This Founder Built a $10M Business While Her Marriage Fell Apart — Jennifer's Inspiring Comeback Story

We spoke to 'Jennifer' (this is a pseudonym btw) in this week's episode of Moneywise.

Jennifer built a thriving consulting business over the past several years after shifting from journalism to the business world. Despite facing a difficult divorce after discovering her husband's infidelity, she maintained her positive outlook and financial independence.

Like all Moneywise episodes, Jennifer breaks down her net worth, income, portfolio, and monthly expenses and then I, your humble host, pick it all apart.

We also went deep on: how to handle finances during a divorce, the importance of choosing the right partner, and finding happiness after a painful betrayal.

Below you'll find my summary of the episode along with the entire transcript.

And by the way...this podcast, the concept of it came from Hampton, a community I founded where CEOs and business owners come together in small groups to help each other grow. Hampton members range from people with newish startups doing $3M+ in revenue all the way up to publicly traded companies with hundreds of millions in revenue and thousands of employees. Because of Hampton, I get to see these private conversations about business, money, success, and life. I figured some of these private conversations should be public, which is why I started this podcast. If you're a CEO, founder, or business owner, check this out. New Moneywise episodes come out weekly.

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Now, below are the notes and the full transcript.

The Numbers

• Starting point when they met:
  • Jennifer's net worth: ~$100,000 (mostly in 401k)
  • Jennifer's salary: ~$95,000/year
  • Ex-husband's net worth: ~$2 million (stock portfolio and real estate investments)
• At the time of divorce:
  • Total combined net worth: ~$20 million
  • Jennifer's business valuation: $19.5 million (her share: ~$8 million with a $1 million loan)
  • Jennifer's additional assets: ~$1 million in retirement and post-tax investments
  • Ex-husband's assets: ~$8 million in Apple stock and investments (with a $1 million loan) + ~$3 million in real estate
• Monthly expenses:
  • During marriage: $3,500-4,000 fixed costs (with a $1,300 mortgage)
  • Jennifer's current expenses: $8,000-9,000/month
  • Current rent: $6,400/month with parking
• Income:
  • Jennifer's salary from her business: $200,000-500,000/year (varying based on profits)

Building a Career and Finding a Partner

Jennifer started her career as a journalist before transitioning to business. "I couldn't decide which of the two to do and I finally thought, well, I'm 21, I'm already broke. Why not be a writer and work at Starbucks now? I can always go into business," she explains. After about five years in journalism, she moved into a growing company that became a leader in its field.

It was after establishing herself professionally that Jennifer met her future husband at an airport in December 2008. She was 35, he was 45, and they quickly connected. "There was something about us that really clicked, and we really got each other. And there were many ways in which we just, we like to spend time the same way. We thought the same way about things, including about money," Jennifer recalls.

They had what seemed like aligned financial philosophies based on wealth-building principles. "We had both kind of absorbed this idea of, you don't make money just to spend it, you make money to make other money," she says. This shared mindset led them to start a condo business together and have frequent discussions about money management.

Financial Dynamics in the Marriage

Despite their seeming compatibility around money philosophies, cracks appeared when it came to actually combining finances. Early in the relationship, Jennifer broached the topic of combining assets: "I just said, you know, let's have a conversation about how we combine assets. And he basically said, I'm not comfortable with that. Like I can't get there yet."

Rather than seeing this as a deal-breaker, Jennifer interpreted it generously, thinking he would eventually come around. "I kind of thought, I'm not after his money, I can make plenty of my own money... I kind of interpreted it in the most generous way possible."

Throughout their marriage, they maintained separate finances with a 50/50 split of expenses. The only shared account contained proceeds from a ski condo they owned together. This arrangement continued even after Jennifer started her consulting business around 2015 and began earning more than her husband.

As Sam Parr points out, this approach seems unusual: "In my opinion, it should all just be one. That's just my opinion though, and I don't really think there's a perfect way to do it. I think what is important, though, is that if you decide to split stuff with your partner, it comes back to that shared vision of how you want to live your life."

Despite accumulating significant wealth together (approximately $20 million combined), they lived relatively modestly. "We lived in the same townhouse he bought in 2003, and he wouldn't let me buy new furniture... We didn't live the way that you would imagine people with a $20 million net worth did," Jennifer explains.

Navigating Betrayal and Divorce

The marriage ended after a shocking betrayal. "He gave me an STD and then lied about it for seven months, while I went to different doctors to try and figure out what it was," Jennifer reveals. When she finally discovered the truth, she took decisive action: "I basically just wrote him a letter and said, I'm moving out. I'm filing for divorce."

