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In this episode, we discuss helping women transition through a divorce and ways to support them through this using the 3C approach of communication, communing, and community. 🌟 Master Your Next Move in Divorce: Watch our FREE Masterclass and learn how to empower your divorce journey with confidence, clarity, and control. 🎥 FREE MASTERCLASS: Get Instant Access TRANSCRIPT: Rhonda Noordyk: This is the Divorce Conversations for Women Podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm your host, Rhonda Noordyk, Founder and CEO of the Women's Financial Wellness Center. I am passionate about educating and empowering women who are going through divorce. I want to help you go from chaos to clarity. The purpose of this podcast is to provide women with educational tips, tools and resources as it relates to the divorce process. Be sure to check out our website at www.womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com. Rhonda Noordyk: Alright, well, thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Divorce Conversations for Women. And I am really excited to be able to have a conversation today with my friend Sheryl Brown. She is the CEO of Females and Finance. And we met several years ago when I was in the industry as an advisor and have just stayed in touch, right? And so, I want to thank you for joining us today. Sherly Brown: Absolutely. I'm excited to have this talk today. Rhonda Noordyk: Me too. Me too. So, as I was thinking about where to kind of take this conversation today, I think what would be most helpful, and I know that's something that you, up until recent maybe have kind of kept close to the vest, but a little bit about your story, because I know that when you shared it with me a couple of years ago, I remember being on the phone pretty surprised at how challenging your situation was. Yeah, let's start with that. Share with us a little bit about your story. Sherly Brown: Yeah. So here I am, gosh, 30 years into working in financial services. And I remember always being a good wife. I was somebody who, of course, I made a very good living. I was entrusting my ex-husband to pay the bills and we had a lifestyle. And I remember, he had gotten really upset with me that I was traveling a lot, I needed to quit my job. And so I did. And it was a job I actually enjoyed quite a bit. But I quit my job to be home more. I also have grandchildren, and I just thought I needed to be more present. Sherly Brown: And so, when the last paycheck hit, it was May 30 of 2017, so I'm not employed anymore. That means I'm 100% dependent on him. And I remember, I was at a Michaels Arts and Crafts store with my two grandsons, they were fighting over a doughnut and they're twins. It's funny how you remember things, the details. I remember it was a sour cream crunch doughnut that I had bought at the grocery store and there was one left and they were twins. I remember reaching down and breaking it in half and saying, "Here, you each have a half, we're good." Sherly Brown: And the phone rang and my husband called to say, "I don't want to be married to you anymore." I remembered in that moment, Rhonda, I literally said, "You know, I'm with the children right now. I'm going to need to give you a call back, I need to get them home and I want to talk about ..." I'm trying to stay professional and together and not alarm my littles, because they're always looking at you. And any mother listening knows that all children, their feelings fester off of their moms. They will look at their moms and if mom stays calm, they stay calm. Sherly Brown: And it's amazing how even in a moment of angst, there's a lot of times where we're able to reach a level of calm in order to keep children, grandchildren, everything happy and safe for them. And inside, I'm like, what? And so I did, I took them home, I told my son, I have to see you later. I didn't even say anything to my son at home. And I waited. And it was hours and hours. He wasn't there. And it was hours. And I thought, you call me and you say this and you don't come home. Sherly Brown: Well, what had ended up happening was he, in hindsight, a couple days later, I don't know why it took me 48 hours to put the lightbulb on. I should check the bank accounts, like he's not here, what are we doing? Yeah, he had emptied every bank account. He had cash boarded every credit card. He had got on a plane and had left. So he wasn't leaving me, he left. I think that term is really interesting to Rhonda, I remember sharing this with you. I said, they make it always sound so kind. No, someone left me. No, it was so much harder than that. And when I went through realizing that I had no money, I had nothing, I had no job, I had no husband. And so, I went into a full panic and depression, a little bit of one I would say. And I think rightfully so, I think you're just sort of, oh my gosh, what happens now? Sherly Brown: And my son will tell you that I was sitting at the house once I realized all the money had been gone and what he had done because every account you go to you, you have like this conversation in your head, you say, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm wrong. Like you're still being that wife. You're still thinking no, no, no, no, no, this isn't happening to me. And then after I realized everything, I went down to the kitchen and I was sitting there. I immediately started acting like a crazy woman and I was unplugging the fridge, unplugging the TV, because I didn't know how I was going to pay the electric bill. I had no money, what was I going to do? Sherly Brown: And so, I kind of went into hiding for about a week because I think the other part of it and you working in financial services will appreciate this, how do you tell colleagues? How do you tell three years, three decades of colleagues that this happened to me because I became that proverbial woman that people talk about. And it was me. And so, I didn't tell anybody for a very long time because I was so embarrassed to say, this happened to me. What was I going to do? And I have to also say, my father is pretty wealthy, he does well for himself. I could have very easily gone to my dad and said, I need you to bail me out. But I realized had I done that, my children would have expected me to do it for them and I don't know if I would have ever been in a position to do that. And I also thought it was really important for my children to see me pick myself up and move on, what was going to happen from here. Sherly Brown: And you know what, you learn a lot of lessons from this, and people such as yourself, you were one of the people that I had found after it had happened and said, hey, that's me, I'm that girl now, I'm that lady. It was pretty awful. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah. Yeah. I think, unfortunately, with that, and I don't think that it's, it is what it is I guess. And that is, we as women I think feel that sense of, what could I have done differently. All of that, right? And you're like, what could you have done differently? He took it before you even knew he was going to be taking it. So there wasn't really, knowing what you know, there isn't a whole lot that you really could have done because he had access to the money. There's only so much that we can do when you have somebody who's going to do things that aren't right or take advantage of people or whatever. There's only so much that we can do, right? Sherly Brown: That's exactly right. And there's a lot of shame. I dove into Brene Brown books to understand shame better because I couldn't believe how the conversation I was having with myself, I would never have with a client. I would never have with a colleague such as yourself. But yet, for me, it was okay to sit there and say, you're so dumb. Why would you do this? All these things I said and I have to tell you, it was people such as yourself who are experts in the space who were like, you got to stop. You can't do this to yourself. Sherly Brown: And once I made the decision that I wasn't going to be a victim anymore, but I want to say this to anybody listening, it is 100% okay to grieve, to be angry, to eat a box of Oreos, whatever you got to do. Rhonda Noordyk: Totally. Sherly Brown: But when your pity party is done, you need to have that friend, that confidant, that expert, that Rhonda that says, okay, now we're done with that, and now we pick up. Because if you don't, I feel like it would have robbed me of getting a lot of just the "ahh" out early on. I think it was really helpful to kind of go through that process. It definitely helps when I talk to people who've gone through divorce now. I understand. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, absolutely. So how long did it take for the divorce to be final? Sherly Brown: Yeah, so you make concessions there too. So generally what happens is you can have a consensual divorce where you're both saying, yes, we want to get divorced and you go in, you get this and you get that and you sign the papers and you go to a judge. That can be as quick as 90 days. If you decide to get an attorney and they get an attorney and they go and wrestle it out, I'm sure I could take forever. Sherly Brown: So I made the decision, after speaking to my dad and speaking to a few other people that I was going to do a consensual, but meant for when he did contact me and I was able to sit down, I decided, okay, here's what we're going to do. I will take this amount of debt and you take that. We made a total arrangement of okay, this is, it was amicable. And he signed his part and I signed my part. And I have to tell you, ladies, sometimes they don't show up to divorce court. And in my instance, I got divorced by myself. And I have to tell you, I was so angry about that. Out of all the things that I was angry about, I wasn't angry that he took the money, I wasn't angry that I got left. I was angry that you couldn't show up at the end to just close the chapter. Sherly Brown: And the judge that was there that day, she could see it in my face that I was so upset. And she says, "Don't you worry, you're getting divorced today." And I was like, "Thank you." Because I needed somebody to understand and she got it. Sherly Brown: So you're not always going to get a great maybe a divorce person there. But I