Beverly Price • From Victim to Survivor: Reclaiming Your Power in Divorce
In this empowering episode, Seth and Pete are joined by Beverly Price, founder of Her Empowered Divorce, to discuss how to overcome domestic abuse and take control of divorce proceedings. Beverly shares her personal story of persevering through multiple divorces and emerging stronger. She provides insights on effective communication, documenting abuse, and building a supportive team. This is an inspiring conversation about reclaiming your agency during a challenging time.
Key Takeaways
Communicate for results, not just to express yourself. Frame issues clearly and concisely.
Create a divorce team including a coach, lawyer and financial advisor. Divvy up roles.
Document abuse with specific facts and dates, not emotions. Paint a pattern over time.
Questions We Answer
How can you prep most effectively for that first lawyer meeting?
What should you say when first telling your spouse you want divorce?
How do you prove non-physical abuse like coercion?
Plus, we tackle another listener question on changes in Florida divorce law!
This empathetic episode provides encouragement and practical tools to help anyone facing a contentious split take control of their situation, reclaim their self-worth, and ultimately transition from victim to survivor. Beverly shares her own inspiring journey as well as expert tips to empower yourself and get results during divorce proceedings.
Links & Notes
Find Beverly and Her Empowered Divorce on the web, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube
Get Beverly’s free ebook Comprehensive Divorce Checklist here
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
-
Pete Wright:
Welcome to How To Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today, we're finally working on empowering your toaster.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend Pete Wright. Today we're taking on the emotional toll of divorce. Beverly Price is the founder of Her Empowered Divorce and supported thousands facing divorce's trying moments. Now, as a host of her own podcast, she ensures women have the tools to take charge of their breakups. But Price's mission extends beyond empowering individuals. She's created The Divorce Coalition to unite leading voices, illuminating the path of healing for victims, while educating professionals and addressing systematic issues related to domestic abuse. Her vision is to shift culture and create change, and she's going to tell us about it today. Beverly, welcome to the Toaster.
Beverly Price:
Hey, Seth. Hey, Pete. Thanks so much for having me. I must say that your reputation of the show precedes you, so I'm really excited to be here.
Seth Nelson:
That doesn't sound like a good thing, Pete.
Pete Wright:
Well, one, Seth, come on. We have a reputation. That's amazing.
Beverly Price:
I didn't say it was bad. I think it's pretty doggone good. I stalked you on Instagram to get on this.
Pete Wright:
Oh, outstanding.
Seth Nelson:
Okay, all right.
Pete Wright:
Oh Seth, stalkers we don't have to fear.
Seth Nelson:
I know. It's so nice for a change.
Pete Wright:
It's so nice. We're talking about potentially a difficult subject, the area of domestic abuse and taking back your agency in the divorce process when you're dealing with a highly contentious divorce like this. You have a divorce journey that led you to all of the wonderful things that you're doing for the community. I wonder if we could open with that. What got you here?
Beverly Price:
Well, there's two pieces that enter into that. One was that I was in corporate America for 15 years in financial services and I really didn't get the feeling that I was helping people. I was running numbers and proofing spreadsheets, and I just really had this urge to be of more value.
Couple that with my own divorce journey that was filled with abuse. I'm one of those statistics of the multiple marriages that have failed, and in each of them there were forms of domestic abuse ranging from physical to mental to emotional to financial. When you merge those two things together, I came up with my mission was to help women through the divorce process. I have a specialty in the very high conflict, high net worth experiences with abuse. That's how I came to be. I'm extremely passionate about the topic.
Pete Wright:
It's the worst sort of award you could possibly win is having all four major types of abuse. It's like the EGOT of the divorce process.
Beverly Price:
But it was also, in a bizarre way, the greatest gift I could have received because I had to take a look at myself why I was attracted to those situations and how I needed to become a totally different person. Without those, I wouldn't be the person that I am today. Took a lot of work, took a lot of self-awareness, a lot of digging, but I got to the root of it. What I want particularly is to help women not repeat the same mistakes over and over.
Seth Nelson:
We are so thankful you're on the show today. The reason we're so thankful is because a lot of what we discuss, we'll say, "Okay, you're in this situation, but it's different than physical abuse." I know you've, like Pete just said, you're dealing with four different types and so we can talk through all of those, especially the financial abuse since you were in corporate America running numbers, I find very interesting. But just coming on the show to talk about how you get over the physical abuse and you do the look back and it's a lot of hard work, why was I putting myself in these situation, we cannot be more thankful because I don't think we really have dived into this subject the way we're going to today.
