Molly Rubesh: Hello, welcome back to the Align Podcast where we talk all things health, wealth, and relationships. I am Molly Rubish here with my co-host Anna Goff and we are so happy to have you. in normal hot summer fashion, we have taken a a little bit of a break with some chaos and and summer and end of school. Anna's had a big move, and so we're just really happy to be back and start sharing with you guys again. So Anna, how have you been?
Anna Goff: Great. it definitely speaks to what we're gonna talk to talk about today. with the move, I did sell my house. buy a new house and it's a new build, so everything that goes along with that. And summer kids are home. And so as we know, that creates another level of chaos and both good and bad. with you know kids home and especially being a single parent that can be a little bit tricky. So I'm good. How about you?
Molly Rubesh: I'm good too. It's I it's almost like this time of year is similar in feeling around the holidays. It's not as hustle and bustle, but it's like, wait, what's the what day is it? Where are we in this time warp? And I've talked to so many other people that are like, I'm busy in a non-busy way, I'm productive in a non-productive way, and I don't I'm I'm just kind of floundering, but then it's also pretty cool to be able to spend time with kids or slow down. So I think no matter where you are in your journey, just give yourself grace because we're all feeling it, especially with the high temps and the 4th of July weekend. So I'm happy to just kind of be here with you and be able to talk about what we're gonna Going talk about today, which is divorce has been ranked in number of studies the number two most stressful life event that you can go through. So I've come across two different studies, but one is like the real famous one: the Holmes Ray Social Readjustment Rating Scale, and death of a spouse is number one, divorce is number two, and then it's followed by marital separation, jail, death of a close family member. But then there's another one done by the University Hospitals in Cleveland and it rates divorce is number two, but number one is death of a spouse, and then number three is a big move. And so according to like that data, I really feel like divorce is kind of wrapping all three of those things up in one because there's major grief around divorce. Then of course divorce. And then the third is sometimes we have to leave the family home.
Anna Goff: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: So it's go ahead.
Anna Goff: You and I talked to a lot of women who are going through divorce or separation. And one of the things that a lot of our clients say is they want to stay in the house for the kids, right? And they don't want to uproot them. And what I found in my situation is it wasn't so much that I wanted to stay for the kids. It was like I could not add one more thing to my plate. It was so stressful. going through the divorce, the the unknown, I think, is the real scary part, especially for women who maybe didn't earn the most in their family or a stayed home, like what is my financial future gonna look like? How is this gonna shake out? How are we going to pay for the legal fees? What does my future look like? And until you know that, it's very hard to try to figure out what the next move is. Do you stay in your current house? Can you afford to stay in your current house? Do you need to move? and and where do do you move? You know, is your partner going to want to stay in the area that you're in?
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: There is just so much unknown and I think that that really contributes to the stress overall of this situation, of an already super stressful situation.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. I have a a client that she's Really adamant that she wants to stay in the family home and it's so important to her and the kids, but she cannot afford it without the support. So it's ki it is that really trapped situation of can I afford it? But I don't know what child support's gonna look like. I don't know what the divorce settlement will look like. How would I then buy him out of it? So it becomes super messy and extremely complex. So you know, my advice is to really help people talk. To their lawyer, of course, and see if they can get some of those numbers, but also recognize that sometimes leaving the home is part of the process, and it is part of moving on because some of the houses that we buy are because we have dual incomes and we can afford it with two people, but we can't necessarily afford it with one. I moved into a rental and I downsized significantly from my house.
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Right.
Molly Rubesh: And I loved that space. And it when I reflect back on kind of how I was able to heal in that space, I didn't have a yard to take care of. When the water heater went out, I would call my landlord. And so it was hard, but it also gave me such a breath of fresh air and an opportunity to rebuild and then decide where I was going from there.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. When I went through my divorce, I decided to stay in the house. And then after everything kind of shook out, I was like, you know what? I really don't want the yard. I don't want the maintenance. I don't want the extra. You know, I lived in a house that was a little bit older and it was going to need a new roof and it needed repainted and all these things. And I was like, you know what, I don't want that. And so really looking at what you wanted when you were married versus what you want as a single person. that can be completely different. And so I just moved into a brand new townhouse and I love it. I do have a tiny yard, but I don't have to deal with it if I don't want to. And you know, it just getting rid of things and purging and moving into a space that feels like your own, it really does, it is cathartic, or it was for me anyway, you know, to say like this is my space, and you don't realize how much energy can be held in a home that you shared with your partner that you're no longer with.
Molly Rubesh: Ooh, that's a really good point too. It's just kind of like moving on. So how how long did you live in your family home before you have transitioned to this house?
Anna Goff: Well, so d to be completely fair, my ex and I didn't ever like totally live in the house together. So we had a house in Pennsylvania, we had a house in South Carolina, and he worked in PA. So he would go back and forth and it was our second home. And so I lived there full time with the kids. He was up in Pennsylvania and then would come down every other weekend. So it was sort of like we were moving farther apart and that house was never our family home. And what I realized after we separated was like that was almost the Beginning of our separation, and I had begun to separate from our marriage during that time. So while most of the furniture in the house was new when I moved down to the second house, or you know, moved to South Carolina, bought new furniture, so that didn't have like a grip on me. but it was a house that we bought together. you know, the neighborhood, all of those things knew us as a couple, and so it is kind of nice. to be in a completely fresh space where you can decorate it the way you want. It wasn't furniture that you picked out together. It wasn't a home you picked out together, you know? So yeah, but we didn't ever really totally live in it together. Which I think helped. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Okay. Yeah. Well and so, you know, moving is number three according to the one study, but grief, you know, loss of somebody that you love is number one. And now I understand that death is permanent, but when we talk about grief around divorce This is why I feel like it's three tied up into one because there's so much grief around losing the person that you thought you were gonna spend your life with. And then there's grief around feeling like what happened to these memories? We were supposed to grow old together, we were supposed to have this big, beautiful life and group be grandparents and raise our kids together. So Do you have a lot of c clients that are really suffering around the grief too of leaving their divorce or leaving their marriage?
