Divorce Without Dishonor

Did you read about the couple in rural Cambodia who took a literal approach to dividing their assets? At the termination of their 18-year marriage, the couple actually sawed their wooden house in half. The husband and his relatives removed every splinter of one half of the couple’s former two-room home. The wife’s half of the home gives new definition to the term “picture window.” Sitting on its stilt base, one complete side of the home is now open to the elements, providing a commanding view of the village.

It’s a unique, if extreme, solution to property division worthy of King Solomon. The division of property in modern American marriages is necessarily more complex. Arguments over pensions, retirement funds, her stuff, his stuff and our stuff can make property division an acrimonious and stressful process. But it doesn’t have to be.

Collaborative family law allows a couple, not the court, to control how they divide their property. By encouraging mature, cooperative, non-combative behavior and agreeing to avoid litigation, a couple, supported by attorneys dedicated to collaborative family law, can negotiate a mutually agreeable settlement outside of court.

    Good listening skills are essential in working out disagreements in custody and visitation disputes. Often we do not hear what we think we hear and we therefore say and do things that others feel differently about, sometimes in a good way, but often not. A recent, off color joke illustrates the point…..

     A young vivacious student nurse gingerly administers an upper body sponge bath to a man hooked to an oxygen machine. "Nurse" the man mumbles, from behind the oxygen mask, "Are my testicles black?"

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• A woman’s perfect breakfast:  She is sitting at the table with her gourmet coffee waiting for her personal trainer to arrive. Her son is on the cover of the Wheaties box. Her daughter is on the cover of Business Week. Her boyfriend is on the cover of Playgirl. And her husband is on the back of the milk carton!

• A woman’s revenge: As the clerk at Nordstroms folded the items the woman wished to purchase, he asked, "Cash, check or charge?"

As she fumbled through her wallet, the young cashier noticed a remote control for a television set inside the lady’s purse.

"Mam, do you always carry your TV remote, " he politely asked.

"No, " she replied, "but my husband refused to come shopping with me and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally."

A few more…..

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     A wonderful message from George Carlin:
 
     The paradox of our time in history is that we have much taller buildings but much shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but  have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, we have more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems,  more medicine, but less wellness.
 

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