Michelle was well aware that her husband was a bully. He’d never directly harmed her, but he’d made frequent veiled threats, and she’d heard of him harming others. When she confirmed one of his many suspected affairs, she resolved to leave him. Michelle wasn’t worried about where she’d go or what she would do. She knew she’d be fine, once their marriage was over. But she worried a lot about what he might do to her, her things, and her interests in the process of divorce, before they were through with one another.

Bullies

Bullies, individuals who use force, threats, and manipulation to coerce their selfish ends, are out there. They’re not just in the trades, business, and the professions. They’re in marriages and divorces, too. Indeed, bullying within a marriage is a cause of divorce. A spouse who does not respect the other spouse, and then turns their coercion on the other spouse to try to gain even more than a marriage already offers, inevitably diminishes the marriage and destroys its greater objects. A bully in marriage may be an even worse bully in divorce. Indeed, a separation and impending divorce can turn some spouses who to that point had maintained basic decorum through the marriage toward bullying or other abusive behavior. The broken human spirit can be a dangerous, destructive, and ugly thing. Separation and divorce can make it even uglier.

Connivers

Connivers and swindlers are out there, too, not just in the commercial and charitable world but in marriages and divorces, too. Deception in a marriage can take all forms, from concealing pornography, sexual affairs, drug or alcohol abuse, and other private degradations, to misrepresenting financial transactions, assets, and accomplishments, depleting marital and retirement accounts on gambling, and concealing sexual diseases and other embarrassing, dangerous, and debilitating health conditions. A deceiver in marriage may well be an even bolder deceiver in divorce. 

Representation

If you are married to a conniver or bully, and if you have minor children of the marriage or substantial property interests to preserve and divide in divorce, then prepare yourself for a royal battle. Get skilled attorney representation. Divorce attorneys with any substantial experience generally know the depths to which parties can sink to harm the other party while helping themselves in a divorce proceeding. Experienced divorce attorneys also know how to stop the bullying and discover and prevent the conniving. If you’re divorcing a bully or conniver and need to accomplish more than simply get as quickly and far away as possible, like protecting children and discovering and dividing hidden assets, get the highly qualified attorney representation you need.

Orders

Court rules and procedures governing divorce proceedings can protect parties against coercion and deception. But you must generally invoke those measures effectively and strategically for them to do any good. The major tool courts use to prevent bullying and coercion is to issue orders. A court order is a written document that the judge signs and the court enters in the case file, directing the parties and those whom they control to do or not do certain things. Court orders can control what divorcing spouses say to one another or others, what they must disclose to the court and one another, what they do to one another or others, where they go, where they must avoid going, and what they do with respect to children and property. Don’t underestimate the breadth of the potential court orders in your divorce proceeding.

Enforcement

Courts have ways of enforcing their orders in divorce and other cases. Courts may be able to sanction the spouse who disobeys an order, by defaulting the spouse in the case, dismissing certain of the spouse’s divorce claims or defenses, finding in the other spouse’s favor on claims and defenses, awarding property or child custody to the other spouse, and even imposing monetary penalties. Repeated violations of court orders could further result in contempt of court sanctions including incarceration. Police can also play an enforcement role. Police may receive and serve personal restraint orders on the restrained spouse, and may arrest the spouse violating the order if and when the other spouse makes an emergency call for enforcement. Restraining orders can be powerful deterrents and their enforcement powerful correctives in divorce proceedings.

PPOs

A prior chapter has already mentioned the right of an abused spouse to obtain a personal protection order (PPO) from the civil courts, even before filing for divorce. PPOs sometimes precede a divorce filing. An abuse incident occurs, the abused spouse obtains a PPO removing the abuser spouse from the marital home, and one or the other of the spouses file for divorce. Court clerks, while not allowed to give legal advice, may have the statutory obligation under your state’s law to assist you in preparing and filing the papers necessary to get a PPO. See the PPO petition and order forms among the other forms at the end of this guide. Once you file those papers at the clerk’s counter, the clerk should immediately take the papers to the on-duty judge who will decide whether to issue the PPO. If issued, the PPO may go straight to the police for service on the abusive spouse. In that way, you could get immediate relief from abuse, including the opportunity to remain in your marital residence with your spouse removed.

