August 21, 2025 • 8 mins
Ann Margaret Carozza talks with Mendte in the Morning about the rise in ‘the gray divorce’ or splits happening later in peoples lives.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
More and more people, statistics show are getting divorced later
in life. Now before you consider that, you should also
consider your assets, not only when you're going to get
a divorce, but if you remarry. And here to talk
about that is and Margaret Carosa. She is the host
of the Laws of Your Money with Ann Margaret Carosa
(00:23):
Sundays at ten thirty. She is also the author of
Asset Protection. What we're going to talk about attorney, and
she's a former New York State assembly woman. And Margaret,
thanks for coming on the show. And I appreciate having me.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Larry.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah, so talk about the perils of divorce when it
comes to assets.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, so many people. We know that the national statistics
are approximately forty three percent of us are going to
go through a divorce. And for many folks, especially later
in life, a decision is made to get divorce, but
they're still living together. And that may be because they
(01:04):
have children who are in high school and they make
the decision between themselves let's stay technically married until they're
out of the house or for whatever reason. So we
need to erect guardrails. And an example of this is
former Mayor Bill Deblasio has said that he separated from
(01:27):
Charlene McCrae, but they're continuing to live together. They're dating
other people. But this is an example of a couple
who has made the decision to split, but they haven't
actually split yet. So there are certain things that someone
in this situation should definitely do. If you are technically
(01:50):
married but you've made the mental decision that you have
checked out of the marriage, you're going to want to
update your advanced directives?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Do I want you if we're about to get divorced?
Do I want you making life and death decisions in
a hospital setting?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I want to update the healthcare proxy. You don't
need a lawyer for this. You can do it on
your own. I have the free forms on my website
and that's my lawyer dot com. You want to update
your power of attorney. Do you want your soon to
be x to have access to your bank accounts?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
You might want to change your social media passwords, your
financial account logins. So you want to take some defensive
measures in case things get ugly during the course of
the split.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
But a split is so emotional. Nobody thinks of all
of those things. My feeling is and you'd probably go
along with this. As a matter of fact, you'd probably
preach this. You should be doing this long before even
thinking of a divorce. Everybody's in love when they get
married and they don't think about their assets. But that's
when they really should be thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Absolutely, And I think it bears repeating that we divorce
a very different person than the person that we married,
and we need to go into it with our eyes open.
And even in an intact marriage, you can have financial
(03:27):
differences in your outlook. So if you want to keep
some assets separate, that makes sense for a lot of couples.
Other couples are all in and they have aligned financial goals.
If we have one person who spends like a drunken sailor,
(03:47):
the other person is going to be very frustrated if
they're trying hard to save for a vacation, rental property
for example.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
But it's a real hard thing to bring up, isn't it.
I mean, if you're going to get married and all
of a sudden you're saying, okay, now sign these papers
because this protects my assets who are.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Here, it's a very hard thing to bring up. And
the folks that I work with, I do asset protection.
So if you have a business, if you have a
home and you're looking to avoid probate, safeguard the asset
from future possible nursing home issues. We do all of
these things to protect the assets. And I'm the one
(04:27):
who brings up do you have adult children? If so,
we want your trust, missus Jones to say upon death
it goes to Mary, Susie and Johnny on the condition
that they take legal steps to keep those assets separate
from what they may choose to commingle with a spouse
(04:51):
or partner. So if we have a mass some assets,
we have savings, and we want to make sure that
that goes to our grandchildren one day and not to
a former son in law, then we need to take
active steps within the planning. And to your point, how
do you bring these topics up? There was a recent
(05:14):
study by Experience that four out of five people out
there in the dating market view a good credit score
as a highly attractive asset.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I heard that, So I think, you know, we want
to bring the topic up early, maybe not on the
first date, but early on in the dating relationship. Are
we going to fancy expensive restaurants every night? Or do
we want to mix it up and go rollerblading or
for a walk in the park, and we want to
(05:50):
talk about our financial priorities.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Isn't it funny? I have four kids, but I have
a twenty one year old, and I got a third
eight year old, and I have an eighteen year old.
