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We know…it's confusing! But you are not alone, and the resources we've provided will help you understand the different options available, and the best way to approach them.

Why Your Friend’s Divorce Took Two Years

As hard as it is to admit, you know that your marriage is heading toward divorce. As the realization sets in, it’s time to start planning how to get through this thing and on to the next chapter of your life. You probably have tons of questions, such as how much is it going to cost?

How long will it take? You don’t have to look far to find a nightmare divorce story among your friends. We all have that friend who seemed to be going through a divorce FOR-EV-ER. Seriously, it took her TWO YEARS and $100,000 in attorney’s fees to finally put her marriage to rest. Is that your fate? Should you just buckle up for a two-year stint in divorce purgatory?

In one word: No! Many divorces can be wrapped up in a matter of months, and the majority of them take less than a year. It’s likely that your friend went to court rather than trying to settle the divorce peacefully first. Going to court takes lots of time and money. Let’s look at how you can avoid her mistakes.

Court Is Long and Expensive

Going to court will stretch out the length of your divorce and will add significant costs. You’ll need to file your complaint, be assigned a judge, and placed on their docket. Depending on how busy the judge is, it could take months for you even to step into a courtroom. You’ll likely want your divorce attorney present to represent you, which means you’ll be paying for every moment they are with you, including while you wait for the judge to call your case and even the time it took them to drive to the courthouse and park.

This will happen for every new motion you file! Keep in mind that dragging your spouse to court will increase the chance that he retaliates and drags you to court too. It’s a dangerous and expensive self-repeating cycle.

Start with Mediation

Rather than going to court right away to fight your divorce battle, put your feelings aside as much as possible and seek divorce mediation with your spouse. In mediation, you and your spouse work together to divide your estate in a fair and equitable manner with the help of a third-party mediator who guides you through the process.

Mediation can be difficult, and emotions can run high, but most spouses are able to work out the majority of their differences with this process. Mediation will save you from going to court for all but the most difficult questions that you can’t agree on together.

If you and your spouse want to work together to achieve the best divorce solution possible, but you want attorneys at your side, a collaborative divorce may be an option. In collaborative divorce, you and your attorneys meet with a financial professional and divorce coaches to settle your matter respectfully. This can be an empowering choice that saves time and money and promotes emotional healing.

Both these options will dramatically speed up your divorce process. If you can work out everything through mediation or collaboration, you likely can wrap up your divorce in months, not years.

Court as a Last Resort

Unfortunately, court cannot always be avoided. If your spouse is combative, if you two cannot come to an agreement on child custody or how to divide your estate, or if your spouse is breaking the law by hiding assets, you may need to go to court to fight for your rights. But court should be your last resort and not your first option.

If you to explore your options, attend the next Second Saturday Divorce Workshop in your area. Here you’ll meet attorneys, financial consultants, therapists and others who can help you decide the best way to proceed.

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Is a Collaborative Divorce the Right Option for You?

A divorce is never easy, not even in the best of circumstances. However, there are bad divorces… and then there are terrible divorces filled with vitriol, lies, accusations, and huge attorney’s fees for never-ending litigation. You may not be able to save your marriage, but you can decide how you want it to end. If you and your husband are both willing to commit to working together to create a fair divorce settlement that you can both live with, then you might be good candidates for a collaborative divorce.

What Is Collaborative Divorce?

A collaborative divorce is a unique method of separating assets and determining child custody that focuses on working together to problem solve in an environment of mutual respect rather than fighting against your spouse and “winning” at all costs.

In a collaborative divorce, both spouses sign a “no court” agreement and commit to working through the collaborative process to design a mutually agreeable divorce settlement. Both spouses retain their own attorneys who guide them through the process. You may also choose to bring in a mental health professional for the spouses and children as well as hire a financial professional, a neutral moderator, and other professionals to help the process along. The couple shares the fees of these professionals, which can dramatically save money in the overall cost for both spouses compared to a litigated divorce.

Are You A Good Candidate for Collaborative Divorce?

