Divorce

Ok, so now that I have written a bit about myself and my views on the practice of law, I think it time to start delving into the actual topics of  law itself and the different scenarios in which people find themselves.  After all, that is ostensibly my goal here, to inform you, the reader, about various areas and aspects of the law and the legal process.  I guess that makes me grateful to have had such a wide range of cases over my career, as I won’t run out of material any time soon.  My first topic is one that I am familiar with, both professionally and personally.  Divorce.  Ugh, what a terrible word.  I mean, it just sounds contentious, doesn’t it?  The combination of divide and force, as I perceive it, or a forceful division.  I would so prefer something less severe-sounding, but then divorce is by its very nature severe.  Some of you may be shouting, “No!  No!  It’s not always severe!  Mine was amicable!  We held hands and sang!  We sat across from each other as friends and lovingly proffered our material goods!  It was transcendant!”
Good for you.  I am not buying it.  My divorce was amicable, and it still sucked.  It was the worst thing I have ever experienced from an emotional standpoint.  I felt totally untethered and lost.  I felt guilt about what I was doing to my kids.  I felt fear about the future.  I felt anger at times toward my ex.  And boy, did I feel dead in my heart.  This was not something that went away overnight, either.  It went on for months.  And, again, this was about as amicable as a divorce could have been.  We didn’t fight about much, and never about the kids.  I was not involved in a knock-down, drag-out bloodbath like many people are, yet it was still all that I could bear and more.
Oh, and while this was going on, there was the whole nuts and bolts process of the divorce to deal with as well.  And the kids, trying to minimize the impact on them.  I was fortunate again in that my ex and I worked together toward making the transition as easy as possible for our boys.  Yes, we worked together.  We were grown-ups, set aside all of the stuff that was sitting between us, and put the kids first.  This is something that, while very challenging, is absolutely crucial if it can be done.  The kids didn’t ask for the divorce.  The kids didn’t even ask to be born.  That was our decision, as it is the decision of every parent.  Yet they were forced, at a young age, to deal with the fact that their stable and secure home environment was being torn asunder and they were now split between those two people they loved the most.  It was confusing, terrifying, shocking to them and to their lives.
No, I’m not just going to whine for 1,000 words. 
The point that I am so poorly getting to is that there were two people involved in this process, in the creation of the relationship, in the creation and the raising of the kids, in the death of the relationship, and in the divorce itself.  I believe that every divorce has two participants, that the death of a relationship has two players.  One party may be more actively involved, or do something or some things that are more overt.  But there are two people in a relationship, two people with a part.  Neither person got married with the thought that they would ultimately divorce.  There was love, and passion, and there were dreams and a future that was so bright that sunglasses were necessary.  Both people suffer when the marriage ends.  Neither is having a good time.  And neither went into the marriage intending on making the other unhappy.  In fact, I guarantee you that both people, on some level, are unhappy, or sad, or hurt, when the relationship finally dies.  What happens quite often, unfortunately, is that one or both look to the other as the cause of the divorce, of their pain, and sadness, and fear, and loneliness, and all that other stuff.  Maybe this is because one person did something really bad in the end, or because the people are unable to look at their own part in bringing about the situation, or something else.  The point is, because of this, the emotion runs extremely high.  The anger, resentment and outright hate is like nothing else.  They lose sight of everything else, of money, of the children, of their careers, of life itself, and focus on the other person in an utterly negative and destructive way.  This is catastrophic on every level.  The kids suffer tremendously.  Their jobs suffer.  Their friends suffer.  Their finances suffer.  The only ones who benefit are the lawyers.  Seriously.  They rake it in, because they are the tools that the people use against one another.  People often blame the lawyers, and I certainly have seen more than a few who just blithely took clients’ money to file motion after motion, write angry letter after angry letter.  But I have also seen many lawyers try to talk to their clients, to get them to let go and deal with the nuts and bolts as nuts and bolts.  I have seen people fire lawyers and find others who will do their dirty work.  Money gets burned.  And in the end they have nothing.  Certainly they don’t have satisfaction, because such a course can not be satisfying.  So they wind up much poorer, with a person that they despise and who probably feels likewise, with friends and former friends who think them a bit nuts (or worse), and with kids who are totally screwed up.
And they have no one, absolutely no one to blame but themselves.
So my advice to people who are getting divorced:  Leave the kids out of it.  Go to therapy.  If it is contentious, research lawyers and hire someone who is conscientious as well as tough and smart.  Listen to them and follow their advice.  Let it go.  Move on.  Get through your divorce as quickly and as smoothly as possible.  The result will be so much better, financially and emotionally.  Yes, a lawyer just said that.  I think I just saw a pig fly by.