October 6, 2019 • 32 mins
Most divorce professionals will tell you that everyone lies at some point in their divorce. For many people, they might be harmless ‘white lies’ that are told to try to make the other person feel better or to avoid a confrontation.
But then there are the lies that are deeply deceitful. They may cause significant harm, even be life-altering. The sad truth about your spouse’s lies in divorce is that you may have little legal recourse.
How can this be? What does it mean for you? What needs to change?
Joining me for this Conversations About Divorce is Jill Hasday who is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and the Centennial Professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She’s also the author of “Intimate Lies and The Law.” Read more about Jill at her website, https://JillHasday.com.
You'll find a synopsis of this Conversation at my blog: https://sincemydivorce.com/the-sad-truth-about-your-spouse's-lies-in-divorce
But then there are the lies that are deeply deceitful. They may cause significant harm, even be life-altering. The sad truth about your spouse’s lies in divorce is that you may have little legal recourse.
How can this be? What does it mean for you? What needs to change?
Joining me for this Conversations About Divorce is Jill Hasday who is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and the Centennial Professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She’s also the author of “Intimate Lies and The Law.” Read more about Jill at her website, https://JillHasday.com.
You'll find a synopsis of this Conversation at my blog: https://sincemydivorce.com/the-sad-truth-about-your-spouse's-lies-in-divorce
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Getting a divorce. Even thinking aboutgetting a divorce can be overwhelming, scary,
and sometimes exciting. Join divorce coachand mediator Mandy Walker for conversations about
divorce. The more you know,the easier it will be to make your
divorce healthier, less trustful, andto put it behind you. Here's Mandy.
(00:23):
Welcome to conversations about divorce. I'mMandy Walker, and today we're talking
about lies and divorce. I thinkmost divorce professionals will tell you that everyone
lies at some point in their divorce. For many people, they might be
the harmless white lies that are toldto try to make the other person feel
better, such as denying the existenceof a new romantic partner. And then
(00:47):
there are the lies that are deeplydeceitful, cause significant harm and even life
altering. What do you do aboutthose lies? All fifty states in the
US are now no fault divorce states. That means you don't have to prove
grounds for divorce. But does nofault also mean that there are no consequences
(01:11):
for these deceptions? Well. Joiningme today is my guest, Jill has
Da. Jill is a distinguished NightUniversity professor and the Centennial professor of law
at the University of Minnesota Law School. She's also the author of the book
Intimate Lies and the Law. WelcomeJill, thanks for having me. I
(01:34):
talked in the opening about lies,But it is much broader than this,
because there are other forms of deception. Two, right, So my book
covers all kinds of deception, whichis any conduct or an action designed to
make someone else think something you thinkis untrue. So lies or one type
(01:56):
of deception. But I think evenmore common are intial omissions designed to mislead.
So you can lie to someone andsay I'm not having an affair,
or you could just not mention thatyou're having an affair because you want them
to reach the wrong conclusion, right, Or you could not mention that you're
going gambling, right, or whatever, yeah, whatever, whatever you're Yeah.
(02:17):
But I think in general, actually, if it's a big deception,
it's actually very hard to get awaywith it without lying about something, Okay,
like having an affair. You mightnot be explicitly saying I'm not having
an affair, but you're lying aboutyour time and where you are and all.
You know, it's actually hard toget away without lying, right,
(02:38):
especially within an intimate partner that youshare so much time within your insearch,
right, and who knows what's goingon right right? I'm curious about what
you have found in your research tobe the most common deceptions you know,
one of the So there isn't anyThis is the first book on intimate deceptions,
(03:00):
so there's not a lot of literatureto draw on, and there's no
systematic way of knowing. In mybottom line conclusion is that people deceive each
other about anything or everything. Anythingthat could matter, I know to wander
both people in a relationship could bethe subject of deception. So there are
certainly some things that are common becausethey tend to matter to a lot of
(03:22):
people, like lies about fidelity orfinances, those are very common. But
literally anything could be the subject deception. Okay, So when and again in
my introduction I talked about no faultdivorce laws, do you think that those
One of the consequences of no faultdevosals is that the person who's doing the
(03:46):
deceiving is protected well, and that'sactually been pretty constant even before no fault
divorce. But one thing that courtssay after no fault divorce is established,
some courts say well, you shouldn'thave remedies for deception and marriage because we
have no fault divorce. And Ireally think that's a misconception. No fault
(04:09):
divorce was a really important innovation thatfreed people from unhappy marriages. You're not
trapped, but it does to me. It doesn't mean that you should be
free from all civil liability when youinjure someone. So, for instance,
outside the deception context, no faultdivorce doesn't mean you can beat your spouse
and get away with it because it'sno fault divorce, right, No fault
divorce is just about ending the relationship. It doesn't mean you can do whatever
(04:30):
you want in marriage and there's noconsequences, right. So yeah, and
I look at it as a mediator. I think the fault divorce is completely
separate from how the assets are divided, right, I mean, so,
for instance, in general, thelaw is most receptive to claims about financial
(04:53):
deception. But what's interesting is inthe context of marital deception, you just
don't see that. So if toopeople, if one person says to the
other, I'm getting divorced, Iwant a divorce, or if they even
realize, you know, I'm gettinga divorce and they immediately go out to
the bank account and drain it.Okay, courts will give you a remedy
because that's kind of a fraud onthe court, you know, instead of
(05:13):
letting the court divide the assets.But if you're in an ongoing relationship and
you deceive to take more assets foryourself, either say you're using them to
fund an affair, or in onecase I have in the book, a
man is arrested, A husband isarrested for attempted rape, and he lies
and tells his wife he's innocent,so she'll spend her money on his defense.
