Author: JGL Law

David Bulitt: [00:00:00] Welcome to JGL Law for You. JGL Law for You is a podcast by lawyers, but not for lawyers only. On JGL Law for You, we will be discussing a wide array of topics to help you navigate the many legal processes, developments in the law, other current events, and how they may affect you, your family, or your business.

We are back on JGL Law for You in a second part of a discussion that I’m having with my law partner, Chris Castellano, regarding the hidden costs of delaying divorce. The first episode we talked a lot about why people delay divorce, the financial issues, the drift that people have when it comes to planning or not planning for divorce, and information that may get lost while you’re thinking about it.

I want to pick up today a little bit, Chris, with the next piece of this discussion, and that has to do with kids. Talk to me a little bit about this whole, the involvement of [00:01:00] children in terms of planning for your separation and planning for your divorce.

Christopher Castellano: Yeah, that’s right. So, when we first talked about this idea of some of those hidden costs of waiting for a divorce, we reserved on one of the biggest triggers of the emotional responses to the divorce process, which is the children, right?

The children and the family, and when you delay a divorce, the list is pretty significant on the impact of the kids, right? We’re not going to get into a lot of the psychological impacts on children delaying divorce. You know, that’s an entire topic in and of itself, and probably for a qualified therapist.

But nevertheless, we as attorneys can recognize a lot of these hidden costs on kids when you delay a divorce specific to our bread and butter, right? And so, what I go to first is the basic, how do you handle [00:02:00] the kids’ routine, right? And I’m talking just the mundane activities of the getting ready for school, the scheduling for various different appointments, whether it’s doctors, dentists, etc, you know, school communications.

And then you branch out to the bigger questions, right? So, if you’re delaying the divorce process, but you’ve separated, where are the kids sleeping? You know, how are you managing that? Are you changing the kids from house to house? What do the exchanges look like? Because of course, you’re not operating in the world of a formal agreement.

You’re certainly not operating in the world of a formal order. And so you’re, you’re doing this on your own, right? And you’re doing this somewhat ad hoc. And so that’s one of the big costs: the longer you do this ad hoc arrangement, the more likelihood that you could create a status [00:03:00] quo, and that might be a status quo that, you know, you don’t prefer.

David Bulitt: When you say a status quo, tell us what you’re talking about.

Christopher Castellano: Yeah. So, let’s say that you’re doing this separation. You’re not acting, of course, in the world of an order or an agreement, but you’re just doing this because you want to start this process, but you don’t want to go full bore on it, right? And so you say, “Listen, I’m moving into an apartment.

You’re staying in the marital house. You have the kids during one week, and then on Fridays I get the kids,” right? “And we’re just going to swap back and forth.” Well, if you’re in the context of a divorce, a formal divorce, you know, you filed a complaint, the classic process, you may not be inclined to say, “I think that the other spouse should have 50% of the time with the kid.

I don’t think that’s really a, a good situation.” Well, the longer you consent, we’ll say, to a week on, week off, for instance, in this hypothetical, the more you’ve created [00:04:00] the basis and the history of 50/50 working. And so, you could, without necessarily intending to, create that status quo that tells the court that, “Hey, this is reasonably effective, this worked, so tell me why we shouldn’t do that.”

David Bulitt: So, in other words, unconsciously, for lack of a better word, you could be setting up what looks like the norm when you don’t really want that to be the norm. You want that to be sort of a temporary thing, a step sort of thing. Is that kind of what you’re saying?

Christopher Castellano: Yeah. I mean, your intention to have a more gradual change, and maybe it doesn’t impact the kids in such a dramatic way, the intentions there could be noble, but the reality is, is that you could be setting yourself up for what is a relatively uncomfortable court experience when the court says, “Hey, you have an arrangement that you established here that you were okay with, that you felt comfortable with, that you [00:05:00] believed would not harm the kids, ’cause otherwise, frankly, you wouldn’t have done it.

And so tell me why we shouldn’t do this formally.”

David Bulitt: Particularly if the kids are doing well in that scenario, right?

Christopher Castellano: Well, that’s right. You know, if the kids are thriving, you know, they’re doing well in school, their friendships are maintained, you know, they don’t have mental health concerns that have arisen as a result.

These are all indices that the court will look at ultimately to say, “Tell me why this arrangement is bad.”

David Bulitt: So, folks, listen carefully to that in terms of what plans you make, even if you think it’s going to be temporary just to sort of get things going. Be careful of the, right, of what it could look like in terms of this is what’s best for your kids.