With no prenuptial agreement in place, the divorce process involved determining how to split their assets, which included seven properties, Jennifer's business, and their respective investments. Jennifer hired a top attorney to protect her interests, particularly concerning her business.

Rather than engaging in a protracted legal battle, Jennifer opted for a settlement that allowed her to keep her business, her 401(k), and recover the money she had invested in real estate, plus appreciation. Though her lawyer advised against accepting the settlement, Jennifer made a strategic decision: "I was like, I can fight this for two years. It [would] probably cost me 100 to $200,000, and at the end of two years, my business might be worth so much more... I thought to myself, am I really okay with that? In my brain said, there's more money where that came from, cut your losses and bet on yourself and just move on and build your business."

The fact that they had maintained separate finances throughout their marriage actually simplified the divorce process: "It was very, very obvious to point to whose was whose, and we don't have to pay lawyers or accountants to do a calculation."

Life After Divorce and Lessons Learned

After the divorce, Jennifer deliberately created a new life for herself, starting with a beautiful apartment with harbor views. "I thought, I'm comfortable with money, and I'm going to spend money and make a really beautiful life for myself," she explains. Her monthly expenses increased from around $4,000 during her marriage to approximately $8,000-9,000, with $6,400 going to rent and parking.

When asked what wisdom she'd share with her younger self, Jennifer emphasizes the importance of paying attention to how someone handles money in a relationship. "What I discounted was it matters that they be kind. It matters that they care for you... there are people out there in the world who are thrilled to care for somebody, right? And if someone isn't showing you that care, it's not because it's going to warm up and it's going to show up later."

Jennifer's story demonstrates remarkable resilience and the ability to move forward positively after betrayal. She has largely forgiven her ex-husband and focuses on building her own happiness: "Mostly when I think about him, I think the consequences are his own life. I don't think he has lived a happy life. He's a wealthy guy who isn't really enjoying his wealth, and he doesn't have a lot of close relationships."

Other Key Quotes

"I always really thought it was our money if it ever really came down to it. If I ever lost my job or if I ever whatever... I remember he said at the time, of course we were dating, but he said, move here, I'll support us. We'll figure it out."

"It was important to be to kind of be calm and have a lot of space in my life... I think I was just so focused on building the business."

"I took a settlement because it would be over. I just decided to treat it as a bad investment, get my money back and walk away. And I got it in cash."

"In a second or third day I was in this apartment even before I had any furniture. I remember it's this beautiful floor to ceiling windows looked out on the Shelbyville Harbor, and I walked into my living room and... I just thought, I'm so happy that I thought if I hadn't gotten divorced, I never would have found this."

"I think you're better off picking for the now than what you think it could be."

Links You Might Like

• The Millionaire Next Door - Book referenced by Jennifer about wealth-building philosophy

Full Transcript

[00:00:06] Jennifer: There was something about us that really clicked and we really got each other. And there were many ways in which we just, we like to spend time the same way. We thought the same way about things, including about money. So we were just very it felt very familiar.

[00:00:21] Sam Parr: In my opinion, choosing the right spouse or life partner is arguably the most important financial decision that you're ever going to make in your life. There are all sorts of things that couples want to agree on when deciding to tie the knot. Money being the biggest thing. And if you don't see eye to eye, it can quickly become a huge source of conflict.

[00:00:40] Jennifer: So I just said, you know, let's have a conversation about how we combine assets. And he basically said, I'm not comfortable with that. Like I can't get there yet.

[00:00:48] Sam Parr: But even worse, what do you do when it turns out that the person you chose cheated on you?

[00:00:53] Jennifer: He gave me an STD and then lied about it for seven months while I went to different doctors to try and figure out what it was. I basically just wrote him a letter and said, I'm moving out. I'm filing for divorce.

[00:01:05] Sam Parr: So for this episode of Moneywise, we're not going to share the name of the guest. And after you listen to the podcast, you're gonna understand exactly why we did that. So let's call her Jennifer. Jennifer has built a thriving consulting business and is worth around $10 million. She walks us through how she handled every stage of her divorce, both emotionally and financially.

[00:01:24] Jennifer: I took a subtle night kiss. It would be over. I just decided to treat it as a bad investment get my money back and walk away. And I got it in cash.

