Marriage Breakdown During the Menopausal Transition with Alison Bladh
When Your Hormone Levels May Be Impacting Your Marriage
Today we’re talking about menopause. Sure, it’s a natural biological process and eventually, every woman goes through it. But the experience is unique for each, and how hormone levels impact your marriage might just accelerate you on the road toward divorce. Alison Bladh is a registered nutritional therapist and esthetician living in the wilds of Sweden. She’s worked in the health and wellness industry for over 30 years specializing in menopausal women’s health and she now runs her own online clinic helping women worldwide manage the negative symptoms of menopause. She’s here to talk with Seth and Pete about how the menopause and hormones can affect relationships as well as things to pay attention to in order to help manage the negative symptoms.
Plus, we answer some listener questions!
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a Divorce Podcast about saving your relationships from TrueStory FM. Today, is your toaster running a little warm?
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 talking about menopause. Sure, it's a natural biological process and eventually every woman goes through it, but the experience is unique for each and how hormone levels impact your marriage might just accelerate you on the road towards divorce. Alison Bladh is a registered nutritional therapist and esthetician living in the wilds of Sweden. She's worked in the health and wellness industry for over 30 years specializing in menopausal women's health, and she now runs her own online clinic helping women worldwide manage the negative symptoms of menopause. Alison, welcome to the Toaster.
Alison Bladh:
Oh, thank you. So it's lovely to be here. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
Pete Wright:
Do you ever come to ... Is it frequent that you come to a podcast where you're talking to two people who know absolutely nothing about what the subject is?
Alison Bladh:
Not so often. Occasionally, but not that often. No. It is mainly women and people that understand the subject, maybe not as well as I do, but they do understand it.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. Pete, we're talking about menopause. I know a lot about menopause, Pete.
Pete Wright:
Oh, do tell, Seth, please illuminate.
Seth Nelson:
Okay, so here's the deal. It's either too hot or too cold, and it doesn't matter what I think the temperature is. Okay.
Pete Wright:
Yes. Okay. You're right. It turns out we're on the same page. That's about all I know though.
Seth Nelson:
That I think is the end of the book for me. So here we're talking about menopause. We're talking about ... Particularly in the context of divorce, we're talking about the space in which menopause and the symptoms and the physiological and emotional changes that come with menopause can impact the relationship. Alison, we're thrilled to have you here for a number of reasons. First, we are two dudes and we need to be educated and hopefully we will be vessels of that education. Teach us what is going on, what are the hormonal factors, the physiological changes that are going on that we need to be aware of as men in our partnerships with women? If you're in this space in your life, what are the things that could be breaking down your relationship that may be related to menopause that you might not know or may be exacerbated by the menopausal transition that you might not be aware of in your relationship?
Pete Wright:
The stress that goes along with all that?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. So maybe let's start with the, what is it? The, what is it? What are the symptoms? How do you give us the menopause 101?
Alison Bladh:
Yeah. That's a great question because there's a lot of women that don't really truly understand what the menopause is. So the menopause is, it's actually a transition and it's called the menopause transition. The first stage of it is called perimenopause. This starts on average around the age of 45. However, it can start younger, it can start later. It is very individual. Perimenopause is when a hormones really start to become very imbalanced, predominantly estrogen and progesterone, which are the two main female sex hormones. People always think of estrogen, progesterone as being just sex hormones, but estrogen is what we call a master hormone. It's really responsible for virtually every bodily system. It's a crucial hormone. So what happens in perimenopause, which is the first stage, is kind of everything just becomes really imbalanced. It's like this wild rollercoaster of hormones.
Because of this, it can really set off the array of different menopausal symptoms. Hot flashes, that's quite a common one that a lot of women experience. Weight gain, night sweats, mood swings, cognitive decline, you can't remember things, you can't concentrate, irritability. Now the list goes on, there's over 40 plus symptoms, and in perimenopause you're still having menstruation. You can still get pregnant, but it's kind of where the hormones are just starting to go a bit crazy and declining gradually. I always like to liken estrogen as the diva hormone, and progesterone is like the calming best friend. What happens in perimenopause is the diva can be quite high, so estrogen levels can be very high and progesterone can be very low, and progesterone has a calming effect on estrogen. So when you can imagine the divas is that getting really overexcited and it doesn't have the calming best friend to say, "Everything's going to be okay," so we can become very ..O one minute, you can be crying. The next minute, you can be laughing hysterically. It really affects our moods considerably as women. So that's perimenopause.
