Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
The Math of Motherhood with Cindy DiTiberio
Parenting is of course expensive, but are you aware of the true costs of motherhood?
In this episode, we sit down with Cindy DiTiberio, the author of the bestselling Substack The Mother Lode (a feminist exploration of motherhood, marriage and divorce) and a New York Times bestselling collaborator and editor who has worked in publishing for over twenty years. Cindy’s writing has appeared in The Lily, Scary Mommy, Literary Mama, Mutha Magazine, and more. She was the inaugural guest on The Chamber of Mothers Book Club and collaborated with Eve Rodsky, The Fair Play Policy Institute, and Aaron Thomas on The Fair Play Guide to Prenups and Postnups.
In this episode, she talks about the unspoken financial, physical, and emotional challenges women face when they become mothers. Cindy sheds light on the sacrifices made, the often overlooked costs of unpaid labor, and the personal toll on women’s bodies. She also discusses her series 'The Math of Motherhood', which vividly captures these realities, and shares her own candid experiences with motherhood, marriage, and divorce.
Listen in to learn about the importance of financial transparency in relationships, the value of a divorce coach, and the crucial conversations women must have to navigate these life-changing moments.
00:00 The Hidden Costs of Motherhood
04:35 Introducing Cindy DiTiberio
07:06 Cindy's Journey: From Editor to Writer
13:24 The Math of Motherhood
20:31 The Reality of Prenups and Postnups
23:29 Introduction to Divorce Diaries
24:11 The Realities of Divorce
25:01 Challenges of Child Support
29:31 Financial Planning for Divorce
33:43 Emotional and Practical Advice
37:04 Cindy's Personal Reflections
Cindy gets real about the cost of caregiving and why women shouldn’t have to carry it all alone. Don’t miss Money Talks on August 14, where we’ll dive into how motherhood impacts your long-term finances, and how to plan ahead with confidence, not overwhelm. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions!
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Barb: [00:00:00] Maggie, we talk so much about leaving the workforce when you're having a child, and what it cost them, right? You're in a career, you decide to have a baby. And leave the workforce to, do some of the most important work, which is raising your children. However, the cost of leaving your career is so detrimental in terms of leaving behind any kind of benefits you have, which are typically.
Matches to your retirement. Sometimes contributions to pensions, those are going away, but that has happened. Upskilling your career resources, your knowledge, your skill being in that. Ongoing career advancement, being pulled away from that losing paid holidays, paid sick days, paid vacation days, and year over year.
That adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then once your children are in school and you decide to go maybe back to work. It is harder, right? It's harder 'cause you've been out for so long. So we [00:01:00] always talk about the cost of motherhood. But it was so interesting when we were talking to our guest, Cindy, because she even started earlier than just at the point of leaving your work to raise your children.
She was really talking about the cost of motherhood in terms of the cost of just. Your body having a baby, the impact of, bearing children. And I think she said something like, you're 20 more times going to die from childbirth than parachuting or something like that.
Maggie: you're 20 times more likely to die having a baby than you are to skydive.
Barb: Skydive,
And the impact on your body. And childbirth
Maggie: impact on body, like looks, but there's so much I know you said you didn't go through a lot of this, but of that Postpartum depression. I follow this one lady who has like crazy thyroid issues after having babies. There's so many different things that could just affect your body.
Barb: [00:02:00] Yeah, so it's, the cost, not just leaving the workforce, but there's compounding costs of just having the baby, giving birth, the impact to your body, the medical bills. All that goes on. So her insights I think were very interesting because it was insights to things that we just go, huh, I never really thought about that.
We just assumed and took on because that was our role, our responsibility. That's what our bodies did when we had babies. But there is a cost to it. There is really a cost to it because we put on weight that we think, oh, that'll easily come off. Which it doesn't always come off.
It's such an impact.
Maggie: yeah, like something that we just expect. 'cause as the woman, you carry the baby. That's what your body's meant to do. But having those conversations with your partner of kind of, these are the things I'm putting in, what are you putting in?
Barb: What are you contributing? And he always says, I already put in that's.
Maggie: That's how we [00:03:00] got the baby. No, but some of these things we need to be talking about. Talking about how it is more than just cash, but also the cash and the cost of motherhood. How this affects your marriage, how this affects the long run, how it affects our health, our body, all these different things. And it's nice to have someone who's.
Again, talking about the shit that we don't talk about, making it transparent, interviewing real women and having them, disclose their real stories. Just because we need these insights and to not feel alone when it comes to these things. Sometimes it's so easy to be like everyone is here was born, so everybody. Somebody bore them, right? And so it just is. It is what we do, but we have to talk about some of these other topics so we don't feel alone when these new things happen to us as well.
