Marriage Equality and Divorce Equality with Author Steven Petrow
Divorce for Same Sex Couples Is the Same as Any Other Divorce, Right?
Marriage equality becoming the law of the land in 2015 ushered in a new era of rights finally uniting couples of the same sex behind the same set of protections as opposite sex couples. But with those rights to unite, came the equivalent rights to divorce. As our guest this week illuminates, the law is what it is, but there is also a cultural adaptation to gay divorce. Should an LGBTQ+ couple feel like they’re failing all that work to win the right to marry if they divorce? And why are words so important, not just in the courtroom but also in social situations... even on this very podcast?
Steven Petrow – award-winning journalist and best-selling author perhaps best-known for his Washington Post and New York Times essays on LGBTQ life, health, and civility – joins Seth and Pete to talk about the challenges in the world of divorce of same sex couples. As Petrow says, “same institution, same benefits, same penalties.” But that doesn’t deal with the cultural change that come along with it. It’s amazing how impactful the words involved in marriage become and the weight they carry.
The same is true for divorce.
Making this conversation even more complicated, we’re also looking at the future of marriage equality with the current Supreme Court. How could this court not only change marriage of same sex couples but also divorce if the Court indicates same sex couples are suddenly no longer “married?”
It’s an important subject to cover on the show because the law may be the law, but it’s working through cultural stereotypes to find equality in all aspects that are as much a part of it as they are in the marriage itself.
About Steven
Steven Petrow is an award-winning journalist and best-selling book author who is best known for his Washington Postand New York Times essays on LGBTQ life, health, and civility. He’s also an opinion columnist for USA Today, where he writes about civil discourse and manners. Steven’s 2019 TED Talk, “3 Ways to Practice Civility” has been viewed nearly two million times and translated into 16 languages. He regularly appears on NPR and other media outlets. His two most recent books are Steven Petrow’s Complete Gay and Lesbian Manners: The Definitive Guide to LGBTQ Life and Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old, which was published last June and was named as a New York Times favorite in 2021. His next book, Joy to You and Me will be published by Penguin Random House. Steven is a past president of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists and lives in Hillsborough, NC.
Links & Notes
“Celebrating My (Gay) Divorce”, Steven’s piece in The Atlantic
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships from TruStory FM. Today, we're exploring the pride of your toaster.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright.
Divorce is divorce is divorce, right? Not so fast. With marriage equality becoming the law of the land on June 26th, 2015, so did divorce equality. While the legal machine of divorce process will be quite familiar, can we say the same about the cultural adaptation to gay divorce?
Steven Petrow is an award-winning journalist and best selling book author who is best known for his Washington Post and New York Times essays on LGBTQ life, health and civility. He also has an opinion column for USA Today, where he writes about civil discourse and manners. In his piece in The Atlantic, Celebrating My (Gay) Divorce, he writes with vulnerability and candor about his own experience with divorce equality.
Steven, welcome to the toaster.
Steven Petrow:
I'm glad to be in the hot seat. I'm a little afraid of you guys, gentlemen, but we're good. I just want to be clear, I'm a gay divorcé, but that divorcé has only one E in it and the accent mark.
Seth Nelson:
Of course a writer is immediately going to say that.
Pete Wright:
Of course it does. I appreciate that you come with such syntax immediately out of the gate.
Steven Petrow:
Of course.
Pete Wright:
You are writing about civil discourse and manners. Boy, did you land on the wrong show.
Steven Petrow:
Now, you tell me.
Pete Wright:
Or else the right show. Yeah. You didn't know. We called you in as an intervention for us.
We've been noodling about a show about gay divorce for years, but Seth always comes back to me and he says, "Gay divorce is gay divorce, man. I'm a lawyer. The law has rules for a divorce. We follow those rules whether you're a gay divorce or straight divorce. It doesn't matter. Why would we need to show on gay divorce?"
The more and more we start reading about this, the more we run into maybe not legal issues with gay divorce, though there are some to talk about, but cultural issues around gay divorce that might make for an interesting conversation on this show.
Here you are. As somebody experienced with it, writing about it, thinking critically about it, what do we need to know about gay divorce?
Steven Petrow:
Well, I always hate to get in between a couple. I'm thinking about you and Seth as a couple. A couple of what, I'm not sure.
Pete Wright:
Good. Off to the right track. Off the right track.
