Category: Uncategorized

At divorce time assess your existing assets and debts, your future earning capacity, your future expenses — and your divorce/legal expenses.

Figure out how best to divide existing assets and debts. Figure it out for yourself. Be fair and equitable.

Assume existing assets/debts will be divided in half by law. Is that comfortable … fair/equitable? If not, why not — and how sturdy is the explanation?

Formulate your plan for post-divorce life and career. How will the divorce affect your living and working arrangements? What will the divorce changes do to your ability to earn income and your expenses in the future? Be realistic.

If you have children then figure out what it will cost you to support your children and what you will be obligated to pay in child support. Is your spouse going to be entitled to future post-divorce alimony and child support payments? What level of payment (if any) is fair and reasonable? What level might be required by law? Account for those expenses — realistically.

Look at what the divorce itself will cost. Having to move your residence, re-titling property, refinancing assets, liquidating retirement funds, etc.

A hypothesis:

I think you can draw a line between those who use the word "divorce" as a noun and those who use the word "divorce" as a verb.

Which side has more high-character people?

It seems to me that a person who wants to divorce (verb) someone is going to be out for revenge or to take ill-gotten/undeserved/unfair gains. It tends to express an attitude — "I’m going to divorce you." — of hatefulness or contempt. The divorce process is going to be used for adverse avenging action.

A person who is getting a divorce (noun) indicates a different attitude. There may be hate or contempt but hate is not driving the divorce process. A marriage is ended with a divorce (a decree).

Parents seem to underestimate the “distraction” factor in divorce — even if the level of conflict is not high.

All of the time that you end up spending on the divorce crap/restructuring of life is going to be taken from other things in life — like looking after your children … or yourself … or your career.

Then to compound the problem household money (which may be or get tight) goes to the divorce lawyers — into the college fund for the children of the divorce lawyer instead of the college fund of your children.

Divorce is going to distract you from life — and also separate you from assets.

Indulge me in a momentary departure to the absurd …

Did we learn in history class how Da Vinci or Michelangelo took a few years off of their art to get a divorce resolved? How Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller halted their industrialization efforts because their divorce cases were heating up and the divorce lawyers had staged a custody battle. That General Dwight Eisenhower and General Douglas MacArthur had to step out of the war efforts to return for depositions in their divorce cases. That Susan B. Anthony had to step down from her suffrage movement leadership because of her messy divorce case. That Marie Curie halted lab experimentation for three years because her divorce lawyer told her she could gain more money if she was an at-home mother.

… to make the point.

My observation is that divorce lawyers do not care how unproductive and counterproductive divorce is — it gives them a chance to meddle and disrupt and an attendant sense of power and authority that is certainly not earned by merit or by special talent.

Little concern is shown for the damage/wreckage.

Some people say that divorce will make them a better parent.

Divorce does not make a parent a better parent.

What actually makes a parent a better parent? Deciding to become a better parent and then taking action to be a better parent makes a parent a better parent.

The decision and the actions to become a better parent can be taken before or during or after a divorce.

Divorce is harmful to children. Period. Full stop.

No sound parent would hold the belief that divorce makes a parent a better parent.

Does giving half of your children’s college savings fund to divorce lawyers make you a better parent?

Does having your child shuttle between separate households – each less than what the whole would have been – make you a better parent?

Does having your child unable to interact freely with the other parent make you a better parent?

No way. No how.

But few people like to accept the facts of reality.

Studies have shown that 80 percent of people think they are in the top half.

And so it is that many self-serving divorce initiators think that they will have the 1 in 100 divorce that does not cause net harm to their children — that their divorce will be the one that is "better for the children".

That self-delusion is counter to reality and harmful for the children.

Get your divorce if you want it but don’t make false/fanciful claims about it.

You could have been a better parent in your marriage but were not — for your own reasons. If your arguments with your then-spouse made you a lesser parent, then you should not have had the arguments.

If you are argumentative, divorce done, you’ll be arguing again someday soon with someone … and maybe even your children.

You very likely won’t be any better of a parent after your divorce.

Studies show that the happiness that children provide parents is net positive in married households but not in separate single-parent households.

For affected children of a divorced household, the odds are against a divorced parent (e.g. preoccupied with chasing down new relationships or battling with a former spouse) being a better parent.

Reality talking.

Suffering (pain) is not a virtue.

Beware. Emotions/feelings can be as inauthentic and incorrect and misguided and misleading and unproductive and harmful as any bad idea.

In any event, just because yesterday was a bad day does not mean today should be a bad day.

Why “process emotions” at the expense of joy and contentment?

Think better thoughts. Do what makes today and tomorrow better.

