Introduction (: 00:06

Welcome to the Better Than Bitter Divorce Podcast, where we flip the script on divorce and show you how to have a more amicable divorce resolution. I'm your host, Tania Leichliter a divorce coach, a certified life coach, and the mastermind behind the Better Than Bitter five-step game plan course, where I help individuals build a pathway towards a more amicable divorce resolution.

Each week, I'll bring you uplifting stories from people who've successfully experienced amicable separations, proving that divorce doesn't have to be a battleground. Whether you're overwhelmed with grief, struggling with custody and co-parenting, or just dealing with a high-conflict individual, this podcast is here to guide you towards reclaiming your life and being what I know is possible, better than bitter.

Tania Leichliter (: 01:17

Welcome to the Better Than Bitter podcast. Today we are meeting with Michael Conticelli. This is episode 30. Michael is a certified divorce financial analyst. He is also a collaborative strategist. He has been a certified divorce financial analyst since 2003. He guides individuals through the financial complexities of divorce, and he provides clarity and confidence on how you are gonna move forward.

With over 30 years in financial planning and investment advisory experience, including a background as a New York State divorce mediator, Michael brings both depth and empathy to the divorce process. And it's so exciting that Michael has a mediation background because so many CDFAs really do only come from the financial aspect, but having a mediator by your side in this process is gonna really bring you incredible results.

His expertise spans from property division, tax implications, income analysis, and long-term financial planning. Michael is based in Florida, but continues to support clients with a collaborative solution-focused approach designed to protect your financial futures during and after divorce. His website is mysolutionsdivorce.com. Welcome, Michael.

Michael Conticelli (: 02:35

Thank you so much, Tanya. Pleasure to be here today.

Tania Leichliter (: 02:37

Great. So again, this is so incredible that you come from a mediation background because I really do notice a real difference in working with CDFAs who are strictly financial advisors and one who really understand conflict resolution, because the divorce process can be very high conflict. And even if we want an amicable divorce resolution, you know, during the process of negotiation, during the time of division of assets, it can be highly charged and highly charged with a lot of emotions. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you went from mediation into the financial advisory role, and kind of what that kind of outcome looks or what that partnership looks like for clients.

Michael Conticelli (: 03:24

Well, my start was basically, it was kind of the opposite. I was in financial advisory, and then I started working with a local dispute resolution center. And what I did was I started with a community mediation. I was helping out doing court mediations, and I moved into the divorce, into the family law, got certified in New York, and they had a great model up there. was...

Mediation, so I always worked with a female attorney. So it was gender neutral We didn't want them to feel like they were getting kind of ganged up on and it was nice because you had the Attorney there talking about all the legal aspects as we worked through the mediation and then I was there as the You know the lay mediator they would say but I was covering the financial aspects of it. So between the two of us, it was really giving them, you know, two very important sides of the process of moving through the divorce and getting to those agreements because a of people, when they think about divorce, they think about, need to see an attorney, it's a legal process. But as you mentioned, it's so much more than that. It's really kind of the three things are the legal, the financial, and the big one everybody forgets about is the emotional that intersex, intersex across all of that.

s back in, I guess, the early: 2000

Tania Leichliter (: 04:57

Yeah, so, you think that collaborative is a really interesting approach, and I'm part of the Vesta Divorce Concierge Group, and we consider what we do like the little C of collaborative, meaning that we all work very collaboratively in a hub environment. So we have all the different professionals that can work together, and we have a history of working together, yet the true collaboration.

Is that you need to be licensed as a collaborative attorney. You need to be licensed as a collaborative coach. You're signing an actual agreement saying that you will reach an agreement. And if you do not, and it has to go into litigation, you have to start all over.

Michael Conticelli (: 05:36

Wow.

Tania Leichliter (: 05:36

So real collaborative is great because it's fast. It's just very expensive on a per-hour basis because you have all of the professionals all in the same room together. But yet to me, even though it sounds really expensive, at the end of the day, you're still going to have to have all those hours of all those professionals anyway. It's just compacted in terms of time.

Michael Conticelli (: 05:56

You

Tania Leichliter (: 05:57

So I think it's so great that there was also this idea of gender neutral. I actually haven't really heard that there had been a real initiative to say like, okay, we want to make sure we have a male and a female supporting this couple because it's important for them to not believe that the male's gonna side with the male and the female's gonna side with the female. So, can we talk a little bit more about that? Is that widespread? Is that just where you were? And like, what do you believe the importance is as people begin to create their divorce support group, like to be thinking about things like

Michael Conticelli (: 06:31

I think I have not, kind of like you said, aside from that instance there, I have not seen it really practiced. And probably, I mean, there was an expense factor too, right? You've got two people in the room, like you were saying. But I think it really means, personalities are gonna overcome that, especially in the very beginning, you've got to think these people are coming into that room, they're nervous, they're...