Steven Petrow:
From a legal perspective, yes, a divorce is a divorce is a divorce. I think you're absolutely right, though. When it comes to cultural aspects and personal aspects, it's very different for LGBTQ people in several ways. One of them, I remember ...
I was partnered, and then I was married for a total of 14 years. Then in 2016, we separated, had a legal separation, and then were declared divorced in 2017. Many of my friends in the queer community didn't even know that the laws are applied the same equally to same sex couples as opposite sex couples. Then you go out of the queer community, and frankly, there are many heterosexual people who did not have that understanding.
I think people just didn't really think about it, because of course, if you were to drill down, we generally don't have laws that apply only to one group or another. So certainly these laws are the same. But 2017 came fairly quickly after 2015, when my marriage equality was made the law of the land by the Supreme Court. So there were some real lessons. There were lessons for me in this. There were lessons for my friends, our families and communities.
Pete Wright:
How do you feel like you changed as a result of your divorce?
Seth Nelson:
Well, can we back up before we get there, Pete?
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Seth Nelson:
Let's back up to how did it change when you had the right to get married, and you got married? Were you in a long term, committed relationship?
Steven Petrow:
Yeah. We had been together for eight or nine years at that point. We married in the summer of 2013. We had a good relationship at that point. [inaudible 00:05:00] we were both in our 50s. Before tying the knot, we did not do a prenup, but we did speak to our accountant. How was this going to make sense financially? We looked at our legal paperwork, and brought that up to speed.
I will tell you that I was surprised by what happened [inaudible 00:05:23] we got married, because we were an established couple for a long time, but when we had this reception at our home in Hillsborough, North Carolina, this was the first same sex wedding reception that anyone there had ever been to. For us, well, I'll speak for me, it was very affirming of the relationship in a way I had never expected. It just took it to a different level.
We were married. We were husbands, even though there was stumbling over what to call each of us. "Are they still boyfriends or partners?" "No. We're husbands or spouses." There was a real public aspect to that.
I come from a family where my mother and father were in the New York Times when they got married. It's been part of our lifestyle. We were in the New York Times when we got married. So there was kind of hooking into traditions also around matrimony that ... something heteronormative. I kind of liked them.
Seth Nelson:
Right. I find that very interesting, because my fiance and I have been together for 12 years. Pete knows this. We split up for a couple years. My understanding of why that was is because I wanted to get married and she did not. If she was here, she would be telling a different story. I assure you, hers would be correct, and mine would be wrong.
Pete Wright:
It would be the right story. Yeah, mm-hmm.
Seth Nelson:
Right. She would always say, "But I'm in a committed relationship with you. I want to be with you the rest of my life." I'm like, "It's just different to me. I can't explain it. It's part of my DNA." So I wonder ...
Now, we got engaged, and people treat us differently. They're all excited about the wedding. It is a different level. She's mildly annoyed. "Well, why didn't people treat us like this before?" I said, "Because it's just different. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is."
It seems to me that when you've lived that and gotten married, you've had that exact experience. It is a different level.
Pete Wright:
There's all the joy of being a soon-to-be-married couple, and you're a showpiece now for the gay community, particularly in a community where there isn't a lot of gay marriage.
Steven Petrow:
Yeah, absolutely true. It felt like we were role models. There was a responsibility in that too. I guess part of ... Since I write about LGBTQ issues, I'd been writing about same sex marriage for many years, I felt especially close to the issue. Then of course, when our marriage dissolved, it was challenging to me on another level that way, because I am in the public eye about that.
I remember talking to a friend slash colleague, who is actually a lesbian wedding planner, and then she got divorced. She felt, "People are not going to come to me anymore because I'm divorced." No, that was not the case.
This is some of the internal dialogue that we had to deal with. But it was real. It was real in my head, in any case. I often hear voices though, so what can I say?
Pete Wright:
Well, this is the thing we've heard before, that the additional ... That same showpiece structure of being a marrying gay couple, you become the same showpiece as you describe of being a divorcing gay couple. Part of the stigma on that is failing it being gay. You've wanted this the whole time, and now you can't even keep it. That's what I've had reflected on from some of my gay couple friends. How does that hit you? Not only that, you're also in the public eye.
Steven Petrow:
Same sex couples and queer people have wanted to get married, or most of us have wanted to get married, for our whole lives. We were not able to do that. Then we are able to do that. Then I do that, and then it doesn't work out.
There's many levels of failure within that. There's the sense of personal failure within the relationship, and then the larger, more diffused one. How does the world see us? What does it mean?
