Deal with Your Emotions
Often, emotion is the driving force behind divorce. Emotions drive every disagreement, drive people to fight in court and cause them to destroy what could otherwise be an amicable process. When your emotions spin out of control, you’re much more likely to have a contested divorce. That said, controlling your emotions doesn’t mean you have to act like a robot or a zombie, divorce IS emotional and sometimes you’re going to break down. However, the more you keep your emotions under control the less drama you’ll experience in your divorce. One of the best things you can do in order to prepare yourself emotionally for a divorce is to see a therapist or join a support group as soon as possible. This will allow you to have an emotional support system in place before you begin to prepare for divorce.
Get Organized & Collect Documents.
The key to a relatively easy divorce process is being organized. You’ll need a process a small mountain of paperwork during the process. You may need tax returns, W-2s, pay stubs, credit card statements, bank account statements. Organizing the documents in a cohesive way is one of the biggest things you can do to make the process easier and save yourself time and money. Beyond that, having it done before you start your divorce will allow you to focus on one LESS thing during the divorce in addition to making the process go faster.
Understand Your Finances.
If you don’t want to be on the streets or living with your parents after a divorce, you need to understand your financial situation before you start the process. That means you need to get comfortable with exactly how much you will need to survive after the divorce. You can’t end your marriage and divide up your property without knowing how much you have and how much you owe. You can’t survive the aftermath of a divorce without knowing how much you’ve got coming in and going out after everything is said and done.
Make A Financial Plan.
Understand your financial situation is the first step, then you need to make a plan for how you’ll live after the divorce. If you’ve been separated for a long time, you likely have a good idea about what your life will be like after divorce, however, if you’re still sharing expenses, you’re probably in for a rude awakening. Before you get divorced you have to make sure that you will have the ability to bring in enough money to live and pay all of your bills once your divorce is over, otherwise you may be faced with bankruptcy.
Get an Idea of Who you need on your Team.
You don’t have to go through the divorce alone but to prepare for divorce you need to think about who you will need to help you. Ending a marriage is challenging and extremely complicated. Some of the people you may need to consider having at your disposal beyond a good attorney is a financial adviser, a therapist, even a good realtor isn’t a bad idea if you’re having to sell a home. You also need to line up family and friends. You’ll need their support during this process.
Set Realistic Goals.
Most people start to prepare for divorce without ever knowing what they want. Obviously, you want to be done with your marriage, but there’s more to divorce than that. If you don’t ask yourself the question of “what do you want”, and invest time finding the right answer, you have very little chance of ending up happy once your divorce is over.
The sooner you can set goals for your divorce, the more likely you are to achieve them. But, before you commit to pursuing a goal, you also have to make sure that it’s realistic.
Make Peace.
Most people don’t get married thinking the day will come where their marriage will end in divorce. Divorce may be against every fiber of your being, but unfortunately, it happens. It doesn’t make you or your spouse a bad person, it doesn’t make you wrong or a failure. The only thing divorce means is that your marriage didn’t work. There is a lot of baggage that come with divorce. It churns up bad feelings and emotions that can cause you trouble down the road. You need to make peace with the process of getting a divorce so that you can come out healthy and happy.
If you feel that divorce is something that is right for you, contact the attorneys at Harmon and Gorove today to schedule a time to discuss your uncontested divorce, free of charge.