As my own divorce winds down, I picked up Alec Baldwin's insightful - and inciting - book A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce. A Promise to Ourselves is must-reading for anyone contemplating or already in the throes of a divorce. Baldwin provides a surprising amount of context for his tale of time in the legal system, especially for a guy who says, "I blame my ex-wife least of all for what has transpired." The fact is, what transpired was abominable and could not have happened without the direct approval of his co-parent, Kim Basinger.
Baldwin recounts his hair-raising experiences in California Family Court, "an inefficient, corupt, amoral system" where "conflict escalation [is an] epidemic" and divorce lawyers "destroy an innocent parent's reputation and their bond with their children." All the anger management sessions a court can order can't sugar-coat that perspective! I finished this book grateful, as ever, that my soon-to-be-ex and I are having what I now know is an atypically amiable mediation. The custody issues in the Baldwin/Basinger divorce cost upwards of $3 million and took more than six years to litigate. (By comparison, the average divorce costs $15-30,000 and takes at least a year, hardly a bargain.)
Out of his painful recounting comes first-rate advice for divorcing parents, especially those with young children (Baldwin's daughter was barely five when he and his ex separated). Among them:
1. Don't hire your divorce attorney through word of mouth or another lawyer's professional referral. "Examine the kind of divorce litigation you face and find an attorney best suited to your needs...If the first words out of [a prospective attorney's] mouth are not about mediation, don't hire them."
2. File first. It's to your advantage to be the plaintiff, framing the debate and setting the tone, than to be the defendant. As Baldwin says, "If you believe in your heart that it's over, file. You can always rescind later."
3. Both parties should meet - yes, together - with a therapist for co-parenting sessions or classes. The therapist should be uninvolved with your litigation and unaffiliated with any attorneys involved with the case.
4. Mediate if possible. If you're broke and have no custody issues, you can move quickly through the court system. Otherwise, the people who are paid ostensibly to help you - lawyers, accountants, retired judges, custody evaluators, "special masters" - will manage to keep proceedings going exactly as long as it takes to wipe you out. And since you've disclosed your entire financial picture to them, they know exactly how long that will be.
For more, see http://www.lovehowto.com/moving-on.
