Finding Middle Ground in Your Life and Divorce

Why this Divorce Attorney May Send You on Your Way Someone once described my job as that of an undertaker, saying that "divorce is not the death of the marriage, it is the funeral."  For the majority of people who come to my office for a divorce, that is true.  For many, the marriage ended long ago, sometimes months or years before people come into my office to finally move forward.  There have been years of disconnect, of fundamental irreconcilable differences.  Sometimes there is fighting-- lots of fighting.  Sometimes there is just silence.  For some, there are years without sex. Yes, years.  Fights about money, children, or family and the list goes on.  Specific reasons are as varied as the people who walk in my door. However, the often familiar lament of “we just fell out of love" seems to me the saddest of all.   Fell out of love?  They make it sound like they fell over a misplaced shoe.   What? No bird...

Why 50/50 Timesharing is Not Always the Answer. “Timesharing” sounds like such a lovely idea.  So very civilized.  We will all do the very thing we teach our child to do almost from out of the womb.  Share. Share something you love.   Easy enough, right?  We pull the toy out of the very hands of the child who will not share.  Those who don’t share are deemed naughty.  Children are even evaluated in school for their ability to share.  It is a fundamental human social skill.  We are all on the sharing bandwagon-until you get a divorce and the very thing you have to share is your child. Then all this sharing crap goes right out the window and people are back on the playground, only this time they are paying roughly a collective $1,000 per hour to get their share of what belongs to them.  After all, anything less than half just wouldn’t be fair to them.  Children, however, don’t divide as easily as the furniture and some...

Celebrities may be consciously uncoupling, but the rest of us are just going through a crappy divorce.  They might be prettier, richer or thinner, but they are parents just the same.  They are the stars of major motion pictures or maybe just reality TV, but we are bombarded with their daily lives from the mundane, to the unbelievable.  When famous people divorce and the details emerge, which they inevitably do, they are suddenly less glamorous and become more like, well, the rest of us.  There is less money now that they’re fighting over it.  They are less pretty, as they bare the ugly realities of their lives (sometimes intentionally) in tabloids and on talk shows.  They are certainly less funny, as a divorce is never funny when children are involved.  Despite the fact that we may tune in to hear about a celebrity's latest multi-million dollar deal, or enjoy watching a good throw-down with their best socialite friend, we really don’t want to see thei...

Without a doubt, the best lesson I have learned through this life is a simple, yet powerful truth, “People will do to you in life what you allow them to do.”  I see it every day with my clients, they ask, “How did this happen to me?”  If I am painfully honest with myself, most of the really bad stuff that has happened to me was due to my allowing it.  At 46, with 20 years of practicing law, comes a clarity and a peace, or you burn out from the intensity of it all.  There is a desire to help others to avoid pain or find strength, to make the process not just bearable, but an opportunity.   I think one of the most important things that make me a good lawyer is I have been through it.  I do not ask people to do things I haven’t done myself.  I can say with experience, share your child, spend less money, do the right thing, (even when the other party does not), be strong, forgive, and perhaps, most importantly, own your piece of this situation so you...

Embrace your Less than Perfect Life and Find a Happier Marriage Perhaps the worst thing anyone ever came up with is the idea we can "have it at all".  The idea that we can be perfect partners, parents, lovers, friends, and employees.  We can do it all and can do it all without help, support, and complaining, all the while looking like a supermodel.  The idea that we can be all things to all people sets us up from the start to fail.  The eternal quest for more money, more affirmation, and to "have it all", is frankly, exhausting.  In my experience as a divorce attorney, this leads to two very tough problems to overcome, resentment and disappointment, as life is less than perfect, sometimes culminating in a trip to my office. I have a sister-in-law who is beautiful, smart and ridiculously talented.  She does it “all” and recently moved into a beautiful new home, all the while planning a big family party within a week’s time.  Of course, she will...

         Before people become a family is a great time to have the discussion regarding what "family" means to each of you. Once again, we are a product of our experience and exposure, positive and negative.      I, for instance, have three brothers who I love equally. I have never thought of them differently. Technically, two of my brothers are my "step" brothers, but I care little for technicalities when it comes to defining my family. Family includes my Dad, his wife, Mom and her husband (all my parents), my cousin's ex-wives, my son's father and his wife, my "adopted" sons, my best friend, her husband, and many more. There are a multitude of people who do not share my blood, but share my heart and make up my family.      As a child, I often heard my parents and their new spouses differentiate their children (sorry guys) "your children," "my children" certainly divides a family rather th...

How Not to Make your Lawyer Rich and Damage your Children. My mom used to say there is “enough love to go around” for her four children and, of course, the children of her ex-husband’s new wife and any other child who happened to be around, needing a reassuring hug or a boost of self-confidence.  That is the lesson I learned as a child of divorce.  What I see as an adult practicing primarily divorce litigation, is that in 20 years of doing this, there is one thing for certain, there has never been a case where a child has suffered from “too much love.” The everyday family law issues often include posturing as to who is the better parent, who is entitled to timesharing, when, where, and for how long, unfortunately with the curiously absent analysis of the best interests of the minor child.  Distress over the “he or she never did that when we were married” regarding the bathing, feeding, or general everyday caretaking, are all too often looked at with cynical judgm...

Marriage Advice from a Divorce Lawyer It is amazing that despite the fact we spend most of our lives either searching for love and companionship or being in a relationship, this is the one thing we are never really taught how to do.  Expectations and patterns are determined by the successful (and not so successful) relationships we see as children, on television, and by trial and error.  By the time you walk through the front door of my office, it is often too late.  And divorce sucks.  It’s expensive and emotionally devastating.  In 20 years of experience practicing law, I have often wondered why so many relationships fail.  The complaints I have heard over the years have similarities in what was “missing.”  Even when there is an affair, it is usually a symptom rather than a cause.  Did these people know the things about their partner that now drives them out the door before they got married?  (Most of the time the answer is yes)....

As a divorce attorney, practicing for 20 years, who has been through divorce myself (and is now happily remarried), a more peaceful divorce may be possible when people follow a few tips: 1. Accept the part you each played in the failure of the marriage .  It takes two, (even if the only fault was "picking the wrong partner for your needs"). 2.  Lower your expectations of each other .  If your spouse didn't do certain things WHILE you were married, don't expect it now.  You will only be disappointed and frustrated. 3.   Remember, once upon a time you loved this person .  What was it you loved?  Especially when there are children involved, let whatever you loved the most be your mantra when speaking about your spouse.  You will also look kinder to a new partner.  No exceptions to this rule, as children have big ears.  Your child is one-half of this person!  As my mother would say, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't sa...