Save Your Money and Your Sanity- A Few Tips to a More Peaceful Divorce
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 say anything at all.
4. Don't let the lawyers create unnecessary hostility. You are the one who controls the process. How you handle your divorce and treat your spouse and children will have long lasting ramifications. Bad behavior makes for uncomfortable soccer games. Cut the crap if you are starting it, and don't engage if the other party is starting it. Do you want to sit on the same side of the room when your child gets married? Your children will thank you someday.
5. Find happiness, move on, and allow your spouse to do the same. Get a good therapist if you need one, most people do, even if you think you don't. As for the new partners or spouses, remember children don't suffer from having too many people loving them. You would rather have the new spouse/partner in the game than watching from the sidelines. Would you rather someone new NOT love your child? Family is what you make of it. It takes a village, as they say.
6. Remember your priorities. I hear people say they would lay in front of a train for their children, prove it! Love your children more than you dislike your spouse and act accordingly.
7. See litigation as a luxury, not a necessity. Fighting is expensive. Letters back and forth over what little Johnny had for lunch are a waste of resources and energy. The money you spend unnecessarily litigating could pay for something really important like your children's education instead of a new car for your lawyer.
8. Realize no one knows your children better than you and your spouse. You need to be on the same team. Do you really want a stranger deciding their future and yours? It is the biggest gamble you will ever take. Any agreement you craft with your spouse will be better than the one forced upon you by a stranger, even a well-meaning one, in a robe.
9. Choose your battles. There will be disagreements, just as if you were still together. Talk them out and realize communication is important, even though you are not together anymore, maybe more so.
10. Remember, life is short. How much of your life do you want to spend rehashing the past? Enjoy today and realize all the terrible things we go through can bring us to a better place if we choose to see it that way. Forgive each other and you will have a (mostly) peaceful divorce. I do.
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 say anything at all.
4. Don't let the lawyers create unnecessary hostility. You are the one who controls the process. How you handle your divorce and treat your spouse and children will have long lasting ramifications. Bad behavior makes for uncomfortable soccer games. Cut the crap if you are starting it, and don't engage if the other party is starting it. Do you want to sit on the same side of the room when your child gets married? Your children will thank you someday.
5. Find happiness, move on, and allow your spouse to do the same. Get a good therapist if you need one, most people do, even if you think you don't. As for the new partners or spouses, remember children don't suffer from having too many people loving them. You would rather have the new spouse/partner in the game than watching from the sidelines. Would you rather someone new NOT love your child? Family is what you make of it. It takes a village, as they say.
6. Remember your priorities. I hear people say they would lay in front of a train for their children, prove it! Love your children more than you dislike your spouse and act accordingly.
7. See litigation as a luxury, not a necessity. Fighting is expensive. Letters back and forth over what little Johnny had for lunch are a waste of resources and energy. The money you spend unnecessarily litigating could pay for something really important like your children's education instead of a new car for your lawyer.
8. Realize no one knows your children better than you and your spouse. You need to be on the same team. Do you really want a stranger deciding their future and yours? It is the biggest gamble you will ever take. Any agreement you craft with your spouse will be better than the one forced upon you by a stranger, even a well-meaning one, in a robe.
9. Choose your battles. There will be disagreements, just as if you were still together. Talk them out and realize communication is important, even though you are not together anymore, maybe more so.
10. Remember, life is short. How much of your life do you want to spend rehashing the past? Enjoy today and realize all the terrible things we go through can bring us to a better place if we choose to see it that way. Forgive each other and you will have a (mostly) peaceful divorce. I do.
© by M. Krista Barth 2014
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