Life After Divorce: A Police Sergeant’s Hard-Earned Lessons on Stress, Safety & Rebuilding

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Bent Not Broken. Heartbreak and trauma may feel like the end of your story, but here it's the beginning of a bold new chapter. I'm your host, Coach Deborah Griffiths, and this is the space where women rise, rebuild, and rediscover their purpose. Remember this truth. You are Bet Not Broken. Today on Bet Not Broken, I'm joined by Patrick O'Donnell, a retired City of Milwaukee police sergeant with 25 years on the street, author of Divorced Dad, Kids Are Forever, Wives Are Not, and the writer behind nine other best-selling crime and police procedural books, including his newest thriller, The Good Caller. Patrick is also the host of the popular Cops and Writers Podcast, a consultant for crime writers and true crime TV, and the creator of an 8,200-member global crime writing community recently featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Today we're exploring the raw, practical, and often uncomfortable truths he shares in divorce dad, from telling your spouse it's over to navigating lawyers, stress, co-parenting, and rebuilding your identity after the dust settles. Welcome, Patrick.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Thank you so much for having me, Deborah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

You've spent 25 years dealing with crises on the street. How did facing a divorce compare to the real world, real world danger and stress you saw as a police sergeant?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

It felt very odd to say the least. As a police officer and later on, a sergeant, you're going into people's homes when they're not at their best. It's probably the worst day ever. They're not calling you when it's like my marriage is great, the kids are healthy, I've got money in the bank, life is awesome. That does not happen. A lot of times you're dealing with domestic situations, domestic violence, just domestic strife that leads to other things. I always thought I was very good at it because I didn't get on the job till I was 30. And I'm with these other police officers that are 21, 22 years old sometimes, and they didn't have a whole lot of life experience under their belt. I had already been married for oh gosh, like seven years.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

So, and most of the people that I worked with, the younger ones, they weren't married, or you might be living with somebody. So you can imagine being in your 40s or 50s, the police are knocking on your door, and there's a 21-year-old kid that's gonna counsel you tonight. Probably not gonna go the best. That's just the nature of the beast. So I think I had a leg up, I was good at talking to people, and that's 90% of that job is just talking to people. And when the tables were turned, I'm just like, okay, this feels very odd to say the least. And it was both good and bad. The good was when you're going through a divorce, you can be your own advocate, you can do your own investigating. I was very familiar with the courts. I've been in court, I don't know how many times, testifying. I know how lawyers work, so that was not foreign to me. I could imagine if I had never been through any of that, that'd be pretty daunting.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Oh, I can imagine. Well, even myself having gone through a divorce, you know, walking into a courtroom, it is pretty intimidating. It is so it's good to get your ducks lined in a row.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Because you are a police officer, did your situation ever escalate to the fact that the cops were called on you and your wife?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

It never happened, but we came really close. It started out as amicable and it was more or less gasoline on a fire as time went on. Once you declare to your spouse, hey, I don't want to be with you anymore, I don't want to be married to you anymore. The dynamic in that house changes. Some people might be able to pull it off, they might be able to live together. You're like, okay, I'm gonna stay in the basement. You have the upstairs, you know, whatever the case may be. We didn't have a very large home. It was about 900 square feet. It was a three-bedroom ranch, about 900 square feet. The basement was finished, but you're gonna be bumping into each other. It came to a boiling point. I'll never forget it. I was out on a motorcycle ride. I came home. My ex didn't even wait for me to get inside and started screaming at me. Neighbors started coming out, and I'm like, okay, it's time to get out of here. I can't have the cops being called on me because at the time I was a sergeant, which would mean a lieutenant, somebody of a higher rank, would have to come out and investigate. It's embarrassing. B internal affairs is probably gonna get involved in this, and C, I might lose my job. Right. I had a whole lot of writing on this, so I bowed out and I'm like, you know what? I am going to leave. I will be at the house when you're not here. I know your work schedule, I'll take the kids back and forth to school, I'll do all the dad stuff still. But I wound up sleeping in the basement of a buddy's house for I think it was two months, maybe three. I don't know. It felt like forever. It was very nice of him to do that, but I'm still couch surfing and I'm a grown man, I'm 46 years old, and here I am sleeping on my buddy's couch, and I'm like, okay, this sucks. That's when reality really slaps you in the face, and you're like, try to avoid that somebody calling the cops on you because emotions are really running high, there's a lot of tension, and your best just to walk away from that, let it cool down, let things settle if you can.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