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, and especially if it's not their doing, if it's something that happened to them, so to speak, if somebody was cheated on and they're looking at the or you know, there was an alcoholic situation, something where they feel like they were out of control, which tip is pretty typical in a divorce, I would say. and they feel almost like it's happening to them. Like my world is has been turned upside down, this future that we thought we were going to have is no longer here. And in In a lot of ways, this is coming from someone who's been through a lot of death in my lifetime. In a lot of ways, this is harder because there is that finality. And when somebody dies, you know the outcome. You you no longer get to speak to that person. it's over, it's done. And with a divorce, it can feel like a death or a grief over and over and over again because it's the initial grief of the separation. Then it's the divorce process, which attorneys can make harder. It can make you very angry and really vulnerable and really hostile for sometimes for years. And so that's another set of grief. Like, how can somebody who is the father or the mother of my child treat me this way? I can't believe this is happening. And then when there are new things, like when a new partner comes into play and then they're introduced, that's another Set of grief when you have to move, that's another you know piece of the grief puzzle. and all of these things, you know, when you're sitting at your first musical concert or graduation or wedding or whatever, it's a piece of grief that keeps you know getting opened, and that happens with death too, where you're like, I wish my dad was here to walk me down the aisle, or I wish my brother was here to see this. But when you have to grieve and And then sit next to that person or in the next aisle over from that person and look and say, I don't even recognize you, but we built this whole thing together and now we can't even sit together. It's so strange, right?
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I actually had a woman I support message me yesterday and she's like, I'm feeling so sad because my daughter, she's she's going through a divorce. They've they haven't lived together in almost a year, the but their divorce is not final. She said my d my daughter wanted me to come watch fireworks with them. And my ex-husband texted me and asked me and invited me to come and they are fighting. They are in such a battle of our custody and And she still went, which was amazing. And she said, and the kids were so happy to have us both there and the both watching the fireworks and all together as a family. And she's said that she's just grieving so much what her kids don't get to have. And in this particular situation, this woman didn't want the divorce. Her husband is the one that said she did, he did, and he's the one that had had an affair, and and so she's like, I wish I would have fought harder for my kids. Wish I would have fought harder for the marriage, and the hard thing to say to her is it wasn't your choice. You you can fight and fight and fight all you want, but unless the other person actually wants to be in the marriage, you have to concede. And she's like, So now I have to share, like, my she was a stay-at-home mom. She's I have to worry about my finances, I have to move out of the family home, I have to not have my kids 50% of the time. And all because he decided he didn't want to be in this marriage. And so there's a great deal of grief around it, which in my particular situation I did want the divorce. And so there's still a lot of grief, but I can only imagine the depths of it when it's from somebody that is like, no, I I I want to say no, and you're not allowed to. You can't.
Anna Goff: Right. Right. And that's the vulnerable position that we all find ourselves in in a relationship, you know, with you can't force someone to stay and and we give up we you know, open our hearts and our lives and everything to another person and that's the risk that you take. And hopefully people aren't jaded for the rest of their lives because of it. But it is it is scary to love again, especially after going through something like that. And so I think I heard that
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: the relationship right after a divorce can be sometimes harder than the divorce, like breakup if it breaks up. And in a lot of ways I think it's true because you have so much time to grieve the end of a marriage often, and then you open your heart again and it gets broken again. And I think that's something that a lot of people go through as well. And so I I feel like in a marriage or in a relationship, we are really vulnerable and you can be as in love and committed, but it can change and that's part of what I do in educating women on how to stay financially you know, educated and and make sure that they have their own financial backing and fortitude to protect from that 'cause that's a huge part that you and I both see with women going through a divorce that when they are vulnerable like that it can really add to The stress.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, especially if the finances were a little rocky to begin with, you know, in the marriage, if they were already strapped financially and then they're adding in a divorce with a second payment and less you know, even less resources, it does definitely become so much more difficult. And so, you know, exactly what you do is so valuable because even if you're in a healthy marriage, it's important to start kind of protecting yourself and understanding what risks you are because you know that that book with Belle Burden, I think is her name, and and Strangers, she is a perfect example of how she kind of went with she like bought the houses and with the family money and then she ended up not having that stuff protected from her. so it is you do put yourself at risk and this isn't this kind of turned into it's not to put you in a fearful situation if you're married, but it also is to say, okay
Anna Goff: Right?
Molly Rubesh: How am I taking control of my life in all scenarios? In my financial well-being, in my physical well-being, in my emotional well-being, and not just surrendering any aspect to anybody, even if you love them. It there's still you gotta have some ownership in this journey.
Anna Goff: Right. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. And and divorce is one of those scenarios where this can happen. But you and I have talked about this a lot too. But this is something else that I help people with. But it the illness of a spouse can also be one of the most stressful things that you can ever go through. And it's also financially devastating. And if you don't have a plan that can destroy you financially if you're
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: seeing your spouse deteriorate in front of you, if you aren't aware of the finances, if you don't have a plan in place with your partner before something happens, it can often be more devastating than a death.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: in a lot of ways, financially, emotionally, stressful, you know, being stressful for the entire family who's caring for that partner. you know, I have some friends going through that right now with Alzheimer's, and he is very young and it is financially kind of destroying their picture. And it's someone who was financially very stable. but I think that's another huge thing that that we are seeing probably with our parents. I mean I know that you lost your dad, but it you know, see our parents getting older and we need to realize that we have that vulnerability creeping up even more too little.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, for sure. Well my my mom lives in assisted living and and so they've needed a a lot of significant income to help pay for her life post his death and you know it's it's it's important to prepare yourself and not only if you're gonna stay married but then what this looks like to your point if somebody gets disabled or if somebody loses their their well being. we just had a a friend in our community, actually two young men around age
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: fifty that both have recently died and I wonder if the women are prepared, you know, if they have been set up in a way that they can still live their life because they have many, many, many more years. And so it's one of our duties and our responsibilities as a woman and a wife and a mother to protect ourselves and not in a greedy way. I I I love the men that come into my Instagram comments that are like
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. yeah.
