The Real Secrets of Divorce: Jacqueline Newman on Protecting Your Wealth

0:0050 % of you who are married are going to divorce. Some of you have already gone through a divorce. Most of us know people who have been through it. And today's guest, that's exactly what we talk about. I had an amazing conversation with Jacqueline Newman. She is the number one rated divorce attorney in New York City. We're going to talk about the top three reasons that people actually go through divorce from a psychology standpoint. This is an amazing conversation. I can't wait for you to listen. and make sure you stay through to the end because as a divorce attorney, we're going to find out what Jacqueline's biggest lesson about love is.

0:34And I think you are going to want to hear that. Ladies and gentlemen, I present my good friend. It's Jacqueline Newman. You're listening to Mick Unplugged, hosted by the one and only Mick Hunt. This is where purpose meets power and stories spark transformation. Mick takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and becoming unstoppable. I'm Rudy Rush, and trust me, you're in the right place. Let's get unplugged.

1:06Jacqueline, how are you doing today, dear? I'm well. Thanks so much for that introduction. It's great to be here. I am honored to have you here. You know, Jacqueline, to have the title of one of the top divorce attorneys in New York City, can sometimes be a little weird to say, right? How do you feel? How do you receive that title when people talk about you in that manner? Well, I mean, it's very flattering. And so again, thank you so much. You know, I'm very proud of my firm and I'm proud of, you know, the career that, you know, I've been fortunate enough to build. I've been doing this since day one.

1:48I started, you know, right after law school, this is all I've ever done. So I put my time in and luckily it's all worked out. That is awesome. That is awesome. You know, Jacqueline, on the show, I like to ask my guest, what's there because? That deeper purpose, that thing that's deeper than your why, that thing that keeps you going on a daily basis. So if I were to say today, Jacqueline, what's your because? What's that reason that keeps you doing what you do? You know, that's a great question. And I love that you ask people that. I would say, you know, my because it's really it's helping people.

2:24I, you know, in many different features of my life, obviously, including my work, I take so much joy and satisfaction from really watching people grow and helping them. I mean, I get happy because you're happy. It's contagious. And I really I think that is my because. And, you know, as I said, you know, what I do for a living, I mean, I watch people go through a really difficult time in their lives and hopefully come out stronger. I watch their children be incredibly resilient. And then I have, you know, outside activities in my life that are really important to me with my friends and my family and charities and things like that, that also allow me to continue following my because.

3:01I love that so much. You know, speaking of the things that you do in your profession, you've often said that divorce is about strategy more than emotion. Can you break that down for the viewers and listeners? Absolutely. So, I mean, when people think about divorce, obviously, you know, people think about pain, they think about hurt, they think about, you know, all the emotions that are tied into divorce, and they all are there, you know, anger, everything. However, you know, what I often say to my clients is I, you know, I absolutely validate and acknowledge the pain that they're in. But I also say emotion has to be put to the side to some degree, not to say that it doesn't play any role, but it can't play the primary role.

3:45And so to me, it's very, very important to be strategic, emotionally strategic, psychologically strategic, financially strategic. I mean, divorce can really take a life of its own, as you can imagine, especially when you're in the court system. And so to me, I really ask people to step back and let's be smart about when we're aggressive, when we're more passive. Let's be smart about the things we bring up. Not every issue has to be brought up, even though it may feel to that person that it's so important, you know, and be doing this for a long time. I know what things that are going to resonate with the court and what isn't.

4:19And so people really need to trust that the court isn't going to care about certain things that are super important to you, but it's not going to be important to that judge. So what are some of those things that we feel are super important to us that a judge is like, yeah, it doesn't matter? yeah so one of the big ones is and i i hate to say it because it is so hurtful but affairs courts will not if they don't they're just not interested in people having affairs unless there's money spent it's just not going to be a topic that's really going to get addressed and so when i have clients that come to me that have collected all the evidence that are so incredibly distraught and hurt and angry and have amazing amazing amounts of emotions understandably that their spouse has been cheating on them, for me to be able to say to them, listen, I hear everything you're saying, and I know you've been collecting and you're so ready to present your case.

