Wellness Curated
On Wellness Curated, Anshu Bahanda gets world renowned experts on physical and mental health to guide you pro bono. Packed with content that helps people to understand their bodies and minds better and to find relief from the pain and restrictions that have long prevented them from living their best lives, this show is a go-to resource for anyone who wants to improve their quality of life.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Wellness Curated
S8 E3 | From Breakup to Breakthrough
This week on Wellness Curated, host Anshu Bahanda explores a sensitive yet crucial topic— ending long-term relationships. Joining the discussion is the president of Vardags— Ayesha Vardag, bringing expert insights to our listeners.
Divorce, a journey filled with emotional highs and lows, can sometimes be a necessary escape from toxic relationships. In this episode, 'Britain’s top divorce lawyer' highlights the causes of relationship breakdowns, signs of a failing marriage, the encompassing nature of abuse beyond the physical, and the strategic benefits of prenuptial agreements. Moreover, she discusses why we shouldn't view divorce as failure. Her advice is a blend of personal and professional experiences, enriched by handling numerous high-stakes cases.
Interestingly, did you know that certain professions, like gaming managers and bartenders, have the highest divorce rates? This fact adds another layer to our understanding of relationship dynamics.
This episode offers valuable perspectives for those contemplating divorce. It guides you through the process, highlighting key considerations to avoid pitfalls in this complex journey.
Tune in for an enlightening episode that could change your view on separation and divorce. Watch now for invaluable advice and insights (https://youtu.be/KfcavpDl920).
For a transcript of this show, go to https://wellnesscurated.life/from-breakup-to-breakthrough/
Reach out to our expert: https://vardags.com/
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Anshu Bahanda: Welcome to another episode of Wellness Curated. This is your host, Anshu Bahanda, and as you know, with this podcast, we try and get you tools, techniques, tips, and ideas that will help you lead a healthier, happier and more hopeful life. This season, we're actually focusing on social wellbeing and today's topic is something that is very dear to my heart because a lot of my friends and family have gone through this. Our topic is ‘Breakup to Breakthrough.’ And we're going to be staring at the challenging waters of separation in a relationship and also revealing the silver linings that could accompany what seemed like life's most difficult moment. We're going to be talking about this pain of parting and also the strength of renewal. And I have a fabulous lady to help us do that. We have the president of Vardags and the founder, Ayesha Vardag, to share her expert advice. She specialises in high net worth cases. She's known as Britain's top divorce lawyer and she's celebrated for being very strong in court, savvy in business and a strategic thinker. And these are qualities that make her excel in her field. Welcome to the chat Ayesha, and thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us.
Ayesha Vardag: Thank you very much for having me. It's my pleasure.
AB: So, Ayesha, I'm going to start with a question you probably get asked a lot. So from what I have seen from friends and from family, some of the common reasons for divorce are cheating, growing out of each other, feeling like we've grown apart. Sometimes it's family interference like in Asian societies. You tell me, have I missed any of the common reasons?
AV: I think, fundamentally, the reason that people break up is that they have stopped being the person that they fell in love with. And that can manifest itself in a variety of different ways. It can manifest in infidelity, it can manifest in the death of the sexual relationship, it can manifest in bickering and bad temper and all of that under lack of connection. But ultimately it all comes down to the fact that it's no longer the person that you married. Very often it's because of changes in life, which result from everybody actually trying their best. Say you'll have a mother who gives up her career in which she was independent, and fun, and lively, and in society; and [later] was attracted, as that person, to her husband. She then devotes her life to the children because that's for the good of the family. She really concentrates on them. She makes sure that she looks after them all herself, but in that way she withdraws from the marital partnership, and from that connection. And then you have the man who's thinking: I need to provide for my family. I'm going to throw myself more and more into my work, into my business, so I can get ahead. But then that way he also withdraws from the marital partnership. So it's people no longer really focusing on each other within the relationship and growing apart. And then you have an alienation that, as I say, has these many symptoms, but they are just symptomatic.
AB: Is that mostly what you see 90% of the time?
AV: Yes, absolutely. There might well be infidelity, there might well be a change in behaviour, or there will stop being intimacy in the relationship, there will start to be bad temper. But fundamentally, it always strips back to, he's no longer the man I married, she's no longer the woman I married.
AB: And do you ever say to someone, we don't think this marriage is over?
