Finances have and always will be a topic that’s very hard to talk about. Still, the importance of tackling finances before marriage, during marriage, and after divorce does not change. In this episode, Certified Divorce Specialist (CDS)™ Jennifer Hurvitz talks to Christina Lynn, owner of Lynn Financial, LLC, and Certified Estate Planner, and Divorce Financial Analyst, about what to expect after divorce from a financial standpoint. She reiterates the importance of being involved and being prepared for what’s to come. After being through a complex divorce herself, she transforms her mistakes into information and solutions for everybody else. Christina also gives great emphasis on why you should consider talking about personal finances before tying the knot.
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Finances & Divorce: How To Tackle It Head On With Christina Lynn
On this episode, I have one of the smartest girls. Her name is Christina Lynn. She is a Divorce Financial Planner. She started financial planning and doing this because of her own personal experiences. While she was unraveling her complex divorce, she decided that she was going to do this. Christina, come on out and let’s talk about what you do and all the amazing things that you are bringing to the world and helping women and men who are going through a divorce and need help with their financial situation. How are you?
Thanks for having me on.
I’m glad you’re here. Christina, explain to everybody what exactly you do. You’re a certified estate planner and a certified divorce financial analyst.
I help people at any point in the divorce process. If you’re still in the divorce stage of things, I will work with you and your attorney and we’ll analyze up the assets. We’ll review property settlements and distributions. I will crunch the numbers to make sure it makes sense for both parties looking at the short-term and long-term projections of income and net worth. I walk through the process with my clients and their attorney. The divorce process is long and there are always moving parts going back and forth who gets what. I walk through that process and I help people make good decisions on what to keep or what to avoid. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing because I floundered so bad, I was like, “There must be a better way to handle this.” That’s how I stumbled on this.
Do you think that this is more of a female thing that as women we give away the financial planning to the guy? What do you think the problem is here?
There are two ways that I want to answer that. The financial piece of divorce rocks both the worlds for the husband and the wife. It turns financial worlds upside down for both parties. For the person who is the primary financial guru in the family, one spouse is the one handling the bills and handling the investments. A lot of times that’s the man but not always. If that is the case, I do think that it’s harder for females in those situations because they don’t understand what they have. They don’t know how it’s structured, they don’t understand the rules with it, it’s overwhelming and confusing. That’s one piece of it. The other piece is, as women if we have children, our mother bear instincts are roaring. We often want to settle the finances quick because we want to make sure that our kids are taken care of. Not to say that men don’t care about their kids, I’m not saying that. For the mothers, it gets tangled up with the kids’ part of it, that it makes it a little so much more complicated.
In your own opinion, do you think that women tend to rollover? I have a lot of girlfriends who are like, “I gave him this because I wanted to get it over with. The kids are more important to me so I gave up half the whatever.” I’m like, “Whoa.” Do you feel like you stop men from making choices that are ill-advise that are not right?