5:10But unfortunately, a judge is just not going to be interested and they're not going to feel, they're not going to be angry the way you are. And to be honest, we're probably going to get shut down. They're probably not even going to let us bring it onto the record. And so that is a really, really hard thing for somebody to be able to pill to swallow because this has rocked their entire world. And the fact that a court is not going to listen to it, you know, something very, very hard. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. So you've been doing this for a long time. What are some of the reasons that you're seeing divorce happening?

5:46Right. Like, what would you say the top three reasons that you're seeing happen? So I can say the number one reason is communication. I think that people and this is just relationships in general, but doing this for a long time, I can tell you breakdown in communication is really, I think, one of the number one reasons that people get divorced. You know, I say people get married. They're both speaking English. But by the time they're getting divorced, one speaking Portuguese and one speaking Chinese, like they're just no longer on the same place. And, you know, it's sad because at one point they really were aligned.

6:18And so it gets to a point where people just can't, you know, You can't say a simple thing to the other person without them hearing in a negative light. And it just makes even basic communications to be very difficult. And raising children and raising a family and finances, I mean, marriage is tough. There's no question about it. But when you cannot communicate and logistics can't even be discussed in a civil manner, it just breaks everything down. So I'd say that's definitely number one. I would say number two is failed expectations. again i think that people walk into marriages sometimes with romanticized views of what marriage is you know everybody thinks it's chocolate and flowers every day and it's just not and so i think that there are failed expectations on many different levels some is on you know the romantic part of things some may be on financial issues where people expected maybe somebody to work and they choose not to or you have somebody that you know may not be earning the same way that they were at one point or whatever it is.

7:14And so again, if you can't communicate effectively about your failed expectations, that definitely does also bring you down. And then I would say the third one, and this probably ties a little bit into it, is, you know, people, you know, I was thinking like more affairs and things like that. But I really think that that almost kind of happens partially because of failed expectations and because of communication. I think it's more of a, you know, a result of something rather than probably a cause. So I would say that those are probably the things, but also, you know, people just not being on the same page and outgrowing each other.

7:47I think you see that a lot too. When there are young children, people are in the business of raising children and they kind of lose themselves as a couple. And then, you know, the kids go off to college and they look at each other like, so what have you been doing the last 18 years? I think there's just a complete, you know, people just lose each other and they don't grow together. And I think that is another reason why people get divorced. Yeah, I can totally see that, you know, and being a huge follower and a fan of you. One of the things that I relate to some of the things that you talk about into the business world, for me is emotional intelligence.

8:20Right. And I think in relationships, emotional intelligence is also missing. Right. So we look at the self awareness. Are we aware of self self regulation? Do we pause before we react? Right. Then the social skills are, as you call it, the communication empathy, which I think is really important. And then motivation. How would you tie in the work that you've done? How would you tie the pillars of emotional intelligence into relationships and then ultimately divorce as well? I think it is the most important thing. I think emotional intelligence is, you know, I mean, that's really what it comes down to.

8:59And so, you know, even in my hiring, I will tell you, you know, when I hire other attorneys in my office, I kind of I laugh about it. But, you know, I barely look at a resume when I first interview someone. I my basic rule is, you know, would I want to go to lunch with you? You know, would I enjoy you? Because and would you annoy me? You know, instantly I think to myself, if you would annoy me, you're going to annoy my clients. But so I really you could be as smart as, you know, smart as a whip. But at the end of the day, if you cannot communicate effectively with my clients and in a way that they can relate, it's not going to matter how intelligent you are because they're not going to hear you.

9:34And so when I do these interviews after I decide, yes, we can go to lunch and you wouldn't annoy me, then I flip the paper over and look at your resume. But to me, that's the most important thing. So, yeah, I think EQ is something I think it's more important than IQ personally. Totally agree. I have a whole keynote on that topic right there. It was much more important than IQ because here's the deal. You're never going to get smarter. I don't care what you say. Like your IQ is actually never going to increase. Like you get to a certain point where you've learned as much factual information as you can.