(05:35):
So they end up using a fifteenthousand dollars for his defense. He's
committed anywhere, he's guilty. Heeventually confesses that he did it. She
seeks a remedy when they get divorced, and they say there's no remedy for
deception in an ongoing marriage. Andone of the things that's so interesting about
that to me is why is themarriage ongoing. It's precisely because he was
(05:56):
lying to her. Yeah, right, if she had known to you know,
the relationship would have ended. Socourts are so just when it's an
ongoing marriage courts are very reluctant togive remedies for deception, and they don't,
and they discount the fact that thereason is ongoing, maybe because one
person is deceiving the other. Wowwow so and maybe related to that,
(06:21):
it's an I was thinking about.Oftentimes, when the deception involves a financial
loss, it's maybe easier to arguefor some sort of remedy in a divorce
settlement, But what about other sortsof deceptions that cause how do you come
(06:41):
up with a dollar figure for emotionalpain? Or if your spouse has ruined
your credits so you end up havingto pay higher interest rates, or you
can't qualify for a loan for acar. What is how do you seek
remedies for those? Okay, soone of the reasons why the financial cases
are so striking is because they seemso easy. Right now we need to
(07:03):
put the remedy on them, butstill you don't get a remedy. I
agree other cases are harder, butthe law is in the business of putting
dollar values on things that are veryhard to quantify. You are negligent,
and so now I can't walk.They put a dollar value on that,
right, That's what judges and juriesdo all the time. Yeah, what
the basic thrust of my book is. Right now, courts will routinely say,
(07:28):
if you were deceived by an intimate, you can't access ordinary legal remedies
for deception. And what I wantto happen is courts should start with the
assumption that if you could sue astranger for causing injury through deception, you
should be able to bring the sameclaim against the deceptive intimate. So in
general, everyone this is inside deception, inside intimacy, and out is better
(07:48):
off. The laws are the courtsare more receptive if you complain about financial
injury or physical injury, just thelaw is set up more to give you
remedies. It's much harder to geta remedy for emotional but I think if
you can prove you know. So, it's hard to bring a claim for
intentional infliction of emotional distress. ButI don't think you should be barred because
you're saying the person who harmed youis your spouse or your ex spouse.
(08:11):
It's not gonna be hard. It'slike it's hard for everyone, but you
shouldn't be categorically cut off, right, So I don't think I realized that
one of the examples I was thinkingabout was, let's say, and I
suspect this is it's very common asa spouse discovers that they have an STD
after the partner had an extra maritalaffair. Let's say it's herpies, which
(08:35):
means that they're going to have thatfor the rest of their life. What
recourse does the innocent spouse have inthat sort of situation. So that's an
interesting scenario because that's one of thefew contacts where courts are willing to give
a remedy. So if you weredeceived by someone who either you know,
lie to conceal they had an STDor say anything so you would assume they
(09:01):
didn't, or sometimes even if theyconcealed an affair that led to you getting
an STD from them. Course willsometimes give you a remedy, but course
always stress we're not giving you aremedy because we care about deception and intimate
relationships. We're giving you a remedybecause we're worried about public health and want
to create every disincentive to spreading STDs. So they will give a remedy in
(09:22):
those contexts, but they make clearthat it's an exceptional case, and anything
outside of that core they won't givea remedy for us. So say your
spouse you find out he's been havinga series of affairs, and you're very
afraid you got an STD, andyou suffer all this anxiety. But then
it turns out you don't. Youknow, when the test results come back,
you're fine. Some people have suedfor emotional distress, and of course
(09:43):
they know we're not. You knowthat that case we're not interested in.
But if you actually receive an STDbecause of deception, there are a number
of course that have given you aremedy. Well, So that a question
that kind of an the side questionhere is because like in divorce, it
seems that the practice of the lawdiffers so much by state by state.
(10:05):
Are you saying that this is ageneral approach throughout the United States where they
won't give remedies to for intimate partnerlies. Yes, there is a general
Obviously the law varies state by state, but there is a general reluctance to
give remedies for intimate deception, andcourts tend to say the same thing.
(10:28):
Sometimes they say, well, youknow, deception is common in intimate relationships,
which is true. But then theyalso sort of assume and the gitiary
shouldn't change that, like that's justthe way it is and we shouldn't push
against that, or they'll talk aboutnot intervening in intimate relationships. My own
view is that either way, thelaw is setting the ground rules right now.
(10:50):
They're just doing it in a waythat tend to protect deceivers rather than
the people they deceived. Okay,right, Saying there's no remedy means that
the person who lied about being ina s in the criminal case. Or
have another case where a man duringa temporary separation sold the family construction business
to his father for a promisory noteat a sweetheart price, you know,
(11:13):
a sham transaction. The wife doesn'tfind out about it until they ultimately file
for divorce a few years later.In the court again says you know,
that's an ongoing relationship. No,you don't get a remedy for deception and
ongoing relationship. So it's a consistenttheme in all parts of the country,
even though there are you know,small variations within states. That sounds very
discouraging. I have enough. Well, I mean, part of the idea
(11:39):
of the book is that I thinkpeople may not realize this is happening,
or they take it as of coursethat happened. You know. The idea
is to focus our attention in ouroutrage. Right. Well, one of
the questions I had was, I, you know, I often hear family
law attorneys talk about judges who donothing about a party who is lying in
(12:01):
court during a divorce hearing, andthey say it's because it's so common that
the judges either just don't have thecapacity to address each and every time that
they hear a lie. And Iwonder too, if they've exposed to so
many things that nothing surprises them.Is that part of the problem here.
(12:24):
Well, that's interesting because that's anexample where lying in court is always prohibited,
no matter what the cases. Sothe law in the book says,
of course the person's committing perjury,you know, they should be subject to
criminal and maybe civil liability. Soit's interesting that people have the perception that
it's not being enforced as much.I think courts are worried about potentially about
(12:48):
there'll be so many cases because there'sso much intimate deception. I actually don't
anticipate a tsunami of new cases fora few reasons, seeing is embarrassed saying
you know, it's embarrassing to sayyou were duped. It's very expensive,
you have to hire a lawyer,and a lawyer is not going to represent
you unless you have a really goodcase where you can show significant injury and
(13:13):
when the person you're suing has themoney to pay a damage award. There's
just not that many cases like that, right, Most tort claims, even
outside of intimacy, they don't.People don't sue. It's embarrassing, it's
distressing, it's expensive. Most peopledon't have the money that it's not worth
it's not worth it to sue.They have no money to pay you.
(13:33):
So I don't anticipate that many cases, but I think courts are worried about
that. Another thing you could sayback is the reason there's so many potential
cases because it's such a big problem, right, the people are suffering all
this injury all the time. Andso I was just you know, basic
from what you're saying, and Imean, somebody's best chance of recourse or
(13:58):
a remedy is that see in thedivorce settlement, because that means they don't
have to bring a separate suit.Yeah, I mean, I'm not you
wouldn't write so a separate suit generallyis going to be unsuccessful. People have
tried so the case about people havetried both to get remedies in the context
(14:18):
of a divorce case and remedies ina separate suit, and unfortunately both strategies
have been unsuccessful. Pursuing it inthe divorce suit might be easier because then
at least you don't have to bringa new case, might be cheaper add
the claim. I also think oneof the other pushes in my book is
(14:39):
not only to help deceived intimates havemore possibilities of success in core, but
also what are ways the law cando a better job of regulating intimate deception
before a lawsuit begins, because again, most people won't sue, and it's
better to avoid injury than to havepotential redress after the fact. So,
for instance, how can the lawtry to thwart people from carrying out their
(15:01):
plans? So right now, thelaw is remarkably little to stop one spouse
from expropriating joint assets without the otherspouse's permission, And so in the book
I talk about, you know,what are safeguards the law could create that
wouldn't unduly burden everyday transactions, butwe'll just make it harder to sell or
(15:24):
give away or spend, you know, large amounts of joint property without the
other person's knowledge, Okay, becausegenerally it's better to stop that than to
try later in court to get themoney back. Right right, Well,
we're going to I'm sorry to interruptyou that, Jill, but we are
going to take a short break.Here. You're listening to conversations about divorce,
(15:45):
and today we're talking about lies anddivorce. My guest today is Jill
has Day. Jill is Distinguished NightUniversity Professor and the Centennial Professor of Law
at the University of Minnesota Law School. She's also the all of the book
Intimate Lies and the Law. AndJill, could you share your website with
a listens and share a little bitabout what they might find if they visit
(16:07):
your website. So my website isJill Hasda dot com. That's j I.