Beverly Price:
I also would like to say is there are so many more forms of abuse than just these four. There is a lack of awareness. People tend to say, and some potential victims say, "But he didn't hit me."
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Beverly Price:
There is a whole world out there, a whole realm of, I think I came up with 15 different types of abuse that people can be dealt with. One, you've probably seen, Seth, is actually legal abuse, being taken through the process. It really has two components. One is actually from the abuser, but what we're also seeing is that many victims and survivors say that the divorce experience, and the professionals involved, re-traumatize them.
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely. In fact, just to back up one moment is what you said is, "Well, he didn't hit me." I've had potential clients say, "Well, I'm thinking about a divorce," and they'll say all these things that are just horrible, and then they'll say, "But he didn't hit me. If he hit me, then I would know." I said, "Let's unpack that a little bit. I'm going to repeat back what I think you just said in a different way. To leave your spouse, you have to be the victim of domestic violence. That's what that means when you say, 'But he didn't hit me.' Is that what you mean?" Then they're like, "Oh, okay." I said, "Now, here's my other question. If you were listening as a good friend to someone telling your story, what would you tell your friend to do?" They're like, "Leave him."
Beverly Price:
I love that. I say that too.
Seth Nelson:
When people are saying, "But he didn't hit me," I think that is immediate stop. Let's evaluate what you're saying, unpack it, repeat it back to them so they can hear it and see where they go from there.
Beverly Price:
I think an excellent tool you can use is to come up with a list. They don't know what the list is when you hand it to them, but essentially it's a list of have I experienced these things? They will go through it, and when they finish, if they have checked anything, they are a victim of abuse. You can tell them that. You can actually develop this tool that opens their eyes. Many of them are shocked to be labeled a domestic abuse victim/survivor. Many of the ones experiencing abuse now want to be called survivor rather than victim, but I tend to think of the victim as the one who has not yet gotten out and the survivor is the one that left.
Pete Wright:
Beverly, what was it that, I mean, you're talking about these tools to help people open their eyes, what opened your eyes?
Beverly Price:
Okay. My daughter and I were going through therapy. She was about 11 years old. The therapist asked me to come individually to meet her. I thought it was going to be talking about my daughter's progress. I told the therapist in passing that even though the marriage was very tough, I felt like I needed to stay there because I had been married a number of times to show her that I could stick with it, that I could have a marriage last.
The therapist turned to me and said, "Oh no, that's not what you're teaching her at all. You're teaching her that by staying in an environment where you are treated like this, that you are not worthy. In addition to that, that translate to her that she is not worthy." I went home that night and ended it.
A lot of people say, "I don't want to get divorced because of my kids." You have to step back and look at if you don't get divorced, what is your marriage? What is your personality? What is your reaction to it? What is the situation teaching your child?
Seth Nelson:
That's right. On that, Beverly, I hear that a lot. I'm just going to fast-forward first, and then we'll come back to it. The other thing I hear a lot is the parents that did stay with it, the kids are off in college and what the kids say, or even later, they have their own children that the parents that are getting divorce are now grandparents, they're in grey divorce. The kids usually say, "Should have done it sooner. We knew everyone was unhappy. I didn't like growing up there. I was on pins and needles about X, Y, or Z." It's just a gut punch to the parents when their whole reason was staying was for you and you turn around and say, "You should have done it earlier."
Pete Wright:
Well, it's like we need to replace the axiom. That we take as axiomatic this stereotype of I stayed together for the kids. Really, in a contentious relationship that is, say, irreconcilable, you have to get divorced because of the kids. Right? Isn't it the more loving thing to do?
Seth Nelson:
Well, kids, as we've discussed, Pete, kids do not do well with conflict. If you are laying out a relationship that is conflict, that's bad. Now, if it's just neutral and you guys are roommates and there's not yelling and screaming or abuse and you have worked out this thing where you go on family trips together and everyone gets along and you're doing it for the kids in that way, I think that's a little different.