Molly Rubesh: you're trying to take everything and his hard earned money. I'm like, no, we're yeah, we're or or menopausal. And it's like we we are partners in this and we have decided to build lives together. And so therefore what can we do to make sure that we protect if you're gonna stay married, like and somebody's gonna become disabled, if you're gonna stay married and then you become a widow, if you're gonna get divorced, like how do you set yourself up for
Anna Goff: Yeah. She should just be in here feminine. That's the best.
Molly Rubesh: For financial success and not be so reliant on one other person's job.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, I think the biggest thing is to just really be able to take your emotions out of it and say, Okay, if we stay married, let's look at all the scenarios and make sure we're protected there. If one of us gets sick, injured, can't work, decides to stay home, any of those things. And what does all of that look like? And how can we make sure that no matter who is living or who is still, you know, if if maybe they're not earning anymore, can we live? Can both of us live separately? And can we live together forever based on those things? And then from a potential divorce standpoint, just understanding that is part of the risk of getting married. So you and I are are proponents of prenups, if or postnups if people decide they're going to stay home, I think it's a really good idea to look at your marital contract and decide what that looks like. So that everyone's on the same page. Because what I often see is love takes over and it clouds your Real true vision and your ability to make decisions that make sense. And then you get a few years down the road, that veil is lifted, and reality sets in, and you're like, shit, I should have planned better. I should have, you know, thought about this before I got married. And I love that you have the modern marriage blueprint. you know, I walk people through this kind of scenario all the time. And I think it's just really important to put your Emotions aside and realize like you need to be able to be an autonomous person without anyone else and live your life, whether you're with your partner or not. And once you have that security, all of these stressors we're talking about become less. And you can face that.
Molly Rubesh: Mm. Yeah, you're right. And it It is, we have to shout from the rooftops, you need to be an autonomous person. And if you choose to be a stay-at-home parent, that's okay, but what's the plan that you're still an autonomous person? So as soon as we start surrendering all of our financial well-being, our our decision making, we just shrink and shrink and shrink, then it puts this number two life event of the divorce so much greater, or death of a spouse or divorce, and you're putting
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: yourself at risk even if you love your spouse let's just pretend take divorce off the table you love your spouse and he dies now what do you know where your finances are do you know what your bank account login information is do you know if you have life insurance how do you pay your mortgage next month if it's not on auto draft how do you yeah who's paying for college like what what's the plan
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Who's paying for college? Right. Well, if it's on auto draft, except your husband is the only name on the account, what's gonna happen?
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: Because I promise you that those banks will find out before any of the other money that happens to be there, you know, if you have to go through probate, if you have to do all of that, that takes a long time. And if there's some like great, you know, second cousin, nephew that thought they were gonna get some money too, like that can play into it. You know, you've got like a lot of things that can happen. And so it's really important that there is that conversation between the spouses where you completely know exactly what's going on with the finances. You know what the passwords are. You know when the bills are due. You know what I have a lot of people, including mys formerly myself, who I had no idea who our mortgage company was. I didn't pay it. I didn't know. I wasn't on that bank account. I I had no way to even get into my ex-husband's computer. I didn't have his password. I didn't have the logins to anything. I didn't know anything. I couldn't have paid in. Yeah. I mean I was the beneficiary on anything, on everything, but I didn't I wouldn't have even known where to start calling to say, hey, my husband died.
Molly Rubesh: So if he would have died, you would have been yeah.
Anna Goff: You know, someone has to inform all of those people, the the banks, that there was a death. If you don't even know what they are, you could have a lot of money just sitting out there waiting to be claimed.
Molly Rubesh: So yeah, that I mean this is definitely turned into wow, a wake up call on which what what would be the first conversation that you would tell somebody, let's not even in divorce, if we just pivoted to healthy marriages, what would you advise some b women to do today to start putting themselves in a better Protected financial setting in the event of somebody being sick or dying unexpectedly.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest thing is to sit down and say w to with your partner now and in at a time that's not stressful, that you're not arguing, you sit down together and say, I would really love to go through the finances and make sure I understand exactly what we have and that you understand exactly what I have so that we have transparency and we can help build a future together. So I think the best thing to do is to set a goal as a couple where you can sit down You can be very open with your finances, no judgment, right? A lot of times people will hide finances because they feel like they've made a mistake, like they're not far enough along, like maybe there's a credit card or something that they've been hiding. And I think the best thing to do is just say, we're no judgment here. We are going to just lay it out on the table and let's figure out what goals we have for our financial future. And then make sure that you have a password. I actually have a friend that he started like a password app that is a little different than what is out there so if anyone's interested send me a message and I'll forward the info. It's super in like very in-depth so I think it's really great. But Make sure everybody has passwords, knows where the accounts are, knows when the bills are due, and that there isn't anything hiding. But I love the goal setting, because I think then that takes the the you know tension out of the the equation where couples can really just say, like, let's build this life together. And whatever happened in the past, we can put that in the past, let's focus on what we have and set a goal.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it and you're right, it's like this is what blows my mind when we when we scale out and you think this is a scary conversation to have and you're like But with your husband, the person that you're married to, that you shared a life with, that you share a bed with, that you have shared intimacy with, children, your and yet we can't have a difficult conversation. So that's your first warning sign that things have gone really off. You know, we need to be able to get back to a way where people are like, I I could never say that to my husband. I it that where did we go wrong in our marriages and our relationships?
Anna Goff: Nope. Told you? Yeah. Yeah. I know.
