Alex Beattie on the Divorce & Beyond Podcast: Why Focusing On Your Future Is Important During Divorce

The Most Important Thing You Can Do During Your Divorce Has Nothing to Do With Lawyers

"This week on The Divorce & Beyond Podcast, host Susan Guthrie, Esq. welcomes back returning guest Alex Beattie. Alex shares her secret sauce for a successful divorce and an even more successful BEYOND!" (from the Divorce & Beyond Podcast page)

LISTEN HERE

First — THANK YOU. This episode became the most downloaded episode of 2023, and I'm still floored by that. It tells me something really important: you're not just looking for help getting through your divorce. You're looking for a reason to believe there's something worth building on the other side of it. There is. I promise.

When Susan Guthrie invited me back on Divorce & Beyond, I knew exactly what I wanted to talk about. Not paperwork. Not attorneys. Not the tactical side of divorce prep — even though that's literally my job. I wanted to talk about the one exercise I did during my own divorce that changed everything about how I moved through it.

I wrote a letter to my future self.

That's it. That's the whole thing. But stay with me, because the why behind it matters a lot.

Divorce Keeps Pulling You Backward

Here's the problem with divorce: the entire process is designed to make you look backwards. Who earned what? Who spent what? Who did what? Who said what? Your attorney needs the history. The court needs the history. The financial disclosures need the history. Everything about the legal process is rooted in examining what already happened.

And then one day, it's over. The papers are signed. And you wake up in a life you don't recognize — because you spent the last year (or two or three) so deep in the past that you never once looked up to ask: what do I actually want my future to look like?

Susan shared a story on our episode that I haven't stopped thinking about. She was at a cocktail party and a woman told her every painful detail of her divorce — the betrayal, the fighting, the financial mess, all of it. Susan thought they were in the middle of it. They weren't. The divorce had been finalized 27 years earlier.

Twenty-seven years. Still living in it.

I don't want that for you. And I don't think you want that for yourself either.

Why I Wrote the Letter

When I was going through my own divorce years ago, I was completely unmoored. I'd been with my ex since my early twenties — we're talking 16 years. I had two young kids. I had no roadmap for what came next. And I kept finding myself bouncing between the legal tasks (which felt manageable, because I'm a producer and organizing everything was my job) and this enormous emotional void that had no structure at all.

So I gave it some structure.

I sat down — not all at once, it took a couple of days — and I wrote a letter to myself set five to ten years in the future. Not a vision board. Not a list of goals. A letter, written from the future, describing what my life looked like. How my kids were doing. Where I was living. What my days felt like. What I had let go of. What I had built.

And then I sealed it away.

What happened next surprised me. I started making decisions — big ones and small ones — with that letter in the back of my mind. I had a North Star. Something to navigate toward, even when the day-to-day of the divorce was exhausting and painful and completely out of my control.

How to Actually Write It

The best version of this exercise isn't a 20-minute task you knock out before bed. If you're in a painful, wounded place — and a lot of people reading this are — it's going to take some practice to separate from where you are right now. That's okay. Give it the time it needs.

Think of it like therapy, or exercise, or meditation. You're not going to sit down once and have it all figured out. You're building a muscle — the muscle of allowing yourself to look forward.

Here's how I'd approach it:

Day one: What are the things in my life that have brought me real joy that I haven't been making space for? Write them down. Don't edit. Don't judge. Just write.

Day two: What am I currently giving my time and energy to that doesn't bring me joy? What can I start to release?

Day three: What does home mean to me? Not the house — home. What does it feel like? Where is it? What's in it? (This one is especially important if you're negotiating over a family home right now. Ask yourself honestly: do I actually want this house, or do I just not want to lose?)

Day four: What does your life look like practically — financially, professionally, geographically? What are the hard constraints (a co-parent in the same city, a job you love), and within those, what does your ideal life actually look like?

Once you've done that groundwork, write the letter. Write it to yourself, from the future.

Dear [your name]. Here's what your life looks like now.

And yes — if you want a unicorn, write down the unicorn. This isn't about being practical. It's about giving yourself permission to want things again.

What It Actually Does for You During the Process

Here's the part that I think is most underrated: once you have this letter, it becomes a decision-making tool.

When a settlement offer lands on the table and your first instinct is fury — and sometimes fury is completely warranted — you also have a question you can ask: does this offer get me closer to the life in that letter, or further away? That's a different conversation than the one driven entirely by hurt and anger.

It also helps regulate the anxiety. Divorce is an incredibly choppy, uncertain time. Some days your optimism is real and solid. Other days you feel like you've been leveled. Having something written down — something that says this is where I'm headed, this is what I'm working toward — gives you an anchor on the hard days.

And it shifts you from reactive to proactive. That shift matters enormously. The people who get the best outcomes in divorce — and more importantly, the best lives after divorce — are the ones who are building toward something, not just surviving something.

Did It Work For Me?

I still have my letter.

I take it out sometimes and read it, not because I'm still working toward it — but because I got there. The backyard gatherings. The kids who are secure and happy and not defined by what their parents went through. The work that feels like mine. The values I get to pass on.

The letter is a reminder now. Proof that it works. Proof that the intentions you set during one of the hardest seasons of your life can actually become the life you're living.

I want that for you. Start the letter. You don't have to have it all figured out. Just start.

Ready to Explore Your Options?

Sign up for my free 4-email divorce prep series. I'll walk you through exactly what to do emotionally, financially, administratively, and practically—so you can move forward with confidence and clarity. 

Use my Monthly Budget Calculator to understand your financial reality and plan for life after divorce.

Book a free 15-minute consultation with me to talk through where you are and what your next steps should be.