the really important part when there's kids involved, having a united front as a couple, as you go through the separation will be the single healthiest thing that you can offer your children.

okay i'm gonna say it again having a united front as a couple as you go through the separation

can be the single greatest gift and healthiest thing that you can give to your children as the divorce happens because it will provide them with stability. It will provide them with two places that they can go to vent their frustration, their grief, their confusion, their questions, et cetera. So try and create very clear agreements about what you're going to say to them, when you're going to communicate it, what the narrative is, how you're presenting it,

how you're going to follow up after that, what it's going to look like. Really try and do your best to have written agreements between the two of you that you can abide by. Now, these written agreements are not there to be used as a weapon against each other or another reason or excuse to shame the other person or to constantly criticize, but rather it's just this is how we are going to operate. This is how

we are choosing to operate moving through this divorce. The last piece is make sure that your kids have other support outside of you and your spouse.

So, for example, maybe one of your buddies, like Uncle Tim or Uncle John or whoever, right? Like one of your friends is close with your kids. Make sure that they're checking in on your kids too, because it's very common that your kids won't want to really open up to you about what the divorce is like, but they might be more

available to opening up to one of your friends or maybe a brother or sister, right? Their uncle or their aunt, they might be more open to really having an open dialogue about that. So make sure that your kids have support that isn't you.

because they are going to need it. They're going to want it. And just having those little outlets can be very, very helpful. If you've gone through divorce, share your best practices. How did you get through it? What was challenging about it? What would you say to men that are maybe thinking about it? What would you say to men that are going through it right now? They're in the thick of a custody battle or they're

losing everything they've owned. Like what would you say to men? Sometimes sharing some of that advice can be super, super helpful. So man it forward, share this episode with somebody that you know needs to hear it. Thank you very much for tuning in. Until next week, Connor Beaton signing off.