In your book, you emphasize telling your spouse about the divorce in a calm, sober, private setting. Why do you believe the how matters as much as the what?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

I believe the how is just as important because with divorce, it's a milestone. You will be judged by this forever. You're gonna remember this forever. If your kids are around, they're gonna remember it forever. It's a huge deal. So, how you go about this? I know people that they they went out drinking and then they tell their wife, you know, at two o'clock in the morning, I don't want to be with you anymore. Not the best way to do it. You're not gonna have an intelligent conversation about something that's gonna impact you, your spouse, and your children forever. So keep that in the back of your noodle and say, hey, you know what? This is important how I present this, because that might set the tempo of the whole divorce process.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Do you think someone should go to a neutral location, a quieter location, out of the house is the most ideal set setting?

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Ideal set setting for me was the kitchen table, especially when the kids were not home. You know, they're at school or whatever. You're well rested, you're sober. I I know these things sound like no-brainers, but I've plenty of friends and instances where I was called to people's homes where they were none of the above. And you you may think again, you know, that that's just common sense. Well, that doesn't always come out like that, or it's the heat of the moment, you know, it's been bottled up inside you forever, and you just kind of blurt it out at an inopportune moment. If you can try and plan it, and like I said, kitchen table is great for me, maybe driving in a car wherever you feel comfortable, and you're not gonna get distracted. If I've been married to you for 23 years and I say, Hey, I want a divorce, there's gonna be questions, there's gonna be reactions. Stay tuned, that's going to happen.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Emotions, lots of emotions.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

You talk a lot about having an exit strategy. What mistakes do people make when they leave without a plan?

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Well, what happened with me was like things were boiling over at the O'Donnell house. So I wind up on my friend's couch in his basement, and her parents bought her a house. My ex they bought her house in a surrounding suburb. And I knew this was happening, and it was the day before moving day. And I said, Tell you what, I'm just gonna leave the city. I'm not even gonna be around. I'm gonna go to a buddy's house for the weekend. He already said I could hang out with him. I said, just be nice and remember, I have to live here too, and the kids have to live here too, as well. It's not all about you, you, you, you know, it's it's everyone. My advice is, and I should have listened to my lawyer. When I told my lawyer about moving day, he said, sit down, grab a steno pad, and divide everything down to the toaster, blender, silverware, pots, pans. It might sound trite or silly, but I like toast. And when there's no toaster, that's not a lot of fun. You know, money is super tight. So, what happened was I did not do that. I said, just be fair, and she's like, Okay, fair to her was taking everything. It was like the Grinch came and stole everything out of my house. Every appliance, and I mean every appliance, washer, dryer, stove, refrigerator, even though all those things were in her new house, she did it just to screw me over for years. They were still in her garage, still in her garage.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Every time I'd come to pick up the kids, I'd be looking at that and I'd be like, Okay. I didn't have a bed. The only thing that I had was a cooler in the garage, my motorcycle in my truck, which were both old, and a TV that didn't work. It worked about half the time. As a blessing, I started reading more. The grocery store that I used to go to had a dollar bin of books. And I'm like, yeah, okay, there's my entertainment, the dollar bin. I started reading a lot more books, so that was a good thing. And you know, I came back, it was a Sunday night, it was a ripped-up couch, a ripped up chair, a TV that didn't work, a cooler, and nothing else. I just walked around and I was literally in shock. I had my clothes, she left my clothes, so that's good. And I started crying. I cannot believe this is happening to me right now. I thought for sure she would be decent about it. Obviously, she was gonna take some stuff with her. I expected that, but everything, the self-entitlement that she felt, and again, it was her mother was the orchestrator of all of this. I found out later. The kids told me the moving van is halfway full, and she's like, Keep going, keep going, keep going, take everything, take everything, take everything. And she just listened to her mom. And I'm just like, Well, you're an adult, you should know better. I told my attorney, and he's like, It's out of the house. You could try and are arbitrate that, you could try to negotiate that, but he said, It's the the cows are out of the barn, dude. He said, You should have listened to me. And I'm like, Yes, I should have listened to you, but I didn't. I thought I'd be a stand-up guy. Well, no good deed ever goes unpunished.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

