Jeffrey H. Rattiner - Personal Financial Planning for Divorce

Table of Contents

When Wiley asked me to write this book, I wanted it to be different from the two previous books I had authored for John Wiley & Sons, books I have written for Bloomberg Press, Harcourt Brace, Commerce Clearing House, Aspen Publishing, American Management Association, and the others I have worked on or helped co-write.

I wanted to go outside my normal writing style and provide a different twist to the numerous divorce books in the marketplace. This book focuses on the personal financial planning side of the divorce and the other issues you need to be well aware of, before, during, and after the divorce. Having recently gone through a divorce, I had a lot I wanted to say about things I had experienced and learned in the process from myself and others whom I interviewed while writing this book. This is not a book about my divorce. Rather, it is a book that incorporates some of the things I went through and many other things that friends, business associates, and acquaintances have gone through. As they say, been there, done that!

When you go through anything in life, you encounter many different perspectives on how things really work and are supposed to work. Those things then become part of the learning process. Your measure of success is how well you come through the process and overcome the situation, whatever life has to throw at you. Divorce is one of the ultimate curveballs found in life. Hopefully you will come through it unscathed.

This book presented a unique challenge: to put many of the key issues surrounding divorce into one comprehensive, practical, and user friendly guide. The book is written to focus on many key issues that present themselves during the divorce process. It is not written in a drab style, stating important topics one after the other, but rather as a friend helping others become comfortable with the divorce process so that readers can learn ahead of time what they can expect, before experiencing undue hardship if thats not what they really want.

There is humor mixed throughout the book, not because I dont take this subject seriously, but because in any difficult situation that life presents, you need to maintain your sense of humor. Otherwise, the process can really become depressingyou begin to lose hope and faith, and you end up not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

And there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone told me there would be. I didnt believe it at first, but now I definitely do. What you learn is that this nightmare will eventually end and it will be back to life as close to normal as possible. Time heals all wounds. And as my mother would say, This too shall pass! Of course, its easier to say that now after the fact, but that phrase helped me throughout the process. So please dont be offended by any jokes or humorous stories you read throughout. Theyre intended to keep the mood light throughout this read.

I want to express my gratitude to Sheryl Garrett, CFP, founder of the Garrett Planning Network, who authored Chapter 11 on divorcing for same-sex couples. This is an often overlooked and unrepresented topic in most divorce books. Thanks, Sheryl, for being one of the true cornerstones in the financial planning industry and a great friend.

Best of luck to all our readers on whatever path you ultimately choose.

JEFFREY H. RATTINER, CPA, CFP, MBA, RFC
Scottsdale, Arizona
September 2009

You dreaded this day. You never thought it would happen to you. And thenboom! It hits you like a ton of bricks. Papers are served on you. You cant run and you cant hide. You stand there in dumb amazement, wondering if this is all part of a bad dream.

Well, I have been there, done that! From this moment forward, your life begins to change. The once close relationship changed from adversary to enemy, and you need to adjust and determine what to do from the first day of your new lifethe beginning of chapter two.

Many things run through your mind, some rational, some not so rational. You end up back at square one, wondering how to proceed. It is time to step outside the box and look in, but emotions will not let you do that so quickly. You think you need to be victorious but it is not possible in this situation.

In short, there are no winners, only losers. No matter what deal you strike (agreement you come to), you will never come out ahead. Let me correct that. There are winnersthe attorneys and their support team (i.e., valuation experts, expert witnesses, and others who hang around for the money), who make out like bandits.

Even if you think you know what is likely to transpire, you really do not. As a highly skilled and effective educator, MBA, CPA, and CFP who works with clients and teaches financial planning, tax, divorce, and a variety of other subjects to many financial experts, trade groups, and consumers nationwide for over 20 years, I was nevertheless nave during my divorce process. There is no substitute for actually going through the process. As educated as I am, I still learned ten times more than I thought I knew. There is no substitute for experiencing it yourself, learning the proper way to approach the necessary steps, and wishing you could undo mistakes created during the process.

This book is not about my divorce. Rather, it is a book I believe will help others get a better grasp of the issues involved with a divorce and ensure that they are comfortable doing what they can to survive the process, minimize the damage, and save unnecessary costs. After intensive study of the many possible scenarios that can occur both during and after a divorce, I have tried to put together in one book all of the issues that can arise over many different spectrums and that are pertinent to the many types of divorces people go through. My purpose in writing this book is to assist you, in a simple, easy to understand format, through the entire divorce process, starting from the time you begin seriously contemplating divorce, through the start of the legal process, to the issuance of the final divorce decree. My hope is that I can help you manage the process and your expectations, inform you of the key financial consequences, provide guidance on how to negotiate and structure a settlement, provide a plan of attack and ultimate retreat, assist you in getting through a tough time, and finalize this horrible episode of your life.