Barb: Yeah. And even if when I had babies, I thought to myself somebody didn't tell me a few things, that I was shocked to find out after I had a baby. And it's because no one talked about it. No one talked about it. No one had open conversations about [00:04:00] it. And, we need to start talking about a lot more things that were, and even this whole postpartum depression thing, so many people didn't wanna admit to it.
You need help after you have a baby. And it's so much kind of a relief to hear stories of other people and their vulnerabilities and how they felt and what their experiences are or were. And that way we learn from one another. That's why we talk about. All this shit because that's how we learn about it.
If we don't talk about it, we're not learning about it.
Maggie: So let's dive in to this episode with Cindy, where she can enlighten us a little bit more.
Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be [00:05:00] financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.
Maggie: Cindy, welcome to Women and Money, the shit we don't talk about. We are thrilled to have you on today. Before we dive into our great conversation, would you take a moment to introduce who you are and what you do to the audience?
Cindy: Yeah, I'm Cindy DiTiberio. I am a writer and ghost writer and editor I've been working in publishing for pretty much my whole career. But most recently, in the last three years, I started the mother load, which is a sub. About marriage, motherhood, and divorce. And it's definitely a feminist lens on it.
In fact, I love your tagline, the shit we don't talk about. That could be the tagline for my substack too. I mean, it really just started from wanting to talk about the hard parts of motherhood. That we, weren't really talking about. I feel like so much has come out now in the last five years.
We're like, we really are talking about the hard parts of motherhood now that it's almost like people are like, why isn't anyone talking about how great it [00:06:00] is? And it's like, well, 'cause we did that for a long time. But I tend, I started it really, it was in the throes of post. I will say, 'cause it was end of 2021 while we still, like, my kids still were not in full-time school. so it really came out of the pandemic and how challenging that was for so many mothers. And was focused mainly on motherhood until I realized that a lot of my struggles with. Motherhood were actually struggles with marriage.
so then I started interrogating marriage and then I ended up getting divorced. And so then it walked me through that whole process and has been a lot about that. And there's not as much content about divorce as there needs to be, as it's really becoming a thing that women are pursuing. And so I try and let it be a hub of stories and resources as well for people who are considering divorce.
Obviously I talk about the hard parts of divorce, but I also talk about the liberating parts of divorce 'cause it was a very pivotal moment for me. As it is for many women when they realize, oh, okay, life can be [00:07:00] something different, and they start to pursue a life that works for them instead of just everyone around them.
Maggie: Have you always been a writer, Cindy?
Cindy: no, I originally started as an editor in a publishing house, so I was like one of the, people helping books come out into the world for almost a decade. And then when I became a mom, and I tried to do that full-time and I also had a commute that didn't work out so well, so like so many mothers, I was like, I'll just downshift my career and fit it around my children, which I did.
And so I became that freelance editor, but then I ended up ghost writing. So writing people's books for them. So I did that for about eight years. I wrote 11 books. Actually now it's 12. But then of course the pandemic hit and I had a kindergartner and a third grader when that happened.
And so I quit working after I finished. Whatever book the deadline was, May 1st, 2020. I will never forget that deadline because [00:08:00] it's a miracle. I hid it. And then it was like, oh my gosh, trying to write with kids. And also I was trading shifts with my, husband at the time, and it was insanity producing for everyone.
We were all going crazy and so I stopped working. so I stopped working, but I still had all the creative energy that wanted to go somewhere. And also I tend to write my way through hard things, and the pandemic was a very hard thing. So I I restarted my journaling practice, which I put aside, and then I started to figure out what my voice was.
I had been writing and other people's voices for so long, I didn't even know. What my voice sounded like or what I had to say. And of course I had a lot to say about what was happening in the world and what it was like for mothers who all were just now tasked with like homeschooling and doing all the things and never having a break.
And so that was when I first started writing in my own voice. And I haven't really gone back. I have gone back to ghosting. I'm still doing that. But I'm making enough room so that I can still write my own voice right now as well.
Barb: So take us [00:09:00] back to that pivotal moment when you decided to create the mother load. Like was it. Set up at night, in the middle of the night, or, was it just like a fleeting thought or like what inspired you to start writing, so candidly about motherhood, about marriage and about divorce,
Cindy: Yeah, well I think some of it was, the first published piece I actually ever had published in my own was on Scary Mommy. And I had titled it. Marriage in the time of COVID, they titled it, if you don't think Your Marriage Will Survive the Pandemic, you're Not Alone. Which was a very prescient title to put on it.
