20 Divorce Mistakes To Avoid

Even if you’ve retained a divorce lawyer, divorce mistakes are strangely easy to make. That’s because a lot of individual aren’t really at their best when they are getting divorces. That said, it’s challenging to operate at your best moments when your entire life has just been turned up sided own and it feels like you’re walking around with an ice pick stuck in your ear.

The irony is that, at this time in your life when your emotions are getting out of control and you are the qualified equipped to make the correct decisions, it is expected for you to make one life-altering decision after another.

It does not help that going through a divorce is like attempting to navigate your way around a foreign country when you don’t know the language. Even if you’re trying your best, it’s easy to go the wrong direction and get lost.

What are Divorce Mistakes?

Mistakes, like attractiveness, depends on your point of view. What you might deem is a mistake in your divorce (such as giving up much more money in the divorce settlement), someone else could think it’s the best idea in the world! (You may have lost money, but it assisted in ending your divorce months earlier than it may have taken otherwise.)

To a lot of people, divorce mistakes can be anything that makes their divorce more distressing or nasty. Anything that results in your divorce taking longer or costing more is most likely a mistake.

Mistakes are anything that hurts your children any more than is positively necessary. Lastly, anything that is violation of your moral values, or will make you shudder down the road when you think about your behavior, in a lot of people’s eyes, is a mistake.

While staying away from every divorce drawback is probably impossible, if you can go through your divorce avoiding most of these divorce mistakes, you’re off to a good start.

Twenty-One Simple Divorce Mistakes to Avoid

1. Believing your divorce lawyer is going to take care of everything for you.

Without having more cash than Jeff Bezos, no divorce lawyer is going to do EVERYTHING for on your behalf in your divorce. There is not a lawyer that is going to collect all your financial papers, individualize your personal property, locate a new place to live for you, or speak to your spouse about the children since you don’t want to do it yourself. Lawyers manage the legal parts of your divorce. That’s all. The rest is on you.

2. Taking on your divorce devoid of a therapist.

Divorce is eighty percent emotional. Whereas you may think you are perfectly capable of dealing with your emotions on your own, when you are locked in battle with an individual that knows how to push your buttons, keeping calm and thinking rationally can be challenging. The same thing goes when you’re so depressed that getting out of bed in the mornings are now a goal. Having the correct therapist or divorce instructor on your side can help your divorce go more streamlined than you could ever imagine.

3. Getting divorced without having a clue.

Do-it-yourself divorces may be trendy nowadays but come with some serious drawback. Making it worse is that you might not be able to fix the divorce mistakes you are currently making. Indeed, divorce lawyers are costly. By no means, not everyone requires full on legal representation during their divorce. However, unless you have nothing left, taking on your divorce without acquiring legal advice, and devoid of knowing what you’re doing is dicey, dumb, and typically a big mistake.

4. Taking your spouse off your health insurance plan immediately when you file for divorce.

Whatever you do, don’t do this – particularly when your spouse has any type of significant medical condition that requires medication or routine care. Not only is terminating your spouse’s health insurance unethical but it can also turn into an expensive mistake. You might be held accountable to pay your spouse’s uncovered medical costs. In addition, when you aren’t able to get your spouse back on your policy since it’s not an open enrollment stage, you might be paying for this mistake for a while.

5. Battling over inexpensive personal property.

Just about every divorce lawyer has tales of couples that spent thousands of dollars battling over something of personal property (a TV, a pen, computer, etc.) that was valued at a couple hundred dollars – or less. When you find yourself battling with your spouse over the cookware, stop. Ask yourself: “Are we really fighting about this? Does it matter?” When you are being truthful, your answer is not going to be “the cookware.” (This is why you should get a therapist or a divorce instructor!)

6. Not taking control of (and obligation for) your own divorce.

Whereas getting divorced was your idea, or if your spouse wanted the divorce but you did not, after your divorce has begun, you are required to involve yourself with it. Being in denial will only make your divorce more difficult and more distressing. It will also significantly increase the probability that you won’t get what is important to you in the divorce. It doesn’t matter how bothered or destressed you are, get up, dust yourself off, make some objectives, and begin taking action to acquire them.

7. Moving out of the home with the children, and not telling your spouse.

Unless you and your children have been victims of recorded domestic abuse, taking the children and taking off is most likely going to come back and sting you. Even when you let your spouse know your address following you moving, it still does not mean that a judge will not order you to return the children to your home – and maybe, without you. That isn’t a situation you want to find yourself in.

8. Not following court orders.

Court orders are just that, ORDERS. They are not recommendations. Failing to do what the divorce judge ordered you to do could get you held in contempt, tossed in jail, mandated to pay fines, mandated to pay off your spouse’s attorney’s fees, or subject to whatever other consequence the court deems is justified under the situation. Besides, it does not charm you to the judge. Afterward, when you require the judge to determine some other matter in your case, don’t believe that the judge isn’t going to remember that you failed to follow their orders in the past.

9. Refusal to compromise about anything.

Divorce needs compromise. Unless your spouse entirely caves in (in which is probably not likely) you aren’t going to get all that you want. You will have to yield on some things. The more you defy, the longer the divorce is going to take and will be more costly. Besides, at the end of the day, even when you progress through trial, some judges will still most likely order you to give up things you did not wish to lose.

10. Not confirming your numbers on the budget and ledger.

Even when you were the one that managed the money in the marriage, devising a budget based on what you “believe” or “recall” your income and costs to be, not taking the time to verify your numbers, may cause your budget to be total garbage. It doesn’t matter how much of a hassle if could be be, confirming that your budget and ledger are correct can save you from making gigantic financial mistakes in the divorce.