Then we have the next phase, which is menopause. This on average happens at the age of 51. When you are in perimenopause, when you haven't had a menstruation for a year, you are actually in menopause. So you are no longer fertile and you will no longer have monthly menstruation. Then basically all the time after that, you are in something that we call post-menopause and post-menopause is basically all the time the rest of your life. We are living so much longer now that can be 30 plus years. You're not menstruating anymore, you're not fertile. Your body still produces a very small amount of estrogen and progesterone from your adrenal glands, which sits on top of your kidneys, but you only have a very small amount.
So that's when we start to see the risk for osteoporosis for heart disease. There's actually some very interesting research just coming out, I think a couple of weeks ago. I read it on the link between estrogen and dementia. So we need estrogen, and when we don't have that, we really see how things change in the body. So that's really the rundown on what menopause is. I mean, if you think of the word menopause, meno is menstruation and pause is the stopping the pause is, so it's the stopping of menstruation.
Pete Wright:
It sounds like perimenopause is the time of greatest turmoil. Is that fair?
Alison Bladh:
Yeah, that is fair to say because you've got all these high estrogen, low progesterone, your hormones are all over the place. So yeah, that's fair to say. The symptoms of menopause, however can carry on. Even when you are in menopause or postmenopause, you still can experience symptoms. They unfortunately can take quite a few years to subside. Some women still experience symptoms 10 years later. So it is unfortunately not all over when you get into postmenopause.
Pete Wright:
Well, that was my big question in terms of how long these you can expect and recognizing that every woman is unique and the experiences are unique from person to person, how long might you expect the turmoil to last? A year without menstruating is menopause, but then post-menopause, as you say, 30 years, but learning to live in your menopausal, post-menopausal skin, how long does that take? How long do you expect your life to be sort of turned upside down?
Alison Bladh:
It is very individual, Pete. Some women just glide through it and don't have any problems whatsoever. Some women really-
Seth Nelson:
Those are the friends that the other women hate, Pete.
Alison Bladh:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Right. There's a lot.
Alison Bladh:
So I would say really you're looking from a couple of years to 10 years. So it's hard to say because it is such an individual journey.
Seth Nelson:
I know we're going to talk about how this all impacts relationships and stress, but I had another question before we get there, is, how does a hysterectomy impact this whole equation?
Alison Bladh:
Yeah, that is a great question. It's actually a very important subject as well, because when we're in our 40, 45, 50, we go through the stages. This is a natural process for women. If you've had a hysterectomy or if you've had chemotherapy, some treatments for certain diseases, this can actually stop your ovary function. Obviously hysterectomy totally stops that. You will go into menopause. So if you've had a hysterectomy when you are younger for whatever reason, you will go into menopause because your body will not be producing estrogen anymore. So there is women that also go into an early menopause. We don't really understand why this is for no apparent reason. So it can actually happen younger than the age of 40. But if you have a hysterectomy or for whatever reason, if you've had chemotherapy for example, your physician would normally put you on hormone replacement therapy, especially if you are younger, because you need estrogen. If you are in your twenties, you really need estrogen to get through and be healthy.
Seth Nelson:
How about if you're in your fifties or sixties, do they do that to prevent some of this osteoporosis and dementia, other things you mentioned?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right. Is that an expected course of treatment later in life?
Alison Bladh:
Hormone replacement therapy is a very controversial subject, it's something you could do a whole podcast on. It's the research that's coming out now. It basically just tops up the hormones that you haven't got. But unfortunately, there was a study done that came out roughly the early 2002 called the Women's Initiative Study. This study was wrongly reported by the press before the people that the researchers had time to report it. It was basically, long story short, it was saying that hormone replacement therapy puts you at high risk of breast cancer, of cardiovascular disease. So it was all very negative attached to this, and this just set of ... A huge percentage of women in the world stopped taking it of course. It's never really recovered from that.
