16 Aug BLOG – FIVE THINGS NOT TO DO IN A DIVORCE

Divorce is a Rollercoaster of emotions

Due to our heightened emotional state, in a divorce situation, you are not in the best mindset to make rational decisions.

Divorce is one of the most stressful processes you can endure, regardless of having legal representation.  You may be facing dividing your family to potentially losing  your home and sometimes custody of your children, the divorce process inevitably results in an abundance of intense emotions that compound the difficulty of the divorce process.  Emotional turmoil very often leads you to make some common divorce mistakes that may end up hurting the outcome of your divorce as well as impacting your future for years to come

“You can come at it very aggressively and blame and blame and blame. Or you can put yourself in the garage, so to speak. Take yourself apart and clean off the bits. Reassemble,” 
Chris Martin

FIVE things you must not do in a DIVORCE

• Letting your emotions rule your actions and legal decisions
  Despair, frustration, anger, and a mountain of other intense emotions are at play during the divorce process. Seeing things clearly through a rational and logical perspective can be really challenging.  Particularly if you are trying to deal with matters related to your children, finance, and your home.  It is not uncommon for people to prolong their divorce due to emotional decisions taking preference over rational ones.  Ultimately prolonging a divorce can and does increase the financial divorce costs as well as prolonging the emotional fallout.  It’s a vicious circle, to be avoided.  If your spouse is a narcissist then emotional levels are sky high.  In a divorce situation, a narcissist is at the height of their manipulative ways.  They are out to ‘win’ at all costs.
• Lying in court documents and hiding assets.
  Whether you feel like your ex is being less than honest in their version of events and financial assets try at all costs to avoid being dishonest in court and in court documents. Do not hide or fail to disclose any marital assets. Some of the reasons that lying in court and hiding assets are serious divorce mistakes is that they can:
  • • Result of you losing important ground in your divorce case, a judge can even award costs to your ex.
    • Compromise any agreements or settlements that have already been made in your divorce case, as hiding assets or otherwise lying in divorce can be grounds to penalise you.
    • Potentially  your could face criminal charges
• Trying to get revenge
  Often a divorce turns into a witch hunt. Trying to use the divorce process as a revenge operation is fraught with disaster.  While this may provide some initial satisfaction it can:
  • Significantly increase the costs of divorce (and this can end up meaning that assets or property that should have gone to you ends up going to legal expenses).  You defeat your own aims, it’s an own goal.
  • Revenge impacts your children, the ones in the middle of you and your ex.  This will likely compound children’s stress
  • Your divorce should be about your future, not “revenge”
• Bad-mouthing your spouse to your children
  Anger, frustration, hurt, and embarrassment with your ex are normal. But do everything that you can to avoid talking badly about your spouse to your children.  It’s so often the case that children are drawn into the ‘he said’, ‘she said’ scenario, but this unnecessarily hurts your children.  It can also affect your custody rights as with younger children the judge considers the actions of the parents.
• Rushing the Process
  Often the wish to end the divorce and move on leads to not making sound financial decisions which you will come to regret. You may need to compromise to modify your expectations but what you must not do is accept a settlement that is not fair just to end the process.  The divorce process is one of ‘give and take’ but make sure you are not all giving! In the case of a narcissist or controlling person do not be bullied, use an expert coach to guide you through the process of dealing with the narcissist.

Copyright JH DivorceCoach

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