3. The Validation Pattern: Why the Good Wife Never Asks the Question

 Melissa Pavone watched her mother hold a family together — and then watched it come apart with no one in her corner.

Stay-at-home mother, then part-time work, present for everything. The glue. When the divorce came, it came as a shock to everyone, including the daughter living in the house. Her mother relied on one attorney. No one guided her financially. No one guided her emotionally.

In this episode, Melissa — Certified Financial Planner, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, and founder of Mindful Divorce Partners — names the pattern underneath that story. Women who organize their worth around being the good wife and the good mother. Women for whom asking a financial question feels like a betrayal of the role. The thing that freezes them is not fear of divorce. It is fear of the unknown, and the shame of not already knowing.

This is validation dependency at the household level. We trace where it starts, what it costs, and what shifts when a woman stops asking to be reassured and starts asking to be informed.

If you recognized yourself, Andi's Validation Pattern Quiz shows you where this pattern lives in your own life.

GUEST
Melissa Murphy Pavone, CFP®, CDFA® — Founder, Mindful Divorce Partners
Book: Divorce by Design — available on Amazon
Website: mindfuldivorcepartners.com
Instagram & TikTok: @mindfuldivorcepartners 

CONNECT
Host: Andi Johnson — Instagram @advance_with_andi
Take the Validation Pattern Quiz — link in bio.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to Boys in Board Rooms. Today we're going to talk about a story that most women have heard some version of. The woman who built a marriage built a home, built a family. She did everything she was supposed to do. And somewhere along the way, she stopped knowing what she actually had, where the money lived, what was in her name, and what would happen if any of it ended. And these are not unintelligent women who live this story. They are women who organize their identity around being a good wife or a good mother. And somewhere in that organizing, the financial conversation became the conversation that a good wife simply does not have. She trusts. She defers. And that's not a personal failure, but it is a pattern. And this pattern has cost women more than I can name in one episode. So today's guest has spent 18 years standing inside the moment that pattern collapses and helping women rebuild before it does. This is her story. And it is also the story of every woman who has told herself that not knowing is the same as being safe. We're about to welcome Melissa Pavon. She watched her mother go through a divorce no one had prepared her for. 18 years later, she is a certified financial planner, a certified divorce financial analyst, the founder of Mindful Divorce Partners, and the author of Divorce by Design, a book that just launched. What Melissa does is interrupt this pattern for other women before, during, and after the marriage finally asks them to know what they should have always known. Welcome, Melissa. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm really glad that you're here. So we are going to dig right into it today. I want to hear a little bit about your mother's story. Tell me more about your mother before the divorce, what you recognized about her, the kind of person that you saw her as a child to be within the marriage.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

My mom was like the heart of the family. Um and she kept us all together running smoothly. Um I was the oldest daughter of a younger brother. Um, and she was the glue that kept, you know, everything going. She was a stay-at-home mom for a long time. Um, and then went back to work when my brother and I were in school full-time. So she worked part-time. Um, but she was there for everything. Um, and it came as a complete shock to all of us. Um myself, my brother, um, friends, and family when we were told that the divorce was happening. I was then in college, 18, when they actually separated. And um I think it goes to show you, right? Sometimes it's very visual, right? And sort of out in the open. Um, and other times it's behind closed doors. And even me living in that household um didn't know what was happening and that the family was falling apart. So she kept literally it all together and we had no indication. And when we did find out, it was sort of like the rug was pulled out from underneath us. But I wished I really knew what I know now back then, right? Because it would have changed, changed her outcome. And I think that's sort of the the moral of the story, right? Is that like it doesn't have to be this way. Um, and that she wasn't told all of her options. She relied on one attorney. Um, and that attorney did not guide her financially or emotionally, and that she would have been more well served if there was a team of people helping her through that process.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

No, that makes sense. And you you hit on a good point about hindsight, right? Hindsight is 2020. So when you look back now, Melissa, with everything that you've learned, what do you think your mother was organizing her life around that, you know, didn't allow her necessarily to reach out for help? Like what was she not allowed to ask at that point that perhaps maybe now you're empowering your clients to ask?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

