Valentine's Day Gifts From Here in the Trenches

Valentine's Day is this week.  What are you going to get your beloved?  For most people, flowers, cards, chocolates and a nice dinner are thought of as lovely gifts.  Although those are nice, those are not the gifts those of us in the Trenches would like you to get this holiday.  Here are a few of my favorite Valentine's Day gifts.  I'm warning you, they're not sexy, but they will go a long way to keeping you out of my office.

1.  A deep discussion about finances.  OK, you want to buy something to go with that, I understand.  How about a book like Official Money Guide for Couples?  Don't just hand it to your significant other; have a conversation around money.  Anyone who works here in the Trenches will tell you that most of the people we see never talk about money.  They don't discuss whether their accounts should be joint or separate.  They don't talk about debt and how each of them feels about it (much less how much debt each of them has) and paying for it.  They don't talk about expectations for their financial future:  will one of them stay home with the children; how will they feel if one of them earns more that the other; what happens if one of them has to relocate for work?  What will you do if you don't agree (and maybe you already don't)?

2.  As you gaze at your sweetie over the candles at dinner, it's also time to talk about children.  Do you want them?  When is the right time?  How many?  What if you can't get pregnant easily?  What about IVF and adoption?  What if your child is seriously ill or disabled in some way?  What religion will they be, and how religious?  How will the two of you divide the caregiving duties?  Who will care for the children when you're not home?  What are your views on discipline?  Maybe you could watch "Parenthood" together and talk about the episodes?  Here is where you can buy the complete boxed series.

3.  You've heard of Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages?  What about his other book, Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married?  If you're thinking of popping the question, there's no better conversation starter.  Don't believe me?  Get War of the Roses or Mrs. Doubtfire instead.

4.  Just put down your cell phone and your iPad and turn off the television.  Most couples talk for less than half an hour a day.  That number decreases as the number of years of marriage increases.  Remember when you used to stay up all night talking?  Remember when deep conversations were a sexual turn on?  This Valentine's Day, give your beloved the gift of you.  You might get lucky.

Happy Valentine's Day.  Here in the Trenches.

Counting Your Blessings

I miss baking my 100 dozen holiday cookies.  I don't miss the stress of making all those cookies. I don't miss how my immune system would get run down.  I don't miss how sick I got each and every year.  I miss watching Christmas movies nonstop for 4 weeks.  Most of all, I miss how my friends came over to help.  I miss the warmth and  camaraderie of having everyone and their daughter here baking cookies in my kitchen with White Christmas playing in the background.  I was reminded of a song from that movie just this week, "Counting Your Blessings."  This past year (and two years before that), the family law section of our local Bar has put on an all-day Symposium.  OK, officially,  it is the family law section, but it really is just two of us from the section who organize and present it. Each of our symposiums has been awarded the state bar association's award for service to the bar.  This year, our local bar decided to present it to me at our annual meeting.  Our annual meeting is not usually well attended, so I expected to receive the award in a mostly empty courtroom.  That was not to be.  Two of my friends from the county down the road made the trip up the road in Washington DC rush hour to be there for me.  One of them isn't even a member of the local bar up the road.  It almost made me cry to have people who cared about me in that courtroom....and absolutely made me count my blessings.

You see, I've had a particularly awful year.  I'm not going to go into details because they aren't really important to this post.  Just trust me on this.  The year has made me count my blessings and my friends.  Just like most of my clients here in the Trenches.  Most of them are having the worst years of their lives.  They've found that not only are they losing their spouse, they're also losing their friends.  It's funny how fair weather most of our friends really are.  Most of my clients come into my office feeling that their life is a series of awards received in an empty room.  They're looking at it all wrong.  I know when everything in your life is going wrong, it's easy to focus on the negative. That's human nature - negative begets negative.  The problem is that when everything in your life is going badly, continuing to focus on the negative just ensures that you stay down.  Sometimes, all it takes to start you toward finding your way out of the darkness is knowing you have one or two friends who will drive up the road in rush hour traffic to see the bar president hand you an award.  It doesn't sound like much, but it's actually everything.  Count your blessings; and you have plenty of them, even if it doesn't seem like it.  Here in the Trenches.

Safe House

I love to run.  If I could run all day, every day, I would.  It is my exercise.  It is my therapy.  It is my fun.   I also love Disney.  I love the parks, the hotels, the characters.  It is my happy place.  It is the place I go to with the people I love.  I love combining my two loves, so I RunDisney.  There are a lot of people like me.  They congregate in different places, and one of those places is FaceBook.  I belong to two Disney running Facebook groups.  They couldn't be more different.