Beverly Price:
Well, I would disagree with that because I think kids are incredibly perceptive. I think a kid can figure out that you're not happy. I think a kid can figure out that you're faking it. I think, again, that sends the same message of, let's say it's a girl, this is the kind of marriage I should settle for. If it's a guy, this is the kind of man, husband, and father I have to look forward to. I actually debate that it's not just necessarily abuse or contentious and arguing, but I think it's when you are not living to your potential, to your happiness. That that sends the message to your child about this is what life can be like and this is what you should accept, even though they don't really deserve it.
Pete Wright:
I think that's really interesting. Anytime you want to disagree with Seth going forward, please do that with great abandon.
Beverly Price:
Oh, I will. I will.
Pete Wright:
A great way to kick off season nine. I'm very excited about this.
Seth Nelson:
Beverly, it's taken nine seasons-
Pete Wright:
Nine seasons.
Seth Nelson:
... for a guest to say, "Yeah, I'm going to take a different view." Actually, I didn't really believe what I said. I just knew you were going to disagree. I knew I was going to make-
Beverly Price:
You just wanted me to disagree.
Pete Wright:
Throwing a bone to Pete.
Seth Nelson:
I knew I was going to make Pete happy. It's been a long time coming.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, it's a real podcast gift.
Seth Nelson:
We're good. We're good.
Beverly Price:
I am so glad to make you happy with that, Seth.
Pete Wright:
Be a part of it. Oh, it's huge. Okay, so somewhere along the way, four divorces, challenging yourself, introspective self, you turned a corner and decided to become an advocate for others. Talk about that transition for us.
Beverly Price:
When I saw that it was possible to go from a person that I disliked, to go from a person I did not admire, to come through it and become a totally different person, I felt like I wanted to pass those learnings along to others. I actually became a divorce coach before they were divorce coaches. I've been coaching for 30 years. I have found that there is such a huge difference in women that go through the divorce with a coach than without. I believe that having that base of knowledge and expertise and understanding of the process to teach you how to communicate. One of the things I see a lot in contentious and abusive divorces is people communicate the way they want to, usually writing a 10-page dissertation, single space, no paragraphs about why their husband did them wrong.
Seth Nelson:
That's what I get a lot on our initial questionnaire.
Beverly Price:
Exactly. What I teach someone to do is think about it not from the perspective of what you want to communicate, but communicate in a way that will get you results and that you will be heard. I take some of my business expertise is I would never submit a 10-page paper to the president of a company. I present an executive summary, I present it in a business-like, non-emotional way. Essentially, that's what I'm teaching people in divorce to do.
Seth Nelson:
Well, communication is the key.
Beverly Price:
Yeah. A judge doesn't want to hear it.
Seth Nelson:
Not even a judge-
Beverly Price:
Or attorney.
Seth Nelson:
Is teaching someone how to communicate effectively about what's going on. One of the tools that I use, and I encourage our listeners to think about when they're dealing and talking with their lawyers, is start with your question. You're calling the lawyer for legal advice and counsel, you're not just calling them to tell a story.
What happens frequently is a client will call and start telling me a story. What they train you to do in law school is you listen to the story, and then you figure out whether there is any legal remedy to fix what's going on in the story or there's what we call a cause of action, but in divorce we already have that. We're filed for divorce. I'm trying to figure out what the problem is, how can I address it, how can I help your kid or help you, or what legal maneuvers can we make and what can we file?
Always try to start with the question, and it will be amazing to you how clear your communication is. It is because it makes you slow down and say, "What am I trying to accomplish from this conversation with my lawyer who costs a lot of money?" When you start with the question, and I don't have to listen to 10 minutes of a monologue, and it's not that I don't mind listening, I just don't feel like I'm helping. That's where my frustration comes in, that you're now spending all this money on me and I'm not really helping you, and that's what I'm in this business to do.
Beverly Price:
One of the things I actually do with my clients is I help them prep for that conversation with their attorney.
Pete Wright:
This is the question, Beverly. I just want to frame this question because as the person who hasn't been divorced, if I'm contemplating a divorce and I call my attorney, I'm thinking that surely context matters. Surely, they're going to need to know the how's and the why's that we got to this position and finding the line between what is useful and what is superfluous is really challenging. I think my bent is just give it all and they get to decide what to do with it. How do you coach through finding that line?