I I think that people just automatically have that knee-jerk reaction to, you know, if the marriage falls apart, you need a lawyer. And it's definitely a legal issue and definitely mediators and attorneys play a role in it. But my mantra is that it's also emotional and financial, right? And we should need, we need people in those lanes to help us. So if she had more emotional guidance, right? Whether that's a divorce coach or a mental health professional or a CDFA, which back then, 20 years ago, is not a household name, right? Have being having a certified divorce financial analyst, somebody that specializes in just the divorce aspect, uh, the financial aspect of divorce was not well known then, right? It they existed, but it wasn't well known. So that aspect of it, um, and knowing that you can have a team, right? And not just one person, I think, is what I want my clients now to know that it's not just a legal issue and that you can have a team supporting you in all areas of divorce.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

So at some point, women come into your office, they're ready to work with you. What's that pattern that you see when they walk into your office, right? There's got to be something like that thread that pulls them together. What do they have in common?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Fear. And it's not fear of the divorce, it's fear of the unknown, right? Fear that they're gonna make the wrong decision, fear that somebody's gonna be upset with them. You know, women are often the people pleasers of you know, the family and trying to keep it all together. Um and so I think it's you don't you don't get a redo, right? There's not like a take to. So you you only go through this, and usually you write for the most part, you're going through this for the first time. So you don't know, right, what this should look like, what this should feel like, how long is it gonna take, what is it, you know, how how much is it gonna cost? So there's a lot of unknowns. And I think a lot of people go to social media where they hear from friends and family and they hear these horror stories. And they make them the truth, right? And each divorce is so different. And if you think about that, each family is so different. So it shouldn't be cookie cutter, right? So if you were to get divorced and I were to get divorced, our divorces would look really different, right? Our locations are different, our length of marriage is different, you know, our incomes are different, all of those things, kids, no kids, like all of those things play in to the divorce. So when we take advice broadly from sort of the masses, it's not, it becomes your truth, right? But it's not necessarily true, right? So when we work with a team, we really get to customize it for what this looks like for you and your family. And I think that's the key that if we replace the fear with facts and figures, then we start to make decisions from a place of knowledge and education. And that I think is key because that clarity really alleviates that fear and that flight or fight response.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