And I was horrified at first 'cause I was like, oh my God, it's not that bad. I. It was um, but I didn't realize it. They clearly saw it. So anyway, so I had started writing for other places, and then I wrote for the lily, I wrote about like what it meant to sacrifice my career in the pandemic. And that's actually what I'd done throughout motherhood.
So I'd [00:10:00] been writing these. Pieces for other places. But the thing is, you have to get someone to want it and then they have their own particular spin on it. And Substack was just coming up as this platform for writers as a place where it's like this in between. Like is it a blog?
Is it a newsletter? And I had another friend who was thinking about starting one and I was like, well, what if I did that? And then what's nice about Substack? Is you decide like you're in charge of it. You decide what you write, when you write, how often you write, whether you charge for it. It's just completely self-owned and I think that felt really good that I wasn't gonna have to pitch 14 outlets and hope one of them took it.
If I wanted to write about something, I got to, so I think that freedom was really appealing to me. I think I also wasn't sure if I had a voice, I was still testing the waters, being like, do I have something to say? Do people want to hear it? And this was a really good testing ground and I think a lot of people.
I don't really know. I think they start some substack and then they're not really sure what they're doing. And it does, peters [00:11:00] out. But I think for me, I really found my rhythm and I found that people did wanna hear about it. And then these new directions, I'm like, wow, people really liked it when you talked about marriage.
'cause we don't talk about marriage very much or the hard parts of it. And then especially once I got into my divorce, there was such a hunger, I think for real stories. Of what it takes to leave, of what it's like to go through. Once I got divorced, it was like, and it just took off from there.
Maggie: I think people were so interested to hear other people's stories. I mean, that's how all these documentaries are and all this stuff. Even if we're not going through divorce or we're not even married, we're like, but what would that be like? What are the struggles? I mean, we're all so nosy, and so when people write those more personal, writings or stories about their true experience and what they went through and those things, you're like, ah, I didn't think that would happen, but that makes sense. It's just so interesting and it pulls you in. It's this human thing where we just get that itch of curiosity what's happening behind the closed doors.
Right?
Barb: Yeah. It's about
[00:12:00] vulnerability. I think, you know, when people express what's their life really like, especially on social media when we don't see a lot of
that, we see a lot about how everyone's making millions and losing the weight and being the model and, the best next entrepreneur where when you have a very true, vulnerable story come across, it's really relatable.
It's very engaging.
Cindy: Yeah. I I understand why we're protective of our marriages, of what happens with divorce, but what happens is then we feel alone in our struggles. And so what happens when you do peel back the curtain a little is people don't feel alone. They're like, oh my gosh, me too, or Oh my gosh, you put into words exactly how I've been feeling and.
It bonds you, it connects you. And that's what I think good writing does is just helps you feel less alone or helps you understand yourself in a new way, just by someone else talking about their experience. So I hope that in a lot of ways I've. taken away some of the taboo of like [00:13:00] just being real about what it takes to end in marriage.
Like, it is not easy, but like really being truthful about like, this is what it took for me. And also I would never go back, both hearing the hard. And also feeling my freedom, like it's both hands with all things like motherhood is both hands. It's both the hardest thing ever and it's the greatest thing I've ever done.
Maggie: So I know one of your series was the Math of Motherhood which is such a compelling name, especially, you know, we went through the trend of like girl math and boy math, and so I love like the math of motherhood. So what is it exactly that we're not calculating? When we talk about the cost of motherhood?
Cindy: Yeah, that first post came up because I'd seen on a Reddit somehow. I'm not on Reddit. I don't know even how this came across my. Feed or what have you. But there was this discussion on Reddit. It was a boyfriend and girlfriend who were gonna have a baby together. They lived together, but they weren't married.
They kept their finances separate [00:14:00] and she was like my hero. She had brought this like 16 page binder to him about all the things she wanted to talk about before she agreed to have a baby with him. And one of them was, she wanted him to compensate her for the lost wages she would experience if she took that time off.
Away from her career and he'd gone to Reddit being like, this is a turn off, right? Like, how could she ask me to do this? And it just brings up so much. Interesting. Okay. So it's not, yes, it's the lost wages, but I then got into this whole thing of like even carrying his child has a value, right? Like we act like women caring babies is just the most natural thing in the world, and it is.
And yet it takes a huge toll on our bodies. Okay, for those nine months, the trauma of childbirth is no joke. Sometimes it goes well, lots of times it doesn't. How dangerous childbirth is that it's still like, 20 times more lethal than skydiving.[00:15:00]
Childbirth is Yeah, the New York Times said that. So I think it's true. and we put our lives at risk to do this. Right. And it's just glossed over as of course you would. It's for your spouse, it's for your children. Yes. And it has a cost. It has a cost to our bodies, our psyches, our soul.