AV: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, if there isn't some form, if it hasn't transpired into some form of abuse, which unfortunately it so often does, whether that is physical or emotional, whether it results in a sort of controlling behaviour or a fundamental unkindness, if it hasn't got to that, then we'll pretty much always say, ‘Why don't you have another look at this? This can be just a bad phase that you're going through. Why don't you look at the factors that have led to this and just go and see about it?’ There is so often a lot that can be done, and when it can be, then I try to do it.
AB: Thank you. And tell me, are there situations where you're like, ‘No, you've got to get out’? Like you just mentioned, abuse.
AV: Yeah. If there's fundamentally abuse, which doesn't have to be physical, as I say it, it can be just an unkind undermining. I listened to a recording of a client. She was referring to physical violence that [her partner] perpetrated on her, and he was going on and on and on about how this was her fault because she was so annoying and so difficult. Once you have someone like that, you really, really want to get your client away from them as fast as you can. And it goes into not just things that are related to physical violence, it goes into just that sort of, ‘You're so stupid, you're so useless, you don't deserve to be in this marriage.’ Those kinds of undermining things which can come from either side and it can come from women as well, to men. ‘You're so rubbish, it's no wonder you got fired. You're not making any money to provide for this family, this kind of thing.’ And so, yes, when you have that deeply undermining unkindness within a relationship, it's actually quite hard to get away from that. In that case, it's quite a toxic dynamic and it's better that people get out.
AB: Ayesha, from what I've seen of a lot of couples, right, you bring out the best in each other and you bring out the worst in each other. Right? So there are times when people in the heat of the moment say things that they don't mean. So for you, as a lawyer, it must be really hard to be able to separate when they've just been a couple and bickering, and when it's actual real abuse.
AV: Yeah, and to some extent, depending on how extreme the abuse is, but to some extent, it depends on the long term pattern of behaviour rather than on any one incident. All couples can have bad days and everyone can say things they don't mean when they are… Or even that they do mean when their partner has wound them up or external factors have made them very stressed. I think it's much more to do with a systematic approach of unkindness and once you're dealing with someone that is making you unhappy because they are being systematically cruel to you that's when you need to get out and try to find another way to be happy and get away from that toxic influence in your life.
AB: So, Ayesha, I think that's a very important message to all our listeners, to the women and men that if they feel that there is a toxic relationship then they need to seek advice. In different parts of the world, I know this is going to be different, but can you tell us about some of the common misconceptions people have about divorce and about the whole legal process?
AV: One of the most common misconceptions is the idea that adultery will make a difference. Of course it makes a big difference in some countries, particularly in countries, for example where there is Islamic law that's prevalent. But in most of Europe, for example, in England, and most of Europe and in the United States generally, largely, adultery makes absolutely no difference to the financial distribution or indeed to where the children will reside. It's all about who needs what for the money in order to maintain their life or indeed, if it's an equitable distribution country, just how to share it out. But that doesn't depend on who behaved badly, who behaved well, et cetera, unless it's very extreme. But adultery for England and most of Europe doesn't count as one of those extreme cases. Similarly, another element that people often get wrong is the idea that, well, whoever made the money is the one who's going to get most of it. Whereas actually, throughout, as I say, much of Europe and very much in England and the United States, is this sense of equitable distribution, that marriage is a partnership. That whether or not you're the one who made the money, or you're the one who gave up your career, or even if you didn't do that, if you just put your energy into building a home, which then enabled the other party to go out and make the money, you are an equal partner. And that money that you built up together, whoever's name it is in, is something that you are entitled to, your fair share, of which is generally, broadly, half. Statistically, it's still largely the husband that has the money that's been built up over the course of the marriage as opposed to inherited wealth. You'll very often have the husband say ‘She didn't lift a finger to do this. I was working away at all this. All she did was hang about at home and she had a nanny.’ And I think they're being very generous and saying, ‘Of course I want her to have a nice house and enough to be able to live comfortably on.’ But they certainly don't imagine sharing out what's been built up over the course of the marriage. And then similarly, the wife will be thinking, ‘Well, it's all in his name and he built it up, so how am I going to live going forward?’ And it's always quite shocking messages, often to both parties, that this really is viewed as partnership assets almost like a commercial partnership. And what you've built up together will broadly be divided out between you, as if, well as the fruits of that marital partnership. That's something that people very often just don't realise.