Molly Rubesh: that we can't have these tough conversations with our partner, like with the person that's supposed to love us and protect us more than anything in this whole world.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Well and the message really is to those who aren't married yet. Who are in a relationship and are contemplating marriage or contemplating staying home, you know, can you have these financial conversations? You know, you talk about where you want to live and maybe hopes and dreams and all of that, but can do you really know what the financial picture looks like? And if you can't sit down and be completely transparent with your partner, you have no business being married to them. There should be no secret. There should be no feeling of control that one person can control the other person financially. I see that so often with the women that I work with where it doesn't matter if they have if they're making $50,000 a year or $50 million a year. There is control happening at every stage. And if you don't feel comfortable with your partner having complete transparency, now I there's a caveat to that, but complete transparency, you should not be married to them. If you don't trust them enough.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: To show them what you have in your finances, you should not be married. Bottom line. Now, I will say there are spenders and savers, and sometimes having complete access to all of the finances may not be the best thing for your financial picture. If somebody has a spending problem or doesn't do well with a budget, then it's important that you have that money in a safe
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Right.
Anna Goff: place where maybe it takes both of you to withdraw money or whatever. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't know that the money exists. It's just, you know, there are some people that are like, if you have a thousand dollars in the bank account, a thousand dollars is gone. Just like that. So
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's such a big stressor for so many. So if they're a saver or a spender, then they're there's so much stress around money, like having the conversation around money becomes so stressful because their nervous system can't handle talking about money and they're in such a scarcity mindset and they're so afraid to say I'm overextended and truthfully, especially in our economy right now, many, many, many families are overextended because no one thing was too much when you're like, the car is just that payment. We can afford that and that mortgage is that. And then property taxes go up and then car insurances go up because there maybe was an accident and now gas is expensive and then we didn't account for this travel sports and how expensive those kids' activities are and we didn't account for maybe some
Anna Goff: Yeah. Teenage drivers. Right.
Molly Rubesh: Some sort of yeah, yeah. I got three of them insured, so that's a sticky thing. But and you've got all of these things that you didn't necessarily plan for when you bought the house or when you bought that car, and now all of a sudden it is extremely stressful and money is tight for so many families, and then the conversation is stressful because the outcome is like the math isn't mathing, you know. They're like, we can't even have
Anna Goff: Yeah. Right. Right.
Molly Rubesh: This topic because it causes so much stress because we can't afford
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: our lifestyle. And again, that's kind of full circle to when I talk to the women who are like, but I don't know how I could afford to stay in the family home. Then I'm like, I get your love around it, but sell the home. The beauty of having financial freedom and not overextending yourself and having disposable income and being able to not worry about your
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Molly Rubesh: bank account, I used to total up in my accad. We were so far it in so much debt and so far beyond what we could afford. I would lay in bed and total up like, okay, so that was gonna come out and this is gonna come out and then that paycheck and I'm like my gosh and I and I would do the math again and do the math again hoping that there would be a different outcome. And I live in a totally different financial situation now and it's it it's never lost on me when I go to the grocery store and I can buy the big packs of
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: toilet paper, the big packs of paper towels, the detergent, we're out of shampoo, we need body wash. And I'm like, and I used to be like every time you know the shampoo would run low, I'd think, gosh, like another big grocery trip. And that is no way to live. So if you have to live that way just to maintain one home, I know it's a personal opinion, but I vote downsize and
Anna Goff: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: move into something else and give yourself a breather.
Anna Goff: Yeah, a hundred percent. And We live in a world, you and I are part of this world, where everything is critiqued, everything is fake online. you know, you're on Instagram, you're on Pinterest, you're on all of social media with everybody selling you the next new outfit. You must have this fit, the latest drop from Target, the latest, you know, whatever, your house must be curated and perfect and it has to have this and this and the you know. And so it can be
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm. Right.
Anna Goff: really hard when that's what you're feeding yourself to feel like you are letting yourself down, your kids down, your friends down, like people are gonna judge you. Here you are divorced and now you have to move and maybe you have to sell your big fancy car and maybe you live in, you know, a a different neighborhood that's not as nice or whatever. But I will tell you that if you can let go of that ego that's around that, which is really hard
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: really being able to take that time to figure out who you are and what you want and kind of go back to who you were before all of that stuff kind of infiltrated your life and
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: Created this version of you that maybe you didn't really have a ton of input into. You get married and you start to take on different characteristics of your environment. So your partner, you know, then you become a mom. And you're kind of in, you know, survival mode in a lot of ways, and you become this new person where I'm no longer Anna, I'm Eleanor's mom, right? And then you change and change.
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Anna Goff: So think it's a great opportunity to kind of go back to like what do I like? What do I what do I want to put on my walls? What do I want to put in my fridge? What do I want to wear? you know.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Do I want to paint my room pink? Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Absolutely. Absolutely. Because when you're married for so long, I was married for eighteen years. Like I never thought like, what do I like? It was like, what are we going to like? Or what is he gonna like? Or you know, so it's kinda fun.
Molly Rubesh: Mhm. Yeah, and it almost can be a different vibe if it's if it's a s your own home and you're divorced, it can be a diff it can be any vibe you want, but it doesn't have to be so structured and like you know, i I I loved that rental because it was a little odds, mismatched and it it just the pressure was off for it to be perfect.
Anna Goff: What? Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: So I we can we can kind of embrace all of these chapters and kind of close it all full circle. If you're going through a divorce and it is a really stressful event and there are these other things around the grief or the moving, you can find a way to make it doable, livable, figure-outable, and not so so heavy where it cripples you into just dying by holding on to all of this misery. Like we're living proof that there is a big beautiful life waiting for you on the other side. And I mean I know it's not easy and it's not a straight road, but it is survivable.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. And While you're going through it, there's really no shortcut to get through the grief, no matter if it's death or divorce or whatever. You just have to do it. You have to get through it. But feed yourself with healthy things. Read, journal, reach out to a coach like either one of us that can help you through it. Spend time with friends. get a good coffee that you love and enjoy that. Like little things.
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: Go to a yoga class, exercise. Like if every day, if you can just do a little something that fills your cup, you'll look back in six months or a year and go, my gosh, I remember when I felt like I had an elephant sitting on my chest and I was just panicked constantly, and I don't feel that anymore. And you'll be so proud of the journey and realize how strong you actually are.
Molly Rubesh: I feel it. I feel that. Well on that note, I think we will sign off for today and just leave you with that. But thank you so much for being here and tuning in to the Align podcast. And if you liked today's episode, please like and share. And we will see you again very soon. We'll try to be more consistent. Yes. Yeah. Thanks.