I had two dogs, and she left the two dogs, and our agreement was they were the kids' dogs. Wherever the kids were, the dogs would be with them. If it was my time with the kids, the dogs would come with them. No, she never took them and she didn't want them in her new house. They shed too much, she said.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

It's almost like my situation when as I was moving out of my house at some point in time, back, you know, back and forth. I could only take so much at a time in my car. My ex had the locks changed. So I could not get all of my belongings out. I called the sheriff and they wouldn't do anything.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

That's rough.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

It is what it is. I can do this.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

I can do you find some inner strength, and if there was ever any doubts in your mind, hey, maybe we'll get back together again. And it's like, this isn't the person that I married 20 years ago. Right. You're this vindictive, you're this cruel. Nah, I don't want to be with you.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

That's not love, but even close. You strongly advise people to get a good lawyer and come prepared. What are some of the top questions someone should always ask in that first meeting with their attorney?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

What's this gonna look like? Most people have not been divorced before, and it's like, okay, what give me a snapshot or an overhead view of what a typical, even though you know there probably isn't a typical, but close to a typical divorce looks like. The biggest thing for me, I had two kids. We didn't have any money. I was a cop and she worked in a kitchen. My kids were going to private school, they were doing club sports. We drove nice cars, we had no money, plain and simple. So that was a no-brainer. It's like we split the debt 50-50. We didn't have any equity in our house, so finances. You know, one of the first questions I asked my lawyer was, How much is this gonna cost? And that's a very valid question. You know, this is about 13 years ago, and he was 350 bucks an hour, maybe 300 an hour, and he wanted a retainer. I think it was like 3,000 bucks. And I was amazed by how quickly I blew through that retainer. Holy cow, you go through that money fast. So I asked, what should I expect? And he said, Well, Wisconsin is a 50-50 state as far as your debt, whatever your the value of what you have and whatever you owe is 50-50. And with the children, it's assumed that you're gonna have 50-50 placement in custody. So, what's gonna happen is once somebody moves out of the house, that's when the ball really starts rolling. Because if you have children, then you're gonna go through a hearing with a court commissioner in family court for temporary placement and custody of the kids. It's not permanent, it's not forever, it's just temporary. At the time, I was working nights, so I was working on getting today shift, but I just couldn't snap my fingers and make that happen.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