I mean, that’s really what you’re saying.

Christopher Castellano: Absolutely.

David Bulitt: Let’s slip over to child support. Tell us how delaying moving forward can affect, not just child support, but contribution toward kids’ expenses and potentially even alimony. I don’t want to stray too far, but [00:06:00] let’s talk about all those finance- potential financial consequences of waiting.

Christopher Castellano: Yeah, I mean, it’s very similar in overall concept, right? When you create a presumption that a custody arrangement is proper, the court’s going to look at, “Tell me why this is wrong,” what we just said. If you create a presumption that a support exchange is proper and is suitable for the circumstances, including the custody arrangement that you just informally established, you’re going to have a hard time overcoming that presumption that that’s not still a relatively reasonable outcome.

Now, it’s somewhat different. It depends on a couple of different factors when we talk about child support. In Maryland, we have the child support guidelines. If you and your spouse are below $30,000 per month, then the guidelines will attach to your case, meaning that the court is going to presume that the guidelines are an accurate child support figure for you.

[00:07:00] So if you’ve deviated from those guidelines, subconsciously or not, then the court’s going to say, “Okay, I understand that you think that this custody arrangement’s working for you. I’m not going to disturb that. However, you agreed to number X for child support. That’s well off what the real child support number should be, whether higher or lower, and the child support guidelines say it should be Y, and so we’re implementing Y.”

The court has the authority to do that. Now, if you are what we call above guidelines, so you and your spouse are making in excess of 30,000 per month, and you have created a financial circumstance as far as the support that is different than what the child support guidelines would recommend, well, then in that situation, even if you don’t like that support number, the court will be more inclined to say, “I understand what you did here.

I understand why you [00:08:00] did this, and so you tell me,” just like with custody, “why we should deviate away from this.” So, it, it depends on your particular circumstances, depends on your income structure between you and your spouse, but you could, just like with custody, create a presumption that you don’t necessarily want to be creating.

David Bulitt: So again, where let’s say, for example, the higher wage earner of the two in the couple may be setting a precedent that they can afford to pay more than what the guidelines number might otherwise spit out, so to speak.

Christopher Castellano: Oh, and it’s only doubly true for alimony, right? If you pay, let’s say the child support guidelines say it’s 500, right?

And so, you start paying the 500, subconsciously or not, you pay that 500. But then you’re also paying 2,000 for alimony, right? Because you say, “Well, listen, I want to get the separation going. I’m the higher earner, you know, my other spouse has been a stay-at-home spouse. I’m just going to pay that [00:09:00] $2,000.” If you were in the litigation mode, it may not necessarily mean that, you know, the facts may not equate to the reality that you should be paying 2,000 a month.

But because you’ve done that voluntarily, you’ve established a pattern that you’re not impoverishing yourself by paying the $2,000 a month in support, in alimony support. And so, the court’s going to say, “Again, tell me why you can’t do that. You were doing it for 10 months. What’s changed?” Because filing in court is not all of a sudden going to change your income structure, right?

And it applies to a lot of different things. You could start going down the list, right? So what if a year before you separated, you started paying for private school, and then you separate ’cause of unforeseeable circumstances, whatever it may be. You separate and the spouse says, “Okay, well, we’re going to continue the private school.”

Okay, that’s fine, that’s fine, that’s fine. I want for the best interest of the kids and all that. And so you have, for another year, pay that private school. [00:10:00] If you go into court and try to say, “You know what? I got to be honest with you, there’s not enough money to pay for this private school. Well, you have two years of history paying for that private school, whether you intended it or not.

So again, to that theme, hidden costs of delaying the divorce process, it’s a bit on the nose because this is an actual financial cost, but it’s the presumption, the presumption’s the hidden cost that we need to be aware of.

David Bulitt: So again, same kind of thing, right? So even if you’re, if you’re looking to separate, even if it may, you’re looking to sort of build a bridge from married land to divorce town, and this bridge might be if I’m the financially superior, the higher earner, even if I want to stretch myself for this short period of time, I could be exposed, right, to stretching myself for a lot longer period of time if, in fact, we end up in court.

Christopher Castellano: Yeah, absolutely.

David Bulitt: Okay. So, so now we’re going to, we’re going to toggle over again out of the money, out of the, [00:11:00] out of that, and let’s go back to more of the emotional pieces of all of this. You know, the delay and how it may affect not only the parties, but the children and the dynamic in terms of getting from married through the separation to divorce.