L. L h. A.S is in sam ds in David
Ay dot com and it has moreinformation on the book. It also has
a list of places I'll be speakingabout the book. It has clips to
(16:30):
various interviews I've done on radio andtelevision about the book and other topics in
family law and constitutional law and antidiscrimination law. Right, thank you,
Jill, thank you, And Iwill include that in the write up in
the show description. So I wantedjust to kind of jump back a little
(16:51):
bit and have another example, whichis a hard one, but I know
that you won't be shocked by it. And I hear from readers pretty recently
about pretty regularly about this where thespouse has been arrested for child pornography or
pedophilia. And there may not havebeen a misappropriation of any marital assets,
(17:17):
but there's certainly there a loss ofpersonal reputation, there's a ongoing costs,
maybe for therapy for yourself and yourchildren, and you may even feel like
you have to move to a differentarea because of the public scrutiny. What
sort of recourse does the current lawprovide for somebody in that situation? Okay,
(17:38):
so these are obviously terrible cases,but as you say, I'm not
surprised, I'm not surprised by them. I have different categories of intimate deception
than I talk about in the book, and one category I call Lynchpin deception,
where you deceive about something because ifyou told the truth, you think
your relationship would be over. Andconcealing that you're a file or you have
(18:00):
a child pornography habit is a greatis obviously an example of that. Right,
they're concealing it because another reason they'reconcealing it is. Another category of
deception to talk about in the bookis deception to maintain a pre existing facade.
You know, you want to hideyour criminal conduct from your intimates because
also you're afraid then they'll deltaill lawenforcement. Right, there's so many reasons
(18:21):
that people hide criminal behavior. Inthat case, it depends on the exact
injuries. But one possibility would besuing for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Again, it's a hard claim.I mean, right now you wouldn't have
it. I don't think you haveany remedies. But if the if the
world went like the way I said, you could potentially sue for intentional infliction
(18:45):
of emotional distress. Some people haveattempted to bring battery suits where now unsuccessfully,
but in the world blind Envision maybewith more success. So the essential
battery is a offensive touching. Someonetouched you in a way that's offensive or
abusive and you didn't and you didn'tagree to it. And in general and
(19:07):
battery law, if you said yesto a touching but that was because you
were tricked or duped, that doesn'tcount as consent. So some women have
brought battery claim saying the only reasonI had sex with you is because you
were lying to me about something,like you were lying that you were unmarried
or you know, you know,whatever it is. So I could imagine
someone bringing a battery clin like Iwouldn't have had sexually if you weren't deceiving
(19:29):
me to conceal this criminal behavior.And my view is those cases should go
forward. I mean, you're stillgoing to have to come into the jury,
the judge and the jury that infact you were tricked and you wouldn't
have consented. But I don't thinkyou should be categorically banned from being bringing
those suits. But as the lawellstands today, you wouldn't as a law
of fens today, you really don'thave a rermany So what are the chances
(19:53):
of getting the law changed? Well, I'm hoping that I think that when
people read the book, they willbe surprised and outraged by a lot of
the decisions I talk about, andthat will help focus popular attention on the
issue. I think one thing that'sso interesting about intimate deception is it's something
(20:15):
everyone has had the experience of orgossiped about someone else's experience, you know,
So it's so ubiquitous, but peoplereally haven't focused on how the law
response to it. I think peoplethink of it as so private and intimate,
but when you step back, youhave to realize, you know,
because it's such a common area oflife, of course the law has to
(20:37):
confront it all the time. Right, people are always bringing these claims.
I mean, it's a small percentageof people who are deceived to actually sue,
but there's so many people were deceivedthat even if a small percentage of
them come to court, courts arealways having to decide these claims. So
I'm hoping that popular attention is thefirst step both on kind of moving the
(20:59):
judiciary, getting lawyers more interested,and also in getting legislatures to think about
ways to protect people before the harmis inflicted. So is this change going
to come about through family law attorneyspushing for change or do you think that's
one way? Right, that's oneway it's bringing more cases, right,
Let's bring more cases. I thinkthere's sort of a chicken and egg problem
(21:22):
because lawyers don't bring the cases becausethey know they're going to lose. But
more cases will put more pressure onthe system, especially cases where you can
really document very significant injuries of thekind of law cakes most seriously financial.
So that also requires right the case. It requires the one of the better
(21:42):
the victim to be willing to bringa case, and to find a family
law attorney who's willing to pursue thecase, and maybe they can work together
on the legal fees. Because Ican't imagine that this is an inexpensive endeavor
right now. It's hard. It'shard. That's why I said, even
(22:03):
if the world changes, I want, I don't imagine the tsunami of cases.
It's hard. Um, it's hardto bring these cases. But one
thing I will say is that ingeneral, we have this myth of America
as a society where everyone sees thedrop of the hat. It's just not
true. You know, bringing lawsuitsis hard. It's terribly financially draining,
it's emotionally distressing. It's difficult,and that would be if anything, you
(22:27):
know, only more true in thisUM context. So, but I'm sorry,
I'm gonna say again again, I'mnot an attorney, but I know
that there's some states that are communityproperty states here and some states that are
equitable division states. And m Colorado, where I am is an equitable division
(22:48):
state. It means that the madlessees don't nest, don't have to be
divided fifty fifty, that either partycan make a claim for make an argument
as to why the assets should bedivided. Somewhat differently, I'm just wondering
whether you think that somebody who wasmaking a case for intimate deception in an
(23:10):
equitable division state would have more likelihoodof finding a remedy, like say that
in the child pornography case or inthe STD case, would they have more
chance of having a remedy if theywere in an equitable division state. I
don't want to speculate as how thecase would come out, but I do,
(23:30):
but I do think you're right thatthey have an argument available to them.
