Chicago Divorce Attorney Blog

Most friendly divorces are more than luck and usually require some restraint and diplomacy.

Anticipate that the two of you will not see eye-to-eye on many issues and prepare yourself to be patient. Settlements rarely happen on the first try.

When the settlement conversations begin, explain to your spouse that you will make every attempt to hear them out, even if you are in total disagreement with what they are saying.

Acknowledge that you will naturally favor what is best for you and promise that you will try to overcome this bias. Ask your spouse if he or she might be willing to do the same.

Give your partner many opportunities to explain how they see things and never brush off anything they say. What they are trying to get across is important to them, so it is essential that you act as if it is also important to you.

It is particularly important that you do not appear to have generalized their position to be only what you expected it to be.

Try to avoid any discussion of fairness. What you think is "fair" is meaningless to the person you are trying to persuade.

If we hope to convince our soon-to-be ex to agree to a sensible out of court settlement, we cannot place any blame our spouse and we cannot allow ourselves to display anger.

As we discussed in Part 1, anger causes blame and blame causes anger. If we are angry, we blame someone for making us angry. In divorce, this someone is our spouse - the person from whom we want concessions and compromise. Since no one takes kindly to being blamed, our using this tact (and we all do) starts the very divorce war that we hoped to avoid.

When we blame our spouse, we do it to show them how wrong they were and why they now owe us a fair settlement. Since no one ever wants to accept blame, this approach makes them angry, and angry people do not settle cases - they fight. And, they also make lousy decisions.

We owe it to ourselves to sharpen our view of what is at stake and control the encounter, or it will control us.

The best way to contain our anger is to anticipate theirs. Anticipate fury, and you will be able to handle fury--without unleashing your own.

It is amazingly easy to control your temper when you know the triggering is certain to happen.

It is this simple.

Listening to your spouse's perspective can be painful because you know they see things "incorrectly," while you see things "correctly."

Accepting that they will never see things as you do reduces the frustration and expense of the divorce process. It is much easier to accept something if we realize it was never within our control to begin with.

How do you handle this? First, remember that your spouse has had different life experiences, and it is perfectly normal for them to see things differently. Then, make yourself curious about your spouse's perspective and let them know that you are interested in how they perceive the situation. When they make a proposal you don't agree with, do not shoot it down right away. Keep asking questions about what they based their thinking upon.

Skillfully dealing with your spouse's perspective is the heart and soul of reaching a divorce settlement. It is necessary for us to understand our partner's perspective as it is, not as what we think it is or what we wish it to be.

It is impossible to gain such an understanding without first listening to what they are trying to tell us. This is why no one has ever reached a quick and sensible settlement by talking. The trick is in listening, or at least pretending to listen.

Divorcing couples have difficulty believing that there could be two sides to the story. Once their settlement conversations begin, however, it is profitable and productive for them to at least pretend that there could be two sides.

If your spouse has a different perspective, understand that different does not mean wrong. It only means different. Explain this reality to your spouse and ask for a mutual agreement allowing both of your perspectives to join the two of you at the bargaining table.

Keep in mind that you will never be able to change your spouse's perspective, and your spouse will never be able to change yours! The pain, cost, anger, and frustration of conflict and of going to trial are the result of not being able to persuade your partner that you are right and that they are wrong.

You cannot win if you try to change your partner's perspective. You win by simply validating their right to see things as they do and then working around it.

There is freedom in accepting each other's views as possible solutions. It frees the mind of ego, bias, and obstinacy, and opens the doors to a higher form of creativity that does have the capability to resolve your difficulty.

Society has just experienced a century of costly, damaging, and painful divorce wars and, until recently, has done nothing to correct the situation.

Mediation arrived the mid 1980's, collaborative law arrived in the early 1990's, and our newest divorce money and pain saving process - cooperative divorce law - has just now arrived in Illinois.

These three alternatives make it possible for divorcing couples to avoid the costly and damaging courtroom experiences that our predecessors were required to endure,

The thousands of folks that preceded us in divorce were limited in their ability to convince their spouses to settle out of court. We now know more about the art of negotiation and can easily overcome this limitation.

We have learned that we cannot get through to our spouse by explaining the reasonableness of our position. A century of divorce wars proves this does not work. We are not able to unlock their thinking from the outside because our key only works from the inside.

If we hope to disengage our partner's resistance, we have to get to the inside of their reasoning process. We earn the key that gains us entry when we stop talking and start listening. Their deadbolts will remain in place until we have heard every word they say.

This is the core of the secret to a friendly divorce.

A sensible way to learn something is by accepting guidance from someone who already knows it. When we want to learn how to knit, drive, play the piano, or use karate, we find an expert and take lessons. Need tax help? We talk to a CPA.