[00:01:33] Sam Parr: I've had a ton of these money conversations on this podcast, and honestly, Jennifer is in the top 1% of people I've talked to. She's got a positive attitude despite all the crap that she's been through that I frankly find incredibly inspiring. And I think you will too. And as usual, with Moneywise, we're going to get super specific about all of her numbers. So that means how she built her wealth and what her wealth was before and after her divorce.

[00:02:02] Sam Parr: I'm Sam Parr, and this is Moneywise. You can scroll through Instagram for just 30s, and you're gonna see a ton of junk teaching you how to get rich, but none that really explain how to handle life after you've already made a little bit of money. I'm co-founder of a company called Hampton. We're a community of CEOs and business owners, and our members range anywhere from new startups with ten employees all the way up to publicly traded companies with hundreds of millions in revenue. And so, because of Hampton, I'm able to see all of these private money conversations. And frankly, I think some of them should be done in public. Hence this podcast. In Moneywise, we provide advice by speaking to people who have made a ton of money, and they're radically transparent about all of their numbers meaning their monthly expenses, their portfolios, their net worth, all of that type of stuff. But also, and more importantly, all the issues and problems that come with being successful and how they're solving them. And of course, if you're the CEO of a startup or owner of a small company, you're going to be part of a group of eight people who have similar sizes and types of businesses as you. They're also likely going to live near you, and you're going to have access to thousands of other members, as well as hundreds of in-person events throughout the year. So check it out. Join Hampton.com. So as I mentioned, Jennifer has built a thriving consulting business. She had a passion for business early on, but before that she was also interested in journalism.

[00:03:18] Jennifer: I couldn't decide which of the two to do and I finally thought, well, I'm 21, I'm already broke. Why not be a writer at work at Starbucks now? I can always go into business. So about five years of journalism and made my way up through the trenches, interned, freelanced. Ultimately, journalism wasn't a passion. I was just a good writer and wanted to figure out where to plug in. So I moved to Shelbyville.

[00:03:40] Jennifer: Joined this eight person company that became who are the leaders and the field. So fast forward, like 15 years in, I was known in my field. I spoke at conferences.

[00:03:51] Sam Parr: It was at this point in her career that she had met her now ex-husband. So you guys dated for how long?

[00:03:57] Jennifer: We met in December of 2008. I was 35 and he was 45. I really wanted to get married and have a family. That second part obviously didn't happen. So we met in the airport and it was kind of mutual on both sides. And so buying about Valentine's Day, we were saying like, yeah, we're going to get married, that we said, we don't have to rush it. Let's not scare the horses.

[00:04:20] Sam Parr: To go that fast. You must have had a badass meeting at the airport. Was it like a movie?

[00:04:24] Jennifer: Yeah, well, it was funny. I asked him for directions, but when we started talking, we had so much in common. There was something about us that really clicked, and we really got each other. And there were many ways in which we just, we like to spend time the same way. We thought the same way about things, including about money and ways we'll talk about. So we were just very it felt very familiar.

[00:04:45] Sam Parr: What was each of your financial situations when you started dating and then got married?

[00:04:50] Jennifer: So I think I probably made $95,000 a year. When we met, I had about 100,000in my 401 K. I was just kind of putting one foot in front of the other. I'd gotten raises, I got in bonuses. He had started his career and accidentally kind of gone into one high growth company and did that for ten years and then quit to be a ski bum. For two years he'd been investing pretty regularly, so he had two investment properties. One was a ski condo, and one was a six bedroom house that he rented out. And he had a fairly decent stock portfolio, so I don't remember. But if I did ask, you know, my net worth was like 100 grand. His was maybe 2 million, something like that when I met him.

[00:05:36] Sam Parr: In my opinion, it's important that you feel the same way about money as your partner early on before deciding to get married. So, for example, before I got married, I sat down with my wife and we just made a roadmap where we said, all right, so in five, ten, 15, 30 years out, what type of life do we want to have? What are our goals both in terms of what do we want to own? What experiences do we want to have? How would we want to raise our children? What type of values? And then working backwards to say, okay, well, if this is the life that we want, how are we going to afford it? Are you going to work? Am I going to work? Are we both going to work? What are we willing to sacrifice? What are we not willing to sacrifice? How much money do we have to earn to do all of this? And what are we going to have to do in order to get there? It sounds kind of cold, but I think a relationship like a husband and wife, I think it's very similar to having a business partner, which means kind of having a loose business plan that you strategically are aligned on with your partner, and you pivot along the way and you learn from mistakes and you maybe evolve and change your opinion.

