Why I Put My Divorce On My LinkedIn Resume

My divorce was the worst job I ever had. And make no mistake, it was a job. Unpaid, unreasonable hours, unending.

Strangely though, there was an incredible lesson in DEI that came out of it, but I'll get to that.

Back in 2017, I was working at the heights of the American advertising industry when I told my husband I wanted a divorce. Nothing prepared me for the all-encompassing, life-destroying event that was my newly acquired position.

While doing above-average overtime at the office (an advertising industry norm), I was also doing twenty-plus hours a week on divorce-related matters: finding and hiring lawyers, filing, arbitration, court appearances, and the never-ending paperwork. Like many divorcees, I was self-medicating for my anxiety, suffering from insomnia, battling the worst depression of my life, and still running a multi-million dollar piece of global business.

Meanwhile, my family life, friendships, finances, housing situation, transport, work attendance, and income were also all set ablaze.

Here's the kicker: a divorce, separation, or end of a long-term relationship is going to happen to 64% of employees at some point in their working lives. This means it'll probably happen to you at least once if it hasn't already.

Until I got divorced myself, I had no idea there were zero resources and support available in corporate America–divorce gets filed under “leave your personal life at home.”

According to recent surveys by YouGov and The Parent’s Promise HR initiative, 95% of people who’ve gone through divorces, separations, and the end of long-term relationships report that it adversely affected their work performance. 52% thought they’d lose their jobs. 40% took unpaid leave or holidays to cope. 12% stopped working altogether.

Compassionate leave is standard for many other events affecting employees; bereavement, long-term illness, hospitalization, and also for positive reasons like parental leave, and sabbaticals. Some very advanced companies are already offering paid menstrual leave and pet bereavement. In my estimation, divorce and separation are second only to the death of a parent as the most common cataclysmic event in the lives of employees. Yet we have no allowances for it, and no leave either.

Neglecting divorce is not good for people or company morale and is potentially disastrous for business.

I'm writing this article in part, to normalize talking about this very normal event. And to loudly declare that a global corporate rethink is needed on the whole topic.

That said, I want to also point out the skills you have to develop to get through a divorce. Because you can't outsource it, you can't delegate it, you have to drive this bus. Here are some of the skills I developed while going through mine:

• California Divorce Law Primer - In a matter of months I was fluent in all the basics and some more advanced legal aspects of divorce law. Applying the strategy skills I learned as an advertising creative, I helped my first lawyers craft entire legal arguments for my defense.
• Anger Management - I lost count of the number of desks I didn't throw through windows. After some rocky first months, I could conduct a successful pitch and sell campaigns while keeping my internal rage outside the boardroom. Divorcing people can perform Olympic-level slow-breathing and mental compartmentalization.
• Endurance training - Like new parents, I learned how to do a 12-hour day at work on an average of three hours sleep.
• Financial planning - When you're handing over half your take-home pay, plus paying for your lawyers, your ex's lawyers, all the community costs, and realizing you're almost in the red half way through the first week of the month, you get incredibly creative to pay bills and groceries.
• Time Management - When you're working full-time and doing twenty-plus hours on your divorce, there is no downtime. Divorcing people are the masters of get it done, get it out. Especially divorcing parents.
• Contract negotiation - We didn't have kids. But any divorced parents can add Access Negotiations to their list. It's a contract that will probably be renegotiated several times over the course of their kids' lives sometimes with the toughest clients you can imagine.

Divorce hits different people differently. The learning curve you embark on though, is steep. In short, anyone in your organization who's divorced is probably now carved out of steel and more skilled than you ever imagined. All things being equal, if I was hiring, I'd pick the divorced person every time.

But the biggest surprise skill that came out of my divorce? It was the greatest DEI training I've ever had.

In the lack of support at work, and also in the LGBTQ+ community where we have next to zero experience with divorce, it was the straight divorced men at work I found myself relying on. We were each other's greatest supporters, advisers, and most unlikely allies.

As a group, we would meet outside the office to exchange info, tactics, and divorce WIP updates. We were from the mailroom to the C-Suite, four different religions, every ethnicity, both sides of the political divide, different generations, American-born and immigrants like myself. Divorce is the great equalizer. Surviving it together was our common goal.

In this DEI microcosm, we didn't agree on everything. Many of us might have canceled each other in another still-married life. I had some difficult talks with the more conservatively religious guys in the group about my gayness. However, each guy there had a unique POV on divorce that we all needed. It was this huge diversity of opinions that powered our shared goal of surviving our divorces which gave us an unbreakable empathy and respect for each other. To the point where I lost my lifelong fear and bias against straight guys. What a gift.

So while I started out by saying divorce was the worst job I ever had, it was also the best. And one that we need to acknowledge more. Which is why I put it on my CV.

I wrote a book about my divorce experience called How To Burn A Rainbow. And I have embarked on a career in DEI speaking on the need for a diversity of opinions as the main goal of DEI. Plus the tools to talk to each other without fear, listen with empathy, and find respect even for those we'd previously considered enemies.

The greatest lessons I learned about my divorce were the same that I learned about DEI - we don't have to agree with each other on everything to still respect each other. Just being in conversation, biases begin to disappear. And that it's the diversity of opinions that come through from this, which can solve everything we're all going through.

I know it's true, because I learned it on the job.

Repost this to anyone you think needs it.

If you'd like to know more about my talk A World Of Unlikely Allies check the speaker page on my website: https://www.karldunn.com/speaker

Or if you'd like to know more about my book How To Burn A Rainbow here's the US Amazon page for it: https://a.co/d/0ZhHTaT

And you can sign up for my newsletter Friends of Karl - the stuff that connects us all from pop culture and business every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month: https://subscribepage.io/AnOmhs