Tell us a little bit about what you’ve seen, what your experience is when it comes to that, the delay and how it impacts the family.

Christopher Castellano: Yeah. So, I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that when parties are living together and they have kids, but you’re living together as a family unit in the house, and there is marital discord to the point where everybody knows the writing’s on the wall, it’s a tense situation.

It’s uncomfortable. It could lead to fighting; it could lead to disagreements. Whatever it may be, it’s an uncomfortable situation, right? We’ve all seen it. If you delay the divorce process formally, but are in this world [00:12:00] of, “We’re going to do the divorce, but we’re going to do this separation,” or, “We’re going to have these discussions,” or, or whatever it may be, whatever flavor, what you’re essentially doing there is you’re extending that period that the heightened discord, disconnect between the two of you, right?

Some people would say that the fight or flight type of mentality that is becoming ingrained in you during that period, and for yourself, you’re just elongating that, right? And that is a lot of burden for someone to carry, is to be in that state of mind for an extended period of time. I’m sure, David, you’ve had this with clients, but they come to you and once they sign that retainer, they have a sense of relief because they’re putting that burden, that fight or flight burden, they’re putting it onto the attorney in a way.

David Bulitt: Relief, but for the check that they have to write.

Christopher Castellano: Yes.

David Bulitt: Yeah.

Christopher Castellano: But there’s a lot of mental benefit to saying, “Okay, I’ve done what I need to [00:13:00] do. I’ve crossed that bridge. I’ve accepted the reality that I need to hire an attorney. And so, I’m no longer in the fight or flight because I’ve made that decision.

I’ve chosen what essentially is the fight,” right? And so when you don’t make that decision, you’re extending the mental stressors that are really inherent with that constant fighting, battling mode that you are in with your spouse, especially if you’re cohabitating in the same house. And it’s no surprise that the kids, kids know. Kids, even at a very, very early age, they know what’s going on, and they can feel that tension, that pressure.

It’s an uncomfortable situation for everybody.

David Bulitt: I personally tend to agree with you, and as you know, my wife’s an LCSW who works with families and so forth, and we’ve had this discussion about, folks who stay together not just in a divorce planning mode, but also just stay together because we want it to be better for the kids.

And [00:14:00] as you have seen, that’s not necessarily always, if at all, may rarely be the case. And kids do see what’s going on in the house. They do understand, and you lay the groundwork, I think, for what happens when they’re adults. Kids do see what their parents do. They model that behavior. But that’s a discussion for another day.

I want to talk to you about, we touched on this a little bit last time. I’d be remiss if we missed it this time in a little bit more detail, the disadvantage, the strategic disadvantage that you may face, whether it’s a custody case, or financial issues, whatever it may be by delaying.

Christopher Castellano: Yeah. So, let’s dovetail that from our last discussion of the emotional impact, right?

Is that one of the impacts of the elongating this emotional strain between you and your spouse is that you could increase the level of resentment between the two of you, right? And when you increase the level of resentment, what you do is that you make that [00:15:00] negotiating table that much larger, right? And the, the ability to come across that table becomes a lot more difficult.

As a consequence of that, you’re setting yourself up for making the settlement path in your case and resolution a much more difficult goal, right? And I think that you would agree that the vast majority of these cases that could be settled, that is far and away the more beneficial outcome for these people, right?

They get to decide the outcome of their own lives. Well, when you increase resentment, you increase the disconnect between you and your spouse, you decrease the likelihood and the ease with which you can attain that settlement. And so that’s one of the significant strategic disadvantages is that you could unwittingly damage your negotiating position, right?

One person may hold it against you. One person may say, [00:16:00] “Well, during that period of separation, you did X, Y, and Z,” right? Whether that’s finding a new partner during that period of time and the money spent on that becomes an issue. But as far as some of the other marquee strategic disadvantages, even from a very basic level, the longer you go for the divorce process, the more stale information becomes, right?

So, if you wanted to get a divorce because you found out that your spouse went down to the Caribbean and bought $4,000 worth of jewelry and you stayed together and you kind of moved past that expenditure, it pissed you off. You know, you still dwelled on it, but you continued to make financial transactions with this individual; it’s going to become a whole lot more difficult to go back historically and say, “You know what?