10:08And when you start to bring in new, what you don't realize is you forget something. Right. But you can always increase and enhance and develop your EQ. And so I totally agree. Totally. I agree with that as well. So how do you personally balance being compassionate versus being direct with your clients as they're going through this? Right. Because when they're coming to you for a service and a lot of times they're also going to look at you in those therapy moments as well, too. So how do you balance that? So it's very challenging. I will say that, you know, I joke with clients, I'm the most expensive therapist, you know, and my parents are both psychotherapists.

10:51So I did grow up in this world. Yes. I mean, the big family joke is I was too aggressive to be a therapist. I ended up in law school. But yes, I think it is a really big challenge. But, you know, to your point, they're coming to me for a service and I'm not their therapist. And so it is very important that while I validate them, you know, and I acknowledge what they're going through, I don't always agree with them. And I say there's a difference between validation and agreement. So I can validate what you're feeling and I know how hurtful and how painful this is. And I can also not agree that that's the best strategy to go.

11:22And I can also not agree that because a spouse cheats, that means they're a bad parent. They could be a bad spouse, but they could still be a good parent. And that's a very, very hard thing, I think, for people to balance because they say, well, you know, this person broke up the family because they cheated. And how could you be a good father or mother if you broke up the family? But it doesn't really work that way. And so I think it's very important to be direct with your clients. You know, I bill by the hour, so they don't really have a lot of time for fluff. And so they really want to know, like, how this is going to work.

11:50But again, given in the tone of being very compassionate, being very acknowledging, because, again, this is such hard, hard stuff. And I want them to be able to hear me because, as you said, like the EQ issue, I could be giving them amazing advice. But if they're not in a mental state and an emotional state to hear me and I'm not saying it in a way that they could process it, then it doesn't matter what the information is. I get it. I get it completely. You know, again, knowing you like I do, you've worked with some of the wealthiest individuals, right, in the state. How does wealth complicate divorces and divorce proceedings?

12:25So, you know, on some levels, it complicates it. And other times, it does make it easier because many of my clients are not worried about eating. So that does make things a little bit easier. However, usually one of my clients are business owners. You know, wealth is a little bit more on paper. It's not like they have$100 million sitting in their bank account in cash. So more often than not, they're very illiquid. A lot of their assets are hard to appraise. You know, we have businesses, we have private equity interests, we have hedge funds, we have real estate, so, you know, IP. So it does get complex.

12:56And that's always a hard thing. So a lot of times, you know, you'll have this money, you know, their net worth is very, very high. But when you have to actually pay out your spouse, the liquidity issues are very complex. Not to mention these assets are also, as I said, they're hard to appraise. They're hard to know what true values are. People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars bringing in experts to do appraisals. And they're usually subjective because it's very hard to know exactly what something is worth unless you sell it on the market. It's only worth what someone will buy it for. So and that's hard to do when you have assets that aren't easily liquidable.

13:28Got it. Got it. So psychotherapist parents you're an attorney you're a divorce lawyer do you just like see red flags with people like like you go to a bar restaurant you see a couple dating is it like do you ever just find yourself saying now you probably should stop the date or this should be the last date like what is that like for you it is a little bit like I do feel like I'm superman I feel like I have those like those x-ray vision glasses where I can walk in a bar and kind of tell like who's gonna work and who's not. But I do a ton of prenuptial agreements. So it's like always in my mind, I think to myself, are these people going to make it or not?

14:07And so, yes, I think it does give you a little bit of view into relationships, you know, which, you know, can be good and bad, because sometimes you really want to vote for them, but you just know. But I'm a big believer in, you know, people working things out. I think also, again, what I'm seeing now is a lot of people are much more evolved in the degree of being open to therapy, being open to, you know, recognizing emotional intelligence, recognizing how important communication skills are like that wasn't happening, you know, in the past, people kind of pooh-poohed that entire, you know, field will say, and now I think people are much more open to it.

