Mutual Consent Divorce - A Different Perspective

I admit that I have been frustrated with Maryland's requirement that, except in cases of adultery or extreme cruelty, couples have to be separated for a year before they can obtain a final divorce.  It is so unbearably difficult for many couples to separate before they've sold or refinanced the house or transferred retirement assets, and they can't transfer retirement assets until a divorce.  It takes some couples the better part of a year to decide on the terms for their separation agreement, which is necessary to refinance the house, and then knowing that it would be another year after that, causes some couples to make poor decisions about separating just to get the process moving.  Therefore, I was thrilled when the Maryland legislature passed our new mutual consent grounds for divorce.

In a nutshell, our new divorce grounds states that if a couple has no children under the age of 18, has a full and complete separation agreement to which they both agree, and both show up for the divorce hearing, they can get a divorce without any separation at all.  In the first month of the new law, I had three such divorces.  In two of them, the parties had been separated slightly less than one year.  In one of them, they were not separated.  I want to talk about that last case, because truly, I thought all three would end up the same.  They didn't.

The people in that third case are having a tough time.  After a very long marriage, they decided (OK, one side decided) that they were getting a divorce, they negotiated their separation agreement easily and quickly, and their divorce was a month later, while they were still in the same house.  They are now struggling emotionally.  You see, getting a divorce so quickly did not allow them time to grieve the loss of their relationship as it was and their marriage, to process what it meant to be separate and apart, to experience the reality of living separate and apart, of developing new and different support systems, and of learning to disengage from their old pattern of taking care of each other.

I know,the only difference between them and our regular divorce clients is that they began living separately after the divorce rather than before, but that distinction is not an inconsequential one.  Only if you've gone through a divorce can you understand that there is a cataclysmic difference between being separated and being divorced.  One is temporary and preparatory, and the other is final and permanent.  It may not look different in terms of day to day life, but it feels different.  Kind of like knowing a relative with a fatal disease is going to die, and their actually dying.  That feeling takes time to work its way through the psyche and to become normal.  With the end of a marriage, it takes time to set those new boundaries and the new relationship with someone with whom you've shared your life.  Its damned near impossible to do it well when you are not only mourning the end of the relationship as you knew it, but also the end of the legal status of marriage.  Both parts of this particular couple, perhaps because they have been together so long, are having a difficult time of it.  Who would have thought?  Not me.  Now, the legislature is talking about expanding the mutual consent divorce to people with minor children.  That adds another layer of logistics and grief.  Six months ago, I would have cheered the expansion of the divorce ground.  Now, I'm not so sure.  Here in the Trenches.

Divorce is a Journey

I miss blogging.  There are times when I struggle for what to say, but I love talking to you in this medium.  My home computer, where I do most of my writing, is no longer able to connect with Blogger, so my posts are very sporadic while I investigate EXHAUSTIVELY all my options. This is, of course, typical for me, as I tend to over-investigate every choice I have to make, whether it involves spending money or not.  OK, I worry it to death.  Now, if you needed to get something, I'd help you make that decision in a heartbeat....and that is our discussion for today.

You know that I am a big Brene Brown fan.  As a matter of fact, I'm taking her online course right now.  It's really difficult; this self-discovery stuff is hard.  As part of the course, I took Kristen Neff's assessment of self compassion.  I failed in the "self" part.  It seems I have oodles of compassion for others, but not much for myself.  I'm my own toughest critic - big surprise, right?  To do the work I do, I need to have a lot of compassion for others, but I think it's funny that I urge others to practice self-compassion.  I guess that those who don't do, teach.  I'm learning to be aware of when I'm coming down too hard on myself and cut myself a break; to be more understanding and forgiving of myself.  As a result, I'm enjoying life a lot more.

Mindfulness is becoming a huge part of what we do here in the Trenches.  So much of what we do is about helping our clients learn to let go and create a life after they leave us.  I've known that for years; it appears the rest of the world is figuring it out.  That would explain the popularity of Jeena Cho, and the rise in popularity of books like Splitopia: Dispatches from Today's Good Divorce and How to Part Well by Wendy Paris.  The fact is that what you get out of life depends on what you put into it and how you view it;  your divorce is no different.   Whether divorce is part of your life and your learn from it or something you never get past and over, is your choice.  I love reading Jeena's posts about mindfulness and law practice on Facebook and Twitter.  I just came across Wendy when I was catching up on another of my favorite authors, Gretchen Rubin, and found her interview with Wendy here.  It was intriguing and lead me, in turn, to Wendy's "The Principles of Parting."  I commend it to you, think you should print out multiple copies and tape them everywhere.  Life, even divorce, is a journey.  What kind of journey is up to you.  Here in the Trenches.

