My Divorce Story
A TRUE AND RAW ACCOUNT.
This is written to impress upon you the hardship that can occur and be avoided with a Divorce Coach.
Let my trauma be your lifeline.
I was married for over 17 years, and have three beautiful daughters. I lived an idyllic lifestyle, big home on the water in Palm Beach County, driving luxury vehicles, a Ferrari, private aviation, private yacht charters, private schools for my children, luxury vacations, property investments, other investments, built businesses - you get the picture. I can tell you I could never have predicted what happened in my divorce, and the destruction that can occur.
I lost it all.
We can all rebuild after a painful divorce, yet it can take years to recover, and for some, you may never improve. Avoid this pitfall at all costs.
The simple reality is, no matter the situation or size of the marital estate, trusted professionals may try and make your divorce a contested legal battle. Why? It is simple really. The bigger the battle, the bigger the fees. Now this is far from every instance, yet it can occur, and it does occur. The scary part and what I faced, unfortunately, is it can be a professional causing the issue if your ex hires a less than integral litigator and you are forced to escalate to defend your position. There is a need to be able to recognize this behavior and put an end to it immediately, something I was too naive to do at the time.
In my situation, my fees and costs were extraordinary for a divorce that should have been avoided and worked through if we had sound and ethical advice, kept emotions in check, and were more willing to look to hire professionals whose role it was to act as our advocate to avoid the many legal traps.
This led me to the thought that if I had hired a coaching professional with knowledge in divorce I could have saved myself incredible heartache, financial destruction, and emotional trauma, and ultimately the emotional trauma a prolonged messy divorce has on children.
During a divorce, many of us are thinking less clearly, and are upset and emotional. Despite our intelligence, we fail to see the proverbial forest for the trees.
We go through a trauma cycle:
Acceptance - Denial of the divorce is the most significant barrier; acceptance, the greatest liberator.
Insight - Even the smallest degree of admission allows insight to begin.
Action - At each stage of insight, I can craft a plan of action to enhance recovery or take steps to enlist support to help me do so.
Self-esteem - As I make positive choices, I see how those decisions and actions impact my health, rebuilding my sense of competency, self-efficacy and in turn my self-esteem. This encourages further acceptance, insight, and work.
Healing - When I allow myself to accept a divorce I would rather not, and take actions to combat it, healing is a natural by-product. Healing needs to be defined very broadly. Healing is the restoration of a sense of meaning, purpose, sense of self and quality of life, despite struggles with the Divorce.
Meaning - As healing occurs, the self returns to a new wholeness complete with these past new experiences and new choices.
The legal system is overwhelmed, the judiciary has little free time to read and understand your case. Your case is one of the thousands in the system. To your attorney you are one of perhaps dozens of clients, and if it is a large firm that very same attorney may have a financial billing goal to meet. There are undoubtedly good attorneys, and I have met many, but there are also those whose only goal is to win at all costs including your emotional, financial, and spiritual health.
Getting sucked into the legal system can see you involved in a financial quicksand pit that seems unending, and yes, judges make mistakes that can cause you extreme financial and emotional hardship. In my case, there was an "abuse of discretion," ruling on the final judgment as issued by the presiding judge, the very definition of which is that no reasonable person could have reached the conclusion they reached. This was the ruling following an appeal on a nine-day divorce trial. This means you have to go through it all again. The first errant ruling was followed by an incorrect interpretation of the appeals court opinion and mandate by the next judge, which means you have to go through it all again, taking years, and costing you your fortune, your emotional sanity, and emotional trauma for your children.
Unfortunately, judicial error and legal misfortune are far more prevalent than we care to know. You can avoid this with proper planning and guidance and staying out of court.
The system can and will suck you in. Attorney and judicial error can, and will, destroy your life. There is zero financial recourse for judicial "abuse of discretion" and little recourse for "legal misrepresentation or malpractice."
The legal system is a necessary part of the process, as is good, sound, ethical and moral, legal representation. And so is a coach. If only I'd had a competent coach and thought of this back then all the pain could have all avoided. Remember, despite my professional experience and my background I just was unable to see the forest for the trees and needed an impartial set of eyes helping me know what was occurring, or what could happen.
If I could help anyone avoid the pain, suffering, financial, and emotional destruction my family faced I would view that as a blessing in my life. You need an advocate looking out for your best interests.