[00:06:30] Sam Parr: But generally speaking, you're in agreement on how you want your life to be. I think I've got a successful marriage and I have a successful business relationship with my business partners, and we've all done this exact same thing where we said, here's the values that we think we currently stand for, here's what we want life to look like, and here's what we're both willing to contribute to get that life. And also, more importantly, here's what we're not willing to do. And there's always some type of compromise that comes into play. But at the end of the day, you know what you're willing to do and what you're willing not to do, and you have some type of direction that you are both aligned on. And Jennifer's case, she felt like her and her ex were aligned. In the beginning, it seemed like they were eye to eye on money, and they had a shared vision of the future.

[00:07:12] Jennifer: What we mostly focused on was behaviors and habits and bots and mindsets around money. So it was kind of like a shared understanding of how money works, how compound interest works, how you build wealth. We kind of had both read The Millionaire Next Door and put that into. Obviously, I was nowhere close to a millionaire at the time, but we had both kind of absorbed this idea of, you don't make money just to spend it, you make money to make other money. And that led to us starting a condo business together, having a lot of thoughts and discussions about money. It was all about what we were going to do about money, but it wasn't. So we can have acts. And in fact, I think that's one thing that wound up to be missing was once you've accumulated all this money, what's it for? What are you doing with it? And the realization I have now is for him. It's just to accumulate it. That's the game, and to hold on to it and to make sure nobody takes it away from you. Whereas for me, now that I'm older and frankly have more assets and stuff, it's like, well, let's explore.

[00:08:16] Sam Parr: What did you want?

[00:08:17] Jennifer: I wanted somebody who loved me and I wanted kids, and I didn't want much more than that.

[00:08:23] Sam Parr: What did he want?

[00:08:24] Jennifer: I think he wanted what we talked about. I do think he struggled to be able to have a once I was there, he struggled with having somebody in his space. Once we had assets and more assets and more assets, he struggled to share them to even spend more on himself. So I think there's what you think you want in your head. And then there's how you live it out.

[00:08:47] Sam Parr: For me, when I got married, it was very easy to make that switch from this is your stuff, this is my stuff to everything that we own. It's now ours. In fact, I love bragging about this, but my wife was actually a millionaire before I was, and as I was running my business, I didn't pay myself a lot of money, and she earned way more than me and helped support me. It didn't take long for me to catch up, because I owned a company that I eventually sold for tens of millions of dollars. But when we were young, I was making something like 2 or $3000 a month, and she was making something like 150 to $250,000 a year. And that was a huge gap. So, yeah, of course I didn't want it to be like, this is yours and this is mine because she had more than me. But after we got married, regardless of who had more or whatever, I didn't have a problem sharing it because in my mind we were a unit and this money was ours. It wasn't mine, it wasn't hers, it was ours. We shared it all. In fact, I thought it was weird. There was this one time that my wife asked me kind of for permission to buy something, and I was like, of course you can buy that. It's your money. Why are you even asking me? Go make your own decision. That being said, if each of us wants to purchase something, I would say the threshold is like 2 or $3000. It's sort of expected that we have a conversation that's like, hey, I'm going to go buy this thing. Just letting you know, of course, that threshold, it's different for everyone. So after this quick ad break, I want to hear how Jennifer navigated her threshold and how they decided whose money was. What did they actually share? Did they not share? What did they do? So we'll be right back after this ad break. And Jennifer's case, her ex and her didn't feel the same way about how to share money in their marriage.

[00:10:16] Jennifer: We were driving one day and I said, hey, we should probably have a conversation about like how we want to start combining our assets because we had had a lot of conversations about how are we going to handle the budget.

[00:10:28] Sam Parr: Now, just a reminder at this point, the relationship, Jennifer is worth around $100,000 and he's worth something like 2 million bucks.

[00:10:35] Jennifer: And so I just said, you know, what's hello conversation about how we combine assets. And he basically said, I'm not comfortable with that. Like I can't get there yet. And also that household budget that we made was 5050. I was moving into a house he already owned. So we sat down and like went through, well, the budgets work. But at the time that he said that, I didn't hear in the sense that I, I kind of thought, I'm not after his money, I can make plenty of my own money. And I thought, out of everything that's good in this relationship, this isn't ideal. I need to die on it. It really wasn't a stopping point for me. Now I realize that there was something in there about shared purpose, commitment, generosity of spirit. Like someone being all in with both feet that I didn't know how to read. I kind of interpreted it in the most generous way possible and said, that's fine, we can run our life that way. I'm comfortable with that. I really thought that, you know, a couple years would go by and he'd be more comfortable with it. So I just thought, you'll come around to it. He'll be used to being married, but that didn't happen.

