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71926831-woman-at-desk-looking-at-photograph-gettyimagesOn lists of life stressors, divorce is usually ranked among the top two or three most emotionally challenging events. The process itself is experienced as highly stressful by many people, and from what we know about recovery from profound loss, it takes at least a year to begin to regain equilibrium. In other words, the stress caused by a divorce does not usually just go away when the decree is signed. Especially in situations in which there has been a high level of tension and acrimony during the divorce process, it can be very difficult to shift from conflict mode to co-parenting mode if there are children in the family.

New sources of stress can arise post-decree, e.g. introducing children to new significant others, a parent’s decision to move, loss of a job, children struggling to adapt to the new normal. It is normal for these kinds of change to create uncertainty and distress.

When contemplating a divorce, many people turn to divorce professionals for ideas, advocacy and support. This can lessen feelings of isolation and uncertainty during a time of crisis. However, after the decree has been submitted to the court, people may feel they are on their own to pick themselves up and commence with the rest of their lives.

It has been my experience that specific post-decree support provided by neutral coaches and neutral child specialists can be an invaluable resource for families defining their new normal after a divorce. In the context of voluntary post decree alternative dispute resolution,  resources can be shared, support given, and skills developed for effective co-parenting. Parenting and relationship plans can be created (if not completed during the divorce itself) or revised by joint agreement. In the context of voluntary alternative dispute resolution, children can be safely included in this process, e.g. to check in about their adjustment to new schedules and routines. It has been suggested that follow up care like this should be offered to all divorcing couples, though not all may need it.

This is not a replacement for psychotherapy. Individual  therapy can enhance personal growth, provide support and help adults and children heal emotionally. Couples therapy specific to the end of marriage can help resolve lingering emotional issues and conflict.  Family therapy may be valuable, especially if relationship repair between parents and children is needed. It is also not a replacement for support groups or resources like Daisy Camp. However, post-decree consultation with neutral experts who specialize in helping family members make the healthiest possible adjustment to a divorce can be a focused and powerful kind of support during a challenging time of transition.

 

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172174256-difficulties-of-life-gettyimagesIf you are getting a divorce, do you really need a lawyer? Increasingly, people are saying no. In some states, the number of people seeking a divorce without lawyers is reportedly as high as 70%. Is this a good idea? It depends. If you have a very short marriage; no children; few assets and both spouses can provide for their own support, your divorce might be simple, and you may be able to safely get it done on your own. However, if you have children and/or important financial issues, getting a divorce without legal help can be very costly. In my experience of watching thousands of divorces over the past 30 years, I think 90% of the people going through divorce would benefit from some legal help. The real question is deciding just how much is the right amount. Many divorcing people are, understandably, afraid to get lawyers involved at all, fearing that once you get a lawyer on board, they will be on a slippery slope in which legal costs will rapidly spin out of control. It is true that this can happen, but there are ways to prevent this danger. Most people don’t realize that there are ways to hire attorneys in a divorce and carefully manage your costs. Part of the key is to understand the difference between a retained attorney and a consulting attorney. A retained attorney is someone you hire to serve as your “attorney of record”, meaning that they are identified, to the court and to your spouse as your legal representative throughout the divorce. Retained attorneys generally have a responsibility to take all actions necessary to comply with court rules and move your case forward, and therefore, costs can be hired. On the other hand, a consulting attorney is an attorney who works with you, as a consultant, and will only perform the specific tasks that you authorize. (This is sometimes referred to as unbundled legal service since you are choosing select specific legal services rather than the full “bundle” of things that retained attorneys have to do.) There are, of course, pros and cons of hiring an attorney as a consultant that need to be carefully considered before choosing that option. The biggest danger of having an attorney as a consultant only, is that you do not truly have someone representing your interests. You are essentially representing yourself. Nevertheless, if you are interested in containing costs, it is important to have this option fully explained to you before you proceed. There is also a third option, called Collaborative Law that can, in some instances, combine the best elements of full retained representation and having a consulting attorney. A Collaborative Attorney is an attorney retained for settlement purposes only.   The Collaborative Attorney would be your attorney of record and will fully represent you through the full negotiation of your case. However, because both Collaborative Attorneys sign an agreement not to go to court, you do not have the danger that the attorney will be forced to incur hours on your case that are outside of your control. To learn more about Collaborative Law go to www.collaborativelaw.org.
