Life After Divorce for the Financially Dependent Spouse

By Leah Jones on January 5, 2023

Success after a divorce can seem unachievable for a dependent spouse. It can be challenging to figure out what to do next when most of your life has been spent prioritizing everything else.

In this episode, Kelley Edelblut, Career and Leadership Coach, joins us to discuss how her divorce led her to build a career helping financially dependent women hone in on their natural abilities and core values to live a more balanced, fulfilled life.

Kelley shares how her life changed after a divorce and what she’s learned to help others get through it.

Leah and Kelley discuss:

• The Highlands Ability Battery (HAB) assessment and how it helps with career changes
• What to do when your career does not align with your values
• Overcoming feeling “stuck” and not knowing what to do next
• How to feel fulfilled in a career
• And more

Resources:

• The Highlands Company: Consultant: Kelley M. Edelblut, CPCC, ACC

Connect With Kelley:

• LinkedIn: Kelley Edelblut

Connect With Leah:

leah.jones@hightoweradvisors.com

https://bethesda.hightoweradvisors.com/index.html

LinkedIn: Leah Jones

301-202-3590

Schedule a Call with Leah:
https://go.oncehub.com/LeahJones

About Our Guest:

Kelley Edelbult is an experienced Career & Leadership Coach working with individuals, organizations, and executives within large organizations. Her focus with each one of her clients is to allow them to discover who they really are and facilitate a process for developing a motivational plan of action toward implementing their purpose. This process is designed to allow each client to “walk away” excited with their life ahead, and the positive change that has occurred while working to deepen their learning and achieve their goals. Kelley is able to execute this process with each client by building trust and offering them my accessible presence to help them explore new ways of thinking.

Publishing Tags:

Her Divorce Source, Hightower Bethesda, Leah Jones, Divorce, Life After Divroce, Career, Career Coach, Career Development, Divroce Lawyer, Marital Property

---

HDS_EP_11

[00:00:00] Has divorce become a reality? And you are asking yourself, now what? If you have questions about your new life, you’re in the right place. Her divorce source with Leah Jones is the go-to podcast for women before, during, and after a divorce. Join me, Leah Jones, a certified Divorce financial analyst at Hightower Bethesda.

As I help you envision and create a new life that’s full of possibilities, empowerment, and freedom, I’ll tackle your issues about lifestyle and money, giving you practical guidance you can use right away. Now, let’s get started.

Kelly Edenbult helps women take action with their lives.  A career and leadership coach, she guides clients to a more balanced and fulfilled life where they can achieve professional goals and live a happier, more fulfilling life. Your host, Leah Jones, is here with Kelly, [00:01:00] thanks so much for joining us today on her divorce source.

Thank you, Leah. Thank you for having me. I’m delighted to be here. Well, Kelly, what I would love to start off with is your why, your story, kind of how you came to be in the position that you are today. I’d love to share the story. About almost 20 years ago, I was living my life and what I thought was a very, very happy place.

I was with my high school sweetheart who I was married to almost 18 years, and my two sons who were eight and 10, and had what I thought was the perfect job, really flexible hours working as a nonprofit executive for a [00:02:00] professional medical association. And we had a beautiful home and life was really good until one day.

And that one day my husband came home and he started talking about a young hire that they had hired and he said to me, he said, I really think we need to give this girl some money. And I said, money, we don’t even know her. And you are giving her money. You’ve given her more than money. You’ve given her a job.

And so, I just kind of made a mental note to myself that that was really odd. My husband was a financial advisor, and for him to suggest we give out money was not something that he did often. [00:03:00] So over the course of the next six months, a lot of behavior started to change with him. He was glued to his cell phone.

He lost a tremendous amount of weight. He took his wedding band off. He was wearing clothes that I had never seen before. He became very buff going to the gym all the time. And there were some other red flags along the way in terms of like some late nights out and things like that. At that six month mark, I went to Dallas Airport because there were some things pointing to

a possibility that he had been on a trip with this person. And so I went, I went out to Dallas Airport and I found them coming off a plane together, and they weren’t [00:04:00] on a business trip. She answered the phone. I mean, she wouldn’t have been on a business trip anyway. So, at that moment, my whole world exploded and the next two weeks were tumultuous, so there were innocent people laid off at his company in order for her to be removed.

We had to hire a labor attorney. We had to, we were in therapy, individual, marital, and it was determined that the best thing to do. for ourselves at that time was that he needed to go stay by himself somewhere and figure out what he was doing and what was happening. He was in a really bad place.