It Takes a Pack

A little under three weeks ago, we had to say goodbye to Puppy Girl.  It was the right time, by my reckoning, not too soon and not too late.  My wonderful veterinarian, Karen Pearson, DVM, who we have followed through a few veterinary practices, and who has treated Puppy Girl for ten years, came to our house.  Puppy Boy was there, along with the rest of her family, at the end.  We laughed, and told stories of her and her Boy and our prior dog.  Karen's part of our pack: she felt our loss like it were her own and gave us the support we needed.  I've always felt that way about her.

Now, however, Puppy Boy is without his Girl.  Like any other caregiver, he spent the greater part of the last few years tending to his charge.  He worried over her, made sure she had plenty of attention, and tormented her with puppy games to keep her engaged.  Now that she's gone, he seems lost.  Daughter's dog isn't much help- to Puppy Boy, he's a new addition and competition for affection.  What's a Puppy Boy to do?  Turn to his pack, of course. Mommy is his "go to" when he's feeling needy, with daughter running a close second.  Without us, he worried his paw and chewed it.  He looked lost and unhappy.  We've given him lots of love, and tons of attention. We've kept the rest of his schedule and life as much the same as we can, and he's slowly returning to his old self. 

Here in the Trenches, a lot of our clients are like Puppy Boy.  Their marriage and their spouse were the constants in their lives.  Without them, our clients are adrift.  We know they will get their bearings at some point, and move on to a different life.  The question is what to do in the meantime.  The temptation for most people is to throw out the baby with the bath water.  They want a clean break, they want no reminders of their marriage or their spouse, and they jettison everything from their old life all at once.  Big mistake.  Even though those things from the old life can be painful, pain is necessary in order to move forward.  It's a requirement in order to work through the stages of grief.  If you ignore it now, it will just come back and rear its head at an unexpected time in the future.  As strange as it sounds, a clean break is not so healthy.  We need reminders in order do the hard work.

What else do our clients need Here in the Trenches?  Like Puppy Boy, they need their pack.  As we saw with Puppy Boy, their pack isn't just anyone.  It's not someone in a like position, or else Daughter's dog would have done just fine.  Their pack is the people they count on to keep their lives on an even keel.  They are the folks who have been their constants through their life.  A lot of people don't want to be these folks, because they don't know what to say and do to make our clients feel better.  That's too bad, because our clients don't need someone to do something to make them feel better: just being there makes them feel better.  Really, what our clients need to know is that they're not alone and they're still loved.  By the way, Puppy Boy is doing much better, just like our clients.  Here in the Trenches.

How Will You See Your Divorce Five Years From Now?

"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough."  

                                                                                                Abraham Lincoln


A post of mine from just over a year ago is getting a lot of traffic this weekend.  One comment in particular inspired this week's post.  The commenter wrote that in hindsight, this person wished that when she got the "best" family law attorney, she had gotten an attorney who was committed to helping the client work out their issues with their spouse and not simply going forward on the litigation path.  She regretted the treatment her former spouse received at the hands of her attorney.

I wish I could say that this person's comment were unusual here in the Trenches, but it's not.  Clients come through our doors every day expressing the gamut of emotions.  Angry and distrustful people are our stock in trade. Of course, many people who decide to divorce are angry, for a whole lot of reasons.  When we have an angry client, we have two choices: we can help stoke the fire or we can help to quench it.  If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I try to quench it.  Not everyone shares my view.  Let's talk about realities of the Trenches.

Some of us work in the Trenches because we want to help people.  We feel our clients' pain and we want to help them move forward.  We want to help them close the door on this chapter of their lives and move successfully into the next.  I would actually hazard a guess that most of us who work in the Trenches feel that way.  There are those who don't, those lawyers who really don't care and figure their job is to get the client what they say they want or even simply to get the case resolved.  I hope you run screaming from those offices; you deserve better.