[00:11:42] Sam Parr: Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to care. Would you care for the other person if shit hit the fan? Emotionally and financially, that was when a lot of red flags started to go off for Jennifer.

[00:11:52] Jennifer: I always really thought it was our money if it ever really came down to it, you know what I'm saying? If I ever lost my job or if I ever whatever, there was some drama over me moving with my job. And I remember he said at the time, of course we were dating, but he said, move here, I'll support us. We'll figure it out. So he set things, especially in the beginning. That sounded like it's an US thing. It was only when it came time to do it that he kind of balked and kicked the can down the road.

[00:12:20] Sam Parr: So Jennifer and her ex-husband, they kept everything 50 over 50 for the rest of the relationship. In my opinion. That's insane. In fact, I've got a few friends who do that, and I tease them all the time. They'll split things and Venmo each other. So like $25 for an Uber, their portion for dinner or whatever. If you're living on a tight budget, I 100% get why you budget, and I think that's a great idea, but I don't quite understand why people go 5050. In my opinion, it should all just be one. That's just my opinion though, and I don't really think there's a perfect way to do it. I think what is important, though, is that if you decide to split stuff with your partner, it comes back to that shared vision of how you want to live your life. If splitting everything down the middle works for you, go for it. Not for me. But if it makes you happy, I think you should do it. But there's another big factor that comes into play here, and that's transparency around money. When I got married right away, we did one checking, one savings each. Have your own credit card so you can buy some stuff without the other person seeing, like if it's a gift or something. But then it was like all shared passwords. So like we had a folder where it was like, hey, I need to log in to your account because I'm doing some accounting thing. I need to like be able to see whatever. And there really was no secrets, right? What did you do?

[00:13:30] Jennifer: Yeah, I felt like there were no secrets. Can. If I had to log in to his computer, I. I knew the password to his computer and phone. I never looked at it, but we had one shared account, and the only thing that went into that account was the proceeds from the ski condo that we owned together. But everything else was separate checking, saving, credit cards. I never saw his brokerage statements. And so I remember.

[00:13:53] Sam Parr: Did you know what was in there?

[00:13:54] Jennifer: Yeah, because we would talk about it and he would check his E-Trade in front of me. Um, so I kind of had a clock on. This is about what's in there. He would talk about, oh, I paid off this condo. So he would tell me that he was doing all that stuff, but I never really I never saw it.

[00:14:10] Sam Parr: But around this time, the relationship dynamic started to change as Jennifer began building her wealth. A reminder that her ex and her, they owned a couple condos at the time that they were renting out to each other, so they had a shared business together. At what point into the marriage did you start your business?

[00:14:24] Jennifer: We've been together about six and a half years when I started the business.

[00:14:28] Sam Parr: And at the time he throughout the whole period, he was working at tech companies and investing his money into real estate. And so he was like, you guys were like almost part time landlords, full time workers, right?

[00:14:40] Jennifer: Yeah. So we've been building that real estate business together, which honestly was a great practice for me in terms of just starting to think like a business person.

[00:14:50] Sam Parr: So it's 2015. You start your company. Did you have income coming in from the business immediately or did you? Was it like a lot of people were like, it took a year or two for you to actually make a livable wage?

[00:15:00] Jennifer: I had income coming in from the business with a caveat with a little bit of delay. The business was profitable to start with. I had money coming in right away. So, um, well, it started out like consultant to my previous employer and then a consultant to another person while I built up a book of business.

[00:15:19] Sam Parr: At what point in the business did you start earning more than him?

[00:15:22] Jennifer: Yeah, the very first year that I had, it overlapped with what became his last year at his employer. So we were able to go on his insurance, which was great, but he left his business. And artists are 2016, and from then on I made more than him. And, you know, I'll say that I would try and talk to him about things like, hey, now that you're staying home, why do we live on my income? And voila! Like, I was trying to say, let's be a team in ways that would have benefited him, but he wasn't really interested in that.

[00:15:52] Sam Parr: So fast forward to 2022 or so, 2023, you end up getting divorced. What was your what do you think your each of your net worth was at that point?

[00:16:02] Jennifer: Yeah, well, I know exactly because we did our financial things with lawyers. So he had about $8 million in Apple stock and other investments with about a $1 million loan against it is in the low interest days. He didn't sell stock to make money. He just borrowed against it. And then about $3 million in real estate. So he had eight minus one plus three. And my business conveniently took money last year and it got valued at 19.5 million. And my share of that is eight and change. And then we borrowed a million. So kind of a similar eight with a $1 million loan. But that's not against me personally. And then I had about a million in both retirement and post-tax investments.