Anxious, they're you know angry, sad, every emotion is running through, and a lot of times. You're probably here because I still hear it today. You hear people feel like Someone's ganging up on them, and that's really what they tried to avoid.. Even in my own practice, what I've started doing now is bringing which I never used to do, but I've started bringing my wife in,, especially the initial consultations and

what that does and she's not, she doesn't have the same depth of financial background even that I have, but what it does is it brings a certain, just kind of balances things out a little bit and you're going, kind of playing off of one another a little bit where, you know, there's certain things that I may not be getting or she's picking up on, you know. So I think it helps. I don't think it's necessary, but I really,

I really think it kind of brings a little bit extra to the table.

Tania Leichliter (: 07:43

Yeah, that's actually interesting. mean, in my divorce process, our certified divorce financial analyst was a woman. We had hired her as a neutral, meaning that she was looking at how we could divide assets in an equitable way that's going to work for both of us. But my ex shook his head and was like, I don't need her support. So she really did end up just working with me. And then our mediator was a woman.

But I think that it has to do more with the person you're divorcing to figure out if that really matters or not. We did not feel like there was a gender bias in mediation. And I hired a woman lawyer just to look over the mediated agreement. He hired a male attorney just to look over the agreement. So it really, think it does, it may matter for some if you believe that there might be some influence there, but

I really do believe it's the divorce professionals that you hire and their ability to stay neutral, which is most important.

Michael Conticelli (: 08:39

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And not just neutral, but I think there are things that, you know, like I've been, I've been divorced myself. So I've been through it, but my divorce was, I don't want to say any divorce is easy, but there were no children involved. It was very early in the marriage. So there weren't a whole lot of assets, you know, so I can draw on some of those things. But, you know, a lot of times, and I'll tell my clients this, I'm sitting down with them and it's, I understand.

I can empathize with them, I just, truly don't, I don't get exactly where they are. Like I understand it, but I'm not, I've never felt it. So there's a little bit of that, I want to say lack of connectivity there, which is good for me on the financial side, where I think in a lot of cases, and I've noticed like, especially with bringing my wife in more recently,

she's a little bit more in tune to some of those non-financial concerns, the fears, especially when the children are involved. I can't understand, I can say I understand, I can read everything about it, I can learn, but the feelings that a mother has when they've got an eight-year-old and a 10-year-old, they're in the middle of a divorce and they're thinking about the impact and what this is having.

I'm looking at it from a dad's perspective, not from a mom's perspective. So not even in terms of fairness, but I think it brings, like I said, I'll use the word balance sometimes. And sometimes it's like I said, I've done it for better than 20 years, literally by myself. But what we're really trying to do is not just cover that emotional part of it, which

You know, that's not my strong point, obviously, and this is why we need more professionals. We need somebody to come in there and cover that, where the coaching would come in and actually deal with some of those issues that aren't just truly financial. So it's truly covering all the bases there. They've got their legal covered. My focus is really on the financial, but we've also got to make sure some of those fears and emotional needs are taken care of as well.

Tania Leichliter (: 10:40

So many times, I obviously talk to a lot of individuals getting divorced. And when I recommend that they start their process, not just with a coach, but they start their process with a certified divorce financial analyst, they'll be like, I don't have that kind of money. Or, you know, like, yeah, we own a house, we have some 401ks, we have some life insurance, but yet, like, we don't really need a whole certified divorce financial analyst to be able to help us divide our assets.

And so I know that you said that you actually work with those people a lot, meaning that like that middle, you know, socioeconomic individual who might not think they need it, but they do need it. And, you know, why should people really consider this as an option? Because, because again, it's not something that people know exists. I didn't know it existed. And does it really matter? What, at what stage should people like with what they have to divide at what stage should they be like, yeah, we definitely should get a CDFA in here. Like when you say like your intake, like who's your ideal customer as a starting.

