There is no reason for divorces to become contentious, stressful, or so expensive. With a grounded approach and assistance from family law attorneys who prioritize amicable divorces, you and your spouse can navigate the journey while remaining emotionally intact human being. This is invaluable if you have children or grandchildren.

After more than four decades working in the realm of family law and divorces, our firm has exclusively shifted to mediation and collaborative divorce because we’ve seen the exponential difference these approaches make in facilitating amicable divorces. 

Tips & Tools For Maintaining Respect, Dignity, and Peace Through Your Divorce

While most people would prefer to navigate a divorce without court proceedings, many don’t understand all the options. Here are some of the tips and tools that are most effective for individuals and couples who prioritize integrity and a better way to handle the dissolution of a marriage and a joint family household.

1. Work with a divorce mediator (or a collaborative method)

Working with a divorce mediator from the get-go is one of the best ways to keep an amicable approach to your divorce. Mediators are neutral parties who help couples navigate the ins and outs of a divorce, with an emphasis on maintaining mutual respect and minimizing drama or strife. 

Contemporary research and study findings prove that couples who choose divorce mediation:

• Save thousands of dollars in unnecessary fees spent on lawyers and courtroom time.
• Experience less emotional duress throughout (and after!) the process.
• Have a better chance at co-parenting in the long haul because they’ve already practiced more healthy communication strategies (even in tough moments) with the help of their mediator.
• Move more quickly through the divorce process (saving significantly more time, energy, and money).
• Keep things more private (no courtroom full of people witnessing your personal and sensitive lives).

If you prefer to have your own lawyers, that’s fine. However, in that case, we recommend pursuing a collaborative divorce. This is another alternative to divorce litigation. It requires finding collaborative divorce attorneys who are hired to represent their clients’ best interests, with the understanding that the ultimate goal is a non-contentious, amicable divorce outcome.

Plus, unless clients prefer otherwise, all your divorce mediation sessions can take place over Zoom, optimizing timeliness and efficiency.

2. Honor the 3 C’s of Divorce

This phrase, “The 3 Cs of Divorce,” is a common one in the family law realm and simplifies the most important commitments in a non-hostile, successful divorce process.

The three Cs refer to:

1. Communication: There is a very good chance that communication issues were part of what led you to your divorce in the first place. So, we recognize the irony. However, clear and neutral conversation is a foundation of a successful divorce. This is not the time to express the anger and resentment that have accumulated over the course of the marriage.
   
   By keeping your eye on the reality that your divorce means the end of the marriage, re-dedicate yourself to healthy communication to keep things moving forward with the least contention possible. The less resentful and freer you feel throughout the process, the better you will fare with one another afterward. Trust your mediator to navigate choppy waters and keep personal communication as light, clear, and emotion-free as possible.

2. Co-Operation. For many, this might be the first time in a long time that you have a shared goal: divorce. Use that unified goal as inspiration to cooperate as much as you can with each other. You are both individuals, seeking individual lives, and honoring that is essential. Recognize that life happens (not just to you!) and maintain a spirit of cooperation, even when old habits seem to rear up. If you have children, this is an incredible opportunity to model what cooperation looks like in real life (and they will thank you for that).

3. Compromise. The reality is that you are going to have to compromise. That’s the nature of life in any relationship, including being ex-spouses and co-parents. You can come up with what seems like the most perfect joint-custody/visitation agreement ever written, only to experience a job change or a death in the extended family or an extended family divorce that changes everything. Or, sometimes the nature of your children’s needs or the location of their friends may drive requests for shifts in the “norm.” Whatever arises, by keeping an open line of communication and a cooperative spirit, you will be better positioned to graciously compromise for better, long-term outcomes.

Honoring the three Cs goes a long way toward facilitating amicable divorce proceedings and the emotional post-divorce landscape for you both and your family/friend network.

3. Always prioritize children’s best interests

The stability of your children’s long-term mental and emotional health is largely dependent on you and your spouse being your highest and best selves before, during, and after the divorce. In many cases, this is extremely challenging, but it’s some of the best work you’ll ever do. Study after study correlates that children fare best after a divorce when their parents:

• Keep their negative feelings/thoughts about each other completely out of the conversation with the kids.
• Can behave respectfully and be supportive of the co-parenting relationship in all scenarios.
• Create co-parenting agreements that keep their children’s lives as stable as possible (even if that means not having as balanced a custody schedule as you may like). 

And that segues to the next tip: form a relationship with an experienced, high-caliber family therapist.

4. Find a really great family therapist

In our recent blog about the importance of therapy beyond the divorce, we talk about how crucial cultivating your personal emotional toolkit can be throughout the divorce journey and after. There are several reasons for your family to cultivate a trusting relationship with a therapist.

• It will help you minimize personal anxiety, stress, and overload, so you can be more responsive and less reactive when the two of you navigate challenging waters.
• Therapy provides an amazing, objective, and supportive space for your children to vent and express themselves in ways they are unable to with you.
• Your therapist can help you personalize your child custody and co-parenting agreements in ways that make the most sense for your household.
• They are there as you need them for touch-ins or touch-ups if things start to get shaky down the road.

Attorneys who work as mediation and collaborative divorce lawyers typically have a solid list of well-vetted family therapists they can refer you to. Some lawyers now use therapists as part of their mediation or divorce processes as a way to provide real-time emotional and communication support as needed during the individual sessions.

5. Understand that CA is a no-fault state

Much of the drama that can unfold due to hurt feelings, broken trust, or years/decades of unhealthy communication is completely irrelevant to your divorce proceedings. This is because California is a no-fault divorce state. Unlike other states, divorces in California cannot be contested by the other party. 

This means that while a judge may be sympathetic to certain scenarios, their final ruling is based almost entirely on boilerplate family law rules like:

• Assets will be split 50/50.
• Spousal support may not even be possible unless there is a significant gap in earnings and/or the lower earner doesn’t have the ability to be employed.
• Child support payments will be based on an algorithm that is calculated specifically using your federal tax filings and documented wage earnings.
  

In other words, trying to drag another person through the mud, slander them, or share anything other than verifiable facts supporting certain child custody issues, people waste their time, money, and energy going back and forth between lawyers and/or courtroom proceedings.

Divorce mediation is the most efficient and neutral way to achieve the exact same outcome you would have had if you spent tens of thousands of dollars and months (or years) of your life in damaging divorce battles. When you work with us, your divorce can be legally filed in a matter of weeks. 

The Law Offices of Gerard A. Falzone Is Dedicated to Facilitating Amicable Divorces

Divorce is inevitably painful, but we know firsthand that there is absolutely no reason for it to be agonizing, nasty, or contentious. Using honed mediation techniques and decades of family law expertise, we’ve helped hundreds of couples navigate their divorces with their integrity and mutual regard intact. You benefit from a divorce without court, and one that is settled via agreement rather than a contentious battle.

If you’re in the process of determining whether or not you should get divorced, we recommend scheduling pre-divorce legal counseling, where we can sit together, listen to where you’re at, and begin to establish your next best steps. If you’re clear that divorce is the only path forward, our divorce mediation process will be a cathartic way to move through this chapter of your life, setting you up for a clearer and more resolute path forward. 

Contact The Law Offices of Gerard A. Falzone, and your divorce experience will be exponentially healthier and better for your family’s long-term outcome than any divorce litigation process could ever be.