Dealing with Divorce Catch-All

Yesterday was really, really challenging. Never celebrated the stupid garbage holiday, but being surrounded by people out and about and in love f*cking hurts.

Yes.. I also had a terribly rough night, as I'm sure some noticed

Yeah, the 'you are only a real person if you are part of a couple' feels that go on during the holidays like V day are a pain and obnoxious.

Spoiler:

Which brings me back to your vent Dakuna, it sounds like you're searching for a relationship but ... at least to my unempathic read ... sounds like you may want to work out fixing how you feel about yourself first. In my case I felt that I needed a relationship to be happy; what I've come to terms with since my last break up (still not finalized the last divorce after many years, see the ex on a weekly basis because we have a child together) is that before I want to go into another one, if I want to go into another one, first of all I need to fix me; and work out any feeling of self hate and at least identify pieces missing within myself before I muddy the waters with someone else and their feelings/emotions. If drinking and drugs help you get through the day in the short term, knock yourself out; but after spending years in the financial industry in London in the heady 80s and 90s I have a ton of friends who destroyed their successful careers when drink, drugs or both turned from something to occasionally take the edge off, to a habit ... so please, be careful.

I've been out of the house now for a little over a month. I chose to be the one that left the house because it was my decision to end the relationship. As such, I haven't seen the kids nearly as much as I'd like. I want to keep it equitable, and help out with the kids and drive them to their three different schools, etc. This is extra hard because when I came to the house, I would get drawn into a "discussion" where we end up spending hours going back and forth over the same old stuff. We fall back into the same destructive patterns that led up to my deciding to leave in the first place. This triggers a panic attack and I end up leaving. I've never had panic attacks before all of this.

Now she's accusing me of abandoning the kids. So we tried a thing where I stay there for 3 days during the week and she goes to a friends house. That was fine for me. She ends up arguing with her friend and then decided she can't do that. I suggested she stay at her father's house, which is less than a mile from us. She doesn't want to do that, because it's not restful.

So I end up staying at HER father's house. The entire time I'm there he likes to tell me, "You know, you're going to lose a lot of money if you get a divorce. I'm praying for you. You don't want to lose all that money, do you?"

sigh. I tried to explain to her that it's not restful for me either. But, again, since I'm the one that cut it off, I don't feel I have a leg to stand on. So for the time being, I watch the kids 2-3 times during the week, and go to my father-in-laws house once he is asleep. My wife is in the house when I'm there, but sequesters herself in the bedroom, so it's really just me with and the kids with her presence looming upstairs.

At least we don't get into the discussions while I'm there.

In another post I'll describe our first bout of Couples Therapy. Boy, that was crazy.

Was informed by my attorney that everything was finalized yesterday. Depressing timing, but I think I'm ok.

Good points ShynDarkly, I hear you cleary. The part about ditching the self-hate .. I really need to think on that. Also, defining myself by my relationship status. I realized while reading your comments that this is something I have done for decades. That has to go. Ugh its really dusty in here.

Yikes, Toddland. Hang in there, that sounds very stressful.

Beuks33 wrote:

Was informed by my attorney that everything was finalized yesterday. Depressing timing, but I think I'm ok.

All the feels. For what it's worth, I'm jealous, despite knowing how hard it will be when I get to it finally.

Best thoughts for all of you.

d4m0, I think the Feb date is good opportunity for your son to have his say via his own counsel. If you agree then speak to your lawyer about how to start the process of tripartite discussions. Probably necessary in the longer run than just trying to maintain status quo and going for the contempt proceedings.

Toddland, seeing the kids in the home is not sustainable. You'll need to establish a changeover regime and it's better for everyone you take them elsewhere. Eventually you'll want to have them over with you overnight but I can't recall your exact circumstances and their ages. Suggest you start the process of setting out the arrangements eg kids pack a small bag for the outing (devices, spare clothes etc) in advance, you park in the driveway and they come out to your car etc. Ideally if you're facing confrontations then you shouldn't meet with her at all during the changeovers.

Beuks33 wrote:

Was informed by my attorney that everything was finalized yesterday. Depressing timing, but I think I'm ok.

That was a tough time for me as well. Such a business transaction. We did ours without a lawyer and I found out by getting a piece of mail in the mailbox. Seems so impersonal for such a deeply personal thing. Still remember that feeling from many years ago. Glad you are ok... gets easier with time but you never really forget.