11. Withdrawing large sums of money out of your joint account without your spouse knowing or consent.

Are you really sure your spouse isn’t going to notice that you’ve looted your joint bank account? Single sided removal of large sums of money from your bank account is the fastest way slapped with an injunction that freezes all your financial accounts. Additionally, a judge will most likely order you to give back the money, and possibly pay for your spouse’s attorney’s fees. No matter the only reason you did it was to hinder your spouse from doing it before you. Accomplish things the correct way. Speak with your spouse. Speak with your lawyer.

12. Telling your children all kinds of awful things about your spouse.

The children are creations of each of you. When you start speaking badly about your spouse to your children, the children get hurt. No matter if you are telling the children “the truth.” There are some things children shouldn’t know about their parents. So, do the right thing. Resist the desire to broadcast.

13. Doing anything hurtful intentionally, just to upset your spouse.

Indeed, hurting your spouse (particularly when they upset you badly first) might feel good at first. But it is going to make you feel bad afterwards. Who’re you? What are your ethics? What type of an example are you wanting to show your children? As enticing as it may be to irritate your spouse since you can, defy the urge. Afterwards, you will be happy you did.

14. Avoid dealing with sensitive child-related matters.

When you and your spouse come to a disagree on important parenting matters, you need to address those matters, and look for some way to resolve them, throughout your divorce. The same thing goes when you and your spouse had fertility issues and have to determine what is going to happen to frozen embryos. Addressing these matters now is going to be emotional and challenging. Postponing the talks until you are divorced and waiting to deal with those matters “eventually”, will probably be worse.

15. Not creating a post-divorce budget prior to you settling your case.

You might believe you’ll be okay following your divorce being over, but without you really running the numbers, there is no way to know for sure whether the budget in your head will really work in practice. Furthermore, you need to base your suggested budget on evidence, not emotions. For instance, if you’re planning on moving out of the marital home following your divorce, and you haven’t looked into what a new apartment is going to cost – do it sooner than later! You do not want to begin your post-divorce life homeless or eating dog food for dinner since you underestimated your living expenses while creating your budget.

16. Asking your children to convey messages or cash to your spouse.

You are a grown adult. You are responsible parent. Keep your children out of your divorce. When you both have issues, figure them out yourselves. Do not include your children.

17. Not retaining a shared calendar for the children throughout and following your divorce.

Keeping a record of all of your children’s activities, doctor’s/medical appointments, and schedules is intimidating for complete families. When you are getting divorced, or after you are divorced, it’s even more difficult. There are tons of digital parenting resources that can aid you in automating your children’s schedule, so everyone has an idea of what is always going on with the children. The earlier you begin to use that type of a calendar, the more smoothly your children will adapt into the new situation, and the lower everyone’s stress level will be.

18. Not comprehending the tax repercussions of your divorce settlement prior to it being finalized.

Not being attentive to taxes before your divorced is finalized is one of the worst divorce mistakes you could make. You do not have to be an accountant. However, if you can’t comprehend some fundamental tax principles, you might discover that the amount of money you really receive in your divorce settlement is drastically different form the amount that you believed you would be receiving. Prior to you agreeing on any divorce settlement, have a CPA or a divorce financial organizer run the numbers. That is going to decrease the risk of you being surprised later.

19. Stashing away money.

Indeed, this one is debatable. If you stash money away and aren’t caught, then stashing money away (basically robbing your spouse) appears to be a good idea. The fact is, when you do get caught (and a lot of people do), you will most likely end up paying a lot more than what you would have if you had just been honest.

20. Not ensuring your parenting schedule can work PRIOR to you entering it in court.

A lot of things that look ideal on paper could turn out to be a horrific in reality. Unless you have lived with using a parenting schedule for some time, it is hard to determine whether it works for your children or not. You may discover that your children don’t work well with the parenting schedule that you and your spouse created. Otherwise, you might find that swapping the children during rush hour traffic is going to make everybody’s life miserable. The ideal way to create a parenting schedule is to set everything up, begin living with it, modify it as required and THEN enter it into the finalized divorce judgment.

21. Presuming that you can alter your divorce judgment at a later time.

A lot of individuals include conditions in their divorce judgment that they do not actually agree with since they think they could just alter those conditions later. That is not always the case! Whereas the parts of your divorce judgment that relate to your children might be amendable, the financial portions of the judgment might not. Additionally, altering your divorce judgment is going to require you to head back to court. It is going to cost your time and money. Also, there is no assurance that the judge will let you to devise the modifications that you want. In the end you should not put anything in your divorce judgment without you anticipating it to be in the judgement forever.

Avoiding Mistakes in Your Divorce

Getting divorced is teeming with potential challenges. These are just a taste of the more common divorce mistakes people make. More exist.

When you want to prevent making vital divorce mistakes, there are 2 things you need to do: 1) get yourself educated, and 2) assemble the best possible divorce team you can.

With the proper knowledge and details, and the correct professional direction, you could be able to prevent making the most harmful divorce mistakes. That, at the same time is going to put you in the best place to begin a new life after your divorce is behind you.

Source:

1. Says:, M., Says:, K., Says:, T., Says:, S., Says:, G., Says:, J., . . . Pressures Of Divorce During A Pandemic | Middle Class Dad says:. (2020, November 03). 21 mistakes not to make while getting a divorce – Karen covy. Retrieved February 26, 2021, from https://karencovy.com/21-divorce-mistakes/

Choose the Right Divorce Lawyer in Arizona

Regardless of the choice you make, it’s important you make the best choice for you when hiring a divorce attorney. Remember: The decisions you make now can affect your future. Ultimately, choosing the best lawyer will depend on which lawyer feels best for you and your situation.

If you want to learn about Michelle N. Ogborne and see if she is the right attorney to represent you in your collaborative divorce in Arizona, contact us today!