We could die from it. So like, let's not pretend this is nothing. So that was the math of motherhood, I think it was called like. Pregnancy edition. Just like, let's think about the costs that we carry when we carry these children again. We also know that surrogacy is something people pay for,
so, again, there's so much with motherhood that we like, act like, doesn't have value, but it actually has extreme value. And so then the next one I did was on the unpaid labor edition. And again, this was like. There was an episode of the show called How to Get Rich With, which maybe you guys are familiar with him 'cause you do money things.
But he had this episode. And it was like an inverse of the traditional gender roles. So there was a [00:16:00] woman who was a high earner and then her spouse stayed home and she wasn't great with the money. She like gave him an allowance, kind of like being like, here's your little bit you can spend, which he of course didn't love.
And then he really struggled with being like the stable home parent. And he said this thing, he was like, I want to support my family. And so then at the end of the series, he goes out and gets a job and they hire an au pair. And I struggled so much with that 'cause I was like, hold on. The producers of that show had an opportunity Okay, you are supporting your family. Like let's go do the math on what it would take to hire someone to do all the things you do. So like why do you think you aren't supporting your family? Right? So, and again, if the gender rules had been different, it would've been one thing, but because he was a man, and so then I go into of course all the research of like, you would have to pay someone, a stay at home parent, like $193,000 to do all the jobs they do.
Like it is actually extremely valuable. And then there was someone on TikTok who. Her best [00:17:00] friend had died and the spouse had to hire all these people to replace the labor his wife was doing, and she was all on this thing like, we stay-at-home moms need life insurance because guess what? They bring a lot of value.
So it's just like spelling out some of that. And then of course there's the motherhood penalty, which you know, and I go into all of the actual numbers. Let's just put it all out there, people about how much we sacrifice and how much labor. So that's what the math of motherhood is just like, let's just get nitty gritty about what it is, the value that we bring that mothers bring, that care work brings.
And also the sacrifices that we make when we become mothers already. Like it doesn't even matter, even if you don't take time off work, there is still the motherhood penalty and like, it's still astonishing. It's like 58 cents to the dollar mothers make to the fathers. I mean, how is that okay? And yet it is.
And so, and that underlines then everything that when we talk about [00:18:00] like you get divorced and then there's the settlement and who did what and whose money is whose. And it's like, well listen, there were a lot of sacrifices that mothers make financially that you gotta pay for a divorce 'cause you don't get that for free anymore.
Barb: n, sister, we agree with every single thing you just said. It's so true. And we just gloss over so much of it. Like, oh, it's what you do,
but there is a lot of unpaid labor, that's for sure.
Maggie: I love How she sat down with with those bullet points of the things she wanted to talk about. 'cause a, she's prepared, she's thinking about it, she's talking about it because a lot of these things are not talked about. And then later it's like, are you gonna stay home or am I, it's like, whoa, we should have had that conversation before this baby came, but I saw something similar to this about, this lesbian couple who is deciding to carry the baby. And one's like, well, if I carry it, then I want a nutritionist. I want like a, trainer. I want, like, these different things to help me get back and stay healthy and rebound. And [00:19:00] I just love how it's like, all right I will do it, but these are my needs that come with it.
And just making it a transparent, I don't wanna say trade, an agreement.
Cindy: right? Yeah, it's a trade. I think that's great 'cause yes, the whole fallacy that like we just bounced back after pregnancy is so not true. I mean, I think I struggled so much. I just thought, oh, well, breastfeeding, I'll just lose all this weight. Nope. Didn't happen. And again, even like the weight part of it in our society, like I sometimes think, would men ever agree to just put on 40, 70 pounds that you aren't guaranteed to get off to have a child?
I don't think they would
Maggie: they can walk around with the dad bod and I don't get it. You didn't have the baby.
Cindy: no, I know. So let them have the babies if they're allowed to have dad buds. No it's not a small thing, I also talk a lot about, I think that the whole heterosexual marriage. Thing is just not working. I think it's so based on these outdated ideals where it [00:20:00] wasn't a true partnership of equals, it just wasn't, marriage was not a partnership of equals, it was, I'm taking ownership of you.
You take my last name, like we subsume into one being like that's literally what marriage was and now we've taken it, we're trying to force it into this like partnership with equals and it's not working, which I think is why so many women are. Opting for divorce right now because the whole premise is just flawed.
You're supposed to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice. That's how it works. And so when women get tired of sacrificing. They get tired of being married. And so I do think the more we can talk about these, as like partnerships rather than marriage, like a romantic relationship, I've, again, I do a lot of writing also about prenups and postnup because I think that's also an a time like if you're about to have.