Bfgp wrote:

d4m0, I think the Feb date is good opportunity for your son to have his say via his own counsel. If you agree then speak to your lawyer about how to start the process of tripartite discussions. Probably necessary in the longer run than just trying to maintain status quo and going for the contempt proceedings.

Thanks Bfgp. There have been a couple developments since my last post. My ex (predictably) did not pay her share of the fee for the appointment of a lawyer to our son before the deadline they set, so the judge actually had the court date pushed back. I just found out this morning that the new date is at the end of April, so that's another couple months of my son hating everything and none of us knowing what's going to happen to the custody schedule (among other things). I also found out that the ex did finally pay her portion, so a lawyer has been appointed. I hope to hear from that person by next week.

I have informed my own lawyer that I'd like to try for essentially full custody with every other weekend visitations for the ex. My lawyer said we should wait to hear from my son's lawyer about what he said and make a strategy of some kind based on that. Seems like a good idea to me. Since I basically already know what my son is going to say to his lawyer, I think we'll be going for it. We'll see how it goes.

Toddland, I'm totally with Bfgp - establishing a changeover routine has to be the best way. In my experience it will make everything easier. If you keep going to that house and staying there is no way things will move on and the kids will just end up more and more confused about what is happening. Also, just because you are the one that cut it off it doesn't mean you have to suffer in some way (oh man staying at her father's house, wow!). Looks like you're in San Francisco, which I know is unimaginably expensive, but is there any way you can afford an apartment of some kind close by? I hate to say it, but after leaving my ex, I ended up having to move back in with my parents, into their basement, at the age of 30. It sure wasn't ideal, but it was still massively better than staying with the ex. I'm lucky though too that my parents lived close by and we get along really well.

I also agreed to go to couple's therapy with my ex in the months after I left her. It was an unmitigated disaster, and after going through two separate therapists and maybe 4 or 5 appointments I said I was done. It just always turned into the ex yelling things at me, and then the ex yelling at the therapist any time they tried to get her to take some kind of responsibility and look at herself for these problems. You said yours was crazy, but I hope it at least wasn't as bad as what I had to endure.

Dakuna wrote:

Good points ShynDarkly, I hear you cleary. The part about ditching the self-hate .. I really need to think on that. Also, defining myself by my relationship status. I realized while reading your comments that this is something I have done for decades. That has to go. Ugh its really dusty in here.

I would suggest you start attending a co-dependence meeting in your area. They exist just not as popular as NA or AA but I found them very helpful when I was trying to build boundaries and move on from my ex-wife. The sooner you can complete separate your life the better things will become. I guarantee this!!

For the addiction you should probably also go to NA meetings (the more the better). Idle time is your enemy.

Unanticipated consequence of separation: loneliness! It makes sense, but for some reason I didn't think about that. I'm currently staying with my mother until I find work and can afford (heh, it's the Bay Area) rent for an apartment. My job shut down at the end of last year. Over the years my wife and I became more insular, and most of my friends have moved away or domesticated themselves into situations where they no longer can hang out. I used to do game nights, movie nights etc. Now, I just kind of sit there wishing I had friends to go and do things with. It doesn't help that my mother is home all day watching MSNBC and getting more and more angry at the current administration.

I spend about half the week helping out with the kids, at least, and things are getting much easier with my wife. We are both making pretty good progress in counseling. She has really made an effort to work on her communication skills. I've been trying out some of the stuff the therapist has suggested with my mother, who I still have issues with, but that's been falling flat. I really need my own place.

My wife and I have been talking about settling our affairs ourself and going with a single lawyer to help with the divorce. She's got a line on a house to rent for a great price that would put the kids in a great school district, and give them a back yard. I can get our condo ready to rent, or we can sell it and split the cash. It's in silicon valley, so either way we would be coming out ahead of the game. The last remaining bit is both of us finding work.

Sounds like good progress! On the loneliness front, yeah it sucks. In my case as I moved countries as part of the marriage, so pretty much all of my friends here were hers or her family; both camps have been super supportive and still invite me along to things, but it's very uncomfortable so I rarely take them up on it.

All I can suggest is dive into your interests and see if there are local communities involved in similar; it does get easier, apparently. Me, I took to MMOs. Not healthy, or really social, but the presence of other beings in the same virtual world takes the edge off, for me anyways.

Ugh. The loneliness is hard. I'm no introvert, but I do .. struggle with strangers. This is why I sometimes go to bed at 5pm and read bit. Then I fall asleep and wake up at 3am and .. play video games or read.