Anna Goff: Summer's here, but so are we. All right. Thanks so much. Have a great day, everyone.
Anna Goff: Great. it definitely speaks to what we're gonna talk to talk about today. with the move, I did sell my house. buy a new house and it's a new build, so everything that goes along with that. And summer kids are home. And so as we know, that creates another level of chaos and both good and bad. with you know kids home and especially being a single parent that can be a little bit tricky. So I'm good. How about you?
Molly Rubesh: I'm good too. It's I it's almost like this time of year is similar in feeling around the holidays. It's not as hustle and bustle, but it's like, wait, what's the what day is it? Where are we in this time warp? And I've talked to so many other people that are like, I'm busy in a non-busy way, I'm productive in a non-productive way, and I don't I'm I'm just kind of floundering, but then it's also pretty cool to be able to spend time with kids or slow down. So I think no matter where you are in your journey, just give yourself grace because we're all feeling it, especially with the high temps and the 4th of July weekend. So I'm happy to just kind of be here with you and be able to talk about what we're gonna Going talk about today, which is divorce has been ranked in number of studies the number two most stressful life event that you can go through. So I've come across two different studies, but one is like the real famous one: the Holmes Ray Social Readjustment Rating Scale, and death of a spouse is number one, divorce is number two, and then it's followed by marital separation, jail, death of a close family member. But then there's another one done by the University Hospitals in Cleveland and it rates divorce is number two, but number one is death of a spouse, and then number three is a big move. And so according to like that data, I really feel like divorce is kind of wrapping all three of those things up in one because there's major grief around divorce. Then of course divorce. And then the third is sometimes we have to leave the family home.
Anna Goff: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: So it's go ahead.
Anna Goff: You and I talked to a lot of women who are going through divorce or separation. And one of the things that a lot of our clients say is they want to stay in the house for the kids, right? And they don't want to uproot them. And what I found in my situation is it wasn't so much that I wanted to stay for the kids. It was like I could not add one more thing to my plate. It was so stressful. going through the divorce, the the unknown, I think, is the real scary part, especially for women who maybe didn't earn the most in their family or a stayed home, like what is my financial future gonna look like? How is this gonna shake out? How are we going to pay for the legal fees? What does my future look like? And until you know that, it's very hard to try to figure out what the next move is. Do you stay in your current house? Can you afford to stay in your current house? Do you need to move? and and where do do you move? You know, is your partner going to want to stay in the area that you're in?
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: There is just so much unknown and I think that that really contributes to the stress overall of this situation, of an already super stressful situation.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. I have a a client that she's Really adamant that she wants to stay in the family home and it's so important to her and the kids, but she cannot afford it without the support. So it's ki it is that really trapped situation of can I afford it? But I don't know what child support's gonna look like. I don't know what the divorce settlement will look like. How would I then buy him out of it? So it becomes super messy and extremely complex. So you know, my advice is to really help people talk. To their lawyer, of course, and see if they can get some of those numbers, but also recognize that sometimes leaving the home is part of the process, and it is part of moving on because some of the houses that we buy are because we have dual incomes and we can afford it with two people, but we can't necessarily afford it with one. I moved into a rental and I downsized significantly from my house.
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Right.
Molly Rubesh: And I loved that space. And it when I reflect back on kind of how I was able to heal in that space, I didn't have a yard to take care of. When the water heater went out, I would call my landlord. And so it was hard, but it also gave me such a breath of fresh air and an opportunity to rebuild and then decide where I was going from there.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. When I went through my divorce, I decided to stay in the house. And then after everything kind of shook out, I was like, you know what? I really don't want the yard. I don't want the maintenance. I don't want the extra. You know, I lived in a house that was a little bit older and it was going to need a new roof and it needed repainted and all these things. And I was like, you know what, I don't want that. And so really looking at what you wanted when you were married versus what you want as a single person. that can be completely different. And so I just moved into a brand new townhouse and I love it. I do have a tiny yard, but I don't have to deal with it if I don't want to. And you know, it just getting rid of things and purging and moving into a space that feels like your own, it really does, it is cathartic, or it was for me anyway, you know, to say like this is my space, and you don't realize how much energy can be held in a home that you shared with your partner that you're no longer with.
Molly Rubesh: Ooh, that's a really good point too. It's just kind of like moving on. So how how long did you live in your family home before you have transitioned to this house?
Anna Goff: Well, so d to be completely fair, my ex and I didn't ever like totally live in the house together. So we had a house in Pennsylvania, we had a house in South Carolina, and he worked in PA. So he would go back and forth and it was our second home. And so I lived there full time with the kids. He was up in Pennsylvania and then would come down every other weekend. So it was sort of like we were moving farther apart and that house was never our family home. And what I realized after we separated was like that was almost the Beginning of our separation, and I had begun to separate from our marriage during that time. So while most of the furniture in the house was new when I moved down to the second house, or you know, moved to South Carolina, bought new furniture, so that didn't have like a grip on me. but it was a house that we bought together. you know, the neighborhood, all of those things knew us as a couple, and so it is kind of nice. to be in a completely fresh space where you can decorate it the way you want. It wasn't furniture that you picked out together. It wasn't a home you picked out together, you know? So yeah, but we didn't ever really totally live in it together. Which I think helped. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Okay. Yeah. Well and so, you know, moving is number three according to the one study, but grief, you know, loss of somebody that you love is number one. And now I understand that death is permanent, but when we talk about grief around divorce This is why I feel like it's three tied up into one because there's so much grief around losing the person that you thought you were gonna spend your life with. And then there's grief around feeling like what happened to these memories? We were supposed to grow old together, we were supposed to have this big, beautiful life and group be grandparents and raise our kids together. So Do you have a lot of c clients that are really suffering around the grief too of leaving their divorce or leaving their marriage?