And you you talk about it in a way, it's a culture, a culture of people who think they know something about divorce or think that you know they can guide you on the way when realistically they can't. So I want to dig a little bit more into this, the cultural, the cultural norm of divorce or the cultural understanding of divorce. You know, you had written when we had talked back and forth, you had said, no one wants to be the one who planned for failure. That's stuck with me, right? Especially women don't want to be the one that planned for failure. Tell me about that phrase and you know, what is the cost of a culture that essentially treats preparation for failure as betrayal or something wrong?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yeah, I think nobody really chooses. People often don't choose divorce, right? It they react to it. So it's really the premise behind the book is to really design it. And divorce doesn't have to define you. Oftentimes we look at our roles in our family as defining who we are, right? And so to be a wife, to be a mom, that's part of our identity. And to think like, hey, this didn't work out. We're not going to have that, you know, white picket fence family, right? And the fear of like, hey, I'm now taking this, you know, nuclear family from my children, right? Not by choice. And so there, there's all these emotions that are caught up with it. And I think that that's the key. We need to recognize the emotional aspect of this because this is a complete restructuring of your whole life, emotionally, financially, and then legally. But we have to do it in that order. So if we if we parse it out, if we take baby steps and say, hey, let's deal with the emotional, right? Let's get us some support. That could be friends, family, a divorce coach, a mental health professional. Let's process these feelings, right? Let's not just react to them, but really absorb them and really dig deep into that emotional support aspect of it. And then you're ready to speak to someone like me, a CDFA, to talk through the finances and that financial clarity. I literally see like people's shoulders like go down, right? And that sigh of relief to say, like, okay, like thinking they're terrified and meaning, like, okay, like now I understand, right? Because we're not operating from the place of the unknown. We're replacing some of those. And again, I always say, I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know what it's gonna look like, but we together can illustrate best case scenario and worst case scenario and know realistically we're gonna fall somewhere in between there, right? So you can manage your expectations better so that you are going in eyes wide open. You know what is on the table, what is off the table, what we can ask for, what we can't ask for, where things might land, right? Depending upon it. And I give you the opportunity to discuss what the options are. And I think that's something that is often overlooked if you go right and have a consultation with, you know, everyone says on Facebook, I give me the biggest bat of shark in town, right? I need a pit bull attorney. And their job, right, is to litigate, right? So they want you to go to court, they want you to go through that adversarial process. That's in their best interest, that's what they do best. But that might not be best for you and your family, right? Right. So to know that there are different options out there, so to pick the path, right, that works best for your family and then build a team around that path, right? Because it might be not as adversarial and it could be amicable and we could do mediation or we could do collaborative divorce, right? So there's a lot of information that I want to get from my clients or and even prospects when they're saying, like, hey, can I have a referral? I don't just give three names to like, you know, my favorite attorneys. I want to know more about you and your individual situation so I can pair you up with the best professionals because there's a lot, there's a lot of things that matter, but I think it's important when you're building that team that you like, trust, and respect the professionals on your team because they are going to walk through this very hard journey with you. So you don't want somebody that you're intimidated to call on the phone, right? Or you're scared to ask a question to. You want somebody that's going to meet you where you're at and really help you understand this process because it's not an easy one.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yeah, I mean, I can sense the passion and emotion in your voice when you talk about this because I think what you're ultimately saying, you hire a lawyer, you hire someone else, that's great. They're dealing with the logistics of it. They're dealing with this external piece that needs to be done. But there's this whole internal journey that you're going through. And to not have that handheld support and have someone next to you when you're going through one of the arguably biggest changes, most painful things you might go through in your life, right? Divorce can be equated to death in some instances, right? What your body goes through. That that breakdown of this identity that you have, to have someone along the way and be able to navigate both at the same point, that to me feels like you would be making such a clearer choice on the other side about your finances because you you're able to see the forest through the trees. That's that's the big piece of it here. I think what I'm also hearing, you know, that on this podcast I talk a lot about validation dependency. This seems like validation dependency at the household level, right? This woman who has organized her worth around being the good wife or the good mother or both. And so the financial conversation that needs to take place at the very beginning, it's almost a violation of that role. So does that track with what you see, with what you're seeing when your clients come in?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah. And oftentimes it's shame, right? That sort of freezes them. And a lot of times keep keeps people in very toxic, unhealthy relationships because there's so much shame that they don't know. Oftentimes, and this happens even if you go the litigation route and you go meet with an attorney and say, Hey, you know, I want to hire you. I'm not happy. The first thing they give you is that intake form is your financial affidavit. And it feels like you are taking the SATs again, right? It is long and it is detailed, and they want to know all of your financial details of your life. And oftentimes we don't know. Oftentimes the wife does not know, or one party does not know. And that doesn't mean that they're a bad mom or a bad wife. It just sort of means that we all take roles and responsibilities in the marriage and in the family. And that maybe wasn't one of them. And maybe they know where the checking account is, right? And know where the savings account is and run the day-to-day household and the bills, but maybe they don't know how much is left on their mortgage or who the accountant is or right, who the financial advisor is, because that's someone that the other spouse handled. And so I think that a lot of people stay frozen because of that shame. And I say, like, we're gonna take that shame and we're just gonna brush it off our shoulders because it's not gonna serve us anymore. You can be a good mom and a good wife and still be okay to get divorced and not know all the answers. We can hold those two truths at the same time. One doesn't negate the other. And I I'm still happily married, and I always say my husband has no idea, no idea what shoe size my son is. Right. And but that doesn't make him a bad dad, right? That just means that that's on my task, my to-do list, that I'm in charge of the shoes. And he doesn't have to like fill his brain with those things. And so the same applies for the financial questions, right? Who the CPA is, who the financial advisor is, do we have wills or trusts? You might not know that, but I will hold your hand through that process and we're gonna find out. I look at it as today is ground zero. You're always gonna know more about your financial life moving forward. We don't have to beat ourselves out that we don't know everything.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