Michael Conticelli (: 11:52

I would say as early on in the process as possible. We could technically say, after we say I do, you want to start thinking, even with a prenup, a lot of people think it's a recipe to fail, but it's kind of setting the stage. So I've had a lot of people come to me, just thinking about divorce that they don't go through with it.

but they just need to sit down because one of the values is we know the process, we understand the finances, we can look at all the implications, and sometimes you don't know what you don't know. So by sitting down, you're talking to someone, you're kind of running through the scenario, this is my situation, am I gonna be okay if I do this? And sometimes they need to hear that, like, yeah, you're gonna be okay, it's okay.

So I think part of it is really kind of almost like getting that second opinion on, am I? I think I'm good with this. I think everything's going in the right place. This is my plan. And then the second part is that a lot of people go into a divorce willingly or not blindly. And they don't know what to expect in the process. And it's like, what do you mean I need to stay? I don't know where.

You know, where that was kept. I don't know where this is, or how do I find that? So a lot of times if you're coming in, you're talking to someone, and it's like, okay, guess what? These are going to be all the things that you're going to need. What that enables you to do is actually prepare for the divorce. So you can go in and say like, okay, well, wait a second. Do I have copies of my tax statements? How do I get those? What credit cards that we're using? Let me look through these bank statements. What's going on? And sometimes, especially if you're a non-financial

spouse, you're not aware of a lot of these things. You're just, I don't know, everything's taken care of. The bills are paid. We make enough money. Everything's done. You're not looking into those details. So it kind of gives you time to organize and prepare. So when you have to fill out those financial affidavits, when you're sitting down with the lawyer, they're asking you questions.

You'll probably save more money because you'll be more organized, and the way I try to make it very accessible, my fees are on the low side. I charge $150 an hour, but on an as needed basis, know, so you can think about it I've got a lot of clients that will come in and just want to organize everything, you know, it may only take a session or two And it's like okay, you know, I've got this

A lot of times, maybe they'll come back right before mediation as the settlements are going through. Let's run through some numbers. But the sooner you start thinking about it, it's kind of like getting a temperature check on your finances. OK, what's next? How do I prepare for this?

Tania Leichliter (: 14:20

You know, your pricing strategy is really interesting because a lot of CDFAs charge a kind of flat fee, you know, whether it be three, four, or five thousand. And obviously that backs out into an hourly rate, you know, but for, you know, for all intents and purposes, they have done it enough that they know what they like, what the cost is going to be. And that's what they put down as the retainer. But you still pay that amount of money. It's in it's not like they're going to give you money back, you know, if you don't use the hours. But it's interesting because this really does allow for all different individuals to be able to get support. Again, I think what I was trying to get to was who's the ideal customer and who should consider adding a CDFA into their mix, right? So if I don't own a house and I'm just renting.

I'm an hourly wage worker, and I might have a car, but I don't have life insurance, and I get medical insurance. Maybe the medical insurance is something you get from your spouse, who has a salaried position. What's the collection of assets?

That would be a trigger to say, I need to bring in a CDFA into the mix here.

Michael Conticelli (: 15:39

I wouldn't I would argue it may not even be a trigger of assets because you know even in this scenario you talked about there may not be a whole lot to divide up but obviously you're going through such a transition that things are going to change your life is going to change you're used to one budget that budgets coming over to something else you've got you maybe got hourly a lot of times you're talking about you know even

Can that career continue? Am I gonna have to change my career because now I'm in a completely different scenario? So I would say that assets may not even be part of the equation because you're going on a financial reset. So you're literally going to go from two incomes working together to one income working together. There may or may not be kids involved. So what you're talking about is.

Everything's going to change in a big, big way. And if you're not prepared for that and you haven't projected and you haven't thought about it, even if, even if your divorce is going to go, okay, well, okay, how are your finances going to be? Like, you know, what's going to happen? Where are you going to be a year from now, two years from now? What's the plan going forward? You know, so I would argue that, you know, even in that situation, there's definitely value.

And then the organization part, you need to get everything together. You know, a lot of people, and I was just at a family law seminar last week, and some of the judges were speaking. It was for pro bono attorneys, and they were literally begging some of the attorneys to take on pro bono cases. Some of these judges, actually many of them, were saying they're seeing 50 pro se, people representing themselves, cases a month. So these are people going in there with no legal representation. They've got no financial, and they were talking about the struggles because you're just not on the same page. Like you don't need for the whole duration. And that's why I don't use the retainer model because I don't necessarily need to carry someone through the entire year and a half, two-year process. I want someone to be able to say, you know what? I'm thinking about doing this. This is what's going on, and they can kind of pop in, work on some strategies. And obviously it's gonna be even less expensive the more work they do. I've got clients that come to me, and everything's very well organized, but they don't know finances the same way. They don't know, they may not be able to read these statements or look at a tax return and pick up on some things like, hey, what is this?