So, what happened was they set up once your spouse leaves, and if they have the kids more than you, it was like a 70-30 split. I had them on all of my off days. I was paying like 70-30 placement and custody, so I had an enormous child support bill. And he let me know on the front end that's what you're looking at. He explained all that, and I'll never forget the first day with him. He was first off, do your due diligence if you can talk to people who have been divorced and talk to them about their attorneys. There's also Google reviews and the review service just for attorneys. Look at the reviews and do your homework, you know, do your shopping because this person is gonna be very integral for you. This is it's huge. I can't say enough about that. So, what I did personally was I went to cops that had the worst divorces that I ever heard of. Like their spouses throwing their clothes out the window and then setting a bonfire of their clothes in the front yard, just crazy, crazy stuff. And I went to them and I'm like, okay, if they got through this in one piece with this attorney, mine should be a piece of cake for this guy. So I'll never forget it. He was a super nice guy, family guy. You know, there's pictures of his kids all over the place. It was a father and son law firm. He was doing most of the work. His father was aging out, more or less. And he had a couple of attorneys working for him, and he had paralegals, he had secretaries. It was a pretty high-speed operation. And like I said, I've been around attorneys a lot, you know, and like, okay, this guy seems pretty squared away, but I'll never forget what I asked him when we're talking about money. He says, You want to save a lot of money? I said, Yes, I do, and a lot of heartburn. I'm like, please. He said, Get get a stenopad, go with your future ex to a Starbucks or a diner or wherever, just someplace you guys could be alone. Write out a settlement between the two of you. It's like, okay, I have the kids these days, you have the kids those days. You get to keep your car and the camper. I'll keep my truck and the motorcycle. Go down the line every holiday. You know, you would think that Father's Day, it'd be an automatic. You know, I should have my kids, right? Not really. I found out the hard way that exactly vindictive ex-wife. Before this is all settled, it's Father's Day, and I'd really like to be with my kids. She said, No, we're with my dad. That's what Father's Day is to them now. I'm like, okay, that's fine, whatever. He said, hammer out a potential agreement between the two of you. Bring it back to me, but don't give away the farm, but bring it back to me and we'll see what happens. And I might as well have taken a mannequin to Starbucks with me because she got her own attorney, and between the attorney and her mother, they had her brainwashed, and she thought she was gonna get everything, she's gonna have the kids 100%. And it was just one game after another. But when the smoke cleared, my attorney was so honest with me. He's like, You saw that Mercedes in the parking lot? I said, Yes, I did. I knew cars really well. I used to sell them before I was a cop. I said, That's over a hundred thousand dollar car. He says, Oh, yeah, and I take my kids and my wife on a really nice vacation every year. I live in a nice house in the suburbs. He says, I don't need your money, I've got so much work, I've got more work than time. He says, I will help you because you seem like a nice guy. But if you could hammer this out, you could save a ton of money in heartburn if the two of you can figure this out yourselves. So fast forward two years, all kinds of money in heartburn. And that agreement that I had on that stenopad is what we wound up with.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Wow. There's a lot of truth to what you just said. Kudos to you for finding an honest, down-to-earth attorney. But sitting down and trying to iron out that agreement prior to meeting your attorney can save you a lot of heartache and a lot of money. What do they say? That kiss principle? Keep it simple. Keep it simple and be fair. At the end of the day, if you're entitled to 50-50, you're, you know, that's what, unless there's some extenuating circumstances, right? That's pretty much what you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Wisconsin is a no-fault divorce state. You don't have to prove, like, hey, you know what, she was a big meanie, she did this, she did that. No, you you're it doesn't matter why.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Adultery, any of that.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

It does not matter, right? The only thing that matters is you're both splitting up and you have to divide everything. And the biggest thing for me, like I said before, we're the kids, you know, it's like, yeah, it really sucks right now. It's it's very hard, but you'll come out the other end and you'll be okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

In your book, you were really open about hitting rock bottom financially, emotionally, and physically. What helped you climb out of that dark period?

SPEAKER_00 20:37

If there's ever a time to lean on family and friends, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

You encourage finding a support team.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Absolutely. I'm sure there's support groups for people going through divorce or freshly out of a divorce. I probably just Google it, you'd find them. But I had enough friends. The great thing about being a cop was, you know, it's a brotherhood, it's a sisterhood. And you stay very close to the people that you're with, and they kind of go through it with you. I had a good friend network, so I was very, very lucky that way. I leaned on friends and family. And one of the biggest things that helped me climb out is I'm a gym rat. I love going to the gym and working out. Physical exercise was the best thing. Being a cop, unfortunately, our divorce rates are sky high. And I saw a lot of guys and gals, but the way they would cope with it is you know, drinking. You know, the answers are not at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. What it does is compound your problems when you're doing fitness, it was huge to me. I got into the best shape I ever been in. If I don't have my kids, I'm just gonna go work out. Try and turn it into a positive. Go outside nature for a little bit, take a walk. You don't have to be benching 400 pounds, just get your body moving. It feels good, you know. Maybe take This opportunity to join some club or something, put yourself out there. Just baby steps. It's not gonna be conquered overnight.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Find a way to manage the stress because it is a very stressful, it is stressful situation.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

It really is.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

One of the things I liked in your book is that you warn parents never to speak badly about their ex in front of the kids. From what you saw as both a cop and a dad, why is this so important?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

