Barb could hardly believe that she’d reached this point. Divorce had been the furthest thing from her mind, something others faced, not something she’d ever expected to face. Yet now, divorce loomed, seemingly unavoidably. And all she knew about divorce was secondhand, mostly horror stories she’d heard from friends. She knew she needed help. But the pit in her stomach told her that first, she needed information. She needed to know what she faced so that she could face it effectively, with courage if not also with poise and aplomb.

Help

If you’re facing divorce, you probably already know that you need help. Depending on your situation, you may need the help of a lawyer, caseworker, referee, judge, and several friends. You may need the help of a neighbor to watch the house, your co-worker to cover your job, and your parents to pick up the kids. You may need the help of a counselor to keep your head straight, a police officer to protect you and the kids, and a boss to forgive you for being absent-minded at work. You may need the help of a sibling to reassure you that you’re not the devil and a pastor or priest to remind you that you’re not a saint. You may need to borrow a friend’s fishing pole and cottage to recover your sanity or another friend’s shoulder on which to lean and arm on which to cry. Just don’t expect to face divorce alone. You can’t and won’t. Let others help you, while staying clear of those who would hurt you more than help.

Information

You also need information, one way or another. Better to get that information up front rather than have it surprise you later on. And better yet to get that information from ones who know rather than ones who don’t know. Yes, individuals who have been through divorce can tell you a little about the process. The information they share may indeed help. But the information that individuals who have been through a divorce share is based on their own unique experience, when every divorce is unique. No two divorces are exactly alike, while divorces can also differ vastly in their causes, courses, and outcomes. So, sure, listen to friends and acquaintances who share their own individual experiences with divorce. But take anyone’s individual experience with a grain of salt. Even they will tell you that their experience differed from the experience of others and was in its own way unique.

Balance

Better, instead, to get information from balanced sources. Experience counts most when it is broad experience backed by knowledge about the laws, processes, and range of possible outcomes to divorce. It doesn’t have to happen to you like it did for your parents, siblings, or friends. Things can be different for you, indeed will be different for you, that’s for sure. To see the full possibilities before you in a divorce, the information you get should also be unbiased, unaffected by the interests that accompany anyone involved directly in your divorce. That’s right. Everyone involved in your divorce has their own interests. Your attorney, the judge, the referee, the caseworker; they’re all generally reliable sources of information. But they’re also each carrying out a role that shapes and affects what they tell you. Let’s not go into details here. The information they share may be entirely accurate and truthful, even wise and reasonably balanced. You’ll need to trust someone, and trusting those professionals is a good place to start. Yet you can still benefit from a broader, entirely independent view of the whole range of possibilities, unaffected by individual interests.

Challenge

You need a view of what’s coming because it’s going to be, indeed surely already has been, an incredible challenge, one of the sort you’ve not experienced before. Divorce, they say, is like experiencing someone’s death, maybe your own, maybe your spouse’s, but clearly the marriage’s. Divorce can be hard, incredibly hard. Yet it can also be easier than some divorcing spouses make it, if only they had better information, insight, anticipation, and wisdom. Maybe things don’t have to go so far south, and they don't have to get so desperately difficult and sad for you. Maybe, just maybe, divorce can be more like a healing than a death, or a rising up quickly and lightly after a hard fall down. You remember those falls as a kid, when you fell so hard that you had to pause to gather yourself and check to see if you were still living before seeing if you were reasonably able to stand again? That’s what divorce is. Not a death but a hard fall. And reliable, balanced information can soften the fall, making it less sudden and scary, and easier to get up.

Flourishing

New things do rise out of the ashes. That promise is generally the last thing that people going through a divorce want to hear. When the sky is dark with thunderheads, who wants to hear that the sun is shining above? You’ve got a storm to weather. Let’s get through that storm first before imagining the sunny skies, roses, and puppies beyond. Yet through a divorce, you do need to keep in mind your goal, which is to flourish. Thinking of the possibility of doing well for yourself, your family, and others again can help you get through a divorce. If you’re not looking forward to something good, or at least to something better, then you’re either feeling sorry for yourself in your present condition or looking back in bitterness on what at the moment looks like a disaster. Although fault, blame, and justice can matter, divorce isn’t deeply about assigning blame. It’s instead more so about discerning and pursuing recovery. In the bigger picture, a successful divorce turns one unhealthy and unstable household into two healthy and stable households. Keep that goal in mind.

Care

And that’s my way of answering the question that this chapter posed at its beginning, why trust this guide. You can see that my interest is in your protection and flourishing through divorce. I could tell you about my forty years as a lawyer, the dozens of divorces in which I have represented either the husband or wife, and the battles they fought over children and their vast or meager property. I could tell you about my counseling and teaching, my service, scholarship, faith, and leadership, and my own wonderful but, like everyone else’s, crazy family. Yet you don’t need credentials, and you don’t need personal experience. You need trustworthy information. You need to hear from someone who cares about you. And that’s the only credit I’ll offer. As you read this guide, as clear, positive, and comprehensive as I could make it, trust that someone cares for you, and not just a little but so deeply that they love you more than you could ever love yourself. That’s what you need to know from a reliable guide, that they’ll give their own life to save yours. Read this guide to learn what you need to know about divorce.

Key Points

• People going through divorce can need help from many others.

• People going through divorce also need accurate information.

• Seek unbiased, reliable information, while avoiding disaster stories.

• Keep in mind your goal to flourish in a good life after divorce. 

• Trust that someone cares for you more than you care for yourself.

Read Chapter 2.