AB: The other thing I want to ask you, I recently discovered a term called conscious uncoupling. I'm sure you've heard it a few times and I think it was made famous by Gwyneth Paltrow in 2014. It was coined by someone called Katherine Woodward Thomas. Essentially, tell me if I'm wrong, but it's when a couple wants to go through an amicable separation or divorce, and every single negative internal, any anger or any irritation, is dealt with as a negative internal object that almost needs healing. Is that right?
AV: I actually didn't know about it in that degree, of sort of psychological detail. I was more aware of just the very broad brush approach of this sort of respectful, gentle kind of moving apart as popularised by Gwyneth Paltrow. And I remember when that came out there was a lot of, you know, slack and a lot of ideas that this is just this kind of Californian New Age rubbish. But I really think that it does have a lot of validity. I think one of the problems in divorce is the idea that someone must be at fault, someone must have done something terrible in order for this dreadful failure to occur. Whereas, actually very often, it is simply that people evolve, people have their road to go along. At a certain point their paths might diverge. The idea that somebody has to get sort of lambasted for that and criticised and that there has to be hatred and anger in that divergence of the ways is where it goes wrong. And if people can say ‘Look, love, we just don't fit together anymore. I think we're going in different directions. I love you, I think you're wonderful, but let's take a break now, at least in this aspect of our living together, of our relationship.’ Obviously, if you've got people with children that relationship is going to go on one way or another and so you'll still have a bond. You'll still be in some ways a family for the rest of your lives. But that part, that close intimacy of you are my one special person, that comes to an end. But there's no reason why that has to be cruel or unkind or angry. It can be loving and respectful and considerate, and that is really how it should be. I think getting rid of the idea that divorce is a failure, that actually having someone leave you is a failure, rather than a recognition that paths will diverge. Somebody's going to realise that sooner than the other, but that's not anybody's fault and there's no need to punish anyone. That would be a real step forward.
AB: That's very well said, Ayesha— getting rid of the idea that divorce is a failure, that's very well put. I want to ask you about another thing. So say someone does go through an amicable divorce, and I've seen this at least in two cases, if not three; these people have decided that for whatever reason, have decided to part ways that divorce has been amicable. But when one of the partners or ex partners formalises a relationship with someone else, that's when it stops being amicable.
AV: That is often the case just because people are so hurt. It's very difficult to be rational, to be compassionate, to be sort of calm about the situation if you're feeling rejected. And inevitably, people think, well, so she or he— are they better than me? And they go into a sort of vortex of self doubt. And it is as much about that as it is about the sense of the loss of the other person. But it's also just that human thing of— it's one thing to be distanced from your special person, but the minute they hook up with somebody else, it's a proper shift of allegiance. And that sense of irrevocability is what's so hard to take. So, yeah, that is usually when it goes wrong. Again, I think, if people could, and it's so much easier said than done, but if people could rationalise that as well and say, look, the fact is relationships as I've said, relationships can diverge, relationships can go stale. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or with them necessarily, but it may be that a different sort of thing, a different sort of person is the right fit for another time of life. And just to be kind of philosophical about it, it would help a lot. But people take things so personally and it's with pain and anger and fear about the future that all of this bad feeling comes in.
AB: That's so true. Now, there's been many, many studies and a lot of research that the relationship of the parents affects the child a lot. So how do you think a child's well being should be prioritised? What suggestions do you have for a couple that's decided to go their separate ways?