Seth Nelson:
It's hard to unring that bell and reeducate people with the proper information.
Alison Bladh:
But the products that they were testing then are completely different to what they are now. Hormone replacement therapy is using yams, the hormones from yams, which is a root vegetable. So it's very what we call bioidentical to our own estrogen. The research that's coming out, it is very beneficial. However, it's not for everybody. You've got to look at your health and if it suits you. But what I say to my clients is that have a look at everything, get the knowledge, understand what is available to you, and then you can make an informed decision. But you need to understand. So talk to your doctor and see if hormone replacement therapy could be something for you because it's not only can help to relieve the symptoms, it can also be very beneficial against when you're in post-menopause against osteoporosis, dementia. Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in women as they get older. That is not spoken about, we think predominantly of breast cancer, but cardiovascular disease, our rate of that goes up quite considerably as we come into menopause.
Pete Wright:
I assume you can't fix this by just eating a ton of yams?
Seth Nelson:
Hashtag dumb male.
Pete Wright:
Okay. So all of that sounds horrible and I feel like there is just something wrong that I have no field to relate to this, right, Seth? I don't know. You're significantly older than me.
Seth Nelson:
You're full of shit. So here the deal is we don't understand. So my fiance has recently gone through this over the last few years and she would ask me, "Is it hot in here or is it cold in here?" I would say, I'm always cold. So no, I don't think it's hot in here. She's just sweating. You can tell. She was wearing a sweater over her t-shirt. Now, God, she's just taking that sweater off as fast as she can go. She has an uncanny ability to say, can you turn the air up one degree? I will literally go to the nest and say, what do you think the temperature is right now? She'll say, "73 degrees," and she'll be right. It's unbelievable.
Pete Wright:
Are you saying there's like a menopausal superpower?
Seth Nelson:
There might be.
Pete Wright:
That has not yet been documented?
Seth Nelson:
There might be because I will be like, God, it's a little cold in here. She'll say, "Yeah, it feels like it's 69 degrees," and I'll go and it'll be 69 degrees this Fahrenheit for people that need to translate this.
Pete Wright:
Let me just say, is it possible, is it within the realm of possibility that this is just a long con? Sure, she's gone through it, but maybe she's on her phone changing the temperature on the nest just to troll you, which would be an alpha level troll?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah. I think it could be both actually. She could know and be trolling me. But the point of what you're saying is the experience that I have is this is just trying to be understanding or appreciative because I hate to even say understanding because she's like, "You can't understand," which is right. So yeah, what can I do? I just looked at her one day and I said, I get that for the rest of my life I could potentially be sleeping next to someone who wants the 58 degrees at night and I'll be bundled up and I'm always cold. That's just the price you pay. That's it. That's the cost of admission. You do it because that's what your spouse is going through or the person you love. So that's how I try to handle it. But there's other stressors, right, Alison? This isn't just as simple as put on a sweater, take off a sweater?
Alison Bladh:
No, unfortunately not. What you have to understand is that it is estrogen. Estrogen, as I said, has a profound effect on the body and one of the many things that it's needed for, it's like thermoregulation in the body. So when the levels start to decline or fluctuate in perimenopause, that can all of a sudden just trigger off these hot flashes, night sweats. So there is a reason for that, not that it makes it any better, but I think that if you understand that you're not going crazy, that there is a reason why this is happening.
Seth Nelson:
When all that happens though, how does that then transition into, "I'm upset, I'm mad, I'm crying, I'm laughing, I'm angry?"
Pete Wright:
I can't trust my memory. That's one I get all the time. My perimenopausal brain is just, it's a fog all the time. I can't trust what I see.