This represents an asset that I don't see listed anywhere in these documents. So you can pick up on things, find red flags and blind spots, even in that situation where there's no assets involved, because there's a big change in finances involved. So that's why I would argue that assets are big and the higher you go, the higher the net worth.

A lot of times, they're already going to have those professionals lined up. I want to, you know, I would argue it's technically easier for them because, you know, they've got all the professionals, whereas you come down market and you talk about the mid market, just your kind of everyday people. A lot of times, you know, they don't have, you know, their regular attorney, you know, maybe preparing their taxes themselves or just using a tax.

They don't have that CPA and that financial advisor lined up yet. A big thing is that these financial professionals, a lot of times, are aligned with a particular spouse. How many times are they sitting in a meeting and are ignored? One person's handling everything, and they're like, well, that's not my relationship.

Tania Leichliter (: 19:14

Yeah, so what I hear you saying is that from a CDFA perspective, there are a couple of different roles that, you know, individual CPAs might, I CDFAs might be available to provide. One is that if you're in that mid-market and you just need support as it relates to, oh my gosh, my life financially is about to change, and I need somebody to help me with a budget.

I need somebody who's gonna say, okay, like this is what you're gonna have coming in. Now let's look at what your life monthly, annual, and 30-year out perspective looks like in terms of what your life is gonna look like. So you can also be looking at, know, okay, well if I want my life to be different, I need to be looking to earn at X. So you plug in future earning potential to kind of show them what their life might look like.

If they begin to earn more. So obviously their earnings are less coming out of that divorce, but with the intent to grow, know, maybe there's an earning capacity evaluation. Maybe they upskill, maybe they do some stuff. So, if it's a really nice plan, meaning that you're like, okay, this is where you are. Let's talk about where you want to be. And how are you going to get there? How much more money would you need to earn in order to live?

That way that you are hoping to live. And then let's get the support that you need to get there. But here's your financial wealth health over the next 30 years. The second way is if you are somebody who has a ton of assets. And I was somebody who came in, and between the two of us, we had assets, right? My financial, my CDFA said, okay.

Our goal here is to slice and dice, come up with a few offers that we could potentially move forward on how to divide all the assets. So, how could these assets potentially be divided? One person gets the main house, somebody gets a condo, and there's a business that's included. We've got stocks, we've got this, we've got that, we've got IRAs, we've got Roths, we've got all sorts of retirement, we have investment accounts. Okay.

So if you slice and dice this way, this would be an equal and equitable division of assets. But you can also slice and dice this way. And this also would be an equitable division of assets. These are two offers that might work. And if you have a CDFA only working for you and you're looking 30 years out, they can do an evaluation between this offer and that offer, what it might look like if you hold on to this asset versus that asset.

Where's the risk? Or if you're going to take on a residence, what kind of risk is that if you don't have the financial means to support that residence? Maybe the interest rates change, maybe it's a balloon, maybe it's a 15-year fix, or maybe it's a variable. So they look at all those things, right? So there are different ways of using a CDFA. Like you said, there's individuals who are just looking at it as like, how am I going to support myself and stay...

Michael Conticelli (: 22:14

you

Tania Leichliter (: 22:20

livelihood, et cetera, what is it going to look like for me, and what kind of budget do I need to set for myself, and how do I make changes in my lifestyle to meet where I am today? And the other way is like people have more assets, more information, they need somebody to support them with the offers, meaning like, let's go into mediation with a concrete understanding of the finances and offer. So you have a starting place for negotiation. Correct? Yeah.

Michael Conticelli (: 22:44

Right. exactly.

Once the assets are involved, then it becomes, you know, when you've got

decent amount of assets now you've got all these different settlement options and and each asset where they carries its own characteristics because you know you're looking at source of assets you're looking you know tax issues a lot of times that you know you'll be like okay we just simply plan on dividing it this way okay how is that going to play out you know is that going to play out you know tax wise how is that going to play out in the future projection wise you brought up a great point we see a lot of times with mean, the marital home is always a difficult one because you've got a couple issues going on there.

Number one is, know, again, one person may want the marital home, but then you start looking at, what's the upkeep going to be? How's, you know, if you get what you want, how's that going to look going forward? Are we going to be able to keep the marital home? You know, and the second part is that a lot of times if there's not enough money to do a buyout, then that has to be refinanced.

