The following are Kulerski and Cornelison’s blog posts from their Chicago Tribune - Chicago Now – “The Way We War” blog.
“I want my divorce lawyer to be part pit bull; part Doberman, part shark, and the rest Cobra…someone who will make my spouse suffer.”
Does this sound familiar? Of course it does. We have all heard of angry or hurt soon-to-be ex spouses making statements like this. The problem is that this is the problem. Our predisposition to fight is one of the biggest reasons that divorce has become so lengthy and costly.
Divorce wars do not pay. We do. Getting that ‘pound of flesh’ is not free; it is a luxury, like buying a new BMW when you do not want one.
While the system admittedly is far from perfect, we have a bigger problem. The real culprit is more fundamental…it is something that society does not prepare us for.
Society does not show us how to stay out of the legal system. It tells us how to behave during marriage, but it does not tell us how to behave during divorce. We take driving, karate, piano, ballet, and golf lessons, but there is no such thing as divorce lessons.
We do not receive any guidance on what we should say and do (and should not say and do) to persuade our partner to consider a compromise settlement before our dispute reaches the legal system. We are not offered any insight into preventing our problem from becoming a disaster. A century of divorce wars suggests that we need some help in this department.
Marriage is difficult by nature, but divorce is often difficult by choice. “The Way We War” reveals some simple things that we can do to prevent our divorce experience from becoming any harder than it has to be.