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, and especially if it's not their doing, if it's something that happened to them, so to speak, if somebody was cheated on and they're looking at the or you know, there was an alcoholic situation, something where they feel like they were out of control, which tip is pretty typical in a divorce, I would say. and they feel almost like it's happening to them. Like my world is has been turned upside down, this future that we thought we were going to have is no longer here. And in In a lot of ways, this is coming from someone who's been through a lot of death in my lifetime. In a lot of ways, this is harder because there is that finality. And when somebody dies, you know the outcome. You you no longer get to speak to that person. it's over, it's done. And with a divorce, it can feel like a death or a grief over and over and over again because it's the initial grief of the separation. Then it's the divorce process, which attorneys can make harder. It can make you very angry and really vulnerable and really hostile for sometimes for years. And so that's another set of grief. Like, how can somebody who is the father or the mother of my child treat me this way? I can't believe this is happening. And then when there are new things, like when a new partner comes into play and then they're introduced, that's another Set of grief when you have to move, that's another you know piece of the grief puzzle. and all of these things, you know, when you're sitting at your first musical concert or graduation or wedding or whatever, it's a piece of grief that keeps you know getting opened, and that happens with death too, where you're like, I wish my dad was here to walk me down the aisle, or I wish my brother was here to see this. But when you have to grieve and And then sit next to that person or in the next aisle over from that person and look and say, I don't even recognize you, but we built this whole thing together and now we can't even sit together. It's so strange, right?
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I actually had a woman I support message me yesterday and she's like, I'm feeling so sad because my daughter, she's she's going through a divorce. They've they haven't lived together in almost a year, the but their divorce is not final. She said my d my daughter wanted me to come watch fireworks with them. And my ex-husband texted me and asked me and invited me to come and they are fighting. They are in such a battle of our custody and And she still went, which was amazing. And she said, and the kids were so happy to have us both there and the both watching the fireworks and all together as a family. And she's said that she's just grieving so much what her kids don't get to have. And in this particular situation, this woman didn't want the divorce. Her husband is the one that said she did, he did, and he's the one that had had an affair, and and so she's like, I wish I would have fought harder for my kids. Wish I would have fought harder for the marriage, and the hard thing to say to her is it wasn't your choice. You you can fight and fight and fight all you want, but unless the other person actually wants to be in the marriage, you have to concede. And she's like, So now I have to share, like, my she was a stay-at-home mom. She's I have to worry about my finances, I have to move out of the family home, I have to not have my kids 50% of the time. And all because he decided he didn't want to be in this marriage. And so there's a great deal of grief around it, which in my particular situation I did want the divorce. And so there's still a lot of grief, but I can only imagine the depths of it when it's from somebody that is like, no, I I I want to say no, and you're not allowed to. You can't.
Anna Goff: Right. Right. And that's the vulnerable position that we all find ourselves in in a relationship, you know, with you can't force someone to stay and and we give up we you know, open our hearts and our lives and everything to another person and that's the risk that you take. And hopefully people aren't jaded for the rest of their lives because of it. But it is it is scary to love again, especially after going through something like that. And so I think I heard that
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: the relationship right after a divorce can be sometimes harder than the divorce, like breakup if it breaks up. And in a lot of ways I think it's true because you have so much time to grieve the end of a marriage often, and then you open your heart again and it gets broken again. And I think that's something that a lot of people go through as well. And so I I feel like in a marriage or in a relationship, we are really vulnerable and you can be as in love and committed, but it can change and that's part of what I do in educating women on how to stay financially you know, educated and and make sure that they have their own financial backing and fortitude to protect from that 'cause that's a huge part that you and I both see with women going through a divorce that when they are vulnerable like that it can really add to The stress.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, especially if the finances were a little rocky to begin with, you know, in the marriage, if they were already strapped financially and then they're adding in a divorce with a second payment and less you know, even less resources, it does definitely become so much more difficult. And so, you know, exactly what you do is so valuable because even if you're in a healthy marriage, it's important to start kind of protecting yourself and understanding what risks you are because you know that that book with Belle Burden, I think is her name, and and Strangers, she is a perfect example of how she kind of went with she like bought the houses and with the family money and then she ended up not having that stuff protected from her. so it is you do put yourself at risk and this isn't this kind of turned into it's not to put you in a fearful situation if you're married, but it also is to say, okay
Anna Goff: Right?
Molly Rubesh: How am I taking control of my life in all scenarios? In my financial well-being, in my physical well-being, in my emotional well-being, and not just surrendering any aspect to anybody, even if you love them. It there's still you gotta have some ownership in this journey.
Anna Goff: Right. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. And and divorce is one of those scenarios where this can happen. But you and I have talked about this a lot too. But this is something else that I help people with. But it the illness of a spouse can also be one of the most stressful things that you can ever go through. And it's also financially devastating. And if you don't have a plan that can destroy you financially if you're
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: seeing your spouse deteriorate in front of you, if you aren't aware of the finances, if you don't have a plan in place with your partner before something happens, it can often be more devastating than a death.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: in a lot of ways, financially, emotionally, stressful, you know, being stressful for the entire family who's caring for that partner. you know, I have some friends going through that right now with Alzheimer's, and he is very young and it is financially kind of destroying their picture. And it's someone who was financially very stable. but I think that's another huge thing that that we are seeing probably with our parents. I mean I know that you lost your dad, but it you know, see our parents getting older and we need to realize that we have that vulnerability creeping up even more too little.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, for sure. Well my my mom lives in assisted living and and so they've needed a a lot of significant income to help pay for her life post his death and you know it's it's it's important to prepare yourself and not only if you're gonna stay married but then what this looks like to your point if somebody gets disabled or if somebody loses their their well being. we just had a a friend in our community, actually two young men around age
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: fifty that both have recently died and I wonder if the women are prepared, you know, if they have been set up in a way that they can still live their life because they have many, many, many more years. And so it's one of our duties and our responsibilities as a woman and a wife and a mother to protect ourselves and not in a greedy way. I I I love the men that come into my Instagram comments that are like
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. yeah.