That's that's silly. A hundred percent. And I also want to use this as a moment for women who maybe are happily married or maybe they're not and they're contemplating where they want to go. It doesn't make you a bad wife to get educated about these things. It absolutely does not, right? You maybe are validated for, like you said, for knowing the shoe size or keeping the kitchen running or whatever it is that feels like a more traditional role. I think we as women need to step outside of that box a bit and say, look, we can also know, like you said, the CPA and we can understand the books and we can start asking our husbands these questions and they may push back on us and it might feel a little bit uncomfortable, but we're empowering ourselves. A lot of these women will go on and get married again, I'm sure, right? There's a lot of people that go on, maybe some will not. Now they'll know. They'll go into their next, their next partnership. And it's okay. It's okay if they, you know, set up set it up with an even financial, you know, footing from the beginning, right? You're empowering them also to move forward and make better choices of future.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

And just because, yeah, I love that you what you said there. And just because you were not the CFO of the family, right? Doesn't mean you can't be. It doesn't mean we can have that shared responsibility. And I think the key is really communication. And I tell my clients, communication is key. And we don't have to make it, you know, if you are happily married or even if you're not happily married, right? But we still have a right to talk about it. And I try to make it fun. I say, you know, let's call it a financial date night, do it quarterly, grab your favorite takeout, get a bottle of wine, and say, like, hey, where are we at? Right. Who are the professionals in our lives? God forbid something were to happen. What happens? Where are the documents, the passwords, who are the people? And that's really important, right? Nobody wants to talk about that sort of if we're gonna get divorced or if one of us passes away, but it happens, right? And and we don't want to wait until something bad happens to have those conversations. So if we make it light and say, hey, we're planning a family vacation, let's also take a snapshot, an inventory of where we're at, right? Financially. Are we on track to retire? You know, do we have enough money for that home renovation? It doesn't have to be heavy and dreaded or, you know, financial secrecy. It could be just a simple conversation over dinner that allows us to have that better flow of communication around money and finances.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

And it strengthens the partnership too. I think finances are one of the number one predictors of divorce in the first place. So it's so interconnected, it's an ecosystem. So the more that you can open up and start talking about that earlier on, I think the better off. You know, you end up you end up being in the marriage long term.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

I did want to ask you, you've spent 18 years kind of studying this pattern um from the inside. Obviously, you're, you know, you're still happily married, like you said, but what has watching it kind of taught you about your own life, separate from marriage, watching these women and seeing what they're going through, you know, how has that contributed to the work that you've done on yourselves or the place that places that you're still doing that work?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yeah, I I think it is very clear that it doesn't end, right? It's we have to continue to continue that work on ourselves, both within and with our relationships. And I think one of the things that is most important is sort of our relationship with money, right? Um, and it's something that we don't talk about generationally. We don't talk about, you know, how much money we make or, you know, what we have. It's very, you know, we show people right by the houses and the cars and the pocketbooks, but we don't necessarily talk about sort of behind closed doors. So just really expanding and making it less taboo to talk about it, right? I think that's really important. I think the communication with your partner is really important. And and honestly, I think it's funny that the work that I do now with divorced couples makes the fights that I have with my husband very trivial, right? They're not as big, right? And sort of as like, hey, you know, he hates the way I load the dishwasher, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Like, and like that's okay. In my house too.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

I'm the one that's like the rabid raccoon, not like rinsing the dishes. Um so I I am grateful for the work that I do because I see some of the things that, you know, were really big. It puts them into perspective for me and my family. Um, but it really goes back to that communication being key.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yeah, absolutely. So let's look at the positive side of this. So obviously, women come to you, they're coming to you from a place of fear, but you eventually get them to this other place, right? And they've worked through, I'd like to say we're talking about the validation dependency a bit too. I think they've found a new identity in themselves in a way and are able to step into that. And now they have control of their finances. So, what changes in a woman in your experience when she sees this pattern she's been living inside? Not the long arc, but like what's that first shift? And then what do you see longer term?

