Divorce Without Dishonor

This month’s Divorce Without Dishonor e-newsletter focuses on why fathers tend to disappear from their children’s lives after divorce. Known as “Ghost Dads,” they continue to send support checks but are physically absent from their children’s lives, ultimately becoming “ghosts” to their kids.  

For many dads, the separation seems to be a matter of both shame and self-preservation. In the competitive masculine world with its focus on winning, divorce is seen as failure, as losing. Post-divorce conflict over child support, parenting and visitation only augments feelings of failure. Coupled with dating, remarriage or job relocation, these factors can strain a father’s relationship with his family to the breaking point. Some men simply grow weary of fighting and give up. New girlfriends or wives can exert additional pressure on fathers to spend less time with their children. Pushing away from the pain and anger of a situation they cannot control, fathers abandon the children they love to become “ghost dads.”

The all too common phenomenon is a tragedy for the entire family, particularly the children. Collaborative divorce can create an avenue of communication and an atmosphere of respect that encourages fathers to remain a vibrant part of their children’s lives. Click here for more information on collaborative divorce.

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Unlike court-ordered divorce decisions, collaborative divorce allows you and your spouse the flexibility to re-evaluate and adapt as your children’s needs change over time. Court-ordered decrees strive to set custody arrangements that will stand until children reach the age of majority and can make their own decisions. But children’s lives are not static. Custody and support arrangements and many other decisions you make when your children are 2 or 3 may not meet their needs when they are 7 or 8 and will certainly be outdated when your children enter the pre-teen and teen years. Your ability to be flexibility and to compromise with each other will allow you and your spouse to continue to do what is best for your children as they mature.

As your children grow and their needs change, you may have to change the way you allocate parental time, responsibilities and resources to meet their new needs. By establishing avenues of positive communication and cooperative problem-solving during the collaborative divorce process, you and your spouse will have the skills to work together and provide the necessary flexibility to effectively parent your children now and in the future.

Divorce can take a heavy emotional toll on your children. The turmoil and acrimony that accompany divorce can have life-long repercussions for your children, affecting their ability to make and maintain healthy adult relationships as they mature. More than 50% of children from divorced homes wind up in failed marriages. There is a correlation between living through divorce and the ability to commit to a relationship as an adult.

Collaborative divorce allows parents to exhibit positive role modeling for their children during and after divorce. You and your spouse can choose to model good communication  and effective problem solving for your children, instead of the contempt, destructive sarcasm, criticism and defensive behavior so common during divorce. Through collaborative divorce, you can teach your children to confront problems rationally and compromise to achieve fair solutions.

The collaborative process uses a team approach to help you and your spouse develop skills in active listening, rational thinking, anger management, creative problem solving, and effective communication. As you develop and practice these skills through the collaborative divorce process, you create a basis for continued positive interaction as you parent your children after divorce. You also model for your children positive, mature, adult behavior on which they can model their own future relationships.

In a collaborative divorce, each spouse usually hires their own divorce coach to help them learn to communicate and negotiate more effectively. These coaches are an integral part of the collaborative divorce team. They teach life skills that will form the basis for your post-divorce relationship with your spouse. If you have children, the skills learned from your divorce coach can make co-parenting go more smoothly after the divorce.

Your divorce coach will provide you will skilled help in:

• Managing your emotions appropriately.
• Separating your thoughts from your feelings.
• Thinking through emotionally charged issues.
• Learning to talk about difficult problems in a businesslike manner.
• Setting short and long-term goals for yourself, your children and your co-parenting relationship.

Conflict management, creative problem-solving, negotiation and productive communication are among the valuable life skills you can learn with the help of your divorce coach. Your coach can help you identify bad habits and problem areas in your relationship with your spouse and learn to communicate more productively. Divorce coaches help you and your spouse focus more clearly on your individual goals and the positive changes that can come about as a result of your divorce.

Talking to your spouse about choosing a collaborative divorce instead of traditional adversarial litigation may take some convincing. Your spouse may not understand the benefits of collaborative divorce or may confuse it with mediation. In his/her anger or hurt, your spouse may not believe that collaborative divorce will be “fair” to them. Collaborative divorce is a newer concept, and your spouse may not even know that it is an option. 

In previous blog posts (see posts starting January 19), we’ve discussed the benefits of collaborative divorce and how to talk to your spouse. You may be surprised to find that your spouse is equally willing to embrace a divorce that avoids the emotional and economic toll of litigation, particularly if there are children involved. Your spouse may be relieved by your interest in a constructive, respectful, cooperative divorce that emphasizes productive conflict resolution, not conflict.

However, the skeptical spouse may take a little persuading. Try these suggestions to convince your spouse that collaborative divorce will benefit both of you:

• Prepare an information packet about collaborative divorce. If you have contacted a collaborative divorce attorney, they may have materials you can use. If your spouse is particularly angry or hurt, ask a trusted friend to pass along the information.
• Invite your spouse to call and talk to a collaborative divorce lawyer or coach. If you have selected a collaborative attorney, ask them to send an introductory letter and information packet to your spouse.
• Provide your spouse with a list of websites that discuss and/or offer collaborative divorce services. Give them the link to this blog and others you may have found helpful.
• Enlist the aid of your marriage counselor or your children’s counselor. First make certain the counselor is educated and can speak knowledgably about the process.
• Consider asking your church pastor or a close family member or friend to discuss the positive benefits of collaborative divorce with your spouse.

Continuing our previous post, today we talk about setting the stage for the actual discussion with your spouse about the benefits of collaborative divorce over traditional litigation. 

