I remember hearing Diane Sawyer once say that “Every marriage is a foreign country.” I could not agree more. When I look around at all of my married friends and family members, the elements that shape the basis of each relationship and make it “tick” are so completely unique to each couple. It is this uniqueness that makes the concept of formally ending marriages within a uniformly structured legal system so challenging.
That legal system can send you over your own “fiscal cliff” while also wreaking havoc in every other aspect of your life and your children’s lives.
Deciding to divorce is usually not a decision that we make in one day, one week, or even one year’s time. Rather, it is more likely to be the culmination of the slow and extremely painful process of acknowledging that the partnership, the “happily ever after”, was just not meant to be. Or perhaps one partner came to this decision alone, with the other being forced to accept it. Regardless of who initiated the decision, the outcome remains the same. The journey to this point has been painful enough, therefore the choices a potential client faces of how to get to the other side should not be one that prolongs the pain any longer than necessary or creates new emotional or financial damage.
When embarking upon the traditional divorce process, one thing that no one tells you about is the huge time commitment you are making. We think that in order to protect ourselves, we are supposed to immediately run out and hire an attorney and file for divorce in the Court. Under certain circumstances this is true. If your spouse is potentially dangerous to the safety of you or your children, then the Court is where you need to be. If your spouse is a control freak and completely unreasonable it is unlikely that mediation or the Collaborative process will work for you. The misguided notion that initially filing for divorce in the Court will get your divorce through quicker couldn’t be further from the truth. If there is any chance that you and your spouse can work together (with professional assistance), and can create your own settlement, it is truly in your best interest to do that. In my experience, unless it is absolutely necessary to go there, the Court should be avoided at all costs. Being a veteran of the Westchester Court system in my own protracted and contentious divorce of 5+ years, I know firsthand how awful it is. Even in the most amicable of circumstances, the adversarial nature of the system can quickly turn things down an ugly path over the most absurd issues.
Litigating a divorce through the Court system is like taking on another full-time job. There are countless meetings, phone calls, and emails with your attorney. Add multiple four-way meetings with your spouse’s attorney, time with Court-appointed experts, Court dates, all with weeks and months in between them. The amount of paperwork for the financial and personal information you will have to provide for Discovery can be crushing. I used to spend entire weekends either organizing financial documents or at the copier in the Fed Ex store. There are endless hours of reading and responding to documents. I could go on and on. You will be doing all of this while you are trying to perform your regular full-time job and/or taking care of your family. Oh, and you might likely still be living together through all of this until the marital home can be sold. It is not uncommon for a litigated divorce in the Westchester Supreme Court to take two years from start to finish if you are not able to settle out of court. YEARS go by while your life hangs in limbo. Litigation costs will very quickly send you off your own personal ”fiscal cliff” only to end up with a settlement you likely could have worked out between yourselves long ago or leave you in a much worse place, because you put the decisions in the hands of a stranger and a process that doesn’t work. In the end, nobody wins, especially not the kids.
Being able to make an Agreement that fairly divides marital assets, settles custody issues, and manages potentially contentious issues of the relationship going forward is a goal that the traditional divorce process simply cannot accomplish without serious collateral damage. You will quickly tire of people telling you that you just need to get on with your life. They aren’t wrong, but they probably haven’t been divorced either. Besides needing to adjust to your life without your spouse, it is impossible to get on with your life in a system that doesn’t allow you to because of its basic inefficient and severely combative nature. However, the traditional system does an excellent job destroying whatever healthy aspects of the relationship that might have remained.
So, wouldn’t it be so much better if you got to decide how long your divorce was going to take and decide what your lives will look like post-divorce? Hammering out a Separation Agreement is no easy task. But no one else can possibly know all of the intricacies and nuances of your life with your spouse and your children better than you, with the help of a divorce mediator or your collaborative lawyer. A mediated or Collaborative Divorce process allows you to choose your own destiny, create your own future, and preserve precious financial resources for your new life. Whatever you decide, we are here to help.
by Karen Pentz, Paralegal
Law Office of Arnold D. Cribari