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556243319-line-in-the-sand-gettyimagesIt’s Friday night and your children are with your ex for the night. It should be a nice quiet, relaxing evening, or maybe a great time to tackle that organization project? Possibly even a date night?! Instead, you’ve already burnt your own dinner because your ex has called you 14 times already with mindless questions about the kids. “Blake doesn’t want to eat chicken nuggets, what do I do? Can you just talk to him for a minute and see if you can talk him into eating?” “Kara had a potty training accident, what do I do? Can you bring over more clothes?” “Cole refuses to do his homework, what do I do?” Your quiet night alone has turned into YOU still doing the bulk of the parenting, when you just want to scream, “You’re their parent too!” to your ex. How can you set up boundaries to avoid arguments and resentment regarding your parenting time while away from the kids? Let’s face it, it’s not that you don’t love being a parent to your children. It’s just that you went through this divorce that (maybe) you didn’t necessarily want, then (maybe) you had to argue a bit over custody, and now that everything is settling you are trying to make lemonade from your lemons and actually enjoy your “free time.” You might also start to wonder whether all those calls are because your spouse is being needy or if they are trying to keep you from enjoying your kid-free time. You and your ex have children together; therefore, you must be in contact with one another on a regular basis. This also means that you should establish boundaries. Hopefully you have created an environment that supports you, perhaps you need to do ask your ex to do the same. Ask your ex to expand their network, reach out to siblings, parents, friends, etc. A network of people they can call before coming running to you first. Encourage your ex to evaluate how often and why they are calling you. If it’s multiple times during their custody visits maybe you need to give a specific number of times that you can be called, so your ex should evaluate how important the call is. There are several areas where boundaries may need to be established. Maybe you’ve had a fairly amiable divorce and your spouse still walks in freely into your home unannounced? It is best to lay down ground rules that said they are to knock on the front door just like any other house, now rather than in a sticky situation later. You can rest assured that setting boundaries, and maintaining the proper space between you and your ex (children or no children), is a healthy way to divorce with integrity. Setting boundaries will help you to feel more in control of your new life.
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507851475-unhappy-three-year-old-girl-in-bedroom-gettyimagesToday I met with two very attuned and caring parents who have, after many efforts at repair,  made the decision to end their marriage. Topmost on their list of concerns was the impact their divorce might have on their children, specifically that the decision to divorce might result in their children losing hope for the future. I have so much empathy for parents burdened with worry about the painful crisis their divorce might create for their children. It is important to keep in perspective that it is entirely possible to keep the emotional crisis of divorce from ever becoming a trauma for children. Crises are difficult turning points, but inherent in a crisis is the potential for healing. Traumas inflict deep wounds and can derail healthy development in children. In addition, the effects of trauma will reverberate across generations unless repaired. Two negative potential consequences of divorce can be especially traumatic for children, especially those who have secure attachments to both parents:  1.  that the conflict between their parents never resolves, and children are perpetually kept in the middle of that conflict; and 2.  that a parent’s contact with their children is so limited after the divorce that the children feel abandoned (or as one child sadly told me, “I didn’t know I would be divorced too”). How parents choose to divorce is key.  Any process that supports parents’ ability to maintain loving focus on the needs of their children is valuable for many reasons.  For the parents themselves, it helps to set the stage for the transition to effective co-parenting.  Respectful co-parenting creates the environment in which children can be resilient and thrive. A child-centered divorce process can also have immediate benefits for children in the following ways:  children will likely be more calm and centered when there is a tone of respect rather than acrimony between their parents during the divorce;  it benefits children when they can experience predictability and lack of drama during an already uncertain time; children are kept out of the dangerous middle of adult-level discussions and conflict;  children feel safer and are soothed when parents begin to co-parent effectively. Collaborative Practice is one way to create a child-centered divorce process.  For more information, please visit the Collaborative Law Institute of Minnesota website.        