You married poorly. How does trying to process emotions around a bad marital decision make today and tomorrow better?

Rather than feeling bad it is better to get the bad — including the bad people, bad thoughts, bad acts — out of your life. Keep what is bad in life at a distance physically and emotionally and out of your mind to the extent possible.

Instead figure out how to live the best life possible in your circumstances.

“I feel X.”

“I feel Y.”

You may actually feel how you say you feel. But that does not change how you actually are.

Two people could be in the same place — same temperature, same conditions.

One “feels” warm and the other “feels” cold.

Those feelings do not change the thermometer.

The temperature is what it actually is. Read the thermometer.

People perhaps should bear some facts in mind before they go pushing how they “feel” on other people.

The best of us will and do first stop and look at the thermometer. Then look at what they can do to or look within themselves — but in any event will be mindful of the difference between fact and feeling.

Forgiveness?

To have a better life what I think is really needed is a good strategy/approach for dealing with the bad people that you encounter in life.

The best strategy is to have the bad people in the rear view mirror getting smaller. And then maintain a discipline of only having good people around you.

That is not possible in some situations such as divorce with children.

So you need some other strategy. A strategy that serves your children’s best interests as well as your own.

Forgiveness is complicated. It requires explanations. It has authenticity issues. It is wobbly.

Success/happiness in life is goal. Happiness comes from simplicity and sturdiness.

Apathy is simple. Apathy doesn’t require any explanations. Apathy is solid. Apathy is sturdy.

Don’t worry about forgiveness.

Get to apathy.

Equal placement custody may not always be best for children.

But equal placement LAWS are most definitely best for children.

Divorce is not the time, divorce court is not the place and divorce lawyers are not the people to do family social work.

Divorce lawyers have no expertise with children or parenting.

Even the best intentioned divorce lawyer is not a child/parenting expert.

Toward the other end of the spectrum, … we know what happens at the other end of the spectrum. Divorcing households expend millions of dollars in legal fees that profit the lawyers without any benefit whatsoever to the children of the divorcing household.

Why should divorce lawyers get to stage a custody fight that only the divorce lawyers win?

There is no evidence that having divorce lawyers stage a custody battle to determine post-divorce parenting does one bit of good for the children of a divorcing household. But it is known to every child expert that having conflict/hostility in a divorce is bad for children. Divorce-instigated or divorce-invited conflict between the parents is contrary to the best interests of the children.

It better serves the children of the divorcing household not to have any incentive for a conflict in the divorce.

It better serves the children not to have assets of the divorcing household converted into billed legal fees by divorce lawyers. (The children of a divorcing household need every resource available to them to remain with them after the divorcing.)

Children should not be the subject of litigation in divorce. Never.

To have a divorce include a “parenting contest” orchestrated by divorce lawyers is nonsensical.

To have divorce lawyer staging conflict in a divorce over children just because “that is what they do” in divorce is nonsensical.

There is absolutely no evidence that children of a divorce benefit in any way from being the subject of litigation.

Divorce lawyers should be put out of the business of child litigation.

Children should not be involved in a divorce at all except to have an equal parenting time/equal placement and joint custody order entered. The focus of the divorce should not be on trying to determine which parent (supposedly) is “better” but on how best to reorganized the divorce household into two separate households that each serve the best interests of the children.

Some children are at risk. That issue has nothing directly to do with divorce. It is not an issue for divorce lawyers to litigate.

There is already a state agency in place to evaluate whether a living situation of children puts the children at risk — child protective services.

A divorcing/divorced parent with a complaint about the other divorcing/divorced parent should go to the child protective services agency.

The child protective services agency has staff trained in child care/neglect/parenting issues. The agency has investigators trained to investigate child well-being issues.

Child protection issues — even in a divorce context — are better presented to the child protective services agency than to a divorce court via divorce lawyers (who have no special experience with children/parenting).

The divorcing wife who complains because the father is unfit because he was late 10 minutes to get his daughters to their Brownie meeting or because the children wore ripped snow pants can present her complaint to the child protective services agency.

Her case can be heard in the agency right after the case where the parents left the children in the car all night while at the local casino.

It is time to take children out of divorce litigation and out of the hands of divorce lawyers.

As a dad who has been through a challenging divorce — that remains challenging — I’ve had to make some compromises and adjustments of my life goals.

My primary life goal at present is to do everything I can so that my daughters enjoy a happy and healthy and fun and developmental and loving and secure/stable childhood so that they develop into happy and healthy and self-confident and developed/capable and motivated/industrious and prosperous/accomplished and ethical/well-adjusted adults.

Another life goal is that I not end up being the guy that everyone is talking about in past tense on a future episode of the television program “Snapped”.