I want a credit for this. I want a credit for that and this,” right? So, from a strategic standpoint in that regard, [00:17:00] you start to make those arguments a little bit more difficult. And you could say the same for a lot of the different issues that come up, even in a custody standpoint where you’re alleging that the one parent was abusive, right?

Now, the court’s always going to consider abuse for what it is. However, when you’re trying to make the argument that the emotional abuse or even in an instance of physical abuse that didn’t rise to the level, of course, of a domestic violence action, but that happened five years ago, it’s going to be real difficult to make that argument that it is as dispositive of an issue regarding custody that if it happened a month prior to going to court, right?

And so the staleness of facts presents difficulty when presenting, and your access to information is rendered just as difficult. When we try to get documents from, I don’t know, call it a brokerage [00:18:00] account, an investment account or even a bank account, the longer you go, the more difficult it is to get those documents.

So, when you’re trying to pull up those credit card statements of the Caribbean expenditure that happened eight years ago, I mean, good luck trying to find the credit card statements if they weren’t printed out or you didn’t save all the mailed statements from the bank. And so you have to be careful of the staleness of not only your arguments, but the staleness of the documents themselves, much less your access to them.

David Bulitt: Now, the last thing I want to ask you, Chris, is let’s flip the coin over. There are times, are there not, that delay might actually be the right thing to do?

Christopher Castellano: Well, that’s right. When you are the financially disadvantaged spouse, for instance, and the other side is continuing to earn money, continuing to contribute to [00:19:00] investments, continuing to contribute to retirement.

The longer you go, A, you’re creating a longer period of lack of employment, which helps the narrative that you need support, number one. But also, your equal share of those investments, retirements, bank accounts, et cetera, those assets, you know, you continue to benefit from those. We saw this with the housing market, right?

If you stayed in your house from 2019 through 2025, ’26, for a lot of people, the house is your primary asset. That asset grew substantially in value. And so, by staying in the marriage and, quote-unquote, delaying the process a little bit, you, frankly, you made some money.

David Bulitt: The other thing that strikes me, and I know we both have seen it, is that someone comes and says, [00:20:00] “Well, my spouse is paying for the mortgage, paying for my credit card, paying for my car, paying for this, this, and this, and, you know, I want to get divorced.

You know, what do I do?” And sometimes the response to that is, “You know, I can’t get you any more money than what you’re getting right now.” Because if you look at what the… now, I know we talked about setting a precedent and so forth, but sometimes, strategically, you might tell that person, “Well, let’s ride this horse for a little bit longer if we can, because once we start getting lawyers involved or courts, that support obligation may actually come down.”

Christopher Castellano: Well, that’s right. You know, if you’ve created an informal understanding about how to do something, let’s say, you know, the financially dominant spouse agreed to pay, “Yes, you leave the house and I’ll pay your rent,” right? And then they continued to pay the credit card, and that’s where the expenses are coming from.

You know, that could be a whole lot of money. And so, as I say, why rock the boat? You know, we talked a lot about the potential [00:21:00] risks associated with delaying, of course, whether it be custody or certainly financially. On the other side, as you said, that coin, when it comes to custody, maybe you want to create the status quo, that presumption of propriety when it comes to a custody arrangement.

So, it really depends on what side of the coin you’re on, which is why you should talk to an attorney in this process. Even if you have them working in a situation like Oz where you’re behind the curtain, they should still be there to help you navigate this so you know what’s going on.

David Bulitt: Well, folks, you heard that. Talk to a lawyer. People are hesitant. People don’t want to spend the money. Penny wise and dollar foolish is never a good plan when it comes to separation and divorce. Chris, as always, I want to thank you for your time. Folks, if you are thinking about separation and divorce, give Chris Castellano a call, reach out.

And [00:22:00] Chris, how would they do that?

Christopher Castellano: Yeah, certainly. You know, anyone can find me over at Joseph Greenwald and Lake. They can give me a call direct at 240-399-7881, and my contact information, including email, is also on the firm profile. And thank you, David, for having me as always.

David Bulitt: Always. It’s a great conversation. Folks, I am David Bulitt, and this is JGL Law For You.

David Bulitt: [00:00:00] Welcome to JGL Law for You. JGL Law for You is a podcast by lawyers, but not for lawyers. Only on JGL Law for You do we discuss a wide array of topics to help you navigate the many legal processes, developments in the law, other current events, and how they may affect you, your family, or your business.

