Matt Ames: Your Kids Will Be Okay

10/04/21 • 36 min

Summary:

One of the biggest fears parents have going into a divorce is how it will negatively affect their children. Today I’m talking to Matt Ames, whose parents got divorced when he was in high school. Listen in as we lay out some tips to help kids and their parents get through the process positively.

Some tips to make the transition easier for your kids during divorce:

Keep your kids out of the fight; leave them out of the divorce drama. It’s ok to be angry, but try to move through that phase quickly so you don’t irreparably damage your children by using unfair tactics like using the children to hurt your spouse. That just hurts your children.
Try to keep up daily normal routines for your kids so they can keep their activities and friends. If you want to be an equal parent, show up as an equal parent. Don’t move an hour away and expect your kids to have to travel an hour to get to school. That takes a big toll on kids.
Be present for your kids. You can allow your older kids to be there for you emotionally too, but be careful and don’t expect too much from them. Make sure they always know you love them.
Never trash talk your spouse in front of your kids. Not publicly, not on social media, not in any place your kids could ever see.
Be prepared and willing to answer your kids’ questions honestly. (e.g.: Where will I live?) Don’t put false expectations or promise anything you aren’t in control of or aren’t sure about.
Prioritize your mental and physical health. Go to therapy, go to the gym, establish self-care.
Remember that your spouse can be a really bad spouse, but that doesn’t mean they are a bad parent. Keep those separate and honor the relationship your kids have with your ex. What do each parent have in common? They both want what’s best for their kids. Use this as the base of your co-parenting relationship.

Tips for teens whose parents are going through divorce:

Be there for your other siblings, especially younger siblings.

Remember that everything is going to be ok.

Summary:

Some tips to make the transition easier for your kids during divorce:

Keep your kids out of the fight; leave them out of the divorce drama. It’s ok to be angry, but try to move through that phase quickly so you don’t irreparably damage your children by using unfair tactics like using the children to hurt your spouse. That just hurts your children.
Try to keep up daily normal routines for your kids so they can keep their activities and friends. If you want to be an equal parent, show up as an equal parent. Don’t move an hour away and expect your kids to have to travel an hour to get to school. That takes a big toll on kids.
Be present for your kids. You can allow your older kids to be there for you emotionally too, but be careful and don’t expect too much from them. Make sure they always know you love them.
Never trash talk your spouse in front of your kids. Not publicly, not on social media, not in any place your kids could ever see.
Be prepared and willing to answer your kids’ questions honestly. (e.g.: Where will I live?) Don’t put false expectations or promise anything you aren’t in control of or aren’t sure about.
Prioritize your mental and physical health. Go to therapy, go to the gym, establish self-care.
Remember that your spouse can be a really bad spouse, but that doesn’t mean they are a bad parent. Keep those separate and honor the relationship your kids have with your ex. What do each parent have in common? They both want what’s best for their kids. Use this as the base of your co-parenting relationship.

Tips for teens whose parents are going through divorce:

Be there for your other siblings, especially younger siblings.

Remember that everything is going to be ok.

Previous Episode

Gabi Jones: Bill and Melinda Gates’ Divorce Finalized in Just 3 Months

Today I’m talking to fellow divorce attorney, Gabi Jones, about some interesting factors regarding the divorce of Bill and Melinda Gates. We discuss the increasing frequency of grey divorce, how a person’s net worth is determined, the difference between “fault” and “no fault” divorce grounds, and the impact of focused philanthropy.

Show notes:

The Gateses’ divorce was just finalized on August 2, 2021. They didn’t have a pre-nup or separation agreement, and they’d been married for 27 years, so we expected it to take longer, but it all went through in just 3 months. They announced the divorce May 3, 2021, on Twitter. Their youngest had just turned 18.

There’s been an uptick in “grey divorce,” or divorce for couples who are over 50, who’ve often been married for 20+ years. These often seem to be initiated by the wife. Researchers think it may be linked to feminism and more education and opportunities for women.

Bill Gates started Microsoft in the early 80s. He started dating Melinda in 1987, and they didn’t get married until 1994. By then, MS was already a billion dollar company and Bill was one of the richest men in the U.S., so it is surprising they didn’t do a pre-nup. Stupid, or romantic?

When they announced their divorce, The NY Times reported that Bill Gates had met with Jeffrey Epstein many times since 2011, even though he’s always denied a business relationship with Epstein. It’s really unclear what ties were there, but seems possible that whatever connection may have solidified Melinda’s decision to go forward with the divorce.

Several news outlets ran stories mid May about employees of the Gates Foundation that mentioned questionable behavior--that Bill may have pursued women that worked for Microsoft and the Gates Foundation.

It seems Melinda had been meeting with lawyers for a while before the announcement, and Bill had just retired from Microsoft. They have a great PR team; hard to find much credible info online. They are worth about $124 billion, but a lot of that is part of the foundation. They are still co-members of the board of trustees. Warren Buffet stepped down (who was also on the board).

Currently, their joint will only commits $10 million per kid. The rest would go to the foundation, but the wills may change now post separation. They are adding more trustees to the board and doing a two-year trial period for how it works to still run the foundation together. Part of the settlement of the divorce outlines that if they can’t make it work to run the foundation together, Bill will still give Melinda money for her philanthropic initiatives. Even since the divorce announcement, they’ve added another $15 million to the endowment. It seems like things will keep moving forward with the foundation.

It seems clear Melinda happily took a smaller personal amount of money so that she could focus on her priority of the foundation. Grounds of divorce is listed as “no fault” on their decree. It usually just means you don’t want to be married anymore; nothing specific happened or was blamed on one party.

They should be given a lot of credit for prioritizing their foundation of equal or fair splitting of assets and getting over whatever personal hurt or wanting to punish the other. Their foundation literally makes such big differences in the world.

Next Episode

Divorce Tips: Legal vs Physical Custody

Summary:

In this divorce tip episode, I explain the difference between legal and physical custody, including the relationship of custody to child support. I also define parenting plans and the dispute resolution clause, and I outline the differences between major and minor decision making for co-parenting.

Show notes:

What is the difference between legal custody and physical custody? It depends on the state if this applies to you since this isn’t a distinction in some states. But for the states this does apply in, I want to explain the difference between the two.

Legal custody is the decision making regarding your children. In Utah, the presumption for legal custody in most divorces is joint legal custody. This assumes that you and your spouse are going to work together regarding the major decisions of your children. Major decisions are defined as decisions involved with religion, education, extracurricular, and medical. Anything not in those categories is considered a minor decision, and the parent with the physical custody of the kids that day can make that decision. In joint legal custody, the court requires you to create a parenting plan , which is a legal roadmap for how you and your spouse are going to co-parent your children after the divorce. It includes a dispute resolution clause so that when you and your spouse are unable to come to these major decisions regarding your children together, there is a set up process for what to do. It will outline 3–4 steps for what to do in those instances, such as talking with experts or going through mediation. Most major decisions are able to be made between co-parents without resorting to the dispute resolution steps, as long as the parents remember that they both share the same goal of wanting the best for their kids.

Physical custody is defined by how many overnights a parent has per year. To have joint physical custody, you only have to have 111 overnights (out of 365) per year to be considered a joint physical custodian of your kids. It could be 50-50 or 70-30 split or anything in between, according to the percentage each parent has within joint physical custody. So the terms like sole or joint physical custody don’t matter as much as how many overnights you actually have with your kids.

In Utah, the number of overnights you have directly correlates to the amount of child support you’ll pay or receive. In Texas, child support amount doesn’t correlate with the parent time, it’s only about income, so you’ll need to check in your state.