So over time, community property andequitable division states have kind of gotten
much closer. As a matter ofpractice. It isn't as different as it
used to be. But in equitabledivision the ideas you're supposed to do what's
fair. To date, courts haven'tbeen that receptive to these arguments that deception
(23:53):
kind of moves the needle on whatdivision is fair. But I think that
is an argument attorneys can make,specially in situations where you can really show
that you deceive me and we sufferedfinancially as a consequence. Not because financial
harm is the most important harm.I'm not making that claim, just saying
because courts are generally the law ingeneral is very receptive to financial injury as
(24:15):
opposed to emotional injury. Right,So you might need some other skills or
other knowledge to kind of quantify whatthat emotional injury equates. Oh but but
a lot of times also costes youfinancial injury. Like um, you've had
to you you're like the credit reportexample, right right, financial injury,
(24:36):
you can document my mortgage is goingto cost this much more because the interest
rate they're offering me as much more. And right right, Often financial and
emotional injury are tied. Sometimes anotherway people quantify it. You know,
they show these are my therapist bills, right, these are the bills for
the kids. You know that it'sit's um, I think there's actually relatively
(24:56):
a few cases where it's emotional injurypure right, it's emotional injury that often
leads to you're not you lose yourjob because you're so distraught, you know.
Or think about the woman who saidhad to move because of the notoriety.
Maybe the job she gets in thenew places and as doesn't pay as
much, right, right, right? So I want to go back to
(25:18):
something that we talked about in thevery beginning, and that about how courts
say that there can be no Iforget the phrase you use, but like
in an ongoing marriage, there isno deception. Well, it's just the
law's not interested, right right,So why is that? What is the
history behind that? Um? Ithink courts are worried. Well, there's
(25:45):
a lot of different ways you couldphrase it. So one you could link
it to the common law history whichtreated husbands and wives as one legal person
and said we don't want to intervene. I think there is still reminisce of
that idea of the marital unit andthe court shouldn't intervene in that unit and
should leave it as an intact.And today, on the other hand,
(26:07):
the law is intervening. It's justsaying go ahead deceive, right. If
anything, instead of creating incentives tobehave, it's saying, go ahead and
deceive. Get it, You'll getaway with it. You know. If
you're worried about divorce, Yeah,go ahead and sell that construction company to
your dad. Right, that's great. You wanted to divide it a divorce,
it'll be all yours. So thelaw is intervening. It's setting the
(26:30):
ground rules and any I'm not sayingeveryone knows the law when they're doing this.
They're just doing it because they hopethey can get away with it.
But it's setting the ground rules andso non intervention is impossible either way.
It's designing who wins. Right.So, what is your best advice to
one of our listeners who has beena victim of intimate deception? Well,
(26:55):
let me start before before so,one of the points of my book is
I'm not I think chords and commentatorsare too inclined to blame people for being
deceived, because in hindsight, it'salways easier to say you should have known,
you should have investigated. Also,we like to assure ourselves that only
the particularly stupid and gullible or deceivedbecause that means that we're safe because we're
(27:18):
smart. It's very it's much harderto detect deception than we'd like to think
at first. We're just much worseas spotting. We don't have the skills
at spotting deceptions i'd like to think, And an intimate deceiving us is particularly
hard probably to suss out because we'renot looking for it. We're not looking
forward. We trust them, andwhat they're telling us is usually things we
want to believe. Yeah, thatwe want to believe they're faithful. We
(27:41):
want you know, the deceptions arethings we want to believe. Typically,
Also, social norms tells to trustyour intimates and not investigate. And often
it's hard to investigate without jeopardizing therelationship because the person finds out about you
know. So I'm not blaming ifyou've been deceived. I want you to
know you're not alone and it's notyour fault. That said, um,
(28:02):
someone reading this book could think,you know, actually it would be true
to do a little bit of investigationto the extent I can. One thing
I did in writing this book isI looked at a lot of manuals written
by and for private detectives and Ifound out a lot. I mean,
public records don't have everything you thinkthey're going to have. They're not always
complete, they're not always online.But there are a number of things you
(28:26):
can find out in public records,and at least for some kinds of deception,
like where someone is inventing a wholenew identity, that could be a
way to uh to figure it out, it's harder. Other kinds of deception
are like what's where it's more withinsomeone's head or harder. Also a caveat
I talked about in the book.Many kinds of investigation you would like to
(28:48):
do or actually against the law,So not a good idea. People have
had to pay, had have beensuccessfully sued, or had to even gone
to jail for searching someone's to reportyour emails, your tax returns. Yes,
all these things are protected and forgood reason. So one irony is
courts tend to blame people for beingdope, but the law itself, for
good reason, makes it harder toinvestigate. Right. The point of this
(29:11):
book is not everything should be openum. That would be identity thieves paradise,
just that you know, to theextent if you and I also don't
want the point of the book tobe you should not trust. I think
it would be horrible if someone saidI love you when your first thought was
I want if he's lying, Howcould I investigate this? I want to
(29:32):
I want to see your tax returnsin your credit report. Right before we
got the date, right right thatsaid, you know, going in with
your eyes open isn't a bad idea, right, you know, because afterwards
it's going to be it's going tobe very hard. Well, Jill,
we were right up on time hereand this has been a fascinating discussion and
I know that it will be reallyeye opening for some of our listeners.
(29:55):
I want to thank you for joiningus, thanks for having me. And
this is my Yesterday is Jill hasDay. She's Distinguished McKnight University Professor and
the Centennial Professor of Law at theUniversity of Minnesota Law School. She's also
the author of the book Intimate Liesand the Law If You've Been Deceived.
(30:15):
It sounds like that would be agood resource for you to get and Jill,
want to share your website one moretime. It's Jill has Day.
Jill h. A. S isin Sam D's in David Ay dot com.
Thank you. Being deceived is painful, and as Jill just talked about,
part of that pain is coming toterms with your own naivity. You're
(30:40):
trusting, you're not seeing what's goingon, and feeling that you should have
been smarter. That part is partof your personal growth journey. I think
a good divorce recovery program will helpyou. But the other part about being
deceived, the financial losses and theemotional pain from the consequences, that's real,
(31:03):
and I think it's important for younot to just assume that there's absolutely
nothing that can be done by it. Jill's perspective that she's shared makes it
sound really grim, but I dowant to encourage you, if you're in
this situation, to really get competentlegal advice so that you can know what
recourse might be available to you throughthe legal system. Do get legal advice
(31:26):
before you start doing the hunting downand investigating on yourself, so you don't
want that to backfire and find thatyou have a claim against you. I
think you know so often when itcomes to divorce, it means about making
sure that you have all the informationthat you need before you jump to a
conclusion or make a hasty decision thatyou might later regret. We want you
(31:51):
to have making informed decisions throughout yourdivorce. Thank you for listening today.