Beverly Price:
Well, the first thing I coach is to not make an attorney your first call. Now Seth may cringe at that, but my suggestion is-
Seth Nelson:
Oh, we're disagreeing this whole show, Beverly.
Beverly Price:
My suggestion is to go to a divorce coach first. Let that out. Let the divorce coach identify what are the key issues and the key needs and suggest to you, here are the members of a team you need. If you're in a high conflict divorce, you don't want to refer to an attorney that just does amicable divorce. I help them find the right attorney for them. Then, I help them prep for that interview, for that consult. I give them a list of questions, they add their owns, to make the conversation as productive as possible.
Pete Wright:
That's the process of whittling that down. What do you think about that, Seth?
Seth Nelson:
Well, first off, I think the way to approach it is exactly that, is that you have to-
Beverly Price:
Ah, you agreed with me?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, there's going to be a little asterisk here in a footnote. Don't worry.
Pete Wright:
[inaudible 00:18:14]-
Beverly Price:
Gotcha.
Seth Nelson:
Is to figure out, and Pete, we've done a whole show on this, what do you do on an initial consultation? Really what happens, I think, Beverly, is that you end up helping them whittle it down to figure out how to communicate effectively with their potential lawyer and to get the information they need from their lawyer. Because if you're doing all the talking as the potential client and the lawyers don't say anything, you've learned nothing about whether they're going to be a right fit for you.
The only thing, footnote asterisk on the bottom, when you said identify the issues, that's where my spidey sense went up and said, okay, what issues? You're not defining legal issues because that's the unlicensed practice of law. What you're saying is, hey, what do you need to find out when you're talking with this lawyer? Is the issue that they're too busy? Are they high conflict themselves? Are they going to try to solve problems?
Beverly Price:
I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about the issues from the marriage and the divorce. Thinking about in your marriage was your husband hostile? What's the likelihood of the divorce being hostile? All of those, what I would say is pre-legal issues. Because I do not give legal advice, I do not provide legal strategy. I, actually, the way I like to work is by partnering with the attorney and the client, and a financial professional if they want, and have joint calls so that we understand the big picture.
Seth Nelson:
In doing that, and we've talked about this too, Pete, where you go to sell your house, you have a realtor, you have a broker, you have the bank, you have the closing agent. There's all these people involved in this transaction. What, Beverly, you're laying out is, look, you're putting together a divorce team. The dangerous part of that is when you get the lawyer on the phone because anything that is said in that conversation is not protected by attorney-client privilege and they can subpoena all of you in the State of Florida, check your local jurisdiction, about what was said, what was the strategy.
Also, there is no divorce coach privilege. Anything my client says to you, you can become a witness. That's the only cautionary tale. If you're in a high conflict divorce, it's one thing to go and talk to a divorce coach and say, "I'm struggling with this, I'm struggling with that," and that's fine. It's going to come out. Basically, that conversation in trial, which I've seen more than once on a divorce coach is, "Yeah, they came to me." "What did they say?" "They were having trouble communicating with their spouse. They were afraid of this, they were afraid of that. This is what they said. This was the advice that I gave regarding how to better send an email. How does better send a text?" I mean, so that's one way to do it.
Beverly Price:
I would suggest there are two solutions to that. In the divorce team meeting, there is a period when a coach is involved and the material that is appropriate to share is shared. Then there is a portion of the meeting where the coach leaves and it is the attorney and the client. Another alternative that attorneys have used in different locations is that they hire me rather than the client hires me, and I am protected under their umbrella.
Seth Nelson:
That'd be a work product privilege at that point. Expertly put.
Beverly Price:
Exactly.
Seth Nelson:
But clever lawyers can try to get around that.
Beverly Price:
Well, most clever lawyers try and get around anything.
Seth Nelson:
That's true. That's true. I'm trying to get around the block, so who knows what I'm trying to do.
Beverly Price:
But to go back to the conversation and prepping for the attorney, there is one conversation that is even more important to that, and that is why my ideal situation is where a client comes to me and they are just considering divorce. Because a tremendous amount of my preparation and role play and practice is for the first conversation with their spouse where they tell them they want a divorce because I believe that conversation sets the tone for the entire divorce. There's a lot of mistakes that can be made. One of the techniques I use is to role play, but also to reverse role play so that the spouse who wants to leave is now wearing the hat of the spouse who is being told. I would say the same thing, and then they can see how it feels.
