Spousal Emotional Abuse During Divorce–What You Can Do
August 18, 2010
Is your spouse violent, abusive, harassing? In cases of harassment or violence there are legal remedies and there are practical things you can and must do for yourself. This is not about reaching agreement–these are strategies for self-defense. Mental and physical abuse must never be tolerated.
Restraining orders. The legal remedy for domestic harassment and violence is a restraining order–an order from the court, served personally on your spouse, forbidding certain conduct. Restraining orders are available as part of a divorce action.
If you, your children or anyone in your household has been physically abused or threatened with harm, you can have the abuser ordered to move out and stay away from the family residence. Child visitation can be ordered for specific times and places, away from your home and, if necessary, under supervision. It takes very clear proof of danger or harm to the child to forbid visitation altogether.
In extreme cases, most states permit emergency orders to be issued ex parte–without notice to or participation of your spouse. These orders are binding until a hearing can be held and more orders issued after both sides have had a chance to tell their side.
Rebuilding Your Life from the Ashes
July 31, 2010
One peculiar feature of a stepfamily is that they are built on a negative foundation. A stepfamily couple comes to their new home with a full set of baggage, containing memories, wounds, and habits. Probably the biggest piece of baggage that sits in the way of your developing a new life is your connection to your ex?spouse.
And, while some ex-es go away physically, many more haunt your life as well as your memories. One of the great mysteries of divorce and remarriage is why many ex-spouses just refuse to turn loose.
It has been said that divorce is the single cruelest thing one person can do to another person. The one soul you trusted more than any other with your secrets, your hopes, and your weaknesses turns from their vows and wrenches themselves from your living heart. The phenomenon of the spiteful, vengeful ex-spouse is such a problem that the majority of emails we receive are on that subject.
However, in working with thousands of stepfamilies around the world, we’ve found two facts to be true about dealing with these vindictive ex-es (and they’re nearly always ex-wives!):
Divorce–How to Beat the System
July 13, 2010
Of course you want to get your Judgment–that’s the goal of your legal divorce–but you don’t want to go through the adversarial legal system to get it. You don’t want to get all tangled up with lawyers and courts, because the system is designed to work against you.
You don’t go through the legal system, you go around it. You work outside the legal system to make arrangements and reach an agreement with your spouse.
By doing things yourself, you have far more control and far better solutions. Working outside the legal system is the way you get a low-conflict, low-impact, higher quality divorce.
To stay outside the legal system, do not retain an attorney. Neither spouse should retain one. The key word is “retain.” We’re not saying you should never get help from an attorney if you want it, just that you should not retain an attorney unless you have no other choice. If you follow the steps in my series of divorce articles, you may not need any help at all from an attorney. If you do, you will know how to keep it limited and under control.
Divorce Roadmap: The Route Around the Legal System
June 26, 2010
Let’s look at how a divorce case works so you can see what you face and how you can beat the legal system. The legal divorce process is similar in all states, but there are two common sets of terms. In this article, I use the first set.
Spouse who starts the divorce = Petitioner or Plaintiff Document filed = Petition or Complaint The other spouse = Respondent or Defendant Document filed (if any) = Response or Answer Orders for divorce and terms = Judgment or Decree
All divorces start with a Petition and end with a Judgment. The Petition sets out in very general terms what the facts and issues are and what the Petitioner wants. After being filed with the court, it is served on the other spouse to give notice that the case has started. The Petition is a simple, standard document. Filing and serving it is not complicated.
The other spouse can now file a Response if he or she wants to be involved in the legal process. This has to be done within a stated time, typically 30 days after the Petition is served. The Response is similar to the Petition, a simple document that is easy to do. The effect of the Response is simply to get the other spouse into the case on an equal footing with the Petitioner.
Divorce–How the Legal System Works Against You
June 8, 2010
If there were no legal system, no lawyers and no courts, divorce would still be difficult and it would still take time to go through it. Divorce is at least a major crossroad in your life, maybe even a full-blown life crisis. So, here you are, you and your spouse, going through your personal life changes, when the State comes along and says, “Excuse me! You can’t go through this without us. Your divorce has to be conducted on our field and under our rules . . . and you can’t even hope to understand our rules. Oh, by the way, this divorce system we’re going to put you through has no tools for helping you solve problems or negotiate with your spouse. In fact, our system is based on conflict and it is specially designed to cause trouble and greatly increase your expense. Please pay your filing fees on the way in.” Our system of justice is known as an “adversary system.” This is the nature of the beast. It began hundreds of years ago in the middle ages with “trial by combat,” where people with a disagreement would fight it out and whoever survived was “right.” Today, physical contact is no longer a recognized legal technique, but things are still set up as a fight. The parties are regarded as adversaries, enemies in combat. When a divorce is conducted in our legal system, the spouses and their attorneys are expected to struggle against one another and try to “win” the case, to “beat” the opposition. The rules control the way your attorney works with you. Your attorney is required to be “adversarial,” that is, aggressive and combative. The adversary system and the way lawyers work in it is a major cause of conflict, trouble and the high cost of divorce. You want to have as little as possible to do with the legal system. It is designed to work against you. In spite of the way things seem, lawyers are not always villains and not always to blame for stirring up conflict. But even for lawyers who mean well, the tools they use and the system they work in will usually increase conflict. Law schools do not require courses in communication or negotiation. Rather, they stress manipulation of rules of law, aggressive and defensive strategy, how to take any side of any case and make the most of it, how to argue, and how to get the most financial advantage in every situation. Professional standards of practice dictate how a lawyer will conduct your case. For example, professional ethics forbid your lawyer to communicate directly with your spouse–the adversary. It is expected, instead, that your spouse will be represented by an attorney and your lawyer can only communicate through your spouse’s lawyer. This means that your attorney can’t “talk sense” to