Over half of all marriages today end in divorce. So chances are that you have heard some of the numerous war stories about how terrible the divorce was, particularly for the children. Sadly, you yourself may have been one of those children and determined that you would never put your own children through that experience, only to find yourself facing a divorce and looking at the same process today that your parents did.

COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE: A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THE DIVORCE PROCESS

For too many families, problem solving in a traditional divorce still involves the old techniques of accusation, aggression, alienation (particularly of the children), arguments, put-downs or verbal abuse, a celebration of man or woman functioning at his/her lowest level. The Jerry Springer Show played out in your lives at the elegant price of $300 per hour for each of your lawyers, specialists, accountants and the like. You are told that you need to win in order to solve the problem. You are going to take it to the judge who will feel your pain. The problem is, while you are doing all that, so often your family is suffering, your children cannot take it, you cannot afford it, and the judge may see things in a way that no one ever considered.

After over a decade of working in family court, it seems to me and to many of my colleagues that we need to redefine what winning is all about. When a new client arrives in my office, I am asked all the typical questions. What are my rights? How can I get what I want, and/or what I need for my children and me? How much will it cost? I suggest that most clients forget to ask what is perhaps the most important question: How do I maintain a healthy family life during the process of a divorce and beyond? What do I and my soon-to-be ex-spouse need to do so as not to completely lose our family? What do we need to do to keep our children secure in the fact that Mommy and Daddy are still their family and there for them despite the divorce? How do we get through this process in a way that ensures that we shall be able to dance together as friends and parents at our child’s wedding? The point is that the divorce is not over the day the judge signs the order divorcing you. If you have children, your life and the life of your former spouse are connected and will be connected for the rest of your lives, and the way the divorce is handled will have a tremendous effect on the rest of your family’s life.

There are parallels between the family going though a traditional divorce and an individual being treated for a serous illness. Think of illness as a fire and the symptoms as smoke. You can get so focused on dealing with the smoke that you forget to put out the fire. Traditional medicine is often criticized for treating only the smoke and never putting out the fire. So, the problems are never really solved and the patient is not returned to health. The treatment may leave you as sick as the illness.

Holistic medicine focuses on finding and putting out the fire. Likewise with divorce, you need to work at putting out the fire. You need to start by talking to your divorcing spouse. You may really want to kill the %*&^%%$, and you may have some justification for that, but not talking will only keep you and your children lost in the smoke. You need to move forward to focus on putting out the fire if you and your family are ever to heal. You need to focus on the things that bring you together, not the things that drive you apart.

Thankfully, there are new options today. Collaborative divorce is one of them. Think of it as a holistic approach to divorce. Practiced by a dedicated handful of specially trained family lawyers, it focuses on taking the process out of the courts and out of the hands of others as much as possible. The parties and their collaborative lawyers sign a Participation Agreement to sit down and resolve the issues associated with their divorce among themselves, and agree that they will not go to court unless they have absolutely no other option. The parties resolve their issues themselves with the help and assistance of their collaborative lawyers, not strangers. If financial issues or children’s issues arise, the parties may elect to seek the counsel of agreed upon financial experts or psychologists to get the information they need to decide what is best for their family. The focus is on working things out in a way that is best for the family and most nurturing to the children. The hope is to save time and money as well. Most of all, it should leave the parties with something that money cannot buy: children who will never forget that their parents loved them enough, and still loved each other enough, to sit down and work things out for the betterment of all the members of the family. The needs of the entire family, husband, wife and children are considered, balanced, and met to the extent possible.

Collaborative divorce may not work in all cases. If the process breaks down, the collaborative lawyers have to withdraw from the case and non-collaborative lawyers take over. The reality though is that there is almost no problem in the world that two people cannot solve if they really make-up their minds to solve it, and no solution available if two people only want to fight. The choice is up to the individual. It really is about the divorcing spouses committing themselves to relating to the other at their highest levels of emotional functioning and letting that be their divorce legacy to their children. It has to do with being able to say to the world that the love that took you into your marriage has the integrity to take you out of it in a dignified and healthy way. It has to do with giving your children a priceless gift, the permission to love both parents freely.

Remember, the marriage may die, but the love and commitment to the family you created should continue to live.

Article by: Melanie A. Cambridge, Esq. - Family and collaborative lawyer for the past 14 years - melcamb@bellsouth.net