We are back at JGL Law for You, and once again, I have my friend, my law partner, Chris Castellano, talking about family law. And today, Chris, who has been representing clients for over a decade, is a partner of mine at Joseph Greenwald & Laake and focuses his practice on all aspects of family law. Today, we’re starting at the beginning, which is a good jump-off point for anyone who is thinking about, possibly thinking about, or maybe thinking about separation and divorce.

Chris, we’re here today to talk about the hidden costs of delaying a divorce. Welcome aboard.

Chris Castellano: Thanks, as always, David. Yeah, this is such [00:01:00] an important topic because it’s a big step, right? The decision to go forward with a divorce. And so, a lot of people facing that big step think, “Oh, you know what? Maybe I hold off. Maybe I see if things get better. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe,” right? But there are, as you introduced here and as you implied, costs to delaying that divorce process and putting off that question. Those costs can either be obvious or they can be hidden, and that’s what we’re going to discuss today.

David Bulitt: And when you talk about costs, we’re talking not only financial costs, but emotional costs as well, I assume.

Chris Castellano: Oh, absolutely. Divorce is all-inclusive, right? It’s all-inclusive to your bank account, and it’s all-inclusive to your mental account, right? I’ll use that freely here because it really takes a toll on the person and the person’s family, and that’s kind of what we’re trying to get at here with starting this process [00:02:00] and what that true toll can be, especially if you delay that process.

David Bulitt: And most people, whether you’re talking about divorce or just about anything else, there’s a fear of the unknown, right? And there’s a fear of change. There’s anxiety related to both of those. But on top of that, in addition to those generic layers, why is it, do you think, that folks generally delay looking into divorce even though they think that that’s on the horizon for them?

Chris Castellano: I think you hit the nail on the head. Different people, of course, may have a different thought on this, right? But the fear of the unknown, I believe, personally, is one of the biggest impediments to change and taking action to effectuate that change, or even start that ball rolling, right?

Not knowing what to expect, not knowing what the end game will be, right? If you’re the, let’s call it, financially dependent spouse in a relationship, and you’re facing that question of, “Do I go ahead and start this divorce process? What’s it going to [00:03:00] look like for me? What is my life going to look like at the end of the tunnel? Am I going to have money to support myself? Am I going to be able to go out to restaurants or bring my kids to ice cream after basketball or whatever it may be?” right? We don’t know, and that fear of that lack of knowing is, I think, one of the biggest impediments.

But you can couple that with other unknowns. The possibility that, “Well, maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe it’s not as bad as I think it is,” right? It’s not like the stories I read in the news or celebrities and their divorces and all this flashy stuff. “Maybe we can reconcile. Maybe we can get back together. Maybe this is just a bump in the road. Maybe we go to couples counseling,” right? And so that lack of knowledge and certainty about, “Well, maybe this isn’t the end of the road,” that’s also an impediment.

David Bulitt: In other words, maybe we’ll be able to work it out. It’ll get [00:04:00] better, right?

Chris Castellano: That’s right, yeah. And then there are some of these other items that are just as critical, right? You don’t want to disrupt your kids’ lives. How many times, David, have we heard people say, whether it’s — and this is before I ever got into divorce law — that idea of, you stayed for the kids. “I’m going to delay things because I want my kids to go to college. I want to start doing things when my kids are in college because somehow that’s going to make a big difference for the kids.”

Or “I want to be financially independent,” right? “I want to get to a place where I don’t need him or her anymore. I don’t need their financial support.” Or what about the fact that you have a group of friends or family members that really you think will look down on you because you start the divorce process? Or maybe you’re in a community, whether that’s a neighborhood community or a church community or whatever it may be, that looks down on you for initiating a divorce process.

All of these are those social factors that play into, you know, [00:05:00] an individual’s mentality or paradigm when it comes to divorce and initiating that process.

David Bulitt: Yeah, I mean, the fear is so multifaceted, right? I mean, you and I both know that the statistics are not favorable to kids who are children of separation and divorce. I think it was more than 50% of kids whose parents divorced are more likely to divorce than those whose parents did not divorce.

When I got started, which was on the tail end of when the baby boomers were sort of coming around having kids and so forth, there was a lot of talk about what you just said: “We’re going to stay together for the kids.” But then when you get to the divorce part, the interesting thing that I found was that the kids always knew. They knew things — unless they’re really small, unless they’re really young — there was a general sense, right, that Mom and Dad aren’t getting along anyway. So, what are these folks really modeling for their children at home when they’re miserable?

