Divorce isn’t a new chapter it’s a detonation. In her book “Divorce is F*cked! A No Bull-Shit Survival Guide for Men”, Tracey McMillan draws on 30 years in family law to show what actually happens when things fall apart. This episode looks at how to stay steady, think clearly, and protect what matters when everything feels like it’s slipping because in the end, it comes down to how you navigate the system.
Tracey McMillan: I’m Tracey McMillan the author of Divorce is Fucked: A No-Bullshit Survival Guide for Men.
Can you tell we are in for a lively conversation today?!
Theme: The Curated Chaper
Welcome the Curated Chapter a chapter sized podcast about interesting things and people passionate enough to write a big book about them. Today we are going to talk about Divorce. It is an ugly business, it is insanely emotional but there are ways to manage it and today you are going to learn those ways from Tracey McMillan. She has spent over thirty-years in family law and men’s advocacy.
Tracy McMillan: In family law, you see good people at their worst.
Do you know anyone that’s been through a divorce. Statistics would say you do, although it is getting better. Right now, the divorce rate for first marriages is around 41%—down from 50%…and then, of course, the more often you get married… the higher the odds climb.
I have never been through a Divorce myself and if you know me personally then you would consider that a miracle but that’s a chapter for another podcast. I have had a ringside seat for quite a few of them which is why I laughed out loud when I saw the title of Tracey McMillan’s book, “Divorce is F’d!”
Tracey McMillan: I named the book and I get it. It’s provocative. I’m not backwards in being provocative. I’m OK to do that.
It’s a hilarious title because it’s true. One minute you’re planning a vacation, and the next you’re Googling ‘what happens if she takes the kids? Divorce is ugly for a lot of reasons and an amicable one? That is a unicorn. Or maybe I should say undergoing a painless divorce is like finding a unicorn. Most people who have been through it can testify to how quickly the “idea of “we’re going to be mature about this” can unravel the moment lawyers get involved.
Tracey McMillan: So when I first started out, I was the real cocky lawyer. I was very arrogant, only cared about my wins. You know, like it’d be like I didn’t want to remember my client’s names, didn’t care about the kids’ names. It was just I would tally up what my wins are. And I used to focus so heavily on what my losses were. So I used to go, I can count on one hand how many my losses are. But what actually started to happen was here I was having these like landmark decisions. I was thinking, this arrogant me, right back when I was younger, going, you should be bowing at my feet. I’ve gotten you all this great outcome. You’ve got the kids. He hasn’t got the kids. Look at me go. They’d be happy in the immediacy. But what would happen is literally a couple of days later or a week later, they’d actually still be really bitter. And with parenting orders, they were coming back. Like I ended up having clients coming back within 12 months where they’re going, they’re not following the orders. We’re going to have to go back. This needs to be changed. That needs to be changed. So it made you start to really think about why. So I was that lawyer. So I don’t know if you’ve had that experience, but if you’re treated like a number, isn’t that the most disgusting and disgraceful behavior? And the thing is, is I see that with a lot of lawyers.
She said a lot of Lawyers, not all them. There are some compassionate ones out there. In fact, she became one of them, but that moment where she realized something wasn’t working, that’s what led to this book. The full title is “Divorce is F*cked: A No-Bull-shit Survival Guide for Men”. Tracey says the title came to her honestly.
Tracy McMillan: I asked over 2000 men, I asked them two questions. First one, using unfiltered language, let’s be real. How is it? What does it feel like going through a divorce? When you’re in the system and that’s where they got divorce is f’d, and then the next question is, what is the one thing you truly wish you had if you were going through that? And that was don’t beat around the bush and pretend that the system’s good because it’s not. Let’s have no BS, get down to the real grassroots and give me a guide as to how I can navigate this.
And that’s why she wrote the book. Through her career Tracey has seen every tactic, every trap, and every mistake men make when their world falls apart so now her approach is simple: treat divorce like the high-stakes operation it is. No panic. No illusions. Just strategy and emotional control.
Tracey has watched so many good men lose everything; their homes, their kids, their minds and it wasn’t because they were bad dads, it was just that no one told them how the system really works. Nobody hands you a rulebook…but the rules are there. You just have to be in the right frame of mind to understand them.
Tracy McMillan: Humans require certainty. It’s one of their fundamental cravings, because certainty equals safety, which equals survival. And what happens when you’re going through the process? In a relationship, you have those certainty of the really fundamental things in life. For instance, you have love, you have a family, you have financial security, you have trust. And when one of those pillars is disrupted or taken away, and then you move into the separation, what happens is all of those things that you had, which gave you certainty in a relationship, has now been stripped of you. And so what happens is, as a human being, you actually react.
And since we are humans craving certainty, when we lose that we panic and that’s what gets us into trouble. Tracey points out that the family court system isn’t designed to comfort you. It’s designed to assess your behavior while you’re going through one of the most emotionally chaotic moments of your life. You are arriving in court with your fight-or-flight instinct fully activated.
Tracy McMillan: When you’re in fight or flight, you can’t use complex reasoning of your brain, it actually is sort of shunted or stunned. And as a result, the only things you do is because you feel this uncertainty, you’re feeling a threat to your life, even if you don’t realize it. And so you react accordingly to try and save your life. And the thing, the threat that you’re seeing is the predator happens to be the person who took away your certainty, which is the other party. So they treat them as though they’re a predator to their survival.
I found that part fascinating because it explains why otherwise smart people begin acting irrationally. They can’t hep it. They aren’t just arguing about property or custody, their nervous systems is telling them they are under attack. Here’s a great example.