A child with someone, that is a time, if you're not married already, for her to like bring her binder. Yeah. Okay. So how are we gonna do this? What are the things we need to talk about? How can we make sure that this is all [00:21:00] codified? Because just like saying, oh, of course we'll take care of each other, goodwill, blah, blah, blah.
When. You're getting divorced, that goodwill is gone and now you have to hash everything out while you're at your worst. So, as much as possible. And I actually also think all of that financial transparency is so good for the marriage to be like, okay, well we've gotten off the rails 'cause that was going on, let's.
Come together and be like, how are we doing here? Where are our accounts? What do we think we're doing right? Should we change this? Should I go back to work? Like all of those kinds of things. The more you can have those kind of conversations, the better. Unfortunately, in our society, we think those aren't romantic.
We think those are like too transactional, right? You even seeing a trade like, oops, should I use this word? Well, yeah, it's a trade, like let's just call a spade. And these relationships are business transactions essentially when you're creating a family. So I think we just need more of those conversations.
Maggie: I agree. And I love everything you're saying, [00:22:00] especially about the prenups or the postnup. I mean, we hear so many people, like they still don't wanna talk to their partner about money. And we're
always like, you're gonna marry them. You're having a child with them. Like, if you can't talk to them about money, who can you talk about money with?
Right. And so, if you can't have those transparent conversations before you get married or before you have a kid. It's probably not gonna work, right? You gotta have those conversations.
Cindy: Yeah, if you can't talk about money, you just shouldn't be getting married. That's just like the biggest red flag.
Barb: Absolutely. And we always say they spend so much time paying attention to the details of the wedding and spending money on the wedding, and not nearly that same amount of time on, the finances.
Cindy: Oh my God. I had the worst thought just now, which is that like everyone should take like $10,000 they were gonna spend on their money on their wedding and put it in a savings account so that it can fund your divorce in like 14 years. Like that's a horrible thing to say, but I'm like, my head is like, that's what everybody, sure you can spend some but carve [00:23:00] amount and be like, this is her divorce fund.
That's horrible. I'm
Maggie: But if
not, it's a great investment for when you're 85. I mean, you are either gonna spend it together or you are gonna be like, actually Cindy was right. I'm glad we did that.
Cindy: it's just call it the Freedom Fund, and it's either your freedom from each other or it's your freedom and you go retire and have a great life together. So either way, you're free. So let's just trademark that. That's what every marrying couple should do. You heard it here first?
Barb: Yep. Love it, Cindy. So let's talk about the divorce diaries now that we're on the topic. It is a taboo topic for many women, although I think it's getting a little bit more conversive out there. So why was it important for you to pull back the curtain on that?
Cindy: Yeah, I'm trying to remember when I first got the idea, you hear stories of divorce, but you don't get into the nitty gritty of like, I wanna know how much you spent on legal fees. I wanna know how much child support you get. Do you get possible support? I wanted the real numbers, and no one's [00:24:00] willing to share them, understandably, because shame or again, it's talking about money.
We don't like to talk about money. So I just decided, I was like, well, I'm gonna. Interview divorce women anonymously and see who will talk to me and see who will like, and so I compiled this list of questions and that was just the start of it. So like,
you have to be a paying subscriber of the mother load to get. The interview because I think it does have value of like really learning. How long did it take you to get divorced? What was your reasoning? Yes, we go into legal fees. Did you mediate? Do you get child support? What was your work life balance?
Did you sacrifice your career? What do you wish you'd known? What are your regrets? And women have been, again, because it's anonymous, they have been so forthcoming with their stories and everybody has a different one, right? Like there is no cookie cutter divorce. Every situation is different.
And so I feel like it's just really valuable to hear these women. Talk about what they did, and [00:25:00] yes, I'm getting the support. Or again, I think it was only my third one was this horrible story of how they finally, again, came to terms and then he just stopped paying child support. And he didn't pay for the down payment.
He said what? He just stopped. Paying and she was going into debt and she was having to like chase this money down. It's still not, I'm hoping to do a follow up with her. It has been a year since her divorce diaries. I think now it's finally wrapped up, but it may not even be, I mean, how long it's going for these women.
That was the first time I'd really heard about this like. What happens when they don't pay child support and what do you do? And if they aren't a salaried employee, in other words, you can, if they have a salary, you can have it deducted immediately from their salary. how many of us are salaried employees these days?
We're business owners, we're entrepreneurs, and so that if you don't have a standard W2. Who's your ex, you can't get money. You can't get the money that way. So it's just really [00:26:00] just, again, pulled back the curtain on the divorce process. And again, these women have amazing stories of like, oh my God, I ask at the end like, would you ever get married again?