Our divorce rate indicates that we are not doing very well staying married. And judging by the length, expense, drama, and trauma of the average divorce, it looks like we, as a nation, aren't much better at becoming unmarried.

We have resources for every imaginable endeavor, from sports, to hobbies, to finances. Yet, society offers us very little insight into what we can do to prevent our divorces from becoming disasters. This is startling when we consider that more than half of our marriages end in divorce.

Marriage is difficult by nature, but divorce isn't. Getting divorced is often difficult by choice. The trick is not to get in our own way and to avoid the combative mindset that society has instilled in us. We have been programmed all wrong when it comes to divorce and this has affected countless thousands of families of those that preceded us in divorce.

It seems that we're always being told how to behave during marriage, but no one ever tells us how to think and how to act during divorce. No one, that is, until now.

ChicagoDivorceAttorneyBlog.com aims to start the process of fixing this. For a fuller explanation, see the March 21st post.

The "friendly divorce" approach makes it possible for settlement discussions to take hold before things get out of hand and costly.

How do we let our spouse know that we are willing to do our part to achieve a sensible, out of court settlement? Here are some techniques that help set the stage:

Always speak in tones that transmit sincerity and compassion and never raise your voice.

Make it possible for your spouse leave the negotiation table with some satisfaction and some bragging rights.

Don't shoot yourself in the foot by hiding funds or assets, cutting off the cash flow, running up charge cards, or playing games with visitation. These tactics start wars and cost money.

Avoid making any negative comments about your spouse's vices, traits, propensities, habits, work tendencies, appearance, etc.

Do not push your spouse's buttons. Angry people are less open to considering solutions. Clear-mindedness helps your partner see the problem as you do.

Manage your emotions, no matter how right you think you are and how wrong you think your partner is. You are sitting at the negotiation table to settle your case, not to waste money by trying to prove a point.

We all know that it takes two spouses to make a good marriage, but it takes only one obstinate partner to make a bad divorce.

Every divorce situation will descend to the level of its most difficult participant, whether it is you, your partner, or even one of the lawyers. One troublesome player can throw a monkey wrench into the whole process.

Difficult people come equipped with a built-in unwillingness to meet the other party halfway, and this reluctance can doom your settlement talks. If you married such a person, get a good trial lawyer and take their advice.

But even if you and your spouse are trying to be reasonable, you still need to watch out for the bitterness and insanity that typically accompany divorce. Be prepared to contain this beast by anticipating its appearance and its power. Expecting a verbal attack automatically equips you to deal with it.

You have the right to let the monster out of its cage, but not if you want your divorce to be quick and inexpensive. Accept that your partner will press your buttons and do not react as you wish; react, instead, as you should.

View their unreasonable behavior as a mere distraction and do not allow it to cost you money.

Negotiation is the process of persuading others to give us what we want in exchange for something they want. When a couple's problems lead to divorce, knowing what to say during settlement conversations with your soon-to-be ex can save you months of frustration and thousands of dollars.

The "friendly divorce" approach enables you to disarm your spouse by respecting their stand. You encourage your partner to tell their story and convince them that you understand it. Showing respect for their concerns reduces anger and distrust. It relaxes their defenses and enables you to be persuasive, sometimes without their ever realizing that you gained the ability to influence their thnking.

Despite the many benefits of a non-confrontational approach, be aware that it will not work with everyone. Some people are just too unreasonable, stubborn, or impossible to deal with. Some folks are born fighters, some are not able to compromise, and some simply can't handle it when the law does not conform to their sense of justice. They think that what they want - and not the law - should determine what they get.

If you and your spouse are reasonable people, you have the tools to negotiate your way to a sensible divorce. You do not have to wind up with a divorce that is unnecessarily difficult and costly.

If you balk at the prospect of having to be cooperative or "friendly" toward your soon-to-be ex during your divorce, please ask yourself these questions:

Which do you dislike more: the prospect of being nice your spouse, or the prospect of throwing money away?

Which is more distasteful to you: being pleasant to someone who does not deserve it, or giving money to someone who does not deserve it?

Who would you rather give a new car to: your lawyer's kid, or your own kid? Whose child would you prefer to put through college? Your lawyer's child, or your child?

Is it worth the cost of a new car just to make your point?

The purpose of this post is to ask you to be sure to check and recheck the soundness and necessity of your decision to discontinue settlement attempts and take your case to court.

We do not endorse your giving in to the soon-to-be ex at all costs. If their settlement position is ridiculous, then you have nothing to lose by going to trial. We only ask that you weigh your options objectively and be sure that you do not base your decision on emotions, anger, blame, or other misguiding motivation.