Lately I mostly live for work and a girl I'm sort of seeing. I have friends, but as Toddland is experiencing, most of them are pretty domesticated and unavailable.

Toddland, if you are amicable, the single lawyer thing is amazing. I did that, but I also don't have children, and I'm so glad my ex and I are still on super positive terms.

If you can swing it, single lawyer is definitely the way to go. Kids make it more difficult, but somehow me and the ex made it work.

Uh quickly chiming in as the lawyer, it's good to see parents who come in together with a lower degree of animosity but bear in mind a lawyer can only take one side as a client due to the inherent conflict of interest. This poses a real problem when, say, there are special factors which mean the lawyer advocates alterations to the benefit of one side which naturally is to the detriment of the other.

To keep costs down though, what I'd suggest is threshing out as much agreed terms between yourselves and then one side initiates the process of getting a lawyer to draft the paperwork. That paperwork is given to the other side who then engages a lawyer to double check it firstly achieves what is intended and secondly is a fair and equitable outcome. The first lawyer can and is usually happy to suggest a colleague at another firm who they know is going to do a proper job with assessing the merits of the case who won't just run up costs for the sake of it. I have colleagues with whom we send each other conflict work because we know we won't be silly arguing for the sake of arguing.

This process is extremely important in cases involving co-parenting because it's the most fertile ground for ongoing disputes post-separation. Double checking changeover arrangements, parental responsibility, holiday arrangements etc, should all be vetted before filing the application to finalise the case by consent orders.

I think the idea of using a single lawyer is that they don't take either side, just make sure that everything is accounted for and in proper legal order. If you get to a disagreement where sides become a thing, then yes, having a single lawyer is a bad idea unless their stance is always going to be "let me know when you've come to an agreement and I'll write it up"

Stengah wrote:

I think the idea of using a single lawyer is that they don't take either side, just make sure that everything is accounted for and in proper legal order. If you get to a disagreement where sides become a thing, then yes, having a single lawyer is a bad idea unless their stance is always going to be "let me know when you've come to an agreement and I'll write it up"

At least in Ontario, Canada, this is not possible. One side has to waive their right to a lawyer and sign off it themselves. The lawyer can only represent one side.

Mmm, it's an inherent conflict of interest because we have a duty to act in the best interests of our client, and couples separating are naturally in opposition to each other, whether or not the degree of animosity is high. I mean, it does happen where both come in, you take one as your client, the other chooses not to get a lawyer and signs it themselves certifying they were given the opportunity to seek independent legal advice but chose not to take it. It's a matter for each person to determine whether they seek that advice or not. But strictly speaking I cannot see any lawyer taking on both husband and wife at the same time, that's automatic grounds for being struck off the roll as a lawyer here.

I'm sure laws are different in other states/countries but here in Washington we were able to divorce without any lawyers at all, since we worked out custody and everything ourselves and agreed. The courthouse has a facilitator that helped us get the proper paperwork to fill out. I think the total cost of our divorce was roughly $ 450 in court fees.

AcidCat wrote:

I'm sure laws are different in other states/countries but here in Washington we were able to divorce without any lawyers at all, since we worked out custody and everything ourselves and agreed. The courthouse has a facilitator that helped us get the proper paperwork to fill out. I think the total cost of our divorce was roughly $ 450 in court fees.

You can do that here in Canada (Ontario) too, but nobody really recommends that.

Instead of a lawyer you could go the mediator route, which is what we originally did. A mediator by definition works for both people, as opposed to a lawyer. Our mediator even drafted the "official" agreement that was to be submitted at the courthouse. Of course, at the end the person also told each of us to get our own individual lawyers to spend a small amount of time going over the agreement to make sure there's nothing glaringly stupid or ambiguous in there.

Having a lawyer just look at an already-done agreement is far less money than having a lawyer for your entire case (can confirm that through current personal experience). Of course, mediators can be expensive too, but still less than a lawyer, and if you already agree on basically everything it'll be very fast anyway.

Hmm, mediation through an economic community justice centre is certainly an option but not always appropriate, as a mediator's role is to facilitate a compromise, not to advocate in a party's best interests. It's like anything, you have to pick the right tool for the job. Worth engaging in mediation where compromise is mostly achieved and you just want someone to help bridge the final gap and draft the documentation.