So, okay, now am I, do I have the capacity, you're talking about like interest rates and everything going on, the equity in the home existing, what has to transfer, and then if there's any obligations that you're paying, like, okay, am I going to be able to negotiate a loan to refinance and actually buy this out from my spouse? even sometimes what you want may not be very likely.

These are the things that you want pointed out early, very early, so you know what you're doing and the settlement options exactly. Before you go into mediation, you want to have two or three or more, maybe even, I've done as many as four different options, depending on the properties and assets involved to say, this is, here's if we just split everything 50-50, just kind of a benchmark, not gonna happen, but that's how it would be.

And then here are some other options if there's more than one property involved. What if you take this out? What if you take that house? What if this happens? And then as you go on, you're going to keep updating that. But there are things you think about the basis of the house. You get an exemption, a single exemption, 250 if you sell the house. But if you're married, it's 500. If you've got assets that are.

You know, with the cost basis in them. When you do a divorce, pursuant to a divorce, it's transferred tax-free, but you inherit that basis, you know, so that could be something you have to think about down the road. absolutely. Once the assets get involved, then it becomes more necessary because, you know, the lawyers will do a great job in coming up with an equitable settlement, but without understanding the intricacies

Maybe you could have worked it a little bit better or gotten what you wanted. And that's really, I always tell my clients, it's your divorce. Once it's over, the judge is done with you, the lawyer's done with you, I'm done with you, we're gonna move on with our lives, and you're gonna live with what you come up with. So make sure you're involved, make sure you're part of that negotiation there because you're the one who has to live with what comes out of this. None of your advisors has to. It's only you.

Tania Leichliter (: 25:50

Yeah, no, I can just tell a personal story. So I have I got the family home in my divorce, and it was appraised at a certain dollar value, and that dollar value went into the financial disclosure agreement in terms of what the value of the home was. But it took us a while to get through our divorce. And in that time and we had already, you know, drawn a line in the sand, the house went up significantly, like a lot, a lot.

So my ex is not, of course, happy with the fact that I had gotten this asset that's worth an extremely extreme amount more whatever than what we had put the line in the sand. But what also happened during that time period is that the air conditioning broke.

The heater had a crack in it and was leaking carbon monoxide. We had a little bit of mold in the downstairs basement and I had to get remediated. I had to get all new floors put in. So I have three massive payments that I've had to finance over the last year that were not part of what I considered inheriting this great family home. So although it appreciated significantly, I had all these other expenses.

But take into consideration that the home didn't appreciate at that level. I would have gotten stuck with all of those expenses. And originally, my plan was to hold on to the home for two additional years when my kids would go off to college. And

I've just recently decided that that's not financially a smart thing for me to do. You know, the market is high in terms of selling. The stock market is low in terms of investing. There's a little bit of instability right now in terms of what's going on in the country. We have no idea if we're heading into a recession. We don't know what's happening with interest rates. And I don't need to be in a big home. Things are breaking, right? And they seem to be breaking. So I just decided to sell.

And again, it wasn't the plan, but we also were nesting. So my ex has been 50 % in the home for the last two. understanding in Massachusetts, if somebody is in the home and that is their primary address for two out of the five years, whether you're married or divorced, if they still stay on the mortgage and are on the deed, when I go to sell, we get the 250, 250.

Instead of just me, 250. So, because we haven't done the transfer of the deed, we haven't done it, and I never was going to take on the assumption of the mortgage. He was always going to stay on the mortgage for two additional years. So, even though I'm selling, so we actually get the tax benefit of $500,000 of no capital gains tax on top of all the capital improvements that we made in the house. So

Michael Conticelli (: 28:25

Just the 250, right?

Adding to the basis

rate.

Tania Leichliter (: 28:50

Yeah, so those are the basis. So there were all these things I had to consider, and I was not the finance person in the marriage. I knew how to make money. I just didn't manage the finances. So when you talk about like all of a sudden being thrown into doing all of this, working with a CDFA, working with a financial advisor who's educating you and who has patience and who really can just

Gosh, I hate to say it, but just dumb it down. Like, I'm not, like, this was all new to me. I had to really have a good team. I had to have somebody really guiding me, being like, yes, Tanya, this is the right thing for you to do. Good intuition, because if you do this, it's gonna look like that. And yeah, I mean, I think I've got a good business sense, but I also just needed somebody to check the box.