Most say no. And their responses are so funny about like, who needs a man again? I mean, it's just, they've just really opened up and their stories are priceless. Like, you cannot put a price tag on these stories of freedom and not one of them regrets it. I've yet to meet a woman who has ever regretted her divorce.
It doesn't happen. They're all just like, even as it's torture, they're like, and I felt so much relief. Like I'm being tortured and I still feel better than I did when I was married. So, yeah, that's been a really big part of the mother load in the last like year. I think I've published 11 of them. I still have more coming in all the time.
I try and do one of like, about one a month. And yeah, 'cause I just think these are the stories we don't get and people want them.
Barb: Yeah, I mean, we learn from other people's stories too, right? We learn [00:27:00] about how not to make that mistake or be aware of this or that, or the other thing, or maybe you just don't make it legal, I don't know. I've seen a lot of that as well.
Cindy: No, there was an article in the New York Times recently about couples later in life getting married, but then how complicated that is because of course they have inheritances and who does it go to? And it was essentially saying, I think it ended the article and it was this older couple and they ended up getting married, like at the church, but not the courthouse.
Right, because it just wasn't worth it to make it a legal binding. Agreement. But of course there's also complications with that. 'cause then, power of attorney and like medical decisions, like you understand our society is still set up to prioritize the rights of a spouse. that's what I think we really need to work towards.
It's like we shouldn't have a. All these benefits for getting married. I mean, we know why there, there are all those benefits because our entire patriarchal system wants us to get married. But that's not a good reason [00:28:00] or how. One of my divorce diaries later realized, she was like, oh yeah, I forgot we got married because of health insurance.
And it was like she'd forgotten that was why she married him. And it was like, oh my gosh, that is not a good reason to get married. But in our country right now. People do that,
Maggie: I was like, have
you paid health insurance out of pocket? I can see that as well.
Cindy: Yes. Yeah. It's so expensive.
Maggie: and I think that really, I mean, that marriage later in life, it really shows how important an estate plan is. So you can be the driver of what my inheritance goes to. Is it my kids? Is it your kids? Maybe we're not married, but you could still be my power of attorney or whatever that may be, or, even though I love you so much, my kid's gonna be my power of attorney because we're
both 80, so, whatever it may be. But you have to navigate the legalities of marriage with the legalities of, the way those things trickle down and having those right plans and hopefully updating a thing so your ex is still not on those.
So
your ex is not your power [00:29:00] of attorney.
Barb: Yeah, me. I still need to do mine.
Cindy.
Cindy: I know. But it's like another, what, three to $4,000? And it's like I'm so tired of paying experts to sort out my life. It's my last thing I need to do for my divorce.
Maggie: it's also the last person you wanna see when you're wake up in the hospital. You know what I mean? Like
think about that nightmare.
Cindy: Oh
Barb: he'll be going Pull the plug, pull the plug.
Cindy: Yeah. You just made me be like, okay, and call them back. Okay.
Maggie: So if somebody's like considering divorce or separation and is in the early stages, what are like two or three, practical things you recommend them to do or not to do?
Cindy: Yeah. I think even though I'm sure. Sounds strange. I would say hire a divorce coach right away. Just because even if you're like, I don't really know if I want to, first of all, I would say if you're thinking about it, it means you probably want to and you're just not all the way [00:30:00] there. A divorce coach is so helpful because they're much less expensive than a lawyer.
They're gonna help you figure out your checklist of things to do before you tell your. Spouse, before you hire a lawyer, they can just help you so much. They also, a lot of them are, CDFA, so they're certified divorce financial analysts, right? So they know how to think about the money.
And sadly, like divorce is a hundred percent about either custody of your children. Or money, that's all it's about, let's be honest. And so they can help you think through, especially they can help you with your budget to think about like, okay, what could I afford? If I'm moving out, what can I afford as a rental?
Do I have enough for like the security deposit? Do I have enough for a retainer for a lawyer, which is a huge amount of money? If I don't, where can I get that? I heard a story recently. This is such an insane story of a woman who was thinking about [00:31:00] divorce and she didn't have the, she wanted the money for the retainer.
She took her wedding ring.
Yeah. You guys know this story. And she replaced the diamond with a cubic zirconia, so her husband didn't know, and she sold that diamond that is genius. These are the kinds of things that we need women to know because yeah, you need to be thinking about the financial part of it.
'cause you're gonna need a lot of money in that first couple months to get divorce. I wish that weren't true, but if you're gonna leave, you need rent, security deposit retainer. For a lawyer. So you wanna start thinking about the money side. So my second thing would be to make sure you have access to all your financial accounts.