Challenges

A spouse subjected to a PPO may challenge the PPO immediately on its issuance and service, by filing an objection to the PPO with the court. The court should then schedule a prompt hearing, usually within just a couple of days or few days, recognizing how severely disruptive a PPO can be, especially one that removes a spouse from the marital home and prevents the removed spouse from having any contact with children. Both spouses may appear at the hearing, where the judge may listen to their conflicting testimony to decide whether to continue the PPO, modify it, or revoke it. While you do not generally need an attorney to gain a PPO, you may do far better for yourself if you retain an attorney to challenge a PPO at a hearing or to advocate at the hearing for its continuance. Attorneys know how to present testimony at hearings as well as challenge false testimony through cross-examination.

Restraints

On filing a divorce case, spouses who have suffered abuse or other endangering, coercive, deceptive, or disruptive action may immediately seek the family court’s restraining order against those actions, whether or not the filing spouse already has a PPO in place. If a PPO is already in place, the family court judge may simply issue its own order confirming and continuing the PPO’s terms. If the court has not already issued a PPO, the family court judge may issue an emergency temporary restraining order or, in the absence of emergency circumstances, schedule a hearing to decide whether a restraining order is appropriate. As in the case of a PPO, the restrained spouse may challenge the request for a restraining order, with the judge hearing testimony for and against the request. 

Security

Spouses filing for divorce may seek restraining orders that do more than protect the filing spouse and resident minor children from physical harm. They may also seek restraints to protect the security of marital property. If they have grounds to believe that the other spouse may secrete, conceal, damage, or destroy personal property, then their request will be for an order preventing those actions. Spouses learning of a divorce filing can at times redirect their anger from the filing spouse to damaging or destroying the filing spouse’s personal property and effects. Spouses learning of a divorce may also secrete and conceal marital assets, hoping to gain swift practical advantage. If you have those concerns and can back them up with sufficient evidence, you may wish to seek a restraint on personal property as soon as you file for divorce, so that the property does not disappear.

Accounts

Restraints on personal property can extend to the spouses’ accounts, especially joint checking and savings accounts out of which each spouse usually spends to cover day-to-day expenses. An absolute freeze on all accounts helps no one. Both spouses must be able to go on living during the pending divorce proceeding. But a restraining order may prohibit expenditures or transfers out of a joint checking or savings account, beyond the usual expenditures for mortgage, rent, food, and other necessary items. A restraining order may also require spouses to continue to deposit paychecks or other earnings into joint accounts, out of which to pay those necessary and usual expenses. In other words, a restraining order can set the tone for continued financial responsibility during the marriage, without gross diversions. A restraining order may also freeze transfers out of retirement or brokerage accounts until a final judgment allocates them equitably between the parties.

Waste

Interim restraining orders during a pending divorce also commonly prohibit any waste of assets by the parties. Waste can include neglect of things like home heating, cooling, electric, water, and security, resulting in damage to or destruction of the home. An order prohibiting waste might require a spouse to keep a home maintained, secured, and insured, even when vacated after separation or on filing for divorce. An order prohibiting waste might likewise require spouses to continue to feed livestock, care for crops, manage a business, or do similar usual things, while the parties wind down affairs, liquidate assets, and divide the proceeds. One cannot just walk away from everything, without risking its diminution or loss. Diminution and loss help no one. If one or the other of the parties does not act responsibly toward the preservation of assets, the court may order upkeep until the finalizing of the divorce and even afterward under the divorce judgment.

Mutuality

While you appropriately consider how you might need to restrain your spouse in a divorce, your spouse may soon be thinking likewise of restraining you. If you ask the court to restrain your spouse, you’ll likely see a mirror request from your spouse for the court to restrain you. In those instances, courts tend to make restraints mutual. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Don’t be surprised if your request for a restraining order comes back like a boomerang on you. If a certain restraint would seriously hamper you, then consider not asking the court to restrain your spouse on the same subject. If you can trust your spouse to discuss, negotiate, and agree on how to proceed as to these rights and interests, then do so, rather than asking for the court’s help. Court rulings tend not to be exactly as you wished. As judges sometimes say, a good ruling often makes both parties unhappy, not just one. Beware invoking the court’s authority to issue orders. Doing so may lead to a mutual order against you that you’d rather not have faced.