Pete Wright:
How does that work? What kind of results do you get out of that?
Beverly Price:
Works pretty darn good. A lot of eyes are opened. It also goes back to what Seth mentioned is they just want to let it all out, and that conversation is not the place to do it. I provide them with tools and exercises to let it all out way before then.
Pete Wright:
That's fascinating. I mean, in a process that where you feel so out of control, the idea of injecting a conversation that is specifically designed to rediscover empathy seems like a really smart realignment.
Beverly Price:
The other thing is they have to remember that, again, this goes back to do you want to communicate to satisfy your personal needs and your feelings, or do you want to communicate in a sense that can make your divorce process go better for you? It's the communicating what I want versus communicating what will get me results.
Seth Nelson:
I'd say do what you want, make it harder. The other thing I think what I really liked about what you said is so many people do not have the divorce conversation with any real forethought.
Beverly Price:
Right.
Seth Nelson:
Right? Sometimes you can't have that conversation in a way that you should because there's domestic violence, so let's talk about that.
Beverly Price:
In that case, in a domestic violence case, I changed my whole suggestion of calling a divorce coach first. I believe that's when you need to call an attorney first. But you need to absolutely make sure that that divorce attorney has experience with abuse. Many, many research studies have shown that the majority of victims feel like that divorce experience, that interaction with an attorney, that interaction with a judge retraumatizes them. They have said that people talk down to them, that they yell at them, that they belittle them. The victim is already coming in with a weakened state. If you pile that kind of thing on top of it, it makes the situation much worse. It also makes that victim not be able to think clearly and make good decisions for herself or himself.
Pete Wright:
Which is a terrifying turn when you talk about lack of control and agency. How do you find, like we're just talking about introducing a process where you're trying to reintroduce empathy and find the bridge which you can cross together, but going through that same process with a domestic abuse situation seems impossible.
Beverly Price:
It is very tricky, and unfortunately, frequently it can take a lot longer for a divorce with abuse. I've seen some upwards of eight years and more where the abuser actually enjoys creating pain in the spouse. That the abuser likes to torture. I was just in court with one of my clients, and the attorney very deftly demonstrated his pattern of harassment, of torture, of building fear. It was so powerful that you couldn't deny it, but what it was was a case based on fact. What you saw was this buildup of this email, this motion, this email, this motion, this phone call, this text. What it does is it creates terror. If you have the right kind of attorney, and if you have the right kind of judge, that can work in your favor.
Pete Wright:
Over the course of eight years.
Beverly Price:
Yeah. Do you know Tracy Malone? She might've been on your show. She's an expert on narcissism. If you read her book, you can see that journey. The other thing that happens with those is it also becomes very volatile around child custody, not just around finances. That can have a disastrous impact on the children.
Seth Nelson:
Here's the thing about a long litigation like that. Okay? A lot of that I think is poor lawyering because ultimately when you file a motion, you have to set it for a hearing, you have to go to court, you have to argue about the order. Maybe it gets continued. There's all these things that happen. But ultimately divorces are not fine wine, they do not get better with age, they only get worse. You need to get these cases to trial. If they're not going to settle, get them to trial.
Beverly Price:
But they can do the same thing in trial, motion after motion after motion.
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely, you can. But a thorough practitioner will, in my view, find ways to say, "Here's what we need to do. Here's what we need to do. Dot the I's cross the T's." In Florida, check your local jurisdiction, you have case management conferences. You can set a case management and say, "Judge, this case has been pending for three years. We need a trial schedule. We need like in the federal rules, they lay out, case gets filed, here are the deadlines. Here it is." Some of those federal judges do not move those deadlines. There has to be extraordinary circumstances to do so. Part of it is who is your judge? Are they going to do that? Are they going to hold people's feet to the fire? But when you keep coming and asking and banging on that, just get me to trial, get me out of this, there's a lot of ways that you can do this.
Beverly Price:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
I want to turn our attention to the other thing that you have created. You already dropped the name, The Divorce Coalition. It seems like turning your advocacy not just to individual clients, but to a much broader scope. Tell us a little bit about that as we get to wrapping up our time together.
Beverly Price:
It started with a thought that I had because I'm passionate about domestic abuse, and I'm a podcast host, so I approached Susan Guthrie and Kate Anthony that I know very well.