Chris Castellano: Well, that’s [00:06:00] absolutely right, and I think that there has been some significant progress and change in, obviously, the therapeutic field, right, and an appreciation that sticking it out for the kids and exposing the kids to constant discord and discontent and fights or this or that, that’s not going to accrue to their benefit. They’re not going to thrive in that situation.

If you’re genuinely working on it, I understand that. We’re not sitting here today to dissuade people from filing for divorce by any stretch, right? But this is about recognizing the forest for the trees, I think.

David Bulitt: So, let’s talk about the financial piece, right? You made mention of the fact that some folks say, “I don’t want to be financially dependent, so we’re going to stay together until I can sort of embark on my own and not be dependent on my spouse.” But the fact of the matter is, is that a family’s finances are not static, right?

Chris Castellano: Oh, yeah. During this process of your decision-making, right, you’re deciding whether or not, [00:07:00] “Well, should I go forward with this divorce?” The family finances, that budget sheet, that’s not staying static, as you say. It’s ever-changing, right?

So, expenses continue, right? Tuitions come due, the credit card debt that may be ballooning, right? Because you and I both know that financial pressure is one of the leading causes of divorce, and that being debt, right? The financial debt may continue to balloon. We may be digging more and more into savings. Right now, one of the hot topics is all the increase in everyday expenses — groceries, gas, whatever it may be. That’s digging into everyday people’s savings, and that’s going to cause more and more and more financial pressure on these couples.

David Bulitt: You look today at younger people, in particular, and you wonder, how are they ever going to do anything other than rent? So, if you’ve got a family with two parents, and now all of a sudden — and again, things are circular in some ways — but at [00:08:00] the moment, we’re in an economic circumstance where prices are rising exponentially. By the time we finish this episode, gas will be up another dime a gallon, right? So, people need to keep in mind that while they may want to be in a better financial position, circumstances outside their control may, in fact, adversely affect the likelihood that that’s going to happen, right?

Chris Castellano: Well, that’s right. And as gas prices go up, and as other things happen, retirement accounts change in value. Stock accounts change. If you’ve got cryptocurrency, we know how volatile that is, but it does, over the course of a long period of time, track as changes, whether that’s up or down, right? And so, we need to recognize that as you’re delaying this process, those accounts don’t delay along with you, right? They’re going to continue on, and so you need to understand the financial impact of that [00:09:00] delay.

David Bulitt: But what about the situation where the spouse who is looking into separating wants to, but decides to stay because his or her spouse may be in business on their own, and business is terrific? So, “You know, this may not be the right time for me. I want to hang in there while business is good.” But business may not always be good.

Chris Castellano: Well, that’s right. The business may not be good, and you want to stick it out. Maybe you want to see if you can ride those coattails of success, right, and enjoy some of the benefits of sticking with the spouse. But there are some downsides that you need to watch out for, right? That spouse who is kind of chugging along and enjoying success with the business, they may suspect that you’re thinking about divorce.

And by doing that, the longer you delay this process, the higher the chance that that other spouse, who could suspect that something is afoot, starts covering themselves as well. Maybe they’re [00:10:00] slowly trickling money into another investment account, another brokerage account, and it’s just enough that you don’t really notice, right? Again, we’re not trying to impose some type of “start being suspicious of your spouse,” but at the same time, these are real possibilities, right? Another spouse on the other side has an inkling that something is afoot, and they start protecting themselves, right?

That’s another one of these hidden costs of delaying divorce, the possibility that not only could the market continue and you lose out on money, sure, but your spouse could also be secreting money, and you don’t get access to that. So, there are a lot of these costs from a financial perspective.

David Bulitt: Can delaying looking at divorce or hiring a lawyer affect one’s ability to get financial records or to sort of figure out what you have, what you don’t have, where things are, that sort of thing?

Chris Castellano: Oh, absolutely. The individual who has always been particular about protecting records — that’s a lost art, I should add, right? How many people still have a filing cabinet in their office at home or their basement or wherever, and they keep their documents? That’s a lost art because everyone knows, “Oh, you know, I’ll just go onto my Bank of America and download the statements.”

Well, you got to remember that there’s only a certain amount of data available for each user in the world, right? These companies online, they’re not going to keep your data forever. So, they have an end date that you can go back to on your statements, and that continues on whether you want to delay the divorce process or not. Those statements become less and less valuable — or available, I’m sorry.

