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Archive for the ‘Divorce’ Category
Do We Value Fathers in our Society?
13th May 2012
I was interested to read that there are now plans to introduce legislation to promote a child’s ongoing relationship with both parents. We all know that what that really means is legislation to register that the father’s relationship is just as important as the mother’s relationship with their children. Not so long ago, there was a
Sadly, for all those fathers who suffer so much by being marginalized in their children’s lives, this legislation when it comes, will be too little, too ineffective and just another
Do we live in cloud cuckoo land?
8th May 2012
Let’s get this in perspective. An article in the Daily Mail today http://bit.ly/IUSTxc quotes Sir Paul Coleridge’s view that the more we spend on weddings, the greater the family breakdown. I simply don’t agree. He and the writer of the article in the Daily
Mail, talk of marriage as being some sort of fairy tale perpetuated by pictures
in Hallo magazine and because that is so unrealistic, people leave their marriages when they realise the reality is very different. I spoke about this on Channel 4 news,
debating with a spokesperson from the Marriage Foundation. The British Public is not stupid and know very well that relationships are hard and are long term investments. They after all, have seen their parent’s marriages and had their own long term relationships. They know that the pictures in Hallo and other glossy magazines are a fantasy and entertainment. No-one thinks that marriage is easy because
Jordan arrives at her wedding with a horse and carriage or because people who
can afford it hire castles and lakes for their reception. No-one leaves their marriage easily without many years of heartache and soul searching.
Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, such as the woman
interviewed in the article today. Her husband walked out leaving just a note
after 8 months, saying he had had enough. We have no idea what was going on in his mind or his history of commitment or mental health issues. We
can’t jump from such an example to Sir Paul Coleridge’s view that people give
us too easily and don’t make the proper investment. Most people do invest properly and go in for the long term, through thick and think. Only when things have not worked out and people have not been heard and couple therapy has not worked, after many
years of trying do people take the tortuous decision to leave. Everyone knows divorce is bereavement, so people don’t jump into that pond without much thought and anguish. Give all those who divorce some credit for understanding something about themselves and about the big bad world around them.
The end of Legal Aid
16th April 2012
There is an article in today’s Guardian about removal of legal aid in all family cases apart from where there is an issue of domestic violence. The removal of legal aid helps makes a level playing field impossible and slows the court system down as people understandably use court time to work out what they are supposed to be doing and arguing points that may not be relevant or beneficial to them. In my view it is short sighted as good legal advice, shortens areas of dispute and enables people to see what their rights are and therefore empowers them to negotiate an informed settlement if possible. People who come to our workshops feel very distressed that they are unable to access the marital assets that they are entitled to, because of lack of funding. On the one hand they have been enabling their partner to earn money by looking after children or taking a lesser paid job but when it comes to it, they find themselves in an inequitable position having to go it alone whilst their partner can play power games with their money and legal team. Not good.
How long does it take to get over Divorce?
13th April 2012
This is a question I am asked many times by people who come to our Divorce Workshops and support groups. Is there a one size fits all answer? Of course, like anything in life, people react to major life events in different ways. Some people are able to function after a separation and some people aren’t. Some people allow the ‘story’ of their divorce to become their life narrative for many years, telling it as if it was yesterday and allowing it to inform and explain all sorts of reasons why a job was not applied for, or there hasn’t been another relationship, or why they have lost their friends or why they are permanently depressed. To make separation or divorce your life narrative is to be stuck in time and stuck in an event that seems impossible to get round or move out of the way. For others, there is the mourning proces which in time enables you to say goodbye and move on, transferring love, affection and joy for life elsewhere. For some, separation triggers earlier losses that haven’t been fully processed and therefore the grief in the present is amplified more than it might otherwise be. Apart from the bereavement and ensuing grief that comes with divorce, there is also the question ‘is this normal?’ Should I be feeling like this? Many people at our workshops talk about their friends thinking its time they moved on and they should be over it by now. It is impossible to ‘get over’ something unless it is properly mourned and dealt with. What is needed in order to heal is patience, support and feeling that you are not the only one. Sharing experiences and learning how others cope in similar situations is undoubtedly helpful. Understanding your emotions and therefore making sense of them and creating some order out of them is also
invaluable. Feeling you are not the only one goes a long way to feeling that what you are going through is normal. The question how long does it take to get over divorce is asked because it is too difficult to contemplate that the pain that is felt will last one day longer than absolutely necessary. Just as when you have an operation or are ill, you are keen to know from the Doctor when you will feel better, you would like to know by what month you will feel more like your old self. There is no specific answer but I can say, that after a year things should feel better and after two, much better. If after two years the grief, anger and upset feels as though it is the same as it was in the beginning then you will need some professional help to look at what is stopping you moving on with your life. Many people use the anger they feel at their divorce as a way of stopping them looking at an unplanned for future or looking forward. If you can keep looking back at what has happened, you have the false feeling that you are still somehow hooked into a relationship of a kind instead of letting it go and
feeling the fear of a future that you haven’t planned for. To let go means to look forward rather than back and to let go means letting go of something that is familiar and therefore comfortable even though it is also unbelievably painful. It is relatively easy to get a legal divorce, getting an emotional one is a whole different story. Just like bereavement, getting over a divorce takes time and the process can be made quicker with professional help.
Forget adultery its slurping the soup that makes us divorce.