If you hop over to my blogssincemdivorce dot com, you'll find a synopsis
of this conversation and you can followme at Since my Divorce on Twitter,
and I know that Jill is onTwitter as well at Jill has Day and
(32:12):
I'm also on Facebook. I hopeyou'll join us next time for more conversations
about divorce.
Getting a divorce. Even thinking aboutgetting a divorce can be overwhelming, scary,
and sometimes exciting. Join divorce coachand mediator Mandy Walker for conversations about
divorce. The more you know,the easier it will be to make your
divorce healthier, less trustful, andto put it behind you. Here's Mandy.
(00:23):
Welcome to conversations about divorce. I'mMandy Walker, and today we're talking
about lies and divorce. I thinkmost divorce professionals will tell you that everyone
lies at some point in their divorce. For many people, they might be
the harmless white lies that are toldto try to make the other person feel
better, such as denying the existenceof a new romantic partner. And then
(00:47):
there are the lies that are deeplydeceitful, cause significant harm and even life
altering. What do you do aboutthose lies? All fifty states in the
US are now no fault divorce states. That means you don't have to prove
grounds for divorce. But does nofault also mean that there are no consequences
(01:11):
for these deceptions? Well. Joiningme today is my guest, Jill has
Da. Jill is a distinguished NightUniversity professor and the Centennial professor of law
at the University of Minnesota Law School. She's also the author of the book
Intimate Lies and the Law. WelcomeJill, thanks for having me. I
(01:34):
talked in the opening about lies,But it is much broader than this,
because there are other forms of deception. Two, right, So my book
covers all kinds of deception, whichis any conduct or an action designed to
make someone else think something you thinkis untrue. So lies or one type
(01:56):
of deception. But I think evenmore common are intial omissions designed to mislead.
So you can lie to someone andsay I'm not having an affair,
or you could just not mention thatyou're having an affair because you want them
to reach the wrong conclusion, right, Or you could not mention that you're
going gambling, right, or whatever, yeah, whatever, whatever you're Yeah.
(02:17):
But I think in general, actually, if it's a big deception,
it's actually very hard to get awaywith it without lying about something, Okay,
like having an affair. You mightnot be explicitly saying I'm not having
an affair, but you're lying aboutyour time and where you are and all.
You know, it's actually hard toget away without lying, right,
(02:38):
especially within an intimate partner that youshare so much time within your insearch,
right, and who knows what's goingon right right? I'm curious about what
you have found in your research tobe the most common deceptions you know,
one of the So there isn't anyThis is the first book on intimate deceptions,
(03:00):
so there's not a lot of literatureto draw on, and there's no
systematic way of knowing. In mybottom line conclusion is that people deceive each
other about anything or everything. Anythingthat could matter, I know to wander
both people in a relationship could bethe subject of deception. So there are
certainly some things that are common becausethey tend to matter to a lot of
(03:22):
people, like lies about fidelity orfinances, those are very common. But
literally anything could be the subject deception. Okay, So when and again in
my introduction I talked about no faultdivorce laws, do you think that those
One of the consequences of no faultdevosals is that the person who's doing the
(03:46):
deceiving is protected well, and that'sactually been pretty constant even before no fault
divorce. But one thing that courtssay after no fault divorce is established,
some courts say well, you shouldn'thave remedies for deception and marriage because we
have no fault divorce. And Ireally think that's a misconception. No fault
(04:09):
divorce was a really important innovation thatfreed people from unhappy marriages. You're not
trapped, but it does to me. It doesn't mean that you should be
free from all civil liability when youinjure someone. So, for instance,
outside the deception context, no faultdivorce doesn't mean you can beat your spouse
and get away with it because it'sno fault divorce, right, No fault
divorce is just about ending the relationship. It doesn't mean you can do whatever
(04:30):
you want in marriage and there's noconsequences, right. So yeah, and
I look at it as a mediator. I think the fault divorce is completely
separate from how the assets are divided, right, I mean, so,
for instance, in general, thelaw is most receptive to claims about financial
(04:53):
deception. But what's interesting is inthe context of marital deception, you just
don't see that. So if toopeople, if one person says to the
other, I'm getting divorced, Iwant a divorce, or if they even
realize, you know, I'm gettinga divorce and they immediately go out to
the bank account and drain it.Okay, courts will give you a remedy
because that's kind of a fraud onthe court, you know, instead of
(05:13):
letting the court divide the assets.But if you're in an ongoing relationship and
you deceive to take more assets foryourself, either say you're using them to
fund an affair, or in onecase I have in the book, a
man is arrested, A husband isarrested for attempted rape, and he lies
and tells his wife he's innocent,so she'll spend her money on his defense.
(05:35):
So they end up using a fifteenthousand dollars for his defense. He's
committed anywhere, he's guilty. Heeventually confesses that he did it. She
seeks a remedy when they get divorced, and they say there's no remedy for
deception in an ongoing marriage. Andone of the things that's so interesting about
that to me is why is themarriage ongoing. It's precisely because he was
(05:56):
lying to her. Yeah, right, if she had known to you know,
the relationship would have ended. Socourts are so just when it's an
ongoing marriage courts are very reluctant togive remedies for deception, and they don't,
and they discount the fact that thereason is ongoing, maybe because one
person is deceiving the other. Wowwow so and maybe related to that,
(06:21):
it's an I was thinking about.Oftentimes, when the deception involves a financial
loss, it's maybe easier to arguefor some sort of remedy in a divorce
settlement, But what about other sortsof deceptions that cause how do you come
(06:41):
up with a dollar figure for emotionalpain? Or if your spouse has ruined
your credits so you end up havingto pay higher interest rates, or you
can't qualify for a loan for acar. What is how do you seek
remedies for those? Okay, soone of the reasons why the financial cases
are so striking is because they seemso easy. Right now we need to
(07:03):
put the remedy on them, butstill you don't get a remedy. I
agree other cases are harder, butthe law is in the business of putting
dollar values on things that are veryhard to quantify. You are negligent,
and so now I can't walk.They put a dollar value on that,
right, That's what judges and juriesdo all the time. Yeah, what
the basic thrust of my book is. Right now, courts will routinely say,
(07:28):
if you were deceived by an intimate, you can't access ordinary legal remedies
for deception. And what I wantto happen is courts should start with the
assumption that if you could sue astranger for causing injury through deception, you
should be able to bring the sameclaim against the deceptive intimate. So in
general, everyone this is inside deception, inside intimacy, and out is better
(07:48):
off. The laws are the courtsare more receptive if you complain about financial
injury or physical injury, just thelaw is set up more to give you
remedies. It's much harder to geta remedy for emotional but I think if
you can prove you know. So, it's hard to bring a claim for
intentional infliction of emotional distress. ButI don't think you should be barred because
you're saying the person who harmed youis your spouse or your ex spouse.
