Free Tool
Most people estimate the legal bill and stop there. That number is the smallest one. This runs your balance sheet, your children's ages, and your income structure through a ten-year model — and shows you what leaves your family for good.
Some marriages need to end, and no financial model should ever be a reason to stay in a dangerous one. If you or your children are in immediate danger, call 911. For confidential support 24/7, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, text START to 88788, or chat at thehotline.org.
Incomes are entered separately because that single gap drives support, taxes, and insurance for the next decade.
Estimates are fine. The model rounds, and precision here moves the headline number very little.
This field moves the number more than any other. Almost nobody plans on the fourth option, and a great many people end up there anyway.
What this would cost your family
Year One
$0
Cash out the door in the first twelve months.
Every Year After
$0
The recurring cost of running two households instead of one.
Forgone Growth
$0
What that money would have earned had it stayed invested.
Ten-Year Total
$0
Value destroyed, not divided. This is money that leaves your family entirely — it does not land in anyone's column.
Paid in the first year or two, almost entirely to people who are not in your family.
Year-two figures. Some lines step down as children age out; the chart above reflects that.
These dollars are not counted above, because they don't leave your family — they change hands inside it. But they reshape both households for years, and the fight over these numbers is what most of those legal fees actually bought.
"Seven years of counseling that didn't work. Ten months separated. Nearly $100,000 spent on the divorce process. One week before it was final."
We stopped one week out. Which means we paid the entire bill and didn't even get the divorce. What that money actually bought was financial pain and a bitterness that took years to undo.
Twenty-three years in, we're still married. But we paid for that the hard way, and we paid far more than we needed to, because nobody ever put a number like the one you just ran in front of us. If someone had, we'd have made different decisions a year earlier — and made them for better reasons.
We're not going to put a dollar figure on any of this. Doing so would be dishonest, and you'd know it. But leaving it off the page entirely would be worse.
Every figure above, itemized, in your inbox. Useful if you want to look at it again when you're calmer — or hand it to your spouse.
We'll send your breakdown to this address only. If you share an inbox, consider using a personal one.
Sent. Check your inbox in the next few minutes — and your spam folder if it isn't there.
Kevin & Bree coach high-capacity couples who are winning everywhere except at home. Both of them are on every call. If it isn't the right fit, they'll tell you on the call and point you somewhere better.
Apply for Coaching Not ready for a call? Start with 75Hope — the 75-day sprint for couples doing the work on their own.This is a model, not legal or financial advice, and it is not a substitute for either. Kevin & Bree are marriage coaches. They are not attorneys, accountants, or financial advisors, and nothing here reflects the guidelines, statutes, or case law of your state.
What the state field does. It sets the common statutory age at which child support ends — eighteen in most states, nineteen or twenty-one in a handful. It does not apply your state's support guidelines, property regime, or alimony formula, and it does not account for extensions tied to high school enrollment, disability, or private agreement.
Legal fees use national ranges per side by path, adjusted upward for estate size, business ownership, and contested custody. Professional fees cover forensic accounting, business valuation, custody evaluators, and QDRO preparation where those apply.
Recurring costs assume two households cost meaningfully more than one: separate housing, duplicate utilities and insurance, added childcare and exchange logistics, and independent health coverage where one spouse was on the other's plan. The tax line reflects the permanent loss of joint filing brackets, plus the fact that spousal support has not been deductible to the payer since 2019 — so support is now paid out of after-tax dollars.
Forgone growth compounds each year's destroyed cash at 6.5% for the remainder of the ten-year window. It assumes that money would otherwise have stayed invested.
Support and property figures are illustrative national conventions, not your state's math. Real outcomes turn on facts this page doesn't ask for. Treat every number here as an order of magnitude.