Does a collaborative divorce sound like a good option for you? In order to be a good candidate for a collaborative divorce you should:

Have a spouse who is also willing to commit to a collaborative divorce
Be comfortable working with and negotiating directly with your spouse. If you feel intimidated or fearful of your spouse, collaborative divorce is probably not a good idea.
Be able to set aside destructive emotions in order to work productively with your spouse. If you can’t even bear to look at your spouse without wanting to tear his eyes out, then collaboration is probably not best for you.
Want to end your marriage with respect and integrity. This is especially true if you need to maintain a good relationship with your spouse after your marriage for the sake of your children.
Desire to protect your children from a messy and emotional divorce. Making this process as painless as possible for your children is often more important than squeezing a little more money out of your spouse after a drawn-out legal battle in court.
Want to limit the cost of your divorce. Going to court will dramatically raise your legal fees and the overall cost of your divorce.
Be willing to compromise and let small things go in order to reach an agreement. It can be extremely difficult to set aside your emotions or to let go of small battles that seem important at the time, but that is what collaboration and compromise are all about.
Be able to treat your spouse with respect and dignity and put yourself in his shoes to understand his perspective.

If you think that you can meet all of these standards, then look for a divorce attorney who has experience or specializes in collaborative divorce. You’ll also need to broach the topic with your spouse to ensure that he is also willing to put in the work that a collaborative divorce requires.

You can learn more about collaborative divorces, mediation, and other divorce options at the Second Saturday Divorce Workshop.

Find one near you.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Preparing for Divorce

Your “I do” has turned into “I don’t.” When you walked down the aisle, you envisioned a life of permanent marital bliss, but reality has not been so kind. It is now time to end your marriage. You want a divorce, but how do you go about actually preparing for this huge life change?

In this article, we’ve pulled together some of our best pre-divorce prep articles. With this divorce preparation guide in hand, you’ll know what to expect so you can power through your divorce and come out the other end stronger, better, and ready for the next chapter in your life.

You’re Going to Need Money

You may think that the first step to getting a divorce is to file a petition with the court. Nope! As long as your situation isn’t dire, you should first make sure that you have access to cash. You’re going to need to be able to pay your attorney and possibly look for new housing before your settlement. Build up a cash reserve so that your husband can’t leave you high and dry when he receives your divorce petition.

Consider Whether a Separation Might Be the Better Option

Even if you want your marriage to be over, a separation may be a better choice for important financial reasons. For example, if you are self-employed or work at a small company, you may rely on your husband’s health insurance to cover your medical expenses. If you and your husband are on agreeable terms and neither of you is seeking to re-marry right away, a separation may be the pragmatic choice.

Choose a Divorce Attorney

Every woman’s situation is different when she approaches divorce, so there really is no one-size-fits-all divorce plan. That’s why it can be so helpful to hire a divorce attorney before you file the paperwork. Your divorce attorney can help you determine the full scope of your marital estate, search for hidden assets, and develop your settlement strategy before you pull the trigger. Your attorney can also walk you through different settlement approaches, including mediation and collaborative divorce.

Search for Hidden Assets

The key to getting your fair share of your marital estate is knowing the full scope of the assets you and your husband own. Many women are surprised to learn the full value of their husband’s business, and some have no idea that their husbands own land or extra vehicles. Finding these assets will become much more difficult after you serve your husband with divorce papers. When he realizes that he may lose a big chunk of his wealth, he could start trying to hide assets. That’s why it is important to look for and reveal as many assets as possible before the divorce.

Burnish Your Resume

If your husband’s income allowed you to stay at home, then a divorce means you’ll likely need to find a job to get by. While you can certainly ask for both child support and spousal support (also known as alimony), it likely won’t be enough to keep you afloat. As you prepare for divorce, update your resume and put out feelers. It will be much less stressful to jump into the job search before you are on your own and the bills are past due.

Prepare for the Financial Reality of Divorce

The average woman faces a 73% loss in her standard of living after a divorce. Let that sink in for just a bit. Even as you start to consider divorce, now is the time to begin preparing for your new financial reality. You don’t want to have to figure out why you can’t pay your bills when the debt collectors are calling. Instead, put together your post-divorce budget NOW so that you can use it as a guide during your divorce negotiations.

The best way to prepare for a divorce is to attend Attend a Second Saturday Divorce Workshop in your area. In these workshops, you will hear from divorce attorneys, divorce financial specialists, psychologists, and other professionals who can give you the tools you need to prepare for this huge life change.