(08:11):
It's not gonna be hard. It'slike it's hard for everyone, but you
shouldn't be categorically cut off, right, So I don't think I realized that
one of the examples I was thinkingabout was, let's say, and I
suspect this is it's very common asa spouse discovers that they have an STD
after the partner had an extra maritalaffair. Let's say it's herpies, which
(08:35):
means that they're going to have thatfor the rest of their life. What
recourse does the innocent spouse have inthat sort of situation. So that's an
interesting scenario because that's one of thefew contacts where courts are willing to give
a remedy. So if you weredeceived by someone who either you know,
lie to conceal they had an STDor say anything so you would assume they
(09:01):
didn't, or sometimes even if theyconcealed an affair that led to you getting
an STD from them. Course willsometimes give you a remedy, but course
always stress we're not giving you aremedy because we care about deception and intimate
relationships. We're giving you a remedybecause we're worried about public health and want
to create every disincentive to spreading STDs. So they will give a remedy in
(09:22):
those contexts, but they make clearthat it's an exceptional case, and anything
outside of that core they won't givea remedy for us. So say your
spouse you find out he's been havinga series of affairs, and you're very
afraid you got an STD, andyou suffer all this anxiety. But then
it turns out you don't. Youknow, when the test results come back,
you're fine. Some people have suedfor emotional distress, and of course
(09:43):
they know we're not. You knowthat that case we're not interested in.
But if you actually receive an STDbecause of deception, there are a number
of course that have given you aremedy. Well, So that a question
that kind of an the side questionhere is because like in divorce, it
seems that the practice of the lawdiffers so much by state by state.
(10:05):
Are you saying that this is ageneral approach throughout the United States where they
won't give remedies to for intimate partnerlies. Yes, there is a general
Obviously the law varies state by state, but there is a general reluctance to
give remedies for intimate deception, andcourts tend to say the same thing.
(10:28):
Sometimes they say, well, youknow, deception is common in intimate relationships,
which is true. But then theyalso sort of assume and the gitiary
shouldn't change that, like that's justthe way it is and we shouldn't push
against that, or they'll talk aboutnot intervening in intimate relationships. My own
view is that either way, thelaw is setting the ground rules right now.
(10:50):
They're just doing it in a waythat tend to protect deceivers rather than
the people they deceived. Okay,right, Saying there's no remedy means that
the person who lied about being ina s in the criminal case. Or
have another case where a man duringa temporary separation sold the family construction business
to his father for a promisory noteat a sweetheart price, you know,
(11:13):
a sham transaction. The wife doesn'tfind out about it until they ultimately file
for divorce a few years later.In the court again says you know,
that's an ongoing relationship. No,you don't get a remedy for deception and
ongoing relationship. So it's a consistenttheme in all parts of the country,
even though there are you know,small variations within states. That sounds very
discouraging. I have enough. Well, I mean, part of the idea
(11:39):
of the book is that I thinkpeople may not realize this is happening,
or they take it as of coursethat happened. You know. The idea
is to focus our attention in ouroutrage. Right. Well, one of
the questions I had was, I, you know, I often hear family
law attorneys talk about judges who donothing about a party who is lying in
(12:01):
court during a divorce hearing, andthey say it's because it's so common that
the judges either just don't have thecapacity to address each and every time that
they hear a lie. And Iwonder too, if they've exposed to so
many things that nothing surprises them.Is that part of the problem here.
(12:24):
Well, that's interesting because that's anexample where lying in court is always prohibited,
no matter what the cases. Sothe law in the book says,
of course the person's committing perjury,you know, they should be subject to
criminal and maybe civil liability. Soit's interesting that people have the perception that
it's not being enforced as much.I think courts are worried about potentially about
(12:48):
there'll be so many cases because there'sso much intimate deception. I actually don't
anticipate a tsunami of new cases fora few reasons, seeing is embarrassed saying
you know, it's embarrassing to sayyou were duped. It's very expensive,
you have to hire a lawyer,and a lawyer is not going to represent
you unless you have a really goodcase where you can show significant injury and
(13:13):
when the person you're suing has themoney to pay a damage award. There's
just not that many cases like that, right, Most tort claims, even
outside of intimacy, they don't.People don't sue. It's embarrassing, it's
distressing, it's expensive. Most peopledon't have the money that it's not worth
it's not worth it to sue.They have no money to pay you.
(13:33):
So I don't anticipate that many cases, but I think courts are worried about
that. Another thing you could sayback is the reason there's so many potential
cases because it's such a big problem, right, the people are suffering all
this injury all the time. Andso I was just you know, basic
from what you're saying, and Imean, somebody's best chance of recourse or
(13:58):
a remedy is that see in thedivorce settlement, because that means they don't
have to bring a separate suit.Yeah, I mean, I'm not you
wouldn't write so a separate suit generallyis going to be unsuccessful. People have
tried so the case about people havetried both to get remedies in the context
(14:18):
of a divorce case and remedies ina separate suit, and unfortunately both strategies
have been unsuccessful. Pursuing it inthe divorce suit might be easier because then
at least you don't have to bringa new case, might be cheaper add
the claim. I also think oneof the other pushes in my book is
(14:39):
not only to help deceived intimates havemore possibilities of success in core, but
also what are ways the law cando a better job of regulating intimate deception
before a lawsuit begins, because again, most people won't sue, and it's
better to avoid injury than to havepotential redress after the fact. So,
for instance, how can the lawtry to thwart people from carrying out their
(15:01):
plans? So right now, thelaw is remarkably little to stop one spouse
from expropriating joint assets without the otherspouse's permission, And so in the book
I talk about, you know,what are safeguards the law could create that
wouldn't unduly burden everyday transactions, butwe'll just make it harder to sell or
(15:24):
give away or spend, you know, large amounts of joint property without the
other person's knowledge, Okay, becausegenerally it's better to stop that than to
try later in court to get themoney back. Right right, Well,
we're going to I'm sorry to interruptyou that, Jill, but we are
going to take a short break.Here. You're listening to conversations about divorce,
(15:45):
and today we're talking about lies anddivorce. My guest today is Jill
has Day. Jill is Distinguished NightUniversity Professor and the Centennial Professor of Law
at the University of Minnesota Law School. She's also the all of the book
Intimate Lies and the Law. AndJill, could you share your website with
a listens and share a little bitabout what they might find if they visit
(16:07):
your website. So my website isJill Hasda dot com. That's j I.