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Lisa Green’s new book, On Your Case, is a great legal resource for women at all stages in life. Ms. Green is a lawyer and legal analyst who outlined various important issues in a woman’s life – relationships, parenting, employment, and aging – all from a legal perspective. She provides simple pieces of advice and more in-depth education on various matters that arise in life. One of the best sections, outlines divorce options. When a couple decides to divorce, there are various processes to use to divide assets, work on support options and come up with co-parenting agreements. Ms. Green discusses both DIY (do it yourself) divorce, mediation and collaborative divorce as alternatives to a typical litigation. Ms. Green provides a nice explanation of the benefits to collaborative divorce – it can be cheaper, less stressful and have less animosity than traditional court-based models. She correctly points out that the collaborative option may be hard to think about at the very onset of a separation – when emotions are hot and anger may cloud judgment. However, for couples who want to maintain control of the process and maintain respect throughout, collaborative law is a good option. Two important observations in the book, however, are worth noting. Ms. Green identifies a significant power imbalance as a concerning factor to the collaborative process. It can make the process more challenging and the couple may need more support from a collaborative team. Secondly, Ms. Green notes that communication is key to the collaborative process. While litigators often tell clients not to talk to one another – so all communication goes through the lawyers – collaborative clients are expected to communicate and discuss all issues with their team and with each other. Ms. Green’s book is a great resource for women on all legal issues. On divorce in particular, it has a lot of useful information to start the process and learn about considerations and options. If someone considering divorce wants to learn more about collaborative divorce, they should reach out to a collaborative professional to talk through the option.  
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Divorce is unfair in that is often asks people to make some of the most important decisions in their lives at a time when they may be impaired by many emotions, including grief. Many clients experiencing divorce have described the process as feeling like dealing with a death.  It is true that no person dies, and therefore the analogy of death is not perfect, but a marriage dies and some amount of grief would seem quite natural. In addition, grieving the loss of a marriage can be complicated because there is less of a support network.  As a culture, we have learned how to help people grieve death. However, the people in your support network may not know how to help you grieve the loss of your marriage, and that can cause them to respond with either anger or avoidance instead. One of the significant trends in our society is an increased understanding of the role of hospice when someone in approaching death. Hospice occurs after all efforts to preserve life have been exhausted. At that time, the focus of the medical team and support personnel turns away from finding a medical “solution” and toward providing comfort and care and preparation for what lies ahead. It may seem odd, to think about hospice for a dying marriage, but many of the same principles may apply. If all efforts to save the marriage have been exhausted, it may be best for the legal team, as well as friends and family, to switch to providing comfort, and, perhaps, to finding time to grieve. Giving divorcing clients time to grieve, and providing resources to help them with the grief, (including options such as coaching, or divorce closure counseling), could help people make better decisions when they are ready to focus on divorce details. If you are facing divorce, and feel like you need time to grieve, it is important to select a divorce team that understands why this is important, and to fully explore your divorce options so that your emotional health can be taken into account. To learn more, go to www.collaborativelaw.org or www.divorcechoice.com.  
