My Divorce and What It Taught Me
Even Attorneys Need Help Getting Through Their Own Divorce
Any of you guys grow up in Disney World? Not the actual place, but the world where everything was “perfect”? Sure there is some kind of struggle or a bad guy, sometimes bad things happened, but in the end the good guy won and the world was a better, happier place. I did. In fact, I was not a fan of Looney Toons where there was a constant battle every 5 minutes. I wanted the world to be a happy place — still do.
So what happens when the perfect happy place gets burned to the ground? What if your own Spouse poured the accelerant, light the match, and burned down, not just the house, but the whole world you lived in? What if you woke up one day and it would never be the same — EVER.
Would you fall apart? I did. Would your heart be broken in a way that could not be fixed even though “time heals all wounds”? Would you just go through life and not live it? This was me for a LONG time. I could not figure out how to get past it. Until I learned to help my clients, I could never figure out how to help myself.
I admire my clients who come in for their divorce and are friends… they are still happy. Their world did not fall apart just because they are getting divorced. Sometimes, after the final hearing, they hug, kiss, or even walk out hand in hand. My life was not that kind of movie.
How come some people fall apart and others see divorce as a positive thing?
If you all follow me and receive my emails, you know a lot about my crazy divorce. It is a bit of a block buster of what was going on with the company my then husband worked for… full of intrigue you can’t make up and that would make a best selling novel. Our divorce story started for me with an intervention with all my friends telling me that my husband was cheating. Then, my husband moved his girlfriend a couple of blocks from our house… she was running in our neighborhood. Plus, I almost getting arrested. Well, I always say that my divorce was hard to beat on the crazy scale. So I totally get what my clients are going through and am empathetic to their situation and their feelings.
While some people sail through divorce, I fell apart. The dream of the perfect family was shattered. What was going to happen to my kids? What really hit me hard is how the system expects you to just suck it up, act like it is a business transaction, and never look back. How can you sell yourself the lie that you don’t matter… that what that person did to you is irrelevant? I could not swallow that pill for years.
Why doesn’t the Court do anything?
The No-Fault Divorce premise was established to try to keep down the drama, not make someone out to be the bad guy, and to help keep families in tact. The problem is that in some cases, the system crushes the person on the other side of the affair. There are no repercussions. Domestic violence seems to get kind of a pass. Is it really fair to expect someone who has lived with emotional, economic, and physical abuse to just suck it up and accept a 50/50 schedule? What about in modifications… do you really just turn your cheek on a complete attempt to turn your children against you? Is the Court really going to give that parent a pass a few times before they do something about it? How can I look at my clients and tell them that the best we can do is put it back to the status quo? How do I, as an attorney, sell that message to my clients?
Ok, those examples are not 100% true all the time. Sometimes the Court will punish a person who spends money on the girlfriend. Sometimes they will give the Spouse a bigger share of the assets (maybe). Sometimes the Judge will say the abuse was bad enough that Joint Custody is not possible or they do some kind of hybrid. Sometimes, in a parental alienation case, the Court Orders does a change of custody and/or orders attorney fees. Punishment by the Judge rarely fits the crime because the system has, for the most part, is not about fault which means there is often no accountability available.
There is another side to this…
What happens to your children? Your Spouse betrayed YOU not the children. This is the message the family law worlds wants you to believe. I tend to disagree. However, I have to admit that my children’s lives were better with my Ex playing an important part than if he was “punished”. Your children’s lives need to be as normal as possible which requires a great sacrifice from you as their parent to put your emotions aside and carry on as best as you can.
Divorce is not without emotion and requires a big sacrifice on your part.
If you have been cheated on, you have to find a way to pull off the Band-Aid, put on a fake smile, and fake it till you make it. It is probably the biggest job and most important job you will do as a parent.
When your Ex has a new relationship way before you are ready, you must find a way to swallow that horse tranquilizer sized pill.
When you are sitting across from your Spouse at mediation, you have to remind yourself that this is a business transaction and it is time to put it all behind you.
Is there a way to find healing?
Yes!
Part of the problem is that maybe what you need or what you want is the other Spouse to say “sorry” and actually mean it. You should assume this won’t happen. Even in traditional marriage or divorce counseling, things seem to be way more about someone having to admit they are wrong. Maybe you might get lucky and your Ex comes back and apologizes at some point, but that is more of a fairy tale than reality.