14:41So I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that even the people that come to my office, and I can kind of, you know, prenup, and I'm like, oh, you're not really talking to each other so nicely, and you're not really hearing each other, they're going to get better. Like, I just believe And if not, I guess I'll end up back in my office. There you go. Get them on both sides. So you just brought up something interesting that I've never asked. And it's intriguing to me. To prenup or not prenup, that is the question. Like, is it good? Is it bad? When should you do it? Is it immediate red flag when someone wants to discuss a prenup?

15:17Like, I have so many questions on prenups. So I'm just going to start there first and I have a deep follow-up. So prenuptial agreements, I mean, we do a ton, ton of them. I would say they're probably like 40 % of my practice at this point. That said, I actually, I am a believer in them. And I'll tell you why. You definitely have people that come to me and say, well, I'm planning my divorce, the unromantic, all of these things. And I completely understand that. But there's a few things here. Divorce rates are over 50%. If someone told you there was a 50 % chance that if you got in a car, you were getting in a car accident, you would never get in that car.

15:49You know, I mean, those are really high stands. You have just as much ability not to get in an accident or to get into an accident. Like that's scary. That's a scary stat. But yet people are getting married all the time. And so I think there's just a practicality to the fact that there is a chance this isn't going to work. And so I do think there's someone being intelligent because at the end of the day, this is a legal contract. And so getting married is a legal contract that you have legal rights. So to be able to know what that's going to look like, I think is important. That's my legal argument.

16:18That's my legal position. I will say emotionally, I actually also think that they can be excellent for a marriage and which I know sounds surprising. And I say they can be actually romantic. And this is why it just goes back to the same theme we've been talking about. It's all about communication. People learn how to have very difficult conversations and people don't talk about money. Money is a taboo subject. It's dirty. It's like you feel like it's rude. But yet money is an incredibly important topic to talk about the person that you're going to spend the rest of your life with and share your money with.

16:48how it amazes me how much people don't have these conversations. And I get it like second date, you're not gonna be like, so what's your net worth? Like, that's not gonna happen. That will be the end, that will be the last date. So I think it's really important, though, to have these conversations. And the story I tell often about this, which I hope gets home with your viewers, is I had a client once I represented a woman who was marrying a man who was much older than she was, who was also very, very wealthy. And we were having a settlement conference. and he would not talk about money. He'd always be like, don't worry about it.

17:18You know, I got that taken care of, you know, you don't have to think about it. And for her, she felt that it was really, really belittling. And she thought that he didn't think she was smart enough to understand money and he was being secretive and there was all these reasons and why wouldn't he talk about it? And so we were in the room together and, you know, he's kind of shutting her down. She's screaming at him. He's rolling his eyes. Like they're just like, I mean, it was just a really bad dynamic. She's crying. And it got to a point where me and the other attorney were like, okay, enough.

17:44Like I said to her, you're not going to yell at him anymore. And you're going to let him finish the sentence. And I turned to him and I said, you're going to hear her and not roll your eyes. Like, and that's how we're going to do this, you know? And at the end of the day, it came out that the reason that money was so important to him was because his father said he'd never amount to anything. And so, and money was the only thing his father from his view cared about. And so for him, this was all about getting his father's approval. And it was almost felt money was, was hurtful to him because it was so much about that.

18:11It wasn't about eating. It wasn't about, And it was like he'd never have enough because his father just never would give him the approval. And so talking about it was so painful to her when she heard that it was so it showed it had nothing to do with her. You know, it was just he just didn't want to share that part of himself with her. And they ended up having this amazing conversation. But she's hysterical throughout half of it. She comes to my office at the end of it. Tears still brimming on her eyelids. And she says to me, I am so glad that happened. And I'm thinking to myself, oh, my God, that was hell.