[00:16:46] Sam Parr: Wow. So as a group, you're worth $20 million.

[00:16:50] Jennifer: Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:55] Sam Parr: Considering that Jennifer and her ex had made a lot of money at this point, they really weren't living that crazy of lifestyle or anything like that. They were spending as if they were middle managers making $150,000 a year.

[00:17:05] Jennifer: We lived in the same townhouse he bought in 2003, and he wouldn't let me buy new furniture for because he was really attached to what was there. You know, we we did have now you would go helicopter skiing in Canada. We are $200,000 wine cellar. We would go out and have dinner and spend $700. Like whatever. We would take vacations. But we didn't live the way that you would imagine. People with a $20 million net worth did.

[00:17:30] Sam Parr: What do you think your monthly expenses were?

[00:17:33] Jennifer: They were so low because like a mortgage was $1,300. And I say maybe, maybe 3000 $504,000 of fixed costs. Maybe. It was probably a lot less than that. Can our cars were paid off and everything. So yeah, I started making a much higher income and I started enjoying spending it. But reading go crazy.

[00:17:56] Sam Parr: So what, ten grand a month maybe?

[00:17:57] Jennifer: Yeah. Not even honestly. Honestly, I was so heads down focused on building the business and I built a really particular kind of day to day lifestyle around that where like, it was important to be to kind of be calm and have a lot of space in my life and that kind of thing. So I think I was just so focused on building the business.

[00:18:20] Sam Parr: What was your, um, income?

[00:18:22] Jennifer: I paid myself relative to the profits of my business. It was anywhere from, we'll call it, over 200,000, but it would go up one year. It was half a million.

[00:18:34] Sam Parr: At this point, everything seems to be going pretty well for Jennifer and her ex. They built up a sizable amount of wealth and are living well, and they go on vacations and do all those nice things. And around this time, Jennifer was bringing in personally around half $1 million from her business. But it was about to all come crashing down. And this part of the story is wild. Listen to this.

[00:18:54] Jennifer: He gave me an STD and then lied about it for seven months, while I went to different doctors to try and figure out what it was. It's a curable and treatable and cured and treated, but it took a long time to chase it down because I had a 15 year history of being monogamous. It was really light symptoms. So yeah, he lied about it for seven months, even though I asked him directly and finally at a doctor who figured out what it was, and he was away on a camping trip and I had about 4 or 5 days to get my head around it, talk to friends, like figure out what I was going to do, and wrote a letter and said, I'm moving out. I'm filing for divorce. That's it, you know?

[00:19:31] Sam Parr: Fucking insane. Yeah. I'm so sorry. That is awful. That sucks. Yeah, I.

[00:19:38] Jennifer: Was shocked and I was like, he's been lying to my face for seven months. And it was very clarifying where I was like, this guy's not on my side. This guy's not my partner. I owe him nothing. I'm going to take care of myself. And that was what I did.

[00:19:49] Sam Parr: Holy shit. What was he doing? Just sleeping around.

[00:19:53] Jennifer: You know what? I. I had no idea. I do know now from him that he was cheating with an ex-girlfriend who's been married for 20 years, back in 2020. But if I had to guess, I bet not right away in the marriage that he had an extracurricular sex life that was probably a mix of old girlfriends, people in his network, people he picked up like coffee shops.

[00:20:15] Sam Parr: So the next step for Jennifer was to get out of there. She moved out of the place that they were sharing, and she went and set up her own place.

[00:20:21] Jennifer: So I rented a one bedroom downtown that I went to every day, and I had a desk in the bedroom and I had it all outfitted. I had pots and pans and, you know, bathroom, kitchen.

[00:20:32] Sam Parr: Now, at this point, I know you're all wondering if they had a prenup. We're going to hear all about it right after this ad break. A lot of high net worth people, they get prenups before they get married to protect themselves from losing over half their fortune. In Jennifer's case, they didn't have one.

[00:20:49] Jennifer: He was so weird about money. Kind of midway through the marriage. I realize in retrospect, there was probably a point at which he decided he didn't want to be near it anymore, and they probably looked into the divorce and was shocked to see I was going to get half the money. But around 2018, 2019, you started being really weird about what he would just, um, hold money over my head.

[00:21:10] Sam Parr: And what did he say?