went with my best friend and I have to tell you that there are things that people don't talk about. And I looked them up and they don't really talk about the actual process of going into the courtroom. And that day when you do a consensual divorce, you're there with many other couples, some are sitting on opposite sides, some are actually sitting together. But when you're the only one and this may possibly happen to somebody listening, the hardest thing for me was, when you think about the actual act of it, it's quite easy. They call your name, you get up, you walk over to this lectern, you agree with them that you are who you are and your date of birth and all this stuff. Sherly Brown: You have these people looking at you, and the whole time it is a very natural feeling to feel judged. I remember standing up there by myself, and you can't really in my situation, see my friends. I had to stand there by myself. And I think it was probably the biggest, my girlfriend, her best friend, my best friend's name is also Sheryl. She said to me, "It was the one time that I saw you stand up there by yourself. And you literally had to just be courageous. And you had to stand there." She's like, "I knew you were bristling, and I knew you were ..." And I'm a professional speaker, Rhonda, I have no problem getting in front of a group of people. But man, when it's for this and the reason and you're by yourself, I think I was most angry in that moment. Rhonda Noordyk: It's interesting. And you're right, nobody really does talk about those details. It's kind of like labor. Everybody kind of like, you know, you gear up to it and you're like, why didn't anybody told me about this part? But one thing that you said that I just want to make sure that we clarify is each state's different as far as how long you have to wait from the time that you file, so like in Wisconsin, so 120 days, Missouri, 90. So just make sure that you check in your state how many days that, what's the soonest that you could get divorced. Rhonda Noordyk: And like you said, there are always those unexpected things that are going to happen along the way. And I always say, okay, how can we plan proactively for the things we know are going to happen also knowing that there are going to be, there's going to be at least one, okay, at least one surprise where you're like, did that really just happen? And there probably will be more than one. Sherly Brown: Oh yeah. Rhonda Noordyk: Women go into these situations really still, and I think this is a real strength of women, but in the divorce process, it can be a challenge, and that is I'm going to believe the best in the person. I'm going to believe that he's going to show up at the end. I'm going to believe that he would put the money back into the account. We bring that sense of belief in the goodness of people. And unfortunately, I think that, yes, it's a great skill and it's a great attribute and one of the reasons why I love working with women because we are pretty positive and really want to believe the best in people. Rhonda Noordyk: But in situations like yours, you also have to say, I want to believe the best in this person. However, I need to plan in case they don't show up at the end. I need to make sure I've got my friend on board. We still have to do the planning because I think we go in with blinders on not taking the opportunity to plan ahead if we just believe the best in people, and it really becomes now a gap and a sense of vulnerability. Sherly Brown: And it's much like, you likened it to labor. And for those who don't have children, weight loss, let's pick another one that's pretty common. When you lose weight, you think you're going to look like the person in the magazine or the advertisement or even the television. And you don't. I can tell you that as somebody, I remember, I lost 117 pounds, and I remember thinking after not recently, this was about 10 years ago, I don't look like the person on TV. I was so disappointed in the end product because you know what, nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to talk about that. They want to talk about, was I healthy? Absolutely. Was I more athletic? All the things were positive. But they don't talk about aesthetics. Sherly Brown: And just like divorce, even in all the stuff that I didn't research on, no one talked to me about walking into that courtroom and what it was going to feel like and how alone and how you stand and you're feeling like people, you literally have a judge and you feel like you have people judging you. What I will tell you is this, that if you can get yourself to the point where you get there and you can stand there and try to stand there not in anger, I think that was the thing that probably was my salvation because I wasn't angry until after it was done, like what, he didn't show up. What I was I felt a sense of peace that I had made the right choice for me or for my family. Sherly Brown: My children are all grown at this point. It's interesting because, during that moment, you are kind of feeling very vulnerable, like, all these people, they all know that I'm not good…
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