As discussed earlier in this chapter, most states have a mandatory waiting period before people can be divorced, even if both parties have completely resolved all of their issues. This period is sometimes referred to as a “cooling off” period, ostensibly designed so that people do not make hasty decisions to divorce. While you are waiting, a pervasive anxiety is natural. Anxiety is a nonspecific, persistent feeling of uneasiness in its milder form; a more intense version is filled with dread and fears. This period of the unknown is when most people turn off the trail of a rational divorce and begin bushwhacking through unmarked territory. Such stumbling about can lead you to spend many wasted hours feeling lost, frightened, and looking for a way back to the familiar.
Use this period to plan rather than to plot. Fill it with the productive work that leads to negotiation. Make your lists of assets, property, debts, and future desires. Get your priorities straight, knowing what you can and cannot live without in terms of living arrangements, money and property issues.
Set up and try interim agreements with your spouse, so that you learn what really matters to you. However, do not try various arrangements too flippantly. In many cases, post-divorce financial and child-related arrangements, yet to be discussed, are remarkably similar to the interim agreements couples set. Such agreements often lead to decisions by parents, and by the courts, that favor consistency and maintenance of current conditions, rendering it difficult to effect a major change. If you have agreed to pay $500 per month for alimony in the interim period, your claim that you cannot afford that amount will be difficult to prove subsequently.
One characteristic of the legal system that riddles this period with anxiety is that the legal process is slow, especially compared to individual desires to “get this over with as soon as possible.” You will feel on some weeks that nothing is happening in your case. Check in with your spouse and attorney. Perhaps there is some way you could help speed up the process, maybe documents are needed that you could amass more quickly, or perhaps there is nothing that can be done at this time and your spouse is working on his or her part. Knowing the status of your case and what to expect in terms of timing should help. For some common sense care for anxiety, see http://www.holisticonline.com/Remedies/Anxiety/anx_common_sense.htm. For 9 tips for managing anxiety without drugs, see http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/reports/depression_anxiety/1156-1.html.
Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.
For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com
(C) 2008 Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc.
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Tags: Conflict Management, Dealing with Anger, Mediated Divorce
