Tell someone you’re contemplating divorce and you’ve got better than even odds they’ll respond with some variation of, “I know exactly what you are going through.” Given the fact that one out of two American marriages end in divorce, it’s not hard to find people in your life who’ve been there. Divorce, painful as it is, has become a common scenario.
I spent years helping a lot of good people find their way through angry divorces and ugly custody battles. The law firm where I spent my days as a family law attorney catered primarily to educated professionals. These were men and women who moved through their lives with the confidence that comes from being successful. Yet, all of their accomplishments meant very little when they found themselves at my door. Here, some of the most self-possessed business executives were willing to hand over control of their lives to me, their lawyer, (in most cases a complete stranger) in hopes that I could lessen the pain.
It’s not hard to see why so many people make this decision – right or wrong. Like grave illness, the death of one’s marriage is not something you prepare for. You may run a company; manage a big family; assume enormous responsibilities with remarkable poise, yet feel utterly powerless when faced with this single failure. A woman may be thrilled to be rid of her husband, but finds herself devastated by the loss of her status as a “married woman.” A man may be grateful he’ll never have to speak to his wife again, but actually mourn the loss of his in-laws’ company. Holidays become more stressful. Mutual friends, who don’t know how to respond to the new situation, become distant. It takes a while for new patterns to be established, and the transition time can be brutal. It is no wonder many couples remain together in otherwise toxic relationships, just to avoid the act of divorce . . . just to avoid the change.
Divorce can also bring up the darkest of emotions - fear, anger, hate, desperation, and depression. Once these ugly feelings surface, common sense runs right out the door. I’ve seen some spectacularly stupid (and expensive) fights over issues as petty as who gets the Tupperware. Regrettably, I’ve also seen my share of nightmare cases where, as an example, a pre-teen child, so traumatized by his divorcing parents’ battles, had to be treated as potential suicide risk.
It takes a thick skin to operate in this realm. A lot of young lawyers take on divorce cases as a means of paying the bills, but quickly give them up because their clients’ needs are too overwhelming. The old-timers, those rare attorneys who have maintained a full time divorce practice for twenty years or more, will claim survival rule #1 is don’t get too close or empathize too much with your clients. I always hated that rule. It’s hard not to sympathetically reach out to the suffering human being sitting across from you. With each year, it became more and more difficult. Eventually, after eight years and literally hundreds of cases, I found myself desperately needing a break.
There’s an old saying, “one cannot see the forest for the trees.” I found truth in these words six months after I left my divorce trial practice for Academia. No longer having to worry about the day-to-day skirmishes – the missed child support payment, the fight over Christmas visitation, the entry of the new girlfriend (or boyfriend) into the picture, the domestic violence claims, the spiteful destruction of marital property, the ridiculously inflammatory opposing counsel, the emotionally unstable opposing spouse -- I was finally able to examine the big picture (“the forest for the trees”). Without emotion or concern, I took it all in -- examined it with the cold, objective viewpoint of a detached professional. Then, my father called.
No child wants to be pulled into the middle of their parent’s divorce. The situation is not any different when that child is a divorce lawyer – it’s the type of comic disaster destined for a movie screen. My father was still in his forties, when my mother passed away. When he married my stepmother, a couple of years later, as far as he was concerned, it was again “till death do us part.” Seventeen years later, however, my stepmother had him served with divorce papers. Even though the last few years weren’t very happy for them, my father was still shell-shocked. And, he came to me for help.
Handle enough divorces and you develop a script – a collection of words used to comfort your client, while at the same time, get them focused on the path ahead of them. One look at my dad and my script disappeared. Ethically, I knew I couldn’t be the one representing him, but I also knew that he deserved more from me than a few encouraging words, and the name of a good lawyer. Instead, over a series of lunches, dinners and afternoon drives, I shared with him what I have learned about divorce. These talks became the foundation of this blog site.
It’s difficult watching someone close to you suffer such a loss. It made me think how was it that some of my clients were able to survive this life changing experience, while others appeared poisoned by it forever? What is it that gives certain individuals the ability to find a better path, to come through the process emotionally intact – even stronger then they were before. To survive any loss, there has to be something inside you, some emotional spring, which allows you to get back up after you’ve been knocked down. I don’t know if such inner strength can be taught. Spiritual faith, close friends, and perhaps a good therapist may be a key. What hundreds of clients and their spouses have taught me, however, is the bloodier the battle, the longer the recovery time.
This is the challenge – keeping your divorce from turning into an ugly war. Understand that trust is the first victims of divorce. When someone breaks your heart, they lose your trust. Make you angry enough and they lose your respect. Once you lose the ability to trust someone close to you with your feelings, it is only matter of time before this runs over into other aspects of your relationship. Soon, it becomes very difficult to trust each other as parents, business partners or property owners – even if there is no rational basis for distrust in these areas. Once this poison works its way through the relationship, it can take the smallest disputes and turn them into huge conflicts.
Think about the image of a cartoon snowball that starts small at the top of the mountain, and then grows into a massive snow boulder that eventually takes out everything in its path. Divorces work that way. A person may mishandle a relatively minor issue at the beginning, but by the time the parties and the lawyers reach the end of the case, it has grown into a problem of such epic proportions that it has involved four trips to the courthouse, soured all other negotiations and cost the parties an extra $20,000 in legal fees.
Some folks convince themselves that by digging in, by making their spouse fight for everything, they preserve what’s left of their own dignity. These are the people who make their own lives more miserable with statements like --
“I’m gonna make him pay. I don’t care what it costs me”
“Hell will freeze over before I’ll let her have anything.”
“I don’t care what the court order says. The judge can put me in jail.”
There is nothing dignified about a bitter divorce.
Most people go through their divorce believing they have no control over their emotions and resulting mêlée between themselves and their “soon to be ex.” Wrong. Sane adults do not lose control of themselves unless they want to. Moreover, if you were a victim to an immature spouse’s antics while you were married, there is no better time than the present to regain control. There are steps you can take to minimize the insanity of your situation, and it can happen with or without your spouse’s cooperation. For those few individuals who found a sane path to freedom, it always came down to a few key decisions made in the first few weeks of their divorce. It was these decisions that set the stage for everything else down the road. Handle these decisions poorly and you lay the groundwork for years of regret or worse, years of war with your ex-spouse. Handle these preliminary matters wisely and you give yourself the very best opportunity to live through your grief and move on to a new life.
This blog is about what you can control. Obviously, an irrational spouse will always make things more difficult. If applied in the beginning stage of your formal break-up, the strategies I will introduce in this blog will aid in giving you greater peace of mind. Your spouse may be the angry storm at the door, but at least you’ll know that you have done everything to protect your interests – mentally, emotionally, financially and legally. It’s all about taking care of you.