Checklist: Living Separately Under the Same Roof

In many states, your date of separation has legal implications. If you and your spouse are still living in the same house for economic or family reasons, proving that you are really separated can be tricky. Here is a checklist of what you should do if you and he are still living together but separate.

Establish and maintain intent to separate permanently or indefinitely.
Use separate bedrooms.
Do not engage in romantic or sexual intimacy.
Stop wearing wedding rings.
Don’t shop for your spouse’s food, prepare his meals, or shop for his clothing and other necessities.
Don’t let your spouse shop for you, and don’t use his food or other purchases.
Do not eat meals together, except for special occasions such as holidays or children’s birthdays.
Make each spouse responsible for caring for their own space within the home, such as bedroom.
Make each spouse responsible for doing their own laundry.
Use a separate and secure computer.
Use a separate and secure telephone/cell phone for personal and business calls.
Establish separate checking accounts.
Cease socializing together, e.g., do not attend parties, movies, theater, etc. together.
Do not attend church together.
Where there are minor children, interact as parents only where strictly necessary from the children’s perspective and their well-being, e.g., meeting with school officials. If you both attend your child’s game, don’t sit together.
Don’t give gifts to your spouse for birthdays, Christmas, anniversary, Valentine’s Day, etc.
Let close associates and relatives know that you are not living as man and wife, but are separated within the residence.
Have a third party come to the home from time to time to personally observe the two spouses’ separate and distinct living quarters (bedrooms, bathrooms, etc.).
Utilize separate entrances to residence if feasible.
Be prepared to explain why you are living separately under the same roof, e.g., financial considerations; unavailability of separate residence; easing children’s transition to parental separation, etc.

He’s moved out – now what?

“He’s moved out – now what?” That’s a question that many women face. Often they decide just to do nothing, at least for the time being.

If the earnings are enough to support both spouses’ households, weeks of living separately may stretch into months and then drag into years, with no resolution in sight.

What’s the harm in that? Nothing, if you and your spouse have negotiated a legal agreement that specifies financial arrangements. Without such an agreement, though, you may be facing some financial perils.

1. You may not have control over your marital assets.

If you are living apart, and your spouse is handling the finances, you may not know what your spouse is earning, spending, investing, selling or buying. This leaves you out of the loop and out in the cold financially. If he’s running up debt on joint credit cards, guess what? So are you. If he’s sued or lies on your joint tax returns, your assets are at risk. He may be using your time apart to move assets into his name alone, change passwords to joint accounts, spend money on toys such as new cars, motorcycles, electronics and fancy vacations, and stash large amounts of cash.

2. If your spouse’s circumstances change, your property settlement and support could too..

If your spouse’s financial fortunes fall and he loses his job, becomes ill, goes on disability or suffers a business downturn, the alimony and child support you could expect to receive could be significantly impacted. And if you’ve been making do with less, your spouse can argue that you obviously don’t need as much to live on as you did while you and he were together. Even if you are getting enough to run your household, it is likely that you aren’t putting money away for your own future. So while he is socking funds into retirement accounts for his own future, you may be falling behind financially as the years pass.

3. You could end up getting divorced in another state.

Laws governing divorce vary significantly from one state to another, and many states lately have been imposing limitations on the amount and duration of alimony that judges can award. If your spouse moves to a state which has enacted such laws, once he’s established residency there he can file for divorce. If he does, it is the laws of that state that will govern your property division and support, not the state where you have resided for years.

4. New relationships could change everything.

If you are in a new relationship by the time you get around to negotiating a divorce settlement, that may not sit well you’re your soon-to-be-ex. And if he has a sweetie, she may interfere in the negotiations as an interested party who has his ear. Even worse, he could be funneling income to her or even using her name when starting new successful businesses, thus reducing his income and his corresponding support obligation to his family.

5. Getting on with your divorce means getting on with your life.

Divorce as an ending, but it is also a new beginning, especially if you’ve been stuck in a deteriorating marriage for years. Most women report being happier and even healthier within a few years of being divorced. Living apart can bring temporary peace to your life, but without a formal written separation agreement you may be cruising toward chaos later. A informal separation without a document detailing the terms of your separation, how you will share marital assets, who is responsible for debt incurred on joint credit cards, and how the earnings and assets acquired during the separation are shared, is an invitation to expensive disputes and litigation later.