Alison Bladh:
We need estrogen. We have estrogen receptors all over the body and the receptor, it's like the lock and key. The receptor is the lock and the key is estrogen. Because estrogen is a hormone and hormones are chemical messengers. So they send signals out to the body to do something. So what happens is the receptors in the brain, if we're talking about not being able to remember things and moods, et cetera, the levels of estrogen aren't there, so it can't send the messages out. So the brain function doesn't work the same that it's needed for so many different functions. Also, our emotions are our moods. There's lots of hormones that are related to mood like serotonin, dopamine, et cetera. Those become all upset. So it really triggers off this. You can't remember things. You'll be talking and all of a sudden you can't remember what the question was.
Pete Wright:
Seth, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and alcoholism, 10% of children live with a parent with an alcohol use disorder.
Seth Nelson:
I deal with this all the time. I always find it an alarming statistic. As you know, we want to make sure that children are safe and with a sober parent. Soberlink helps maintain that relationship because if you can show that you have independent third party verification that you are not drinking when you have the children, then you're going to be able to focus on them and spend quality time with them and alleviate concerns from the other side.
Pete Wright:
Now, how do they possibly do that? Well, I'm so glad you asked, dear listener. It's a device Soberlink. It looks like a breathalyzer, but it's not quite a breathalyzer. It's even more than that. You blow into it when you're about to get in the car with the kids when you're about to do the handoff, when you're driving carpool, it has facial recognition built right into it, so it can tell who is blowing into the device. It sends the results directly to the people that need to know. Seth said it's that real-time verification that you are safe to be with the kids. There are two models. There's a wifi model and Bluetooth connects to your phone and sends data via your phone, and there's a cellular model for a little bit more where you don't even need a phone. It's just connected to the cell network and sends the data when you blow into it. Incredibly useful. Soberlink's remote alcohol monitoring technology has helped over 500,000 people prove their sobriety and provide peace of mind during parenting time.
Seth Nelson:
Courts love it because it's a system that keeps them focused on what's in the best interest of the child, which is really what's most important.
Pete Wright:
To sign up and receive $50 off your device, just visit soberlink.com/toaster. That's soberlink.com/toaster. Thank you to Soberlink, the whole Soberlink team for sponsoring How to Split a Toaster.
Seth Nelson:
Okay, so here's my question then, because you're talking to a couple of guys here and there are a lot of guys that listen to the show, a lot of women that listen to the show. What can you tell the guys out there on how they can be supportive when the person you love is going through this and what can you tell the women to say, "Try not to beat up on the guy about this. It's just, this is naturally happening?" Because I know this brings a lot of stress in relationships.
Alison Bladh:
Yeah, it really does. It can be difficult as a woman to manage it because you can one minute be crying and the next minute you can be shouting at somebody. I think it's understanding isn't its knowledge. If you can sit down with your partner and explain why you are feeling like this. So it's very important initially that you understand yourself why you are feeling like this, and then if you can explain that I may ... I'm going through the menopause and it may happen that I could be snappy or I can be irritable or moody, but it's nothing against you, it's just something. This is a time in my life that I'm going through and because of the lack of estrogen, this may happen, but don't take it personally.
Seth Nelson:
So guys, listen up out there, guys. This could be the only time in the world when a woman tells you, "It's not you. It's me," and it's actually true, right?
Pete Wright:
I feel like this is as good a times any to talk about where the issues that people need to be thinking about when you talk about this, like developing this sort of spirit of understanding and communication to talk about where the struggles come with menopause vis-a-vis relationships. Where do relationships fall under stress because of this lack of ... It sounds like really right at the bullseye of this lack of communication, when do relationships struggle, when do people start falling apart?
Alison Bladh:
It's interesting. There's been a lot of ... I don't know what it's like in the US but in Europe there has been in the last four or five months, quite a lot of press on the correlation between menopause and divorce rates. A lot of it, it's to do with that maybe, we don't know fully, but a lot of women as they become older when they're in midlife or their children have left home and they've got more time, they all of a sudden start to reassess their life and think, "What am I doing? I want to do this, I want to go there." That can stimulate them to maybe depending on their relationship to maybe reassess things and think, "Now I want to do what I want to do." But when it comes to menopause, there's so many issues going on at this time in a woman's life that it can become overwhelming, not only because of the lack of hormones, but because they've maybe got a [inaudible 00:22:47], they've aging parents that need looking after.