And they all talk about their credit scores. Now, I
never thought about my credit score at that age. This
is a new thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
This is gen Z is on it, you know, this
eighteen year old plus cohort. They are coming into the
office to get wills and it's just mind boggling. And
they gen Z is more likely to get a prenuptial
agreement than millennials are.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah, I think gen Z is going to stay the
save of the world. I love gen Z people. I
know they get put down a lot, but I got too,
and they're much more advanced than I ever heard.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I actually also, and they pride their credit scores. You're
absolutely yes, Yeah, I think that's a good thing, you know,
So we can bring that up and maybe if someone
has a bad credit score, it's not necessarily for a
bad reason. Maybe they were trying to be a nice
person and they co signed someone's life or they co
(07:02):
signed for someone's mortgage and it didn't work out. So
you can have good people that temporarily have bad credit.
And the important conversation is what are we going to
do from here? How can we together as a team
move forward with solid financial goals.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
You know, what you do is so important. And I
want to get back to the baby boomers in a second,
because what you do is so important because there is
a lot of people being taken advantage of at that age.
And I guess even with that and sometimes family members
do it, that's when your assets need to be protected
because you get more vulnerable the older you get.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Absolutely, and people don't realize that Medicare and the Medicare
supplement don't cover a nursing home stay beyond the first
hundred days. So we want to think about doing a
trust protecting the assets so that the senior is protected.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
How do people get hold of you.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
At my lawyer and on Instagram? And then you can
jump onto my website for free info and forms.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
And they can ask a question there and they can
get hold of you through that website. Absolutely, wow, that's
so important. Thank you so much for coming in as
a really valuable information and I'm sure you just helped
a lot of people. Thanks Larry and Margaret Carosa. Host
of the Laws of Your Money with Ann Margaret Caroza
Sundays at ten thirty, author of asset protection, attorney and
(08:33):
former New York State assembly Woman. Thanks again, It's good
to have you here.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Thank you.
More and more people, statistics show are getting divorced later
in life. Now before you consider that, you should also
consider your assets, not only when you're going to get
a divorce, but if you remarry. And here to talk
about that is and Margaret Carosa. She is the host
of the Laws of Your Money with Ann Margaret Carosa
(00:23):
Sundays at ten thirty. She is also the author of
Asset Protection. What we're going to talk about attorney, and
she's a former New York State assembly woman. And Margaret,
thanks for coming on the show. And I appreciate having me.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Larry.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah, so talk about the perils of divorce when it
comes to assets.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, so many people. We know that the national statistics
are approximately forty three percent of us are going to
go through a divorce. And for many folks, especially later
in life, a decision is made to get divorce, but
they're still living together. And that may be because they
(01:04):
have children who are in high school and they make
the decision between themselves let's stay technically married until they're
out of the house or for whatever reason. So we
need to erect guardrails. And an example of this is
former Mayor Bill Deblasio has said that he separated from
(01:27):
Charlene McCrae, but they're continuing to live together. They're dating
other people. But this is an example of a couple
who has made the decision to split, but they haven't
actually split yet. So there are certain things that someone
in this situation should definitely do. If you are technically
(01:50):
married but you've made the mental decision that you have
checked out of the marriage, you're going to want to
update your advanced directives?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Do I want you if we're about to get divorced?
Do I want you making life and death decisions in
a hospital setting?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I want to update the healthcare proxy. You don't
need a lawyer for this. You can do it on
your own. I have the free forms on my website
and that's my lawyer dot com. You want to update
your power of attorney. Do you want your soon to
be x to have access to your bank accounts?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
You might want to change your social media passwords, your
financial account logins. So you want to take some defensive
measures in case things get ugly during the course of
the split.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
But a split is so emotional. Nobody thinks of all
of those things. My feeling is and you'd probably go
along with this. As a matter of fact, you'd probably
preach this. You should be doing this long before even
thinking of a divorce. Everybody's in love when they get
married and they don't think about their assets. But that's
when they really should be thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Absolutely, And I think it bears repeating that we divorce
a very different person than the person that we married,
and we need to go into it with our eyes open.