Support

Divorce courts can also issue interim temporary spousal support (alimony) orders. A restraining order like the one described above, requiring parties to continue to make usual deposits and payments, may suffice. If you lack your own income and instead depend on your spouse’s income, then your spouse continuing to make deposits of income into joint accounts, out of which you have a continuing right to pay usual expenses, may enable you to live as you did before filing for divorce. Try to negotiate that agreement with your spouse. If you cannot, try to get that restraining order so that its terms suffice. But if your circumstances differ, and you can demonstrate to the court that you are unable to meet minimum reasonable household expenses without your spouse’s payments to you, then expect to make that request for interim spousal support, with your attorney’s help. You cannot simply sit on your hands at home. The judge may attribute income to you, if you are able to work and qualified for remunerative work available to you. But if not, the court may exercise its equitable authority to order your support.

Custody

If you and your spouse have minor children together at the time of your filing for divorce, then the court also has the authority to fashion interim orders for their care, custody, and support. The following chapter discusses child custody and support in greater detail. The process for interim child-custody and support orders, already briefly mentioned above, typically involves a prompt interview of both parents, referee recommendation, and ensuing interim order unless one spouse objects to the recommendation. See the example petition, recommendation, and objection forms among the other forms at the end of this guide. An objection triggers a hearing at which the judge is reasonably likely to adopt the recommendation but may fashion other relief if the testimony warrants it. Not all divorces with minor children necessarily require interim orders, although some family courts heavily favor and may even require them. You may not initially believe you require an interim order. But if you expect to retain physical custody of your minor children while depending on your spouse’s child support, then seriously consider seeking an interim order. You’ll likely benefit from the assurance and stability during the divorce proceeding, and the interim order may cast the die for a favorable final judgment.

Visitation

If the divorce court enters an interim child custody and support order, the order is likely to also provide for what was once commonly called visitation but is now more commonly called parenting time. Parenting time goes to the non-custodial parent. Parenting time ensures that the non-custodial parent continues to see the children on a regular basis, to maintain a strong, close, and supportive relationship with the children. Parenting time can vary widely according to work, school, and other schedules, children’s ages, and other factors. Typical parenting-time provisions offer visits every Wednesday evening and every other weekend. Expect your interim order to include parenting time for your non-custodial spouse, unless unfit for parenting time. See further discussion in the following chapter on children.

Supervision

As the next chapter on children further addresses, parenting time is typically at the residence of the non-custodial parent or another safe and convenient location conducive to the non-custodial parent’s healthy interaction with the children. If you have real and substantial concerns about your spouse’s fitness or ability to manage parenting time, without subjecting your children to inappropriate behavior and risks, then consider whether supervised parenting time might be appropriate. Your willingness to support your spouse’s relationship with the children is a factor in whether the court will grant you physical custody. So, try in earnest to find a suitable arrangement under which you can trust your spouse to spend regular parenting time with your children. Parenting time at a grandparent’s home, sibling’s home, or other residence with stable and trustworthy adults who are familiar with caring for children may be a solution your spouse or the court will accept.

Key Points

• Seek interim court orders if your spouse bullies or connives.

• Attorney representation is often necessary for appropriate orders.

• Courts can enforce interim orders with severe sanctions.

• The divorce court may continue in place a PPO you get before filing.

• The restrained spouse may challenge the order in a court hearing.

• Courts can restrain spouses and their accounts and other property.

• Courts can require parties to maintain property against waste.

• Courts may restrain both parties similarly, if one party seeks restraint.

• Courts can issue interim orders for spousal support.

• Courts can issue interim orders for child custody and support.

• Interim orders can also address parenting time and supervision.

Read Chapter 11.