There had been some personal loss in his life. Anyway, the long and short of this story was [00:05:00] the rules were he couldn’t see me and he could not see her as well. Over the course of the next week or so, when we got back together with a therapist, I found out he didn’t abide by the rules. He had seen her, so the deal, all bets were off and he was moving out.

So, if I thought my life blew up two weeks before, it was really blowing up now, at that point. He said he was going to be working hard to move back in, but words were cheap because the actions so showed something different. I went to the ATM. All of our accounts were cleaned out at zero.

He didn’t [00:06:00] obviously care. I had my job, but I wasn’t earning anything near what he was earning because he had started his own company with two other partners and everything that he was making, he was putting back in the business. And he had done that for years. So, I was supporting us, but now he was making moneythat he was keeping, so at that point,

he didn’t know how much money I had. I mean, he just basically gave me no access to money. Took all the money. So, we were in a bad place. The kids and I were in a bad place. He moved on. We went through a very difficult couple years. He was not anybody that I recognized. And, I found myself in complete and total [00:07:00] transition.

I was transitioning my whole life. Where was I going to live? How was I going to support myself in the way that I had lived before? How was I going to make sure that the kids were emotionally strong? How was I going to make sure I was emotionally strong? How was I going to support all three of us, you know, being that way?

Everything was spinning and at the same time, I had a quick moment about my job. What did I want to do about that job? Oh, and by the way, in that moment I had a real aha moment and went… I hate my job. I’ve always hated my job. I only did the job for him to support our family. It was all for my family. It wasn’t about me.

It never was about me. It worked for a family unit, so there [00:08:00] I was and I thought, I’m going to transition that too. So, my whole life blew up. and there I was transitioning everything that was familiar and comfortable with and starting fresh, and that is how I sit here today with my business and am more fulfilled doing what I’m doing now than I ever was in my former career.

What a great story. I find from a lot of my guests, they have a story too. And obviously it ends in divorce. That’s what this show is about. And what’s interesting is how it inspires women to do different things. So, talk to us about how this inspired your career and what it is that you’re doing now.

So [00:09:00] what I realized Leah was. when I realized I hated my job and I had been doing it to just support our family and because it worked in terms of the hours and things like that, I realized that the reason I hated it was because it wasn’t honoring a value that I had and the value was, I didn’t feel like I was making a difference, and that was something that I needed to feel.

I needed to feel like I was in a helping position and helping people and making a difference in their lives, and that wasn’t happening for me. So, I thought long and hard about what it was that I could do, and how I could transition into a profession where that was going to happen to me, happened for me daily.

And I think if my kids had been younger or older, [00:10:00] but not at the ages they were at, I might have gone and gotten my master’s in social work, but instead I opted to do the coaching route, which in the end ended up to be almost, it ended up to be just as long as if I had gotten my master’s, but it was a much more flexible educational process and I started out thinking that I really wanted to help women in transition and that is where my business started, but I really realized that at that moment a lot of women were very scared to spend money on themselves.

And so, I kind of spread my wings a little bit and went down the career path based on an assessment that I got certified in, and I’ve been able to help women more that way, in [00:11:00] terms of just more generally women in transition. And what’s this assessment that you have? It’s called the Highlands Ability Battery.

And what the assessment does, it tests your natural abilities. We are all born with innate abilities and most women that land with me land because they’re not using their abilities. And so, they’re being asked to use abilities they don’t have, and the abilities they have are just sitting dormant.

And so those abilities are yelling in their ear, hello, hello, I’m here. And they’re not being used. And so, people become dissatisfied in their work. So, once we determine what those abilities are, then I’m able to put together natural career paths for people and I can sit down with these women and

here’s the natural path. These are  [00:12:00] going to be your easiest routes for career options. If you want to go another route, you can, but it’s not going to be as easy. And so, then we talk about which path you’re interested in and what path you may need additional skills for. And then as the coaching proceeds, we set goals and we talk about values like the ones I have.

In terms of like, feeling like you needed to make a difference, things like that. Yeah. I was going to mention that the thought process that you had when you were going through your own discovery sounds very interesting because you said, you know, I realized that I really wanted to help people and wanted to make a difference.

And I think that that’s an area where people struggle is identifying, you know, what is it, the value, what value is that will really drive me right to get up in the morning and enjoy what I do. [00:13:00] That’s number one. But then to your point, well, you know, maybe I’d like to be an opera singer, but that’s probably not going to happen for me.