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150973506-torn-childs-drawing-depicting-family-gettyimagesIn”The Importance of Attachment: Part I“, I outlined the key developmental value of a secure attachment relationship between a child and a parent.   Secure attachment is the foundation of resilience.  Adverse life events, like a divorce, can be mastered by resilient children, especially if their secure attachments are not threatened by the divorce.  As a Neutral Child Specialist, my goal is to make sure that the crisis of a divorce does not become a trauma for a child. I recently attended a workshop on the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), a series of questions that allows researchers to understand how well an adult has integrated his or her own life experiences, both positive and adverse.  Adults who have managed to integrate their experiences into a coherent narrative are considered securely attached.  Unfortunately, according to a number of research studies, only about half of all adults have secure attachments as measured by the AAI.  The remainder have not been able to integrate adverse experiences, and remain either highly anxious or disconnected from them.  Some insecurely attached adults who were traumatized as children live in constant emotional chaos.  Researchers speculate that the quality of adult attachment is related to how capable a person is to form an emotionally safe, committed and loving relationship with another adult. Numerous longitudinal research studies have discovered another impact of adult attachment. There is a very high level of correlation between how an adult responds on the AAI and the subsequent quality of attachment that adult is able to create with his or her own child.  Compellingly, the life story a person tells on the AAI is a stronger predictor of quality of attachment with his or her child than actual observed parental behavior.  In other words, the impact of emotional distress and trauma in childhood will reverberate across generations unless a parent gets the necessary support and healing to integrate his or her life into a coherent narrative.  It is possible for adults to shift from insecurely attached to securely attached, but it requires the healing that comes from therapeutic relationships. Obviously the best way to ensure secure attachments for generations of children is to prevent trauma in their lives.  Of all the reasons to select a divorce process that supports respectful and healthy resolutions and builds the foundation for effective co-parenting, it is the legacy of secure attachment that will be left for your children and future generations.  Collaborative Practice is one such process.  
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117144501-couples-therapy-gettyimagesFinancial decisions are some of the toughest issues to work through in divorce. Deciding how to divide up assets or liabilities or devising long-term support scenarios to cover the expenses of two homes can be difficult. When you add in the emotions related to finances and personal financial experiences – it can get really complicated. In a collaborative divorce, where both parties agree to negotiate and settle their case out of court, financial agreements are often more thorough and more complete. Resolutions may include tax implications, cost basis analysis, or long-term financial projections. During the process, couples can more completely analyze the financial options and, often most importantly, the team can work to address emotional feelings about finances. In one type of therapy, called dialectical therapy, clients are urged to balance their logical minds with their emotional minds. According to the theory, all couples have both types of thinking. Logical thinking is orderly, concise and reasoned. A logical decision would be to keep money in bonds that are likely to be fairly stable over time instead of a risky stock investment that is volatile along with the markets. Emotional thinking, on the other hand, focuses on an individual’s feelings or history with decisions. An emotional decision may be to pay off a home mortgage because it “feels” good, even though having a mortgage may have more financial benefit. Other emotional decisions may rely upon personal experience. Someone may make the emotional decision to keep cash under the mattress in case he needs it in an emergency because that is what his father did and advised him to do. In a collaborative divorce, couples work with a financial neutral to help balance these two sides. In dialectical therapy, the overlapping space between the logical mind and the emotional mind is the wise mind. In divorce, couples who use their wise minds often have the best outcomes. They will balance the logical, smart decisions with options that feel good. While outcomes may not be perfect, they are more likely to feel good if they are in the wise zone. Take for example a couple that has equivalent amounts of financial value in home equity and a stock portfolio. The logical option may be to divide both equally – split the stock account in half and sell the home sharing the equity equally. Maybe one spouse is emotionally connected to the house and the other likes the risk of the stock market. Dividing the assets this way may make emotional sense, but is it wise? A wise option could be to evaluate the home market and estimate future value while looking at the stock portfolio and the level of risk associated. Analyzing the cost basis in both investments and potential tax implications could also help the couple create a wise resolution. Collaborative divorce allows couples an opportunity to commit to an out-of-court, non-adversarial process to reach mutually acceptable resolutions. Good collaborative professionals can help couples bring their best selves to the process and use their wise minds for the best possible outcomes.