The Divorced Dadvocate: Strategic Defense for Fathers
May 25, 2026 · 58 min · 11 segments
Divorce can feel like it happens in an instant: an argument, a cold sentence, papers on the counter, and your world flips upside down. We slow that moment down and look at the data that challenges the…
Jude SandvallHostNo entities detected.
If-- This week, we need to have a serious data-driven conversation about the starting line of your divorce.
So I just want you to take a quick moment here and focus on, and take a second to think about the moment you found out your marriage was officially over.
Most of us, because women file 70% of the time and, and f-feel like that is a sudden catastrophic car crash.
I talk with a lot of guys who find that it was just a, just a shock to them, and they had a, a fight.
They came h- and they came home to find a set of divorce papers on the, on the kitchen counter or sat down at home or in therapy or somewhere else and, and heard those cold words of, "I want a divorce." And it oftentimes, I-I've heard it described as it felt like an impulse, knee-jerk reaction to an argument or cutting things short.
Their hearts start racing, their chests get tightened, and their world's turned instantly upside down, and they have the reality that things are going to change drastically.
And, and, and so today, what I wanna do is I wanna look at the cold, hard data that shatters that illusion that it was a knee-knee-jerk reaction and something that just comes out of nowhere.
But, but actually, before we jump into this, I, I wanna give you some background as to, to, to why I picked this topic this week is, um, I was actually just sitting down at my computer this morning and answering e-emails and comments on podcast episodes, and we had a comment on the last week's, uh, podcast episode.
So I was doing a simple search, because last week in the, the episode I talked about if the word divorce comes up, you need to pay attention right away because that typically means that your wife has been thinking and, and/or planning this for an extended period of time, and there was a comment on that.
And so I was going to-- I was looking into a little, a little bit of research, uh, just to, to respond to that comment because it was a pretty detailed comment about a, a, a dad that had an experience ar-around that and found out that, that his wife was, uh, planning things in advance.
And, and so I just, I gave a very simple prompt to, to an AI, to an AI platform, which was based on studies, how long in advance have women filed, who filed for divorce been planning their divorce? So I was just looking for some background and some data because you hear, I know where the 70%, uh, comes from in, in that study, so I wanted more information.
But the first thing that came out was a very interesting, very interesting about the contemplative phase in, in that an, in that an AI model would, would give.
And the first was something called the walk-away wife syndrome, which is something from therapists and psychologists that states sociological studies, including widely cited data from the American Sociological Association showing that women initiate roughly 70% of all divorces, highlight that women often attempt to fix relationship issues for years.
So that immediately just raised a red flag for me and actually severely irritated me because as far as this is, this is concerned, it said, you know, sociological studies highlight that women often attempt to fix relationship issues, and it cited that the American Sociological Association show-shows that women initiate roughly 70% of all divorces.
So that's, that was its logic as to why, uh, uh, supporting why it, it is the, the walk-away wife syndrome is that they're, you know, they've already tried forever and ever.
So that immediately got me into asking follow-up questions of, you know, how does, how does citing that they, that, that this American Sociological Association study says that women initiate 70% of all divorces subvert-- support your assertion that the studies highlight that women often attempt to fix relationship issues for years? And, and so then I just, I basically went on like a 45-minute-Deep dive, rabbit hole, whatever you're gonna call it with, call it with, with, with AI around this.
And so for, for me, this is scary, dads, because if AI models are pulling this out and AI mo- A- AI models don't know if I'm male or female, like they don't know my perspective of coming from this.
This is so, so skewed one, one way that, that you really, really need, uh, to, to, to be prepared around what you are facing and, and what is transpiring during this process.
Because it is not what it seems to be and not what the, the, the, the public, the media, social media, everything else is portraying it to be.
So, so I'm going to show you why that sudden, like that, what seems to be a sudden, uh, decision was actually years in the making.
If-- This week, we need to have a serious data-driven conversation about the starting line of your divorce.
So I just want you to take a quick moment here and focus on, and take a second to think about the moment you found out your marriage was officially over.
Most of us, because women file 70% of the time and, and f-feel like that is a sudden catastrophic car crash.
I talk with a lot of guys who find that it was just a, just a shock to them, and they had a, a fight.
They came h- and they came home to find a set of divorce papers on the, on the kitchen counter or sat down at home or in therapy or somewhere else and, and heard those cold words of, "I want a divorce." And it oftentimes, I-I've heard it described as it felt like an impulse, knee-jerk reaction to an argument or cutting things short.
Their hearts start racing, their chests get tightened, and their world's turned instantly upside down, and they have the reality that things are going to change drastically.
And, and, and so today, what I wanna do is I wanna look at the cold, hard data that shatters that illusion that it was a knee-knee-jerk reaction and something that just comes out of nowhere.
But, but actually, before we jump into this, I, I wanna give you some background as to, to, to why I picked this topic this week is, um, I was actually just sitting down at my computer this morning and answering e-emails and comments on podcast episodes, and we had a comment on the last week's, uh, podcast episode.
So I was doing a simple search, because last week in the, the episode I talked about if the word divorce comes up, you need to pay attention right away because that typically means that your wife has been thinking and, and/or planning this for an extended period of time, and there was a comment on that.
And so I was going to-- I was looking into a little, a little bit of research, uh, just to, to respond to that comment because it was a pretty detailed comment about a, a, a dad that had an experience ar-around that and found out that, that his wife was, uh, planning things in advance.
And, and so I just, I gave a very simple prompt to, to an AI, to an AI platform, which was based on studies, how long in advance have women filed, who filed for divorce been planning their divorce? So I was just looking for some background and some data because you hear, I know where the 70%, uh, comes from in, in that study, so I wanted more information.
But the first thing that came out was a very interesting, very interesting about the contemplative phase in, in that an, in that an AI model would, would give.
And the first was something called the walk-away wife syndrome, which is something from therapists and psychologists that states sociological studies, including widely cited data from the American Sociological Association showing that women initiate roughly 70% of all divorces, highlight that women often attempt to fix relationship issues for years.
So that immediately just raised a red flag for me and actually severely irritated me because as far as this is, this is concerned, it said, you know, sociological studies highlight that women often attempt to fix relationship issues, and it cited that the American Sociological Association show-shows that women initiate roughly 70% of all divorces.
So that's, that was its logic as to why, uh, uh, supporting why it, it is the, the walk-away wife syndrome is that they're, you know, they've already tried forever and ever.
So that immediately got me into asking follow-up questions of, you know, how does, how does citing that they, that, that this American Sociological Association study says that women initiate 70% of all divorces subvert-- support your assertion that the studies highlight that women often attempt to fix relationship issues for years? And, and so then I just, I basically went on like a 45-minute-Deep dive, rabbit hole, whatever you're gonna call it with, call it with, with, with AI around this.
And so for, for me, this is scary, dads, because if AI models are pulling this out and AI mo- A- AI models don't know if I'm male or female, like they don't know my perspective of coming from this.
This is so, so skewed one, one way that, that you really, really need, uh, to, to, to be prepared around what you are facing and, and what is transpiring during this process.
Because it is not what it seems to be and not what the, the, the, the public, the media, social media, everything else is portraying it to be.
So, so I'm going to show you why that sudden, like that, what seems to be a sudden, uh, decision was actually years in the making.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.