So, if you’ve got questions like, “You know what? I had X amount of dollars before [00:12:00] marriage. Our marriage is six years old, seven years old, whatever it may be. But I know I can always get those statements that show how much I put in or brought into the marriage.” Well, if you delay another year, and it just so happens that that was the year that your bank stops carrying statements as available to you, and you didn’t do that background preparation to save documents, you risk not having access to those documents, right?

So that issue that you wanted to solve and prove may become a whole lot more difficult and certainly a whole lot more expensive, because then you have to go through the process of subpoenas to the banking institutions, and maybe they have to go to their Arizona-based archives that they all have, and you got to cross your fingers to hope that you can actually get the documents, right? That’s just another one of those hidden risks.

David Bulitt: And these days, when people basically make [00:13:00] payments from their phone or from their laptop, whether it’s Venmo, whether it’s Zelle, whether it’s one of the others, Cash App, or something like that, they can become more and more difficult to track down the more time that goes by, right?

Chris Castellano: Oh, absolutely. The age of information and convenience is leading to a whole lot less information, and it’s something to be aware of. I’m sure that you’ve experienced it in your practice. I’ve experienced it in mine. The rise in Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, whatever it may be, is making tracking money incredibly difficult. So, the longer you let that go, the more difficult it’s going to be.

David Bulitt: So, let’s shift for a minute. We mentioned it just a moment ago, the housing market and the house as an issue. The marital home, the family home, is always an issue, both from an emotional perspective as well as a financial one, right? And when you layer into that what we’re experiencing today, which is instability in the market, the interest rates are higher than they were, substantially higher than they were, you know, [00:14:00] three, four years ago. Tell me a little bit about how all of that affects someone’s thinking about delaying, waiting, not going forward now with the process.

Chris Castellano: Yeah. So, let’s do that in two parts, I think, right? Let’s have a hypothetical of somebody who was looking into getting a divorce when the interest rates were lower, right? Let’s say 2021, 2022 time period. Rates were much better. House prices were starting to certainly climb, but they weren’t as drastic as they are right now.

They say, “Ah, you know what? All these other non-financial factors, I want to stay together for the kids. Maybe we can reconcile,” all that. You keep all that in mind, and then they decide to stick it out, right? Things don’t change, so you say, “Well, I’ve got to make a change now,” right? Well, you look into refinancing that same house today, and what would’ve been — whether it’s an [00:15:00] assumption or a refinance — maybe from a $2,400-a-month mortgage to a $2,600-a-month mortgage, the exact same mortgage principal with a higher rate stands to be around, you know, $4,700, $4,800.

And let’s not forget some of the important aspects of that payment, right? That’s homeowner’s insurance. And a lot of people, we don’t acknowledge this enough, but the longer your house goes, the more difficult it is to get a homeowner’s insurance policy. There are a lot of homeowner’s insurance policies that aren’t covering houses that have a roof, for instance, that’s older than 10 years. Som if you go from eight years to 11 years and you think, “I’m going to get this house and I’m going to have a new homeowner’s insurance policy,” and then they say, “Well, you know, guess what? Buy a new roof and then we’ll start to cover you,” and that roof’s $30,000, that’s a hard cost and a reality, right, that a lot of people don’t factor in.

David Bulitt: And there’s a multitude of things. Utilities, new HVAC, dishwashers, refrigerators. If you bought a house — a lot of folks, especially in the area that we live in, there are a lot more resales than there are new home purchases because of the lack of places to build houses in the DC market. So, people are buying houses, right, that are 20, 30, 40 years old, still have similar appliances or the same appliances that they may have had in 1984, and not thinking about what’s it going to cost, on top of everything else, to replace all that stuff.

Chris Castellano: Oh, yeah. I mean, they’re taking on what is essentially a mini mortgage with some of the potential maintenance and upkeep requirements.

David Bulitt: Yeah, that’s absolutely correct. What about the non-financial piece, the emotional tie to “This is my home. This is the kids’ home. And so, if we go to separate, then one of us isn’t going to be living here. The kids might not be here.” How does that affect the thinking of someone [00:17:00] considering divorce, and how does that affect the advice that you give them?