And even in an intact marriage, you can have financial
(03:27):
differences in your outlook. So if you want to keep
some assets separate, that makes sense for a lot of couples.
Other couples are all in and they have aligned financial goals.
If we have one person who spends like a drunken sailor,
(03:47):
the other person is going to be very frustrated if
they're trying hard to save for a vacation, rental property
for example.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
But it's a real hard thing to bring up, isn't it.
I mean, if you're going to get married and all
of a sudden you're saying, okay, now sign these papers
because this protects my assets who are.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Here, it's a very hard thing to bring up. And
the folks that I work with, I do asset protection.
So if you have a business, if you have a
home and you're looking to avoid probate, safeguard the asset
from future possible nursing home issues. We do all of
these things to protect the assets. And I'm the one
(04:27):
who brings up do you have adult children? If so,
we want your trust, missus Jones to say upon death
it goes to Mary, Susie and Johnny on the condition
that they take legal steps to keep those assets separate
from what they may choose to commingle with a spouse
(04:51):
or partner. So if we have a mass some assets,
we have savings, and we want to make sure that
that goes to our grandchildren one day and not to
a former son in law, then we need to take
active steps within the planning. And to your point, how
do you bring these topics up? There was a recent
(05:14):
study by Experience that four out of five people out
there in the dating market view a good credit score
as a highly attractive asset.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I heard that, So I think, you know, we want
to bring the topic up early, maybe not on the
first date, but early on in the dating relationship. Are
we going to fancy expensive restaurants every night? Or do
we want to mix it up and go rollerblading or
for a walk in the park, and we want to
(05:50):
talk about our financial priorities.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Isn't it funny? I have four kids, but I have
a twenty one year old, and I got a third
eight year old, and I have an eighteen year old.
And they all talk about their credit scores. Now, I
never thought about my credit score at that age. This
is a new thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
This is gen Z is on it, you know, this
eighteen year old plus cohort. They are coming into the
office to get wills and it's just mind boggling. And
they gen Z is more likely to get a prenuptial
agreement than millennials are.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah, I think gen Z is going to stay the
save of the world. I love gen Z people. I
know they get put down a lot, but I got too,
and they're much more advanced than I ever heard.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I actually also, and they pride their credit scores. You're
absolutely yes, Yeah, I think that's a good thing, you know,
So we can bring that up and maybe if someone
has a bad credit score, it's not necessarily for a
bad reason. Maybe they were trying to be a nice
person and they co signed someone's life or they co
(07:02):
signed for someone's mortgage and it didn't work out. So
you can have good people that temporarily have bad credit.
And the important conversation is what are we going to
do from here? How can we together as a team
move forward with solid financial goals.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
You know, what you do is so important. And I
want to get back to the baby boomers in a second,
because what you do is so important because there is
a lot of people being taken advantage of at that age.
And I guess even with that and sometimes family members
do it, that's when your assets need to be protected
because you get more vulnerable the older you get.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Absolutely, and people don't realize that Medicare and the Medicare
supplement don't cover a nursing home stay beyond the first
hundred days. So we want to think about doing a
trust protecting the assets so that the senior is protected.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
How do people get hold of you.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
At my lawyer and on Instagram? And then you can
jump onto my website for free info and forms.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
And they can ask a question there and they can
get hold of you through that website. Absolutely, wow, that's
so important. Thank you so much for coming in as
a really valuable information and I'm sure you just helped
a lot of people. Thanks Larry and Margaret Carosa. Host
of the Laws of Your Money with Ann Margaret Caroza
Sundays at ten thirty, author of asset protection, attorney and
(08:33):
former New York State assembly Woman. Thanks again, It's good
to have you here.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Thank you.
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