When you are ready to start a divorce, nothing creates more frustration than the reluctant spouse. How are you supposed to move forward with your life when your husband or wife doesn’t want a divorce? Here is my advice for dealing with the spouse who is dragging their feet.
1. Keep your long-term goals in the forefront, rather than taking short-term aggressive action.
A friend of mine from another state called me recently to tell me about her meeting with a divorce lawyer. My friend wants a divorce; her husband doesn’t. The lawyer said she ought to serve and file divorce papers on her husband and tell her three children about the divorce by herself so she controlled the story to the kids.
This kind of advice is what gives lawyers a bad name. Like most people with kids, my friend wants to protect them from conflict and have a good co-parenting relationship after the divorce. That means she has to work with her husband, not set up a firestorm of conflict by launching an aggressive attack.
2. Get the right support to help your spouse.
A spouse who is not emotionally ready to handle a divorce can make the process difficult. It’s much more effective to connect with resources to help your spouse accept the divorce. If you have been in marriage counseling, you could enlist the counselor to facilitate conversations about your desire for a divorce and options for proceeding. Discernment counseling, which is a limited scope form of therapy, is another approach. Or you could work with a collaborative divorce coach, who is skilled at working with couples who are have a gap in their respective readiness to proceed with divorce.
3. Use the time to gather necessary financial documents.
While you are letting your spouse play “catch up” emotionally, it helps to feel like you are taking steps to move forward. One task that has to happen is gathering financial information. You can contact a collaborative financial neutral to find out about their services and the information that will be needed. You can gather records, such as tax returns, mortgage documents, bank statements, and credit card statements. You can look into insurance costs as an individual and look into housing options. Gathering all the financial information usually takes some time, and there is no reason why you can’t get a start on that important step. It will make things go more quickly once you are ready to start the process.
It is rare for both spouses to be in the same place emotionally when deciding to end a marriage. If you can give your spouse some time and support to accept that the marriage is over, you gain a less frustrating divorce process and a foundation for a good working relationship as co-parents. 
Besides being a family law attorney, I am a divorced mother of a teenager. My daughter was 9 when her dad and I separated. Parenting is not for the faint of heart, even with a great kid. I cherish the fact that I have a strong co-parenting relationship with my daughter’s father as we celebrate the successes and face the challenges of launching a young woman into independence.
So it bothers me when I see divorced women torpedoing the co-parenting relationship. I don’t seem to attract these kind of women as my clients, but I meet them socially or hear the stories from others (None of the moms below were my clients). The following is my advice to those women, because I have lived it.
1. Stop calling yourself a “single mother.” Unless your child’s father died or has no involvement in your child’s life, your child still has a dad. Calling yourself a single mom marginalizes dad. I know of a mom who sent dad a copy of the registration form for summer camp, since dad was paying half the cost of extra-curricular activities. Mom put her name and contact information on the form and drew a line through the section for the other parent. Even if you have sole custody, respect the fact that your child has two parents. 2. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Dads need to know what is going on with kids when they are at mom’s home, and vice versa. I know of a dad who reached out to mom to discuss how to handle a power struggle. Mom responded by saying, “That’s between you and [daughter]. You have to figure it out on your own.” I wonder if mom would have said the same thing to a teacher asking for input. This isn’t a test where comparing answers is cheating. This is your kid’s life. And don’t forget there will likely be a time in the future where you are struggling to find the answer to a parenting dilemma. It is a relief and a blessing to have a co-parent when that happens. 3. Communicate doesn’t mean micro-manage. The flip side is the mom who is hyper-vigilant and second-guesses every decision, monitoring every meal and activity. I know a mom who was critical because dad ate out at restaurants too much. Give yourself permission to let go of the small stuff.When my daughter was younger, she was on a soccer team but was tired of going to practices. She was at my house and was supposed to be picked up in the carpool. What I didn’t realize is that she texted her friend and said she wasn’t going to practice, and then she left the house and re-entered through the egress window in the basement. I found her hiding out in the basement. It was a relief to be able to call her dad and have a unified approach to dealing with honesty, and to also re-assess soccer as an activity for her. Unless there are domestic violence issues, do whatever you can to nurture a parent partnership. Let go of competition with dad. Let go of anger towards dad. Let go of perfection. Trust me, life is so much better, for your kids and for you, when you have a co-parent.
Compassion overruled a machine gun this week. The actions of one courageous school clerk at a Georgia elementary school saved countless lives. The skills she demonstrated in convincing a desperate man to put down his weapons can teach all of us how to resolve conflicts.
Most of us will (thankfully) never face a conflict as intense as Antoinette Tuff. Tuff is the school office worker at Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy whose actions on Tuesday stopped a shooter armed with a machine gun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. On the 911 recording that was released, we can hear the remarkable way Tuff worked with the gunman. Three things stood out to me as valuable skills for peacefully resolving conflict.
Connection.
Tuff talked with the shooter, and connected with him. She stayed calm, and worked to understand what was happening for him and what he needed. When the shooter steps outside at the beginning and fires at police, she could have run or hidden. But she stayed and kept working with him. She relays messages to the 911 dispatcher and asks the shooter respectfully, “Now what did you want me to tell her, sir?” I imagine he felt understood and respected by Tuff, which calmed him down.
