I had just begun to work with a client when he cancelled our sessions. Normally, I am sad to see a client leave me but I was overjoyed with his reason. He had decided to give it another go with his spouse, to see if he could make things work.
Excellent news!
Divorce is a life altering event and you reallyreally really need to be sure it is what you want to do. Try everything you can to keep your marriage together; go to couples therapy, take some time away from your daily life to try to re-connect, take a vacation or just plan on spending some time together outside of your regular routine. Only when all else fails should you go down the path of divorce.
Over the past year I have made a significant shift in the way I am approaching just about everything in my life. One of the most powerful changes I have made is about how I think about the people in my life. I have begun focusing on only the good things about every person I know. Even my X!
OK, so you are about to walk out on your spouse and now I am asking you to focus on the good things? Yeah right. How do you find something good about a person you are angry at?
Some simple ideas to get the ball rolling; You like the shirt your spouse is wearing today(maybe you bought it), the cologne your spouse has on smells great, your spouse is very attractive, or your spouse has great hair, or has beautiful eyes. The more you shift your attention to what you like about your spouse the less you will focus on what you don’t like.
Get a pad of paper and write it down or when you are stopped at a red light in the car just make a mental list. Stop focusing on the bad and focus on the good. As you do this, more and more of the good things will be in your mind instead of the bad.
Give it a try and let me know how it works for you?
I was recently helping one of my clients with the text of her certification for her lawyer to put in court documents. The first draft of the document contained a brain dump of all the ills that had occurred over the past few months in her divorce.
While it may have been therapeutic to put it all out on paper and I had a sense that she felt that it was about time “someone” knew about all of this stuff, it was not going to serve her, would likely only cause her grief and had nothing to do with the reasons the motion was being done.
Although it is best to try to avoid the court process, when you have no other alternative be mindful of what you put in front of the court. The court has seen all of your situations before so the fluff (i.e. non critical information) will not likely make a material difference in their decision.
What adding the fluff will do is to open a can of worms with the other side. If you put a bunch of complaints in the documents the other side will obviously respond and you will end up with the court hearing about all the rubbish rather that focusing of the important issues. Do not give the other side anything to chew on. There is a time and place to discuss these issues; it is not in a certification as a peripheral issue.
When you want the court to act on a couple of key issues, keep the discussion focused and build a compelling argument and rational as to why the court should award you what you want. Provide hard facts and evidence when you can, build cash flow models to show the real expenses to run your home, show them receipts; try to avoid the ”he said she said” game and you will be much more effective in court.
Thanksgiving is a really difficult holiday when you are going through a divorce. So many family memories and traditions revolve around this day. What happened in the past may not be doable anymore. Perhaps the whole family gathered at your Mother-in-law’s house and this year you are not invited. It is even more difficult if you had a close relationship with your in-laws. You divorced your spouse not the rest of the family but families tend to stick with their own blood, at least in the first few years after your divorce. So it may be a double whammy in terms of loss.
So, you are on your own. Time to start new traditions.
Catch up with relatives you have not seen for a while, even if it means traveling during the busiest travel time of the year. They will be glad of your company and will welcome you with open arms. Seek out friends. It will feel a bit strange, at least it was for me, that first Thanksgiving away from my children. (Thank you Kate and her wonderful family.) But after the first few minutes, when you settle in, you will find your world had just gotten bigger. There are more people in your life you can be grateful for.
When I was in this position a few years back, I brought a gratitude ring with me to my friend’s home. Everybody writes what they are grateful for on a leaf and sticks it on at Styrofoam ring. It is a great way to get connected to new people and activity reminds everyone what thanksgiving is all about. I felt instantly at home and it was wonderful to see the wreath get buried with the leaves of gratitude. I took some leaves off my ring from last year to let you see how it is done.
Gratitude is one of the strongest ways to bring more love into your life. Expressing gratitude for all the wonderful people and things in your life will make you feel happier, loved and most importantly it will make the people around you feel loved.
The more I work with clients the more I realize that keeping the focus on the needs of the children makes the process a whole lot easier.
