Take Control and Formulate a Strategy

    Divorce is like no other field of law.  Reason and business sense should reign but for a period of time does not.  With my twenty-three years of experience in divorce, the "heat" reduces after 90-120 days.  My clients either start out or eventually get near the "business zone" to exercise rational decision making skills.  They get coached to compartmentalize their anger and paid and view the process as a series of "business" decisions.  Each decision made over the weeks and months having financial and emotional consequences.  Are we fighting over "things"?  What is the cost of the appraisal and attendant legal fees. 

     I have a set of experts to draw from, but the enormous cost of litigation has to be acknowledged.  What is the extra unreasonable demand - how many months will it take away your ability to concentrate on our business?  Sleepless nights?  Pre-occupation with the slings and small and large humiliations.

     The litigation process has a beginning, middle and end.  Make the leap only when you are clear and committed.  Litigation is not for the faint-hearted.  As soon as it begins, the blood pressure goes up as well as the paranoia level, which is necessary.  Going back to the prehistoric times, humankind needed to be prepared to fight the enemy - now, in litigation, the new enemy is your former soulmate, an outrageously intimate sparing partner determined to use every weakness.

    But let me interject here, the overwhelming majority of divorces are settled.  The majority of parents and mates exercise good judgment, business judgment, civility and nobility when it comes to the children. 

     Know your partner's history.  Make your strategy at the beginning and keep humble.  In this time of crisis, businesses fail, concentration declines. 

     Battle does not always entail blows and aggression.  Negotiation strategies play into your opponent's strengths as well as weaknesses works better.  You get more with honey.  Do not threaten your intimate enemy - they know your strength cards.  Discuss and think of the short and long-term consequences of your decisions.  Under the right conditions, be kind. 

    Do not discuss your spouse's atrocities with the world.  Harbor your privacy.  Do not smear your spouse's reputation - yours will be smeared as well.  You do not want to be derided.  This is a time of ultimate crisis - do not compound the problem.  Get one close-mouthed friend to confide in and a therapist.  Think twice about telling relatives.  Long after you're either reconciled to the separation or back together with the "monster," your relatives will not recover but will remember.  If you do tell control their actions and words.  You cannot control their feelings or your own.  Control thyself.  Angry ill-considered words wound. 

     Wounding your own children is unforgivable and will haunt you.  When all is falling at your feet you still remain in control of how you act at this moment.  You are making a choice, a choice to hurt your own children.  Never make them worry about being thrown out in the street.  Never make them worry that there is no money for food - they'll starve.  NEVER. NEVER. NEVER.  Your job is to reassure them that they are secure.  That both daddy and mommy love them and that will never change.  Encourage time with the other parent.  Remember your child is one-half "theirs."  The partner you make into a monster is the 1/2 DNA of your child.  Sons are 1/2 dad  and all male, growing up to be measuring dad as a role-model.  Same with daughters and mothers.  Don't make your child one-half of a monster.  Battle in court, not in the child arena.  Self-hatred is not a gift to any child. 

     Litigation - producing records of your entire financial and business history.  This burden is costly.  Get your act together early.  Save for attorney's fees - yours and your spouses.  There are lists of mandatory documents.  Produce voluminous early on so no one suspects for too long. Don't get huffy.  Don't fight the process.  Minimize costs.  Control what you can. 

 CONTROL

    Size up the situation, the parties, the attorneys.  The litigation process.  Figure out how much it will cost through trial.  Through mediation which is mandatory.  Educate yourself.  Talk to your lawyer.  Immerse yourself for a few months.  Then realize that you do have control.  You can enrage your soon-to-be ex.  The consequences of bringing the children home late and turning off your cell phone is war and retaliation.  Cutting off his cell phone has consequences. 

 YOUR CREDIT

    Control the address of your bills.  It is your job to make sure your credit is not ruined and that you don't pay your bills late. If  your spouse didn't spoon feed you your bill, call up, get the balance and send a check. 

 VISITATION

    If you didn't get your support, do not withhold visitation.  File for contempt.

         My office is the place to vent for 90 days, then get down to business and make business decisions.  I represent both women and men.  No one sex has a halo, nor does any one spouse.  Each care is unique.  The law forms outlines upon which your case facts are an overlay.  Law, like medicine, is a science of experimentation and unexpected and expected results.  Judges decide cases, pausing to view you under a microscope and make the decisions you foolishly refused to make for yourself.  However bad your case, you must cut your losses and make further choices.