The difficulty is that for lawyers of a certain age, being trained as a lawyer meant being trained to try a case, or at most negotiating a settlement like you would any business deal.  Some of those folks never learned to do anything else, and their definition of a lawyer is defined by their training.  It's not that they don't care; it's that the only tool they have is a hammer, so every problem is a nail.  I know, mediation has been around a long time, so why don't these lawyers get on board?  I wish I knew.  The most I can say is they never adapted to the reality that clients, especially family law clients, don't love going to court as much as they do.  For these lawyers, when a client comes into their office hopping mad, and wanting to rake their spouse over the coals in court, these lawyers are very happy, because that's what they know how to do.  They know how to fix that problem.  I'm going to go out on a very short limb here and tell you that if that's the lawyer in whose office you end up, you need to go somewhere else, at least for a second opinion.

After over twenty five years of practicing law, most of them here in the Trenches, there are a few things I've learned about people.  The first is that some of those hopping mad folks will remain hopping mad until the day they die.  They will never understand why they divorced; they will never forgive their spouse for not being the person they thought they were and needed them to be.  Still, encouraging their anger doesn't help.

The second thing I've learned is that anger, like guilt, fades.  As time passes and life goes on, clients tend to view their spouses with a different lens.  This lens tends to be more forgiving.  It is not a distorted lens, but rather one that, instead of being the rose color of love and unicorns or the fiery red of anger, is clear and focused.  Clients, particularly those with children, realize they have to co-parent together and will be entwined until they or their children die. Clients tend to remember some of the better times they had with each other; and with time, they remember that they once loved this person.  It's at those times they regret how they or their lawyer behaved at the time of their divorce.

Those of us who work in the Trenches know this.  We see it as our jobs to pull our clients out of their comfort zone.  We question the basis for their anger.  We probe at the hurt feelings.  We look for those times when the spouses worked together in the past.  We try to find shared values.  We encourage our clients to look into the future and tell us what they want it to look like.  We ask them if their proposed course of action will get them there.  We tailor the process they use for their divorce not only to their present but also to that future.

I understand that when your marriage is ending, the last thing you want to be is reasonable.  I know that when you're looking for an attorney, you want a good one, but you don't want to have to dig too deep.  I get it.  Remember, I've been there.  I know you don't want to spend the money for a consultation with more than one lawyer.  You just want one person, the first person you see, to solve your problem.  Remember though, that lawyer didn't cause the problem - you and your spouse did.  The lawyer can't solve it - only you and your spouse can.  Don't you want the lawyer who is best able to help you do that?  Find out about a lawyer's philosophy of representation.  Find out what they consider their role to be in your case.  Find out how they intend to help you connect with your inner best self and help you solve your problem.    You might need that hammer; then again you might need a monkey wrench.  Don't you want a lawyer with that tool in her tool chest?  Here in the Trenches.

Puppy Girl and Emotional Decisions

It's no secret that my beloved puppy girl is 16 years old.  She has arthritis in her legs, and that makes standing still interesting.  She has cataracts, and a wee bit of dementia.  She's lost a lot of weight, but the vet says she's in fine health, except for the above.  She sleeps a lot during the day.  Yet, she still eats like a younger dog.  She takes half a mile walk every day.  Sure, it's slow, but she does it.  She greets me when I come home at night.  She's not in any pain.  She also still torments her puppy boy and they play very limited and geriatric puppy games (I find your bone and stand over it so you can't get it.  I lie down in the middle of your bed until you stare at me long enough to make me move).  I know we're moving toward the "big decision," and we're probably talking weeks rather than months.  It's agonizing.  She's my puppy girl, my companion, my lovely friend. Being a reading nerd, I am reading a lot about when you know it's time.  The best advice I've seen is that you ask a third person whose advice you trust.  All that c__p about how you'll know it's time and keeping track of good days versus bad days, is just that.  When you are too close to the situation, the way you interpret data is skewed.  Your heart will override your head, or you will interpret the data to support the conclusion you want.  My third party and I have talked and she knows I don't want puppy girl to suffer.  I don't want her to have no good quality of life.  I don't want her to lose her dignity.  Based on all that,  my third party says "not yet," and I concur.

Does it really take much of a leap to connect all of this to the Trenches?  Clients tell me all the time that they never saw it coming.  They tell me that they can't believe that their spouse did X, because X is so unlike them.  Their spouse said the relationship changed, that they changed, but they don't see it.  Yet, all of the people they ask me to call tell me a very different story.  Usually, it's somewhere between what my client says and what their spouse says.  You see, they were too close to see things clearly and their emotions filled in parts of their story when the facts were lacking.  Usually when people do that, what they fill in supports the conclusion they want, and not what actually is.  The third parties without skin in the game are far more reliable as to reality of the situation.