Well, in the end, it means that same sex couples are very much like opposite sex couples. Some marriages work. Some marriages don't. We're human beings together and separately. But all of that was new. There really aren't ... Still, there aren't that many divorced, same sex couples.
Pete Wright:
Turns out, the lesson we had to prove all along is exactly that, that relationships fail. That is equality. We collectively know how to screw up relationships and go to Seth.
Steven Petrow:
Yeah. One thing that surprised me also was around languaging. Seth, you said that after you got engaged, people honored your relationship in a different way. After Jim and I separated and then divorced, people were really not sure of the language to use. They were like, "You guys broke up. You're not shacking up together anymore." It really felt like ...
Pete Wright:
What?
Seth Nelson:
Because that's a romantic term.
Steven Petrow:
Yeah. That's a fantastic term.
Pete Wright:
What?
Steven Petrow:
A lot of the language diminished the legal relationship that we had. It was though it was like a plaything, and we're going to use words that really don't honor it.
That was actually part of the education that I found myself doing as a writer around that and in the Atlantic piece, that it has the same emotional significance, it has the same legal significance, and alas, sometimes the same economic circumstances. We got into an alimony, air quotes, discussion that was very painful, and is frequently in the center of other people's divorces.
Seth Nelson:
That is so true. Just on that point, if I may, is that language matters. We've got a brilliant writer on the show. I don't have to tell him that.
Currently now, in Florida and Hillsborough County, there's been a change in the law where before we would say, "It's a divorce." "I represent the husband." "I represent the wife." Throughout all of our documents, it would be husband, wife, husband, wife, husband, wife. The technical legal term is whoever files for divorce is the petitioner, and whoever is responding is the respondent. So now, it is changed where all of our forms are petitioner, respondent. We no longer say husband, wife.
Quite frankly, in our own practice area, because in family law, it doesn't really matter that much, there's some strategy reasons whether you want to file first or second, it doesn't make that big of a difference. So I will frequently forget whether I'm petitioner or respondent, who I'm representing. When we're in court, I remember.
But these changes in words matter, and I think there's a lot of what I'll call the '50s stereotype ... The wife stays home with the children and raises the kid, and the husband goes out and works. Then we have this alimony component. Obviously, if they're getting a divorce, mom should be taking care of the children, because that's what mothers do.
Well, when you have two fathers in the courtroom, that stereotype is out the window. So I think there's been some dynamic relationship changes coming before the court, where they might have had unconscious bias before that is no longer there because they're different parties standing in front of them.
Steven Petrow:
I think that's a really good point. I remember ... What is it? 2022? Not that long ago, maybe 2014 or so, many marriage certificates had bride and groom. Now, you have two brides, we have two grooms. Some people don't even like either of those words. But it was very from a different period, and set off different associations and connotations.
Pete Wright:
Seth Nelson, believe it or not, it's still back-to-school season, but we're going to call it back-at-school season. Because for now, I think just about everybody, we're easing back into the school year. Kids are in school. We're practicing now some new behaviors, I imagine. Am I right?
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely. Kids are back at school. Hopefully, we're back to a routine. Summer is always all over the place. We're back at school, but things can be stressful, especially now.
It matters whether the kids have all their stuff when they go to the other parent's house, because that stuff might be their homework. That stuff might be their books, their pencils. Do they have their athletic gear that they need for extracurriculars after school, or their instrument that they're playing, or anything else that they may be doing?
It can be stressful. When people get stressed, they tend to self medicate. Please don't do that with alcohol.
Pete Wright:
Please don't do that with alcohol. That's why we, at How to Split a Toaster, our entire mission is to help save relationships and get you through your divorce process.
We have partnered with Soberlink. Soberlink offers resources to help you navigate these complex waters of this back-to-school, back-at-school season. What is Soberlink?
Seth Nelson:
Soberlink is a remote alcohol monitoring technology. It's created to help you prove your sobriety in custody cases. The system includes a high tech breathalyzer device, with facial recognition, that allows you to receive real time updates from monitoring co-parents any time, anywhere, allowing for swift intervention to improve child safety.
Now, if you're the one being monitored, let's get something straight here. This is to help make sure your kids are safe. Put your ego to the side and say, "Look. Even if I don't need to be monitored, I'm not an alcoholic," and you're having those conversations, another approach is, "Yeah. Happy to do it, because I'm going to show to you and the court that the kids are safe with me. I'm just going to ask that when I do the facial recognition," because it's not the best picture, "it's just not going to be used for any other reasons other than the court proceedings."