Bfgp wrote:

Hmm, mediation through an economic community justice centre is certainly an option but not always appropriate, as a mediator's role is to facilitate a compromise, not to advocate in a party's best interests. It's like anything, you have to pick the right tool for the job. Worth engaging in mediation where compromise is mostly achieved and you just want someone to help bridge the final gap and draft the documentation.

Sounds like this is one of those cases, no? Are you being too lawyerly to actually support this idea?

Folks lawyers are good.
The law is gross and vast and we are but novices.

Dakuna wrote:
Bfgp wrote:

Hmm, mediation through an economic community justice centre is certainly an option but not always appropriate, as a mediator's role is to facilitate a compromise, not to advocate in a party's best interests. It's like anything, you have to pick the right tool for the job. Worth engaging in mediation where compromise is mostly achieved and you just want someone to help bridge the final gap and draft the documentation.

Sounds like this is one of those cases, no? Are you being too lawyerly to actually support this idea? :)

I believe the range of needs falls in a spectrum. Each person's needs is highly different. A lawyer would be far more beneficial in situations where people feel they aren't getting their needs met. My ex and I figured out our agreement on our own. Took compromise and some tense conversations. We were mutually agreeable to our conclusions and it worked for us to move along. Ultimately a divorce is a financial separation agreement with varied levels of emotional attachment. If you both agree on the financial separation, it becomes pretty easy. Kids obviously complicate it and strong agreements should be in place for these situations. When it is just 2 involved, it can be fairly clean if you can set the ground rules and determine the equitable splitting of assets. Mileage varies by relationship.

Yeah, basically, what tundra said. And what boogle said.

To give you more context, typically by the time someone comes to see me in the context of a separation they're in a highly contested separation whether it's money or children. That's not to say I don't work on amicable separations, because I certainly come across straightforward cases more frequently than the messy ones. Put another way, people are, generally, able to reach a compromise. And that's a good thing because our legal system couldn't cope with people fighting over little things. It's to the point that anything under $1m is considered a small case by our Family Court judges.

But given my role is not just to reach a compromise i.e. I still have a duty to act in the best interests of the client bounded by my duties as an officer of the court, I will naturally be inclined to advocate for some changes if I think it's supported by the facts and the law applied to those facts. I'm a little sceptical about mediation in community justice centres but this may be due to how infrequently I am exposed to it. But that's natural given the couples that use it successfully tend not to use a lawyer. That probably skews my perspective because then the clients that come to me are most likely ones who have tried the process unsuccessfully or are in such complicated or less than amicable separations which are predisposed to fail to resolve at mediation.

It's nobodies fault the law is complex. People and circumstances are complex. I had a case a few months ago where a couple had reached an amicable settlement and did their own paperwork but the court rejected it and sent them to lawyers to draw up the papers and told them to get advice because the agreement appeared to be inequitable to the wife. My colleague had the husband's case and referred the wife to me. Notwithstanding they had a compromise, I still had my job to do with investigating their circumstances to see why the court was not prepared to approve their terms of settlement. We swiftly negotiated an increased amount for the wife, documented their circumstances in explanation to the court, sent it back into court and subsequently it was approved with no other complications. In a case like that, the Family Court was expecting intervention by lawyers to ensure an appropriate outcome was achieved. They could do that because that's precisely the role of a lawyer as officers of the court; we have privilege but also duties that come with it.

Tldr; lawyers shouldn't be avoided. We serve a function. That function is not always necessary but if in doubt then you're probably best served coming to see a lawyer. My biggest hint is to speak to a lawyer who doesn't practice in family law first and ask them to refer two or more colleagues that do the work. As a profession, we know who will do a good job vs those that either don't know what they're doing or are motivated by greed.

Totally agree Bfgp. Lawyers should definitely not be avoided, and I think your thought on mediation and why you're likely skeptical about it is right on. In my situation, we did the mediation originally and it worked for us well and saved me hundreds, or probably thousands of dollars, but that was almost 10 years ago now. With what happened back in December and over the last few months, you bet your ass I went straight to my lawyer. The time that we agreed on just about everything has long passed, and having someone that is a total advocate for me is now a requirement. When we had that court date in January, it would have probably gone much differently if I didn't have a lawyer there to represent me. So I guess what I'm saying is that even in a specific situation, that need can change over time.

Thank you all for your advice and feedback. I'm continuing to feel out the situation, but will go into it with my eyes open. I have a friend that clerks for a lawyer that works in family law, so I'm also getting input from them.