Molly Rubesh: you're trying to take everything and his hard earned money. I'm like, no, we're yeah, we're or or menopausal. And it's like we we are partners in this and we have decided to build lives together. And so therefore what can we do to make sure that we protect if you're gonna stay married, like and somebody's gonna become disabled, if you're gonna stay married and then you become a widow, if you're gonna get divorced, like how do you set yourself up for
Anna Goff: Yeah. She should just be in here feminine. That's the best.
Molly Rubesh: For financial success and not be so reliant on one other person's job.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, I think the biggest thing is to just really be able to take your emotions out of it and say, Okay, if we stay married, let's look at all the scenarios and make sure we're protected there. If one of us gets sick, injured, can't work, decides to stay home, any of those things. And what does all of that look like? And how can we make sure that no matter who is living or who is still, you know, if if maybe they're not earning anymore, can we live? Can both of us live separately? And can we live together forever based on those things? And then from a potential divorce standpoint, just understanding that is part of the risk of getting married. So you and I are are proponents of prenups, if or postnups if people decide they're going to stay home, I think it's a really good idea to look at your marital contract and decide what that looks like. So that everyone's on the same page. Because what I often see is love takes over and it clouds your Real true vision and your ability to make decisions that make sense. And then you get a few years down the road, that veil is lifted, and reality sets in, and you're like, shit, I should have planned better. I should have, you know, thought about this before I got married. And I love that you have the modern marriage blueprint. you know, I walk people through this kind of scenario all the time. And I think it's just really important to put your Emotions aside and realize like you need to be able to be an autonomous person without anyone else and live your life, whether you're with your partner or not. And once you have that security, all of these stressors we're talking about become less. And you can face that.
Molly Rubesh: Mm. Yeah, you're right. And it It is, we have to shout from the rooftops, you need to be an autonomous person. And if you choose to be a stay-at-home parent, that's okay, but what's the plan that you're still an autonomous person? So as soon as we start surrendering all of our financial well-being, our our decision making, we just shrink and shrink and shrink, then it puts this number two life event of the divorce so much greater, or death of a spouse or divorce, and you're putting
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: yourself at risk even if you love your spouse let's just pretend take divorce off the table you love your spouse and he dies now what do you know where your finances are do you know what your bank account login information is do you know if you have life insurance how do you pay your mortgage next month if it's not on auto draft how do you yeah who's paying for college like what what's the plan
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Who's paying for college? Right. Well, if it's on auto draft, except your husband is the only name on the account, what's gonna happen?
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: Because I promise you that those banks will find out before any of the other money that happens to be there, you know, if you have to go through probate, if you have to do all of that, that takes a long time. And if there's some like great, you know, second cousin, nephew that thought they were gonna get some money too, like that can play into it. You know, you've got like a lot of things that can happen. And so it's really important that there is that conversation between the spouses where you completely know exactly what's going on with the finances. You know what the passwords are. You know when the bills are due. You know what I have a lot of people, including mys formerly myself, who I had no idea who our mortgage company was. I didn't pay it. I didn't know. I wasn't on that bank account. I I had no way to even get into my ex-husband's computer. I didn't have his password. I didn't have the logins to anything. I didn't know anything. I couldn't have paid in. Yeah. I mean I was the beneficiary on anything, on everything, but I didn't I wouldn't have even known where to start calling to say, hey, my husband died.
Molly Rubesh: So if he would have died, you would have been yeah.
Anna Goff: You know, someone has to inform all of those people, the the banks, that there was a death. If you don't even know what they are, you could have a lot of money just sitting out there waiting to be claimed.
Molly Rubesh: So yeah, that I mean this is definitely turned into wow, a wake up call on which what what would be the first conversation that you would tell somebody, let's not even in divorce, if we just pivoted to healthy marriages, what would you advise some b women to do today to start putting themselves in a better Protected financial setting in the event of somebody being sick or dying unexpectedly.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest thing is to sit down and say w to with your partner now and in at a time that's not stressful, that you're not arguing, you sit down together and say, I would really love to go through the finances and make sure I understand exactly what we have and that you understand exactly what I have so that we have transparency and we can help build a future together. So I think the best thing to do is to set a goal as a couple where you can sit down You can be very open with your finances, no judgment, right? A lot of times people will hide finances because they feel like they've made a mistake, like they're not far enough along, like maybe there's a credit card or something that they've been hiding. And I think the best thing to do is just say, we're no judgment here. We are going to just lay it out on the table and let's figure out what goals we have for our financial future. And then make sure that you have a password. I actually have a friend that he started like a password app that is a little different than what is out there so if anyone's interested send me a message and I'll forward the info. It's super in like very in-depth so I think it's really great. But Make sure everybody has passwords, knows where the accounts are, knows when the bills are due, and that there isn't anything hiding. But I love the goal setting, because I think then that takes the the you know tension out of the the equation where couples can really just say, like, let's build this life together. And whatever happened in the past, we can put that in the past, let's focus on what we have and set a goal.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it and you're right, it's like this is what blows my mind when we when we scale out and you think this is a scary conversation to have and you're like But with your husband, the person that you're married to, that you shared a life with, that you share a bed with, that you have shared intimacy with, children, your and yet we can't have a difficult conversation. So that's your first warning sign that things have gone really off. You know, we need to be able to get back to a way where people are like, I I could never say that to my husband. I it that where did we go wrong in our marriages and our relationships?
Anna Goff: Nope. Told you? Yeah. Yeah. I know.
Molly Rubesh: that we can't have these tough conversations with our partner, like with the person that's supposed to love us and protect us more than anything in this whole world.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Well and the message really is to those who aren't married yet. Who are in a relationship and are contemplating marriage or contemplating staying home, you know, can you have these financial conversations? You know, you talk about where you want to live and maybe hopes and dreams and all of that, but can do you really know what the financial picture looks like? And if you can't sit down and be completely transparent with your partner, you have no business being married to them. There should be no secret. There should be no feeling of control that one person can control the other person financially. I see that so often with the women that I work with where it doesn't matter if they have if they're making $50,000 a year or $50 million a year. There is control happening at every stage. And if you don't feel comfortable with your partner having complete transparency, now I there's a caveat to that, but complete transparency, you should not be married to them. If you don't trust them enough.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: To show them what you have in your finances, you should not be married. Bottom line. Now, I will say there are spenders and savers, and sometimes having complete access to all of the finances may not be the best thing for your financial picture. If somebody has a spending problem or doesn't do well with a budget, then it's important that you have that money in a safe
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Right.