BUT… I found that often mediators have this magic wand. I have seen it. I honestly wish that I had a Transformative Mediation in my divorce.
Here is an example. My then husband told me that “The kids would be better off if you were dead.” This one statement kept me stuck in a bad place for a long time. To this day, in times of stress with my kids, it plays like a broken record in my head.
In high conflict divorce, often Parties don’t even attempt mediation because they feel it is a waste of time and money. However, most people that can’t find a way to settle their case have some type of statement made by their Spouse or their own particular emotion about the divorce that is holding them back. There is some mess that really needs to be cleaned up before they can move forward. Without that being resolved, their children will suffer from parents who cannot Co-Parent well. Transformative Mediation can be a solution. The answer is not in getting the other person to fall on the sword and say how sorry they are and that they did not mean it. The answer is in the person getting to say how much they were hurt. The answer is in that person getting to stand up for themselves. It is not about punishing or beating up the other person, but in empowering yourself to believe you are good enough.
Here is what happens that you might not have expected — the other Spouse has baggage too. The other Spouse has something they need to say. They have something that needs to be resolved, even if they don’t know it going into the mediation session.
The Transformative Mediation helps people learn the tools to start listening to each other again. It gives the Parties a new option to respect the other person’s point of view even if they disagree with it. It is about both Parties being heard. Most importantly, it is about transitioning to a business relationship where the Parties learn to work together with solution, forward looking, communication.
Will Transformative Mediation work with a narcissist or someone with a personality disorder?
I hear this all the time… “My Spouse is a narcissist and he will always have to be the one to make the decision.” Ok, so say this is true. Can you have influence on the decision? Yes. Can you say how you feel or what you think is best? 100%. The trick is to learn the tools on how to no longer use the “my way” or “your way” dynamic. One example is the “what do you think” method.
Here is an easy example which everyone can relate to…
You are going to dinner and have to choose a restaurant. What a nightmare. So what if you give options and then ask “what do you think?” Here is what can happen.
- You find an option right off the bat that both agree sounds great.
- If you are not in the mood for Mexican, you might say no to one of the options AND explain that you are not in the mood for Mexican today. If the other person is in the mood for Mexican, maybe you can find a place that has a bigger menu that has Mexican and other choices.
- If you don’t like any of the restaurants, instead of saying a flat no to all the options and saying you want to go to some other place, you can say “How about trying something new? What kind of food are you in the mood to eat? I am just not feeling Mexican tonight but I am up for Oriental, Pizza, or a good burger. Any ideas? Or would you rather me Google restaurants near me and I read them out to you.” The trick here is to be ok with trying a new place even if you are not in the mood for their choice. It is not about getting what you want, it is about working together to find a compromise.
So, what did I learn from my divorce?
In the end, I learned that the legal system only is a part of the divorce process. It does not hold all the answers to fix what you are going through. The attorney can only play a small part in this for you. If you need counseling, get it. If you need extra support, find it outside of your family and friends (believe me they are sick of hearing about it). I found out that there is no punishment for a cheating spouse and that I needed to stop punishing myself by unrealistic expectations. I learned to look inside for healing and expect outside results to fix my sadness. I learned a new way to forgive — my Ex and myself. In the end, trying to put on a brave face for my children was my motivation and that worked for me.
If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have chosen Transformative Mediation and I would have found a mediator who conducts their sessions like I do — not just about the solution, but about opening the window to let in fresh air so the solution presents itself (with a little bit of hard work by both Parties).
If I do something different, I would have also found an attorney who was not just “all business”. Your attorney has a job they CAN do and a job they WILL do. For me, I feel that my client needs way beyond the “legal” stuff. They need the tools to help them move through the emotional and practical stuff too.
Just like the picture for the article… sometime you can dig deep and find your motivation to move on and let the legal stuff just be a stepping stone to your new life. Other times, the divorce feels like it is chasing you and you are reacting to what your Spouse is doing or saying. A good attorney and Transformative Mediator can help you take charge of your own life, look for solutions, and move forward. You just have to choose to only look back to make improvements on your life. Don’t stay stuck!