You're willing to do that to keep your kids safe, so you can spend quality time with them. That's what Soberlink is all about.
Pete Wright:
Soberlink is currently offering a free back-to-school and divorce packet that includes a Q&A with a top divorce attorney, back-to-school checklist, communication tips and more. You can get yours by visiting www.soberlink.com/toaster. Thanks to Soberlink for sponsoring How to Split a Toaster.
In the spirit of check your local jurisdiction, I'm curious how equality, as the law of the land, applies across the laws of the land. I will say it is ironic to me that you're talking about what seems to be a progressive change in the way your court filing is handled, petitioner and respondent, coming from a state where you can't actually say the word. Whereas making the news for Don't Say Gay.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to my world, Pete.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I feel like we have to have that conversation at some level buried in the subtext of what we're saying here, because in just reading up on some of the issues, where does the law get complicated in and around gay divorce? If it's just the law is the law is the law, why then are there still issues around child custody and child support and alimony? How is that handled?
Steven Petrow:
Pete, before we get all the way into that, I want to kindly make another language suggestion.
Pete Wright:
Please.
Steven Petrow:
Before same sex couples could be married, there was this phrase, gay marriage. We didn't like that, because gay's used as a modifier or as an adjective, marriage. If it's marriage, then it's marriage of intersex couples. So when we're talking about divorce, it's really not gay divorce, unless you're being clever, it's divorce of same sex couples. It's not a different kind of divorce at all.
Pete Wright:
It's divorce. Okay.
Steven Petrow:
We all want the same rights and responsibilities in divorce. Just wanted to say that.
Seth Nelson:
Well, I think that's a great point. To Steven's point, I think in court, and I've seen it, the law doesn't change, but how it gets applied, at some levels, might be more evenhanded, because you don't have the unconscious bias that I was referring to before.
The way I present my case is always different based upon the judge that I have, that I know. Some arguments, I know don't work, because I've made before. They didn't work. We always prepare it within the law and with the facts, and every case is different. But I work really hard to present cases to bring the court information that I think they need to make the decision. When we had Judge Tibbals on, we talked about that, Pete. But how you present that information can be vastly different between attorneys and between, ultimately, outcomes in that courtroom.
When you're doing that with a same sex couple, understanding that there aren't necessarily these unconscious bias, but if there's a sliver that opens the door for the judge in the court to be like, "I get it," and this is derogatory, but this is them thinking it without saying it, "That's the husband. That's the wife," and they fall right back into it.
Pete Wright:
Just landing on those stereotypes.
Seth Nelson:
That's right.
Steven Petrow:
Just like my mother, just like my mother. She could not understand how, in a marriage, there could be ... There had to be a husband and a wife "Who is the husband and who is the wife?" in my relationship, my mother kept saying. She was in her 80s at that point. But that comes from a different paradigm.
It also seems to me like there is the elephant in this room. We're talking about the Supreme Court case, Obergefell versus Hodges from 2015. Many people in my community are extremely worried about what this court might do to marriage equality, and what that would mean for couples who are currently married and for couples who might want to get married.
It's frightening. It's frightening. Many of the rationales used in the recent abortion case could be applied here. Seth, you probably know more about all that legal stuff than I do, but it's a concern.
Pete Wright:
To extend the concern, when you think about all the rights that have come through 2015's change, could those rights for divorce be somehow eroded, and suddenly you have less of a right to have an even equity in the divorce process? Is that as rational fear for current same sex, married couples?
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely. First off, I agree. According to the rationale of the abortion case that overturned 50 years of precedent and took away a right, that rationale all flows through same sex marriage, privacy to contraception.
Interestingly enough, Justice Thomas stopped short of this in his opinion, when he says, "This could apply to all these things we're talking about," but he didn't mention interracial couples. He's in an interracial marriage. So the same rationale flows through.
To your point, Pete, and to Steven's point, if right now, you have a couple, same sex, that is married, and they don't want to be in that relationship, and there's no prenup, there's a way to get out. You get divorced. Just take the prenup out for a second. You're married. You get divorced.
Pete Wright:
We know how divorce works.
Seth Nelson:
What happens if the Supreme Court says you're no longer married? How do you divide up your stuff? If you choose that you no longer want to live together, how do you do time sharing and custody and visitation if you choose no longer to live under the same roof? How do you decide on death issues, on who can be in the ICU with you when it's only your spouse and you're no longer married?