Seth Nelson:
Those names sound familiar, Pete.
Pete Wright:
They're friends of our show too.
Beverly Price:
Yeah. What if we combined and unite our reach, both in terms of social media and in terms of podcast listeners, to fight domestic abuse together, that our efforts could yield more than our individual parts? Susan's response was, "I can't believe we haven't done this already." They're actually on our advisory board. What we began doing was we started with focusing October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month. We've now fine-tuned our mission, which is to improve the victim experience in the divorce process.
Our targets are professionals in the divorce process. We are not one that directly helps the victim, but our goal is that what we do will indirectly help the woman. I also believe that there are tons of direct victim organizations out there, and I don't want to compete with them. We're all about educating, awareness, those kinds of things for all the professionals involved so that we don't have retraumatization.
Pete Wright:
That's fascinating. You're working with people like Seth, practitioners?
Beverly Price:
Well, if he'll let me.
Pete Wright:
Well, he's very curmudgeonly.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, I got to go. Forgot to feed the cat.
Pete Wright:
What might people, if I think about our listener who might be on the verge of a divorce themselves, how are they going to see the work of The Divorce Coalition if they're in an abusive relationship and they go to somebody who's a part of the coalition? The team is fairly large, you've got a lot of people who are a part of it.
Beverly Price:
Yeah, we do. If a victim comes to us, what we're going to try and do is refer her to the appropriate resource. We are not victim advocates. We are not lawyers, so we refer them to places like the National Domestic Violence Hotline, their local shelter, their state coalition against domestic violence. Or if the situation is real critical, we might try and locate an attorney or send them to legal aid depending on their financial situation. That's how we would interact with the victim.
The other thing that we have done is we've built what we call The Hub on our website that is a collection of all the podcasts from all the different podcast hosts that focuses on domestic abuse. An individual can go to one place and see all these different professionals hosting podcasts on topics from course of control to financial abuse to emotional abuse and so forth.
I think our help for the victim is probably going to be a little bit longer term because I don't think we're going to convert people that do traumatize victims immediately into somebody that doesn't. But I also think that there's a lot of those people that do that aren't even aware they're doing it. Part of it's going to be awareness.
The other thing I think you have that we've talked about earlier is, but he didn't hit her. Many professionals might also think there is no abuse other than if there's bruises and broken bones that are documented. I have seen another big issue is I actually interviewed a retired judge, and his comment was, "I don't take domestic abuse very seriously because all I see is false reporting."
Seth Nelson:
Well, that's a big problem.
Beverly Price:
Well, it is a problem, but when you look at the numbers, 1.5% of divorce cases are measured to be false reporting, but one out of three women experiences domestic abuse and 24% of divorces cite domestic abuse as a cause.
Seth Nelson:
Beverly, I'm not saying that's not the issue for a judge, and that's not the issue for me as the lawyer. I know the numbers, and I agree with you on that aspect of it. The problem is so many lawyers will bring allegations of abuse that the judges just get numb to it because either, one, it doesn't get proven in court, or two, it's just flat out false and pretty easy to step aside. Okay, three, sometimes there's real abuse and the lawyer just couldn't prove it.
Beverly Price:
Yes.
Seth Nelson:
Because it's hard to prove sometimes. A lot of times, quite frankly. For example, I don't use the term narcissist when I'm in court.
Beverly Price:
Oh, nobody should.
Seth Nelson:
Right. I don't use these types of terms. I focus on behaviors.
Beverly Price:
Exactly, facts.
Seth Nelson:
When you focus on behaviors that people have done and continue to do that you can back up with either their testimony, other people's testimony, for every "fact" that I want the judge to allow into evidence, and then ultimately believe, sometimes my goal, which is not always possible, is to have three different ways to get the same information in. Okay?
Because if you could, something basic, how much did you make last year? The person says, "I made $100,000." Then you have their financial affidavit that says 102, close enough. Then, you have their tax return. The judge is going to believe a hundred grand. Okay? When you have these multiple ways of getting the same thing to the court, it really bolsters your argument or bolsters that fact and the judge should believe it.