And say like, yeah, these are good decisions you're making. Is this going to be better for you financially? And it's really hard emotionally to give up the family home. My kids are really, honestly, they're very, my divorce was so amicable. So up until now, like everything has been hunky dory and really good. And like I said, we're nesting, so the kids never had to go back and forth. But this piece of it is causing a lot of uncertainty.

In terms of like, well, where are we gonna have Christmas? And where are we gonna do Thanksgiving? Because we do those holidays together, my ex and I do those holidays together. And so that's causing a whole other level of stress, right? On like feeling like, I know this is the right thing for me to do. My financial advisors are saying, yes, the right thing for you to do, but.

Michael Conticelli (: 30:10

Right.

Tania Leichliter (: 30:32

How are you gonna flip this now so your family is good, you know? And home is where the heart is, and you got it. But when you have kids going off to college, and this is gonna hit a cord with a lot of individuals, they're not home much. You know, so it's like, you know, they might be home for a few weeks over Christmas, and depending on where they are in college, are they still coming home in the summers, or are they not? And you know, how big of a house do you need to get? What kind of place do you wanna rent? Do I buy, do I rent?

Michael Conticelli (: 30:45

Right.

Tania Leichliter (: 30:59

You know, all these questions. So tell me, like, tell me about your experience with this. can actually coach me one-to-one right here.

Michael Conticelli (: 31:08

Well, you start thinking, well, you're bringing up actually all the points that you really need to kind of lay out and start thinking about. Like you said, OK, you know, I don't may not need this house anymore. The kids are growing, you. So, now, we might be looking at, maybe it's maybe the compromise is vacation holidays, right? Maybe you're going away, you know, Christmas is, you know, maybe it's not going to be home. Maybe you're going to rent a cabin in the woods for Christmas. You know, it.

That's the discussion that has to happen. And then you're looking at, know, well, where did the finances fit in? So if I don't have the home, I don't have to worry about, you know, the expenses, the maintenance, the repair, all the improvements I need to make there, I'm going to rent. Well, okay, what money is it going to, you know, how's all that going to play out? You're in a wonderful situation with it, you know, amicable divorce, where you guys can work together on that. And that's even

I mean, that's perfect because the two of you together can kind of work out, okay, how do we want this to look? And that's what it's about is there's not too much of our businesses, spreadsheets, and numbers, but it's really not about that. It's exactly like you said, you're sitting here thinking about the kids coming home and holidays, none of that has to do with it, there's nothing on the spreadsheet I could show you that's gonna...

Make that make that decision. It's about you know, is it you you know, you're gonna get from that and the experience and You know even Even you brought up the point where even if you're good at this When you're going through a divorce your mind is changing because the emotions I Mean there's science to show that you're not you don't make good decisions, you know during heavy emotions so

having someone just to kind of check in with and say, okay, I think I know what I'm doing, I'm so, whatever emotion it is, you've got someone to kind of go back on and say, I mean, how many people have you run across where they're at one end of the spectrum or the other? I don't care, I just want it over. I want it done with, or the other person, well, I don't care, I'm gonna fight to the last, which brings up

I told you I was divorced very early in my life. It was a very short marriage or no kids. And, you one of the things I always kind of keep in the back of my mind is, you know, one of the things we were fighting over was this little, it was literally a lamp, you know, and it was, um, you know, like, okay, you know, I want that. No, you can't have the lamp. And I just, I remember because it was, it's such a perfect example of

I look at it now and I couldn't even tell you what it looked like, or I don't even know why I wanted it. I don't even remember. I don't know, maybe it looked good where it was or whatever, but that's it. It's like, why did I even want it? It was because the whole reason was that it had nothing to do with the lamp. And sometimes when you're sitting down and I'm sitting down with people and we're going through, like you said, especially with the assets and

Tania Leichliter (: 33:46

What the lamp look?

Michael Conticelli (: 34:08

You're talking about divisions and stuff, some of these things will come up. And then I'll recognize them as, all right, that's a lamp scenario there. And you're able to avoid it because then we can address that and say, okay, well, let's talk a little bit about this. Like, why is this so important to you, or what's going on with this? On the other hand, we're always looking. If I usually work, I don't usually do neutral.

So I'm always looking at the other side, you when I'll ask for input, know, tell me why they want that? What's the emotion behind it? What's the attachment? Okay, well, if we know they're going to fight really hard for that, well, what happens if we give that to them? You know, is there something else we can get? Like, because, you know, is that worth the battle or maybe we can leverage it to, know, where's your, you know, where's your lamp? You know, and we can trade it back and forth.