Right. So then taking a look at the innate skillset and trying to match and pair those two things. So, that sounds really great to me. Where I’d like you to go with kind of what I hear from women is how do they get started? So, you know, it’s very typical that I’m working with a woman,

maybe she was the financially dependent one in the relationship. And so, she brings a unique skillset as we’re all aware, being a mom tending to kids, helping support the family, et cetera. But a lot of times I find that they might struggle. Okay. What do I do now? So just walk me through like if somebody came to you that was in that situation, how you would kind of start with [00:14:00] them.

You know, Leah, it’s really interesting, that description represents a lot of women that I get and most of these women are very educated, and some with advanced degrees, but they just don’t have any current work experience. And so, they either need to catch a break, somebody they know needs to, you know, open a door for them or they’ve got to start at a level far below their value.

But what I do for them is I would, I would 100% start them with the assessment, because most of the time those women don’t know what they want to do. I mean, it’s rare that somebody walks in and says, yeah, this is what I want to do, so can you help me get there? I have had that, but it’s not common. So, I would start them with the Highlands and we would work from that.

Let’s get your abilities. Let’s see what lines up. Here’s some options. I mean, [00:15:00] we, on the average, I could offer somebody probably anywhere from like seven to 15 natural career paths. They’re not going to be interested in all those. So, let’s just say they’re interested in 30% of them, so we knock out a handful.

Now we’re down to, out of 10, we’re down to three or four of those. How many do you need additional skills for? Are you willing to invest in getting those additional skills? You know, yes or no? So, then we’re down to, you know, now another one or two, and are you now invested in doing the coaching?

Because that’s another whole separate process. Some people just want to do the assessment and talk to me for two hours about it and walk away and feel like they have enough knowledge on what to do. Most women like [00:16:00] this want to do the coaching too, because we then set goals.

There’s a huge accountability process. Coaching touches their whole life. We will talk about everything from their career, networking, reaching the career goals, getting clarity around what it is they’re going to do. The resume, all of that. But because coaching can’t do anything without touching your whole life, we’re also going to talk about other things.

How are you doing in terms of having fun? How are you doing with relationships? How are you doing in your physical environment? Do you, are you somewhere where you are happy with where you’re spending your time? How are you doing in terms of health and wellness? So, a lot of other things are going to go on in these [00:17:00] coaching sessions, and they have to contract for a minimum of nine, which is nine hours.

It’s not really all that much, but as I tell clients, at the end of nine hours, you will be in a completely different place. I’m not saying that you’re going to have your dream job, but you will be on your road knowing exactly which direction you’re going to go, and you’ll have clarity about all of that.

And so, for the most part, people are good after nine hours.

I was just thinking that it’s really wonderful to have someone like you to work with, to try to figure out all those things, because I oftentimes, and this applies to anyone, but you know, when you feel overwhelmed, then you just get stuck [00:18:00] and then it’s kind of easy to, to busy yourself, especially as a woman.

Your kids or other people you’re taking care of, maybe you have to take care of your mom and dad who are aging and, or you know, your kids, et cetera. Or just innately caregivers. And it’s easier to probably deflect and do that than to spend some time really thinking about what’s going to help you feel

more fulfilled in life and a big piece of that is your career, but you’ve just given so much to other people for so long. I think it’s so hard to even start. So, I absolutely love that you help them with the assessment and narrowing down things and identifying their values. But I love that you go on to continue to be there for them.

Because I’m just thinking when you start a new job and you haven’t worked in a long time. Yeah. Kind of overwhelming and you last thing you want to do is probably tell people that you’re feeling overwhelmed. [00:19:00] You know, you just touched on a point that I just want to add something. These women, like you said, are juggling so much and they’re either coming out of chaos or they’re still in it.

Because I see them at like either one or two different stages. Either they’ve got to show the court or attorneys that they’re working on a plan or they’ve completed the divorce, and it’s now time for them to get employed.  Either way, for most of them, it’s a common theme that I work with women on.

They don’t know how to prioritize themselves and. like me, when  I go back to my story, I was doing what was best for my family and that job worked for my [00:20:00] family, but I hated it. So now for the first time, they can take a breath and say, wow, what is it that I really want to do? And what does this look like?

And how do I get the help to create this? And so prioritizing themselves is something completely new for most women. And setting the appropriate boundaries around how to do that. Exactly, because I see that kind of thing all the time where it’s just, how do I get started? I haven’t done this in so long, you know, I feel like

maybe the world won’t accept me for various reasons, right? It’s easier to kind of maybe throw myself in things that I’m comfortable with or more familiar with, which is continuing to do the caregiving roles and like you said, not prioritizing yourself. I would a hundred percent agree with you [00:21:00] , the quicker that you

can do that, the better you’re going to feel, because most likely, whether you’re kind of in the final stages of your divorce or if it’s been finalized, you’re probably not in a place where everything’s a hundred percent awesome.  Right. So, you’re kind of working down the priority list of how do you start to, how do you start to get things back to where you’d like them to be?

