A retired Wall Street executive, who has been happily married for 25 years, is creating a website he hopes will be a top destination for people going through divorces and breakups.
Phil Yagoda, who spent more than two decades on Wall Street, including a stint as a managing director at Deutsche Bank, launched The Exit in December with content focused on what couples can expect to encounter emotionally and financially during a divorce and how to navigate the often painful twists and turns. Visitors to the site can find articles on everything from making a breakup plan to managing finances in the aftermath of a split to embracing newfound singledom.
"We're like the WebMD, we're a place to go for the most amount of information," Yagoda, 50, said.
He's entering the market following an upswing in marital strain tied to pandemic lockdowns, though data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a longer-term decline for US divorce and marriage rates. About two out of every 1,000 people got divorced in the US in 2020, half the rate from 2000. Marriage rates have also plummeted, to about five per 1,000 in 2020 from eight per 1,000 in 2000.
While those numbers may suggest a shrinking market for information about how to get through a divorce, Yagoda sees opportunity. He suspects the declining marriage rates could reflect disillusionment among singles who have seen friends and relatives go through painful splits, so anything he can do to make the process easier may improve perceptions of the institution and lead to more marriages, he said.
"If we can make that a better situation where people are more informed and have a better understanding of what they're truly getting into, then hopefully, that will reverse course as well," Yagoda said.
Yagoda uses freelance writers to create the content on his site, which includes articles like Why Divorce Is Harder for Men Than Women and How to Find Out If Your Soon-to-Be Ex Is Hiding Money From You. For now, the vast majority of the authors on the site appear to be White women. Yagoda says that he has commissioned articles by people of color that have yet to be published.
"I wanted this to be as inclusive and open to everybody that we could possibly make it, and we're always going to try and improve as well," Yagoda said.
There's strong appetite for information about divorce, according to Emily Pollock, a family-law attorney at Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP in New York who co-wrote the book 4 Things Every Woman Business Owner Should Know About Divorce. Reading about others' experiences could help people going through a split realize "that you're not alone in what you're facing," Pollock said. While informational sites can be very useful for identifying issues likely to come up in the course of a divorce, she noted that for serious financial or legal advice people still need to hire professionals like attorneys, therapists or accountants.
"It can be dangerous, just as it can with any issue that we identify and research on the internet, to rely on information that you're getting from someone who knows nothing about your circumstances," she said.
While The Exit doesn't offer services beyond its articles for people going through a divorce, Yagoda said his website does have a deal with Divorce.com to refer readers interested in do-it-yourself proceedings. Currently, Yagoda said he's self-funding the site but is in discussions with potential sponsors, who he declined to identify.
Yagoda acknowledged that it might seem a little weird for a married man who has never been divorced to launch a site focused on the topic, but says he knew there was a need after witnessing friends and family go through painful separations.
"At the end of the day, you don't have to have a bad heart to be a heart surgeon," he said.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