Anna Goff: place where maybe it takes both of you to withdraw money or whatever. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't know that the money exists. It's just, you know, there are some people that are like, if you have a thousand dollars in the bank account, a thousand dollars is gone. Just like that. So
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's such a big stressor for so many. So if they're a saver or a spender, then they're there's so much stress around money, like having the conversation around money becomes so stressful because their nervous system can't handle talking about money and they're in such a scarcity mindset and they're so afraid to say I'm overextended and truthfully, especially in our economy right now, many, many, many families are overextended because no one thing was too much when you're like, the car is just that payment. We can afford that and that mortgage is that. And then property taxes go up and then car insurances go up because there maybe was an accident and now gas is expensive and then we didn't account for this travel sports and how expensive those kids' activities are and we didn't account for maybe some
Anna Goff: Yeah. Teenage drivers. Right.
Molly Rubesh: Some sort of yeah, yeah. I got three of them insured, so that's a sticky thing. But and you've got all of these things that you didn't necessarily plan for when you bought the house or when you bought that car, and now all of a sudden it is extremely stressful and money is tight for so many families, and then the conversation is stressful because the outcome is like the math isn't mathing, you know. They're like, we can't even have
Anna Goff: Yeah. Right. Right.
Molly Rubesh: This topic because it causes so much stress because we can't afford
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: our lifestyle. And again, that's kind of full circle to when I talk to the women who are like, but I don't know how I could afford to stay in the family home. Then I'm like, I get your love around it, but sell the home. The beauty of having financial freedom and not overextending yourself and having disposable income and being able to not worry about your
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Molly Rubesh: bank account, I used to total up in my accad. We were so far it in so much debt and so far beyond what we could afford. I would lay in bed and total up like, okay, so that was gonna come out and this is gonna come out and then that paycheck and I'm like my gosh and I and I would do the math again and do the math again hoping that there would be a different outcome. And I live in a totally different financial situation now and it's it it's never lost on me when I go to the grocery store and I can buy the big packs of
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: toilet paper, the big packs of paper towels, the detergent, we're out of shampoo, we need body wash. And I'm like, and I used to be like every time you know the shampoo would run low, I'd think, gosh, like another big grocery trip. And that is no way to live. So if you have to live that way just to maintain one home, I know it's a personal opinion, but I vote downsize and
Anna Goff: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: move into something else and give yourself a breather.
Anna Goff: Yeah, a hundred percent. And We live in a world, you and I are part of this world, where everything is critiqued, everything is fake online. you know, you're on Instagram, you're on Pinterest, you're on all of social media with everybody selling you the next new outfit. You must have this fit, the latest drop from Target, the latest, you know, whatever, your house must be curated and perfect and it has to have this and this and the you know. And so it can be
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm. Right.
Anna Goff: really hard when that's what you're feeding yourself to feel like you are letting yourself down, your kids down, your friends down, like people are gonna judge you. Here you are divorced and now you have to move and maybe you have to sell your big fancy car and maybe you live in, you know, a a different neighborhood that's not as nice or whatever. But I will tell you that if you can let go of that ego that's around that, which is really hard
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: really being able to take that time to figure out who you are and what you want and kind of go back to who you were before all of that stuff kind of infiltrated your life and
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: Created this version of you that maybe you didn't really have a ton of input into. You get married and you start to take on different characteristics of your environment. So your partner, you know, then you become a mom. And you're kind of in, you know, survival mode in a lot of ways, and you become this new person where I'm no longer Anna, I'm Eleanor's mom, right? And then you change and change.
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Anna Goff: So think it's a great opportunity to kind of go back to like what do I like? What do I what do I want to put on my walls? What do I want to put in my fridge? What do I want to wear? you know.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Do I want to paint my room pink? Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Absolutely. Absolutely. Because when you're married for so long, I was married for eighteen years. Like I never thought like, what do I like? It was like, what are we going to like? Or what is he gonna like? Or you know, so it's kinda fun.
Molly Rubesh: Mhm. Yeah, and it almost can be a different vibe if it's if it's a s your own home and you're divorced, it can be a diff it can be any vibe you want, but it doesn't have to be so structured and like you know, i I I loved that rental because it was a little odds, mismatched and it it just the pressure was off for it to be perfect.
Anna Goff: What? Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: So I we can we can kind of embrace all of these chapters and kind of close it all full circle. If you're going through a divorce and it is a really stressful event and there are these other things around the grief or the moving, you can find a way to make it doable, livable, figure-outable, and not so so heavy where it cripples you into just dying by holding on to all of this misery. Like we're living proof that there is a big beautiful life waiting for you on the other side. And I mean I know it's not easy and it's not a straight road, but it is survivable.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. And While you're going through it, there's really no shortcut to get through the grief, no matter if it's death or divorce or whatever. You just have to do it. You have to get through it. But feed yourself with healthy things. Read, journal, reach out to a coach like either one of us that can help you through it. Spend time with friends. get a good coffee that you love and enjoy that. Like little things.
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: Go to a yoga class, exercise. Like if every day, if you can just do a little something that fills your cup, you'll look back in six months or a year and go, my gosh, I remember when I felt like I had an elephant sitting on my chest and I was just panicked constantly, and I don't feel that anymore. And you'll be so proud of the journey and realize how strong you actually are.
Molly Rubesh: I feel it. I feel that. Well on that note, I think we will sign off for today and just leave you with that. But thank you so much for being here and tuning in to the Align podcast. And if you liked today's episode, please like and share. And we will see you again very soon. We'll try to be more consistent. Yes. Yeah. Thanks.
Anna Goff: Summer's here, but so are we. All right. Thanks so much. Have a great day, everyone.
