Divorce Is Not A Happy Event

If you take a look at the website of the IACP, a professional association of professionals involved the practice of what is called collaborative law or collaborative practice, you might get the idea that divorce is just dandy. At least to me it looks like they are saying that if you do it right divorce is just another step in your life.

Check it out for yourself if you like HERE. See if you get the same sense from the pictures and the text that I do.

If I just have a hang-up on the issue, post a comment and I'll reconsider.

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I am divorced and as far as I am concerned it was a failure. I do not think that one should expect to move through life without one's fair share of failures. I am trying to accept my failures as normal parts of life (which I believe they are.)

But, I do not accept the notion that we are in any way better off by papering over our failures, by saying that they aren't so bad really, by re-framing them as the first step to new and better things. They are markers along our life pathways from which we are intended to learn something.

I could probably cobble together a pretty convincing bunch of reasons why it was inevitable that my marriage would fail, reasons that it wasn't really my fault. They even might be mostly true, but PLEASE don't offer to wrap it up and tie a bow around it as a great learning experience. And don't institutionalize my excuses through your ad campaign. I am too good at excuses without any help from anyone else.

A few more of my limited thoughts on divorce can be found HERE.

Leave Divorce Out of It!?

Recently one author on the subject of saving your marriage, stopping divorce, etc (click here for more on this) noted that whatever you decide to try, from going to couple counseling to just talking about it to reading books, etc. will work a lot better if you take divorce off the table as one of your options.

Good idea. Glad to read someone else saying it.

Especially because when we are in the midst of relationship problems they seem so insoluble that "there must be something/someone better out there somewhere," (the seductive call of the sirens sitting on the rocks just waiting for a crack up if there ever was one.)

This is even more seductive for us in the over 50, over 60 set. Most likely there aren't children to think about and the end of the trail is getting more real, maybe for the first time in our lives. "I'd better do it now or never" is the classic distortion here.


Social scientists have known for decades that people whose parents were divorced are much more likely to get divorced themselves than those whose parents stayed together. (I can't remember the exact number, but I think it was by a factor of two or three!) Why? Because it feels like an option.


Even in the divorce business where there is a kind of divorce called Collaborative in which everyone works together to get the best possible settlement for everyone involved, the process requires that each party sign an agreement that they will not go to court. It has been likened to closing the gate of the corral or Hannibal putting his army ashore and then burning the boats leaving no way to go but forward.


Back doors don't lead to the best problem solving in marriage or in divorce apparently. Why not close and lock the back door while you're still married and seeking a solution so you don't have to do it to get the best dissolution?

Coping With Divorce Over 50

Coping with divorce at any age is no bed of roses. Once we're over 50 a new factor may come into our consciousness.

It is a biological clock ticking away. This time it isn't reserved for the ladies and about babies. It is all about us and it's telling us that our time is limited and our options are narrowing.

This is just as it should be in the overall scheme of things, but it can be pretty unnerving on a personal level.

The trick, of course, is to use it as focusing reality. There's lots to do and each of us can use the time we have or just lose it. Divorce at this age is very likely a distraction from important personal business in my present view. Maybe not. Any thoughts?

Divorce: Stay? or Go?

We're not going to live forever. Maybe it's time to give up on this marriage and enjoy what time we have left. Or, maybe we can keep this marriage and enjoy what time we have left. Or . . . ?

Bailing out and looking for a last chance better deal may sound logical and it may turn out to be right, but it is a decision that carries and incredible number of entanglements with it.

It makes sense find an orderly way to work through the decision and to know the options for working with what you have if you decide to stay and to do it right if you decide to go.

You might want to check out resources such as the downloadable "Should You Stay or Should You Go" by clicking here to help with how to go about it. Not only figuring what you should take into account, but how to go at it.

Retirement Is A New Deal For Relationships

One or both of you is home more now. That's great! Or is it?

Busy people can find lots of good reasons, lots of good ways, to never get around to dealing with things that bother them. Jobs, kids, maintenance. There hasn't been enough time for so long.

And, even though I read somewhere that in a recent poll over 70% of men between the ages of 28 to 40 said they would take a pay cut to have more time with their families, they don't have the time at those ages.

The chickens come home to roost sooner or later.

If it's sooner, somebody just walks out the door. In this age of no-fault divorce, that's pretty simple to do.

If it's later, it rears it's head with retirement or slowing down of one or both partners.

Don't be surprised. Don't be ashamed. It happens. .. . . . A lot.

Be ready. Take it as a new phase of your ongoing relationship cycle and wonder what new experiences lie ahead this time around the circle.

Divorce Is A Tough Deal At Best

No matter how you slice it or dice it, divorce is hard on everyone involved. Maybe it is the best that you can do, but don't get the idea that it is easy or a positive step forward as some divorce lawyers' webites would have you believe.

Before you talk to divorce lawyers or mediators, get yourself a course in the realities of getting divorced

• financial
  
• emotional
  
• children
  
• odds of getting right the second time.
  

Remember that they are in the business of getting you divorced, not saving marriages. Don't expect them to be able to answer questions that are rightly only answered by you. Should you divorce? Yours/What will it cost? Theirs/How will it affect your children? Yours/ etc.

It is a lot cheaper financially and emotionally to do everything you can to
save your marriage before you head for the lawyer's office.

And, let's not forget both the spiritual costs and opportunities afforded by this intensely personally challenging situation. There are excellent resources available to save your Christian marriage.

In one of my favorite quotes that is usually misquoted, Grantland Rice (a great sports writer from the 1930's) said: "When you meet that great scorekeeper in the sky, he will ask you not if you won or lost, but how you played the game."

Also, for those of you in the AARP age range, I have a growing website that talks about these kinds of things too www.Better-Relationships-Over-50.com/divorce.html. I don't purport to have all the answers (or even all the questions), but it is an honest attempt to put out some good stuff.

Divorce Busting and Divorce Is Not The Answer

I see that Michele Weiner-Davis has written a follow-up to Divorce Busting entitled Divorce Is Not The Answer which might explain why George Pransky re-issued his 1990 book Divorce Is Not The Answer and now calls the new version The Relationship Handbook.

Not a bad idea. A couple of other people also list Divorce Is Not The Answer as the title of their books on the web too. Just as well.

Hate to see Pransky giving up on his old title though. It hits the nail right on the head. He could have played around with something asking what the question is or something.

The theosophy angle on relationships is just interesting and off-beat enough that we need it.

Weiner-Davis's Solution Oriented Therapy based work is a bit off the conventional track too I guess. If more people get something that works, all the better.