This is what you do. Find a blank monthly calendar, search on google (link to excel http://www.wincalendar.com/excel-calendar-template.htm word formats are also available) and use one for each child. Put each child’s schedule on it in detail. What time they get up, when they leave for school, when they get home from school, what activities they have, sports, music lessons orthodontist appointments, list everything, absolutely everything.
Once you have done this for each child, you will have a clear picture of what has to happen in any parenting arrangement to make sure the kid’s schedules are maintained.
Then consolidate all the children on to one calendar (if you can). I like excel formats for this because you can add a row to the chart any day of the week that is particularly full.
Then you do the same for each parent. When do you and your spouse leave for work and get home, are there evenings when one of you goes to school or has a standing girls night out? List everything each of you do.
Then you bring it all together. Keeping the children’s schedules as the priority, what will work? When can each parent have quality time with the children, what activities will each parent be responsible for getting the children to. How are you going to juggle everything?
Getting a schedule that works is more art than science.
Once it is clear that every Thursday both children have activities until 730 then homework and bed, that will not be the ideal evening for the parent who works in the city to have with the children. If one of the parents coaches a child’s sports team and is always with them on Tuesday and Thursday evenings that would be a natural time for the parenting time to continue until school tomorrow. Get creative!
The only caveat to all of this is that bouncing children from house to house is not the best thing. A lot depends on how old they are and how independent they are. What will work for a 12 year old may not work for a 7 year old.
I have found that this process reduces the automatic parental response “I won’t see my children every day”. While the thought is a really hard to deal with, the reality is that for most working and busy parents they only see their children for a few minutes a day. Parents who work long hours often leave before their children are out of bed and then get home just in time to put them to bed.
I remember getting on the phone with my children to say goodnight when I had to work late or was away on a business trip well before my divorce so doing the same thing for different reasons can make things feel right. Now with Skype and I-phones you can actually see your children, almost like being there.
This methodology is powerful. It will result in a rational parenting arrangement that is geared to meeting the needs of the children. This type of approach is also something that changes as the needs of the children change. School year is different than summer months and parenting schedules can be adjusted to give one parent more time if their working schedule does not allow for time during the school year. As the children get older the schedule can change again.
This approach, if managed well, will result in positive co-parenting, children that have their needs met and children who see that their parents acting in a civilized manner. This will significantly reduce the stress of the divorce for your children.
During the negotiation stage of your divorce I would have to say a big NO!!
The longer it takes to get through your negotiations the more you will spend Pendente Lite support “maintains the marital lifestyle” and it does not generally seem to recognize the reality of one income, two households. The paying spouse is often left in a situation with insufficient income to live on so either savings are used or debt is incurred to make ends meet. This interim support can go on for years if a divorce is prolonged causing significant erosion to savings or build up of debt.
The longer it takes to reach a settlement the more you will spend in fees for mediators, lawyers, therapists and other professionals. It will also take a significant toll on your life. The stress involved in divorce negotiations is not insignificant. This factor alone may be a reason to get through as fast as you can.
As well it is important to recognize that if you agree to something now that with the passage of time is no longer doable; you lose your job or you retire, you can re-negotiate your settlement.
On the other hand, to the extent you have one party that is dug into their position and is refusing to budge, then time may be the only way it will pass. Folks sometimes feel that just saying no often enough will allow them to get their way. I have seen this is many times. It may take a long time for people stuck in this mode to get it that divorce is a not an area where anyone gets what they want and it may take a few hits to the head in court for folks like this to get with the program and get on with their life.
On the beneficial side, as time passes your emotional wounds will heal and you will be more able to face your new life with joy. The amount of time it takes to get to this point depends upon your situation, did you want the divorce or was it a surprise?
Approach your negotiations with the intention to get through them as fast as you can. It will save you money and will allow you to move on with life. Build a strategy and plan for what you want to achieve, this will give you an edge in your negotiations as the other side may not have taken these steps.
When I was in this position a few years back, I brought a gratitude ring with me to my friend’s home. Everybody writes what they are grateful for on a leaf and sticks it on at Styrofoam ring. It is a great way to get connected to new people and activity reminds everyone what thanksgiving is all about. I felt instantly at home and it was wonderful to see the wreath get buried with the leaves of gratitude. I took some leaves off my ring from last year to let you see how it is done.