So, I’m just curious are there any differences that you want to maybe comment on? If it is someone that just has been out of the workforce for a long time versus if it’s someone like you that was working but is just unhappy and kind of trying to realize why. Is it because they’ve been just doing it for the family or is it because maybe they haven’t asked for that promotion when they should have, but they didn’t because they know they needed to be home, or maybe they always put their partner’s career first.

So, just talk to me a little bit about the [00:22:00] differences when it is someone that was working. The biggest thing that I see is a confidence level. So because I had been out there, I’m just going back to, I was in pretty good shape in terms of being up on technology to some degree, versus a woman that had been out of the workforce for 20 years, and those women are much less confident.

So, during the coaching sessions, that’s a huge component of what we’re working on. Self-esteem, confidence, how to interview. There’s that whole component where other women who are just transferring a skillset, were mostly working on clarity of where they’re going. So, that’s really the real difference.

And I’m thinking of [00:23:00] a couple different clients too.

I had made a note of a few different clients that have a few different stories. I mean, it’s very important for women, even if you’re taking a break and staying home to try to maintain your network to some degree and stay up on your credentials. I’m thinking of one client who was a nurse and let her credentials go

and then her life blew up. And to go get re credentialed as an RN is really hard. And so, you know, she works in a doctor’s office, but she’s not being paid as an RN because she can’t practice as an RN. So, things like that are just difficult. There’s two other clients that hadn’t worked as nurses in a while, but they maintained their credentials, so they were able [00:24:00] to quickly and easily go

and they could just take some brush up courses and things like that, but there’s another client that’s, she’s front and center of my thoughts right now because she spent 20 years at home behind her computer pretending like she had this business that didn’t really generate any income.

And her financial advisor offered her a job. She was very impressed with her and she said no. And so now she’s found herself in a situation where she has to go out into the workforce and she’s very strapped for cash and all she can get is a retail job. She’s an MBA. She’s extremely educated. once upon a [00:25:00] time, had great work experience, but because she let those 20 years kind of lapse and didn’t capitalize on a great opportunity, she’s really in an unfortunate situation now.

That’s, that’s interesting. It actually brings to mind one of the members on our service team, a wonderful member on our service team, came to usafter she was divorced and it was a career change. She needed to make money and it was kind of through a network thing. Like you had mentioned, networks are really important and, you know, she’s been with us now 10 years.

She’s wow, actually leading the operations team. So, you know, it worked out. It was really good, but I think having someone like you to kind of talk to through it and maybe help give the confidence, I can see a lot of value to that. And you know, you mentioned the words like interview and resume, and I [00:26:00] even cringed when you said those things because I’m thinking, you know, the last time I really put a lot of thought

into those things, it was probably college, which for me is now, uh, 20 years ago. Yeah. And, that’s when people are kind of thinking about it and doing it and talking about it. So, and you have help, right? There’s lots of people there to give you help. And so I think it is a natural progression to say that when your life changes, it’s okay to need help and to find those resources that can help you with those things because they

are intimidating, uou know. So, Kelly, I just want to say that I find what you do to be really inspiring. I think women should feel comfortable reaching out to you. You have your own story. The support that you provide comes from inspiration from your own story, and it’s something that gives you happiness and defines your values.

And I’m sure every day helping women go on to [00:27:00] do the same thing is, you know, really awesome. So, Kelly, tell all of our listeners out there how they can reach out. They can reach me at Kelley@pathwaystofuture.com, but Kelly is k e l l e y and it’s at Pathways to Future, not to the future.com.

Kelley@pathwaystofuture.com, or you can call 3 0 1 3 1 8 6 1 9 1 and I would welcome an opportunity to talk. Thanks so much for joining Kelly, and my contact information for anyone interested in reaching out is Leah, l e a h dot Jones Hightower Advisors with an O A D V I S O r s.com. Thanks so much for listening everyone.

Follow this podcast to know when new episodes are ready, and of course, share with others. Thanks for being with us.[00:28:00]

Thank you for listening to Her Divorce Source with Leah Jones from Hightower Bethesda. Don’t forget to follow the podcast to be notified whenever a new episode is released.

Hightower, LLC as an SEC registered Investment Advisor. Securities offered through Hightower Securities, LLC, member Finra, SIPC. This podcast was created for informational purposes only. In the opinions expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not represent those of Hightower advisors, LLC or any of its affiliates.