So many women don't, I didn't You can spin it as like, Hey, we haven't talked about money for a while. Can we have a little sit down? I think it'd be really great to like just see where we're at. I'd love to have access to like, just, you need to have all of that before things get started because.
I mean, that's what's gonna happen in the financial disclosure process, but that can help [00:32:00] you make some decisions too on some of your budgeting and things like that.
I mean, the other thing is, I would say probably suggest couples therapy, just because I think most people will want that before they will agree to divorce.
However, I would say go in with eyes wide open because couples therapy is designed to preserve the relationship, not you. And so it's getting to the point where you feel like you're just getting re abused by like putting up with their stuff. Then it's not, I mean, I think lots of times.
Relationships are too far gone at that point. But think about who your spouse is. Are they gonna wanna be like, well we didn't even go to therapy or whatever. So like, nip that in the bud, start going to therapy, be like, well we've been in therapy and it's not working for me. You know, It just depends on who your person is.
Maybe they would never go to therapy and then don't try that. But I think so often I think you can drag out the leaving process in a way that's. [00:33:00] Not great. I think you only know when you're ready to leave, and I think for every woman, that's a different point.
But once you hit that point, it's like you're done.
Barb: when you're thinking that much about it, you've been gone in your mind a year,
Cindy: yes. They say that the average amount of time that someone considers divorce is three years.
when I heard that I was like, that's a long time. Yeah. I think that's accurate For me, I think it was probably three years before I was like, okay, this is it. Because again, I mean I, we had a 14 year marriage, so we were together a long time.
It just takes a long time to be able to like say, I'm ready to give up on that dream.
Maggie: And so are there like conversations you think more women need to be having with themselves, with each other or with their partners who haven't yet? I mean, I know we talked about, the motherhood, we talked about marriage, we talked about divorce. So all these different things together.
Yeah. What are some of these [00:34:00] conversations that you think that we need to be having?
Cindy: Yeah, I mean, I think we as women tolerate a lot of. Hardship. We're taught to just keep going and taking it. I think often we don't think our own unhappiness is enough to upend things. So I think the conversation more women need to be having with themselves is like, am I okay in this situation? Not, I know everybody else is doing just fine, but like.
Am I okay? Is this the best life I can be living? I think so often too, women wanna stick it out for the kids and you can, but I know from my experience, my kids have seen being be more happy in the last two years than they've ever seen me. I had been out of the house like two weeks and they already were like.[00:35:00]
okay.
Barb: That's Okay.
Cindy: Yeah, they never held a grudge for me leaving. They could see pretty clearly once I was gone that I was so much better on the other side. They want their mom to be happy. They want their parents to be happy. Right, and they can see it. And maybe not every kid.
My kids pick up on energy and all of that. And so I think as hard as this has been for them, they now also get to see a mom who's self-actualized and engaged with her life and so happy. They would've missed out on that if I had stayed until they graduated and then they would've seen me happy after they left and imagine it could be like, wait.
Why didn't I get this mom? I wish I had that mom. Right. you're preserving the family unit. But I think every kid wants their parent to thrive and be their best self because then they see I get to do that. Then they see, [00:36:00] I also get to prioritize myself. The more we stay and suffer for our kids, the more they learn that motherhood is staying and suffering.
And I just don't think that's. What we want motherhood to be. It is what it is right now. Like I think that's why everyone's talking about it, is I do think motherhood is really tough in this country right now. But the goal would be, and that's why I talk about it's not actually motherhood that was killing me.
It was marriage. It was my marriage that was like killing me,
not motherhood. I love being a mom. Oh my gosh, now mothering on my own is the best thing ever. I'm so good at it. I love it. It's the best thing ever. So, I just think, the more we can teach women to tune in and prioritize themselves, that's gonna solve it.
I mean, sadly, I think that's means a lot of marriages aren't gonna last, but I think that's okay.
Maggie: when mom's happy, everyone else is happy. And when mom's not happy, nothing good is gonna happen.
Barb: Yeah.
Cindy: No, it's true. It is really true, and I just wish that it didn't [00:37:00] have to, we suffer for a long time before we get out, I think.
Maggie: Well, Cindy, this has been a really great conversation and there is a question we like to ask all of our guests on here before we wrap up, and that is, what is your own definition of financial freedom?
Cindy: Financial freedom. That's a really tough one. I still struggle with money a little bit. I'm not gonna lie. I think money has terrified me for most of my life. And I'm really trying to not be afraid of it anymore and like look at it head on, which is why I'm doing some of the writing about money is like, listen, we need money.
