Separating Amicably Because?

…because a separation is also part of a love story that you get to keep forever.

I am a lawyer who asks clients to tell me all about what happened in their love lives. How they ended up calling me: a divorce lawyer.

I hear stories about the lovely places where people met, then somehow overcame tall obstacles to be together; but then ended up falling hard on reality.

Just as they once fell hard for each other. I also hear all about the slow spoiling of their love, the loud silence of emotional despair and the long frustrating wait until it’s time – to call it.

Contrary to what you might expect, the most excruciating stories of separation are not about the embittered vengeance-seeking spouses.  No – they are about the people who choose an amicable separation – people who promise from the outset to be kind to one another as they say goodbye.

Notwithstanding the challenges, this is the kind of separation I advise my clients to choose. I don’t advise a collaborative separation because it’s easy though. I advise a collaborative process because it is in your best interest (and certainly in the best interest of your children if you have kids). 

In a nutshell, it is because a separation is also part of a love story that you get to keep forever.

The legal part of a separation, any good family lawyer can figure out; the exclusions and deductions in property division; incomes for support purposes or how much insurance one needs to secure support payments… 

What I also try to do is to figure out a way to leave you and your family intact, unbroken after the separation.

I listen intently about the unsettling ambiguities of emotions that flood over you. On the one hand you are so done with the marriage but on the other hand you still care and you don’t want to see your spouse suffer. I worry about your wherewithal to withstand the competing demands on your time and patience.  I do this as I walk you through the options of all the interests you have at stake.

The anguish of putting all this together in your heart and your head is sometimes harder than screaming out loud at your spouse!! To sit in one room in a meeting with composure and sanity. To extend kindness when you feel a sense of vulnerability in the face of unknown weeks and years ahead..

It’s a strident passage.

So again – why do I recommend that you separate amicably?

It’s because you know that if you decide to stay entrenched in your anger, you will burn bridges that you can’t ever re-build in a lifetime, and you will wish you hadn’t.

An amicable parting is possible in the final chapter of the story that you get to write now – to keep forever.

I am just here to help you write the story you want to read years down the road.