You know, it's still mom. It's still dad. Any kind of adversarial stuff should be between mom and dad or grandma and grandpa. Let kids have their childhood. Let kids, you know, it's like they put mom and dad, depending on their age and their maturity level, up on a pedestal. And that's okay. Let them, you know, you you don't want to be the one saying mom is a you know a a bid. You don't want to say that you know, mom is incredibly greedy and self-centered and over, you know, pick whatever. And what really opened my eyes when I was going through my divorce, one of my buddies that was also a cop, he was a big gym rat as well. We just got done working out together and we're gonna go grab a bite. He's on the phone and he's just letting F bombs roll like crazy, like she's this, she's that, blah blah. It was borderline shocking to me. He got off the phone. I'm like, Who are you talking to? My daughter, and I said, Who are you talking about? My mother-in-law, and I'm like, That's her grandma. Let her think that grandma's the best thing on planet earth, even if she's not. Who cares? This is between you and grandma. Let this little kid be a little kid, they grow up too fast anyway. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

I totally agree with that, and I have found in my situation that eventually the kids see the truth for what it is.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Every time, yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Let them figure it out on their own. In the meantime, take the high road.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

And your final message is about rebuilding, you know, dating again, protecting your kids, and not losing yourself. What does a healthy new chapter look like for a divorced parent who's ready to start over?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Just keep on loving your children, do as much as you can for them, be a good parent. That's number one. That's job one, I think. You know, depending on the age and the maturity levels of the kids. You might get divorced and your kids are teeny tiny babies, or they could be teenagers. Just be cognizant of the fact that you know there's hormones raging. It's a confusing time in their lives when they are teenagers. You throw in a divorce, now it makes it even more confusing and more filled with angst. So keep a good eye on them. Even when the dust settles of this divorce, parents should be private eyes with their children because once they hit those teen years, their friend groups are so much more influential than you are. But you have to get over yourself. You have to say, Hey, you know what? They're gonna listen to their friends a lot more than they're gonna listen to me. So find out who they are, who their parents are, where they live. I had a friend of mine, and she's just like, Well, I don't want to spy on my kids. I said, That's the first thing you should be doing. They don't have privacy. Sorry, don't be a big meanie about it, but you should know everything that's going on. Sorry, that's just the facts. When they're all growing up, fine, they can have their own lives. You keep your nose out of their business. That's just fine. But when they're growing up, it's your job to protect them, make sure that they have every chance available to them. So, as far as rebuilding, kids are number one, you're most likely gonna start dating again. So be careful with that. My rule was no girl was gonna meet my kids unless I was dating her for at least six months. And I remember my now wife, I was dating her, and she said, When am I gonna meet your kids? I said, Not for at least six months, maybe a year. And she said, Are you kidding me? I'm like, No. I said, What if we break up? I don't want them to go through another breakup. They know dad's dating, and that's fine. Nothing wrong with you, but stuff happens, and I don't want them going through this again. So pick your kids over anything else, they should come first.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Great advice, Patrick. Thank you so much for this conversation today. Do you have a website or a place where people can purchase your books?

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Um, all my books are on Amazon. I wrote this one under a pen name, LJ Burke. The name of the book was A Divorce Dad, Kids Are Forever Wives Are Not. And it was so funny, I didn't do my due diligence. It I wrote it slanted towards helping men out with their divorces, but a lot more women came to me and asked questions. A lot more women bought the book, and I'm like, okay, that's fine. I got no problem with that. But my website is copsinwriters.com, and my email is sarge at copsandwriters.com.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Perfect. I'll have all of that in the show notes. I found your book to be just basic practical advice for either a man or a woman, and especially if you want to have as amicable a divorce as possible. They're never that amicable. It's a stressful time, but a way to make things a little bit easier on a very difficult situation. So, Patrick, thank you again. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

You betray, thank you for having me on, and good luck to anybody that's gone through it or has gone through it. You'll get through it.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Thank you for listening to today's episode of Bent Not Broken. I hope that this episode reminded you that even through life's toughest moments, you are bent, not broken. If this message inspired you, please share, rate, review, and subscribe, as it helps us reach more women who are ready to rise and rebuild. And until next time, keep living bold and walking in your purpose.