AV: The most important thing is that they don't start using the children as pawns in the game. They don't start saying ‘Oh, daddy's being so horrible, daddy's being so mean to mummy.’ They don't start saying, ‘Mummy's being greedy or mummy's crazy.’ This sort of thing doesn't start becoming a feature. The other thing that's absolutely dreadful is sometimes we'll have someone come to us and say… And this is the way it goes generally, is the mother will say, ‘Well, why don't I withhold custody and time with him and kind of hold the children hostage for more money?’ Or the husband says, ‘Well, I don't really want 50-50 custody, but I'm going to say that I want it because that way I can negotiate a smaller payout to her.’ I actually won't act in those cases because I think it's fundamentally morally wrong and that as a divorce lawyer, you have a responsibility. But it's remarkable how much people will actually try to use the children as pawns in the game or sort of bargaining chips or as I say, the other way is just to vent their own feeling on the children. That's also partly what happens. I think sometimes it's especially hard for women because often their role is so defined by the relationship with the children. It's especially hard for them to see their children going off and being with another woman, the new girlfriend or partner or whatever. I mean, I remember going through that myself, actually, when I had my divorce. Eventually my husband got a new girlfriend. And when they would come to the door, sending my two little boys off with them, and I'd be like, ‘There you go. Go and have fun. Go and have a lovely time.’ And just dying inside. Because you have that sense that, well, maybe they'll like her more than me or maybe they have a better setup than I do and it'll be more fun and then they won't love me as much. So all of that is extremely traumatic, I think, especially for mothers. And you just have to rise above it and not take the opportunity to take shots at the new woman and make the children feel she's horrible, you shouldn't like her. You need to set them up to go and be happy with their new situation, with the changes, be really positive about all of them and never, never feel that the children are going to be asked to take sides between their parents because that's what just destroys them. Beyond that, actually, it can be really much better for children that parents separate, much better that than that they have a bitter environment or they see one or other of the parents being unkind to the other, speaking to them badly, speaking to them without respect, because then they learn a pattern of relationships that's very bad. It's better for them to be out of that negative environment with negative learning patterns and have two peaceful parents that are apart from each other but very loving to the children and providing a haven for the children without that acrimony within it. And that's very, very important. Children are so adaptable, but they just need to feel loved and feel that their parents aren't battling with each other. And actually, one of my sons, he wrote an article about the benefits of being a child of divorced parents and about how you get to see each of your parents as an individual, as a human being, and to understand some of their psychological imperfections, which makes you feel better about your own imperfections. You relate.
AB: Wow.
AV: Yeah, it was a very sort of perceptive piece. And at the end of the day, you also get double sets of holidays and double sets of Christmases. But I think that divorce doesn't have to ruin anyone's life, actually, and it can just be the beginning of a positive new chapter for everyone.
AB: Thank you for saying— that divorce doesn't have to ruin anyone's life. It could be the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. Now tell me, you do a lot of very high net worth individual’s divorces. Some of these people are very public. There's all this social media around them. So in this digital age, do you find that in terms of evidence gathering and privacy, is that a big concern for people from high profile backgrounds?
AV: Yeah, very much so, because the press just loves to have these very personal details about people's lives and sometimes they'll pick these up in the divorce courts, if you end up with a press in there, which can be hugely embarrassing, much more personal, much more revealing than people would want. And there is a trend, for example, in England to make divorce hearings more public, with the idea that greater transparency will help people to settle their cases, except they are still protecting the anonymity of children, largely. But the financial cases can involve all sorts of very personal things. So that is a tough part of it. Plus, you'll have one or other of the parties leaking things to the press quite a lot of the time, fervently denying it. But of course, you can see, well, this obviously came from this person because it's favourable to them, or from that person because it's favourable to them. And then you'll have the sort of vindictive, I mean, either well, there's the revenge porn side of things, but there's also just general revenge nastiness going about. And as I said, because I think the press in a lot of countries, certainly in the UK, has really become quite vindictive, and sort of enjoying a sort of, schadenfreude, of making people feel good by seeing other people feel bad. And so the papers will really lap up this nasty stuff. And I think it's a great pity because it contaminates everyone's perspective, it contaminates the process. It's very, very damaging for the families and for the children.
AB: And tell me, in terms of sort of divorce, finance becomes a big issue right, the financial settlement. So when people are getting married, do you think prenups help? And having said that, I know prenups are not valid everywhere across every legal entity, is there something that can help? What would you recommend to people who are getting into marriages?
AV: I mean, having been the person who actually changed the law in England and made prenups work in England, in the Radmacher case in the Supreme Court, it would be hypocritical of me to say I didn't support them. But, and indeed, for myself, it's quite public that my husband and I chose to have a prenup and a postnup for good measure, just to really make the point that we were entering into our marriage as very independent individuals and we would make our own arrangements and we wanted to keep the court out of whatever we were doing. Yes, I think everybody should, if at all possible, have a prenuptial agreement, because it does mean that you make your own arrangements between you. Otherwise you're inviting the court, a public body, a public institution, to arbitrate on your situation when they may know very little about the realities of your relationship, the realities of your history, or of what would actually be what you would most care about. And so I simply think it's quite wrong to rely on that state default. It's not as if you don't effectively. When you have a state marriage, you're entering into a default contractual regime. There's a state regime, and I think it's immensely preferable to have your own regime that you've established between you. It also means everybody knows what they're getting into. And it means that if there's a fundamental mismatch between people's expectations, if you've got one party who says, ‘Well, no, if I make the money, you're not going to be entitled to any of it, I'll make sure you’re looked after, but don't imagine that you're going to have a share of what I built up.’ Well, then you get to decide, well, am I happy with this attitude or what? Or am I happy, when it comes to it, with me giving up my career or giving up X or Y, fantastic opportunity abroad or whatever, in order to further his or her career, when they aren't wanting to be generous with me, when they aren't going to view me as an equal partner. So it just helps people to make decisions that are well informed and then to agree to them. And once they've agreed them, at a time that they love each other, they respect each other, they want to be together, then it's already all sorted for the worst of times, and then that's when, hopefully, your prenup just stays in the drawer and you never look at it again. But if things do go wrong, you pull it out of the drawer and it's like, right, we know what's happening now. We don't need to get a lawyer to argue about this, maybe you get a lawyer just to implement it, but you know what's happening and you don't need to worry. And that saves you a year and a half, two years of bitter squabbling, vast amounts of legal fees and the stresses that go along with that stress on the whole family. So, yes, I absolutely advocate having prenups.