Vulnerability.
Tuff was willing to open up and share her own stories of struggling in life. She told him how she had gone through a difficult divorce and had even been suicidal before. She offered him hope by letting him know that she made it through her difficult times. Her willingness to be vulnerable deepened the trust she created with the gunman.
Compassion.
As the time goes on and she learns more about the gunman’s struggles, she shifts into a more nurturing mode and even uses terms of affection with him. She reassures him that he hasn’t hurt anyone and he is doing the right thing by putting down his gun and surrendering. Her compassion is breathtaking: “We’re not going to hate you baby. Its a good thing that you’re giving up so we’re not going to hate you. . . . It’s gonna be all right, sweetie. I just want you to know that I love you, though, OK? And I’m proud of you. That’s a good thing. You’ve just given up. Don’t worry about it.”
If Tuff can do those things when faced with a gun, then the rest of us can do the same in much more mundane situations. These are the skills we work to develop with our clients in Collaborative divorce practice. Divorce can bring out high conflict, but it doesn’t have to lead to emotional destruction. Following Tuff’s lead can bring peace. 
At the beginning of a divorce, you have to choose which path to take. I think of this choice every time I see this sign in Arizona, where Bloody Basin Road is one direction, and Tranquil Trail goes the opposite way. It’s much like the choice at the beginning of a divorce.
I once met a woman who had gone through a highly-contested divorce, followed by 3 years of court battles after the divorce was final. Her story is a cautionary tale of what happens when decisions at the beginning are made out of fear.
Her divorce began when her husband came home on a Friday and announced that he had fallen in love with someone else and wanted a divorce. He packed a bag and moved out of the house. She was shocked, hurt, angry and scared. She was a stay-at-home mom, and she didn’t know how she would be able to take care of herself financially.
When she called her family, they reacted out of fear: “You better move money out of your joint bank account before he cleans it out, and you’re left with nothing.” Panic kicked in, so she went to a bank first thing Saturday morning to open a new individual account with their joint funds. And she decided her best move was to hire an aggressive litigator who would fight to protect her.
Her husband found out on Monday that she moved their money out of the joint account. He was shocked, hurt, angry – and also scared. “How could she do this? I have always provided for this family, and she made a unilateral decision to take our savings. She is going to take me for everything I have in this divorce. “ And he decided his best move was to hire an aggressive litigator who would fight to protect him.
Once they lawyered up, they were off to the races, tearing down Bloody Basin Road. They each spent several hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. I wonder: How protected did they feel? How protected did their children feel?
I also wonder how this might have been different. What if they didn’t stake out their fear-based positions at the outset? Imagine if they had attorneys trained in collaborative practice who could say, “Slow down. Let’s keep the status quo with your finances and give you both a chance to understand your options before anyone starts taking action.” Imagine if they had a divorce coach who could help them focus on their long-term goals for the family. Imagine if they had a child specialist who could keep them focused on how to support their children, rather than tearing each other apart. I believe they would have had a better chance of actually protecting themselves if they had used a collaborative process to manage the fear and conflict. They might have been able to drive down Tranquil Trail. 
I know somebody payin’ child support for one of his kids His baby momma’s car crib is bigger than his You will see him on TV, any given Sunday Win the Superbowl and drive off in a Hyundai She was supposed to buy ya shorty Tyco with ya money She went to the doctor got lipo with ya money
When parents are willing to step outside the courtroom to solve the issue of supporting their children, they can create custom solutions that minimize fighting. In the collaborative divorce process, we ask our families to put together budgets and we separate the children’s expenses. What are the actual expenses for your children? Things such as summer camps, sports, tutoring, clothing, cell phones,and driving lessons. Once parents have a clear picture of what the expenses are, they can talk about how to pay for these expenses. One creative solution many of our clients adopt is an account for the children’s expenses. The parents designate a joint account, decide how to fund the account and how to handle payments from the account. So when Susie is at mom’s house and says she needs to bring a check for school lunches, mom can write a check from the joint account. When dad takes Billy shopping for new soccer cleats, he can pay with a debit card from the joint account. The parents can talk about the actual expenses and revise their budget as the needs of their children change. And no one is taking child support to get plastic surgery like in Kanye’s song.
Image courtesy of photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
When it comes to co-parenting after divorce, the best parenting plan is the one you never have to use.
Creating the parenting plan is perhaps the most important part of your collaborative divorce process. But if you put the time and energy into creating a complete plan, you will lay the foundation for good communication and have the flexibility to work with your former spouse as your children’s needs change in the future. The habits of good co-parenting will be ingrained and will be second nature.
Minnesota law permits parents to avoid the labels of legal and physical custody if they have a parenting plan that spells out the important aspects of parenting. In collaborative divorce, parents frequently choose to use a child specialist who can help them develop a thoughtful parenting plan that is tailored to their family. Parenting plans typically include:
- the schedule of how the children will divide their time between the parents;
- how the parents will communicate about their children;
- how the parents will make important decisions related to their children, such as schools, activities, and religion;
- how the parents will handle child care and medical care;
- how the parents will handle contact with the extended family;
- how the parents will introduce the children to new partners.