Both groups are composed of members who love Disney and love running.  In the one group, all the members also are fans of a specific Disney podcast, and the group is also smaller.  In both groups, members post questions about running in general and Disney races in particular.  In both groups, people post their runs and their times.  Yet, one group feels safe and one does not to me.  In only one group do I post my post-run photos and times.  Why is that?  Why does one group feel safe and one does not?  Here are the difference between the groups.  First, I have never heard a negative or snippy comment from any poster in the "safe" group.  That doesn't mean that they don't discuss the difficult topics.  They just put a more positive and kinder spin on on it.  Second, this group makes it a point to have in person meet ups (and many of them) during each RunDisney weekend.  Probably the second difference is the reason for the first, but I don't know. The "safe" group feels more like friends.

When you end up in the Trenches, you find out that there are a lot of other people who have been there before you.  So many of them want to tell you about their experience, because after all, you have both been in the same place.  Some of these people are wonderfully helpful.  Others are really critical of you and your case.  They tell you how they got screwed in their divorce, or that they got a much better deal than you're getting.  They tell you their attorney was tougher than yours.  They make you question everything that's happening to you, every decision you make  They make you feel terrible about yourself.  Why? Because you ignore your gut. You see, I get it.  I belonged to the the "unsafe" FaceBook group long before I joined the other.  I read all the posts, yet I never posted.  Something in my gut told me not to trust, that it wasn't safe.  I listened to it, but I didn't know I did until I joined the second group and knew what feeling safe felt like.  I bet if you think really hard, you can say whether a friend's or your attorney's advice felt "right."   Does what your attorney advises feel right?  Does what your friends tell you feel right?  If so, which friends?  Think about why you feel that way.  Dig deep.  Think hard.  Trust the feeling. Trust your instincts.  Read Gavin deBecker's The Gift of Fear.  Here in the Trenches.

The Wedding Bell Blues?

My cousin is getting married!  I'm so excited for her.  I'm not so excited for her mother, my aunt.  It is tough being the mother of the bride, no matter if you're planning, paying for or just being in the wedding party.  As the mom of one of the guests of honor, a lot of eyes are on you - and a lot of people are judging how you look (admit it, you check out what the mothers are wearing).  My aunt is not your traditional mother of the bride.  She never wears dresses, in fact in almost forty years, I have only seen her in a dress maybe twice, and one of those times was in her own wedding.  Most mothers of the bride wear dresses, and this fact is causing both my aunt and cousin a lot of stress.  My aunt wants to look beautiful for her daughter's big day, but she also wants to be comfortable in her skin.  My cousin also wants mom to look beautiful, but she's concerned that pants may not be formal enough.  My aunt is nothing if not determined to look beautiful her way.  My mom, my aunt and I spent almost an entire day searching online for an appropriate outfit.  Still nothing purchased, but she's getting closer to finding an outfit that pleases both her and her daughter.

I know, I appear to be reaching for a connection to the Trenches, but bear with me.  When clients come into the Trenches, many times they think a divorce is a divorce is a divorce.  If their friend was married 30 years, stayed home for 20 and got a significant alimony award, and they were also married 30 years and stayed home for 20, then they should get at least the same significant alimony award.  Easy, peasy, breezy.  Unfortunately, that's not how it works.  Every divorce, like every wedding, is unique.  No two people and no two marriages are alike.  It follows therefore, that every divorce would also be different.  And so they are. You did your wedding your way, in a manner that speaks to you.  That also how you should handle your divorce.  Here in the Trenches.

My Holiday Wish for You

   Happy Holidays

Every year, I close my practice from the weekend before Christmas until January 2.  I spend that time with my family.  Daughter and I get mani/pedis and sometimes do something special, just the two of us.  Then we head over to Mom’s to help her with the final preparations for the holiday.  Then the hordes of family descend upon us and a kind of orchestrated chaos ensues.  I wouldn’t change it for the world.. It is my time to relax and recharge.  In past years, it has also been my time to hav eat least one freak out because things did not go as planned.  I had a vision in my mind of how things should be, and I held on to it, even in the face of a reality that looked quite different.  It made for a lot of tension for me - and the ones I love.

This year was different..  I decided that whatever happened. I couldn’t control most things, so I concentrated on what I could control.  I knew what jobs I had for the holiday festivities.  I did all of my holiday “jobs” ahead of time, so on the day our family got together, I could just enjoy my family and friends.  It was wonderful, not just for me, but for all those who came into contact with me.

Isn’t this so like the Trenches? When people decide to divorce, they have a vision in their heads.  It might be a vision of their lives after divorce.  It might be how the divorce process will go.  It might be how their children will react to the divorce.  Some of these visions are based in reality. Some of them are based on how they perceive their best friend’s/ sister’s/brother’s divorece went. Some of them might be based on how they perceive other people’s lives are after divorce, nor how their friends tell them their life is.  Some are based on what they perceive other people’s divorce settlements gave them.