AB: And are there any ways that you can suggest that divorce doesn't have a huge financial impact? A lot of couples don't have prenups and will not have prenups. And then there are jurisdictions that they might land up living in where the prenup is not valid, like India, for example.
AV: I mean, you have to plan at every stage. So if you're going to go and live in a country where prenups aren't valid, or the default regime is very bad for you, you have to prepare for that in some way. Whether that's getting assets put into your own name or sort of carved out or ring-fenced, you have to plan properly. And how you plan is going to depend on which jurisdiction you're in. The other thing, you mentioned jurisdiction, and that's incredibly important because there are often several jurisdictions in which a divorce could take place. And what's going to matter is getting them quickly, getting the divorce quickly into the right jurisdiction and then really reinforcing. I mean, when we did Pauline Chai, the former Miss Malaysia's case, which is in the public record, she was going to get nothing in Malaysia and her husband was pushing very hard for her case to be heard in Malaysia. And Malaysian courts kept saying, ‘Yes, yes, you're going to have your case heard here.’ And we pushed and pushed and raced in England, and the difference was 64 million. She got a reward of 64 million. So it really matters… Between nothing and 64 million, It really matters to get into the right jurisdiction. And that's, again, something that you have to plan about. So if you think you're about to divorce, consult lawyers, good lawyers, and make sure that you start your divorce in the right place, you start it in a timely manner, because that can make all the difference. But, yes, I mean, I'd say apart from jurisdiction and prenups and just being careful about where you move to, there's not a lot more that you can do, because it's not as easy to hide assets as people think. The world is extremely transparent now. It's very difficult for people to hide money now. So you just have to look at careful planning.
AB: Thank you. Thank you for that. Also, when a couple is going through a divorce, so some of the things they argue about, as we said, was finances. It's kids. What else could possibly be a bone of contention that you've seen with your experience so often?
AV: Keeping the home in particular, especially when it's a big part of the asset base, that's a particular bone of contention and it's one which you can sort of leverage either way. The woman can agree to take a bit less of the other money in order to keep the home. The man can sort of do it that way if that's the way round it goes. And I do feel a bit bad about talking about women and men in this way because it is really just claimants and respondents. It's just that statistically women are still predominantly the claiming party because society hasn't become equal enough to change that yet. At some point it will. There are other sometimes very silly things that people get very excited about. There was one woman who had been granted this fantastic home and she was very happy about it, but they were fighting about some mirrors. There were antique mirrors, but, I mean, they are worth that much. And it really wasn't the fact that these mirrors were especially valuable, but the woman kept saying, no, ‘But they'll leave this sort of faded patch on my walls and I can't bear that. I don't want this faded patch on my walls, so I have to keep the mirrors.’ I said, ‘Let's just get some other mirrors. There's this vast amount of money that you're getting. Just get some other mirrors.’ And it took quite some time to persuade her that she could actually replace those mirrors.
AB: Ayesha the other thing I want to ask you about is your take on marriage, actually, because my older child is 25, my daughter, and I know you've got young adults as children. And their generation has… Some of them have a very different view of marriage. There's all kinds of contractual arrangements that happen. It's not marriage; it isn't seen the way it used to be in our generation or maybe even in the generation above us. Even a lot of my friends have said they had very different arrangements. What is your view on marriage and how important do you think that is?
