When you are involved in a divorce, every move you make has a consequence. OK, this sounds like common sense and is not really news to anyone who has been through the process, right?
However, what surprises most people about divorce is how significant a seemingly routine choice becomes. It is so important to truly understand what this means; because it will likely affect everything about how your divorce case proceeds and where you will end up after your divorce.
What a Divorce Attorney Does
The role of your divorce attorney must be as an experienced advisor who knows the likely outcomes of the choices with which you will be confronted. For example, choosing to keep the house that you and your spouse lived in together, may provide certain stability you now seek but it also may preclude you from having the necessary funds to establish yourself in a new life as a single parent.
How does choosing any one option over the other affect you immediately…or in a year…or in 10 years? While no-one can see all ends, it is the divorce attorney’s job to explain the options reasonably available to you from the “facts” inherent in your case.
Review Your Case
To a divorce attorney, your “facts” are all the known circumstances of your life:
- The current living arrangements of you and your spouse
- Whether you have children and what are their needs
- The employment status, incomes and assets of both parties
- The financial well-being or concerns that will ultimately affect outcomes
- Outside influences
- Emotional or medical issues
- Among other “facts” you can probably describe, that are unique to you.
Add to these facts all of the perceptions, fears, hope, confusion, anger and manipulation inherent in a divorce case, and the consequences of choices you have available to you increase dramatically. You cannot change the “facts” of your life, but you can choose wisely to maximize the personal and financial outcome from those facts.
Help You Get a Favorable Outcome
Once you know the likely consequences of your choices, you—not your attorney—can make the choice that is right for you. You should discuss with your attorney where you want to end up when the divorce is over.
This is so important because your divorce attorney needs to understand your “goals”. Once your divorce attorney knows your goals, the attorney can start creating a plan to get you to those goals. That plan will continually encounter choices and consequences and you, with the guidance of your divorce attorney, will make those choices.
So, how, when someone feels so overwhelmed with the breakup of their marriage and the uncertainty of their future do they find the strength to make wise choices?
First, please understand that in divorce situations, it is normal to feel almost paralyzed, not knowing how to get from one day to the next, never mind having to make wise choices every day. Be gentle with yourself. This is going to be a very difficult time and you don’t need you pressuring you to make everything better right away.
Communicate With You Through the Case
Second, your divorce attorney will help you. That is their job and for most, that is their passion. Communication and trust between you and your divorce attorney is so important and it will give you the peace of mind and understanding and confidence you are seeking.
Once you know that your facts are understood by your divorce attorney and that your concerns are heard, the rest is very much up to the attorney. Let your divorce attorney do the best possible job for you by communicating with your attorney on a regular basis and really understanding the likely consequences of the choices you are making.
At The Law Office of Jeanne M. Wilson & Associates, PC, we are privileged to be able to work with Clients who have placed their trust in us, knowing that we understand the struggle they are facing. We work to achieve the very best result for our Client’s personal and financial freedom and happiness.
Are you considering a divorce? Our Colorado Springs family law firm is here for you when you’re ready.