And that's really what I try to do is it's not so much about the numbers and the spreadsheets. It's about coming to a reasonable conclusion. It's such a hard time, and it's such a difficult time, no matter how good you are at it, it's hard.

Tania Leichliter (: 35:12

No, and there are always thoughts that sit before the feelings, right? And sometimes individuals who are feeling a certain way. So an example would be like, I'm feeling like I'm not getting the equitable distribution two years later for what I was doing. It comes across as if this is how I'm feeling. I'm feeling frustrated.

Well, you're feeling frustrated because your thoughts or your beliefs or your stories you're telling yourself are like, this wasn't fair. Right. This wasn't fair. And therefore, you you're you're feeling frustrated or you're feeling, you know, something. So you have the ability to change the story that you're telling yourself. It is fair because the law stated that at some point in time, we made this division of assets, and we came to an agreement.

And what happens after that, right? Happens after that, and it's unpredictable. It could go in either direction. So one person could end up in a better situation than the other, and there's no control over it. I know that when my father got divorced from his second wife, apparently they didn't get some paperwork signed properly on the house when they like changed over the deed. So when he went to sell the house,

He needed her signature. So we went back to her and said, "Hey, you do you mind just signing this?". It looks like we didn't do it right the first time. She goes, I'll sign it if you give me $65,000. And he's like, why? And she's like, well, because when we divided the assets, I took this annuity and this annuity didn't do anything. And so she was like negotiating for the fact that the thing that she had gotten didn't grow like she had anticipated.

That's just what it is. Like it is what it is. And I know that, you know, even in my own marriage, like I said, amicable as it is, like he's frustrated, you know, because I got the long stick and he got the short stick. Not when we divided the assets, it was all equitable, but now my stick has grown and his has not. And, so I can sense by the way that he communicates, you know, with me that there are certain things that he just believes that I should just not make him pay for anymore, right?

Because like, I'm already doing so much better. And to be honest, to keep it amicable, I'm compassionate around that. You know what? We had agreed we were gonna split all the repairs that needed to get done before the house was gonna get, you know, that needed to get done. We would just split those repairs by a certain date if they weren't done and he didn't wanna fix them, we would get a bid and we would split the cost.

Well, knowing that the house went up so much in value, and he's, I just said, don't worry, I got it. And I just said, don't worry, I got it. And well, I only said that after he's like, well, know, the fireplace insert shouldn't go with the house, and the pellet stove shouldn't go with the house, and the washer dryer shouldn't go with the house.

Michael Conticelli (: 37:50

And

Tania Leichliter (: 38:02

You know, we should get values on those. And then when you sell the house, we should split those costs. I was like, my gosh, we're selling the house with all of the fireplaces and all of the things. It was like, so I was like, what are you asking me to do here? I'm not going to remove those before I sell the house, or I'm not going to say those things are not included. And so I just said, you know, I was going to just waive all of those costs that, you know, we agreed to pay.

So in a very non-conflict way, I just said, you know, I was going to waive. I understand where you're coming from. Some houses don't sell with those. I need to sell the house with those. So we have a choice that's like, I will either waive your need to pay 50 % of the repairs, or we can get an appraisal on those two things, you know, figure out what the cost would be, and a used product. And I'll subtract 50 % of that value from the overall cost of the repairs.

I was like, so it's up to you. Of course, my paying for the repairs is a much better deal for him. And it was going to leave you. But again, you just have to like bring you have to meet them where they are. Like if that's their thought, you have to meet them where they are and come up with a solution. Don't attack. Don't threaten. Just be solutions-oriented. OK, I understand. I'm listening to the way this guy's feeling or the way she's feeling. How can I be more accommodating?

for those feelings and not in and be compassionate, you know, at that level. Again, like I just think that some people just don't wanna go there and create conflict, and we don't need to.

Michael Conticelli (: 39:29

Right.

No,

exactly. It's all about being reasonable. I mean, like you said right there, the whole negotiation, it's a matter of you can't look at divorce. You're never going to win a divorce, right? It's a case that you're not going to win. There is no winning the divorce case. And you have to understand that from the beginning. I tell my clients, you're not going to get justice.

You know, so as much as you feel wronged and all these things, if those feelings are there, you're not going to get that. The approach you want is you want to be reasonable because if you can't decide between the two of you and you need to be reasonable to come to, you know, a reasonable decision between the two of you, you're going to give it to a stranger to make that decision as to what's going to happen.

