Five Steps To A Better Divorce

by Ed Sherman


Based on 36 years of experience with cases numbering in the tens of thousands, divorce specialist attorney Ed Sherman knows exactly what you can do to make any divorce better. Here's an overview -- five essential steps to getting a better divorce:

1. Go slow. Unless there's an immediate threat of harm to you or children, it's better if you don't hurry. Your spouse needs time to accept the idea of a divorce and to digest ideas you propose for how to rearrange your affairs. You both need time to let emotions calm and adjust to your new reality. You need time to learn about the rules of divorce, how organize your facts, make sound decisions and how negotiate with your spouse. So long as you can make your situation safe and stable, even for a short time, you do not need to rush.

2. Get your facts straight. Whether you see an attorney or handle everything yourself, you need to gather essential details about your marriage, family, income and expenses, assets and debts. No one can do this for you, not even if you hire an attorney. Why pay an attorney hundreds of dollars to sit down with you to develop this information when you can do it yourself for next to nothing?

3. Become informed and take charge. The most important thing you can do is to become informed and prepared before you do anything or say another word to your spouse and especially before you see a lawyer. In fact, you will probably find that you don't need a lawyer. You'll find almost everything you'll need to know in How to Do Your Own Divorce in California or Divorce Solutions.

Studies show that people who know what's going on and take an active role in their cases get better, cheaper, easier divorces than those who do not. Other studies show that controlling your own case is the single best predictor of a good outcome, meaning better compliance with terms, less chance of post-divorce litigation, increased goodwill, better co-parenting, faster healing. If you know what's going on and control your case, you will save money, reduce conflict and feel better faster.

4. Avoid the legal system. The legal system is based on conflict, where both sides compete to win. Besides, very few divorces have problems based on legal issues. Almost all divorce problems are personal, not legal, and lawyers do not have tools that can in any way help solve your problems--none, not any. In fact, they tend to make things worse. The best thing you can do is to keep your case out of courts and lawyers' offices except for very limited and specific purposes. We show you how.

5. Keep business and personal matters separate. The legal aspects of divorce are about business -- money, property, procedures, paperwork, negotiation, and so on. Business and emotional matters do not mix, so the best way to reduce conflict and confusion is to keep business matters as separate as possible from emotional issues. This doesn't mean you don't need to deal with emotional matters -- just not when you are taking care of business.


About the Author
Ed Sherman is a divorce specialist attorney and award-winning author of How to Do Your Own Divorce in California. His books and software have saved millions of people billions of dollars in unnecessary attorney fees. Visit Nolo

Divorce of Low-Conflict Parents and Kids

by Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW

Traditional thinking has is that only high-conflict divorces impact negatively on children. This is far from the truth. Divorce between parents of low-conflict impacts on children too. For these children, the issue may be likened to having the rug pulled from beneath them. Because the conflict was limited, they never considered that their parents might divorce. Hence when they do, it is experienced as a tremendous shock.

Certain couples with low amounts of conflict are more at risk of divorce than others. They include those with fewer ties to their community, lower religious affiliation or participation and emotional distance from their own families of origin. It is as if these couples have fewer ties outside of themselves to hold or bind them together. It may also be that for the children of these parents, that while they may have friends, they too may have less community and extended family affiliation. Thus without traditional supports outside of the couple to hold them together, risk of divorce is greater. Once divorced, there may be fewer supports separate from the parents to help the kids adjust and cope.

Children of divorce whose parents were low-conflict, report having a more difficult time trusting or believing not only others, but their own judgment with regard to relationships. They say they "Didn't see it coming", or, "If my parents seemed to get along and they divorced, what does that mean for me and the success of my marriage?"

As these children age, form intimate relationships themselves and eventually marry, they are at risk of perceiving their marriage to be threatened, even when faced with innocuous events. In view of their trepidation, they can actually bring harm to the marriage as their partner copes with what appears to be an irrational fear or issue. The partner may not fully understand or appreciate how unsettling and undermining of trust the divorce was in view of low-parental conflict. To make matters worse, the partner may enjoy a good relationship with the divorced in-laws and thus may be quite out of touch with their partner's issues of fear and trepidation.

Parents with low-conflict who are considering divorce are well advised to prepare their children if this is the path chosen. This will require time and patience to allow the children the opportunity to process the information and come to understand the marital dissatisfaction that may have otherwise been hidden. The goal is not to invite or overwhelm the children with the marital issues, but simply to make them aware that they exist and as such, the parents are unable to continue as husband and wife.

It is quite likely that the children will react negatively. There will be shock and disbelief. Some may act out their feelings aggressively while others may internalize them, appearing quiet, sullen withdrawn or depressed. Family counselling to facilitate the adjustment can be helpful. The goal of family counselling is to allow family members a chance to express their upset in a safe and controlled space and then help members address concerns arising with the view to facilitating transition to separated parents.

Before even contemplating separation or divorce, parents are well advised to seek marital counselling particularly before the kids become privy to their distress. Counselling may actually address the issues undermining the marriage or alternately provide the parents an opportunity to plan their transition in view of the needs of their children.

Better to put in the extra step of marital counselling before pulling the rug out from beneath the kids.

About the Author
Gary Direnfeld is a social worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert on child development, parent-child relations, marital and family therapy, custody and access recommendations, social work and an expert for the purpose of giving a critique on a Section 112 (social work) report. Call him for your next conference and for expert opinion on family matters.