Guest Article By Lori Barkus, Attorney at Law www.barkuslaw.com
In this article, Attorney Lori Barkus shares with us the 5 biggest mistakes divorcing women make and how to avoid them.
- Not creating a plan/strategy for divorce Before you even begin the process, you need to know what a realistic outcome looks like and you need to create a plan to get there. This involves understanding your financial picture. It also involves understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your case. Once you know what you are trying to achieve it becomes easier to figure out the best way to achieve it.
- Letting emotions drive the process Emotions and feelings have a way of taking on a life of their own. This is especially true when we act on everything we believe in a given moment. Emotions make for bad decision making in this process. When it comes to managing strong emotions, different approaches work for different people. The objective is to help you identify what works best for you and help you seek out support or carve out time for your emotional outlet activities.
- Fighting over money they don’t have Understanding your finances is a step that you must take. Most people are uncomfortable with budgets and finances. It seems so confusing. All of this is quite common. In order to help you make some of the most important decisions of your life, you need to understand your finances. There are resources available to help you understand your current financial situation. Using that information, you can then make strategic decisions in the divorce process to help you get there.
- Hiring an aggressive divorce attorney. Aggressive Divorce Attorneys do not protect you. They will yell, file a lot of documents and charge you a lot of money. They will tell you that they are going to pressure the other side into agreeing to what you want. But there will be no strategy and no end to the process until someone gives up or you have spent even more money than you are fighting over and can’t even remember what you wanted in the first place. The aggressive attorney route is another example of letting emotions drive the process. You are so afraid that they idea actually makes sense. Until you see how it actually plays out.
- Focusing on everyone but themselves As you begin this process, take a deep breath and tell yourself you are going to focus on what YOU need and what YOU want out of this divorce process and your life in genera. Maybe you’ve spent your whole life thinking about what everyone else wants and needs. Simply put, you can’t take care of yourself if you are depleted. I meet many women at the initial consultation stage who are burned out from being caregivers, breadwinners and basically everything everyone else needs from them. You know the standard airplane safety line about putting your own oxygen mask on first? You will need to do that with the divorce process. Not necessarily an oxygen mask, but you have to make sure you are supported and resourced so you can handle this process and make good decisions throughout.
If you find yourself struggling with the aspects of divorce, reach out to me. I am here to help.