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Fifteen years ago, my marriage endsh my whole world completely unraveled, and I had to, you know, reframe my future. Breaking up is expensive. Women typically are about at least twenty percent worse of an end of a relationship can be the start of a new beginning. For me, it was a time of immense personal growth.
Cutakoto, I'm Garth Bray and we're doing things just a little differently for the next few weeks here on Shared Lunch. More Than Money is a special mini series brought to you by Chase eas to help you get ready for twenty twenty five. The next one is a big one. We're speaking with Sarah Cathrell, who's written the book How to Break Up Well about surviving divorce and that experience. And January is the month we're more than ever Can
we make that big decision? What sort of impact does that have on your wealth and how can you be ready for it? First, some important information to consider whenever investing.
The experience is shared in this episode and not advice or a recommendation or opinion by guests to invest or act in the manner they have. An appearance on the series is not an endorsement by Shares. These of the views of the presenters or guests. They're not financial experts, and their views of their own.
Sarah, thanks for giving us some of your time. You went through quite a big thing in your own life, and you've looked at that very closely to see, I guess how it affects loads of people. What have you taken from that?
I'm just to understand that divorce and separation is huge. Something like one in four kids live in a house with either one parent or they move between two homes New Zealand and a lot of families are headed by single parents and so on. So I just I was surprised, actually how there is this huge community of people out there who aren't your typical nuclear mum, dad, two kids, but actually quite diverse family relationships.
And this was something that you went through yourself as well.
That's right. So fifteen years ago my marriage endish it was his decision and I was upended. I mean, we had our moments, you know, for the year leading up to that, but it was such a shock and so at the time, I was working as an editor and I had three young children, and I had to my whole world completely unraveled and I had to, you know, reframe my future. And at the time it was a shock, and as I said, you know, I felt like a victim. But all these years later, I can say that was
a good decision. We've co parented well, we've raised our daughters in our twenty four, twenty one, and eighteen, and we've both repartnered. We're happy, we get on well, and we've made it work. And so that's part of my motivation, Gath for writing the book that I wanted to share what we did a bit of a formula really. I mean, I know there's a lot of high conflict breakups and so on, but there are some ways to break up well, as I outline in my book.
Yeah, how to Break Up Well, which is quite a confronting title because it sort of presumes that there's some kind of formula to this or some way to approach it. But I guess there are some great lessons for people that find themselves in that situation suddenly as well. Is that what this is designed to do also to provide people that help that they might need when the situation is put upon them.
Yeah, well that's right. I mean there's the practical and the emotional side of a breakup and how to break up. Well, I think fundamentally, if you've got kids, or even if you don't like behave like grown ups, and there are ways to mitigate the stress and just to sort of almost design the next chapter of your life. A end of a relationship can be the start of a new beginning and often for me it was a time of immense personal growth that so I share that and also
my mistakes. I spent a bit too much time dating and with what I call sad dads and so on, and I was a bit of a sad mum. So I look sad dad.
What's a sad dad?
Sad dad? Yeah, there's the people that haven't really got over their breakups and they look to you, you know, as you're drinking your glass of pinogree. They want some therapy rather than a date. So there was a bit of that that went on. But yeah, just to share too that often it's great to stay single for a while. It's great to find your single self again, that we have a society that really celebrates culturally the idea of
the couple, marriage, coupledom and so. But something like sixteen percent of women in New Zealand now I'm not sure about the stats for men, sorry, but are single single women households? And there are a lot of people out there who saying, you know, I choose this way. So how you navigate in a society that says we should be part of a couple, how you almost stand out and claim that space as well? So I write a bit about that as well.
If I think about a breakup, I imagine it's a huge financial inflection point, right. What I mean is there's the ground shifts massively. You've got assets that you might share that are ripped apart that you've got to liquidate, long before you ever thought you were going to have to. You've got extra costs that are coming in there. It must be a very potentially destabilizing thing to go through.
Absolutely, and breaking up is expensive. I mean you've got the costs of actually, as you say, if you get a lawyer, two thirds of couples do you have to pay your legal fees. Then often typically today we still have what's known as the motherhood penalty. So the mother might have taken time out, been working part time or not working at all. And you see, you've had this quite often, this quite disparate economic situation, and then mum two thirds times mum gets left primarily with the kids.
She's cost of running two houses. I mean, we have a cost of living crisis. You know, two potentially mortgages, rent two phone bills to you know, whatever goes on. So it's expensive. And in fact, interestingly, there's a new term called bird nesting, where couples break up but they stay in the same house they are.
That sounds fraught. I'm going to jump in and say burden nesting.
Tell me all though, they keep the family home and they fly in and out, so they take turns with the kids and they one of them goes off to a flash or staying with mates or whatever. So yeah, it's expensive to run two houses. It's interesting garth because often in a house, like you know, the man, the guy might mow the lawns and be in charge of you know, paying them mortgage repayments or whatever, and managing the accounts and it's the woman that's like, oh, Johnny's
going to school camp and filling informs. So these roles can become quite demarcated, and what you know, for me, I remember just thinking, gosh, I've suddenly got to manage not only the kids, but these other roles that used to fall to him. So I think it can be like learning a bit of a new language. For some people. It's not always the woman that's been in that role of not being involved, but it can be, you know, it just can be for practical reasons as well.
So it can be a poor where you're not only trying to seek economic empowerment, you're actually kind of forced to grapple with it yourself because you're running your own life, your own business, your own affairs in a way that perhaps wasn't the case.
In my book, I refer to a couple of women who's their names weren't even on the properties, you know, and they were having to try and get a house valued, and it's like, well, sorry, you don't own the house.