L. L h. A.S is in sam ds in David
Ay dot com and it has moreinformation on the book. It also has
a list of places I'll be speakingabout the book. It has clips to
(16:30):
various interviews I've done on radio andtelevision about the book and other topics in
family law and constitutional law and antidiscrimination law. Right, thank you,
Jill, thank you, And Iwill include that in the write up in
the show description. So I wantedjust to kind of jump back a little
(16:51):
bit and have another example, whichis a hard one, but I know
that you won't be shocked by it. And I hear from readers pretty recently
about pretty regularly about this where thespouse has been arrested for child pornography or
pedophilia. And there may not havebeen a misappropriation of any marital assets,
(17:17):
but there's certainly there a loss ofpersonal reputation, there's a ongoing costs,
maybe for therapy for yourself and yourchildren, and you may even feel like
you have to move to a differentarea because of the public scrutiny. What
sort of recourse does the current lawprovide for somebody in that situation? Okay,
(17:38):
so these are obviously terrible cases,but as you say, I'm not
surprised, I'm not surprised by them. I have different categories of intimate deception
than I talk about in the book, and one category I call Lynchpin deception,
where you deceive about something because ifyou told the truth, you think
your relationship would be over. Andconcealing that you're a file or you have
(18:00):
a child pornography habit is a greatis obviously an example of that. Right,
they're concealing it because another reason they'reconcealing it is. Another category of
deception to talk about in the bookis deception to maintain a pre existing facade.
You know, you want to hideyour criminal conduct from your intimates because
also you're afraid then they'll deltaill lawenforcement. Right, there's so many reasons
(18:21):
that people hide criminal behavior. Inthat case, it depends on the exact
injuries. But one possibility would besuing for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Again, it's a hard claim.I mean, right now you wouldn't have
it. I don't think you haveany remedies. But if the if the
world went like the way I said, you could potentially sue for intentional infliction
(18:45):
of emotional distress. Some people haveattempted to bring battery suits where now unsuccessfully,
but in the world blind Envision maybewith more success. So the essential
battery is a offensive touching. Someonetouched you in a way that's offensive or
abusive and you didn't and you didn'tagree to it. And in general and
(19:07):
battery law, if you said yesto a touching but that was because you
were tricked or duped, that doesn'tcount as consent. So some women have
brought battery claim saying the only reasonI had sex with you is because you
were lying to me about something,like you were lying that you were unmarried
or you know, you know,whatever it is. So I could imagine
someone bringing a battery clin like Iwouldn't have had sexually if you weren't deceiving
(19:29):
me to conceal this criminal behavior.And my view is those cases should go
forward. I mean, you're stillgoing to have to come into the jury,
the judge and the jury that infact you were tricked and you wouldn't
have consented. But I don't thinkyou should be categorically banned from being bringing
those suits. But as the lawellstands today, you wouldn't as a law
of fens today, you really don'thave a rermany So what are the chances
(19:53):
of getting the law changed? Well, I'm hoping that I think that when
people read the book, they willbe surprised and outraged by a lot of
the decisions I talk about, andthat will help focus popular attention on the
issue. I think one thing that'sso interesting about intimate deception is it's something
(20:15):
everyone has had the experience of orgossiped about someone else's experience, you know,
So it's so ubiquitous, but peoplereally haven't focused on how the law
response to it. I think peoplethink of it as so private and intimate,
but when you step back, youhave to realize, you know,
because it's such a common area oflife, of course the law has to
(20:37):
confront it all the time. Right, people are always bringing these claims.
I mean, it's a small percentageof people who are deceived to actually sue,
but there's so many people were deceivedthat even if a small percentage of
them come to court, courts arealways having to decide these claims. So
I'm hoping that popular attention is thefirst step both on kind of moving the
(20:59):
judiciary, getting lawyers more interested,and also in getting legislatures to think about
ways to protect people before the harmis inflicted. So is this change going
to come about through family law attorneyspushing for change or do you think that's
one way? Right, that's oneway it's bringing more cases, right,
Let's bring more cases. I thinkthere's sort of a chicken and egg problem
(21:22):
because lawyers don't bring the cases becausethey know they're going to lose. But
more cases will put more pressure onthe system, especially cases where you can
really document very significant injuries of thekind of law cakes most seriously financial.
So that also requires right the case. It requires the one of the better
(21:42):
the victim to be willing to bringa case, and to find a family
law attorney who's willing to pursue thecase, and maybe they can work together
on the legal fees. Because Ican't imagine that this is an inexpensive endeavor
right now. It's hard. It'shard. That's why I said, even
(22:03):
if the world changes, I want, I don't imagine the tsunami of cases.
It's hard. Um, it's hardto bring these cases. But one
thing I will say is that ingeneral, we have this myth of America
as a society where everyone sees thedrop of the hat. It's just not
true. You know, bringing lawsuitsis hard. It's terribly financially draining,
it's emotionally distressing. It's difficult,and that would be if anything, you
(22:27):
know, only more true in thisUM context. So, but I'm sorry,
I'm gonna say again again, I'mnot an attorney, but I know
that there's some states that are communityproperty states here and some states that are
equitable division states. And m Colorado, where I am is an equitable division
(22:48):
state. It means that the madlessees don't nest, don't have to be
divided fifty fifty, that either partycan make a claim for make an argument
as to why the assets should bedivided. Somewhat differently, I'm just wondering
whether you think that somebody who wasmaking a case for intimate deception in an
(23:10):
equitable division state would have more likelihoodof finding a remedy, like say that
in the child pornography case or inthe STD case, would they have more
chance of having a remedy if theywere in an equitable division state. I
don't want to speculate as how thecase would come out, but I do,
(23:30):
but I do think you're right thatthey have an argument available to them.
