CHAPTER [12]
FORMULATING A STRATEGIC PROCESS AND PLAN
A dizzying deluge of letters, affidavits, lawsuits, and demand court appearances is the hallmark of the traditional system of divorce. But when a process is reactive and seemingly random, there’s no way to know whether the final outcome is fair.
Stumbling into your divorce and rushing to retain a lawyer without an ironclad plan is akin to setting sail across the North Atlantic Ocean without a nautical map, a GPS receiver, or a captain to steer the ship.
It’s like ending up instead with a boatload of ego-inflated first mates clambering to get their hands on the wheel, with the loudest, most bullish lawyers setting the general direction. Eventually they get you to the opposite shore, but their haphazard zigzagging across the ocean consumes an alarming amount of unnecessary time and money.
A strategic plan not only straightens out the route toward resolution, it clears the pathway of flotsam and jetsam while dramatically shortening the distance from point A to point B—from onset to resolution.
The backbone of The Fairway Process is a strategic plan that begins with the final destination not only in mind but clearly in view.
It also rigorously defines each step that needs to be taken, and it effectively eliminates superfluous or counterproductive steps. It knows where it’s coming from and where it is going.
For many people (myself included), the randomness of the legal experience follows seamlessly from the seemingly random events that got them there in the first place. During our year of slow marital disintegration, Tom’s behavior was as wildly unpredictable as the string of correspondence that later followed from his lawyer.
Not only does random correspondence intensify an already stressful experience, it twists the pathway toward resolution into a dysfunctional, seemingly endless series of switchbacks and convolutions. It turns you into a frazzled, stressed-out rat in a maze, one who lives in constant fear of the next unpleasant shock.
The greatest tragedy, from my perspective, is that the lawyers’ correspondence and affidavits make permanent and ineradicable the venom and spite that might otherwise have weakened or stopped stinging altogether after wounds began to heal. I know firsthand how hurtful divorce can be, and for even the kindest of souls it is fraught with the desire to hurt the other party, especially if you were wronged or betrayed. But there is a price to pay for this subtle revenge, and I can tell you the price is way too high. Once the words are put to paper and dropped in the mail, they can never be taken back.
Often, if there is any tenderness or mutual respect remaining when a couple begins their divorce proceedings, the ensuing correspondence quite effectively destroys it.
The lawyers might argue they’re just doing their jobs. “C’mon, cut us some slack. We’re not paid to manufacture happily ever afters. We’re paid to fight for our clients. We’re paid to secure the biggest slice of the pie. We’re paid to be ruthless. We’re paid to win.”
And yes, lawyers do win sometimes, but at what cost?
Surely the divorcing couple doesn’t win as any positives they might have taken away from their time together are decisively and permanently obscured by the mud their lawyers sling back and forth.
And surely their children don’t win as they must stand helplessly by as their parents’ relationship gets battered and beaten to an almighty pulp.
There’s no question in my mind: Lawyers’ letters damage. Affidavits go one step further: They destroy.
I am firm in my conviction that unless one member poses a danger to the rest of the family (through abuse or other criminal acts), affidavits have no place within family law. They do little but destroy relationships, and for what? To prove that you’re right and your spouse is wrong?
In divorce, the black and white of “right or wrong” seldom exists. Divorce is a world of gray areas, where everything is subjective and only perception exists. Remember, good people divorce, too.
When you pay a lawyer to draft an affidavit, the cost may far transcend dollars and cents. After the bill, you can tack on the unforeseeable and immeasurable pain and suffering you’ll bring upon others and yourself.
If I could press Rewind and rerecord my own divorce, I would not allow my lawyer to put on paper the words she put the first time round. To stop the train wreck that I now know was the outcome, I would have swept the debris from the rails.
But I was naive. I was full of fear and trusted my lawyers totally. I was unable to see as clearly, and for that I paid. The affidavits the lawyers sent back and forth destroyed so much, including any chance of co-parenting with my ex-husband.
While it was happening, this back-and-forth exchange of threats and invectives, I remember feeling utterly hopeless. Most of the people who’ve shared their stories with me felt exactly the same. Although my case was extreme, it was by no means atypical.
And after the damage was done, who was left trying to put the pieces back together? Not the lawyers, that’s for sure. They’d been paid and were long gone.
The current system and its processes failed me utterly. And if you can’t trust the process, it’s extremely difficult to trust in the outcomes. It’s extremely difficult to do anything but fear for the worst.
Illumination dissolves fear, and The Fairway Process’s new approach to divorce illuminates. Through a logical, step-by-step process, it empowers wise decision making by imparting knowledge, insight, and foresight.
When you trust the process, you can trust the outcome.
When divorce involves a step-by-step, start-to-finish methodology, you can rest assured the resolution is fair.