When you just have someone saying, "This is what happened," and then they have to be cross-examined on, "Well, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? What about this?" It's really hard. You're doing this in a courtroom with objection-related testimony. You don't just get to tell your story, "Hey, what happened?" That's not how it works. It's very easy, I think, for courts and judges and triers of fact when they're dealings with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cases to like, "Oh, I've heard this before." We have to focus them, "Judge, this case. This case. This case."
Beverly Price:
Yes. I think so much of it is the skill of the attorney. But I also believe, and with my clients, we spend a lot of time documenting, but not documenting emotion, documenting facts. This happened on this date and this was the result. When you have a comprehensive over time list of behaviors and events, that can paint pictures and show patterns. It's important to document, document, document.
Seth Nelson:
The specifics on that matter, in my view, when you're going to court. By way of example, if you testify, "Yeah, I don't listen to the song anymore." "Why not?" "Because that was the song that was playing." That type of very specific example seems to be persuasive to judges because they're like, "Whoa, wait a minute." Or, "My kids love pancakes, and I make them, but I struggle through it." "Why is that?" "Because it happened on Saturday morning."
Beverly Price:
Yeah. I was with a client on her domestic violence protection order case where she was trying to get her order extended. There was such a series of fact and pictures. From one aspect, she changed her phone to a new number and gave him that number because of emergency. In her court documentation and interactions, she had said specifically that she didn't want anything to do with his family. He started giving out her number to a multitude of people, and the family started harassing her. So document, document, document.
The other thing that she showed is that every time he wrote her a check, there was something nasty on that check. She had copies of those checks, she had dates, she had documentation. It's still a long shot when it doesn't involve physical abuse, everybody needs to understand that.
Pete Wright:
But the data works.
Beverly Price:
Yeah. But there are, I think it's six states now that do offer course of control laws. That is a positive. But again, exactly what you said, Seth, specifics, facts, not emotions that aren't relevant to a fact.
Seth Nelson:
Perfect place to end this podcast when she agrees with me, Pete.
Pete Wright:
I knew you were going to get there first.
Seth Nelson:
Coming around, baby.
Pete Wright:
You know what? I'm going to come back into your court too, Seth. It just reminds me more and more about the kinds of things that you need to put together to give your attorney your day in court. Something you say all the time. You don't get your day in court, your attorney gets your day in court. The more you can give your attorney to paint that picture, the better.
It has been a fantastic conversation, Beverly. Thank you so much for hanging out with us and teaching us what you do. We're going to put all the links to everything that you have, including The Divorce Coalition, Her Empowered Divorce Coaching, and your podcast in our show notes. Anything else you want us to make sure we put in those notes for people to get from you?
Beverly Price:
Yes. I actually have an eBook that they can find on my website that actually helps them with a checklist to prepare for divorce.
Pete Wright:
Excellent, excellent. We will put that in there too.
Seth Nelson:
There's probably a little footnote asterisk, "Hire Seth Nelson, NLG."
Beverly Price:
No, actually after this-
Seth Nelson:
Joking.
Beverly Price:
... he's a little shaky.
Pete Wright:
He's a little shaky. Check him. Make sure.
Seth Nelson:
I told you we should have ended the show earlier, Pete, and give her a shot at it.
Pete Wright:
Thank you, Beverly. We're going to go ahead and pivot because we're kicking off season nine with a listener question. Seth, listener question. This question comes from Anonymous. "Can you please explain Greyson's Law? How have you seen it applied so far? Is coercive control really considered absent any physical abuse? What do you think?"
Seth Nelson:
Okay, this is a really tough question because it's just horrible facts. Let me explain the backdrop on this. Someone's asking about Florida law here. The Florida Legislature passed a law called Greyson's Law, and that's because, unfortunately, and this is the horrible part, Pete, so if kids are in the car-
Pete Wright:
Maybe pause.
Seth Nelson:
... they shouldn't be listening to this podcast anyway, but definitely turn it off here. Unfortunately, Greyson was killed by his father in a murder-suicide back in 2021. If that isn't bad enough, Greyson's mother, prior to that, filed an emergency petition with the family court down in Broward County and outlining that she had imminent fears for the safety of the child.
Now, what happened was the court ultimately denied the request for the relief, which is basically an injunction saying, "Stay away from the kid. You need supervised timesharing or whatever." I didn't read the actual petition, but that's usually what happens in these. The court denied that there was a direct threat to Greyson requiring the protection and therefore said, "No."