Here’s what I have to say. Your divorce is your divorce.  It’s not the same as anyone else’s, nor is your life.  What’s more, most of those oither people’s lives are not even what they seem.  The passage of time makes the not so successful parts of the divorce process fade.  Some people exaggerate their divorce settlement, their post-divorce lives. Others outright lie about their lives and their settlement.  Why do you care about what someone else has?  I know this is a time where you feel unsure of yourself and your life, but trust yourself.  Figure out your goals, at least short term, and stick to them.  Let go of expectations and stop comparing yourself to others.  All those others aren’t living your life.  You are.  Pick the right people to guide you through the process and take their advice.  Listen to those friends who support you and not to those who try to make themselves feel better by telling you what you’re doing “wrong.”  Think about what you need to do and do it; and most importantly, don’t do something because others did it or because it matches some picture in your head of what your life should look like.  This is your divorce, hopefully your only one, so do it the way that works for you. Here in the Trenches.

Put. Down. That. Phone.

Put. Down. That. Phone.  I have an app on my phone that shows how much time I spent on screen each week.  The first time it posted, I thought it had to be a mistake.  I'm not one of those people who sit on their phone all the time, at meals, in the evening.....My use, unlike everyone else's, is miniscule. Right?  Well, if that's true, then everyone else is on their phone all the time.  When I reflected a bit, I realized that I was checking my screen while I was walking, during breaks in TV shows, as I moved between tasks at work, when I got up and before I went to bed.  In short, I WAS on my smartphone a lot.  Being a not so competitive person (cough, cough), I started to make it a game to see if I could reduce my screen time each week.  I have and I feel virtuous.  What else have I found?  Well, I enjoy my walks much more because I can hear the wind in the trees and the birds singing, and also because I focus more on the world around me.  I have more conversations with my significant other.  I miss less of the action on the TV shows I actually like.  Plus, I'm sleeping better.

Being present and communicating with your spouse or significant other are two of the most important things to do to preserve your relationship.  Article after article stresses the importance of these two actions to the health of a relationship.  Just yesterday, there was an article on solving the problems in your relationship on NBC News Better.  Not surprising, one of the top strategies was better communication and the other was being in tune with your partner's feelings (in other words, being present).  Here in the Trenches, the overwhelming majority of our clients say that their spouse doesn't communicate or pay attention to them.  These folks aren't talking about wine and roses - what they're talking about is listening when they talk and being present in the room.  That doesn't take a lot of time, but it does take effort.  We're so used to the immediate and the now that we forget that those things aren't what's really important.  What's important is building and continuing to build relationships with the people in the room with you, and not the ones on social media.  Leave the phone at home every once in a while.  Park it by the front door when you get home.  I won't make you do it all the time, but just for a few minutes every day.  Your relationship will thank you, and you may avoid being in the Trenches.

Go Heavy or Go Home?

When I travel to see Mom, I don't have access to a gym.  I asked my most fabulous personal trainer (who, coincidentally, is Daughter.  Yes, that's her in the picture) for a travel workout.  She devised a workout for me that uses no weight other than my body weight.  Do I need to tell you it kicked my butt worse than the gym workouts she devises for me (the answer is no if you are my FB friend and saw my post complaining about my sadistic personal trainer)?  What did this teach me?  First, that I am obviously not lifting heavy enough in my gym workouts.  Second, and most importantly, that sometimes less is more.

It is that second lesson that reminds me of all of you in the Trenches.  A lot of people think that when they find themselves in the Trenches, they need an attorney with lots of extra firepower.  By "extra firepower," I mean a firm with an impressive name, with lots of attorneys, and in which their attorney has associate attorneys helping them along with a fleet of paralegals and assistants.  Some folks think bigger and impressive is better than a solo attorney or someone in a small firm.  It's kind of like how impressive it looks when Daughter lifts those big heavy weights on her website (and she is really impressive - the picture at the top of this post is her squatting @135lbs), versus how I look doing the same exercise without added weight.  Does it mean that Daughter is getting a better workout than me?  Not any more than it means that the folks who hire those big impressive firms are getting better representation.

As we head into the holidays, some folks will decide that this holiday will be their last one with their spouse.  Those folks will start to look for an attorney to help them.  That makes the message of this post extremely timely.  When looking for a family law attorney, fit and philosophy are more important than anything else (except, of course, competence, which is not always a given).  When you are in the Trenches, your life is laid bare before your attorney.  You want to feel comfortable sharing your deepest, darkest secrets with that person.  You want to feel confident that they have your back.  You want to know they will give you advice you can live with.  You want to know that they will approach your case in a way that is comfortable for you. You want to feel comfortable raising concerns and asking questions.  You want to be confident in their answers.  This is your life, and you will have to live it long after the attorney has moved on to other clients.  Bigger is not necessarily better. More is not always more. One size does not fit all.  Here in the Trenches.