It’s all in the timing

In brief

You have heard it a thou­sand times before ​“Words once spo­ken can nev­er be recalled.”

When rela­tion­ships come to an end, both par­ties often race to find a lawyer and stake their claim. I high­ly rec­om­mend cau­tion in this approach. 

The facts

In my expe­ri­ence it may do more harm than good to shoot off a let­ter from a lawyer too ear­ly. No mat­ter how ​“gen­tle” the approach, it’s still a lawyer’s let­ter and will rarely be read with any of the ten­der­ness you may have intended. 

Equal­ly, a threat­en­ing let­ter may be sim­i­lar­ly inef­fec­tive in achiev­ing results. These types of let­ters often get your mat­ter off on the ​“wrong foot” and instead of resolv­ing your issues it ends up cost­ing you a lot of mon­ey and time as well as cre­ate emo­tion­al stress.

I advise my clients to pre­pare for war but hope for peace. In prepar­ing for war they are well pre­pared for what lies ahead but the trick comes in the hop­ing for peace. I encour­age my clients to demon­strate that desire for peace in their actions – so talk the talk and walk the walk. At the end of the day going to court has its place but the most sat­is­fied clients are those who are able to avoid court and nego­ti­ate a resolution.

It’s all in the way you set it up and in the tim­ing of what you do. Con­sult with a fam­i­ly lawyer who will empow­er you with knowl­edge and who will offer you strate­gies and options so you can select what will be best for your family. 

In this sit­u­a­tion the tim­ing always seems unfair. Dur­ing one of the most emo­tion­al and stress­ful times of your life you find your­self hav­ing to make big deci­sions with long term impacts while you may not feel emo­tion­al­ly strong or be think­ing logically.

My clients and I always agree, their world has just been turned upside down whether it was their deci­sion to call it a day or not. 

Every­one needs time to adjust to their new real­i­ties. Breathe calm­ly before jump­ing to con­clu­sions and div­ing in hard. Rethink and per­haps agree to take it slow and leave things much the same as they are so that you can both try and find a solu­tion when you are in a bet­ter head space. Just give each oth­er some breath­ing space.

Your next steps

Always remem­ber it is not easy to back­track once you have rocked some­one’s world. Get prac­ti­cal and hon­est advice which is aligned to and assists you to iden­ti­fy your needs and val­ues. In this way, you will be able to come out the oth­er end of a divorce/​relationship break­down with your dig­ni­ty and fam­i­ly as in tact as pos­si­ble with arrange­ments aligned to your needs and interests.

Get­ting to the end of a divorce with an emp­ty tank (emo­tion­al­ly and finan­cial­ly) it not ide­al. There usu­al­ly is a bet­ter way; all you need is an overview of your options. Find­ing a fam­i­ly lawyer who is able to help you nav­i­gate your way to pick the solu­tions that work best for you and your fam­i­ly will help you to move through this uncer­tain peri­od of your life with greater clar­i­ty, renewed ener­gy and excite­ment about the future that lies ahead.