Divorce lawyers often find creative ways to help people sort out the most difficult domestic conflicts. When you call a divorce lawyer, it is easy to settle into the belief that the phone call will at least start to fix everything. To be sure, your family lawyer can help you get your personal and family life back on track. But let’s be real.
There are a few things – as they say – all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put back together again. The choices you make during a divorce can substantially contribute to how soon you begin to again feel whole, confident and secure. Let’s look at five things your divorce lawyer probably cannot do but maybe you can.
Fix the Hurting Inside
Getting a divorce can help put things in the past and prepare you to move on, but healing from the pain of lost companionship, a sense of guilt over missed opportunities and uncertainty about the future can take time. You probably invested your best hopes for the future in a marriage. When it goes wrong, the suffering can be as deep as that we feel when we lose any loved one.
To make matters worse, in divorce, people involved can be even more inclined to ask themselves if the situation is something they caused. While you consider the legal aspects of divorce, take some time to consider how you are dealing with the pain that can accompany divorce. Avoid choices that will compound the pain, and find opportunities to look toward a future when today’s suffering is a thing of the past.
Fix What Went Wrong
Even if your divorce was the result of a spouse’s misconduct, or interference from the worst in-laws ever, it will be up to you to avoid similar pitfalls in the future. Your divorce attorney can help you out from under the legal confines of a marriage and help you arrange for a fair outcome. You may need to assess whatever went wrong and make adjustments to enjoy a true benefit from the often onerous process of a divorce.
Did you find yourself too dependent on a spouse, financially or emotionally? Consider what you can do to be more financially or emotionally independent.
Did you jump into a marriage before you knew who you were teaming up with? Learn ways to find out more about your friends and acquaintances before you share too much of yourself.
In some cases, a person might even recognize that they failed to pull their weight in a marriage. If you discover that might be the case, take some time to make yourself a stronger person, whatever it takes. Consider counseling or seek out a better social network to serve as role models and peer support.
Make Your Former Spouse Grow Up
Your Tulsa divorce attorney can take legal action to stop harassment, and file legal motions to oppose petty actions by a divorcing spouse. A good divorce strategy can encourage a divorcing spouse to be reasonable, and assure that there are consequences if a divorcing spouse breaks the law. Your attorney cannot, however, stop the former spouse from acting brashly out of spite, anger or immaturity.
Even after the divorce, some former spouses continue to fight over child custody, child support, property allocation or even whether or not to stay in touch. Your maturity might or might not provide a former spouse an example to which he or she may aspire. Immaturity on your part, however, seldom does anything to bring along others who are acting immature.
Hide Your Financial Assets
Your Tulsa divorce lawyer can advise you how to best protect your financial assets, but divorce exposes a person’s finances to legal scrutiny. Asserting your rights in divorce, or defending your rights in divorce requires that you comply with legal requirements – including disclosure of income and assets.
Sometimes divorcing spouses improperly hide assets because they do not trust a court to fairly divide marital property. A person might be tempted to hide assets or income to reduce court ordered child support or Oklahoma alimony. Your attorney can tell you what you are legally obligated to report.
If you anticipate a loss of income in the future – other than because you deliberately quit working to avoid paying obligations – you do not need to hide your assets from the court. A better approach can be to file for an Oklahoma child support modification or seek to modify alimony obligations when you can prove a substantial change in your circumstances.
Prevent You from Making the Wrong Choice
During a divorce, you will face numerous choices about when to take legal action, what legal action to take, and how to respond to a divorcing spouse’s legal maneuvers. Your Tulsa divorce attorney can provide solid advice about what to do and how to respond, but it is up to you to act on that advice.
Outside the divorce lawyers’ offices, you may face even more choices. You may be forced to decide how to respond to angry outbursts by your divorcing spouse, or how to control your own anger. You face choices about what to tell your children – about the divorce and about their other parent.
Each time you go online, you may face choices about how to interact in social media, or what to say in e-mails. Your divorce attorney can advise you to curtail communication that could adversely affect your case, but the needs caused by anger, loneliness, grief, guilt and fear during a divorce can be compelling. It will be up to you to find reliable social and emotional support without creating situations that will make things worse for you.
Free Consultation: Tulsa Divorce Attorney
As you can see, much of the divorce process depends on you. The good news is, you do not have to go it alone. The single most important ally you may have in a divorce can be your divorce attorney.
Your family and friends might be good sources of personal advise and emotional support, but a skilled Oklahoma divorce attorney can best guide you through the nuances of the legal process. Your divorce attorney can tell you the bottom line when you are confronted with difficult choices created by a divorcing spouse’s legal maneuvers or out-of-court behavior.
For a free consultation with a Tulsa divorce attorney, call Divorce of Tulsa Law Office at 918-924-5526. An experienced attorney for divorce in Oklahoma can help you decide what are the best choices for your situation. You can also send the divorce lawyer a question using the form at the top of this page.