Amid the heat of a divorce, someone has to take the first step toward acting nicely, or a calm and quick settlement is not going to happen.

Acting nicely within the "friendly" approach of cooperative divorce requires three things: Avoid aggravating your spouse. Listen to what your spouse says and convince them you heard every word they said. Know what to say and when to say it; then say it nicely.

If you want to know to do these things, or if you are doing them correctly,imagine all of your friends and family, all of your spouse's friends and family, your children, your neighbors, your employer and co-workers, your customers, patients, clients, etc., being able to watch and listen to your settlement conversations. If you behave the way you would want the world to see you behave, you are doing it correctly. It is this simple.

It may be necessary to change your behavior from the way you were accustomed to acting during your marriage. While some changes in the past may have cost you money or inconvenience, being nice to your spouse is likely to save you money and inconvenience. It pays dividends now and in your future.

Taking the friendly or nice approach is a simple way of doing what you can to prevent a bad marriage from being followed by a bad divorce.

Displaying a friendly, diplomatic, cooperative, pleasant, mature approach to your spouse during divorce negotiations (whether during your personal conversations or while under the guidance of a cooperative divorce lawyer) has many advantages:

There is little, if any harm, to your children or to the family unit. Dealing with your ex does not upset you or ruin your day. You are likely to feel free to ask your ex for a favor, and you are willing to do one for your ex. You have no need to obsess about the divorce and life in general starts to look good again.

You become able "let go" and think about other things. Your sense of humor returns, and your sleeping habits and job performance return to normal. Your conversations with friends and family no longer focus on the divorce.

In business, being nasty to a customer is unprofitable. Similarly, in dissolution of marriage matters, your soon-to-be ex is your customer, the one you must sell a settlement to. This is where it pays you to do what salespersons do and treat your partner in a friendly and respectful manner.

"Secret" is defined on my online dictionary as a reason or explanation for something not generally apparent, or as a method or formula known only to the initiated or to a few.

Keeping the above definition in mind, the unbelievably simple secret to a friendly divorce is this:
Be nice to your spouse during your divorce settlement conversations;
Be nice even when your spouse doesn't deserve it;
Be nice no matter what;
Be nice even if it kills you; and,
Never, ever fight back.

Why should we be nice? There is one big reason: It enables us to avoid a long, bad, ugly, divisive, and expensive divorce. We do it to save our dignity, mental stability, and physical health, and for the sake of the children. Being nice does not mean being weak; it means being smart.

In most aspects of life we know that fighting gets us into trouble. It got us into trouble in school; it got us in trouble as adults. Why should we believe it is any different in a divorce?

If fighting it out in court for the past century has turned divorce into a costly and energy consuming horror, then it makes sense to try something different. Taking a friendly, diplomatic, sensitive, pleasant, mature approach toward your spouse during the divorce negotiations is the other alternative. It is all we have left, and it works.

Most of us think we have the ability to persuade our spouse to agree to an out of court settlement, but decades after decades of divorce wars indicates that we do not.

Divorce negotiations differ from the day-to-day interaction of married couples, which usually includes a reasonable expectation that we can influence each other's thinking. We mistakenly rely on the same communications skills that we used during the marriage, but our inability to "get through to our spouse" effectively is typically the major reason for the divorce in the first place.

We all tend to naively assume that our logic or our plight will influence our spouse into accepting our thinking, but this just doesn't happen easily, despite our optimism.

Divorce puts us at our worst at a time in our life when we must be at our best, and no one ever told us about the "be at our best" part. This handicaps us immensely. Our common sense, verbal skills, and general savvy do not prepare us for these conversations.

This blog aims to provide the necessary instructions to make negotiating a divorce settlement with our spouse a do-it-yourself project..

It is very hard for divorcing partners to persuade each other - on their own - to agree to a settlement. Even when both parties seek to be reasonable, desire a smooth negotiation process and wish for a less painful, less expensive divorce, it is not likely to happen that way.

In order to settle quickly and out of court, we must be able to persuade our spouse to accept a settlement agreement. But our spouse will only say yes if it benefits him or her to do so. We will not be able to explain the benefits because our spouse will not listen to reason.

They will not listen to reason because society never taught us how to give them a reason to listen.

How does this happen? It is because we have been going about divorce all wrong. We thought we could get through to our spouse by explaining the reasonableness of our position. But this does not work; a century of divorce wars proves it. The fact of the matter is that the only way to get through to our spouse is by listening to the reasonableness of their position.

You listen until their stance begins to soften and their thinking becomes malleable. Try not to argue with them; just listen until they discover that compromise doesn't mean losing. Listen until their mind opens and allows them to consider other solutions that they may also find acceptable.