Chris Castellano: This is always tough. It’s one thing to approach a potential client or a client on the questions from a financial perspective, because that boils down to what we all refer to as a business decision, right? You can put dollars and cents to that, and it makes sense, no pun intended. But here, when it comes to the kids, when it comes to the family concepts, when it comes to the memories and all that, those are the intangibles that you really — I mean, you may have a lawyer that is going to attempt to put a dollar value to that, but that’s frankly a little disingenuous, right? Because you can’t put a value to someone’s memory or the possibility of memories.

So that is where the other side of our job, the counseling side, comes in, right? You got to talk to your client and really understand what do they value, and not from a financial perspective, but what do they value? A lot of people, and I’m sure you’ve heard this, value the idea of, “You know what? It [00:18:00] matters more to me not to go to trial and litigate the case.” From an emotional standpoint, “I don’t have it in me,” or “that’s not what I want to do,” or “I had a 20-year relationship with this person, and I don’t want to put them on the stand, and they have to deal with that,” right? So there are these emotional factors that I think it is inappropriate at best to ignore, because they’re a reality just as much as the person’s bank account, and you can’t just dwindle the person down to the idea of a bank account or an investment account or whatever it may be, because they have these other intangibles that are realities for these people.

David Bulitt: To wrap up this part of this discussion — folks, we’re going to have this discussion in two parts — but to wrap up this part, tell everyone a little bit, if there is any disadvantage, what, if any, strategic disadvantage might someone have in waiting and saying, “Okay, for whatever the reasons are — some of them we’ve talked about, some of them we haven’t — for whatever the reasons are, I’m going to wait.” [00:19:00] How, if at all, might that disadvantage someone in a divorce circumstance?

Chris Castellano: So, there is the emotional disadvantage, there is the financial disadvantage, and then there’s the strategic disadvantage, right? We talked about the emotional disadvantage, that you could put yourself in a situation where it continues, and frankly, your life hasn’t gotten easier. The emotional struggles haven’t gotten easier. They still remain. Your children aren’t going to benefit potentially because, frankly, the exposure to discord isn’t that much better than the potential instability of a new situation and change. Okay, so we talked about that a little bit.

From a financial perspective, we talked a little bit about how investment accounts could change. They could either go down, or your other spouse could see theirs increase, right? And there could be a hidden benefit to that, which we’ll talk about during our next part of this discussion. But overall, the markets can be volatile, and [00:20:00] so you don’t know what it’s going to look like.

Okay, so we talked about that. From a strategic standpoint, the other side could have that inkling, right? Because people have that intuition. Unless you have your head in the sand, the other side has the intuition that something’s not quite right.

David Bulitt: Right.

Chris Castellano: We’re not sitting down and sharing wine together and having a good old time, right? So clearly something’s not quite right. They start preparing, and they may be of the mind not to delay. They’re talking with counsel. They’re strategizing. They’re saying, “Hey, you know what? I’m not going to write emails or communicate to my spouse this way on kid issues.” So, they set themselves up so they don’t have pitfalls or mistakes, right?

They start gathering the documents to prove different items that you neglected to start preparing for or hedging against. They started slowly moving money away, right? There are all these potential items that the other side could [00:21:00] be doing, but because you delayed even talking to an attorney, right, you delayed that process. These aren’t on your radar. These are the risks. These are the red flags that we’re trying to expose for people right now, that you just have to have the information because you need to hedge against these potential issues.

David Bulitt: So, the takeaway, it seems to me, aside from all the details that you’ve talked about today and more that we’re going to talk about in the second part, the takeaway is, if this is something you’re thinking about, don’t ignore it. Go talk to a lawyer, right?

Chris Castellano: At the very least, yeah. Just have the conversation because the lawyer, you, or I can sit down with a person and help them map this situation out, right? Where are these potential red flags? You may not have the tools to recognize some of these, but we’ve done this for long enough that we can help identify some of these issues and say, “You know what? That’s fine. If your goal is reconciliation, I’m not going to get in the way of that. But [00:22:00] please be sure to keep this, this, this, and that at the forefront of your mind,” right? At the very least, someone’s getting educated. That’s right, and there is absolutely no downside to gaining information.

David Bulitt: That’s true in all aspects of life, Chris, and I want to thank you. This is the end of part one of the hidden costs of delaying a divorce. Part two is coming next. Chris will be back. As always, folks, thanks for listening. Come back and listen to the rest of this discussion because this is as important as it gets for anyone who’s in a circumstance where they’re considering, worried about, or wondering whether divorce is the right thing for them.

Once again, folks, I am David Bulitt, and this is JGL Law for You.