Biggest Mistakes People Make During a Divorce
March 30, 2023
Many people going through a divorce feel overwhelmed with emotions and the complexities surrounding the process. As a result, some people make regrettable decisions.
These decisions can not only make the divorce take longer and be more expensive, they can also affect the outcome in essentially permanent ways.
Allowing Your Emotions to Take Over: Anger
Disappointment, anger, disillusion, and frustration are some of the emotions you must contend with in a divorce. But you shouldn't allow them to guide your actions.
It is not unusual to be angry at your spouse. However, allowing that anger to control you will make your case harder. This isn’t limited to things that might be criminal like threats or assaults. Just deciding that you will not negotiate will make this much harder. The best way to make a lawyer rich is for one side to decide they won’t make any concessions at all. If you hate the other side, lawyers work the case out so they can’t get any more money.
Posting negative things online or sending hateful texts are a great way to make the othersides case that you are a bad parent with anger issues. The old adage that if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all is a good one. With today’s electronic world everything you do online is discoverable. Video cameras are everywhere. Chances are you are reading this on a device that has one. Blow up and scream at your ex and expect to see in Court…
Allowing Your Emotions to Take Over: Fear of Change Nostalgia
A divorce is a huge change in many people's lives the longer you have been married the more the change. Minor children only make this stronger. Do not let this overcome you or make decisions based on either fear of your life changing or nostalgia for how it was.
As any example don’t keep the family home just because it is the only home your children know or because you have lived there for so long. You have to make a rational decision on keeping it at all. It makes no sense to keep a property you can’t pay the rent on. Base this decision on your finances alone after all your ex might be ordered to pay child support and maintenance but then get run over by a bus…
Relying on Self, Family, and Friends
Representing yourself in a divorce lawsuit is not wrong in itself. I have known people who did their own divorce. Usually it was one with few or no assets and no children but some people can do it. However a complicated divorce or one with children likely will require you to hire an attorney.
Another problem is that many people who represent themselves take advice from friends, family, and the internet. Hey, those are great ways to get information. If you can make sure it applies to your case. Look, all cases are determined by the facts of that case and the laws of the state it was filed in. Your friends' out of state divorce doesn’t really have much to do with yours. Who knows what the internet source is talking about? You really need local legal advice.
Articles like this give you information but never legal advice. Additionally, remembering that your case is unique should make you refrain from taking legal advice from unqualified sources.
Your friends mean well, but the divorce laws are different by state, different counties have different procedures, and facts of your case matter.. A local attorney like the Hardin Law Firm is what you need to help you get the results you want.