Philosophy

There is a way to get through a divorce with your dignity, your bank account intact, and most importantly, your children in the best emotional state possible. It requires a shift in attitude from making it a fight to a more common-sense approach of resolving the issues. If divorce is done properly, there are no winners or losers.

This does not mean that you compromise or deny your own needs and well-being to avoid conflict. It means that you are more motivated to put your life back together in a positive way than you are to take revenge and inflict pain on your partner. It means that you treat the division of assets and debts as a business matter. If you have children, it means that their needs come first. And it means you accept that they need two parents in their lives, regardless of how you personally feel about your soon-to-be ex-partner.

A primary benefit of this approach is sparing your family from the emotional fallout caused by tactics traditionally used in divorce litigation. People who attack each other during the process may never recover civility. Their children may read every nasty detail on public record years later.

A secondary benefit is how much time and money you can save by using a rational, problem-solving approach. For most families the process of dividing  assets and debts takes a fairly predictable path, regardless of what the attorneys say, the degree of aggression or volume of paperwork and court time. Generally, the partner with lower earnings is likely to get a higher percentage of the assets and a lower percentage of the debts.

Parenting and Custody

While you always have the option of arranging a residential schedule that best suits your family, in court the result will be fairly standard.  Currently, Washington State follows the "primary parent" model. This means the court believes the children should reside with the parent who primarily cared for them during the marriage, and the other parent will have visitation privileges.

Except in cases where parents have demonstrated a high degree of cooperation, Washington State does not favor shared custody arrangements. It favors leaving the children in one primary residence for the sake of stability and continuity. The result is that the non-custodial parent will likely end up with an every-other-weekend visitation schedule. Fighting for more time in court essentially demonstrates that you do not have a high level of cooperation. This virtually guarantees that the court will order a standard visitation schedule, and is a waste of time and money.

These issues are rarely simple. In reality, people can and do become very enmeshed in fighting over subtleties, such as the last few percentage points of the asset/debt division or an extra night a month with the children.

If you knew at the beginning of the litigation process that you could spend up to a third of your assets on attorneys' fees with a slim chance of success, would you still do it? Or would you look for an alternative? Would you try to find a better way if you knew the animosity created in your divorce would result in emotional trauma for your children and that you and your ex-partner would be unable to effectively communicate about parenting issues? Or that you would return to court frequently to battle about petty issues?

There Are Better Ways

Through low-conflict and alternative dispute resolution methods such as mediation and collaborative law, you and your partner can work together to optimize your lives after the dissolution of your marriage. You can develop a parenting plan and visitation schedule that works for your family. You can build a working relationship that allows you to effectively co-parent your children until they are adults, and beyond. Most importantly, whatever solution you create, you control the process and own the outcome.