As a divorce attorney, an important part of what I do is meet with people and listen to the story of their broken marriage. From that first consultation, I want to know why the relationship has ended. I am not a marriage counselor, so why would this matter to a divorce attorney?
The whole dynamic of what is now the parties’ broken relationship feeds directly into how the divorce is likely to play out. The failed marriage and where the potential client finds themselves when they come into my office informs me not only as to what the hot-button issues will be in the divorce but how to strategize for the best possible outcome under their unique set of facts. However, from the client’s perspective, sometimes they need to understand why their relationship failed to begin with. And hearing it from the very different perspective of a divorce attorney may be eye-opening.
Think of marriage like a path. That path has a beginning and an end. The beginning is your wedding day and the end is, well “till death do us part.” The common goal of sharing your lives together as a married couple is the reason people get on the path in the first place. As you move along the path of marriage, inevitably there are times when you will veer off. Why? Because life happens and the events that inform our lives cannot help at times but take us off course. We are talking about life events such as the death of a family member, our own illnesses, the special needs of a child, financial stress, substance abuse, addiction, anger management, infidelity, or just maturing and aging. The list of possibilities is longer than one would expect. The problems start when even just one spouse forgets what the common goal was supposed to be in the first place – being two halves of a whole. Instead of embracing what the intent was from the beginning and getting back on the path, the parties keep moving in divergent directions away from one another. They stop talking and being intimate with one another, and they no longer care about stopping possible ways back onto the path. The chasm continues to grow wider until the marriage is irreparably broken.
Getting divorced is never easy. Divorce is another one of those life events that sometimes you cannot predict or in most cases, prevent. But you can look back and reflect on what you could have done differently for the time that you were on the marriage path. It is not about regret or blaming yourself, or hatred of someone you shared your life with for a time. It is about self-reflection and how you can grow and learn from the experience moving forward.
