Dear Nick and Nora,
You both want to know, “What’s going on?”
When I last wrote, your attorneys had taken the first steps toward the courthouse. Although the courthouse is one of the most beautiful public buildings in existence, it’s the one place I had hoped you would stay away from during the course of your divorce. You have each engaged an aggressive lawyer, so what’s happened comes as no surprise and is more a measure of their style of practice than it is of what’s really going on between you.
To date, all the legal activity in your case is driven by your psychological process, which is progressing in predictable stages. You are both currently experiencing Stage II: Anger and Rage. Instead of physically attacking each other, you’ve funneled your emotions into your lawyers.
There’s another choice. You could seek help from a non-legal professional who’s trained to assist people in dealing with overpowering and unfamiliar emotions. Doing the psychological work is the best thing you can do to move through the grief process in a way that will make a positive difference on the inevitable personality changes that will take place. Facing emotion as something about you — rather than something that’s been caused by your spouse — requires taking responsibility for your own anger.
Here is a presumptuous reminder: You are not defined by feeling and emotion, and it’s possible to affect what you feel and how you feel it. This is probably the best time in your lives to learn about your own emotions and what you can do with them. The work would also help you experience these transitory circumstances for what they are as opposed to being something you must act against.
. . .
Now I’ll tell you about how you compare with the rest of the divorcing population in South Santa Barbara County.
You are similar to half the cases filed because you have no minor children. This is the strongest predictor for estimating how long your case will take to conclude. You are similar to about a third of the other divorcing couples because you have been married for more than 10 years, which in California makes it “a marriage of long duration.” The length of the marriage turns out to be a weak predictor of the length of the divorce.
And now that your lawyers have asked a Superior Court judge to intrude into this most private of relationships, you have become part of the 12 to 15 percent of divorcing families who have made similar requests. Although this figure is not included in the online Santa Barbara divorce report, a review of the first tabulations of data shows that the lowest number of cases seeking judicial assistance is 12 percent and the highest is 15 percent. By “judicial assistance” I mean any activity in the file that involves the court — even if the request is withdrawn or becomes moot.
If, for example, the only thing in the file is a request by one lawyer to set a date for a trial and the case settles before that date is assigned, this file would be included within the 12 to 15 percent. If you are looking for a clean, dignified, honorable divorce that leaves you feeling like the experience has made you a better person, this is not a group you want to belong to. But you do.
It could get worse. Consistent with reported findings from all over the country, the number of couples who actually require a trial is small. In our census they represented only 3.1 percent of the divorcing population. There are predictors that characterize cases in this population, but I doubt you have any of them. For now it’s enough for you to attempt to compare the mental health of the 3.1 percent to the remaining 96.9 percent and then decide to which group you would like to belong.
. . .
An understanding of the difference between the 3.1 percent and the 12 to 15 percent requires an explanation of the difference between a “trial” and a “hearing.” So that’s where I’ll begin the next letter.
Your friend,
Bucky
— Brian H. Burke is a certified family law specialist practicing family law and mediation in Santa Barbara. A researcher and educator in the field of divorce and family conflicts, he is also the creator of the Legal Roadmap™. Click here for more information, call 805.965.2888 or e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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