So everything can really just come to a head and they really just look out at everything in their life and think, "What am I doing?" You really start questioning things because you can become more distant from your partner so you can lose intimacy. I think that's a big player in this because the hormones that we need for libido and sex drive diminish quite considerably in menopause. So you are not intimate with your partner anymore. Also, testosterone, which women do have as well, that declines naturally with age. That is a big driver in your libido and your sex drive. So you really become very distant and that obviously isn't good for a relationship. Menopause can have a big effect on women's mental health, your emotional wellbeing. Women can suffer from depression, not just feeling a bit moody. It can really become full-blown depression, which obviously you should get help from a doctor from.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, when Allison's talking about this stressor on the family law menopause project, that was this research that was done and that eight out of 10 women experiencing marriage difficulties during perimenopause or menopause.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Seth Nelson:
Putting a strain on the family, eight out of 10. That's a huge number. So what we think a lot about in the divorce world is, "Oh, the kids are going to be graduating." Let's just say that the wife was staying home and raising the children and the husband was working. Then we think, "Oh, well, now they go off to college. There's a transition in what's going on in the house? They're empty nester's now." Now they're getting divorced because they realize they don't like each other anymore. They've just grown apart and they've become more roommates and raising kids together. There's other stuff happening here that is physiological psychological that has nothing to do with children leaving the nest.
Pete Wright:
As the divorce attorney, the family law attorney. I mean, do you hear about the relationship strain that you can tie back to menopause? Does that ever bubble up to the surface in your work?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
I have a hard time imagining it would. It does?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I know the most intimate things about people's relationship and more importantly from my line of work is the breakdown in those relationships. They rarely come in and tell me what was great about the relationship. They might say, "Yeah, we had some good times, but this will come up." It usually comes from a couple different angles. I hear it all the time because I always tell people, look, you're going through a divorce, please do not date anyone. If you do, don't be on social about it, keep it quiet. It's just adding someone in the mix, even if the children are out of the house and it doesn't impact parenting, it will have no legal significance in your divorce now that you filed for divorce and you're going out on a date. But it'll have emotional significance.
This is what I hear all the time, "Oh, my God, I can't wait to get back out dating. We haven't had sex in five years." I hear that type of stuff all the time. A lot of that is from women who are either through or going through the menopause process and no one's really talking. I said, well, did you talk to your husband about this? What happened? They don't necessarily tie it to it if some of them do, but if I mention it, they're like, "Oh," it's almost like a light bulb goes off.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Alison, does this sound familiar?
Alison Bladh:
Yeah. That's really interesting, Seth. Really interesting because yeah, the clients that I work with, obviously it's a slightly different area, but yeah, absolutely. It's a difficult time and it really, really affects relationships and I think that intimacy piece is huge and lack of communication and confusion all comes together really to a head. So I think women, if they understood more about that this actually could be perimenopause or menopause, then there's so much help out there. I mean when we talk about intimacy, it can actually because of the lack of estrogen. It can actually be very painful to have sexual intercourse because of vaginal dryness. There's just so many easy things that you can get from your GP that really, really work. So it's in a way, I'm not saying that's the answer to everything, but there's small things that you can do that can really help.
Seth Nelson:
I think that, Pete, from the divorce context is you have to meet your client where they are, even if they don't necessarily understand where they are. What I mean by that is it's not like I have someone call me up and say, "Oh, I really want to talk to you about divorce. I've been going through menopause and it's just not working anymore." That that's not what happens. There's all this other stuff. But if I will bring up the subject or if the subject comes up, because I'll talk to them one day and they'll be very upset the next day they'll be like, if I can see the hormones going, I might mention it and say, hey, are you talking to your general practitioner about this? What can you do to try to level this out? Go talk to them. This might have an impact on how you're receiving information, how you're giving information.