Your ex stuff, and so you know, there's all sorts of there's a lot that you don't when you're in a relationship, which is part of my mission Garth is to actually try and empower or educate women in relationships as well, because often you don't know that you're you don't have as much economic power in a relationship or even an understanding of where the money is and what's happening where and do you know what you own? Is your name on the property title, on the bank account, that kind of thing.
I'm thinking if if you're in a position or we're faced by this kind of situation of divorce and you're suddenly having to sell things up and someone and break things apart, that must have not just an immediate cost, but it's got a wealth effect as well. It must change perhaps how wealthy a person you will turn out to be unless you make some other changes. What are the kind of the wealth effects of separation?
Huge huge women typically are about at least twenty percent worse off after a breakoup, and so it's a shock. It can be a financial absolute financial shock. And I think that there's also scenarios where you can end up in herishing his debt, which is why I'm quite hot on the idea of a prenup as well. Basically, under a current relationship law, if you've been with someone for three years in living in a house together. Then unless what you bring into that relationship yourself has got to
be you've got to sort of say that's mine. You've got to ring fence it. And that includes student debt or whatever debt that person brings them. So if you break up, you could inherit there one hundred thousand dollars student a loan as well. So it's an interesting one to think. Put it all on the table. What do you own and what debts do you have?
So what does wealth mean to you?
Wealth to me is actually being healthy and happy. I had a little cancer scare last year and I write about that in my book, and I being healthy and happy is really I mean, obviously I want to pay the bills and I want to go on a holiday or something like that, but fundamentally I want to live a long, healthy life and with the people I love.
It's a great definition of wealth. Okay, So with all of the experience you've had that you've put in this book how to break up, Well, what's a really great financial decision that you feel you've made?
Ah, this painting behind me, see, I don't know if you could see the road. It's a power morn. So basically, after my marriage ended, I had a little bit of money left over and after we's blood everything, and I bought this artwork and it was it was fourteen years ago, and the road seemed to see. I was like, Oh, where's that path? The path to the unknown? It sort of felt like a metaphor for the next chapter of my life.
For those of us who are just listening rather than watching. There's a beautiful calm moorn painting behind Sarah, which depicts some garden and full flower with a bright sunlit path that's leading you someplace, right yeah, so yeah.
So I bought this up work and it was cost quite a bit at the time, but it's been an investment. Every time I look at car mourn on the on the optims, I'm like, oh, good one. But also it's quite a symbolic piece of art to me, and so I do. I have bought a bit of art over my time, and it's always been it's been symbolic for me. So, my mother passed away from Alzheimer's and I bought this beautiful art work and it arrived the day that she died, Like I didn't know until that morning, and it arrived.
It came by career two days early. I don't know, so I do. If I have a little bit of money anywhere, I like to spend it on meaningful art and also on taking my daughters on holiday. I love and my partner I love nothing more than us doing a bit of travel and having experiences.
So this is a you're investing in now.
So investing in the NAUGA. I think that's the thing. Like having this experience last year. It just came out of the blue, you know, breast cancer all totally fine. Now, I say life throws you curve balls and came out of the blue. But what it did, it made me redefine my living in the now. Of course, you still want money put aside for your future and your retirement and so on, And in fact, any investment plan I
have is for the long term. But in terms of my day to day, my terms are my life experiences. It's about celebrating while I'm healthy and well and mobile, you know, just having had that experience. My mother was sixty one when she got Alzheimer's and she lived for fourteen years with it. It was horrific. And then having been unwell myself, I just I'm aware of mortality, but not to be dooms you know, doomsday about it, but gives you a new perspective.
So I don't know if you're a New Year's resolution kind of a person, but if you were, if you were a taskmaster, if you're setting people a challenge for how to frame themselves up for success in twenty twenty five, and bearing in mind the experiences that you've had and what you write about, what do people need to think about it over the holiday break.
I think this is relevant both for people within a relationship and out of a relationship. So with someone in a relationship, think about your economic power and that relationship. Is it equal? It might be that he's off earning or she's off earning and you're the one with the kids, or you know you're running the domestic the emotional load of a household. But do you know where your money is? Do you know as your name on the title, is
your name on the bank accounts? Do you do you have a kind of a mutual plan for wealth plan, creation plan or saving plan? Understand what's where and when? One of the quotes I love in my book Lady deb Chambers, who's a she's a marriage she specializes in relationship and divorce law, and she says, you might know the marry the man you'll marry, but you don't know the manual divorce or you know that sort of thing.
So you've got to really understand. I'm not trying to be dooms in blooms because you know, dooming gloom because it's started a new year. But think about what, what is where and do you know anything? And for those also in a relationship, have you signed a prenup? Look, I know it's not particularly romantic to you know, steer at someone when you're steering at someone's eyes to say, oh, we should sign a prenup, but it's really a great thing to do, and to say this is mine, this
is yours, this is ours. Understand, And it's a bit like signing an insurance contract or paying your rates, bills or whatever you have to do. It's just a task. It's really it's not easy to do. I understand that, but it's it's it's a great thing and it protects both of you as long as it's both signed by to both lawyers. It's a great thing to do.
Now that is going to be quite some summer conversation Sarah Catherell, author of How to Break Up Well, thank you very much for your time, and for those of you who are listening, thank you as well. You're probably listening on Apple or on Spotify. If you're watching us and you saw that beautiful painting behind Sarah, you'll be on YouTube. And if you like what you see, let us know and let us know what you'd like to see. Thanks very much. That's us at Chersi's More Than Money Shared Lunch two.
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