As a divorce lawyer for the past 17 years, I get to meet and speak to dozens of people every week regarding their relationships and the problems they encounter in their marriages. Having counseled thousands of people, I am privy to both the underbelly of marriage and divorce. In the same way that people get married by choice, they make a choice about the tone of their divorce.
Avoiding war in divorce is as simple as avoiding war with your neighbor. It is complex, but at the same time achievable. I always ask my clients to reflect on the following five questions before deciding on a strategy in their divorce:
1. Can you envision being friends with your spouse after your divorce?
There must be some redeeming qualities to the soon-to-be ex spouse because my client chose to marry him/her to begin with. By eliciting this inquiry, clients may be more inclined to re-focus their attention on something positive, thereby creating a balance to the traditionally favored approach of anger and resentment.
1. Can you envision your divorce as a new beginning as opposed to the end?
Life is a progression of changing events, both in your personal and professional life. If clients are able to see the greater picture, they are more likely to reflect on marriage as one episode in their journey as opposed to having their marriage define them. Some marriages may last a lifetime, but others just run their course. This goes back to the inquiry into the belief systems and expectations of each person. From my experience, most negative feelings in the divorce process come from a person's inability to reconcile that it is actually happening to him or her. Divorce is simply impossible to predict.
3. Are you willing to recognize that your children deserve to be raised in a loving, peaceful environment, even though you are getting divorced?
Most people choose to overlook the trauma that a divorce creates for their children. Many decide to stay in unhappy marriages for the sake of their children, indirectly damaging them by raising them in an unhappy environment. Then there are couples who decides to divorce to presumably shield their children from their unhappy union, all the while creating such negativity and tension through the divorce process that the end result is still traumatized children. On occasion, reflecting on the above question will allow parties to transcend their egoic differences, overcome their interpersonal issues and create -- by choice -- a friendly environment that will allow them to raise their children with dignity -- respecting each other has human beings.
4. Are you willing to recognize that most negativity created in your divorce will come from both of your egos?
Most people don't take time to reflect on the central role that ego plays in their marriage and their divorce. Inquiry into the components of human beings -- the body, the mind, the ego and the soul -- will facilitate my clients' ability to analyze the source of their frustrations with each other. This in turn will open up choices for them, should they proceed on autopilot (as people frequently do) or to stop and smell the roses by taking a closer look at how they choose to divorce.
5. Are you willing to proceed with this inquiry into the ego, to be able to move past the negativity and overcome the petty issues for the greater good of yourself and your children?
Socrates once stated that "an unexamined life is not worth living." This concept has most relevance for people going through divorce -- a period of great change and confusion for many. Each and every person facing divorce has the same choice: they must decide what they stand for, how they want to live their lives, and what tone they want to set for their future.
Many of my clients choose to elevate themselves and go through the divorce process with personal dignity and kindness. This choice requires deeper inquiry, reflection and the help of professionals that ask the right questions. This choice gives my clients the ability to help them and to put an end to their own frustration. War should not be an option for anyone choosing deeper inquiry. The question is, do they see the bigger picture?
Divorce is bad enough. The Bottom Line? (Lawyers like that part most)...
The legal playing field gets exceedingly less even the longer our lawyers, and sometimes collusive judiciaries, remain free from proper oversight, bathe immersed in judicial immunity and all setting their own rules of court.
The sociopathic cash-cow of many in the Divorce and Family Law Industry is finally at risk!
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-818918
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-823725
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-717417
CA is in a revolt over the RICO-like corruption and rampant collusion:
MOST judges call for IMMEDIATE reforms... the Chief Justice and her... minions, refuse to validate and PUBLIC outcry and select investigation...
http://judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/discourse-due-to-malfeasance-and-mismanagement-or-is-it-the-economy/#comment-12647
Good luck to those of you in distress and court/lawyer-imposed poverty!
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2. It's both, thankfully.
3. Sure. I swore I would not be the one to break the truce, and that has been true every time. Unfortunately, it takes two people thinking this way to achieve it. As soon as one party turns the children's lives over to the court system, it is not legally possible to undo that.
4. It doesn't matter where it comes from. What matters is #5:
5. "War should not be an option for anyone choosing deeper inquiry." Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Once the legal war starts, you can defend or be destroyed. There are no more 'options' then.
That’s a really unfortunate thing to say. The idea is, basically, what's good for mom is good for kids, and it's not supported by evidence. Scientific studies consistently show that, absent high levels of conflict involving violence or frequent intense verbal arguments, children are best served by their parents staying together.
A tremendous amount of misinformation circulates about divorce. If you’re thinking about divorce, rather than getting your information from, say, "Eat, Pray, Love" or HuffPost bloggers, why not go the most authoritative source available? That is, scientific research reported in articles published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals.
Go to Google Scholar, type "divorce effects on children" into the search box and spend a few minutes reading some of the one-paragraph summaries of the many studies of the topic. Then if you want to double your kids' risks of suicide, depression, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, dropping out and other ailments, all so you can escape your unhappy environment, you can do it without fooling yourself.
If you really want to do something for the children, get along with the other parent. This is not possible from opposite sides of a courtroom.
In an abusive marriage, divorce is the best solution. But abusive (drugs, alcohol, physical and emotional abuse, etc) marriages are not the same thing as unhappy marriages.
I come from an abusive family, and my parents' divorce, though awful, was the right choice.
But I have little sympathy for couples who divorce because they claim to be unhappy. Because once they divorce and get their "happiness" their children pay the price for the rest of their lives. The parents I know who divorce for reasons like this piss me off big time. It's selfish. Work it out!
Marriage, however, is good for women because it guarantees them financial security. She can dip her hand in his pocket and collect alimony and child support forever. That's why women push men to get married to them -- she wants a permanent ATM.
Guys need to realize this......and I think the younger ones definitely are. Average marriage age of men is now close to 30 yrs and more and more young men are choosing to remain single. That's a good development.
That's not true.....at least not in this society. Most people (women especially) don't marry for love anymore. That's why people cheat on each other left and right. That's why women initiate 75% of all divorces.
Of course there are still good women.....as long as you don't marry them. Marry them and they'd become something else.
Looking back at the very first conversation I had with my lawyer, I said all of the above and he just sat and chuckled. "Unfortunately, divorce doesn't work that way. But we will try to get things wrapped up quickly and you will be fine." I felt reassured. For the next 2 years he carefully and systematically crafted an anger-filled, vengeful, tit-for-tat divorce. Before I knew it, I was out of money and nowhere near a resolution with former husband, bitter, and feeling pretty duped.
I went the rest of the way on my own by using court facilitators with paperwork and such, and I still use court facilitators when I have to address the courts about child support or medical bills or what have you. My documents and presentations are to the point, factual and 'clean'. He still uses a lawyer and doesn't show up -- never has -- and all she does is sling mud and document untruths.
2. No, it was an ending. Period.
3. Yes, but she wanted there to be problems.
4. No, this isn't true. It takes two to work together, but only one to destroy.
5. Yes, would be nice.
After the divorce you have to deal with the fire damage. The divorce lawyers are driving new cars.
Then you are supposed to "be nice".
How we let lawyers get their nothing but greedy fingers into divorce is a disgrace.