your spouse, or explain to your spouse how you see things, or even help you talk to each other. It means your attorney will always have a one-sided view of your case and can never achieve an understanding any greater than your own. If you retain a lawyer, he will definitely take your case into the contested cycle of the legal system because that’s the only thing he can do. He has to. There are no other formal tools a lawyer can use. The primary tools the lawyer uses are pre-trial motions and discovery. An attorney can take you and your spouse into court to get temporary orders for support, custody, visitation or keeping the peace. An attorney can use formal discovery to get documents and information under oath. So, if you and your spouse can work out your own temporary arrangements and share all information openly, you’ll have no need for those incredibly expensive legal tools. You can keep your case out of lawyers’ offices and out of court. But, if either spouse retains an attorney, that attorney will invariably write formal letters, file legal papers, make motions, and do discovery. These actions will surely cause the other spouse to get an attorney, too. Now, instead of two people who don’t communicate well, you have four people who do not communicate well. The case is now contested and the cost and conflict level will go way up. Attorneys tend to ask for more than they expect to get; it’s considered “good” practice. Your spouse’s lawyer will oppose your lawyer’s exaggerated demands by offering less than they are willing to give and by attacking you and your case at the weakest points. Now you’re off to a good, hot start and soon you’ll have a hotly contested case, lots of cost, and a couple of very upset spouses. Fees in contested cases can run from tens of thousands of dollars each all the way up to everything. Summary: Except in high-conflict cases, the legal system has little to offer. The things an attorney can do for you are expensive, upsetting, and tend to increase conflict rather than reduce it. If you don’t want to (or have to) use the legal system, go around it–work out your arrangements outside the legal system and, if necessary, get limited assistance, in the form of information and advice, from attorneys who do not represent the spouses. Take heart; I tell you exactly how to do this in my articles, Divorce Roadmap: The Route Around the Legal System and Divorce–How You Can Beat the System. Copyright 2005 Ed Sherman
Healing Dysfunctional Families
May 21, 2010
In a recent article entitled “Some Evidence On How We Are Spiritually Connected” I reported on a case study that revealed how individuals who share common traumatic memories can help each other release the trauma at a distance employing a new tool called the Mind Resonance Process(TM). In this article I will elaborate some of the potential applications of such a result as well as its far reaching implications.
It is well known that within family systems, for instance, the individuals therein share an entire life history of common trauma. Often this trauma may be in the form of isolated incidents experienced by one individual outside of the family setting and then brought into the family via direct contact. In other situations the trauma may be the result of relationship difficulties within the family system itself.
In the quoted study it became evident that one way of accounting for the distance healing effects was by invoking the concept of an energy field of information within which is stored, just like on the hard drive of your computer, the life history of the individual. Hence the non-local, i.e. distant, effects of one field on another could then be used to explain the distance healing results that I observed.
Four Tips to Save You Money in a Divorce Case
May 4, 2010
1. Have an Clear Written Fee Agreement
Most experienced and effective divorce attorneys charge by the hour and require an advance retainer (or deposit) that is paid at the beginning of the case. Fees and expenses will be charged against the retainer until it is exhausted, at which point the client will be responsible for any additional sums incurred.
Clients will sometimes seek an attorney who will represent them on a flat fee basis, thinking that this will save them money. The problem with this arrangement is that the attorney has no incentive to do anything beyond the bare minimum. The client often feels like his case is being ignored, the attorney often feels like the client is intentionally trying to take up as much of his time as possible, and they may both be right.
Whether you hire a lawyer on an hourly or flat fee basis, it is extremely important that you get a written fee agreement that makes clear the terms of the representation, including whether any retainer is refundable, how often you will receive statements, the attorney’s hourly rates, etc. You should get and keep a copy of this fee agreement.
Joint Bank Accounts and Divorce
April 17, 2010
Here are some useful tips on joint bank accounts and divorce. If you’ve recently been through a divorce - or are contemplating one - you may want to look closely at issues involving joint bank accounts.
Joint Bank Account: Your income, financial assets, and credit history - and your spouse’s - are considerations for a joint account. No matter who handles the household bills, you and your spouse are responsible for seeing that debts are paid. A creditor who reports the credit history of a joint account to credit bureaus must report it in both names.
An application combining the financial resources of two people may present a stronger case to a creditor who is granting a loan or credit card. But because two people applied together for the credit, each is responsible for the debt.
This is true even if a divorce decree assigns separate debt obligations to each spouse. Former spouses who run up bills and don’t pay them can hurt their ex-partner’s credit histories on jointly-held accounts.
How To Protect Your Life Insurance Policy While Going Through A Divorce
March 30, 2010
Life insurance, more than most things you buy, relates to the circumstances of your life. You buy life insurance to protect your family from financial loss stemming from your death. You tie the amount of your life insurance to the money your family will need to provide an income, pay off debts, put children through college and cover financial commitments.
But what happens to life insurance when you’re about to dissolve your marriage? How do you deal fairly with a soon-to-be ex-spouse, yet still make sure you have coverage for the future? Is there a way to provide for adult children of a previous marriage without going broke — especially if you have children through a second or third marriage?
Here are a number of considerations you should be aware of:
- Don’t assume that your insurance agent or company knows about your circumstances. If you don’t change your beneficiary, your former spouse may receive the proceeds of your policy upon your death. If the designation simply reads, "husband of the insured" or "wife of the insured," and there is no new spouse, the secondary beneficiary receives the proceeds.
Commitment
March 12, 2010
Being marriage means being fully committed to your husband as to the Lord. Look at Ephesians 5:22 it says Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water though the word, and present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother an be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