So over time, community property andequitable division states have kind of gotten
much closer. As a matter ofpractice. It isn't as different as it
used to be. But in equitabledivision the ideas you're supposed to do what's
fair. To date, courts haven'tbeen that receptive to these arguments that deception
(23:53):
kind of moves the needle on whatdivision is fair. But I think that
is an argument attorneys can make,specially in situations where you can really show
that you deceive me and we sufferedfinancially as a consequence. Not because financial
harm is the most important harm.I'm not making that claim, just saying
because courts are generally the law ingeneral is very receptive to financial injury as
(24:15):
opposed to emotional injury. Right,So you might need some other skills or
other knowledge to kind of quantify whatthat emotional injury equates. Oh but but
a lot of times also costes youfinancial injury. Like um, you've had
to you you're like the credit reportexample, right right, financial injury,
(24:36):
you can document my mortgage is goingto cost this much more because the interest
rate they're offering me as much more. And right right, Often financial and
emotional injury are tied. Sometimes anotherway people quantify it. You know,
they show these are my therapist bills, right, these are the bills for
the kids. You know that it'sit's um, I think there's actually relatively
(24:56):
a few cases where it's emotional injurypure right, it's emotional injury that often
leads to you're not you lose yourjob because you're so distraught, you know.
Or think about the woman who saidhad to move because of the notoriety.
Maybe the job she gets in thenew places and as doesn't pay as
much, right, right, right? So I want to go back to
(25:18):
something that we talked about in thevery beginning, and that about how courts
say that there can be no Iforget the phrase you use, but like
in an ongoing marriage, there isno deception. Well, it's just the
law's not interested, right right,So why is that? What is the
history behind that? Um? Ithink courts are worried. Well, there's
(25:45):
a lot of different ways you couldphrase it. So one you could link
it to the common law history whichtreated husbands and wives as one legal person
and said we don't want to intervene. I think there is still reminisce of
that idea of the marital unit andthe court shouldn't intervene in that unit and
should leave it as an intact.And today, on the other hand,
(26:07):
the law is intervening. It's justsaying go ahead deceive, right. If
anything, instead of creating incentives tobehave, it's saying, go ahead and
deceive. Get it, You'll getaway with it. You know. If
you're worried about divorce, Yeah,go ahead and sell that construction company to
your dad. Right, that's great. You wanted to divide it a divorce,
it'll be all yours. So thelaw is intervening. It's setting the
(26:30):
ground rules and any I'm not sayingeveryone knows the law when they're doing this.
They're just doing it because they hopethey can get away with it.
But it's setting the ground rules andso non intervention is impossible either way.
It's designing who wins. Right.So, what is your best advice to
one of our listeners who has beena victim of intimate deception? Well,
(26:55):
let me start before before so,one of the points of my book is
I'm not I think chords and commentatorsare too inclined to blame people for being
deceived, because in hindsight, it'salways easier to say you should have known,
you should have investigated. Also,we like to assure ourselves that only
the particularly stupid and gullible or deceivedbecause that means that we're safe because we're
(27:18):
smart. It's very it's much harderto detect deception than we'd like to think
at first. We're just much worseas spotting. We don't have the skills
at spotting deceptions i'd like to think, And an intimate deceiving us is particularly
hard probably to suss out because we'renot looking for it. We're not looking
forward. We trust them, andwhat they're telling us is usually things we
want to believe. Yeah, thatwe want to believe they're faithful. We
(27:41):
want you know, the deceptions arethings we want to believe. Typically,
Also, social norms tells to trustyour intimates and not investigate. And often
it's hard to investigate without jeopardizing therelationship because the person finds out about you
know. So I'm not blaming ifyou've been deceived. I want you to
know you're not alone and it's notyour fault. That said, um,
(28:02):
someone reading this book could think,you know, actually it would be true
to do a little bit of investigationto the extent I can. One thing
I did in writing this book isI looked at a lot of manuals written
by and for private detectives and Ifound out a lot. I mean,
public records don't have everything you thinkthey're going to have. They're not always
complete, they're not always online.But there are a number of things you
(28:26):
can find out in public records,and at least for some kinds of deception,
like where someone is inventing a wholenew identity, that could be a
way to uh to figure it out, it's harder. Other kinds of deception
are like what's where it's more withinsomeone's head or harder. Also a caveat
I talked about in the book.Many kinds of investigation you would like to
(28:48):
do or actually against the law,So not a good idea. People have
had to pay, had have beensuccessfully sued, or had to even gone
to jail for searching someone's to reportyour emails, your tax returns. Yes,
all these things are protected and forgood reason. So one irony is
courts tend to blame people for beingdope, but the law itself, for
good reason, makes it harder toinvestigate. Right. The point of this
(29:11):
book is not everything should be openum. That would be identity thieves paradise,
just that you know, to theextent if you and I also don't
want the point of the book tobe you should not trust. I think
it would be horrible if someone saidI love you when your first thought was
I want if he's lying, Howcould I investigate this? I want to
(29:32):
I want to see your tax returnsin your credit report. Right before we
got the date, right right thatsaid, you know, going in with
your eyes open isn't a bad idea, right, you know, because afterwards
it's going to be it's going tobe very hard. Well, Jill,
we were right up on time hereand this has been a fascinating discussion and
I know that it will be reallyeye opening for some of our listeners.
(29:55):
I want to thank you for joiningus, thanks for having me. And
this is my Yesterday is Jill hasDay. She's Distinguished McKnight University Professor and
the Centennial Professor of Law at theUniversity of Minnesota Law School. She's also
the author of the book Intimate Liesand the Law If You've Been Deceived.
(30:15):
It sounds like that would be agood resource for you to get and Jill,
want to share your website one moretime. It's Jill has Day.
Jill h. A. S isin Sam D's in David Ay dot com.
Thank you. Being deceived is painful, and as Jill just talked about,
part of that pain is coming toterms with your own naivity. You're
(30:40):
trusting, you're not seeing what's goingon, and feeling that you should have
been smarter. That part is partof your personal growth journey. I think
a good divorce recovery program will helpyou. But the other part about being
deceived, the financial losses and theemotional pain from the consequences, that's real,
(31:03):
and I think it's important for younot to just assume that there's absolutely
nothing that can be done by it. Jill's perspective that she's shared makes it
sound really grim, but I dowant to encourage you, if you're in
this situation, to really get competentlegal advice so that you can know what
recourse might be available to you throughthe legal system. Do get legal advice
(31:26):
before you start doing the hunting downand investigating on yourself, so you don't
want that to backfire and find thatyou have a claim against you. I
think you know so often when itcomes to divorce, it means about making
sure that you have all the informationthat you need before you jump to a
conclusion or make a hasty decision thatyou might later regret. We want you
(31:51):
to have making informed decisions throughout yourdivorce. Thank you for listening today.
If you hop over to my blogssincemdivorce dot com, you'll find a synopsis
of this conversation and you can followme at Since my Divorce on Twitter,
and I know that Jill is onTwitter as well at Jill has Day and
(32:12):
I'm also on Facebook. I hopeyou'll join us next time for more conversations
about divorce.
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