Of course, hindsight's 20/20. Let me be very clear, I haven't read the petition. I haven't seen what the judge's order is, so you can't fault the judge necessarily, and you can't necessarily fault the lawyer. There's unconscious bias in all of this, but a judge looks at it at how it came to the judge. Did the lawyer write it in a way that was persuasive enough? Did the client tell the lawyer all the information to write it in a way persuasive enough? There's a lot of stuff that we could try to blame who was wrong.
But the long story short is the legislature said, "This is a problem." We've talked about 61.13 subsection 3A through T, which is the parenting factors in Florida, there's a presumption of 50/50. But under subsection 2C, what it did is it extended the factors when determining whether there's a detriment to their child exist, and with respect to parental responsibility making decisions for the child.
What the bill really did is focused on considering evidence of domestic violence rather than only a conviction. That was the big change is, in the regular statute it says, "Is there domestic violence? Can you look at it? Has someone lied in court about it," but it just really tried to beef it up.
Pete Wright:
That the mom's attention, drawing attention to her fear for the child's safety would have been weighed had this law existed the first time before?
Seth Nelson:
Yes. In what it does, it requires the court to consider the evidence of a parent's reasonable belief that he or she or the minor child is in imminent danger of becoming a victim of ... It's not just domestic violence. There's sexual violence, there's child abandonment, neglect, abuse, there's a whole bunch of lists. In all of those words, domestic violence is a definition that cites to another law, which is usually the criminal statute that says what is battery? What is stalking? What is assault? You got to go through the hoops of the statutes to get to the actual behavior that will then trigger this protection.
But it really focuses on the shared parental responsibility on Florida laws, and there's a lot of interplay in what courts deemed to be ultimate decision-making, sole decision-making, shared parental. It's a little bit murky on how the courts define that because the appellate courts across the state haven't really been clear and they contradict each other. That's the law.
Pete Wright:
That's the law.
Seth Nelson:
That's just the background, so finish the rest of the question.
Pete Wright:
Bring it back to our question. The question was how have you seen it applied so far, and is coercive control really considered absent any physical abuse?
Seth Nelson:
It's hard to prove. What I've seen is a couple things. One, it is not uncommon for judges to deny these motions and in their order say that if you believe your child's in danger, then you should call Child Protective Services or Department of Children and Family. I think that has come about in a way to do two things. One, instruct people that there's another avenue other than the court system. CPS can go and investigate right away. I think it does give some political cover to judges in their orders, quite frankly. I think it does twofold. That might not be their reasoning to do it. The reasoning might be say, "Hey, if there's a problem, there's another avenue."
But these are very, very difficult to prove. Because so many lawyers file these emergency motions, they get denied just out of hand. In Hillsborough County, there's an emergency motion handling order that says, "Here's how we're going to handle this. It is an emergency." "It's not an emergency." But you really have to have the facts to back it up to get to court. Because the only thing worse, other than what happened to Greyson, is your motion gets granted. You go to court and the judge is like, "You didn't prove it," and now you've really pissed off the abuser. He is like, "Now, look at what I can get away with."
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Seth Nelson:
You need to be very, very careful about this. It's horrible. A great listener question. Great one for this episode, and we really appreciate you sending it in. Sorry, it's such a heavy answer on a start of the season.
Pete Wright:
But super grateful for the question. Thank you, Anonymous. Keep those questions coming in. Don't forget, everybody can head over to howtosplitatoaster.com and just click Ask a Question button, and we will get those questions. They've been stacking up over our break. Seth, we've got to handle these questions.
Seth Nelson:
Well, we can always do an extra episode. Get Andy on it. We can just do a listener question episode again. Because when they're coming in rapid fire, people want the answers, Pete.
Pete Wright:
That's right. We've got them. We will continue to address them as they come in. Thank you for bringing them in and keep them coming, howtosplitatoaster.com. Just click that button, Ask a Question.
This has been a great show. Welcome to season nine. We're so glad that you've stuck with us over the break, and excited to bring new episodes to you each week going forward. On behalf of the fantastic Beverly Price and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright. We will see you back here next week on How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
How to Split a Toaster is part of the TruStory FM podcast Network, produced by Andy Nelson. Music, by T. Bless and the Professionals and DB Studios.
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction.
Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