29th March 2012
A woman went to court this week to argue that squabbling with her husband was sufficient to show irretrievable breakdown of her marriage.
Her application was rejected. This comes at the same time as an article in the Telegraph quoting Mr Justice Wall saying that there should be no fault divorces. If that was the case, then this applicant would not have to have said anything bar that she wanted a divorce. By rejecting her application, the court is saying crank up the allegations, say something really diminishing and nasty about your husband and
we will give you a divorce. Please see my earlier blog for my opinion on that. I don’t think any marriage survives without squabbling and extreme irritation at a partner’s habits and way of doing things. The whole country would end up in the divorce
courts if people abandoned their relationships for these sorts of reasons. People generally end marriages after years of not having their needs met or years of not being heard or of being treated badly. People don’t leave marriages because their partner leaves the top off the toothpaste or doesn’t clean the bath out. Divorce is a much more serious issue and is mainly a function of real unhappiness not the everyday annoyance
of cohabitation. You can read the article here: http://tgr.ph/Hgtgqb
No Fault Divorce.
29th March 2012
An article in the Guardian today quotes Mr Justice Wall saying that the time had come for no fault divorces. I entirely agree. That is not to say that he or I or anyone who supports that argument are saying that divorce is an easy option or that marriage is not a good thing. The reason is, that starting a divorce with blame and an adversarial approach means that it is really hard to acheive an amicable divorce. It is unusual for both people to want a divorce and to be on the receiving end of a partner wanting to leave plus the shame and embarrassment of them quoting all sorts of nasty things in the divorce petition in order to secure a divorce doesn’t help an otherwise painful situation. What is the point of saying, yes you can break up your relationship but before you do, you must think of some horrible habits and behaviour of your ex in order to get your divorce. Mr Justice Wall is right when he says divorce is administrative and should not be judicial. By all means use the Court if things aren’t agreed as a a last resort, but blame the other person for something which at the end of the day has been a two way dynamic? No. It starts the whole process of on entirely the wrong foot. You can read the Guardian article here: http://bit.ly/HdYSN4
Sex and Divorce
26th March 2012
An article in the Mail Online India talks about people being granted a divorce because of lack of sex, deemed by the Judiciary in India as cruelty. Often individuals in our support groups talk about how in the last fews years of their marriage their partner did not want to have sex with them. Is this a good ground for divorce? Do people cite this in their divorce petition? They certainly do and it is cruel if one person wants to have sex and the other is entirely witholding of it. Withholding sex is a clear message of denial and hostility and after a while of trying to remedy the situation to no avail, seems like a very good ground for divorce. Having said that how much sex people have is a matter of negotiation between them. Often people have different libidos and a compromise has to be reached. Divorce isn’t a natural consequence of that. The Mail online talks of no sex at all and if that isn’t satisfactory to one person in the marriage, to expect to live a sexless life when it is distressing to do so, might well sit within the catch all ‘irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.’
The article is here: http://bit.ly/H1fB8p
Next Workshop
16th March 2012
Following wonderful feedback from our last workshop where all the participants continue to see each other socially, we are running another one in Holborn Central London on Saturday 25th March 2012.
Whether you are newly separated, or going through the legal process or are already
divorced, the Divorce Workshop will give you an opportunity to meet others
and share your experiences. We will help you think about how to move
through your painful feelings, feel less stuck and start to think about your
future without fear.
We will also help you think about how to answer your children’s questions about their
situation and manage any worries that you may have about them.
The workshop runs from 10 am to 3.00pm.The cost is £65 including lunch.
To book a place please call 0207 483 1378 or email c.friedman@divorcesupportgroup.co.uk
or for more information go to www.divorcesupportgroup.co.uk/workshop
Mediation – A good method?
12th March 2012
An interesting article in the Guardian today about mediation: http://bit.ly/yJBzZt It confirms that mediation does work when both people are invested in the process and are able to reach a compromise. In other words, with a skilled mediator, those people who will go the extra mile to be in charge of the outcome of their own divorce will be able to manage it. It becomes more complicated though, when there is lack of trust. If one partner does not believe that the other has disclosed all the assets or savings or pensions that he has, then it is all but nigh on impossible to come to a fair conclusion. How is one to negotiate when the cards aren’t all on the table? There are also the people who want to mediate but who feel that even though a fair enough outcome is reached that the other person will not honour it. That is, that before the agreement is drawn up by a lawyer and endorsed by the court that the other side will go back on his or her word. It has to be better for an individual to be able to negotiate what he wants out of his divorce rather than have a Judge impose something and it has to be better to try and talk about the issues than be on the receiving end of lawyers letters. Anything that makes a painful event, less drawn out and less painful is good. There are lots of pitfalls to mediation and hurdles to climb but if it is possible to mediate rather than litigate, then of course, it is a less painful, less costly and quicker way to settle. However, it doesn’t fit everyone and then the next way of divorcing more amicably is to engage in the collaborative process rather than the litigation process. All these things are a minefield to people who haven’t given any of this a second thought or even a first one, the day before separation. It’s not easy to suddenly ‘know’ about how to divorce at the same time as dealing with all the pain associated with it. There are many ways to approach a legal divorce, but time is needed to understand how to do it and what is best not only for you but for your family.
Is the economic climate making it harder to divorce?
9th March 2012