• Set a time to have the conversation with your spouse when neither of you will be rushed or distracted by other people or activities. Consider your spouse’s probable reaction. If you think your spouse might become angry, you may want to have the conversation in a public place. If the conversation is apt to make your spouse depressed, consider meeting at your counselor’s office. If you feel your spouse will want unbiased information, you might choose to meet at a collaborative attorney’s office where questions can be immediately answered.
• Before the conversation, take time to prepare yourself. Try to relax. Remind yourself to make “I” statements (I feel …, I think …) which are less inflammatory.
• Make every effort to remain calm during the discussion, even if you are provoked. If your composure starts to slip, leave the room for a moment until you regain control. Do make sure you return to complete the discussion.

Next time: What to do if your spouse needs convincing that a collaborative divorce will be a positive step for both of you.

Choosing collaborative divorce over traditional litigation carries many benefits but may not be something your spouse has considered. The way you choose to end your marriage can have lasting consequences for you, your spouse, your extended family and, especially, your children. Collaborative divorce emphasizes cooperation and building positive communication skills that will allow you and your spouse to be effective co-parents after the divorce. By addressing the individual needs of each family member, collaborative divorce can help you and your spouse move successfully beyond divorce to build satisfying new lives. (For additional benefits of collaborative divorce, read our January 19, 2008 post.)

Once you and your spouse have decided to divorce, you will want to prepare carefully before discussing your desire for a collaborative divorce. Preparation will help you discuss the issues calmly, keeping negative emotions like rage and guilt to a minimum. The following these ideas can help you prepare to have a positive discussion with your spouse:

• Consider your ethical, religious, spiritual and philosophical values. Focus on those that you believe will most help you have this difficult discussion, such as honesty, respect and dignity.
• Think about the conversation you want to have. Write out different “scripts” that emphasize the values you have chosen to focus on. Writing will help you choose the words you want to use and help you create a proper tone for the discussion.  
• Practice what you want to say, out loud or mentally. Find a comfortable way to express yourself.

To be continued in our next post.

Collaborative divorce is a positive step toward a new beginning. Collaborative divorce discards the old adversarial precepts of divorce for a cooperative, problem-solving emphasis that provides you and your spouse with the skills and resources to make a healthy transition from being married to being single. Collaborative divorce does not focus on “winning,” “getting mine,” “hurting him/her,” ”keeping the children to myself,” or any of the other hurtful, divisive objectives of traditional litigation. Instead, collaborative divorce emphasizes shared values and priorities, building consensus, resolving differences, effective co-parenting and moving forward.

Collaborative divorce is a positive choice because:

• It helps you and your spouse clarify and reach consensus on personal and shared values, goals and priorities.
• It allows for creative solutions to conflicts and issues that are beyond the normal purview of the court.
• It gives you and your spouse the negotiating skills and practice to resolve differences without destructive conflict and sets a positive pattern for post-divorce interaction.
• It focuses on the needs of your children and improves your ability to co-parent after the divorce.
• It lays a foundation for future healthy communication and interaction that will allow you and your spouse to move ahead with your new lives and not be mired in the acrimony of the past.

Divorce is tough on kids, but it is the parents’ approach to divorce that determines how tough. “It is not divorce, per se, that emotionally scars children,” says Rosalind Sedacca, a well-known proponent of child-centered divorce, in a recent email. “It is the parents’ approach to divorce that determines the positive or negative impact on the kids.” 

The process of collaborative divorce, which focuses on meeting the needs of the whole family, particularly the children, in an atmosphere of support and cooperation, can minimize the distress and emotional turmoil that divorce can cause. In many instances, collaborative divorce can be a healthier, happier solution than “staying together for the sake of the children.” Children who have grown up in an emotionally cold or combative household will tell you that they wish their parents had separated years ago. They agree that they would have been happier with two parents living separate but satisfying lives than living in the middle of “a war zone,” as one teen put it.

I’m not suggesting that divorce is the answer to your marital problems. I always suggest counseling as a first effort where appropriate. No one, particularly parents, should end their marriage precipitously. But if your marriage cannot be repaired, collaborative divorce can allow both you and your children to move forward with your lives in a positive way. The process of collaborative divorce can establish a basis for cooperative parenting that will allow you and your spouse to work together in the best interests of your children. Your children will successfully manage the changes divorce creates in their living situation when they grow up knowing they are loved and supported by both parents.

When you are convinced your marriage cannot be saved, before moving out or doing anything else, have legal separation documents drawn up by an attorney so you can best protect yourself in the upcoming trying and stressful times ahead.  Once those are completed and signed, if you are the one moving out, below is a tip sheet to help guide you through this next phase of your divorce:

•  If you are renting, have your name taken off the lease otherwise you may be held responsible for both the rent there and the rent in your new place.

•  Remove your name from all of the utilities (cable, phone, trash, electric, water, etc.) or you could be held responsible for them as well.

•   Forward your mail to a PO box, a close friend, or relative.  Don’t let your mail accumulate at your old residence.

•   Cancel or freeze all joint credit accounts because you are legally responsible for any debt that accrues.  Both of you should get separate credit cards.

•    Make sure to jot down all addresses, phone numbers, account numbers pertaining to things like mortgages, bank and credit card accounts, insurance policies, pensions, or any other financial arrangements you or your spouse might have or share.

•    Take with you a copy of all tax records of the last 6 years. 

•    List what is in the safety deposit boxes and take photos for your records.  Be sure to remove any personal items that are yours.

•    Pack up anything you own that you will want later or things you’ll need to set up housekeeping at your new place. This includes medication, clothes, shoes, pictures, family heirlooms, mementos, school and medical records, dishes, phones, cleaning supplies, your computer, office supplies, towels, bedding, sports gear, and outdoor equipment.  Remember that what you don’t take with you may not be accessible to you in the future.  If there is a disputed item, it is best to leave it there, take a photograph, and make a note that this is one you would like in the final settlement.