Is there another third party whose advice clients in the Trenches should trust?  Oh yes, their lawyer.  Again, the lawyer has no emotional investment in their case.  Certainly, we care about our clients, but it's not our lives, it's theirs.  We don't interpret data through the eyes of emotion, of hurt feelings, of hopes and dreams unrealized.  We don't fill in "facts" that don't exist.  We hear our clients, and dig for what lies behind their words.  Is it fear of poverty?  Of being alone? Of being judged by others? Of losing their identity as a parent or spouse?  What is it they need or want?  What is their view for the future?  Whatever it is, once we learn what those things, we can help them define their goals and advise them of their best course of action.  We don't rewrite the history of their marriage - that's for a different professional to help.  We help them write the story of their futures accounting for their hopes and needs and fears.  Here in the Trenches.

Ten New Year's Resolutions For Your Divorce

Tomorrow, my office opens its doors for the new year.  As in every new year, there will be a lot of calls from people who have vowed that they will not spend another holiday season with their spouse.  Lest you think the folks who call the first week of January are the only ones thinking that way, we get another surge right after the credit card bills from Christmas get paid at the end of the month.  For all of you joining us in the Trenches in 2016, here are ten resolutions for you.

1.     I resolve to talk to a lawyer, a financial planner and a good family therapist before I tell my spouse I want a divorce.  A lot of the people who come through our doors are woefully under-educated in both the divorce process and the realities of post-divorce life.  They leap before they look, only to find on the way down that they could and should have done things differently.

2.    I resolve to step back and put myself in my children's shoes.  Yes, I know you want equal time with your children.  I know you miss them when they are not with you.  Funny, though, that when I suggest that the children stay in the house and the parents rotate between two residences, clients look at me in horror, as they don't want to feel like a nomad and not have a place that's theirs.  Yet, that's what they want for their children, and they are genuinely surprised to realize that.  Now, I'm not saying that nesting, as that arrangement is called, is better or worse than any other custodial plan.  What I am saying is that parents need to think about divorce from their children's perspective as well and think about how their life might be like.

3.    I resolve to look at issues from my spouse's point of view.   98% of all cases settle.  Whether they settle early or after the second day of a three day trial often depends on how aware at least one party is about what the other one needs in order to feel successful.  I know, the last thing you want to do is think like your spouse, but your future, not to mention the amount of your legal fees, depends on it.

4.    I resolve to take the high road.  Just because your spouse is hiding the ball, talking trash to the neighbors or denigrating you to your children, doesn't mean you have to do it.  Life is a marathon, not a sprint.  All of that bad karma comes back, as does the good.  Your children, neighbors and friends will learn the truth, and they will appreciate that it wasn't you who pointed it out.  You'll find what you need to find, and what you can't find, you'll accept.  Momma was correct that two wrongs don't make a right.

5.    I resolve to take a breath before I do anything "for the principle of the thing."  As a trial lawyer, I hate the principle of the thing.  Sure, it always earns me more money, but my clients are rarely happy with the results, because the principle of the thing is rarely tangible.  It's a lot of money to spend just to make a point.  You need to make sure the point is worth the cost.

6.    I resolve to take an active role in my divorce.  I have said it before, and I will say it again (and again) - it's not my life.  It's yours.  If you want your post divorce life to be successful, you really should take an active role in molding it.  Otherwise, your post divorce life will look the way I want it to look.  I hope you like it.

7.    I resolve to choose the divorce process that best meets my needs. If you don't know by now that process determines outcome, please reread this post.

8.    I resolve to choose a lawyer whose approach to divorce and values mirror mine.  We are truly like dogs and their owners.  In a successful relationship, we will mirror each other.  In an unsuccessful one, we will be at cross purposes.  Certainly, I can advocate for whatever position you wish, so long as it's sustainable by the facts and the law, and I'll be successful doing it.  If it goes against my approach to divorce or my values, we may spend a lot of time discussing what you want me to do and why, and perhaps at that point, your funds and time may be better spent with another lawyer, one who meshes better with you.