And you definitely don't want to be seen in the light of being the unreasonable one, you know, so right from the beginning, you always want to have that approach of, what we're doing is we're looking out for, you know, you want to make sure you're taken care of, but you don't want to have the attitude that I'm going to win or, you know, I need to do this or I'm getting back at someone. It's not.

It's very rarely going to work out in your best interest to have that attitude. And more often than not, it's going to hurt your cause right on through the whole process. And what you described there is exactly how a negotiation should go because it's like, OK, I'm not giving away the farm here. I'm going to stand on this. But if we do this, this, and this, I get what you're saying. And I understand how you're feeling.

Here's a solution that you're not happy with. It's not the best solution. There's no win-win there, right? It's not the best for you. He's not getting what he wants, but does it avoid any further like, okay, can we settle it this way? That's a reasonable conclusion... And that's exact. That's all you got to do is just, kudos to you for being able to do that and hold that. And probably because it's been a little bit...

But in the heat of the battle, that's the hard part, you know, and that's where, you know, the professionals, your support team, comes in. You know, someone like me on the financial team with the numbers, the attorney's got your back on the legal stuff. And, you know, I can't say enough for like the divorce coach and, you know, helping really support that emotional side of things and saying, No, you know, you've, you've got to stand up for yourself, but you can't go too far and you can't go in the other direction and get things going in the right direction. That's why I keep saying the legal, the financial, and the emotional, they're intertwined no matter the situation, but that's a great example.

Tania Leichliter (: 42:07

Yeah, so this has been great, Michael. I really appreciate your time today. And at the end of all of my episodes, I always do like three top tips in terms of things that I got out of the episode, and just talking to you. So the first thing that I got out of our conversation today is starting early. You know, working with a CDFA, working with somebody right at the beginning, even if you're contemplating divorce.

You know, it's really important to understand where you are and where your starting point is. And especially if you're trying to also get yourself organized, because staying organized through the divorce process is just so important. So understanding where your starting point is, getting yourself organized, and making sure that you have an individual who you can confide in, you know, in this process.

Because even sometimes we didn't talk about this, it's just gathering the information, like where to go find all those things if you haven't been the one who's been managing. So that is tip number one. So, tip number two is that there isn't the kind of person that would use a CDFA, meaning that everybody can use one in this divorce process, and how you use them might be different.

Michael Conticelli (: 43:08

yeah.

Tania Leichliter (: 43:26

meaning that Michael, for instance, will work with you on an hourly basis, and he might not have to work with you throughout the entire process, but he also can work with you if you are wanting a more deeper connectivity in terms of not only just working through the divorce, but as you move forward and beyond divorce, becoming a financial advisor for you, being able to make sure you've got the right insurance policies, et cetera. So again, there's like, that's the second tip.

Like, there isn't just a type of person that needs a CDFA. Everybody going through divorce can use one. And the third one was just what you said at the end. There is no winning in divorce. You cannot stick it to them in the court of law. It is just, I understand there's an emotional piece of it. So get a coach and make sure that you're processing your emotions.

properly because the only person that's going to suffer is you if you really begin to believe that this divorce process is going to inflict pain on another individual and Michael just said it so beautifully it is just not about winning and losing it's about dividing things equitably it's about feeling good about having the right support system to make sure that you are doing it

equitably, and that you feel good about the agreement. There are always going to be concessions. There are always going to be compromises. You are not going to end up with everything that you want. And that is something 100 % of divorce professionals will tell you. But it is not the place to try to win because it will cost you more money if you're going to move forward in that way. Yeah, yeah, Michael, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure having you on the Better Than Bitter podcast.

Michael Conticelli (: 45:02

Absolutely.

Tania Leichliter (: 45:09

And everybody who is listening in, Michael can be found on mydivorcesolutions.com. Everything will be in the show notes for you to connect with Michael. And I am looking forward to making sure that all of you feel supported in your divorce process moving forward.

Michael Conticelli (: 45:25

Thank you so much, Tonya.

Tania Leichliter (: 45:26

Thanks for tuning in to Better Than Bitter, navigating an amicable divorce. Whether you are at the beginning of your divorce journey, midway through, or even done, we want the stories from our guests to give you hope that an amicable resolution is possible. If you'd like to dive deeper into today's episode, check out our show notes for a full transcript, reflections, and links to learn more about Better Than Bitter's coaching courses.

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At Better Than Bitter, we measure success by what we give and not by what we get. So let's change the divorce dialogue together. It's time to be better than bitter.