Tracy McMillan: Some of the things they’ll do is, for instance, they’ll talk in absolutes, they’ll say things like, oh, I can’t trust her, can’t trust her at all. She’s taken my kids, I’ve got nothing, I have no future. So what this book does is show you how to stop reacting, going, oh, hey, I’m not using complex reasoning here, my nervous system’s offline.
Now let’s talk about the court system. If you find yourself in court, in front of a judge, the last place you want to be is fight-or-flight mode but that’s what usually happens with men and they need to learn how to turn all that anger into a strategy that can help them win in court.
Tracy McMillan: So all the court’s doing is they’re looking at a lens of that small window. And one of the things they will ask is, do you agree that past behaviour is predictive of future behaviour? I would say no. It could be, but that’s what the courts tend to rely upon when they go in there. And so what happens is that when they’re talking about past behaviour, they’re talking about immediate past behaviour. And they’re basically reflecting on everything that you’ve done, right or wrong, when you’re going through that separation period. And that’s when you’re in fight or flight. You’re not designed to have adrenaline going in quarters or going off the charts for long periods of time. So when you know that, what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to get you out of that fight or flight stage to be able to appropriately respond to the court’s assessment of you to say, hey, I am calm enough and I am able to proffer up my child’s best interests in a very loving and nurturing way to demonstrate that going forward into the future, I’ll be able to replicate that and actually give the child a safe and loving household.
The book is written for men but it’s not about teaching men to “beat” women in court. It’s about teaching them to master themselves. Because when you control your reactions, you control your outcomes but that is a strategy both men and women can use.
Tracy McMillan: You’re basically taught, once you’re in separation, it’s war, it’s war on its game on. And the only way to do it is to go into court and fight and whoever fights the hardest wins. And ironically, if you utilize some of the tools in my book, you’ll never get there because you’ll actually be giving each party what they want.
And that’s where Tracey’s approach starts to separate itself from the stereotype of the angry divorce lawyer. Her argument is actually the opposite. The people who usually do the worst in divorce court are the ones reacting emotionally while the people who do better learn how to communicate strategically.
Tracy McMillan: I’m literally saying to you, here are the tools. If you want to actually get a very good outcome in your matter, and I don’t believe in the win, because it’s family court. Technically you all lose. But if you actually go through all this, both parties actually get from it what they need. And then imagine if you could actually walk away with both parties going, okay, I can move forward in my life. if you’re a parent in this situation, your main responsibility should be that those children are thriving. And that requires a bit of insight and a bit of reflection. And with men, the thing is, is they don’t want the fluff in the ball. They don’t want people telling them that the systems all completely fair and, or that they’re overreacting because it’s, that’s real for them. That’s that they do feel like the amount of times I’ve had men going, I feel broken. I feel like the system has abandoned me. I feel like it’s very in favor of women and it is, but it’s not intentionally favoring women.
One of the tools she offers is surprisingly simple, better communication.
Tracy McMillan: It’s like if someone is talking in Japanese and somebody else is talking in Italian, and you’re like, well, you don’t understand me. And you go, that’s because you’re not talking the same language…you’re never going to get on the same page if you don’t understand what language you’re talking.
That is a very literal explanation but in the book she breaks this down into the various communication styles because we are all very different and our personalities influence how we communicate.
Tracy McMillan: There’s four different types of communication styles. And one is someone who seeks out safety. So, and then another one is somebody who seeks out data. And then you have another one who goes with their gut because they’re emotional. They’ll talk in terms of like, my gut says blah, or I feel blah. And then you have the ones who talk about they’re the dreamers.
They see what it will look like at the end. So they see the ideal of what will happen. And I see it all the time. Actually, I’ve seen it all the time between lawyers and clients as well. It’s quite funny, where the client will come in and men tend to be more data. So what you have to talk to them is about, right, this is the statistics. These are the odds. These are the numbers. And they’ll come in like that. But if you walk in there and turn around and say, well, I feel like that’s not fair to somebody who has data, they’re just, it’s not going to land for them. He’ll be saying, well, I don’t give a shit what you feel. Like, show me the stats. Show me the facts.
You are not broken, the system is. Your emotions are valid. But your reactions must be strategic.
Family law rewards calm, child-focused, predictable behavior not outrage. And maybe that’s why Tracey McMillan’s book, “Divorce is F’ed” resonates with so many people.
Tracy McMillan: I’ve been really ecstatic about how so many people have received it, even lawyers who have read it turn around and say, wow, this is brilliant. That’s been really wonderful.
We’ve talked a lot today about emotions, communication, and keeping your head on straight when your world feels like it’s coming apart, but the book goes much deeper than that.
Tracey McMillan gets into things like what to do in the first twenty-four hours after separation, how to protect yourself financially, custody battles, dealing with lawyers, recognizing manipulation, documenting behavior, and how not to accidentally sabotage yourself while you’re emotionally overloaded and trying to make life-changing decisions.
In other words, this isn’t really a self-help book. It’s more like a field manual for surviving one of the most chaotic experiences a person can go through.
The book is called Divorce is F*cked! A No Bull-Shit Survival Guide for Men by Tracey McMillan and if you want to learn more, Tracey’s website is DivorceIsFucked.com.
This has been The Curated Chapter. I’m Sam Youmans. Thanks for listening.
Website: https://divorceisfucked.com.au/
Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com.au/Divorce-cked-Bullshit-Survival-Guide-ebook/dp/B0G8D3RCDX
https://www.amazon.com.au/Divorce-cked-Bullshit-Survival-Guide-ebook/dp/B0G8D3RCDX
