What to Do Now: Avoiding Costly Mistakes
The biggest case damaging mistakes occur between deciding to separate and talking to a lawyer. Clients often just act out irrationally based on emotions of fear, anger, and anxiety and end up in a worse position than if they had just done nothing at all. Here’s what you should be doing and not be doing:
Set Two Appointments
The first thing you should do when deciding to get divorced is to set two appointments: the first with a lawyer and the second with a therapist. Everyone needs to talk to a lawyer first because you simply don’t know what you don’t know and what you think you know is probably wrong. You need to talk to a therapist because getting divorced is a traumatic experience and you need a professional to help you process how to think about it, how to manage strong emotions, overcome bad behaviors, analyze how you ended up here in the first place, and develop a plan for how to heal and move forward.
Maintain the Status Quo
The next thing you need to do is just maintain the status quo as much as possible. When a divorce is filed there is an order issued in all cases called a mandatory mutual injunction that prohibits either spouse from disposing of or changing any marital property without consent of the other or by court order. It also includes things like prohibiting spouses from changing insurance coverage or moving away with your children. It also prohibits each party from harassing each other or destroying evidence. Essentially your posture towards your spouse and the court should be that you are the most calm, reasonable, and well-behaved person they have ever met. Keep things as they are, go to work, pay the bills, take care of your children, and then go to bed and get up the next day and do it again. That is all you should be doing.
Do Not Act Unilaterally and Sabotage Everything
What you should not be doing is blowing up everything in a fit of vindictive spite. This is a serious problem in many cases. Your spouse leaves so your response is to just cut off everything, move to a different state, hide your children, and steal all the money. This is bad behavior that will harm your case immeasurably. Here’s a list of things my clients have done that you should never do:
Clean out all the bank accounts
Cancel health insurance and/or car insurance
Take their name off debit/credit cards
Change the locks on the house
Move away and leave no trace of your whereabouts
Stop paying bills for the marital home causing utilities to be cut off or the mortgage to be foreclosed
Taking your children out of school
Removing the other parent from school or doctor authorized lists
Prevent the other parent from seeing or even speaking to your children
Post anything about your personal life on social media
Harass their family, friends, coworkers, etc. with constant calls and texts
Put some kind of tracking device on their car
I could probably keep going but you should be getting the idea. Whatever your emotional response is to getting divorced, your instincts about what you should be doing are likely to be wrong and to get you in trouble.
Can I Go Ahead and Start Dating Now?
My usual response to this question is “You can’t be serious?” but yes, many clients ask me that question directly and want to know when it is okay to get back out there and start dating again. Many of them think it is the moment the word divorce comes out of their spouse’s mouth or whenever they separate. This is a terrible idea and should be thoroughly discouraged completely. First, you are creating new problems before you have solved the old problems. Second, it makes you look quite bad to others and the court. Third, it is adultery and inappropriate marital conduct. Fourth, an unexpected pregnancy can really mess up your case. I have had countless cases where either the wife got pregnant with someone else’s baby or the husband was expecting another child before the divorce was final. You should definitely avoid being in this category. Therapists have said that anyone getting a divorce should wait about two years before dating again in order to heal from the trauma that is a divorce. Just take a break for a while and get your life sorted out before you bring more people into it.