9.    I resolve to take responsibility for my own decisions.  I didn't pick your spouse; you did.  I didn't have children with your spouse, amass assets or debts with them.  In other words, I didn't create the situation you are in.  I didn't create the court system.  I didn't make the rules:  I play within the system.  It's my job to help you move forward. I will help you develop options, weigh the options, and negotiate an agreement.  I can't do it alone.  I need your help.  Ultimately, with my help, you need to make a decision.  I want you to be fully informed when you do that.  If it turns out your decision didn't work out as you hoped, then it is your responsibility - mine was to advise you fully so you could make the best decision possible under the circumstances.

10.  I resolve to take care of myself.  Life in the Trenches is stressful.  Stress affects people in different ways.  Maybe you need to talk to a professional therapist.  Maybe you need to reconnect with your faith.  Maybe you need to exercise more.  What about a massage?  Whatever it takes for you to be the best you possible.

Happy New Year.  Here in the Trenches.

One Courthouse Down; One to Go

Today was the first Christmas cookie delivery of the season.  150 dozen cookies handed in out in just over an hour at one of the courthouses at which I practice.  Yes, I make them all, with a little help from my elves.  Next weekend, I make another 75 dozen or so for my other courthouse.  It's really a huge job.  Part of it involves my sitting in my kitchen alone, making batch after batch of dough after a long day of work.  At times, it's tedious and it's lonely.  For the last three years, I have come down with a huge case of the flu after cookies are done.  There have been times when I wonder why I do it.  I considered stopping the tradition because it is just so much darn work.  I've come up with quite a few reasons why I shouldn't.  They're quite pertinent to the Trenches, so I thought I'd share them.
1.  I get to watch hours of my favorite Christmas movies.  I love the darn things, and otherwise, I could never justify watch "Christmas Vacation" six times in a year.
2.  I spend time with my friends and their daughters, and my daughter.  What great bonding time for all of us, and a great tradition.  We have fun, doing nothing more serious than counting minutes in the oven.
3.  I love seeing everyone at the courthouses.  I don't try a lot of my cases because I have a talent for settling them.  As a result, I don't see all the people at the courthouse who I've known for 20 years very often.  When I do, I don't get much time to visit with them.  Except at Christmas cookie time.  Then, I see them all and I spend a few minutes with everyone.
4.  I love making everyone so happy.  Christmas cookie time is the one time everyone is happy to see  me.  They all have their favorite cookies, and they love to tell me which one.  I try to remember from year to year.  Word goes through the courthouse when I arrive with all the baskets of cookies, and they expect me and follow me down the halls.
5.  The people I give cookies to have known me for a long time.  They were nice to me when I made mistakes in my younger days.  They deal with not so nice members of my profession and the general public, and yet they remain calm and cool.  They have a lot of balls in the air and make relatively few mistakes.  They are underpaid and overworked, and very few people appreciate all that they do.  One time a year, I like them to know I do.  Not for any reason but to tell them.

All of that is why I decided to change things up a bit.  I made the dough for three of the types of cookies ahead and froze it.  I made another of the cookies over the course of a week after work.  This year, the first round of cookies were finished a day early, and I actually got to bed before midnight.  My throat's a little scratchy, but I'm doing relatively well.  Keep your fingers crossed.  I think I found my work around.

What does all this have to do with the Trenches?  Life is all about choices.  A lot of life is tough, and yes, divorce is one of those things that is hard.  Especially at the holidays, it's really easy to focus on what is missing.  I admit, a lot is probably missing.  In fact, I would hazard a guess that almost everything is different.  That's sad and probably fairly lonely.  I know, it's not easy.  Remember, I've been there.  You can focus on what is different.  You can focus on how your traditions have changed.  You can see only how life isn't what it was.

 I'll let you wallow in that for a while, but I guess at some point, you'll get tired of it.  At least, I hope you do.  That's when you have a choice.  You can continue to rue what you lost.  Or, you can focus, not on the things you used to do, but why you loved them.   The point is to take some time and look deeply into what makes the holidays special to you.  What is it about the lost traditions that you miss?  Why?  Write it down.  Think about how else you can meet that need in you.  You like Christmas trees?  Reinvent the tradition, and get a fake one instead of real, maybe in silver?  You love the carols?  Join a choir.  You love the Hannukah food?  Make donuts instead of latkes. Life is full of changes.  Many of them are difficult and painful; divorce is one of them.  How you deal with those changes is up to you.  Do you stop doing the things you love because they're hard, or do you find ways to keep the joy?  Here in the Trenches.