How complicated is divorce, really?

Posted on December 22nd, 2011

Among too many uncritically examined “givens” you’ll hear bandied about the courthouse as truth, I’ll note the following.

Every family situation is unique. No judge could decide better than the married spouses themselves what’s best in organizing their separation in divorce than they are, themselves.

Or—

Believe me: You’re really not gonna like it if you force the court to decide this (that, or the other question) in your divorce.

It’s a foundation upon which the so-called mediation movement is built. And, invariably, the cadre of professional practitioners, seemingly sprung-up in service to it.

Problem is, “consumers” of divorce (ie, you and me: The folks whose marriages have hit the skids) are never accountably given to understand just why this is so. Shown the data. Objectively.

What, exactly, is it that makes the allocation of debt, parenting time, and the house so different for Mr and Mrs Smith, as opposed to Mr and Mrs Jones? By what order of magnitude does it differ? You know: Are we talking huge risks of inequity, like failing to Continue reading →

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“How To ‘Not’ Use Social Media” when divorcing

Posted on December 13th, 2011

“Dating After Divorce: How To Not Use Social Media,” is the title of a piece by “comedian” Juliet Jeske on the Huffington Post.

After two introductory paragraphs, Ms Jeske gets down to it with 10 points she recommends be followed. Then closes with this bit of wisdom.

You are bound to be slightly insane after a divorce, and you are better off not making matters worse by publicly pulling everyone else into your drama.

Nicely prescient, as I’ll discuss further in a moment. So much so, that I am not going to use her example as one to be followed by my own readers.

This isn’t so much because her list fails to provide anything new. That can be forgiven. Rather, because her writing strikes me as little more than an exploitive vehicle through which she is giving herself permission to indulge in so much of that which she claims to advocate against.

By her third sentences, she regrets having acted as she tells others they should not — “but not completely.” Why? you may ask. No need: Her run-on sentence goes on to say that she was “mad, extremely mad at my husband who had been…” blah, blah, blah.

All in service to what most assuredly justifies her perpetuating “I was 100% right and he was 100% wrong” story.

But wait! there’s more.

I had nine years of sacrifice and struggle to keep a relationship together Continue reading →

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Divorce, municipalities, and customer service

Posted on December 7th, 2011

In case I haven’t made it clear in the past, I’m not in favor of a “get it over and move on” mentality for divorce.

That’s not the same as advocating a paternalistic, we know better imposition of value-based process on married couples looking to separate, of course. Nor condoning disrespect or institutionalized inefficiences rationalized by the notion that spouse who can’t make it work with one another somehow deserve mistreatment.

Unfortunately, this is too often exactly the situation couples experience in municipal service delivery when it comes to divorce.

Earlier this month, efficiency and courtesy in the Norfolk, Virginia, Circuit Court actually made news for being just the opposite of such things.

“A courthouse should serve its public,” read the open to one paragraph in the Virginian-Pilot article we’re talking about here.

Duh—?

It goes on to note that “benefits accrue from a system that handles divorce cases efficiently.” Not that that is in and of itself unique. There’s all sorts of talk of streamlining caseloads and moving things along more expediciously. And God knows the word “efficiently” sells.

Problem is, too many of the Continue reading →

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Employers providing divorce expense reimbursements

Posted on November 26th, 2011

Increasingly, small businesses are “offering to help key staff pay their divorce bills in an attempt to retain valued personnel.”

This, according to the Financial Times of London, last Friday.

One of the more personally fascinating aspects of divorce for me is its greatly underestimated impact on employee productivity. I’ve often thought that if employers bothered to consider and measure the toll of workers’ marital challenges on their company bottom-lines, they’d be more proactive with offers of assistance.

And, you know: Sympathy. Surely, that, too.

The Financial Times piece talks in terms of an 18-month window from onset to Judgment of Divorce, for “more bitterly contested” cases. That, of course, is the cliché. Consider lead-up and recovery, and the real number becomes a multiple of that.

We’re not just talking declines in piece-production output here, involving blue collar workers, either.

Article author Jonathan Moules quotes one divorce lawyer in saying that “divorce can have a significant impact on Continue reading →

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Tennessee Supreme Court shapes alimony decisions?

Posted on June 6th, 2011

You’ve gotta read beyond some of the unfortunately sensationalistic lead-in copy here to get at what’s being debated.

In an article appearing in The Tennessean last Friday, reporter Brandon Gee eventually gets around to summarizing the two positions.

  1. Is the purpose of spousal support to maintain marital lifestyle according to some adjusted (according to what?) standard post-divorce?
  2. Or is it a bridging mechanism, intended to “rehabilitate” or foster rehabilitation of as spouse through transition from that of married to single adult?

That the one spouse makes $72,000 and the other $132,000 is perhaps what took the question this far. And, like the OJ trials, lower courts have ruled both ways. Take your pick going into the final round, then, before the Supreme Court for the State of Tennessee.

Alimony, er, I mean “spousal support,” is Continue reading →

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