Pete Wright:
Which can have an impact on your divorce depending the context.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. That's right. You don't want to be having a bad day hormonally on the day of your deposition or day of trial. That's a problem. Even talking on the day of negotiations and we're at mediation, there's a lot of really, "Big days." In the divorce process that if your hormones are taking over, then we need to identify that and kind of step back and say, "Look, we really want to settle this case. It's not a good day. It's not because she's some crazy lunatic that doesn't want to settle her case." She's going through menopause and she's having hot flashes in there and it's freaking 55 degrees in this office and she can't focus. We talk about a serious complex legal issue and money and how it's going to be managed for the next 20 years, and she's forgetting things I, as the practitioner need to say, we're going to reschedule.
Pete Wright:
I feel like we need to also look at the other social relationships. Our podcast is a divorce podcast about saving relationships and there's so much research, I think especially maybe bolstered by the impacts of the pandemic that talk about how a community beyond your sort of intimate partner relationship is of value. To me, what I'm hearing you say, Alison, is that menopause, perimenopause, menopause can be incredibly isolating that you can feel like you are alone in this process and you might be reacting to the world, experiencing the world in a way that makes you feel alone. Can you talk a little bit about the value of community in going through this process? Is there value to really making sure that you have a solid set of friends beyond your partner?
Alison Bladh:
Yeah, absolutely. Friendship is crucial and being able to talk to other women that are going through the same thing. So you realize that you're not on your own. If you think every single woman will go through this, actually, there's a bit of a menopause revolution going on in Europe at the moment and women have just really stepped up and started to really want information and they won't take no from for an answer from their doctors. But having that community and group of friends that understand what you're going through is really crucial. Absolutely.
Because you can discuss and you know can laugh a bit and everybody has different symptoms and it just makes you feel you're not alone. I think that is really, really important. Absolutely. So if you haven't got any friends that are going through this time phase, then there's many very, very good groups that you can find online that you know could chat with people that are going through the same thing. Women stand together, we're very good, we're very caring and we want to help other people. So don't be afraid to ask for support and help within these menopausal groups.
Seth Nelson:
So are there support groups out there? I mean there's a lot of support groups for a lot of different things out there. If someone was Googling, would they find a menopausal support group? Where do they turn to, I guess is the real question I'm asking?
Alison Bladh:
There's many support groups, very good quality support groups. If you look on Facebook, there's many groups there, like private groups that you can join. I'm not quite sure in the US, but you must have ... There's menopausal association societies that you can find online that would absolutely help you lead you in the right direction. But there's a lot of support out there if you just need to look for it and ask for help.
Pete Wright:
Just as we get to winding up, even as we've been talking about relationships and what goes on, what can you offer as a nutritionist? What can you offer women who are listening to this who might a leg up on mitigating some of the harsher symptoms? Is there anything they can do in their world? Diet, sleep, exercise? What do you recommend?
Alison Bladh:
You have to make time to look after yourself and divorce is exceptionally stressful time and really your health maybe is put on the back burner, but you have to look after yourself. You have to give your body nutrients and hydration, otherwise you're just going to be feeling terrible. So I think really deciding that I will look after myself even though I'm feeling terrible and I'm very upset and very anxious. So you need certain nutrients to be able to manage this time in your life because when we are very stressed, we actually burn certain minerals and vitamins and we can come become depleted in because your body uses up a lot of these vitamins when we're very stressed, in particular magnesium, zinc, and the B vitamins. They can become depleted when we're really suffering from stress.
Seth Nelson:
Pete is like frantically taking notes on what to add to the yams right there. Right? I saw that.
Pete Wright:
Yeah., right. Yams and a bunch of powdered vitamins and minerals. It's going to be great.
Alison Bladh:
The best diet, and this comes up in research as well, which is very good because it gives you an all round, wonderful array of different colors, different nutrients, is the Mediterranean style diet and okay, what does that mean? It doesn't mean that you have to live near the Mediterranean. It's really a diet that's mainly fish, poultry, not so much red meat. Nuts and seeds, vegetables, fruits and healthy fats. So avocado, olive oil, olives, butter, et cetera. One key thing that will make you feel better is if you avoid processed foods.
Seth Nelson:
That's just around, that's everybody, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Anymore. Right.
