Finding Middle Ground in Your Life and Divorce

Apparently, Karma has a very different opinion of enough is enough and there are lessons yet to be learned and new perspectives each day, even after almost 22 years as a divorce lawyer. I am the child of divorce, a divorce survivor, a divorce attorney and now the sister of a soon-to-be divorced person. On the list of these somewhat unfortunate credentials, this one, on its surface, would seem the least traumatic of all. But she is my little sister, she was the tiniest casualty of my parents crumbled union, and I always felt a little like I have to watch out for her. Today, I can't fix her troubles by warming up a can of Spaghetti-O's and watching a Brady Bunch episode as I did when we were little. Nor can I really give my little sister legal advice. Well, technically, I can, but she would likely ignore my advice and do as she pleases just the same. I didn't represent myself in my own divorce. I doubt that I could be any more objective in my sister's divorce. Maybe, be...

Divorce is generally unpleasant. Oh sure, we all have that friend who sails through it with a smile on their face and a spring in their step, never exhibiting an outward moment of hesitation as they move through the divorce with an almost unicorn-like dignity and grace. Then there are the other 99.999 percent of us. I have been in the ugly tear-stained trenches of it all as my little one was ripped from my arms screaming for his Mommy. I have made some stupid mistakes, more than once. Sometimes I wonder if all the difficulties I have been through are the reason I am effective in this line of work. I promise I will not ask you to do something I haven't done before, and I really understand how you feel when you sit down in my office overwhelmed and in pain. Real, excruciating, pain that feels as if you have been punched in the gut. Not sleeping. Not eating. Feeling as if you are in a daze and as if all this is happening "to you" without any input, without any control. You...

In a perfect world you would have read the article   10 Ways to Stay the Hell Out of My Office , and you would not need me (oh, and I would win the lottery, travel the world and run my charitable foundation, but I digress). Alas, this is a wonderful, but less than perfect world and divorce lawyers are a necessary evil. Some marriages cannot and should not be saved. Some were never right to begin with, some are broken beyond repair, and some marriages have only one person holding its shattered pieces together with duct tape and chewing gum. The ending of your marriage is a beginning of a life full of love, but you have to get to the end first. Hopefully you will do it with the least amount of collateral damage possible. If not, you risk trading your child's hard-earned college funds or your retirement accounts for outrageous legal bills. I can tell you for certain, if I had to hire myself, I would be in big financial trouble. Long ago, when going through my own divorce even pa...

I am a divorce lawyer, a divorce survivor, and once upon a time, I was a child of divorce.   The divorce of my parents was a long time ago; I was seven to be exact, the third child of four. I remember the before, and I remember the after. My little sister was only three, maybe a bit too young to remember the before, she only knew the after. Sometimes I think that is better. I however, am "blessed" to have an excellent memory (my Husband really dislikes it). My parents were really young to be going through this huge thing with a bunch of kids and without the Internet to confirm they were doing it exactly right or exactly wrong. They each had a judgmental family to whom divorce was as foreign as it was morally unacceptable. In the end, they made their way like everyone does, through trial and error, and seemed to have raised some fairly loving and seemingly well-adjusted children. Their divorce is the foundation for much of what I know about how to do it right and how to do...

I have had the privilege and pleasure of representing some amazing people over the last 21 years who just could not make it work. Some really hardworking, big-hearted, intelligent, successful and beautiful people (inside and out) have been my clients. When you spend months and even years with people during a difficult time, there is a mutual admiration and friendship that sometimes lasts even after the divorce is over. I have a client who still brings doughnuts to my office 10 years later. I sometimes jokingly tell my clients that we have to approve of anyone they marry the next time around. Perhaps the strangest part of it all is that I have been asked several times to actually marry people. Seriously, your divorce lawyer? How is that ever a good idea? Look, I am a big believer in love, in second chances and in the whole until the end of time thing. My husband has actually officiated at two unsuccessful unions in the name of the authority vested in him as a... notary public. Roma...

It has been said there is a fine line between love and hate, and over 20 years of practicing family law, I must concede it is true; there is a fine line between love and hate indeed. I have witnessed too many times those who once looked into each other's eyes and vowed to love each other until the end of time, now "hate" one another, ready to spend it all to get back, get even and make them pay. An entire genre of country music encourages destruction as payback for someone's lying and cheating ways. The same intensity that fuels love, fuels hate. To hate you, I have to actually care. Be mindful of all those people who advocate starving out your spouse, using your children as weapons, hiding money, ruining someone's career, destroying possessions, posting nasty details on Facebook and generally doing anything to "get back" at someone you once loved. They may have their own issues. However, if love is a choice, then so is hate (a word I dislike so ...

"Stay the hell out of my office" seems an unlikely mantra for a 20-year veteran of the practice of family law. My job, after all, is to get you out of an often-giant mess as quickly and as painlessly as possible. The older I get, the clearer the statement "if I only knew then what I know now" becomes to me. When clients are in the midst of their heated battles, frustrated, angry and full of hatred for someone they once loved, I often think,  why don't people listen to that little voice?  I sometimes have to gently remind them they didn't ask me for my opinion "before that train left the station." It seems remarkable a majority of people who come through my office admit they knew the very thing about their partner that now drives them running out the door before they married their spouse and married them anyway. What were they thinking? Well, they thought either "it" would get better, or thought "it" would change. People l...