Dividinde divorce

Some of you may have noticed my absence from this site for several months. I wanted to apologize for this and, after careful consideration, I thought I owed you some explanations.

The title of this article is unequivocal and you will have understood what it is about: I have been in the middle of separation/divorce proceedings for several months, I did not choose it and I have been living a real crossing of the desert since then.

I decided to share this experience with you because it is relatively common (you know the numbers as well as I do, but one day, against all odds, you are part of the statistics) and especially with the aim of explaining to you the psychological, administrative and financial impact of a divorce. Some of you will benefit - unfortunately - one day from this article. Because divorces don't only happen to other people.

This report is intended to be as honest and transparent as possible and without any modesty. Just the truth, sometimes raw and disturbing.

What happened?

The most honest answer would be: I don't know, I didn't understand everything that was happening to me and I still don't fully understand it today. I can only try to summarize the sequence of events for you.

After 25 years together, 16 of them married, everything suddenly fell apart. I had not only on paper, but also in my own feelings, a dream life: a harmonious couple, a wonderful family life with two extraordinary children, everyone in good health, we owned our apartment and had no money problems.

I'm not going to give you all the personal details, but let's just say that a little over a year ago my wife met a man through sports, that they spent more and more time together, that a sort of friendship (or I don't really know what) was born and then evolved into a more... romantic relationship, shall we say.

I had doubts from the beginning, I observed all this evolution with a lot of skepticism, but I first chose to trust my wife, especially since she reassured me each time that it was only about sport and friendship and that I had nothing to worry about, that in any case, even if she was single, she could never imagine herself in a relationship with this man.

In the spring of 2021, I finally discovered enough elements that left little room for doubt: several lies about his schedule, gifts, the cell phone that is never left alone even to go take a shower. What followed were many heated discussions, terrible arguments, jealousy crises, but also several attempts to save what could be saved. In vain. We finally made the final decision to divorce in the summer of 2021.

The psychological impact

(Those who don't like psychological blah blah can skip to the next chapter...)

The psychological shock was so violent that I found myself for about two months in a kind of comatose state, as if paralyzed, with the impression that the ground had given way beneath my feet, that my life was taking on water from all sides, that my deepest certainties were collapsing, that a steamroller had passed over me. Difficult to describe in words, but believe me, even harder to live with. Some days I didn't even really know my name anymore and I forgot to eat.

I spent days living like a zombie and entire nights questioning myself, wondering what I had done wrong and why all this was happening to me. I constantly felt like I was in a bad dream and that I was going to wake up, except that each time I was forced to realize that it was reality and not a nightmare. Being left is terrible, being left for someone else even more so. No one can hurt you as much as the person you loved with all your heart and in whom you had placed all your trust.

On the darkest days, the idea of ending it all even crossed my mind, something completely new for the usually positive and optimistic person that I am.

Once the initial psychological shock had passed, all sorts of feelings and moods followed: depression, hatred, denial, bargaining, incomprehension, sadness, fury, despair, etc. These emotions come over you in waves without you really understanding why and constantly keep you in a negative spiral.

I started to get back on my feet from October - November 2021. I talked a lot about my situation around me and, I say it without any shame, I also sought psychological help from a professional. As time went by, I understood that even if I had of course not been the perfect husband (he only exists on paper), I had not been a bad husband either, I had not done everything wrong.

I have always been faithful and respected my wife. She simply found herself at a crossroads in her life and decided to take another path. This is her decision as an adult, rather than my fault as a husband. Perhaps we also met too young. And she has also been very destabilized by the fact that the children are growing up and need her less and less.

Very quickly, life goes on and you have to get organized: move, organize shared custody of the children, try to explain to them what is happening, take care of all sorts of administrative procedures, buy almost all your furniture as if you were 20 years old again, explain at work why you are completely off the mark, learn to cook something other than spaghetti, meet your bankers and lawyer many times, etc.

Then, little by little, you get used to the new situation, you learn to manage loneliness, you find yourself, that is to say, you end up rediscovering who you really are, beyond the person you had become through your marriage. You end up seeing the light at the end of the tunnel again, looking forward, imagining a new future. Either you stay on the ground, or you decide to get back up. There is no real in-between.

Today, not everything is rosy yet, morale and self-confidence have taken a lasting hit. Added to this are the eternal questions about the well-being of one's children, the atrocious experience of "celebrating" Christmas or a child's birthday for the first time as a broken family, the complex impact of a divorce on mutual friends and in-laws, etc.

The financial consequences

Apart from the emotional and psychological aspect, the financial impact is also enormous, since everything is affected: fortune, income, plans for financial independence.

In terms of wealth

Everything you acquired during your marriage is divided in two: bank accounts, stock portfolios, apartment, 2nd pillar, 3rd pillar, car, absolutely everything.

Since the vast majority of my/our money was invested in stocks, I had to liquidate half of my various portfolios in a few months to free up a lot of cash to be able to pay my wife her share. Fortunately at least we were in a bull market and I was able to sell at a good price.