Seth Nelson:
Right. Let me get my bag of chips here in a minute, but I hear what you're saying.
Pete Wright:
What I'm hearing is you just told me to move to Santorini and take a break and eat a lot of Greek yogurt and fish and I'll be fine.
Alison Bladh:
Yes. But processed foods, we live in such a toxic food environment and we could see that by the health and obesity of the All Nations really has gone down considerably. What we want to focus on is eating foods that nourish our body. Majority of processed, highly refined, sugary foods have no nutritional value or very little nutritional value. So really thinking about eating whole foods, eating foods that you can see what they are. Not just a packet full of different ingredients that half the time you can't even see what they are.
Seth Nelson:
That's the rule at our place. If you can't understand the ingredients, you shouldn't be eating it.
Alison Bladh:
Yeah, that's a good rule because when you are stressed and when you're upset, if you are eating a high sugar diet, this just makes things worse because it basically shoots your blood sugar up. When we have high blood sugar, it sets off this cascade of detrimental things in the body due to the stress hormones, one in particular cortisol, it can cause sleep problems, it can cause weight gain, hormone imbalances, high blood pressure, the list goes on. In menopause amongst other things, if you are really eating these foods regularly, your body can't handle it as well as it did when you were younger and you can become insulin resistant. The stage on from that is diabetes too.
Pete Wright:
Well, that's not great.
Alison Bladh:
No.
Pete Wright:
Again, back to the Santorini diet, you're going to be fine. If you need to go to Santorini, I'm sure the locals will welcome you with open arms. Wait, I forgot. Okay, this is illuminating. We sure appreciate you joining us and educating us on what is happening to, in many cases our partners, soon to be former partners, potentially new partners at this stage in life. Really terrific, Alison. Where can people learn more about your work and what you're up to?
Alison Bladh:
The best place probably is via my website, which is alisonbladh.com and that's B-L-A-D-H. On my website, I'm on all social media links and there's actually resources page there with lots of pre downloads and recipe and meal plans for all different menopausal symptoms. So if any of your listeners want to go on there and download, please feel free.
Pete Wright:
Fantastic. Well, we sure appreciate it. Learned a lot. Seth is a better person as a result of it. I already came in at a pretty high bar, so.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I was pretty low to start, so that's not a big increase.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right. Listener question, Seth, we have a question from a listener who follows the show and I'm very excited to hear you talk about this because you are an attorney and this question actually I think presupposes a situation that is countering to your best interest. So let's see what happens here.
Seth Nelson:
I feel like you're setting me up. Did your wife write this question?
Pete Wright:
"Hi Seth and Pete, I read your FAQ on this. This would be on nlgfamilylaw.com and I listened to the show, but I don't think you've talked about my questions, so I thought I'd post them here. I have a few questions and I'm happy to have them treated as different or altogether because they relate to each other. Okay. Well, what the, Hey, who, let's take them all. Number one, you say it's allowed to file paperwork yourself in the State of Florida, I'm in Gainesville, but what comes after that if we have a kiddo, he's 16 and we've all agreed how to do time-sharing, but in your FAQ, it seems to state that once a minor is involved, we can't sell file anymore? Do you want me to read them all, Seth? There are three. This is a question in three parts.
Seth Nelson:
Whichever way you want to do it, Pete, you're in charge.
Pete Wright:
Let's take it one at a time. So what do you think about that? There's a minor involved. Can you still file for your own divorce?
Seth Nelson:
The answer is yes. I'm going to go check our FAQs, make sure that they're accurate, so thank you for that. So here's the deal. You are not required to have a lawyer in a family law case. If you file by yourself whether you have a child or not, then you can do that. In fact, unlike a criminal case, a lawyer will not be appointed for you. There's a lot of cases, and we call that in our world, someone that represents themself, their pro se, P-R-O space SE, and the judges have what they call the pro se docket.
What I think I need to double check on the FAQs is if you're going for a simplified dissolution, sometimes a simplified dissolution means you can't have children. So I think that's the confusion and I'll go kind of clean that up. But yes, you can file by yourself. You have a 16-year-old if you guys agree on your parenting plan as long as the court approves it because there's certain requirements that need to be in every parenting plan as a matter of law. So the judge has to make sure that they're in there and if the judge approves your plan, you don't need a lawyer.