18:38Like, I can't believe that. You're so happy about that. And she said, I would have gone my entire marriage and never knew that. I would have always assumed it was about me. I would have always assumed he just thought I was too young and dumb to understand anything. And now I get it, you know, and now I understand. And we also learned how to talk to each other because I didn't realize how much I yelled at him and how I never let him finish a sentence because he just gets me so mad. And she's just like, you know, and for him, he was so dismissive of her. And now, you know, and she sent me a postcard a year later with her little baby.

19:08And she said, we still stop when we see ourselves doing it. And I stopped yelling at him and he stopped rolling his eyes. She's like, and now we talk to each other like the people that love each other. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. And so you kind of went through my follow-up question that I was going to have about prenups was, has there ever been a time that someone was caught off guard going into the relationship because the other person wanted a prenup? Have you ever seen that? And what's that like? Yeah, I mean, that does happen sometimes. It's unfortunate because that's definitely not what should happen.

19:44And, you know, I do a lot of cases that have old money, like family money. And one of the things that I speak to a lot of family money groups and when I talk about it, one of the things I joke about, you know, they always say, well, when should I bring it up? And I always say, you know, you should work it into a nursery rhyme in the crib. Like your kids should know that having a prenuptial agreement is part of what the family does. and your children should be telling whoever they're dating about it. Because the last thing you want to do is never mention it. And then, you know, Harry brings home Sally and the parents say, you know, Harry's like, isn't Sally so pretty?

20:13And the parents are like, yeah, she'll look beautiful signing a prenup. And then Harry's like, what, you don't like Sally? You know, and it becomes very personal about her. I said, if they know from the beginning, this is what our family does. It has nothing to do with whomever you marry. And then they can communicate that to whoever they're dating. The surprise shouldn't be there. I mean, that's what should happen. Does that happen? Not always. But that is definitely the advice I give people. I love it. I love it. What has divorce taught you about the unity of marriage? Like doing what you do and the viewpoint that you have, what has it taught you about the unity of marriage or the viewpoint?

20:55So I learned so much. I mean, every day I'm learning about people, learning about a million different things. So what does it taught me about the unity of marriage? I think that's I think the image of marriage has changed significantly throughout the years of my practice. I can say that with more women in the workforce, with more women independence, you know, just so many different things. The dynamics changing, especially, I would say, after covid, you know, one of if you were to I'm going to be stereotypical for a moment. If you were to stay at home mom who didn't want to give any access to the father for custody because he said, well, you know, he doesn't know what Cindy's favorite crayon is and he doesn't know how she likes her sandwiches cut.

21:31And then when COVID hit and you were in a situation where dads were home and they saw they were able to figure out what the favorite kind was and they had to cut the sandwiches the way they had to be cut, it changed everything. And so it really shifted, I think, the way that fathers became involved. And I think it shifted just so much of the dynamics that existed previously. And I think that shifted roles in marriages. And so it really, you know, on some level, some marriages got incredibly strengthened. Others, not so much. It was an interesting time, as you can imagine. But I do think that I've learned that the unity of marriage depends so much more on the friendship and on the dynamics and to bring it back on the communication and the, you know, realistic expectations.

22:16So that's what I would say. I think that I really learned a lot about people's progress and, you know, where they are and how they kind of connect to each other and grow with each other. I like that, Jacqueline. I like that. So when I intro'd you, I talked about you being an amazing author. So I'd love to give you the floor just to talk about your penmanship in the book. So I wrote this book because I had so many clients that would come into me and have a lot of the same concerns. We would take the first consultation and I do charge my consultation. So I wanted to give it to them a little less expensive.

22:56Ultimately, they ask the same questions and they, a lot of them just aren't informed and going and seeing attorneys is very expensive. There's no way about it. And it's emotionally draining. It's hard. You're telling your story over and over again. It's just a scary experience. And so my hope was that this book would first of all, answer some of the very basic questions that existed and also kind of give them the framework to make their first initial consultation with attorneys as informed as possible to put them in a position where they're emotionally in a more stable position because they know like certain things are going to count and not count.