There are all these other issues that arise that deal with the most emotional, heartfelt difficult parts of our lives, that people in the gay community had to deal with for a long time, and then they got marriage equality, and a lot of problems were solved. They will be even worse, I think, than not having it. Having it, you're in the relationship, and now, poof, it's gone.
Steven Petrow:
Right. So many people were shocked about the abortion decision. We had 50 years of precedent and precedence here. It was almost unbelievable. This falls, in my head, in the unbelievable category too, that this might happen, but we've already just seen it happen with this [inaudible 00:23:42]. So unfortunately, anything seems possible.
The ruinous nature of that, inherently unequal nature of that, is abhorrent and then deeply frightening to so many people, to couples, to couples, with kids, so on and so forth.
Pete Wright:
There are so many Click, Baby headlines. I was just traipsing around the internet as I'm wont to do.
Steven Petrow:
[inaudible 00:24:08]
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Looking at what are the challenges in divorce. The leading headlines are like, "Yeah. Child custody could just go completely wrong." You think, "The court is going to completely misunderstand child custody. It's going to be just terrible." There's story after story of same sex couples actually trying to use the fact that they were same sex to get out of paying alimony or child support, and the court saying, "No. You were married. You are a parent. You can't get out of it just because you're not biologically related to this child."
Seems to be a small percentage of overall stories, but they're out there, and they feel like, yes, okay, we have arrived at marriage equality. Everybody's trying to game the divorce process.
Steven Petrow:
With rights come responsibilities. That is specifically true to marriage.
Pete Wright:
Yup.
Steven Petrow:
That's all I have to say about it. If you are a parent, and you're in a same sex couple, and you're getting divorced, you're on the line. That's part of your responsibility.
Pete Wright:
To use your word, same institution, same benefits, same penalties.
Steven Petrow:
Thank you for reminding me of my words, Pete.
Pete Wright:
You're very welcome. I have them right here. I just have a call to the tattoo parlor. I'm just going to work that out.
Seth Nelson:
I do not want to know where you're putting that tattoo.
Pete Wright:
It's kind of a long sentence.
Seth, I want to pivot here real quick. Do you have anything else on this before we get into some really important business?
Seth Nelson:
Pete, if you're going to pivot, I'm never getting in your way. I've learned my lesson.
Pete Wright:
Steven, when was your divorce? What year?
Steven Petrow:
Divorced in 2018, separated in 2017. I might have gotten the years wrong earlier.
Pete Wright:
I'm going to read just a short passage to you. I would like you to reflect on whether or not there is any connection between your divorce and proximity to this project. Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old: A Highly Judgemental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting Of All The Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong. This is your new book right after you get divorced. Steven, what happened?
Steven Petrow:
That is a very sharp pivot, but thank you. Thank you for pivoting to that.
There's an overlap in time in that I started working on this book in 2017, when I was well into my 50s and my parents were well into their 70s. It was very focused on their aging issues and challenges.
Actually, Pete, in terms of the calendar, my mom died in January of 2017. My dad died in April the same year. Then Jim and I separated right in between. He chose February to leave. So they were all muddled together.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Steven Petrow:
A pretty awful year for me. Yeah. So that book really came out of trying to be a better son to my parents, trying to learn some of the lessons from their generation so that we can live a little bit happier and smarter.
But the book I'm working on now, it doesn't have a fancy or a snarky tile yet, but it's about finding joy in challenging times. There, I will be reflecting more on what happened in my marriage and what happened after, because I am much more joyful now that I'm out of that marriage.
Pete Wright:
That sounds like a relief, a silver lining. Yeah?
Seth Nelson:
In the moment, when you were going through the divorce, did you think ever that, "I will be more joyful out of this," or, "I just want get through this process so I can start living my best life again"?
Steven Petrow:
Never, ever. It was really hard. You know this stuff. We each had lawyers. It became somewhat litigious. It was painful. It was emotionally painful. I think when you're in a storm like that, it's really hard to see your way out. When you don't know that many people who've been in that specific storm, and here I'm talking about same sex divorce, it was a lonely experience.
I remember I had one really good friend who had been married to a man and was divorced. He was really a lifeline for me, just emotionally, but also understanding how this all worked legally.