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yeah, I mean, I love it. I I literally sometimes can see, even over Zoom or if they're, you know, sitting at my desk in person, that spark where they go from like, Am I going to be okay? to, hey, I think I got this. Like I am gonna be okay, right? And that I am, that affirmation of like, I am taking control and I am taking the steps to move forward is so powerful and has a ripple effect, right, throughout their whole life, not just when it comes to money, but just education and empowerment in general. And that is so rewarding to me when they when they step in to write their new self, right? And that new normal. And it's not easy. It's, you know, I say it's emotionally draining, it's financially draining, but it's so rewarding when people say, okay, like here I am now. Like this is my retirement account, right? This is my house. This is my and and that just warms my heart because we're also becoming role models, right? For that next generation and that independence. And I think, like you said, they will take that into their next relationship, right? That that freedom, that empowerment, that education, and learn from their past. Um, Which I think is really important. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

And teach their daughters and their sons. Right. That's a big one too. So absolutely. Okay. Now I want to dig a little bit into your book, right? You have a new book. It's just launched. It's called Divorce by Design. Um what what did you want this book to do that no other book in this space is doing? What's what's its differentiation?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

I think that I just wanted to debunk the myth of like we just go straight to an attorney. And I love attorneys and they're a very important piece of this puzzle, but they're not the only piece. And to let clients know that they need a team. And oftentimes people think they can't afford a team, right? They're like, I just I can't afford three people. Yeah. And I break it down for them and I say, hey, the attorney is the most highest paid person on the team. And rightfully so. They went to law school, right? But you do not want them to go over that financial affidavit with you, to go over your document, your financial documents with you, because I can do that. That's my zone of genius. And I can do it in half the amount of time. And my rate is half what the attorney's rate is. So it just becomes more efficient. And likewise, if you're spending an hour with me and we're supposed to go over the finances, you don't want to waste time talking about what happened at the bus stop or at the birthday party or the text exchange, right? Because one, I'm not going to give you good advice because that is not my area of expertise and I don't have those tools and resources. But you can spend a time with a divorce culture and mental health professional that's probably half of my rate. So if we do this strategically, we can have emotional support, financial support, and legal support. And by the and the order is super important too to start by getting grounded, right? Because then you can make smart financial decisions. And once we're have a clear financial clarity, like of the financial landscape, then we can choose which path do we want. Do is this acceptable for mediation, right? Should we do collaborative? Should we try the sol agree process? Or do we have to do litigation? And do we need a litigator? So we sort of then through this process of uncovering everything, choose who the next, you know, what the path is and who the next team member is to be put on the team. And then they do what they do best. And they're ready, right? We already did the financials, we're already grounded, we're not sort of rehashing the past, we're just ready to move forward and we're being more efficient. And that's I think the key there because we often start with the attorney, the clock starts, and then your retainer's halfway through and nothing has been done. And you're like, why? Right? Why? Because we weren't emotionally grounded, we didn't do the, we didn't have financial clarity, we didn't even get to any legal processes, right, or options yet. So I think the book is really for the end user of somebody who is quietly thinking about divorce, of how to build your team, who those people are, and why is it so important to feel supported throughout the process.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

That is great. And thank you for all of your insights today. I think we have obviously women who are preparing for a divorce or thinking about it, maybe women who are even going through a divorce and need some help right now, but just women in general, women in general to be empowered to have the conversation with their partner, to look at their life and think about their finances and know that they can be in control and that's a role that they can hold too without it having any reflection on them. I think that's really what I'm taking away from this conversation. And Melissa, if people want to find you, what's the best way to find you? Is it Facebook, Instagram? Where can we find you and learn more about you?

SPEAKER_01 25:43

I'm on Instagram and TikTok. Um you can buy my book on Amazon. It's called Divorce by Design. And then my website has all the information there. It's just mindful divorcepartners.com.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Okay. We will make sure to put all of this in the show notes for our listeners too. So thank you, Melissa, for again for your insights and for joining me today. And thank you to all who are listening to Boys and Boardrooms. We will catch you next time. Thanks.