Jérôme recently presented us with the performance of his portfolio of around +5% in 2021. As a result, mine will have been closer to -50%…

But above all psychologically it was horrible to have to sell dozens of shares that I had sometimes owned for 10 or 20 years and that I would never have wanted to part with. Having to liquidate gems such as Nestle, Lindt, SGS, Geberit or Partners Group made me want to vomit. And especially seeing my passive income, my cherished dividends, halved, was atrocious.

Losing half of my 2nd and 3rd pillar, on the other hand, did me practically nothing. This money was blocked for another 20 years anyway and I never really counted on it to finance my retirement.

The apartment we own has been the biggest headache, especially because of the large early withdrawal made from my pension fund when financing it. This is also the main reason, alongside the clever calculation of alimony, why we hired a lawyer.

In order to save you a headache or a 10-page article, I'll spare you all the calculations and the different hypotheses considered (including a sale or a rental) to tell you the least bad solution that we were finally forced to adopt: the two ex-spouses remaining equal owners, with Mrs. Adultery living there until the children had finished compulsory schooling. I'll also spare you the details on who pays which expenses related to the apartment, it's so complicated (taxes, rental value, maintenance, renovations, etc.).

At the income level

Here too, it's a cold shower: once I have paid my wife at the beginning of each month what I owe her (child support, alimony for my ex-spouse, child benefit), I only have roughly half of my salary left.

Also not to be underestimated is the fact that some expenses go up, such as housing costs, and you suddenly pay for a lot of things twice: car, parking space, internet, Serafe, car or household insurance, TV magazine, etc.

The only consolation is that alimony payments (especially for ex-spouses) are not fixed in time but are gradually reduced according to the evolution of the mother's theoretical employment rate. For several years now, the "educational level model" has been applied. Basically, the mother can be required to work at 50% as soon as the younger child starts compulsory schooling, 80% as soon as he starts secondary school, and 100% as soon as he finishes 16 years of age.

Legally, my wife can currently be forced to work at 50%, so she works at… 50%. Especially not 60% or even 51%. Logical, since Mr. Dividinde pays the difference while she can take it easy with her Jules…

Impact on my dreams of financial independence / early retirement

This whole situation is still very new and it is impossible at this point to accurately assess the impact of this divorce on my plans for financial independence or early retirement. Maybe it will simply no longer be an option, maybe it will just delay my plan by several years.

Honestly, in the current phase, I am much more concerned about my psychological well-being and that of my children than about my dreams of financial independence.

Once I have really got my life back on track, I will certainly set out to conquer my dreams again and start all my calculations again.

All this money set aside and invested over many years gives me a significant safety cushion and allows me not to have financial worries in my new situation, even if my salary, reduced by half, does not cover current expenses. Not all divorcees have this financial serenity.

Where I am today

At 45, a little over 6 months after the initial shock, I have found a certain balance and I am getting better and better, even if waves of sadness and hatred still invade me very frequently. But the lows are less low than at the beginning. I see my children less often than before, but I enjoy every moment spent with them even more than before.

I have opened up to new people and made new friends. I talk to myself less and less. I am even starting to appreciate some of the benefits of being alone some days: eating whatever I want at whatever time I want, watching whatever I like on TV, going out at night without having to answer to anyone.

My relationship with my wife, on the other hand, is still very conflictual on my side: for the moment I can't forgive her at all (or even imagine it) and I can't stand seeing or hearing her for more than a few minutes a month. She would like us to remain friends, but for me it's currently impossible to imagine, even if I know that it would probably be better for the children in the long term. The divorce proceedings are ongoing and should be completed within a few months.

Finally, surprisingly, I have not completely lost faith in love. I want to meet someone and recently registered on a dating site. I am ready to give my trust to someone again, to take the risk of suffering again. Being alone is also a suffering.

The moral of this story

Life is like the stock market: you don't always see everything coming, a black swan that you never imagined can always fall on your face. Planning, predicting, anticipating, making projections, that's good, but it has its limits. Life is not a mathematical formula.

Life is not a long, quiet river either, it is full of twists and turns and unexpected events. Sometimes it reaches out to you, sometimes it trips you up. It puts you to the test, tests your resilience and adaptability. Life is sometimes a real bitch, but it remains magnificent, it deserves to be lived to the fullest and you should never give up.

A divorce is a devastating ordeal that I wouldn't wish even on my worst enemy. But every ordeal is also an opportunity to question yourself, to grow and to discover unexpected resources.

I often ask myself this question: If I had known how this story was going to end, would I have done things differently? I have not yet found the definitive answer, but I sincerely believe, as strange as it may seem, that the answer is no. I have regrets, but above all I have memories. My heart is wounded, but it has known love.

My friends, I implore you: live life to the fullest, focus on the essentials rather than drowning in trivial details, take care of yourself and those you love and, above all, never lose hope: "The darkest hour is the one that comes just before sunrise" (Paulo Coelho).