Pete Wright:
Okay, number two, "What happens if my soon to be changes his mind or something in a year if we've self filed and done everything right to process the divorce ourselves? I gathered the first time, I assume if a year down the road something changes ..." I'm adding that. She says, "I assume get an attorney and duke it out?" So I'm reading into it a little bit, but down the road something changes.
Seth Nelson:
Okay, so a year down the road, here's what I'm hearing in that question that you've gotten the final judgment of divorce, that the judge has signed off on the parenting plan, on the marital settlement agreement and you are done. But unlike a slip and fall case or a contract case, you're never really done in family law. The courthouse door is always unlocked because the court understands and the law understands that we're dealing with children. Things might change over time. In Florida, if you want to change the parenting plan or if you want to change child support or if you want to change alimony, as long as ... Here's the term of art, if there's been a substantial change in circumstances that was not anticipated at the time of the final judgment or the last major change, supplemental final judgment. So here's an example. Kid is 16, things are going great. A year down the road, unfortunately, dad gets really sick and he can't care for the child anymore. Well, that's a big change that was unanticipated, right?
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Seth Nelson:
It's no fault of his own. This is an example where it doesn't cast blame, but dad just doesn't have the wear for all because he has to be on medication and the medication makes him tired or forgetful or whatever the case may be. So it is very case specific and it's very detailed oriented, but that's how you can go back in. Now, I will tell you, if a kid is 17 and you file for a supplemental petition to modify the final judgment on the parenting plan, you're not getting to trial before that kid gets 18.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, 18. Then it doesn't matter.
Seth Nelson:
Right. Exactly. There's a third one. All right, here we go.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Number three. "Obviously since we're not trained, I'm sure we aren't looking around every corner. Are there any places in the process where we have to watch out that our rights are protected that a lawyer would know but we wouldn't have thought of?"
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
That feels loaded to me, but there that feels like a bigger answer than a bullet.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, and that's the struggle when you're trying to do it on your own. You want to be amicable. I see these agreements, which are legal contracts being written by non-lawyers. So just that in of itself should give people pause. So how do I recommend you deal with that? Is there's a lot of things around the corners, there's a lot of things that you haven't thought of because why would you think of it? This is your first time going through this process where I've handled and been involved in thousands of cases. I've seen a lot of pitches. So one thing you can do is you can come to an agreement in principle and one of you can go talk to a lawyer and say, "Hey, here's what we really want to do. We want to keep it amicable, our kid 16, we need a parenting plan, but we want to make sure that it's going to be approved by the court and all the paperwork's filed correctly."
Then the lawyer will say, "Okay, tell me your plan. Here's some things that need to be in it. Have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? What about this? Oh, you know what? You might be giving up too much here. Are you sure you want to do that?" You're allowed to say, "Yeah, I'm sure I want to do that. I appreciate you told me what some legislature passed in Tallahassee and some governor signed and some judge sitting on the bench interpreted because that lawyer's interpreting what we call the law to tell you, you could do better," but you don't have to care about what all that says.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, okay.
Seth Nelson:
You can make your own law, you can make your own contract. It's your children. You can decide as long as there's certain basic requirements in the parenting plan. So that's one way you can approach that issue. But yeah, there's a lot of landmines out there, especially with younger children, that's a long time to have a parenting plan that might need to be revisited. If they're 16, there's less risk because there's less time.
Pete Wright:
Less time. Yeah, you're kind of okay. Yeah. Right. Well, and that's how the question ends. Sorry, big questions. I might just need to hire you, but if you could give me a starting place, that would be great. This was a great show. We have a great question. We had a fantastic guest teaching us stuff that clearly we need to know, and I'm really grateful for this episode. I hope everybody else had a as good a time as we did and learned a thing or two about how to save your relationship. So on behalf of Alison Bladh and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll catch you right here next week on How to Split a Toaster, a Divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
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.