Of course, things vary state to state. North Carolina, where I live, has this one year separation rule. That is a very pro-family policy, because they hope couples will come back together. That's why they make you stick it out for a year. That's not true in all states. I don't know what the case is in Florida.
Seth Nelson:
It's not in Florida. I think that one year rule, which is also the same in Louisiana and some other states that I'm aware, it just makes the pain go on for another year.
Steven Petrow:
It does.
Seth Nelson:
I think that is one of the travesties of those quote unquote pro-family ... Because that's how it's sold, and that's how it's billed, and that's how the politicians will talk about it. What they miss is that hurts families that are going through the process in unbelievable ways that take years to heal, and that scar may never go away. It's all because, "We want to keep you together."
Steven Petrow:
Yeah. The state seems to know better an awful lot these days. I say that deeply sarcastically.
I guess my point is, when you're in the middle of a shit storm, it's really hard to see your way out. So no, I did not imagine that things could be better, but we need to give some time to all of this and find a new perspective. I am happier. From everything that I hear, my ex is also happier.
Pete Wright:
Well, that was actually my next question, Steven. Have you salvaged any sort of a relationship between you as friends and colleagues, or is that in the past?
Steven Petrow:
I don't want to get too personal, but he did not want to have an ongoing relationship. He re-partnered within a couple of months and then remarried. We have been off on our separate ways.
Honestly, our most contentious issue was about the dog that we had at the time, a Jack Russell terrier. I wound up with custody of her, Seth, thanks to a very good lawyer and some shaming, on my part [inaudible 00:30:48]
Seth Nelson:
Well, I will ... [inaudible 00:30:52]
Pete Wright:
You do what it takes for the dog. That's all I'm saying.
Seth Nelson:
Let me tell you, Steven. I went to trial. The one issue, the main issue was who gets the dog. In that trial, thankfully, we prevailed for our client. I thought it was actually the right outcome as well. I don't always say that. Those can be very emotional issues.
Under the law in Florida, we always say check your local jurisdiction, it's property. But in Florida, there's case law that also says when you deal with division of property, the court's allowed to take into your sentimental attachment to that property.
We think that, ultimately, in the caring of the dog and then number of years, during separation for the year, who has the dog, and stuff of that nature, but it gets very fact specific. We can joke, but dogs are part of the family.
Steven Petrow:
Yeah. I would say also, within same sex couples, dogs, pets are often the surrogate for children. So the attachment and the meaning can be disproportionately high.
If I'm remembering correctly, Seth, I think there are some jurisdictions or states, California being one of them, where they're starting to view dogs and pets not as property, but asking the question, what is in the best interest of the animal or of the dog. I think there's a slow shift in that direction, which I think is great.
Seth Nelson:
Steven, we had a whole podcast about what is in the best interest of the dog.
Pete Wright:
One of our top downloaded shows in our history is people wanting to learn and have learned from a specialist on what is best for the dog, talking about what's best for the pet. It's fascinating, fascinating area.
Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old, we're pitching that. We want people to make sure you go check out this book. Steven's writing is fantastic and incisive. As a fan myself, I eagerly endorse going and reading this book.
You are working on the joy book. When do we get to see that?
Steven Petrow:
With any luck, you'll be seeing it, and we can talk about it again, in the summer of 2024.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding, outstanding.
Seth Nelson:
Well, Steven, let me tell you. I have an 18-year-old son, and his favorite magazine is The Atlantic. I am just hopeful that when I talk to him this evening and tell him that you were on the podcast, I might just get a little notch up, like maybe I know something.
Steven Petrow:
Good luck with that.
Pete Wright:
But also, I know your son. Probably not.
Steven Petrow:
All right, Pete, I didn't mean to cut you off.
Pete Wright:
You know what? It was perfect. It was a double barrel. That was exactly as it should have been.
Steven Petrow, thank you so much for being here. StevenPetrow.com. Just Google search the guy. You'll find all kinds of stuff he's up to. We sure appreciate you, Steven. Thanks for being here.
Steven Petrow:
Thanks, guys.
Pete Wright:
Thank you, everybody, for downloading and listening to this show. Don't forget, you can ask a question any time you want. Just head over to HowToSplitAToaster.com, push the Ask A Question button, and then ask a question. Yeah. Bing, bang, boom. You've asked a question to us. It's going to be great. We'll talk about it on the show. We'd love to hear your voice.
Until then, on behalf of the fantastic Stephen Petrow and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright. We'll catch you next week right here on How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships.
Outro:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law, with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