AV: I think that marriage, per se, is not important unless it's important to the individual or the couple in a religious or cultural way, in which case that informs that decision. But this social study determined that the 60s and 70s decoupled sex and marriage— so it was no longer seen as shocking to have sex without marriage; and the 80s and 90s decoupled having children and marriage so that it stopped being an issue to have children out of wedlock, as it were. And so there has stopped being, within large tracts of society, any social imperative to marry. And what you get from marriage is a huge raft of legal obligations that you may not be very well informed on and a need to, well very often, engage lawyers, to engage the state, to engage a ton of bother in order to get out of it again. I have sort of experience with this, too. My first marriage broke up. It was a big acrimonious affair with lawyers and going to court and all the rest of it. My second very significant relationship, which was the live-in relationship of six years, and it produced my absolutely lovely daughter; we didn't get married, and so when things came to an end, it was actually pretty simple. And it was like, no, I think we're done. And off we went, and we just arranged who was going to see her and when, and there was nothing else to be done. And it made it much, much easier, much less stressful. And I actually went, now I'm with my third husband, as it were, as I put it. And we, for a very long time, didn't want to get married because he'd been married before and I'd been married before, and we thought, no, we don't want to do that. What actually shifted it was not us planning to have children ourselves, which we weren't worried about. It was more about our respective stepchildren. Because I think nowadays, when you have combined families like that, it's very binding for them to feel. And the children from both sides walked us up the aisle and sort of gave us to each other, as it were. And then there's a sense of participation in that and being a proper family unit. And had we not had that imperative, I don't think we would have got married again. Because it was just that sense of, well, what's the point? It's just a load of bother that we don't need. But I think there are circumstances in which it gives a structure and a sort of a legal binding together that can be helpful when there aren't enough bonds of habit or of growing up together there already.
AB: It gave structure to the whole family, is what you're saying to all the children? Lovely!
AV: That's right, it was really lovely because they walked us up the aisle together. I've never liked the idea of being given away by anyone so what they said was that we got the priest to say, ‘Who bringeth this woman? We do.’ And then, ‘Who bringeth this man? And his children said, ‘We do.’ And it was very lovely and it reflected the spirit of what we wanted so, yes, I think there is a place for those ceremonies and there is a place having the legal element and there is a place sometimes with religious or cultural expectations, I think if there isn't any of that, then it's sort of why bother? You can have a lovely charming ceremony of commitment without having to get all of that legal baggage attached to you.
AB: Wonderful. That was so lovely. My final question to you: what is one indispensable piece of advice that you would give a couple that's decided to go for a divorce?
AV: Remain respectful of each other. I think that's the most important thing— remain respectful of each other and everything else flows from that. It means that you're reasonable in your negotiations in what you're trying to give. It means you're not unkind about your partner to your children and you're respecting your partner's time with them. And you don't go down that horrible acrimonious route that can just be so cruel and so damaging, and keeps [you away] from your potential, future relationship, in future years when you're trying to coparent or trying even just to be each other's friend. Because actually, as the years pass, a lot of the negative memories fade away and you just think about that person as someone that you want to be well, you want them to be safe, you want them to be happy because you had a bond that never actually goes away. So it's good to try to keep as much of that alive as you can. And yes, the essence is to be respectful of each other.
AB: Wonderful. So at the end of every chat, we do a rapid fire round to summarise the chat. So what are the top three actions you advise against during a divorce?
AV: Using the children as pawns, being vindictive towards each other and feeling that your marriage is a failure and a loss and the end of everything.
AB: Is it possible to have a peaceful, even amicable divorce? And one message that you feel might help people steer their relationship through choppy waters with grace.
AV: It's absolutely possible to have an amicable divorce. I've seen people even meeting together, both sides with their lawyers agreeing. And actually, afterwards, the chap went out and bought the woman a diamond ring, just sort of to show that he loved her even though they were passing. You can absolutely have an amicable divorce, but if you are looking at divorce, you should consider carefully and think, is this just a phase? Is this something that we might get through? Is there still something here on both sides of genuine love that would enable us to find each other again? Because if you can, then that's very much worth doing.
AB: Thank you, Ayesha. That was such an informative chat. I hope it helps lots of people. And I'll end with your one amazing advice when people are contemplating divorce, and that is— respect. So thank you for that, Ayesha, thank you.
AV: This has been such a pleasure. It was so lovely of you to invite me.
AB: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to us today. We hope you learned something new and please subscribe and like our podcast. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel so we can get you more and more speakers and provide this service for free. I would also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email with any questions, any topics, suggestions that you might have. My email address is: Anshu@Wellnesscurated.Life. Thank you so much and I'll see you next week. Stay well.
