If you ask anyone who has experienced a divorce, they will tell you it was one of the worst experiences in their entire lives. Fighting over kids and money brings out the very worst in people. They can be vicious enough on their own, but attorneys are highly successful in making the situation much worse. If you had to look back over your divorce experience, you wonder if you really fared any better by having your attorney fight for you. Forty thousand dollars later, you find yourself with no savings, paying off debt and certainly not enough money to support yourself and your kids. If only you both could have worked it out civilly, perhaps with a mediator, you might be further along than you are now.
When I was going through my divorce, my lawyer would send me paperwork for approval that included inflamed language and exaggerations. I did not want him to make terrible things up against my ex and would edit the paperwork to correct the inaccuracies in the story. But this would happen time and time again, every time he prepared something for the court. He was not fighting for me about my situation, which was troubling enough since my ex was playing games with the kids and money; he was creating a story that portrayed my ex as far worse than he was. In the end, it did not matter. Perhaps the judge was accustomed to hearing inflamed stories. My ex got away with hiding money and everything else he did and we probably went through $90,000 between the two of us.
In hindsight, the legal system isn’t designed to be fair, and the fight certainly wasn’t. No matter how hard you fight, in the end, you will have much less and endure much more stress if you are fighting your battle in court.
The worst part of the experience was the battle for custody because taking children from the mother entails portraying her as unfit and being subject to an investigation. It was a horrible experience and terrible for the kids to endure.
Unfortunately, there is not enough black and white information to prepare someone for the divorce process. Too much depends on the whim of the judge and success of the lies by the attorney.
Divorcing should be easier and less painful than it is. It should not be designed to line the pockets of attorneys who increase their bottom lines by fueling the fire. But, when you don’t understand your rights and are worn down by high emotions, you fall victim to the system.
The problem is not just the divorce process, but the entire legal system. Whether you win or lose, your attorney gets richer. They will fight until every asset runs dry. And then you must start from scratch and be happy with the peace you find in finally achieving a divorce.
If you can work through a divorce with a mediator, you can spare yourselves the time, money, stress and devastation of a court battle.