Getting Divorced? It's Time for Change

What do you think of when you think of divorce? For most people, the words that come to mind are—ugly, unpleasant, expensive, stressful, scary, emotional, painful, etc. By changing the way we think about divorce, we will change the way we do divorce—and we will do it better.

MY STORY

Like many of you, I have my own story that helps me know the truth of why just changing our thinking about divorce can help us go through it more gracefully. My divorce wasn't as bad as some you hear about, but it was still difficult emotionally and financially. For most people going through a divorce, there is a period of what I call "personal insanity." That's the cycle that feels like a wild and crazy roller coaster ride, where one minute you think the ride is over and you're ready to get off, and you've just about caught your breath, and the next minute you're back in the loops and curves, screaming your lungs out.

I wasn't prepared for that roller coaster ride or my crazy and fearful thinking during that time, and I definitely wasn't very good at protecting my children from my personal insanity during all the chaos. To this day, I have regrets about the way I handled myself at times. My intention was always to put my children's needs first, but that didn't always happen. I did it better at some times than at others. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done it better (hopefully!), and my children would have been spared some of my ups and downs. I hope this information will help you do it better. If you can at least recognize that it is a crazy time, then you can be intentional about when and how you choose to release and act upon those crazy feelings. Ideally, you will save it for when the children are not around.

As I write this, I'm reminded of the first time I tried to quit smoking after smoking for fifteen years. What a shocking experience! Like the roller coaster ride of divorce, I was not prepared for how hard it would be. I had not informed myself about what to expect. I thought I could just get up one day and decide not to smoke. Boy, was I wrong. It didn't work that way. I felt like I'd lost my best friend. I thought I was going crazy. I cried. After a few days, I gave up. If you've ever tried to break an addiction, I'm sure you can relate to this.

Soon after I educated myself about what to expect and made a plan, I was eventually able to succeed. It was still hard, but I was able to do it because I knew what to expect and had a plan to follow when things got tough. It's the same idea here. Informing yourself about the process and your choices and making a plan for yourself will help you do it better. It will still be hard, but it will be nothing compared to the experience of moving forward blindly.

Following my separation and divorce, I found myself in the same situation as many divorced women. My standard of living took a dive, and I needed to make more money. I had been home with my children until they started school and had worked only part-time. I had taught high school, but I didn't want to go back to teaching. So I began to look at graduate school programs. I wanted to do something that would allow me to make a decent income so I could support my children and myself and that would also give me the freedom I needed to be available to them.

For some reason, law school seemed to be a fit for what I was looking for. That in itself was amazing to me, because I had worked for lawyers, had been married to a lawyer, and had even been known to say, "I would never want to be a lawyer!" But there was a voice in my head that kept pushing me to check it out. I thought that maybe if I were a lawyer, I could help people through their divorces in a more graceful and positive way, and perhaps doing so would even heal some of my wounds.

I perceived a huge need for compassionate and psychologically savvy lawyers to help people deal with the unpredictability and emotional intensity of the divorce process. So that's what I did. I applied to one school only. I figured if I got in, then it was meant to be. If not, then I needed to move on to something else.

I was accepted and started law school at the age of thirty-seven, with two young children at home, ages ten and seven. Once I started taking family law classes, I knew this was the area that most interested me. Family law was a critical area where change was needed and also where I felt I could make a difference. After reading case after case, it was profoundly clear that "the law" did not address the real needs of families when they were in crisis, whether it was divorce, custody, support, domestic violence, or parental termination. It was also profoundly clear that the legal system simply was not designed to deal with the intensely emotional and psychological issues of families in crisis. I knew there had to be a better way.

IT'S TIME FOR CHANGE

What we know for sure is that divorce impacts our society in many ways. The negative consequences of divorce are well known and documented, and the toll this takes on families is too complicated even to measure. I believe that if people knew better, they would do better. I believe people would not do the things I've seen them do to each other, to their children, and in the presence of their children if they truly understood the long-term damaging effects of their behavior.

One of the problems is that our legal system provides a legal solution to something that is only partially a legal problem. Ending a marriage is a complicated process. The legal piece is the easy part. Dealing with the emotional, financial, and social ramifications are the bigger pieces. Recognizing this truth is...