[00:21:11] Jennifer: Well, give an example. He, um, this is from a slightly different time frame, but he had this weird, um, AFib episode, like, a heart thing when he was skiing one day. And afterwards I said to him, you know, you should probably write a will. You have sisters? You have, you know, nieces and nephews like. And he said to me, I feel like you're just trying to get my money. And so that was kind of how he would be.

[00:21:33] Sam Parr: So the next step in Jennifer's ordeal was to get a lawyer to help figure out how to divide up their assets.

[00:21:38] Jennifer: I hired kind of the top attorney in Springfield.

[00:21:43] Jennifer: Because I had a business to think about. I just wanted, like, I want this handled. I want to be protected. I want someone who can win in court appeal. Like, I want a good attorney for my lawyer. I was a wonderful prospect for fee pay. Right. So we had seven properties. I had a business, he had investments, I had investments. And so my water laid out this whole thing where like I retain an accountant and he values my business, and then those guys retain an accountant and they value their business. And like, we'd get all the property valued. Like, basically you get everything valued and then you literally just split everything in half and give it to people.

[00:22:19] Sam Parr: The rules around getting divorced, they vary by state to state, but generally it tends to be 5050. Each person gets half of the shared assets. For Jennifer, it was pretty complicated because she had this growing business and it was considered a shared asset.

[00:22:34] Jennifer: There could have been endless fighting over what's your business worth? I was very fortunate because I had a valuation from July especially. For me, one of the biggest things was the impact on my business of carrying out a long divorce. I had to go to my business partners and say I ended in divorce, and it's quite possible there's going to be a discovery, right, of all our records, because his lawyers are going to want to know what representations have we made about not just what the company is worth now, but what's it worth in five years? What's the future value of it? So basically, his lawyer and my lawyer have to figure out what this thing's worth so they can split it up, and they might try and negotiate the price down because they, frankly, found some information about something I said that I don't know, I wouldn't want to get out.

[00:23:20] Sam Parr: And did it end with you getting any of his or each of you just walking exactly half like you own your business and your 401 K and your own accounts, and he gets his own accounts.

[00:23:31] Jennifer: It was basically, I get my business, I get my 401 K, and I get the money I've put into real estate, plus the appreciation. He was so stingy about that that I probably got 40 to 60,000 less than the minimum I should have gotten.

[00:23:46] Sam Parr: And how do you get that money? Because he had to sell the properties, or because he just gave it out of his liquid?

[00:23:52] Jennifer: He just gave it out of his liquid. That was the reason I took the settlement. I took I took a settlement because it would be over if I just decided to treat it as a bad investment, get my money back and walk away. And I got it in cash. If I got it any other way, I would have wound up with properties and stocks and cars and things like that.

[00:24:10] Sam Parr: Her lawyer encouraged her to not take a settlement. Of course, it's in the best interest to say that, and to get you to fight as long as possible and to get as much liquid assets as possible. They get to take a sizable chunk of that. However, her lawyer shared that the settlement could be a risk for her business.

[00:24:27] Jennifer: She said to me, this is terrible idea. You're taking a risk. She said, I understand you're a bright young woman. Your business is doing well now. It might fall apart tomorrow. And I've had clients who had divorce settlements based on businesses that fell apart. And she said he has his money as he said his liquid. He has his money, he can sit on a beach. She really thought I was doing the wrong thing.

[00:24:49] Sam Parr: Jennifer decided that continuing to fight this in court, it was not worth her time. Something has also got to be said for just what that means, for her peace of mind, from just moving on from a bad situation, even if you might be getting less than what seems fair.

[00:25:02] Jennifer: I was like, I can fight this for two years. It had probably cost me 100 to $200,000, and at the end of two years, my business might be worth so much more that not only do I not get any of this money, I have to give them a bunch of my equity. And I thought to myself I was actually at a lawn drive across the country where I was spending the holidays, and I knew the amount of the settlement that was proposed, and I was just sitting with it. And I thought to myself, am I really okay with that? In my brain said, there's more money where that came from, cut your losses and bet on yourself and just move on and build your business.

[00:25:43] Sam Parr: With all legal cases, there is your logical brain, and then there's the emotional brain. And you kind of got to listen to both. If you get hit with a lawsuit where, you know, you didn't do anything wrong, your instinct might be to fight and win at all costs. But you have to ask yourself, is this really worth the money and the time and the emotional investment? Often, and I've experienced this before. You just got to give in and lose that case in order to actually win and get past it. This has definitely happened to me, where I feel like I've had people that totally wronged me and they wanted something out of me and I could fight it, but I was probably just gonna lose more money and time than just paying them off and ending the situation. And that sucks. But it's a lot of times the right thing to do. But depending on how you look at it, you might be winning overall with marriage, to lose might even be harder. That person, they probably made you suffer And frankly, you want to make them suffer too. All that being said, the fact that Jennifer and her ex split everything 50 over 50 actually made the divorce much simpler.