Money serves us. I think financial freedom is being able to live the life you want with your own work. Like I think what I struggle with is I made a choice very young to live. I live in Palo Alto, California. I love it here, but it's a very expensive place to live, and I've always worked in publishing [00:38:00] and writing, which is not a high paying profession. So I look back and I'm like, that was an interesting choice. Now I decided to live here because I was partnered with my spouse and partnered with my spouse. I was fine, but I didn't do the math of, well, what happens if we don't work out? And then I'm here and I can't like. I'm never gonna make enough as a writer to live here.
Obviously that's what some of our divorce settlement was because we built wealth. And so that comes to me and so I'm okay now. So I just wish that we thought about the long term and that's, what divorce is designed for is listen, like, and especially once you have kids is like, if you live here
and there's a certain standard of living that just because she is a writer and only makes this much doesn't mean like her kids are gonna, when they're with her, she lives in a studio and, it's trying to equalize that. But I look back and I, it wasn't just a. Interesting choice, because now I do feel like I'm dependent on what we [00:39:00] built.
Now, again, that is also mine. I just have my ex in my head who's saying, well, that's mine. She's living off my money, blah, blah, blah. I'm really working to get him out of my head. Check in on me in five years and maybe I will. I don't know. It's a long marriage, so I think if looking back on it, I wish I factored that in.
I love what I do and I'm really glad that I get to do it. But it is hard to live in a place that's. So And now, I still have kids who are growing up here, so this is where I am for a good amount of time. So I think looking forward I just wish my 20-year-old self would've factored all of that in.
So, we just don't always think about it. We're just excited and young and in love, and we think our marriages are gonna last forever.
Barb: Well, yeah, I mean, it sounded like a good idea at the time. And, we make our best case judgment at the time, and, what are you gonna do? You You can't just say, yeah, I'm getting married to plan for divorce, so I have to make sure I make really good decisions now in case I do.
Cindy: And I'm [00:40:00] sure even at that moment we both would've said, well, we think this is best for both of us. And so if we get to that point, we'll sort it out. Which we did. We sorted it out.
Maggie: And you gotta remember, what you talked about of the math of motherhood and how much you gave up to get there and you put in your deposits. So you built that family wealth. Part of that wealth
is the family and the love and the kids. And so.
Cindy: Yeah.
Maggie: everyone deserves to have a home. If you put in all that work and 18 months carrying two kids.
Cindy: Yeah, exactly. I know. Oh my gosh. Yeah. again, I write about what I am grappling with, right. And it's, it all comes to a head when you are like. in that settlement conference, trying to talk about who does what and what contributed what. And you know, it's all theoretical until you're in that divorce negotiation.
And then it's not theoretical anymore. It's really like, well what did we value? What did we each bring? And it can be hard when you don't see eye to eye on that, but also like, that's why we got divorced 'cause we didn't see eye to eye on it, you know? and so, [00:41:00] it's hard getting divorced. To someone who really just doesn't see what you bring in the same way.
And yet every time that would come up, I would be like, and this is why we're no longer married, you know, or why we're trying to not be married anymore. So, and I've learned so much through it, you know, again, like it is not a, it's not a small thing to dismantle a life. And yet. Here I am on the other side.
And so I do think that's what fuels so much of my writing is like, let me just show you like yeah, it's pretty brutal and you get through it. You really
Barb: Yeah.
Cindy: Yeah.
Barb: well I think what you're doing is fantastic. I think you're sharing a wealth of almost like behind the scenes information about what happens and what can happen and how it can be a rocky road. But it happens to so many people and it's just a chapter in your life. It's not your whole life and that everyone can get through it, and the vulnerability of telling real life stories.
It's helpful to everyone navigating that kind of rocky road at the [00:42:00] time. Then it's behind them.
Cindy: Yeah. It's, if I can pave that road to make it just even a little bit easier or for people to not feel so alone, like that's what I'm doing. That's why I'm doing it.
Barb: Wonderful. course everything will be in the show notes, but what's the best way for people to stay connected to you, Cindy?
Cindy: The best way is the mother load. So if you just Google the mother load Substack, that's where I'll come up. It's like substack cindy DiTiberio.com, but my last name is the challenge to spell. I'm on Instagram too, but the best way is the mother load and I publish about once a week, so it's not a ton.
You'll just get a little something in your email inbox. And it's usually, yeah, about all of these topics and I interview other people too. Like this week I shared someone else's story. So yeah I'm obviously a lot of it is mine, but a lot of it is highlighting other people's stories so that just the information can get out there.
So yeah. Thanks for letting me be on and talking about. All this shit no one talks about.
Maggie: Yeah, thank you for coming on Cindy and sharing your story and, and everything you're doing with the mother load. So be sure to connect and reach out [00:43:00] to her. And until next time, be financially fearless.
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