[00:26:43] Jennifer: It was very, very obvious to point to whose was whose, and we don't have to pay lawyers or accountants to do a calculation.

[00:26:51] Sam Parr: How is your money outlook and your money behaviors and your money thinking changed since the roughly, it's been roughly one year. It sounds like you've wanted to spend more. Are you spending more?

[00:27:03] Jennifer: I thought, I'm comfortable with money, and I'm going to spend money and make a really beautiful life for myself. So I have a gorgeous apartment in Shelbyville. I bought furniture that I love.

[00:27:13] Sam Parr: I let loose a little.

[00:27:15] Jennifer: Yeah, and I love it.

[00:27:16] Sam Parr: Has that made you happier?

[00:27:17] Jennifer: Oh, I will say in a second or third day. I was in this apartment even before I had any furniture. I remember it's this beautiful floor to ceiling windows looked out on the Shelbyville Harbor, and I walked into my living room and there were like it was still the holidays. So like, there were like Christmas lights outside. I'm up on the 13th floor. And I just thought, I. And so happy that I thought if I hadn't gotten divorced, I never would have found this. But this is awesome, so I love it.

[00:27:45] Sam Parr: What's your expenses now?

[00:27:47] Jennifer: Uh. Much higher. I mean, my my rent is $6,000 a month. 6400 with parking. Ironically, I'm spending probably a lot less on restaurants and travel and stuff, but all in, I'm probably spending about 8 or $9000 a month.

[00:28:01] Sam Parr: If you had to be open to younger you or younger people like you, what are some bits of wisdom that you wish you would have known back then, or things you would warn yourself about?

[00:28:11] Jennifer: Well, if we're talking about relationships and relationships and money, the way someone acts around money in a relationship is a sign that you should pay attention to. And I think now that I am older, I always dated for what I'll call interest and passion. Like I always wanted really interesting people with big thoughts and like I got someone very interesting, But what I discounted was it matters that they be kind. It matters that they care for you. It matters like there are people out there in the world who are thrilled to care for somebody, right? And if someone isn't showing you that care, it's not because it's going to warm up and it's going to show up later.

[00:28:54] Sam Parr: Do you think that you can change people? Like I know that, like, I've dated people before who I'm not married to now. And I was like, this sucks. It will change.

[00:29:03] Jennifer: I think we change people by being in their lives, but I don't think we get to direct those changes. And also, if you don't like them now, how can you guarantee you'll like them if they do change? Because maybe something else will change, you know? So I don't know. I think you're better off picking for the now than what you think it could be.

[00:29:22] Sam Parr: But moving on from something like what Jennifer experienced could be hard to do. This isn't something that you can just get over easily, especially since deception is involved. Forgiveness, I think, is incredibly challenging and complicated.

[00:29:35] Jennifer: I have now fully forgiven him for what I went through in the six or so weeks after I discovered it. It's an incredibly violating thing to have someone give you an STD. And so I don't know if I fully forgiven him for putting me through that. But mostly when I think about him, I think the consequences are his own life. I don't think he has lived a happy life. He's a wealthy guy who isn't really enjoying his wealth, and he doesn't have a lot of close relationships. A lot of his friends had moved away or they live out of town. He doesn't seem to have, I think, any real romantic relationships and I don't know, I, I kind of feel like the consequences for him are the life he lives right now.

[00:30:25] Sam Parr: I said this before. I've had a lot of these conversations, but this one in particular left me inspired. Jennifer's story I mean, it was riveting, like strictly from a stories perspective with the whole STD thing and her husband kind of being an oddball. Like, I was enthralled by the story, but and this is more important, I was inspired that she sort of had a little bit of forgiveness in her voice. And I was also inspired because she seems like a super strong person. She was very positive while I was talking to her both before and after the interview. And I think that she was wronged. Someone did something really bad to her, but because she's so positive about this experience that she's moving forward and that she was transparent about this whole thing to me, I thought it was badass. I really, really enjoyed talking to Jennifer. And so my big takeaway from this, amongst many things, frankly, is that the best way to get revenge on someone is just to be a better person is to succeed, and is to be happy. So, Jennifer, if you're listening, I appreciate you doing this. Of course, I got to give a plug for Hampton. Hampton's company that makes this podcast.